Bevans-Hellwig Kitchen in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

Old Mine Road Historical Buildings

The Bevans-Hellwig Kitchen is located on Old Mine Road in the northcentral section of Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. The building was once used as a kitchen that was connected to a wooden frame house owned by James Bevans in the mid-1800s. The house, which no longer exists, was originally built around 1830 and enlarged in the 1850s. At this time the stone building was attached.

Because the stone building was so different from the wood frame house, historians believe that it was built much earlier and may in fact be part of Fort Cramer, a frontier fortification built during the French and Indian War (1754-1763). Others suggested that the kitchen was constructed out of materials from the ruins of Fort Cramer around 1770 and that it also served as a kitchen for an earlier plantation house. Kitchens at the time were detached from the main house due to being fire hazards.

The Hellwig part of the name comes from the last owner of the building before it was sold to the United States government in the early 1970s to make way for a lake that was to be created by the Tocks Island Dam. When the dam project was cancelled in 1975, the government found itself in possession of 70,000 acres of land and hundreds of abandoned buildings, including the Bevans-Hellwig Kitchen. Everything became part of Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, a park that had been authorized by Congress in 1965 so that the National Park Service could manage all the soon-to-be fun activities on the new lake.

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