In a message dated 01/28/2000 2:50:23 AM Pacific Standard Time, NJSOMERS-D-request@rootsweb.com writes: << 'm looking for info on the family of Isaac BIRD of Warren Twp, Somerset Co. He was born abt 1780 and died in 1832; he married ELizabeth ? and had children Elias, m. Mary Trimmer; Phoebe, m Jacob Trimmer; Jane, m John Giddis; Fanny, m John Smith; Simeon, who died before 1832 but left children; and Clarkson, m Mary Coddington. These families all lived in Warren Twp for generations. Would really like to know Elizabeth's maiden name and Isaac's parents. >> Hi--I have the booklet "Villages at the Crossroads" which is a history of Warren Twp 1806-1976. There is a good deal of information on the Bird Family, the Giddes and Coddington families too. Here's what is in my booklet. I do not know if it is possible to obtain copies of this booklet anymore. I got mine in 1989 when they were still selling them. I lived in Warren at the time. There is quite a bit more on the Coddington's but I was not sure if you would be interested in that and my typing isn't so great! While I didn't have anything specifically on Isaac and Elizabeth, I think the ones I have here are likely to be their children. Hope you find this helpful! Debbie in California Pg.15 "Mt. Bethel Baptist Church's largest revival took place in the mid-nineteenth century under Rev. Edward C. Ambler. One of the 107 converts was David Bird, owner of the hotel across the road. It is said he and a number of others rolled barrels of whiskey out of the hotel, broke them open, and let the contents run down the street." Pg. 16 They were duly baptised in Elias Bird's sawmill pond that winter after the ice was broken. (referring to the King George Inn--oldest inn standing in Warren) Mrs. Mary Ralph recalled that during the 1850's David Bird owned the inn and built a house on the hill later owned by a Mr. Barnhart. Bird died in 1884 having sold the inn some ten years previously. Page 14 Thomas(Coddington) married Julia Mundy. He was known as Sheriff Coddington having been elected Somereset County sheriff in 1863. The Coddington's daughter married Thomas Bird and when he died in 1903 Marietta and her brother Lewis ran the dairy farm. Giddes Pg 24 "North of Perley's on the other side of the road is the home of Doris Penek which was once owned by Jacob Giddes, grandson of John Giddes the first of that name in Warren. Jacob died in 1863 and left his extensive landholdings to his sons Amos and Samuel and the ridge farm of his father Jeremiah, to his daughter Caroline Spencer. Amos Giddes lived in a house now owned by the Hurds on Partridge Run Rd. and ran a store at 36 Mt. Horeb Rd. where the Frank Salvatos live now. Frank Sr. bought the 51 acres in 1908 and added an upstairs to the house which is built with old barn beams. The Coddington family in Warren was descended from Isaac who was born about 1720 in Woodbridge. He married Sarah Giddes and they had John, Benjamin, Archibald, and Abby. John settled on a 122 acre farm on the corner of Liberty Corner and Mt. Horeb Roads and left the property to his sons George W. , Reuben, John, and Bartholemew when he died in 1844. Reuben it is said built the present house in 1873 which is now owned by the Egans. Next door to the farm owned by Lester and Lora Coddingtron lived Archibald "Corrington" or Coddington, son of Isaac, who was born in 1756 and served as a priivate in the militia. When he died his sons Ben and William stayed on to farm the 100 acre property. The plce came to Lester and Lora from their fathere John Wesley Coddington who bought it from his Uncle William A. John Wesley's father was Isaiah Coddington (a son of Archibald) who acquired patches of peoperty on both sides of Mt. Horeb Rd. and built the house recently owned by John and Barbara Evans. The house is one room deep and two rooms wide and some of the beams appear to be from another structure: one is even charred. Isaiah was a blacksmith and his brother Archibald, Jr. learned this trade from him before buyying the Green Valley Mill in 1861 in Watchung. Their brother David, born Nov 30, 1797at Mt. Horeb, was "converted while praying alone in a barn" at age twenty and became an enthusiastic Methodist and a licensed exhorter. The Methodists were an active group in the Mt. Horeb area and it is said the first class met in a house a mile southeast of Martinsville as early as 1770. By 1820 services were being held in the homes of John Smith, David Ruckman, Rachel Adams, and Benjamin Coddington. That same year Rev. Bartholomew Weed organized a a class of eight persons who met in Ben Coddington's home 1 1/2 miles east of the present church. Pg 29 Many of the houses in Dead River are still standing. ONe at 5 Mountainview Lane, now owned by G.F. Kennedy, was owned in 1850 by John Moore who bought his 56 acres from the estate of Ben Moore in 1843. Jacob Giddes bought the farm in 1875 and more recently John Betzhold owned it. (Ben Moore)....His 131 acre farm was sold in 1839 to William A. Coddington for $2484, a handsome sum in those days. To his wife he willed "two cows of her choice, all the furniture she brought to me when we married and the use of two east rooms of the house." The house is quite possibly the same one today owned by the Langmacks. His farm was bought from Archibald Coddington 1862 by John Zeglio, later Zergabiles, and is today known as Hillcrest Horse Farm. Page 35 Another old school house is on Mountainview Road and is now the home of Miss Eleanor Nissley. It was built on land acquired in 1874 from Jacob J Gides and Jonathan Moore. The school was built near the site of an old stone schoolhouse called the Back Road School which was built on ta small tract of land given by Isaac B. Moore in 1840. Around 1910 the pupils oaf Dead River School decided to call it by a more chreerful name and chose the name Mountainview School. About this time the teacher was Miss Imogene Coddington who lived with her two sisters in a house on the corner of Roundtop and Mountainview Roads, now owned by the Wallaces. Students at the school used to walk down to the Coddington's well to fetch their water.