THE PHILLIPS FARM. Not so very many years ago, those who journeyed back and forth to Belleville by way of the old “Back road” passed the Phillips farm. [Illustration: The Phillips Farm House. Erected before the Revolution. Picture taken in 1869 shows one of the cherry trees that then lined the sidewalk.] At the south end of the estate stood a quaint little dwelling, bearing unmistakable marks of antiquity upon its weather beaten boards and crumbling shingle roof. This house had been the dwelling place of several generations of the name. Colonel Phillips, the founder of the family in America, was an officer in the English army under Oliver Cromwell, and on the accession of Charles II. to the throne of England, in 1660, he with others was obliged to fly to America. He first settled in Killingworth (now Clinton), Connecticut, and subsequently removed to New Jersey, purchasing nine hundred acres of land near Caldwell. One of his grandsons, David Phillips, settled in Newark and married Sarah Morris, grandaughter of a Doctor Morris, who was also an officer under Cromwell, and who fled to America with Colonel Phillips. [Illustration: The Old Phillips Well. Said to date back to the time of the Indians.] David Phillips had this property from Morris Phillips, and he from Samuel Morris. David Phillips began his housekeeping in the little house which stands on the Lincoln avenue property, “purchasing 16 acres of land for which his family received a deed from the proprietors of East Jersey in 1696”, and here Morris Phillips, the father of John Morris Phillips, was born and here he died. This Morris Phillips was one of the proprietors of the quarries at Belleville which furnished the stone used in building Fort Lafayette, Castle William on Governor’s Island, old St. John’s Church in New York, which has recently been closed by the Trinity corporation, and the old State House in Albany. The farm house still stands on the property, though it has been moved back to Summer avenue in the rear of the house erected some years ago by Mr. John M. Phillips near the original homestead site. The old farm had gradually acquired that human interest which only comes of long tillage and close association with man, its fine orchard of ancient apple trees, the wood lot on the eastern slope of the hill which lapped over into the Mount Prospect avenue region, and which held for the man so many boy memories of dog and gun, and the fertile flat lands which stretched north along the old road. All these combined to entice the man back to his boyhood’s home, and it is small wonder that Mr. John M. Phillips, who had a keen sense of the beauties and wonders of nature, acquired the place for his own at the first opportunity. Here was an ancient well of delicious water, which tradition tells us was known to and used by the Indians. Up to very recent times this stood with its long well-sweep picturesquely adorning the landscape.