More than 250 years ago, the forebears of an expanding population that today has changed the Mendhams from rural to suburban. The first to follow in the footsteps of the Lenni Lenape Indians were the trappers from New Amsterdam who built their homes and established farms in Roxiticus, know known as Ralston.

The township originally composed the borough incorporated in 1906 and four hamlets: Brookside, formerly Waterstreet, the site of early industries; Washington Corners near Jockey Hollow, the site of Revolutionary War encampments; Ralston, formerly Roxiticus, the earliest settlement; and Pleasant Valley, site of mills, farms, and estates. Incorporated in 1749, the township, which originally included Randolph and most of Chester, was sparsely settled through the dawn of the 18th century.  Its roads were dirt, many no more than a trail; its transportation, stages; its houses small and of frame construction, many of them patterned on the East Jersey Colonial style; and its industries small, supplying the everyday basic needs of the Mendhams' 1,724 residents in 1905.

By the early 1800s small industries were booming. One, a cotton and woolen factory, the first of its kind in New Jersey, started by John Ralston, operated until 1840. There were private education academies for both sexes, blacksmith, nail-making, show, and wheelwright shops, carriage, carpet, glass, chair and rug weaving factories; fulling, weaving, dyeing, grist and sawmills; forges, lime kilns, cement quarries, mica, lead, and copper mines, one of the latter of which reportedly minted Continental pennies; tanneries and lumbering and logging.

These industries, none of which had large numbers of employees, could not withstand cheap competition. It was the dawn of the 20th century that saw the real beginning of Mendham as a shopping center; highways were paved, new roads constructed, and post offices established. Today the Mendhams are clustered with middle and upper class suburban homes.

Taken from:
Rae, John W. Images of America : The Mendhams. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 1998.