Scotch Plains "Cannonball house" opens Oct. 1 for Scotch Plains Day

A Colonial-style flower and herb garden surrounds the Osborn Cannonball House Museum at 1840 E. Front Street in Scotch Plains If you live in Scotch Plains or surrounding areas, it can be enlightening to visit a little 18th century house where Jonathan and Abigail Osborn raised 13 children.

This is a house that has withstood time as well as an actual cannonball strike. Its low ceilings and doors help illustrate how we humans – like our dwellings – have grown in size.

Members of the Osborn family were instrumental in the early development of Scotch Plains, and their home still stands at 1840 E. Front St., preserved as the Osborn Cannonball House Museum since 1972. 

The yellow clapboard cottage is opened to visitors on the first Sunday of each month (except January and February). On Sunday, Oct. 1, the museum will be open for  Scotch Plains Day from 11 a.m.  to 3 p.m. The museum joins the celebration of the founding of our community from the village of Scotch Plains in Elizabethtown, to the Township of Westfield, to the Township of Fanwood, to the present day Township of Scotch Plains. There will be costumed docents to give tours and tell the history of the house and of the Osborn family and their participation in the American Revolution.


Visitors to  the Colonial-era museum will see enduring period construction that relied on the wooden pegs that came before iron nails, brick-filled walls, hand hewn ceiling beams and wide wooden floor boards. Plaster was made of crushed oyster shells and strengthened with animal hair. The original kitchen has been uncovered, revealing a bee-hive oven and recessed porch.

Admission to the museum is free, but donations will help support work of the Historical Society of Scotch Plains and Fanwood New Jersey, which operates the restored and furnished museum.

Scotch Plains has numerous historic sites, including the formerly Black-owned Shady Rest Country Club, which drew African American elites and renowned performers from 1921 into the 1930s.

See a list of local historic sites from the 18th and 19th centuries at HistoricalSocietySPFNJ.org. Among them is original Stage House Tavern, built in 1737 as the Stage House Inn.  The tavern continues to serve at the corner of Park Avenue and Front Street, just steps from the Osborn house (built circa 1760) in what is now downtown Scotch Plains.

Resuming Sept. 26, the historical society will meet the fourth Tuesday of each month (excluding December). The public is invited to attend the 7:30 p.m. meetings at the historic Shady Rest Country Club, 820 Jerusalem Road, Scotch Plains.

The society provides historical lectures, many focused on the local area or New Jersey at large. New members are encouraged. For more information, email Info@HistoricalSocietySPFNJ.org or call 908-322-6700, ext. 230.

Photo courtesy of Historical Society of Scotch Plains and Fanwood New Jersey.