Death of Hal Allaire

He Died Suddenly of Heart Disease Last Friday

He Was the Owner of the Deserted Village of Allaire, On the Road From the Shore to Lakewood-His Father Founded the Village

Hal Allaire, son of the late James P. Allaire, died at the family homestead at Allaire on Friday morning. His death was caused by heart disease and was very sudden and unexpected.

Hal Allaire was the last of the Allaire family, except children by another wife of his father, from whom he had been estranged mansy years. He was unmarried and lived in the big stone homestead building, which was kept in good condition when all the other buildings of the deserted village of Allaire were falling into ruins.

Mr. Allaire was a graduate of Columbia college and was a great student and reader. He had a fine library and by far the greater part of his time was spent at home. He was an ardent Republican and in 1890 he was the candidate of the Republican party for state senator, but was defeated by Thomas S. R. Brown. Mr. Allaire entered the contest with enthusiasm, but with very little expectation of winning. When asked why he went into a contest which seemed so hopeless he said that every man ought to be willing to make some sacrifices for what he deemed the general good, and that while he caredd very little personally about winning, he did care a great deal about doing every thing which his party thought ought to be done. This was the only time that he took any active part in politics.

The village of Allaire, known through this section of the country as New Jersey's deserted village, was founded by James P. Allaire, father of Hal Allaire. The elder Mr. Allaire was a pioneer iron manufacturer of New York and he founded the village of Allaire in 1835. He reared huge furnaces and great mills of brick and stone. He built a church, a corporation store and long rows of little cottages for his six hundred toilers. He prospered for a time and dreamed of even greater things until, half a century or more ago, a simple thing-the discovery of soft coal in the Pennsylvania mountains-changed all this as by the touch of a fairy's wand. The treatment of ore was revolutionized and Allaire's greatness, present and prospective, departed.

Grass grew in the streets of the once busy town and weeds flourished in its once trim public square. The long rows of cottages fell into decay and found no tenants save the bats and the field mice.

Time touched the ruins and in a few years they had become picturesque. Some of the furnaces and the walls of some of the buildings still stand. The village in now on the road leading from Lakewood to the shore, and of late years Hal Allaire began to have dreams of another village of Allaire, different from the village his father had founded, but no less prosperous. He hoped that Allaire would become a winter resort, as prosperous and as noted as Lakewood itself, and in that case the ruins of the buildings his father had put up would become an attraction to all visitors, even as they are now an attraction which brings many people to the place.

Hal Allaire, as the sole heir of his father, inherited the entire village of Allaire as well as many farms and much other real estate in the neighborhood. His real estate holdings amounted to about 5,000 acres. Unless he left a will this real estate, as well as his personal property, which is said to be large, will go to his father's children by his first wife, with whom he had waged a long lawsuit for the possession of the estate.

John Roach, the famous ship builder, who became broken in fortune and in spirit some years ago, was an apprentice to James P. Allaire when he was a lad. In those days there were no railroads, and long lines of wagons drove from Allaire, laden with the products of the foundries and shops, to Oceanport, which was then known as Eatontown dock, and under the influence of this trade Oceanport boomed and thrived. With the failure of the village of Allaire, Eatontown Dock declined, and what was once a shipping point of note in now only a county village.

Source: Red Bank Register, Wednesday, Oct 23, 1901

Some additional excellent resources for your research are:

• New Jersey Census, 1772-1890 - Ancestry.com

• Calendar of New Jersey Wills, 1670-1760 - Ancestry.com

• Interment.net - NJ ~ New Jersey Cemetery Transcriptions on the net.

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