The Gilder family, including the Nutts and Bunting families, rose to prominence in New York City's publishing world through Richard Watson Gilder, editor of Century Magazine, his sister Jeanette Gilder, a noted author, and his brother William H. Gilder, a renowned newspaper correspondent and arctic adventurer. The original Gilder House at the entrance to the park on Crosswicks Street was the family's country home, and research indicates that before the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War, the Gilders hid runaway slaves on the property. The house is the cultural centerpiece of Gilder Park, which the family gave to Bordentown City in 1935, while Rodman de Kay Gilder gave the house, dating to the 1700's, and the surrounding farm to the city on condition that it serve the community as a museum or public library. It is also a key part of the Bordentown Historic District, placed on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places in 1976 and the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Richard Watson Gilder was a confidant of Presidents Grover Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt and a friend of Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Robert Louis Stevensen, and other literary figures. He retained deep affection for this childhood refuge and for Bordentown, expressed in his poem "The Old House." His life joined intellectual curiosity with public service, and he worked to preserve historically significant buildings in New York City while pursuing civil service reform, international copyright protection, education reform for the underprivileged, and support for arts programs.