Big Brook is the name both of the stream that flows by the house, and the house itself.

The house has been in the Apgar family since the 1940s, and my Aunt Grace, turning 94 this year, still lives there.

The structure dates to the early 1700s, when it was a gristmill. The photo on the left looks north along what remains of the original dam.

This tour was a walk in Spring around the property, which extends along the brook about a quarter mile to the back.

The main north-south road through Marlboro, New Jersey was routed right in front of Big Brook, and across the millpond, in 1937-38. According to the stories we've been told, the decision was what one would politely call political. In any case, the dam was blown up at the north end, and the brook now flows under the bridge and around the remaining length of the dam. The shot below to the left shows some of the efforts made to fill in behind the dam, where the brook has been eating away at the dam for seventy years.

Most of the trees here were planted by Archie Apgar, Grace's husband. Their three kids, George, Ron and Sue — now all in their sixties, with me less than a year behind that milestone — grew up here, in what everybody regards as a rural paradise.