Fred Williamson lived in Pluckemin, NJ for most of his adult life, likely from about 1912. For many years he operated Williamson's Garage in Pluckemin at the intersection of Washington Valley Road and 202/206 diagonally across the road from the shopping center. The Wilmac Garage had been founded c. 1923 by him (the "Wil") and Harry McMurtry (the "Mac"). In 1928 he bought out Harry McMurtry. From 1928 until 1932, he ran it as the Williamson Brothers' Garage with his brother, Elias Williamson. After buying his brother out in 1932, he ran it as Williamson's Garage from 1932 until he sold it in 1939 and it became Koff or Kopf Brothers Garage. Reportedly he continued to spend much time there. Later he worked for Frank Hunter's coal and fuel oil business per his WWII draft registration in 1942 and did odd jobs. A granddaughter remembers him delivering coal in her childhood in the 1950s.

He was born near Rosemont, Delaware Township, Hunterdon Co. where his family had lived since the 18th century. Earlier the Williamson family was from the Six Mile Run area of Somerset County and, before that, from New Amsterdam. The family was originally Dutch and arrived in New Amsterdam via Bermuda c. 1651. The family name stabilized as Williamson by c. 1730 among the descendants of Williem Williemsen who arrived as a child with his parents and brother from Bermuda. His parents were Williem and Maria/Mary Garrittsen. By Dutch usage, the children were Williemsen.

He was the son of Joseph Rittenhouse Williamson and Hannah Horn, his father's second wife.

There is a 1893 birth record for him naming him Freddie, and he is found in the 1895 NJ Census with his parents and siblings, oddly listed as his sister Hannah who had tragically died in a fire two years earlier at the age he then was.

It was unclear until 2018 where or by whom he was raised since his birth family was broken up when he was a small child c. 1897. His mother was then committed to a mental hospital as "hopelessly insane." He, his siblings, and his father were in different households by 1900. His eldest son said he had been raised by people named Skillman, but they have only recently been identified. Nonetheless, he remained in touch with his brothers and extended Williamson family.

I believe this is the story although there are still unanswered questions:

Between 1897 and 1900, Fred was "adopted" by an unmarried farmer named Cornelius P. Skillman (FAG 36539332) and his unmarried sister Rachel A. Skillman with whom Cornelius shared a home. They lived on their family farm in Montgomery Twp., Somerset County, about 20 miles from Delaware Twp. Reportedly, this "adoption" was arranged by the Children's Home Society of Trenton, NJ that also facilitated the legal adoption of his infant sister. His elder brothers were found in the 1900 Census in families near where their family had lived in the 1890s. Only the two youngest moved further away.

The Skillmans changed his name to Frederick Skillman. His brother Elias may or may not have been with them briefly according to family recollection although there is no documentary evidence showing this.

In the 1900 Census and 1905 NJ Census there is a boy named Frederick Skillman in Skillman household listed as a ward, not a son, nephew, or cousin. Birth dates don't quite fit--Jan 1895 in 1900 and May 1896 in 1905 vs. Fred's birth in October 1893--but it seems clear he was Fred Williamson nonetheless. By the 1910 Census, it appears that Cornelius had retired and moved to Somerville. Cornelius, Rachel, and Frederick are found together in Somerville on Second St. The names are badly garbled, but it is clearly them. Fred's birth date is now right. He is listed as an office boy at a real estate office. Sometime after 1910, the Skillmans moved to Pluckemin. Sister Rachel Skillman died there in 1912. Cornelius remained in Pluckemin until his death in 1914. After his sister's death, he shared a home with a niece Louse Skillman (unmarried school teacher daughter of his brother Abram) and probably Fred.

Newspaper notices of a young Frederick Skillman of Pluckemin have been found. In 1912 he was in an amateur play in aid of the Basking Ridge fire department. He worked for John Fenner doing farm work and injured his thumb in 1913 cutting wood and broke his leg in 1914 when a car hit his hay wagon. In 1914 he was fined for speeding with other young men on motorcycles, likely they were racing.

The injured thumb is telling. Frederick Skillman badly injured his right thumb in 1913. Fred Williamson had a damaged right thumb all of his life.

The record shows that Frederick Williamson as well as Frederick Skillman knew John Fenner. Frederick Skillman worked for him on his farm according to newspaper mentions, and Frederick Williamson lived in the 18th century "Fenner house" as a young married man. According to his second son, they lived in the small half of the Fenner house and an "old man," perhaps John Fenner, lived next door in the main section. Interestingly, there is a drawing of the Fenner house at Rutgers University based on a photograph by Fred Williamson. He clearly had an ongoing relationship with John Fenner and John Fenner, Jr.

By the 1915 NJ Census, he was Fred Williamson and was a farm worker in Pluckemin--as Frederick Skillman had been for the previous two or three years according to newspaper mentions. It appears that he reverted to his birth name after the death of his guardian. In the 1917 WWI draft register he is a farm worker in Pluckemin but is listed as Frederick R. Williamson. He may have worked for a time on the Compton farm as well as the Fenner farm. In 1920 he is listed as a "teacher" which seems to have been an error. The birth certificates of his sons in 1919 and 1920 say he was a "farmer" although he was listed as a "teamster" in a 1916 birth certificate. By 1923 he had become a mechanic and garage owner. One wonders how and where he learned this, but his father-in-law Sebring Mundy was listed as a "machinist" and an "engineer" in census records. Perhaps he was his teacher.

In spite of having been raised by the Skillmans, he maintained a relationship with his brothers. Brother Grover lived next door in 1920 before moving back to Hunterdon County, and Grover's grandchildren remember visiting in the 1940s and 1950s. Elias visited in the 1920s according to newspaper mentions and was later his business partner in Pluckemin. The three brothers plus their half-brother Horace and cousins were mentioned in their uncle Asher Williamson's 1930 obituary in Lambertville.

In Pluckemin, during his first marriage, Fred lived in the small side of the now gone 18th century Fenner house where his first two children were born. According to a newspaper notice he moved out of the "Andrew Compton" house (the Boylan house near the Fenner house?) in 1920. In November 1920, his third son was born in Hillsborough Twp., south of Somerville, so it appears they left Pluckemin briefly. A newspaper mention says they moved to Loganville (perhaps in nearby Morris Co.) This seems contradictory. According to his second son's memoir, they lived in the Fenner house and then in another down the street. He purchased this house ("the former Bunn house" according to the newspaper) from John Fenner Jr. in his first wife's name in 1922 for $1,000. This was a house on the main street across from the Presbyterian Church not the Bunn farm. It has been purchased by Fenner from Josephine and William Bunn in 1909. The second son said that he had a new kitchen built on the south side of the house. This house was lost to foreclosure in 1931 by which time he was living in a different house that he built just outside of Pluckemin in Bridgewater Twp. This was his long time home. It was located on "Brickhouse Hill" and is now 1208 Hwy 202/206, Bridgewater). His brother Elias originally owned the twin house next door. Fred likely moved there about 1929 per newspaper accounts, the 1930 census, and the fact that his children changed school districts about then since they moved from Bedminster Township to Bridgewater Township.

He was Freddie on his birth certificate. He became Frederick Rittenhouse Williamson as an adult although he was generally known as Fred. His father also used Rittenhouse as a middle name, common in the Williamson family who were descendants of the Rittenhouse family of Hunterdon County and, more famously, Philadephia, PA.

He married Mary "Alice" Mundy in 1915 in Somerville. Her family had previously lived in Pluckemin. According to newspaper notices, Alice won a bracelet awarded at the Pluckemin Presbyterian Church in 1909. Her family lived on the Somerville-Pluckemin Road in 1910, and her married sister visited their parents in Pluckemin in 1912. By the 1915 Census, the family lived in Somerville. Interestingly, Alice's brother George Mundy said on his WWI draft registration that he worked for Fred Williamson and George Mundy lived with Elias Williamson's family at the time of the 1920 Census. Fred's second son was named after him.

There is a newspaper notice that c. 1922 Fred was awarded a contract to transport high school students to Somerville High School from Pluckemin. His son wrote, "My father and some friends fabricated the first school bus in the yard behind the house."

There are newspaper notices of him and his wife having visitors in Pluckemin and visiting elsewhere in the 1920s.

He and his first wife were members of the Pluckemin Presbyterian Church in the 1920s and there is a record of their second and third sons being baptized on the same day in 1925. Probably the other children were baptized there as well. He left the church in the 1940s although the daughters of his second marriage were involved in the 1950s.

Alice Mundy Williamson, his first wife, suffered a mental breakdown after the birth of her last child in 1928. She was hospitalized at the New Jersey State Hospital. In May 1928 Fred advertised several times for a housekeeper to look after his "motherless children" including five month old John. One ad read "must understand children." Newspaper articles show that various women "visited"--probably temporary housekeepers to look after the children. He met his second wife when she came to work as a housekeeper to care for his "motherless children" or perhaps when her sister did. She was at one time a hostess at the Top Notch Lodge nearby. She had moved from Maine to New Jersey with her first husband in the 1920s.

By his first 1915 marriage to Alice Mundy Williamson, he was the father of Eugene F., George H., Frederick S., Ruth A., and John A. Williamson. Generally, his second family was favored over his first family. In the early 1930s, sons George and Fred were sent to live with the Arthur Altman family in Stony Creek, NY although there was some back-and-forth. Daughter Ruth was raised by the Demarey family in Somerville from c. 1928. Eldest son Eugene spent 1933-1934 in Chicago attending school, but otherwise remained at home, perhaps he was old enough to be useful working in the garage. He however ran away to California as soon c. 1936 after robbing the register at the garage. He felt that he was owned the money from a legal settlement following a car accident that damaged his leg and still felt justified as an old man. He was back-and-forth from California in the 1930s. Son John was boarded out as a baby although he returned to his father as a child. However, his half-sisters later apologized to John for how badly he was treated as a child. The second son later wrote "I was fourteen years old and could no longer stay home with my stepmother. My father worked seven days a week, 12 hours a day, and did not know what went on at home." One daughter remembers that her mother wanted the children of the first marriage gone.

By his second marriage/relationship with Lillian Marshall Norris, he was the father of Gloria Banko, Clayton Williamson, Shirley Burgess, Lorraine Graves, and Lillian Rucci Salerno. He was the step-father of Dorothy Norris Hamilton, Geraldine Norris DeBacco, and Clayton Norris who died young. They sometimes used the name Williamson. Fred and Lillian lived together as husband and wife from c. 1931 until their deaths but it is not known exactly when or if they married. There is no marriage record in Somerset County after the death of his first wife.

In the 1930s and later he took an interest in automobile racing and owned racing cars. Note that as early as 1912 he was seemingly racing motorcycles, then new.

In 1937, he visited the site of the Hindenburg disaster with at least one of his sons.

He and Lillian retired to Hunterdon County after selling their house to a daughter and son-in-law.

He shares a gravestone with his second wife and his first wife is buried nearby.

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In Plot 32, we find Mary Alice Williamson (A), Fred (B), Lillian (C), son Clayton Williamson (D). E is vacant. These graves are marked. His wife's first husband John Norris and their son, the first Clayton, are buried nearby in Plot 27 although these graves are unmarked. There are two empty graves in this plot.