Our History

Formerly known as Four Oaks Farm, Two River Farm has witnessed centuries of American history and expanded along the way. Few figures have made a more lasting mark on the property than did Mary, Viscountess Eccles (1912-2003), a renowned literary scholar and collector. In 1967, Lady Eccles—then, in her first marriage, Mary Crapo Hyde—chronicled the history of the farm, as well as the beginning chapters of her life there, in a set of two volumes that were edited by Gabriel Austin and privately printed at Thistle Press in Somerville, New Jersey: Four Oaks Farm (1,000 first-edition copies) and Four Oaks Library (1,250 first-edition copies). Thanks to her research and memories, the rich legacy of this place has been preserved for future generations.

The tract of land on which the farm is located can be traced back as far as the 1700s, when much of the area was being purchased from the resident Lenape Indians. The land shows up in records as early as 1708, when it came into the possession of a Mr. Charles Dunster of London. Throughout the 18th century, the property passed through the hands of at least four more Anglo-European owners, as the surrounding towns developed around mills (hence, today’s address of 350 Burnt Mill Road). In 1800, the property appears in the possession of Mr. John Beekman—and this is where the nucleus of the farm as it stands today was born.

The Beekmans lived on the farm for some 139 years, and their home can best be imagined in the Dutch Colonial style. They were residing on the farm during the American Revolution and must have borne witness, up-close or from afar, to the Battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777; it is recorded that General Washington’s troops camped in nearby Pluckemin for several days afterward.

After generations of Beekmans, the farm was sold in 1939 to Mr. Oliver Iselin and his wife, Dorothy Hyde Iselin. During their residence, the Iselins called the property Oak Hill Farm; however, it was apparently referred to by neighbors as “The Beekman Place” for years. The Iselins made several structural additions to the home, and Mrs. Iselin in particular was said to be a prolific decorator. Despite these improvements, the farm did not seem to exert the same pull on the Iselins as it had on the Beekmans—and just four years after moving in, they sold the property to Donald and Mary Hyde, who officially took ownership on November 6, 1943.

Donald Hyde of Ohio and Mary Morley Crapo of Michigan both came from three-generation farming families. They had married in 1939 and, after some time in Detroit, they moved in 1940 to New York City, where they lived in a brownstone at 216 East 70th Street. With the outbreak of World War II, Donald, who was a lawyer, was commissioned in the Navy. When his service was up, the Hydes found themselves compelled by the pastoral inclinations of their bloodlines, and they moved to New Jersey. It was in the late fall of 1943 that they christened the farm “Four Oaks Farm”—in honor of Donald’s grandfather’s property in Ohio.

Mary Morley Crapo Hyde graduated from Vassar and earned a Ph.D. at Columbia University (her dissertation focused on Elizabethan playwriting). Her professional literary pursuits, combined with her husband’s interest in Samuel Johnson, led to the couple’s passion for book-collecting, and their expertise—and holdings—only expanded when they moved to the farm. As they established themselves as one of the world’s most serious collectors of Johnson and his contemporaries (including James Boswell, Mrs. Thrale Piozzi, Henry Fielding and, later, Oscar Wilde), their collection quickly outgrew the standard library spaces with which their home had been equipped—and on September 17, 1960, the Four Oaks Farm Library was opened. This, along with the pool and its pavilion (built August-September 1953), are the Hydes’ most important architectural contributions to the farm.

The Hydes fostered a special literary community devoted to Samuel Johnson, anchored at the farm and deeply connected to Princeton. Mary details many weekends spent at the farm researching and celebrating 18th-century literature with fellow scholars in her writings. The Donald and Mary Hyde Collection would come to comprise, “more than 4,000 first editions and other books; 5,500 letters and manuscripts, including half of Johnson's extant letters and several drafts of his “Plan for a Dictionary”; and 5,000 paintings, prints, drawings, and objects, among them an engraved silver teapot from which Johnson poured for his friends” (Harvard Magazine, June/July 2004). The collection was bequeathed upon Mary’s death to the Houghton Library at Harvard University. The Hydes also amassed a significant collection of early Japanese printed and illustrated books (later sold by Christie’s Auction House to benefit the Morgan Library).

Donald passed away in 1966, but Mary continued to collect, research, edit and write. It was at this time that she built her Oscar Wilde collection in force (later left to the British Library). In 1984, Mary married David, Viscount Eccles, of England, gaining her title and forging a new partnership in her work: the David and Mary Eccles Center for American Studies at the British Library. She also joined her husband as—the first woman—member of the bibliophile Roxburghe Club (and she later became one of the first women members of the Grolier Club, too). David died in 1999.

Mary worked until her death, at the farm, on August 26, 2003. Professor Bruce Redford wrote in memoriam in the Princeton University Library Chronicle: Mary Hyde Eccles, “combined the passions of a collector and the disciplines of a scholar. With these passions and disciplines she built a multifaceted memorial: the world’s finest private collection of eighteenth-century English literature; a vital community of scholars; and inspired gifts to libraries, museums, and universities.” To be added to this list is another—smaller, but equally precious—gift: a history of the farm.

For more on Lady Eccles, read: “Mary Hyde Eccles (1912–2003)” in The Princeton University Library Chronicle (2003); “Mary, Viscountess Eccles: Collector of Samuel Johnson and Oscar Wilde” in The Independent (2003); and “Johnson and Friends Arrive en Masse” in Harvard Magazine (2004).

After Lady Eccles’ death, Four Oaks Farm was purchased and renamed “Two River Farm” by Richard A. McGinn (a founder of Sky Capital and former CEO of both VeriFone Systems and Lucent).

The current owners purchased the property in July of 2017. Like the Hydes, they hail from Manhattan, with Ohio farming roots and connections to Princeton.