John Ralston came to Mendham, NJ, from Ireland in 1785. In 1785, he also married Margaret Logan. The following year, he went into partnership with Hugh Nesbitt operating the Ralston General Store from 1786 to 1819.
Ralston owned many acres of farmland in Mendham, and the family retained ownership of much of the property for the next 200 years. Ralston ownership ended in 1995 when Carolyn Ralston Nesbitt Wagenseller sold the last three acres of Ralston property. She is the last of the Nesbitts that lived in Mendham, and currently lives in Florida.
John Ralston also built a cotton and woolen factory and watched Mendham grow into a prosperous industrial area. Despite his properties, however, he died in 1819 with his fortunes depleted as a result of the War of 1812.
Hugh Nesbitt married John's daughter, Mary Ann, and through their children, the records and manuscripts of the collection show what life was like in this area of New Jersey in the early 19th century.
The Ralston and Nesbitt Family Papers consist of two document boxes of material. Box #1 contains information pertaining to land ownership, wills and estates, and businesses. Box #2 contains correspondence, genealogical information, and miscellaneous information pertaining to various family members.
This material is open for research without restriction under the conditions of the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center archives access policy. Records may be hand copied for use in individual scholarly or personal research, however, as with all materials in the History Center, researchers are responsible for obtaining copyright permission to use material from the collection. Due to its delicate nature, material in the Ralston and Nesbitt Family Papers may NOT be photocopied.
Material for the collection was first acquired by the Local History Department in 1997, when Carolyn Ralston Nesbitt Wagenseller presented the family papers to the library.
Carolyn Ralston Nesbitt Wagenseller transcribed most of the papers in the collection before it was donated to the Local History Department. This transcription is included in the original papers of the collection.
Ralston and Nesbitt Family Papers. North Jersey History and Genealogy Center, The Morristown and Morris Township Library
Arranged by Rosemary Riley, Rutgers SCILS '98, Reviewed and revised by Marilyn Stearns.