Welcome to another era in the Toms River area's past, one century ago this week!

Let your mind wander as you consider life around January 27th, 1922, courtesy the New Jersey Courier weekly newspaper and Ocean County Library archives, and peppered with items of maritime interest (around a 15 minute read).

(written by NJ Courier editor, William H. Fischer, as he sat at his desk above Main Street near Washington Street; it was much like a collection of online social media updates seen today)

New moon today.
The bay is closed again with ice.
Only four days left in January.
Wildfowl season closes next Tuesday.
Sun rises tomorrow at 7:14 and sets at 5:12, a gain of 11 minutes in the morning and 40 minutes in the afternoon.
George Wolf is now working as electrician at the Naval Air Station for the navy, instead of with the contractors, as before. Some of the other lads who lost their jobs when the contractors finished up, have been promised direct government jobs.
Local men seem to care little about filling ice houses with natural ice this winter. Years ago, ice gathering was a big event.
Real estate men in this locality are getting ready their spring lists of farms and homes for sale, expecting a big turn over in real property this spring.
One of the most popular institutions in town this winter has been the public library. A new pay shelf will be put in as soon as books can be obtained. New shelves are to be built to house the accumulating books.
Jack McClary is figuring on a new style of building material, called Duntile fireproof, and expects to put in a plant for making it here. Jack says it will be something different from the ordinary cement block, made by a new process.
Harold W. Lyle of Toms River, is chairman of a committee to thrash out problems that have arisen in the workings of the co-operative poultry selling agency, and make recommendations to the directors. A meeting was held at the court house on Tuesday for this purpose.
County Agent Waite has been showing a three-legged chicken that he had picked up in his travels.
Mrs. Schmolze has started work on a new store adjoining her property on Washington Street on the east. The American Constructing Co. are doing the work. It is understood that it is to be a two story building and she will occupy it herself, lessing her larger store to Meyer Williams, the shoe dealer.
State engineers have been at work measuring up, down and across Main Street this week.
Flocks of starling increase in number as the winter goes by. The colder the weather, the more starling, seems to be the rule.
Building Inspector McDermott of the State Department of Education, was here Tuesday, going over the plans of the proposed new school house.
The Fire Company has put up a small building in the rear of the Town Hall, to house some of the older hose carts and make room for that hoped for motor pumping engine. The company is about to expand its membership from 30 to 35 or perhaps 40. The Township Committee has provided in the budget to increase the firemen's pay from $10 to $25 a year [$165 to $414 in 2022 dollars].
Thursday of next week will be Ground Hog day, or Candlemas day. Watch out for the Ground Hog's shadow to tell you whether or not winter is over.
Many cranberry growers fear their vines, which are still uncovered with water, except on the lower stretches of the bogs, near the dams, may be winter killed by the cold. There is not even snow to protect the vines this winter.
The new building on Main street, for Dr. Crook, shows what it will be. It has the frame sheathed and is going up rapidly.
The Toms River Yacht Club is working on plans for a larger clubhouse.
The Main Shore Road from Toms River south, has been kept in good condition all winter. Many of the other roads have gone bad, being cut up into irregular ruts during thaws, the ruts freezing with each cold snap, and making travel better for the liver than for the nerves.
With two houses in Montray Park, who will be the next? Once that place gets started, it's apt to go ahead, for it is really well located [today a full housing development south of Route 37, east of Main Street].
E.S. Fritz, receiver for the Ocean County Electric Company, asserts that the Toms River dam project is still very much alive, not dead at all, as some folks fear.
The private pay for the night watchman has been discontinued, the police being paid by the Township Committee and responsible to that body.
The upper bay has been frozen so often this winter that net fishermen could do little at their trade, being forbidden by law to fish under the ice.
The bluebirds, robins and cardinals are scarce this winter. Do the starlings crowd them away?
It's easier to see the longer afternoon, and you can just begin to note the earlier sunrise.
Point Pleasant Borough will extend its beach boardwalk 1000 feet this spring and summer.

TO BUILD MAMMOTH AIRSHIP AT LAKEHURST, YEAR'S WORK
The huge dirigible airship for the United States Navy, ZR-1, is to be built at the Naval Air Station Hangar, the work beginning April 1, next, and it will take about a year to put the craft together. This information is direct from Commander R.D. Weyerbacher, U.S.N., who is to have charge of the construction of this mammoth flier. The work will keep 350 men busy, says the commander, mostly skilled mechanics and high-priced labor, and will mean the paying out of considerable sums of money in this section for the coming year.
Want to Live at Toms River
The statement of Commander Weyerbacher was made in a letter to the Toms River Chamber of Commerce, in which he urged that body to aid the Navy Department in getting a train service between Toms River and Lakehurst, so that many of the civilian employees on the new airship could live at Toms River and travel back and forth by train. In this letter, Commander Weyerbacher said there were now about sixty men working at the Air Station and living at Toms River. They travel back and forth in cars. They would like a train leaving Toms River at about 7:30 in the morning and preferably running into the Air Station; leaving Lakehurst (or the Air Station), at 4:30 P.M., for Toms River. He said that the number of men living at Toms River when the full crew is on at the works, would be limited only by the housing at Toms River and  the means of travel from Toms River to and from their work. He was of the opinion that a large part of these civilian employees would prefer living at Toms River, because of its attractive features in summer, if they could be housed here and given transportation back and forth.
Commander Weyerbacher's letter was read at the meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, in Scout Hall, Wednesday night, January 25. It was accompanied by a petition from the Naval Air Station employees living in Toms river or willing to live here, to the number of a hundred or so, asking the Chamber of Commerce to take up the matter of train service with the Central Railroad. At the meeting there were present guests of the C. of C. for the evening a score or more of these Naval Air Station men, all of whom voiced the same desire.
The Chamber of Commerce will appoint a committee to take up the matter with the Central Railroad, and will ask the station to return to appoint a similar committee. The Navy Department and the State Bureau of Transportation will be enlisted, and if it can be shown that sufficient traffic can be obtained to warrant putting on a shuttle train to and from Toms River and the Air Station, it is believed that it can be obtained. It is hard to see how the present through train service to and from New York could be remodeled to meet this need, as its present schedule is based on still heavier transportation needs in the territory between Lakewood and Jersey City.
These plans, if they work out, will again strain to the utmost the housing situation at Toms River. With the building of a score or two of houses in the past year, the strain had relaxed somewhat, and there is now an occasional house to rent. If more of the Air Station workers are to locate here, it will renew the demand for houses and rooms, and apparently increase it.

IN THE COUNTY COURTS
County Judge W. H. Jeffrey sat, without a jury, in Common Pleas and Criminal Courts, on Wednesday of this week.
Herbert Kneeland, of Lakewood, pleaded guilty to grand larceny, having been arrested for stealing a Ford touring car belonging to Bert DeBow, of Jackson's Mills, while standing in the street at Lakewood. The car was later found in the swamp near Laurelton by a state trooper. Kneeland was sent back to jail to await sentence...

PARKER WOULD PROTECT FARMERS FROM WILD DEER
Assemblyman Parker, of Barnegat, on Monday night, introduced two bills to protect the farmer from damage to his crops by the wild deer. One bill would give the farmer compensation for crops destroyed by deer. The other one would allow the running at large throughout the year of hound dogs, on the theory that dogs thus running would keep the deer back in the swamps and woods, and away from farm lands...

RETAILING FISH BY MAIL NEWEST IDEA IN MARKETING
The Beach Haven fisheries, located at Beach Haven, on Long Beach, have inaugurated a plan for marketing fish that promises to revolutionize the shipping of food fish. They are sending by mail frozen fish direct to the consumer in small lots, as low as from $1.00 worth to 50 cents worth, and at prices that seem to be below the usual retail prices. They are making this experiment, and if it pays, will probably branch out in a wider field.
Last summer Secretary Hoover outlined to The Courier man this new method of sending frozen fish by mail. He said a plan had been worked out, and it seemed to work successfully, by which fish would stay frozen for a whole week, and could be shipped by parcel post across the continent, and that the method would allow the shipping of fish from either the Atlantic or Pacific seaboard, the Gulf, or the Lakes, to any part of the country, by mail, as a commercial venture. Mr. Hoover, at that time, was enthusiastic over the plan, and thought it had solved for the commercial fishermen on the coast the problem of putting out their fish at a reasonable cost for distribution, so that they would make a fair return for their labor and investment, and still the consumer would be able to get fish at a price he could afford to pay.

ALMOST ZERO WEATHER
This has been the coldest week of the winter the mercury scrooching down mighty close to the zero mark on both Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Last week, the latter part, was warm with some rain. Sunday cleared off, but not cold. In the afternoon a strong west wind blew, but it was not till night that the temperature got down to freezing... The cold weather closed up the bay and river, and put ice back on all the bogs and ponds. It was clear, dry cold, wonderfully invigorating.

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ENDS SECOND SUCCESSFUL YEAR
Celebrating its second anniversary on Wednesday evening, January 25, at Scout Hall, the Chamber of Commerce reviewed its two successful years, and pointed with considerable pride to things accomplished which it had got back of and aided... Officers for the coming year are: President, Charles N. Warner; Vice-President, Oren E. Payne; Secretary, Fred G. Bunnell; Treasurer, H.J. Samuelson; trustees, Edward Crabbe, David C. Brewer, William H. Fischer...
In his resume of the work of the last two years, Secretary Fred G. Bunnell named over accomplishments that the Chamber of Commerce had stood back of, including: Sewers at Toms River, State Poultry Producers' Association and the Toms River Packing Station, safety gates at the Main St. C.R.R. crossing, stamp window and outside letter box at post office, merchants' gift night holiday week, improvement of county roads in this section. He stated that the Chamber of Commerce had provided the band at the School May Day Festival last year, and had contributed toward Memorial Day and the village Christmas tree. Just now it is carrying on a prize contest in Toms River schools for the best historical essay on Toms River. Among projects it is now giving its moral support are: A proposed wireless station southwest of the village; the development of poultry and sweet potato culture in this section; the hydro-electric dam at Toms River; concrete from curb to curb in the village on Route 4, State Highway [today Route 166/Main Street].

WOULD KEEP POUNDS TWO MILES FROM ANY INLET
Under a bill that is fathered by Assemblyman Parker, of this county, if it should become a law, no pound fishery could be set nearer than two miles from any inlet on our coast. This bill was introduced Monday night. Mr. Parker has a companion bill, requiring a larger mesh in the pockets used in fish pounds.
The argument given for the first bill is that the pound nets at present, within perhaps a mile of an inlet, turn away the fish that would otherwise enter the bays. Those who are in favor of the change to two miles say that there is little fishing in Barnegat Bay since nets were constructed north and south of the inlet, and the best fishing has been off shore. They allege the absence of school fish in the bay is due to the pounds at the entrance.
For the larger mesh it is alleged that the pocket mesh now used is so small that the small blues and weaks gill in them by the thousands and millions at certain stages of migration.
Pound net bills are apt to cause a long and strong fight, and usually gets no further than the committee to which they are referred. The pound fisheries have a strong association and are backed by the big fish interests of New York, so that fighting them is generally an unprofitable occupation. Whether the pound men will object to these bills has not yet been ascertained.

HOT LUNCHES IN SCHOOLS
Some kind of hot lunch is served in the schools in the following towns to pupils who bring lunch, living too far away to go home for dinner: Bay Head, Bayville, Dover Chapel (Bayville), Osbornville, Toms River, Holmanville, Lakehurst, Lakewood High School; also schools One and Five, New Egypt, Point Pleasant and Tuckerton.
In some places only one hot drink is served; in others there is choice of hot drinks and hot dishes. The Home and School Associations have been largely instrumental in working up these hot lunches for children who must otherwise eat cold meals in the middle of the day.

TO KEEP ON BORING FOR OIL IN OCEAN COUNTY
Last Sunday's Newark Call says: As the result of a thorough geological survey made in the central section of the State, William S. Driver, who has been drilling for oil at Prospertown and Jackson Mills since the autumn of 1919, announced yesterday that he would continue with his borings indefinitely. Mr. Driver said he would make at least ten more borings, if necessary, because of reports recently delivered to him by F.J.S. Sur, of San Antonio, Texas, one of the best-known oil experts in the United States.
Mr. Sur, whose findings have resulted in great oil discoveries in Texas, Wyoming, Montana, California, Louisiana and Mexico, reported to Mr. Driver that he found in a section of New Jersey, now under lease by the latter, “structures possible for the accumulation of oil, particularly because of the presence of Trenton limestone, an oil-bearing formation, which is accessible at reasonable drilling depth. I believe that oil,” concluded Mr. Sur, “can be reasonably expected in New Jersey.”
The Driver company, which now has under lease approximately 70,000 acres of land in the Lakewood district of New Jersey, is now boring its third hole since active drilling operations started in 1919. The first, at Prospertown, was abandoned after a bit turned at 1,900 feet, and the second at Jackson's Mills, also had to be abandoned when two bits were jammed at bottom of the 2,500-foot hole. The third hole, only fifty yards from the second, already is 2,000 feet deep, with formation, according to Mr. Driver, that would indicate the presence of oil at a depth of 2,500 to 3,000 feet.
So enthusiastic is Mr. Driver over the prospects of the field that he is arranging to set up at least one more derrick early in the spring, probably a standard rig. Another large company known as the Jersey Syndicate, also will appear on the field in the spring, it was learned yesterday. This company has leased several thousand acres adjoining Mr. Driver's holdings and probably will set up three standard rigs within a few weeks, adding to the oil-country atmosphere around Jackson's Mills.
Mythical oil-producing companies that prey on guileless “investors” have made their appearance around Jackson's Mills, the Jersey prospector said. He said he has had to serve warning on several unscrupulous firms in New York that if they do not cease the practice of piloting parties of “investors” in automobiles to Jackson's Mills and point out the big steel derrick as their property, lawsuits will be in order. Mr. Driver already operates successful oil wells in Mexia, Tex., and is about to begin drilling in Alaska.

PERSONAL
Mrs. Wm. H. Trippe, formerly of Toms River, is one of the leaders in the women's Town Improvement Association at Point Pleasant Beach.
Leeland Campbell spent the week end in Brooklyn. C.M. Campbell was also a visitor in that city and New York this week.
Mr. and Mrs. Frank W. Sutton, Jr. expect to reach home tonight, from a trip to Washington, D.C.
Carl Priest came down from Princeton Wednesday to visit his brother, Daniel S. Priest, and was an interested one at the Chamber of Commerce meeting.
C.D. Kelly of West Creek, years ago Director of the Board of Freeholders for several terms, was a Wednesday visitor in town. He is now the state representative in charge of the oyster industry in Ocean, Burlington and Monmouth counties. He was accompanied by oyster watchman John W. Rutters.
Saturday of next week, Mr. and Mrs. Crabbe and daughter, Georgiana, plan sailing for Bermuda, to be gone three weeks.

FISH AND GAME
The wildfowl season ends on Tuesday next, January 31. Only three gunning days left. There has been much wildfowl this season, but no more than usual killed.
Thomas Gould, of Elizabeth, and Harold Griffen, of Aldene, tell of killing eighteen ducks in Barnegat Bay last week.
The January pike fishing season, with hook and line under ice, ended Friday of last week, January 20.

BARNEGAT
The winds and tides recently brought thousands of sea clams on the beach and most of them are left there to waste. As a sea food they far surpass the soft clams in richness, but owing to their being so plentiful few people ever eat them. It is a ruthless waste to let so much good food lay untouched when they are to be had for the asking. Of course they cannot be had at all times, only as certain winds and currents are right which cuts them out and the surf washes them up on the shore. One of our enterprising citizens took advantage of this opportunity, opened and sold many quarts of them in our town. The only feature is to get the sand out the same as from soft clams, and one will find as fine a shell fish as ever grew hardly excepting the scallop...
Mr. and Mrs. R.M. Collins celebrated their sixty-first wedding anniversary on Sunday, January 15. Mr. Collins was born in 1836, and when 14 years old, started in his seafaring life, as cook, with Capt. Charles Sprague, in the schooner Eliza Hamilton, then as sailor and mate in the schooner John Lozier, Capt. Silas Conklin; schooner John Crockford, Capt. Charles Chambers; schooner Tunis Bodine, Capt. Anthony Soper; schooner Emeline Ross, as mate, with his brother, James Collins; schooner Buena Vista, same captain; schooner John Griffith, Capt. Mike Conklin; schooner Caroline Anderson, Capt. Abe Fort. When 22 years old he was captain of the schooner C.I. Errickson, after which he sailed several of the latter day schooners in the coasting trade. There are very few old seafaring men living today who remember this class of old coasters. This year makes his sixty-fourth year as a Mason, a record not surpassed by many in the state. His physical abilities are equal to most men at 70, not having any of the ailments subject to old age. His wife is a daughter of the late Capt. John Russell, who was well known years ago when our merchant marine traded out Barnegat Inlet, carrying wood and charcoal to New York and usually store goods back.
Some of the high schoolers are home sick with the grippe [flu].
Mrs. Ezra Parker and sons Willits and Ambrose Cox, left Thursday for Deland, Fla., where they have orange groves.
The girls and boys are having good times skating on the ponds.
The members of the Boys' Club were pleasantly surprised last Friday evening, when Mrs. Theo Brown, assisted by Miss Frances Collins, treated them to ice cream and cake. The boys spend very pleasant evenings, and clubs of this kind should be encouraged.

BEACH HAVEN
The Ladies' Auxiliary of the Beach Haven Fire Company are holding their weekly winter Friday night dances in the Fire House.
Contractor J.W. Berry's men are working on a cosy bungalow for Mr. Ferris, the Philadelphia lumber dealer, on his property at the rear of his apartment house on Second Street. We understand this will be for rent.
Mrs. William Layton and little son, of Red Bank, are staying here to be with Mr. Layton, who has charge of moving the Bond's Coast Guard Station.
Revised plans of the Pennsylvania Railroad have postponed the closing of this section of the road until March 1. A gang of men have been at work on the bridge and draw for many weeks, getting everything in readiness to lift the draw and replace it with a modern new steel one. This will be done in March, during which time passengers and freight will be transported from Manahawkin by autos.

BEACH HAVEN TERRACE [section of Long Beach Township on LBI]
Captain and Mrs. Rogers spent their liberty day in Forked River; also saw “Way Down East.”
The cold weather has frozen the ponds and provided great sports for the youngers.

BEACHWOOD
F.W. Goodrich is putting a second story on his new concrete block garage [a century later, work continues on the same building, located beside the Quick Chek convenience store and gas station, with new siding and renovated interiors].

CEDAR RUN
The building boom has struck the town. Capt. I.W. Truex, has started one bungalow near the depot, and has several more under contemplation in the very near future. Contractors Yeager and Snyder (both new comers in this section) are doing the wood work and Carrol Cranmer, of Manahawkin, is doing the concrete work. Several others are considering the erection of new buildings to accommodate the demand created by the recent influx of people flocking in from the cities hungry for farms.
Skating has been enjoyed this week and some gathered ice for summer use.
The farmers are preparing for the spring planting and as far as indications go, the coming season will be the best ever enjoyed here.
Blooded stock of all kinds is being brought in this locality and things look well for all branches of business.

FORKED RIVER
The Wider Bros. have started an up-to-date chicken plant on their farm.
Two [railroad] carloads of ice recently came here for the State Game Farm.
Mrs. Stella Penn, Mrs. Ella Tilton and Miss Bessie Penn saw the play, “Way Down East,” at the Traco Theatre, Toms River.
Henry Brown, of Coast Guard Station 114, recently visited his mother, Mrs. M.J. Brown.

ISLAND HEIGHTS
Mr. and Mrs. Charles K. Haddon were in town this week, taking a look at the new cruiser that Mayor Rote is building for him. Tomorrow, Saturday, Mr. and Mrs. Haddon sail for the Mediterranean and will be gone till some time in April.
Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Stanwood have moved into their new home and we all wish them many happy years there.
We are sorry to say that several of our local fishermen lost their nets when the ice broke up on the bay.
The public library is doing fine. Three boxes of books were received from Charles K. Haddon this week; also fifty books from Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe Hirst.
It is reported that Capt. Lish Hyres is to be the captain of Charles K. Haddon's new boat, now being built by William T. Rote. Capt. Lish will fill the post all right.

LAKEHURST
The cradles on which the huge dirigible is to be built at the Air Station hangar are said to be partly in place. Rumor here is that the airship is surely to be assembled here, making much work for Lakehurst and vicinity. Skilled labor, of the highest class, will be used for the most part, it is said, metal workers, electricians, etc.
There have been several weeks of skating on the lake this winter, interrupted now and then by thaws, but the ice coming back in fine condition with each successive freeze. The sailors at the Naval Air Station have greatly enjoyed the skating.

LANOKA
Postmaster Rogers is having his lowland cleared of trees and underbrush. It will make a great improvement to his property. George Chamberlain and Andrew Dennis are doing the work.
Capt. Jones Bunnell is having the lumber hauled for his new home, which will be started in the near future.
Capt. Martin McCarthy, of No. 109, and Capt. Almont Grant, of No. 110, Coast Guard Service, were home recently.
Capt. Martin McCarthy is improving his property very much on Bay Way—a garage which is about completed, with two coats of paint and is graveling his walks and is clearing up his lowlands, and also other improvements.
George Oriel is making big improvements to his property on the corner of Main and South Railroad Avenues, which he bought of Capt. Nelson Grant last spring. Mr. Oriel is a retired army officer. He was living in Texas at the time of the flood, in which he lost his wife and baby.
Capt. Nelson Grant is making improvements in the property which he bought of B.F. Vaughn last fall. Mr. Vaughn is now living in Los Angeles, with the rest of his family, with his son, Louie Vaughn.

OCEAN GATE
Miss Ida Bagot was here Sunday looking over her new house which is now under construction.
Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Newlin are the proud parents of a young son, Harvey, Jr.
Council meeting in the council room of the Fire House January 28. Last reading of the budget. If you have anything to say, this will be the time to say it.
Mayor and Council, how about getting after the township to repair the entrance into the borough. Enough reports say this road is in very bad condition.
Mrs. John Wheeler and Mrs. Frank Cuets, summer residents, passed away in Philadelphia, last week after a short illness.

PLEASANT PLAINS
A. Chambers sold a cow last week to Mrs. Hollob.
We understand the electric lights are to be run down from Lakewood to the cemetery. In that case, our church surely out to benefit. Lights are needed badly.
Jake Golstein is building more chicken houses. He has the Delco lights in house and buildings.

SEASIDE HEIGHTS
Daniel Klee is employed at Spring Lake at present, as a painter.

SEASIDE PARK
Contractor Brackman will soon start the building of F.W. Gregor's butcher shop, at Lavallette.

SHIP BOTTOM
We are all glad to see the bay open once more, but the wild fowl are scarce.
Harry Pitcher and son, of Long Branch, were here on a gunning trip this week.
Who said that we have had a hard winter. The writer saw onions in the ground all sprouted one day this week.
Hilliard Allison and Charlie Hargrove are hauling lumber for Albert Hansell's bungalow.

SILVERTON
Hamilton Tilton has his saw mill in operation now and is doing a fair amount of sawing wood for his neighbors.
The north winds doth blow nowadays. Plenty of ice but little snow and the ice houses about this section are being filled for the good old summer time needs.

January 20th, 1922
January 13th, 1922
January 6th, 1922
December 30th, 1921​
December 23rd, 1921
December 16th, 1921
​December 9th, 1921
December 2nd, 1921
November 25th, 1921
November 18th, 1921​
November 11th, 1921​
November 4th, 1921
October 28th, 1921
October 21st, 1921
​October 14th, 1921
October 7th, 1921
September 30th, 1921
September 23rd, 1921
September 16th, 1921
September 9th, 1921

Your donations support preserving and restoring our shared maritime heritage on the waters of Toms River and Barnegat Bay, through our boat workshop, educational programs and special events. Thank you.

Open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays - 10 am to 2 pm
78 East Water Street, Toms River, NJ 08753
Guided Tours By Request - New Members Always Welcome
(732) 349-9209 - [email protected]

Welcome to another Wooden Boat Wednesday!

This week we pause to re-share some news from earlier this week by BBYRA Commodore Russ Lucas:

"​In the interest of sharing cool stuff about our bay, I wanted to offer this link to a Scuttlebutt Sailing News article highlighting podcasts by Tom Darling called Conversations with Classic Boats. Tom was a rock star coach at MYC when I was young and helped lead a generation of sailors to love sailing. The podcasts include awesome interviews with Gary Jobson and Roy Wilkins about E Scows, A Cats, Sneaks and Ducks... "

The article mentioned offers links to two parts of a "Chasing Roosters" podcast that includes Roy Wilkins and Gary Jobson, the descriptions of which can be found below, along with the main article link:

In Part 1, we go down south to the Jersey Shore, where watermen have plied Barnegat Bay since the European-invasion of the 16th Century. These episodes show an all-star cast of the boats that Tom fell in love with: The E Boat or E Scow, A Cat, Sneakbox, and the Duckboat.

In Part 2, Barnegat Bay and the sailing haven of Mantoloking are our sites for exploring the home-grown Bay classes, Sneakboxes and Duckboats, timeless designs from the 19th century brought forward to the modern running of the Duckboat World Championships.

CLICK HERE to access the Conversations with Classic Boats piece that includes direct links to this wonderful podcast. Thanks to Commodore Russ Lucas and the BBYRA for bringing it to our attention.

Also note, the Toms River Seaport Society's Maritime Museum offers copies of the Chasing Roosters book and DVD combo for sale through its Ship Store. Email [email protected] for more details.

Your donations support preserving and restoring our shared maritime heritage on the waters of Toms River and Barnegat Bay, through our boat workshop, educational programs and special events. Thank you.

Open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays - 10 am to 2 pm
78 East Water Street, Toms River, NJ 08753
Guided Tours By Request - New Members Always Welcome
(732) 349-9209 - [email protected]

​Welcome to another era in the Toms River area's past, one century ago this week!

Let your mind wander as you consider life around January 20th, 1922, courtesy the New Jersey Courier weekly newspaper and Ocean County Library archives, and peppered with items of maritime interest (around a 15 minute read).

(written by NJ Courier editor, William H. Fischer, as he sat at his desk above Main Street near Washington Street; it was much like a collection of online social media updates seen today)

“Whoa January!”
A pretty nice winter.
Eggs keep up in price.
Jurors here Wednesday.
Hatching time for poultrymen.
Mercury at 6 Tuesday morning.
The bay keeps closing up, off and on.
Open winter—no letup in auto travel.
Dan Moore is working at the Courier shop.
Some roads are good, some poor, and some shot to pieces.
Last Friday, the 13th, as an unlucky day, was a false alarm.
They say a few cranberries were sold recently at $35 a barrel [$580 in 2022 dollars]. Wow!
Quite a little skating for the young folks. Those moonlit evenings were just made for it.
Tuesday morning was the first this winter that the river was frozen over from shore to shore.
Klass Tienberger died in Beachwood, January 17. Funeral services Friday morning. He was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, June 27, 1861, and for the past few years has been a carpenter and builder in Beachwood, moving here from Jersey City. Surviving are a widow and three sons.
A pretty fair winter.
Quite a little skating.
Moon is on the wane.
1922 makes a flying start.
The High School Cedar Chest will be issued again in February.
Ed Applegate is at work on his new house on Hooper Avenue, north of Cedar Grove road.
Sun rises tomorrow at 7:19 and sets at 5:04, a gain of 6 minutes in the morning and 32 minutes in the afternoon.
Edward E. Snyder has completely remodeled his Snyder Street house, and made a modern dwelling of it with all conveniences but retaining the commodious old fireplace.
The Toms River Yacht Club meets this evening to go over plans for a proposed addition to the club house. The plans have been drawn by Architect P.P. Elkington for Commodore H.A. Doan.
Toms River sweet potatoes for the White House table. Yum, yum!
Sweet potato growers from all over the state are trying to get Ocean County grown stock for seed potatoes this spring.
The only way comfortable to travel between Toms River and Lakewood now is to go by rail or flying machine. Each road is worse than the other.
Jesse P. Evernham is building a new dwelling on Montray Park, helping start that desirable residence section to going.
Mr. Rice has started a house at the corner of old Freehold road and Walnut Street, opposite Riverside Cemetery.
A wireless demonstration was given at the Court House on Wednesday of this week by the Ocean County Wireless Club, receiving messages from distant points and amplifying them so that all in the room could hear. It is planned to give another next week for the Chamber of Commerce...
Clayton C. Willis on Tuesday sold to Antony Kosick two bungalows and a lot adjoining, lying at the junction of Dover Road with South Main Street, in Berkeley. He has also sold a lot on the Main Shore Road, adjoining the garage that James Citta built for Walter Davis, to Phillip Maimone; and a lot on the west side of South Main Street, opposite the Yoder residence, to Arthur Cornelius.
While a number of electricians and others, employed by the Lord Construction Co., were laid off at the end of last week at the Naval Air Station, Lakehurst, there is talk that the government will do a lot of work there this spring and summer. The Chamber of Commerce has been asked if arrangements can be made to house twenty new families in Toms River because of this new undertaking.

THINK, REASON, ARGUE
No democracy can survive as a democracy, no country can stay free unless its citizens think for themselves, reason for themselves, and argue with one another.
That country where a man cannot express his opinions under pain of imprisonment, mobbing or death, is not a free country. 
That country whose citizens do not discuss affairs of state from every angle, thinking them out for themselves, arguing them back and forth, for and against with one another, cannot be a democracy. For a democracy is based upon this foundation—an electorate that understands and votes intelligently upon the problems which confront the nation.
That electorate which takes its opinion ready-made from somebody else and swallows them whole is not an intelligent electorate—such men and women are not good citizens—and a nation made up in bulk of those who let others do their thinking, is only the shell of a democracy, not a real one...

BODIES CAST UP BY SEA ON BEACH AT MANTOLOKING
Mantoloking, N.J., Jan. 13.—The bodies of William Vogel, of Philadelphia, and William Johnson, of Wareham, Mass., who were drowned in Wednesday's gale, while trying to gain shore in a small boat, after the coal barge Havana had foundered, were recovered late today. They were identified by Cap. Cecil Joshua, the barge master, who, with another seaman, Albert Lachance, survived the wreck.
The following account of the wreck is from the Courier's correspondent at Mantoloking:
During the terrible storm on Wednesday, the barge Havana, belonging to the Statler Coal Co., bound from Norfolk to New York, laden with coal, was sunk off this place. At 10:30 A.M. the storm became so furious that a tug, which was towing the two barges, of which the Havana was one, and also the older boat, was obliged to discontinue towing them. The two barges cast anchor and lay off this place from 10:30 A.M. until the Havana began filling with water and one of the pumps stopped working, when the crew, consisting of the captain and three men, were compelled to abandon the barge and launch a lifeboat, and none too soon, as the barge sank immediately. This was about 2 o'clock P.M. From 2 o'clock until 4, or two hours, the men were in the lifeboat. They hoped they would be thrown safely on the beach, but the boat capsized and one of the men, nearly frozen, found his way to the home of S.C. Shadinger, here, where he was taken care of. He told of the dreadful experience he had had and of the three missing members of the crew, and expressed hope that the rest would be saved. Word was telephoned to the Coast Guard Station here about the man who was saved, and also that there were three others missing and that they were probably alive along the beach in the vicinity of the lifeboat, which came ashore near the rescued man. About one and a half hours later in the evening, or at 6:30 P.M., a cry for help was heard and the second victim, who was the captain, had found his way to the same house. He was in a helpless condition, having had to crawl most of the way from the beach, and had to be carried inside, where he was resuscitated by some of the townspeople after an hour's vigorous work. One of the other men was found drowned, later, near the Bay Head Fishery. One is still missing. The two members of the crew saved were Capt. Sessue Joscha, a Portuguese, of New Bedford, Mass., and Albert Le Chance, who is of French descent, of Fall River, Mass. All the people of the town took lanterns and hunted late in the evening for the other two men but without avail.

HOME AND SCHOOL ASS'N DEMANDS NEW SCHOOL HOUSE
The Home and School Association has presented to the Board of Education of Dover Township a demand for action on the proposed new school house. The paper is in the form of a series of resolutions. These say that the rooms are at present over-crowded; that the teachers have more pupils than they can handle; that the working conditions are inadequate; that both the old opera house and the fire house, in which pupils are taught, are unfit for that use, and that it is not desirable to have one grade so far away from the school as the town hall. These resolutions go on to say that thirty pupils is all that a teacher can be expected to direct and teach, while in the local schools a number of the grade teachers have over 50. It concludes by saying that the public must choose between part time schools and a new school. They ask that the School Board at once make arrangements for a special election on a bond issue for a new school building.

MRS. JOHN'S “SWEETS” GO TO WHITE HOUSE TABLE
As was told in The Courier last week, Ocean County took first prize in the state sweet potato contest at Trenton, and the pick of the exhibit, including a tray raised by Mrs. Jannet John, of Toms River, have been sent to Mrs. Warren G. Harding, wife of the President, at the White House, Washington, D.C. The potatoes sent to the White House were said to be about the finest bushel of “sweets” ever put in one basket. There were 125 in number, all graded to a uniform size and uniform standard of color and shape. Beside Ocean County, some of the potatoes were produced in Camden and Atlantic Counties. The exhibit of potatoes at Trenton last week is said to be the finest ever staged by the State Board of Agriculture. In the bulletins telling of these “sweets” being sent to the White House, the State Department gives the following:
“An interesting bit of agricultural romance is connected with the awards in the sweet potato exhibits this year, according to the State Bureau of Markets, in that the prizes were chiefly from Ocean County and were grown on sandy soil, much of it but recently cleared of pines. Largely through the efforts of the County Farm Agent, E.H. Waite, farmers in that section were encouraged to take up commercial sweet potato growing. The results have astonished the trade and have shown the farmers that thousands of sandy acres in southern counties can be utilized for the production of a profitable food crop of peculiar richness of flavor that brings it a strong market preference.

CRANBERRY GROWERS' ASS'N MEETS JAN. 28, IN PHILA.
The yearly winter meeting of the American Cranberry Growers' Association (by the way its fifty-second), will be held at the Hotel Adelphia, in Philadelphia, on Saturday, January 28. The program has been arranged by the Secretary, H.B. Scammell, of Toms River, as follows:
Meeting begins at 10:45.
Annual address by the President, James D. Holman, of Whitesville, on “The Practice of Scooping and Its After Effects.”
Facts about the cranberry acreage of New Jersey will be presented by H.B. Weiss, State Crop Statistician. C.S. Beckwith will give his annual report of work accomplished at the cranberry sub-station at Whitesbogs. Secretary Scammell contributes a final estimate of the total cranberry crop in the state this year.
Then will come the report of the treasurer and of committees, followed by election of officers. Luncheon will be served at the Adelphia.

DROP IN FARM WAGES
A further drop in farm wages, still above pre-war rates, is predicted before the opening of the spring planting season in South Jersey. This move is attributed to the present low prices for nearly all farm products and the large number of idle workers looking for jobs, many of them being former farm hands, who are beginning to return to the country from the cities, where they were drawn into the industries by the high wages during the war period.
Thirty dollars a month, with board [$497 in 2022 dollars], will probably be the average farm wage in the lower counties, according to farmers, who two or three years ago paid as high as $60 and board to try to hold workers, many of them incompetent even at that price.
According to figures gathered by the Department of Agriculture, the peak in farm wages in New Jersey was reached in 1920, when day laborers demanded and received $4.25 a day, or $82 a month, without board, and $3.25 a day or $54 a month, with board.

FORMER TOMS RIVER AUTHOR HAS PUBLISHED NEW STORY
Sewell Ford, some years ago a resident of Toms River, has put out a new book, called “Inez and Trilby May.” Harper and Brothers are the publishers... Anything that Ford does will be of interest to his old friends in Toms River, who have watched his upward climb in literature with a great deal of pleasure. Ford has also reached the silver screen, his “Torchy” stories having been filmed, and in fact are being shown at the local movie house, the Traco.

ICE HANDICAPS OYSTER SHIPPERS
Port Norris, N.J., Jan. 15.—Oystermen are somewhat handicapped because of ice in the Maurice River, and trips to the beds are difficult. Shippers are taking care of orders, however, and immense shipments are being made of the finest oysters that ever left the docks. There is likely to be a shortage if the cold weather continues.

WHO IS OVER NINETY
Assessor A.L. Wardell asked The Courier the other day how many people there are in this part of the county, ninety years of age or over. That is a hard one to answer. If you know of any such, send in the name to The Courier.

INDICTMENTS DISMISSED IN ROHDENBURG BANKRUPTCY CASE
At the request of Prosecutor Richard C. Plumer, who is cleaning up the files of his office prior to retirement in the next two months, the Court on Wednesday, January 18, allowed the dismissal of a number of indictments. Three of them were against former well known Beachwood men, and grew out of the bankruptcy proceedings in the Rohdenburg Co., builders at Beachwood and Browns Mills. There were two indictments against Frederick VomSaal, one for larceny and one for embezzlement; and one each against Joseph Kearn for larceny. It had been the general opinion in this section for some time that three indictments were for some technical offences, if offences at all...

PERSONAL
Mr. and Mrs. Frank W. Sutton, Jr., are spending some days in New York and Washington, D.C., while he is on his vacation from the First National Bank.
Roger Lane and Jesse Woolley reached home last Friday, after a fortnight's trip to Bermuda. On their way home they were caught in the storm that raged here Wednesday of last week, and now think they know what a storm at sea is like.
Mr. and Mrs. Edward Crabbe and their daughter, Miss Georgiana, will start early in February for a stay in Bermuda. Mrs. Crabbe, who is one of the most active and influential of our townspeople in all public matters, has been in need of a rest, having recently been ill.
The Toms River Poultry Producers' Association has bought 200 acres of land south of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Berkeley Township [today South Toms River Borough]. The land runs down to Jakes Branch and is ideal for laying out chicken farms, so poultrymen say.
Lester Irons, of Toms River, who has been in Germany since the first occupation, apparently did not come home with the 2000 American doughboys on the steamship Crook. Lester seems to like Germany, or Europe, or something—perhaps he likes army life, would be a better way to put it.

GOOD FOR A BEGINNER
The Courier took on a new “Devil” this week, and here is his first contribution to the columns of the paper. He says his father keeps chickens and he has a pet dog. The dog took a fancy to the mash fed the birds, and eats his share daily—and ever since they find an egg in the doghouse every day. Can you beat it?

RECENT DEATHS
Mrs. Edwin A. Barnett
Mrs. Florence Adele (Schofield) Barnett, wife of Edwin A. Barnett, of Hooper Avenue, Toms River, died on Sunday, January 15, at Paul Kimball Hospital, Lakewood, following an operation eight days before for the removal of an internal growth. At first it was thought she would recover, and it was with a decided shock that the village learned of her death on Sunday afternoon. Funeral services were held at the home on Tuesday afternoon, and the body, according to her wishes, was taken to the crematory, at Linden, N.J., and there cremated.
Mrs. Barnett was born in Hartford, Conn., 68 years ago, on June 5, 1853. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Schofield, came to Toms River in 1869. She married Edwin A. Barnett, of Brooklyn, in 1884. She was a gifted artist, being a pupil of J. Alden Weir, and a graduate of the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts. With the exemption of eight years spent at Danbury, Conn., where she was instructor in the art department at the College of Music, her adult life was spent in Toms River. She was a member of Theosophical Society, and was also treasurer of the American Academy of Astrologians. She was a natural leader and had a close circle of intimate friends in which she was supreme, while she was highly esteemed by the entire community.

Philip H. Dodge
Report comes to Toms River from the Pacific coast of the death of Philip H. Dodge, formerly of Toms River, on December 15. Mr. Dodge was an artist of some note. He possessed the soul of rare refinement and sympathy, coupled with a daring imagination, but was always hampered by a frail body. As a boy and young man he lived in Toms River with Mr. Perkins, at that time (in the 70's and 80's), a celebrated violinist. Later he went to Southern California, thence to Hawaii, and then to Japan. He was captivated by the beauties of these climes, but never forgot the colder and coyer charms of the Jersey shore. He was much interested in bringing about a closer understanding between the Japanese and America, and organized a society for that purpose, in which both races were members. He maintained a desultory correspondence with The Courier from time to time, and kept in closer touch with some of his boyhood friends here through letters. At one time, when home, after a stay in Honolulu, he told The Courier that he had met an old lady, a Mrs. Gulick, in that city, who was the widow of a Presbyterian missionary, and who told him she was born in Toms River, and left the shore here to go with her husband to Hawaii. She was still living when Hawaii became a part of the United States in the McKinley administration.

[Mr. Dodge had a more interesting life than The Courier at the time printed. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, here is his obituary from the Honolulu Advertiser, Dec. 16th, 1921]

Philip Henry Dodge, educator and artist, passed away at his home in Sea Bright, near Santa Cruz, California, on Wednesday, according to a message received in Honolulu yesterday morning.
American by birth, the late Mr. Dodge passed his life in the fruitful fields of education and art in the mainland, in Hawaii and in Japan. With his wife, Mr. Dodge came to Hawaii in 1891 and, with the exception of three years which he spent in Japan as an instructor of English in Keio University, the Dodges made their home in Hawaii until 1918, when they returned to their earlier home near Santa Cruz.
Mr. Dodge was an instructor at Punahou for several years. After leaving Punahou, he and Mrs. Dodge conducted private and select school in this city. They returned to Honolulu on February 4, 1911, after a residence of three years in Japan. While instructor of English at Keio Mr. Dodge secured the services of two American athletic coaches for the big Japanese university. From these coaches the Keio students mastered the rudiments of baseball and shortly after that a Keio diamond nine visited Honolulu, making a very favorable showing against local teams...

Click the following link to read about Keio University's latest baseball championship this past June 2021, over 110 years after Toms River native, Philip Henry Dodge, introduced it to its students: https://www.keio.ac.jp/en/news/2021/Jun/7/48-80546/

TOM SHIBE'S FATHER DEAD
Benjamin F. Shibe, Sr., father of Tom and Ben Shibe, of Philadelphia, well known on Barnegat Bay, and in this section, died Saturday in Philadelphia, aged 84 years. He began life as the driver of a horse-drawn street car. His fortune of several millions was based upon his conception of a new baseball, that could be turned out by machinery, back in the early days of the game. It is alleged that he first thought out the idea of a cork center; also of the two-piece cover, both of which are used on all baseballs, and that he interested A.J. Reach in their manufacture. [For more on this lost legacy, see the Philadelphia Inquirer article here: https://www.inquirer.com/phillies/ben-shibe-park-phillies-baseball-connie-mack-stadium-athletics-20201001.html]

BARNEGAT
There has been for the past few years much talk about Barnegat lighthouse. Everyone along the shore, especially on Barnegat Bay, feels very much agitated about saving it from destruction by the sea, which, for a time, made such rapid inroads at this part of the beach, but the last season seems to have devoted its attention to some other perhaps less destructible affairs. At any rate, it gave us a great scare and we are shuddering yet lest it renew its attacks with a determination to spare nothing. It takes a great amount of red tape to accomplish little with the government when that little is not particularly wanted by the government. The Lighthouse Department has been besieged with requests to save our light. Assemblyman Parker has been an untiring worker in bringing it before them. He has, at a great deal of labor, had several delegations from Washington to visit the scene and see just how the situation was, but with all this there has been but little done but promises, which do not go very far in holding back old Neptune in his angry moods. We are in constant fear for the result of a heavy northeast storm of the old-fashioned type that sweeps everything before it. We can only wait and hope for the best while the red tape is being gradually unwound, hoping for the end to be reached...

BARNEGAT CITY (today Barnegat Light Borough)
For several weeks past the tides have brought great quantities of sea clams up on the beach, so many that they have been carted away by wagon loads. Also a few crabs have been picked up.

BEACH HAVEN
Mr. Charles W. Beck is having a boat-house erected on his dock below the Little Egg Harbor Yacht Club property. Firman Cranmer has the contract.
Capt. Seal Jones and Arthur King, who went to Florida in the yacht in the fall, write home of the fishing being very poor, but report of pleasant meetings with acquaintances from the North.
The manager of the Baldwin Hotel announces they will be open for business next June. This big house has been closed for several seasons, and we will be glad to see it running and making more business for the town. It is reported that considerable improvements will be made on the hotel this winter and spring, including carpentering, painting and plumbing, to make it thoroughly up to date.
A great improvement will be made at the corner of Beach Avenue and Amber Street, where Mr. Yeoman Penrod is tearing down the old store and apartments which he purchased from the former owner. He will have built here a more spacious cottage with modern conveniences.

FORKED RIVER
A.E. Bunnell, who went to Florida with a yacht, is back home.
Twin sons were born last week to Mr. and Mrs. George Sprague.
Repairs that have been made at the railroad station look very nice.
On Saturday quite a number from here attended a meeting at Waretown, to make an attempt to secure the repeat of the present oyster law, and throw open the bay to free oystering again.
Fred Gowdy filled his ice house with five-inch ice. So did F.W. Briggs.

ISLAND HEIGHTS
At a meeting Monday evening the organization of the Borough Council for 1922 was completed. Mayor Rote presided. August Cuppers is President of Council, the other members being Roy H. Ellis, Thomas H. Wallace, Jr., Jasper N. Shaw, Mrs. Charles McKaig, and Mrs. Mae B. VanScholck.
George S. McKaig was reappointed Clerk, and W. Howard Jeffrey, of Toms River, is again Borough Solicitor. J. M. Abbott, of Toms River, is Borough Engineer; Daniel Grim, Borough Superintendent; Peter Newman, Marshal; Frank Toscan, Superintendent of the Water Department.

LAVALLETTE
Charles Hankins has several boats finished to be shipped. One went away on Saturday.
I.B. Osborn has a large lot of wood. He bought the old planks on the bay bridge.
The building boom is going on. Several contracts signed last week for more houses.

MANTOLOKING
Contractor Joseph Stillwell is building an addition to Mr. Murphy's oceanfront cottage.
Capt. H.M. Horner was a Friday visitor here.
We are glad to see Mr. John Norcross able to walk around again after being confined to the house on account of an injury caused by falling off a wagon in the fall.
D.A. Storer has closed his cottage here and gone to Philadelphia, where he will spend the rest of the winter.
E.W. Osborn should be commended on the good condition in which he keeps the part of the beach road under his supervision. We wish the roads through West Mantoloking, Adamston and Osbornville were in half as good shape. There are some places where it is almost impassable.
The home of Orion Hurley was set on fire recently by the explosion of a lamp. The fire was discovered by Albert Ware and wife, who occupy the house with Mr. Hurley, and after a hard fight, in which the neighbors took part, the fire was subdued.

PINE BEACH
At a recent meeting of the Township Committee of Berkeley [Pine Beach not incorporating as its own independent borough until 1925], it was decided to build a concrete bulkhead at the foot of Henley Avenue to prevent the beach from washing away as it has done in previous years. Money was also appropriated for putting gravel on New Jersey Avenue, and to finish Springfield Avenue, between Motor Road, and Beachwood, making the short cut to the State Road and Toms River, which has been asked for, and also doing away with two dangerous railroad crossings. These improvements are much needed.
When taxes are so burdensome and it is so hard to get money appropriated for roads or any improvements why do not the men who take it on themselves to manage public affairs, use their brains when they spend the money taken from the taxpayer? All last year many roads were too sandy to be used, and Springfield Avenue, from Motor Road to Beachwood, should have been in condition to use, but nothing was done. Several hundred dollars had been appropriated for roads in Pine Beach, but was not used where needed. After the ground froze up, in order to prevent the money appropriated from going back to the county at the end of the year, it was decided to put it on Springfield Avenue, near New Jersey Avenue. When the ground thawed and froze again the road was so full of ruts that now Springfield Avenue, supposed to be the best road here, is avoided by all who do not have to use it. It is now, in some places, in a disgraceful condition. The money was thrown away when it could have been used earlier in the year on some other roads here.
Nothing, as yet, has been done about closing the [Pennsylvania Railroad] station. Action has been postponed, and the station is open, just as it used to be. Now we need to work for a new station for this one gives a very bad impression to strangers who come here. Why doesn't somebody start an agitation for a new station.
The severe storm on Wednesday, January 11 did a great deal of damage to the Yacht Club pier, also to the Henley Avenue pier.

SEASIDE PARK
The nice weather has made it very pleasant for the summer people to come down and look after their properties this winter.
The skating has made lots of fun for the young people, especially during the moonlit evenings.
The firemen were called out on Saturday to extinguish a brush fire which was making great headway back of the H.C. Cowles store.

SHIP BOTTOM
Albert Hansell, of Rancocas, N.J., is here, having a number of bungalows built for the coming summer, and Courtney Patterson, of Manahawkin, is the builder.
Harry Cole and Mr. Johnson, of Long Branch, N.J., are having a fine time gunning.
The fish pound people are getting their poles ready for the coming season.

SILVERTON
We people of Silverton are very glad to report of the progress made by William Beardslee since he has built his new garage. He is kept busy, not only with Ford cars, but some of the largest cars have stopped there for repairing, quite an improvement to Silverton, we think, to have a garage so handy, and such a good mechanic.

WARETOWN
The ice harvesting is under full headway now.

WEST CREEK
Edward L. Shinn is a busy man as usual. His motor wood-saw is to be heard humming in various parts of the town any day, and a concrete mixer, equally as musical, building up a new foundation for his proposed new home. Go to it Ed.
Mrs. Suthergill is quite ill at her home on the Zoole farm.
A fire of mysterious origin started in the kitchen of Daniel Salmon's home at Spraguetown, destroying the room and contents, but discovered in time to prevent spreading of flames to the rest of the house.
What appears to be a case of kidnapping took place here on Saturday evening last, when a lad by the name of Wadeson, who was on the street in a dark spot, on his way to his home in Spraguetown, was accosted by a man in a large touring car which halted long enough for the boy to be seized and dragged in the car and taken to Manahawkin, where he was put out of the machine near the railroad station, the machine going on to the beach. Young Wadeson took for the tracks and after a journey of five miles, mixed with tears and fears, he reached home about 10 P.M. Whether this was done as a joke or by parties crazed with home brew, no one seems to know, but surely they should be punished for the shock to both lad and parents.

January 13th, 1922
January 6th, 1922
December 30th, 1921​
December 23rd, 1921
December 16th, 1921
​December 9th, 1921
December 2nd, 1921
November 25th, 1921
November 18th, 1921​
November 11th, 1921​
November 4th, 1921
October 28th, 1921
October 21st, 1921
​October 14th, 1921
October 7th, 1921
September 30th, 1921
September 23rd, 1921
September 16th, 1921
September 9th, 1921

Your donations support preserving and restoring our shared maritime heritage on the waters of Toms River and Barnegat Bay, through our boat workshop, educational programs and special events. Thank you.

Open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays - 10 am to 2 pm
78 East Water Street, Toms River, NJ 08753
Guided Tours By Request - New Members Always Welcome
(732) 349-9209 - [email protected]

Welcome to another Wooden Boat Wednesday!

To fight the mid-January cold, this week we spin the time dial back to a nice, hot July day in 1948 beginning with the Challenge Cup race, courtesy The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Special to The Inquirer

TOMS RIVER, N.J., July 10.— The Bat, sailed by Tom Dilworth, Toms River Yacht Club, won the Class A catboat race today for the Toms River Challenge Cup, one of the oldest sailboat racing trophies in the U.S., having been raced for annually with the exception of the war years since 1871.

In the Lightning championship series race, Thor, sailed by Fred Wiedeke, Toms River, triumped, while in the "G" sloops Bob Snyder piloted his G-20 to a close victory over his clubmate, Dave Whitson, in the G-Whiz.

Sonny Neff sailed his Soubrette to victory over the three-time winner, Mike Fagan, to capture the Doan Trophy for Class E sloops.

John Stillman, Jr., Philadelphia, piloted Jolly Roger to victory in the Snipe Class. The former intercollegiate dinghy champion, Runyon Colie, Chestnut Hill, piloted Outsider to an impressive triumph in the Penguin Class.

Stillman accounted for one of the two victories scored by the Island Heights Yacht Club. Colie sailed for Mantoloking Yacht Club.

CLASS "B" SNEAKS — 1, Richard Bren, Applejack, Lavallette; 2, Lawrence Gleason, Frozen Assets, Lavallette; 3, Joseph Flynn, Falcon, Island Heights.
SNIPES — 1, John Stillman, Jr., Jolly Roger, Island Heights; 2, George Whittle, Sylph, Island Heights; 3, Bruce Roth, Reynard, Beachwood.
PENGUINS — 1, Runyon Colie, Outsider, Mantoloking; 2, Jack Wright, Small Consolation, Mantoloking; 3, Nile, Two Eyes, Lavallette.
A SNEAKS — 1, Cliff Campbell, Skinner, Beachwood; 2, Anne Lewis, Wigwam, Mantoloking; 3, Dick Bannehr, So So, Lavallette.
JUNIOR COMETS — 1, Fred Grigg, Esquire, Island Heights; 2, George Dosher, Restless, Beachwood; 3, I. Peek, Weasel, Bay Head.
MOTHS (Bay) — 1, Charles Carpenter, Snig, Mantoloking; 2, Pete Smith 3d, Ripple, Island Heights; 3, James Goldschalk, Sue 2d, Mantoloking.
17-FOOT CATS — 1, Fred Winkleman, Sea Puss, Lavallette; 2, E. O'Malley, Barnegat Belle, Lavallette; 3, Patty Winkleman, Felix, Lavallette.
MOTHS (International) — 1, Charles Sparks, Spar, Ocean Gate.

CLASS E SLOOPS — 1, Soubrette, Sonny Neff, Mantoloking; 2, Hirondelle, Mike Fagan, Seaside Park; 3, Top Drawer, H.M. Chance, Mantoloking.
CLASS A CATBOATS — 1, The Bat, Tom Dilworth, Toms River; 2, Spy, George Clark, Lavallette.
SENIOR COMETS — 1, Rascal, Len Egee, Ocean Gate; 2, 1946, R. Beltramine, Lavallette.
CHAMPIONSHIP LIGHTNINGS — 1, Thor, Fred Wiedeke, Toms River; 2, Andiamo, Dick Terhune, Toms River; 3, You Bet, Flint Larabee, Toms River.
CLASS G SLOOPS — 1, G-20, Bob Snyder, Toms River; 2, G Whiz, Dave Whitson, Toms River; 3, Colleen, 3d, W.M. Rose, Bay Head.
INDIVIDUAL LIGHTNINGS — 1, Kathryn, Charles Snyder, Ocean Gate; 2, Jay-Dee, James Davison, Shore Acres; 3, J. Cattus, Bay Head.

Your donations support preserving and restoring our shared maritime heritage on the waters of Toms River and Barnegat Bay, through our boat workshop, educational programs and special events. Thank you.

Open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays - 10 am to 2 pm
78 East Water Street, Toms River, NJ 08753
Guided Tours By Request - New Members Always Welcome
(732) 349-9209 - [email protected]

Welcome to another era in the Toms River area's past, one century ago this week!

Let your mind wander as you consider life around January 13th, 1922, courtesy the New Jersey Courier weekly newspaper and Ocean County Library archives, and peppered with items of maritime interest (around a 15 minute read).

(written by NJ Courier editor, William H. Fischer, as he sat at his desk above Main Street near Washington Street; it was much like a collection of online social media updates seen today)

Full moon tonight.
Still wanting rain.
January is flying by.
Skating last week end.
A little snow on Sunday.
Legislature met on Tuesday.
Tuesday was bank election day.
All kinds of weather in one week.
The Township Committee, at its session last Friday fixed the salary of collector Bills at $1500 a year [$25,000 in 2022 dollars].
A number of our young women teachers in our public school have a Saturday afternoon hiking club.
And now they say that a new law takes from the township the power to license taxis and passenger cars.
Sun rises tomorrow at 7.23 and sets at 4.56, a gain of two minutes of daylight in the morning and twenty-four minutes in the afternoon.
The new school house question is coming to the fore, and must be met soon. The present school is entirely unequal to the present demands. What will we do about it?
Saturday afternoon a grass and rubbish fire near the James R. Hensler Lumber Yard was seen by the engineer at the Electric Light Company plant, who blew an alarm, calling out the firemen. Luckily there was nothing for them to do.
A snow began at dusk on Sunday and lasted about three hours.
Bert Dorsett says he is going back to boat building, since there has been a demand for new boats once more, and folks who want boats built have just pestered him till there was nothing else to do. Paul Cranmer will continue to run the Berkeley laundry when Bert gives his time to boats.
Tuesday was a bright and warm spring-like day.
The Hagaman house on Water Street has been repainted.
George Morgan, of Island Heights, is building a house on Dayton Avenue, just east of that in which Harold Chamberlain has just moved.
H.E. Dunton has moved from Indian Hill to the Hydes house, at Park and Messenger Streets. Mr. Dunton is trucking in the eggs for the poultrymen to the shipping plant at this point and is also doing general trucking in between trips.
Frank J. Perry, of Beachwood, on Saturday night, ran his car into a trench at West Water Street and Irons Streets, where the Water Company had dug up to repair the leaking joint, and on which no red lantern had been placed, so Frank says.
Edward Crabbe has bought the famous yacht Gem, long the champion of Barnegat Bay, and of all New Jersey, in fact, of all catboats of her class. Crabbe got the Gem from Capt. Joe Hulse, and will rig her up this summer to see how she compares with later model yachts.
Today is Friday, the thirteenth—a double hoodoo. What?
Poultrymen are getting their incubators in shape for the hatching season.
J.N. Lane and his son Leslie have bought the Wyckoff bogs, between here and Lakehurst.
Last Saturday was one of the biggest shipment of eggs so far from the local packing plant—94 crates.
Indications point to enough work in this neighborhood this winter and spring to keep carpenter and builders busy.
Over at Double Trouble the Polands, from Bradley Beach, are moving a store building for the Double Trouble Co. The cranberry house is also being enlarged.
Thomas B. Irons has about made up his mind to quit business and offers his business and stock for sale. Tom is around again after an illness of a fortnight.
Walter Johnson, who recently sold out his market on Main Street, has taken the S.J. Van Note store on Washington Street, and opened with dry goods and shoes.
The Marion Inn has a new manager, Louis Perrin, who comes here from Atlantic City, where he has had experience in the resort hotel line. Mr. Perrin gave a venison and game dinner on Sunday at the Inn to start off the new regime.

THE OUTLOOK FOR 1922 AT TOMS RIVER
The last three years have been the best business years that Toms River village ever had. Go back to the time before the war and there were there classes of business places in Toms River. There were a few, perhaps ten per cent, of the whole that were making a little money above what they cost to run. Perhaps another ten per cent were steadily slipping backward a little, borrowing a bit from year to year to square up, or else accumulating debts with the wholesalers and jobbers. The bulk of the business places were just about making a living and paying their bills, that was all.
Then came the war in 1917. The winter of 1917-18 was one of the worst since the Cleveland panic in the middle nineties. Everybody and everything seemed slipping backwards. But 1918 brought a turn for the better. Money began to trickle home from the shipyards, ammunition factories and camps where people from this section were working for high wages—the Proving Ground, and then, Camp Kendrick began to give work at high wages right at home, and to bring other workers here to live from other sections. But it was after the war, when the big hangar was started at Lakehurst that the boom really came. That, coupled with the big summers this section has had, with its dozens or so small resorts that center about Toms River, put the place on the business map.
The town has now had three good years in which every business place has made money, or ought to have done so. Many have paid off debts and are now with bank balances and investments, who were four years ago facing the other way, and seeing nothing but disaster ahead. The prosperous ones are more prosperous. Rents have doubled and trebled, and real estate values in the business part of town have doubled, trebled and in some instances have quadrupled. Just now property is bringing more in rents and as sale prices than it did in the boom after the Civil War, in 1869 and 1870, which had been record prices for real estate in all this section. Will the boom last?
Some say it will because it is founded on real merit. Let business keep good and our summer resorts will continue to flourish, and as they flourish Toms River will also do business. Another feature that in the past year has added greatly to the business of this section is the poultry industry. There are probably, in a radius of ten miles of Toms River, four times as many laying hens today as there were a year ago. Farm after farm has been turned into chicken farms, and chicken houses have gone up in all directions. The location of the egg-packing depot here by the State Poultry Producers' Association, has added much to fame of this locality for a poultry center. It looks now as if the poultry business and the summer resorts keep growing, Toms River ought to be able to maintain its present business pace and keep on growing, even if the Naval Air Station shuts down.
The state agricultural authorities are also calling attention all the time to the possibilities of this section as a sweet potato growing section; the idea is being gotten into the heads of the landowners in this locality, and it is likely that, once it is seen to pay, it will spread. New blood is coming in, and new businesses are springing up. What the community wants is more of its money invested here at home instead of being sent to New York or elsewhere for investment. Money invested here in productive enterprises, such as poultry, sweet potatoes, cranberry bogs, etc., and watched and worked by the investor, is the kind of investments that this section needs.
There is another possibility that may work to the betterment of Toms River. It is predicted by some folks that the opening of the Bay Head-Manasquan River canal, in the near future, will cause a current to run up the bay and through the canal under certain conditions, sufficient to make the upper bay again salt enough for the growth of oyster seed. If that be true, here will be another little Klondike at our doors, and Toms River will become an oyster shipping station.
These are bright dreams, but they all have something back of them. Energy, courage, work, enthusiasm, will make them come true. They can be worked out, but it is for the people here to work them out. The future of any locality depends upon its citizens.
The three good years that Toms River has had made the foundation for a long period of prosperity, barring financial crashes, if our people can see and grasp their opportunity.
There are other sides to the situation. In the past year the town has borrowed and spent $100,000 [$1.7 million in 2022 dollars] to put in a sewer plant. In the coming year the county expects to spend something like $75,000 putting a concrete road through the town. The electric plant has been rebuilt, the gas plant is coming in for a better outfit, and the water system also. We are facing the building of a new school, which cannot be delayed much longer, and which will mean spending $100,000, or perhaps twice that amount, depending upon how much the people of the township want to put in a school building. The firemen are asking for and will get some new apparatus. All these things show that the town has increased in size, in wealth and is still growing. Last year showed us a new hotel and a new theatre, both large structures.
There is another form of wealth beside material wealth. Unfortunately we are not doing so well from the intellectual or spiritual side as we are from the side of material prosperity. We have our school, our churches and Chautauqua [a traveling, annual institution that provided popular adult education courses and entertainment in the late 19th and early 20th centuries]. The churches are far from being well attended. School, of course, is for children, and we have no fault to find with the way Chautauqua is attended. But in a town of this size there ought surely to be more intellectual and spiritual life and growth than is evident here. We seem content with the making and spending of a few dollars, and forgetful of the finer and wider things of life.
1922 should be dedicated, not only to material progress, but to some means of broadening our mental viewpoint and waking our spiritual ideas.

WOULD BOOST TOMS RIVER AS POULTRY FARM CENTER
Articles of incorporation were filed on Wednesday with County Clerk Ernst, the object of which is to boost Toms River as a poultry producing center. In order to do this, it is planned to build poultry farms complete, stock them with birds and sell them to practical poultrymen who wish to locate in this section.
The company has been incorporated with an authorized capital stock of $125,000 [$2 million in 2022 dollars], of which 7000 shares, at $10 each [$166 in 2022], will be preferred stock, and 5000 shares also at $10 each, will be common stock. The preferred stock will bear cumulative six per cent interest. At present no stock is on the market.
The company has bargained for the tract just south of the Pennsylvania Railroad track, at the depot, [where today is part of South Toms River Borough's Center Homes development, various housing to the south of Dover Road, and the Garden State Parkway] and also for the B.C. Mayo estate holdings, adjoining this tract, and running over the hill and reaching to Jakes Branch in the valley beyond [within Beachwood and today more Garden State Parkway area plus part of today's Jakes Branch County Park]. The incorporators are: Frank W. Sutton, Jr., David C. Brewer, Charles N. Warner, Jesse P. Evernham, Samuel Kaufman, Edward Crabbe and William H. Fischer. The men who are back of this plan hope to be able to build several plants complete this spring and summer. For some time past there have been many inquiries for poultry farms at this place, and the location of the egg-packing and shipping house here has added to this demand. In nearly every instance the inquirer wants a plant already running, so that he will lose no time in getting returns on his investment. This plan was evolved to meet this very need. Each poultry farm would contain about ten acres.
The company has been formed with Charles N. Warner, president; Samuel Kaufman, Vice-President; Frank W. Sutton, Secretary and Treasurer. There are 206 acres in the two tracts, most of it suitable for poultry, being on high land, with gravely and sandy soil, and fine drainage. The purpose of this venture is not so much to make gains for the company as it is to locate more poultry farms at Toms River, and increase the growth of this section. The poultry farms will all be laid out in the latest and most approved plans, advised by the New Jersey State Experiment Station. Each will have a six-room house, with bath, electric lights, and there will be running water on each farm, if the present plans can be worked out.

BIG CRANBERRY BOG SALE
George H. Holman, of Toms River, has sold his cranberry bogs on Jakes Branch, known as the Aumack bogs (because for a long time they were owned by the late John Aumack, president of the First National Bank) to his nephew, James Downey Holman, Jr., of Whiteville. Last spring Mr. Holman sold his big Paqua bogs, above Lakehurst, to the same buyer, and this fall the crop repaid at least half the purchase price. If young Mr. Holman keeps on buying bogs at this rate, he will regain the title of “Cranberry King,” held for years by his grandfather, the late Charles L. Holman.

NEW BUSINESS BUILDINGS
The demand for stores and apartments in Toms River, and the rents people are willing to pay to get them, is leading to a number of new buildings. J.P. Evernham is getting alone well with the store and apartment he is building next door to the Toms River Supply Co., on lower Main Street, just opposite The Courier Building. Dr. George T. Crook broke ground on Tuesday for a building on Main St., between the Bailey and Hallock dwellings, just north of Snyder Street, where he will have a dental office on the lower floor and apartments on the second story. George H. Alsheimer has resumed work on the three-stores, two-apartments building which he will have on the east side of Main Street, next north of the Mrs. Doloro Potter homestead. It is understood that Chas. M. Shull, of Ambler, Pa., who bought half of the Union house property from George G. Worstall, will remodel his front into one store. The Novins boys are planning to use their 130 foot front on West Water Street, which they bought recently, probably for a garage and feed store. Carl Priest, of Princeton, and his brother, Daniel S. Priest, of this place, are planning, as soon as things break right, perhaps soon, perhaps later, to rebuild the northeast corner of Main and Washington Sts., with a handsome and suitable building for that prominent corner. There is also talk that W. Burtis Havens has plans in reserve for possible changes in his block at Washington and Hyers Streets. From this it can be seen that 1922 is apt to make almost as many changes in the physical appearance and in the business conveniences of Toms River's business section as was made in 1921.

$90,000 HARBOR MONEY FOR TOMS RIVER AN ERROR
A short time ago The Courier reprinted a Washington dispatch, which said the War Department had recommended to Congress an appropriation of $90,000 [$1.5 million in 2022 dollars] for the maintenance of Toms River dredging project. At that time The Courier stated the amount named was presumably a mistake. A letter from Congressman Appleby confirms this conjecture. He says the report recommended $90,000 for a number of harbors all under the supervision of the engineers located in Wilmington, Del., known as Group B, and including beside Toms River, Cold Spring Inlet, Absecon Inlet and Creek and Tuckerton Creek. Of this $90,000 there is specifically recommended that $10,000 be spent for Tuckerton Creek, but as for the balance, the recommendations leave it for the engineers to parcel out as needed among the various harbors.

NEWBURY CO. GIVES $850 TO FIRE CO. FOR ITS AID
A Christmas gift in the form of a check for $850 [$14,106 in 2022 dollars] was received by the Toms River Fire Company, at its session on Friday night last, from the A.B. Newbury Co., as an expression of gratitude on the part of the Newbury Co. for the work done by the Fire Company in fighting the big fire at the Newbury lumber yard last summer. In addition to this the Newbury Company sent a remembrance of $25 [$415 in 2022 dollars] to each of the six other companies that came from the Naval Air Station, Lakewood, Ocean Gate, Seaside Heights, etc., to aid the local firemen, making $1000 in all. The only Fire company that was not rewarded by the Newbury Co. was that from Spring Lake, which sent a bill to the Fire Commissioners for their service here, on that occasion, and were paid by the Commissioners the sum of $100 [$1,660 in 2022 dollars].
The local firemen have agreed that the $850 shall go into the fund for the purchase of a motor pumping engine.

WIRELESS PHONES PUT ON COAST GUARD LIFE BOATS
Washington, Jan. 6.—Life boats of the coast guard are to be equipped with wireless telephone sets, which will keep them in constant communication with shore stations while engaged in rescue work at sea.
Wireless phone for the boats were successfully demonstrated during the recent Coast Guard meeting in Atlantic City. They were invented and perfected by the Bureau of Standards which developed the wireless telephones used by American submarines during the war.
At the Atlantic City demonstration thirty-six foot power driven life-boats communicated easily with the shore while five miles out at sea. Such communication was made possible by the use of a loop or rolled antenna. An aerial antenna is impossible on lifeboats used off the coast because everything above decks must be clear for line throwing and because of the heavy weather encountered.

STATE WON'T HELP TOWN TO WIDEN CONCRETE ROAD
When the Freeholders decided to build concrete pavements through Point Pleasant, Toms River, Tuckerton, Barnegat and on the outskirts of Lakewood, on Route 4, State Highway, to be late reimbursed by the state, the question of widening this twenty foot of concrete so as to make it run from curb to curb was taken up. Toms river people thought it would be fine if Main Street, in the village proper could be widened, and it was suggested that perhaps the State Highway Commission would reimburse the Township Committee in three or four years' time, if the township went ahead and completed this road from curb to curb, outside the twenty-foot center.
Judge W. H. Jeffrey, as a Township Solicitor, took this matter up with the Highway Commissioner, and received a reply that under the present law, this could not be done; but that it was possible some proposed legislation at this session would allow it. However, as the Republican majority leaders have expressed their intention of repealing the law under which counties can now build highways and be reimbursed by the state, this is rather an unlikely contingency.

NEWS FROM YOUR HOME
Some folks say, “Why do you not print the news about my family?” Probably for the same reason poor little Jack did not eat his supper—because we hadn't it. You send in the news from your family or about your friends. We will try to take care of the rest.  When anything happens in your family, that you would want to know about, if it happened in the family of a friend, let us know.

PERSONAL
Mrs. Clifford M. Elwell and son Harold, left this week for Pittsburgh, Pa., to join Captain Elwell, who is stationed there as instructor in the University of Pittsburgh.
Mrs. Helen Widmaier, of Newark, spent the week end at Toms River. Mrs. Widmaier is one of our summer visitors, owning the Sunset farm, on Hooper Avenue.
Frank W. Sutton, Jr., cashier of the First National Bank, begins a two weeks' vacation on Monday next.

DOVER TOWNSHIP SCHOOL NOTES
On Friday, to-day, at 3:00 an unusually interesting picture will be screened at the opera house. The title is “A Mouth Full of Wisdom,” and all stages of tooth growth and decay, and how the latter may be avoided, are pictured. Every person who has a tooth left, or who has a child who has one, will be interested in this picture. No admission fee will be charged.
The Kitchen Club continues to be filled to capacity each noon. The squad for this week including Mamie Irons, Dorothy Flake, Edna Irons, Jeannette Corrigan and Dorothy King. These girls, as well as all the others, work without any compensation and, even so, it takes keen management to keep the club on a self-supporting basis. Under these circumstances it would seem impossible that any person, man or child, could be small enough to break into the supply closet and steal such things as mustard, chipped beef, vanilla and peaches. This has, however, happened on two occasions. Shame on someone!
The Home and School Association wishes to thank all who helped to make the appearance of “Rip Van Winkle” in Toms River such a success. About seventy dollars was realized and about eight hundred persons had a very enjoyable evening.
The Chamber of Commerce has offered a prize of five dollars for the best essay on the history of Toms River. The contest is open to students of the school in grade six or higher. Papers are limited to one thousand words. Each contestant will be given a number which will appear on his paper in lieu of his name. All papers must be handed to the Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Fred Bunnell, on or before Friday, February 10. A committee from the Chamber of Commerce will judge the papers.
The storm on Wednesday interfered greatly with school work, the various departments of the school being so scattered that it is necessary to go out in the weather to get from one to another.

FISH AND GAME
New Gunning Club
J.B. Kinsey, of High Point, has sold Big and Little Sandy Islands, in Barnegat Bay, to Thomas Harrison, of near Hightstown. It is understood that Harrison will organize a gunning club, which in turn will put in gunning blinds and boxes on the points and build a club house on the island.

Old Time Barnegat Bay Decoy & Gunning Show (Newsletter)
by Maria Scandale

Ducking the World On Sandy Island
The more miserable the weather, the better the duck hunting, insist those who know of blustery afternoons crouched in the meadows that surround the Sandy Island Gun Club.
Their sights on the slate-grey skies, one flap ahead of their target on the wing—if they're accurate and lucky—the sportsmen somehow relish the feel of the elements, even if wet and cold is what the elements feel.
Van Campen Heilner, noted wildlife author and one of the club's founding members, once wrote, “If you were forced to do it for punishment, you would probably die right there and then.”
The call of the wildfowl brought them there, and still does, out where it's skill against instinct. Even though ducks can be fooled, it takes some savvy. There is also the call to get away from a more hectic world.
Three-fourths of a mile and years of forgotten traditions away from the rest of the world lies the gunner's paradise.
It's a place that knows no time constraints and no telephone, but, as its members see fit, boasts a standing rib roast or lobster dinner, and “the best liquor and cigars money can buy.”
Best approached in a very small boat, or by hydroplaning a la James Bond over a canal maybe a foot deep, your goal has been reached when you come to the wooden shack at the end and you run out of water.
The marsh gas gurgles a sulfery hello; the signs says, “Duck Hunters Only”; this is the place.
Sandy Island, 70 acres of marsh grass, bayberry and elder laced with ponds and canals, is one of the last gun clubs on Barnegat Bay that can be spoken of in the present tense. Owner Dick Shackleton, a Long Beach Island attorney, bought the backwater ticket away from it all in 1965 with realtor Bill Inman, who died this year.
Though their beloved partner died in April at 62 from complications of diabetes, the members will undoubtedly shoot a few in his memory when the club opens again this fall.
The things that guide Marv Inman could teach, or brother Bill if he were alive, or their father, Joe, a bayman running so strong in the family's blood that he still clams (“I'm a good shot, too,”) at age 84...
...Things that testify to the satisfaction of living off one's surroundings, being good friends, good sports, using efficiently what nature offers. And have they had fun doing it!
An old logbook shows records that the gunning club did better after the new owners bought it than the number of bags during the earlier segment of the century when the island was owned by a railroad man Douglas Fisher, who relished more its getaway appeal.
“They were better hunters, avid duck hunters,” surmised friend and fellow hunter Mike Hill, by profession a successful broker of exclusive Long Beach Island properties. “Billy knew about it because it was in his blood.”

​Bill Inman was such a good shot, recalls Hill, that national champion trap shooters who visited Sandy Island “couldn't touch” the skill of him or Howard Baum, a Harvey Cedars gas station owner. Other guests have included Charles Ritz of the famed Parisian restaurant and Dick Taggart of driving school fame.
Being that “better hunter” Bill alluded to meant known things a man could know only if he'd practiced them most of his life, or if he'd learned them as Bill did, from a grandfather who earned a living as a market hunter. Market hunters filled the orders of the exquisite restaurants of the cities.
To bag a duck, you didn't just aim your 12-gauge up at the Atlantic Flyway, shoot, and hope one came tumbling down.
You knew how to lay out 60 wooden decoys on the pond so the mallards and the widgeons would come in close enough (ducks are social creatures); you knew how to hide the sneakboxes the men sometimes hunted out of; how to call a wild goose; how to anticipate, or lead, a bird's path; and how to factor in the wind, for starters.
“Sometimes you'd wait all day; sometimes they never showed,” Bill Cranmer, 74, of Spray Beach, recalled. “Other times, you'd limit out early in the morning.”
“There's never two days the same out there hunting,” summed up Marv.
In Joe Inman's father's case, you hired a goose to help out.
“We had one goose we called Old Kate,” related Joe, kin to the Inmans of the king's land grant in Surf City; he now lives in Tuckerton. “My dad used to take her to the bay, and we'd put her in the sneakbox. You didn't have to tie her; she was tame. She would honk and honk and honk for the wild geese and they would come in. When my dad would come in to land, Old Kate, she would jump off the boat and fly home, right in the pen,” he said.

​The men claim that foul weather is fowl weather. It's really a matter of following the target.
“You like bad weather, because it makes the ducks fly,” Shackleton said. “If you get a bluebird day, they just go somewhere and sit. And if it's nice and warm, they don't have to eat much to keep their body temperature up. But if it's cold, they're looking for food, and looking for places where there are other ducks.”
Recalled Marv, a guide for 23 years and counting, “We've been out there when it was so bad that I couldn't gather the ducks they killed, and we just had to quit.” The downed fowl would float on northwest wind-borne currents over to Long Beach Island and out of reach of Marv's boat.
“It would have been a waste of time hunting, if you can't gather them, don't kill them.”
There are varying philosophies to the sport of gunning, Hill observed. Bill Inman saw Barnegat Bay and its ducks as “something to harvest,” that he had an inherent right to do. On the other hand, he and his cohorts also appreciated the beauty of the ducks, and of the place year 'round. To Hill, who moved here as a boy, duck hunting was learning something that the locals did.
Hill acknowledged that “there is a macho thing about” hunting. But as he described the feeling, it seemed as if that thing was well earned. “There was the feeling of surviving a day on Barnegat Bay, shooting a bird on the wing—broadbills are particularly hard to hit; they're very fast. I'd been hunting black ducks and puddle ducks for 22 years, when I came to Sandy Island to hunt broadbills, I might as well have started yesterday.”
The older guys like Joe have handed down their skills. Besides teaching his kids lifelong values like “if you want anything, don't go to strangers, come and ask me first,” he taught specific skills.
Gunning, as he described it, was an inheritance you could come into.
“One time, we was gunning up in a pond, up on the meadow, and there was two ducks come by, and I said, 'Billy, watch me kill that last one,' and I did, and he said, 'Pop, I wish I could do that.' I said, 'Well, Billy, if you keep on shooting the way I tell you to shoot, you could do that.' My dad learnt me, and I learnt Billy.”

The End of a Season?
Gunning clubs on Barnegat Bay were most numerous in the 1930s to the early 1950s, when between Barnegat Inlet and the causeway there were six to eight clubs, according to Hill. Sandy Island is the sole remainder of those; many others were burned by the federal government when it bought the lands in the 1960s.
The duck population on Barnegat Bay is down some from the last generation, Shackleton sees, and game laws have made the hunting situation such that Sandy Island is on the market for sale.
“The game laws used to be too liberal back in the '20s, but back in the period when Bill and I were really active, you could kill 10 broadbills a day, and the season ran from before Thanksgiving to after Christmas. Now they've got it so you can only kill three or four ducks.” The season runs one week in November, then comes in again for three weeks beginning in mid-December.
Duck hunters of late do less to deplete the population than development of wetlands has, Hill asserted, crediting the 1971 Wetlands Act with saving remaining stopping grounds.
“There was a period of time in this country, around the 1930s, when the duck population was seriously depleted,” Hill said. “There were no game laws or bag limits.” That was also before organizations like Ducks Unlimited were formed to purchase more wetlands and preserve breeding grounds.
Before the shack on Sandy Island existed as a gun club, it lived another life as an ice barge on the Hudson River. Designed for storing blocks of ice for New York City's restaurants, the scow was heavily insulated, thus serving well for its later rain-soaked duck hunter inhabitants. It was floated to Sandy Island on a flood tide in 1923.
As hunting clubs go, it is described as “very comfortable,” according to the hunters. That means it has a freshwater well and a 10-kilowatt generator powered by a 100-gallon capacity diesel engine. Seeing to convenience wherever possible, the new owners installed hot showers, a gas refrigerator, wall-to-wall carpeting and a picture window. The view of the sedges and natural salt ponds had already been provided.
But there is no television, and only a two-way radio for emergency linkage to the outside world.
“Out there you can go to bed at night and you don't hear the automobiles, and there's no telephone to ring,” to Joe Inman's satisfaction.
Shackleton and Bill Inman ran duck hunting parties in the early years to help cover costs, then suspended that to make Sandy Island a private club.
Visitors in late October are a few geese, and on the ponds, blue winged teal, green winged teal, mallards and black widgeon. Broadbills show up the third week of November, “out on the point.”
Wives have rarely visited; Rita Inman, Bill's wife, recalls with a little guilt that she “was over there once,” but “it smelled so dirty and musty, and you would slip on the dirt outside left by the seagulls.”
Oh, well, even paradise is subjective.
​
Remembering the Island's Co-Owner
Bill Inman had no perceptions that in his lifetime he would be able to own the place he was invited to by his cousin, Douglas Fisher's guide Ken Hausel, when the owner was away, according to Hill. Inman was the first one in his family to have a white collar job, when he was hired into the real estate business in 1956 by Hill's father. At the time, he had just gotten out of the Navy and was working as a clammer. Years later, through his hard work and astute business sense by others, his opulent Loveladies home would have vaulted ceilings and a 40-foot indoor pool. He would travel the world, but value the company of his friends and family. He and Shackleton were invited to become club members by Stockton Fisher, son of the owner.
Inman “was an interesting bridge between an old way of life and a new way of life. He crossed both territories in the course of his life,” Hill observed.
“He had all of the skills that the bayman had, but the bayman still respected him after he became a white-collar guy. That's very unusual. There's a whole different culture out there. And when we live in a summer resort like this, it's 180 degrees from what their lives were. Their lives were spent harvesting the bay.”
Hill added that Inman “had an instinct for what was right, and lived by it.”
“He was one of the most charitable people I've ever known in my life,” Hill said. “You don't know that, because he did it all anonymously. He would never let the recipient know where it all came from. I found this out not from him, but through other sources. He was very conscious of people who were less fortunate than himself.”
Turning the pages of a scrapbook of Sandy Island of not so long ago, Rita Inman takes some comfort in seeing the happy faces of “a good man,” a devoted husband of 36 years, and his friends, proudly posed in front of a line of inert, wet, upside-down ducks.
Put his father, “I miss him, oh, terrible. 'Cause he was my right hand.”
And from Marv, “He wasn't only my brother, he was my best friend.”
And the guys know, when you're sitting in a 5-by-5-by-3-foot subterranean “box” in the meadow for an entire winter day, it's only a very good friend you'd want there with you.

121 Bucks Killed in County
According to reports received by game wardens there were 121 deer killed in Ocean County during the four days of the open season last December. In the state there were 771 bucks killed, only 63 behind the ten-day season of 1920, when 834 were slain. Burlington County led the list with 249 bucks reported; Atlantic was second, with 174; Ocean, 121; Cumberland, 74; Cape May, 10; Camden, 9; Gloucester and Monmouth each 2; Mercer, 1. In north Jersey there were 19 killed in Passaic; 18 in Morris; 16 in Bergen; 33 in Sussex; 44 in Warren. Old hunters figure that this means fifty tons of venison. There were also 36 does found by wardens unlawfully killed...
Two weeks and three days more for wild fowl gunning, and then no more. The wild fowl, though the weather has been fairly cold, have many of them stayed in our bays instead of going south.
The Courier hears frequently of various wild sea birds, gulls, ducks, etc., being found dead, with their feathers gummed up with the heavy oil from ocean-going steamers. The bird that once gets in this oil seems to be doomed.
Great schools of cod are found off the beaches this winter, and hand-line men catch them by the hundreds. The Newark Call, however, says that the Fish Trust in New York only allows the hand-line men a cent a pound for their catch, while the retail price is way up.
J.J. Conklin and Fred Miller, of Newark, were on Barnegat Bay after wild fowl last week.
Coveys of quail are seen again now that the season is over. One man who lives on the edge of town told me of a flock of ten that feed with his chickens in Toms River village.

RECENT DEATHS
James W. Moore
James W. Moore, a well-known resident of Jackson Township, and for the past twenty-five years a court officer at Ocean County Courts, dropped dead at his home, in Harmony, on Thursday of last week, about noon. Dr. Frank Brouwer, of Toms River, was called as Coroner, and gave a death certificate from apoplexy [cerebral hemorrhage or stroke]. “Jim” Moore had been a Republican worker in Jackson Township for a quarter century, and also a constable most of the time. He formerly lived at Van Hiseville, and had a small farm, and was a maker of ladders by trade, making them from oak timber and selling them all through the countryside for twenty-five miles around. The day of his death he had been cutting up a hog. He was alone in the house when taken, and pitched forward on the floor, his face striking the rungs of a chair. In his death struggle he had gnawed the chair rung with his teeth. The body was discovered by his daughter, Mrs. Voorhees. He leaves three daughters...

BARNEGAT
The infant of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Perrine died last Saturday night. The funeral services were conducted by Rev. M.J. Wyngarden, Monday afternoon, at 2 o'clock, at their home. Internment at Masonic Cemetery.

BAY HEAD
About twelve new cottages are being constructed at Bay Head just now, several of them being already enclosed. Also a large number of houses are being repaired, altered or enlarged. Joseph Stillwell, the contractor, is rebuilding the Bay Head Yacht Club docks, and when completed they will be the equal of any in this part of the bay.
The Bay Head Fire Company boys are having lots of fun just now in their pool tournament. It looks now as if Otis Strickland, son of our former mayor, would win out; but they say that Andy and Budd will run him a close second if they can hold their present stride.
Serenaders surprised Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Herbert on the night of January 4. After having made a big noise they all came in the house and spent a pleasant evening playing games, and then refreshments were served.
Elbert Wilbert, P.R.R. track foreman, at Bay Head, has been awarded the prize of $50 [$830 in 2022 dollars] for the best foreman's sub-division under Supervisor S.A. Hart, of Mt. Holly.
Bay Head Fire Company has bought a new ton and a half truck to be equipped as a ladder truck and eventually with chemical tanks.
There was a car driven through town the other day, that looked as if the driver was afraid of running out of gas—it had a sail attached to the rear for emergencies.

BEACH HAVEN
From the sound of things around this part of the bay the gunners must be bringing down the ducks and geese; one might suppose from the racket at times that artillery practice was going on.
The Engleside Hotel is making preparations for next season's business. Running water is being installed in a number of rooms, and other improvements made. Mr. Engle, the manager, does not believe in waiting until the last minute. By having the plumbers there now, they will not be around in the way of the spring house-cleaning.
Mr. Aarons, the Philadelphia druggist, who has served our needs in drug and allied lines from the Engleside Pharmacy for several seasons, announces to his patrons here that he will also occupy the Baldwin Pharmacy, running both stores next season.

BEACHWOOD
The first winter meeting of the Beachwood Woman's Club was held at the Hotel Astor, New York, on Thursday afternoon of last week. Mrs. Geo. Siffert, president, addressed the club, and in closing urged all members to take an active interest in the coming election for Borough Commissioners by making every effort to be in Beachwood next May on election day, and cast her vote...
The Borough Commission held their January meeting on Saturday evening last, Messrs. Haring and Nickerson being present. The tax ordinance for 1922 was passed, and will be found in this issue of The Courier. On January 27 it will come up for final passage, and any taxpayer may then have his say for or against any of its provisions.
Also last week the Commissioners put through its final passage the ordinance for the purchase from the estate of the late B.C. Mayo, lots 51 to 56, inclusive, in block B 28, plat BB, map 7; also a small triangular next to lot 56. The price to be paid is $360 [$6,000 in 2022 dollars].

FORKED RIVER
Large chicken houses have been added at Hollywood farm.

ISLAND HEIGHTS
The many friends of James Forrester will be sorry to hear that he has had quite a bad accident at home, in West Philadelphia, falling down the cellar steps, breaking a rib, cutting his head and bruising himself badly.
The sympathy of our little community is with Mr. and Mrs. J. Hampton Moore in the loss of their son, Mark, who was well known to all on the Heights [J. Hampton Moore was the mayor of Philadelphia twice, from 1920 to 24, then again from 1932 to 1936, apart from other terms in Congress. He was also a homeowner and summer resident of Island Heights. Their son, Mark, 26, was fifth of eight children, and died after an illness, in California].
Charles Thomson sails this week for his old home in Christiana, Norway. He expects to bring his mother with him when he returns.

LAKEHURST
The engagement is announced of Miss Elizabeth Mason, of this place, to Mr. Arthur Brill, of Jersey City. The young woman is telephone operator in Lakehurst, and the young man is employed on the Central Railroad. No date has been set for the wedding.

LANOKA
Mr. Oriole is making some improvements to his property by clearing of the lowland between Main and Pine Streets.
Capt. Jones Bunnell has been cutting timber for his house frame and will commence his home soon as possible.

LAVALLETTE
Charles Hankins and his bride have returned from their honeymoon and will reside at their cottage on President Avenue.
Councilman Arthur Applegate and Nelson Fisher have had good luck in the past week with their nets, bringing in some fine perch.
Otto Peterson has his ice house filled for summer use.

MANAHAWKIN
Harry Crane is building a garage and workshop on his property.
Fred Lumbreyer, of West Creek, expects to open a candy store in the Earl Cranmer property on Bay Avenue.
W.B. Paul met with a painful accident last week by having a box of fish fall on him at the Beach Haven Cold Storage Plant, where he is employed.

NEW EGYPT
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Bell, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Bell, of Columbus, attended the hog killing of Robert Bell, Jr., of near Archertown.
Salome Worth, the four-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Worth, who had scarlentina, is able to be out of bed. We are glad to say the case was a very light one, and hope the precautions that are being taken there will be no further outbreak of this disease.
Theodore Ivins, while skating on Oakford Lake, had quite a serious accident. Mr. Ivins slipped and fell on the ice, striking his face against Edward Tantum's skates, cutting his face so badly he had to have medical attention.

OCEAN GATE
Harry W. Ellis has started work on an up-to-date six-room bungalow on Lakewood Avenue, opposite the station.
John Church and son were recent visitors here, looking over their new home on the river front now under construction by Contractor Black.
The town was without gas one day last week on account of a break in the main on the State road. Quote some inconvenience in several homes here during the short while it was turned off (hate to be without it for a long while).
Moore and Steel, contractors, have started work on another bungalow, on Narragansett Avenue.
First monthly meeting of the Fire Company at the Fire House, on Monday evening last. New officers taking office are: Otto Page, president; Alvin Black, vice-president; Fred Heitzman, secretary; Chris Angerer, treasurer; Raymond Keisel, financial secretary.
The ladies of the Ocean Gate M.E. Church are planning a foot social, to be held in the church on the evening of January 20. Some say, what is a foot social? Well, we have tried hard enough to find out what it is, but the only answer we can receive is to come and find out. So, don't forget to be on hand.

PLEASANT PLAINS
Mrs. Holub lost a valuable cow this week; while running, it fell and broke its neck.
Dr. Edgar Ill has quite a stock farm—sheep, cows, pigs and horses.
Roads are bad enough.

POINT PLEASANT
Report says that Owen J. Mellee, of Red Bank, who was at work on Prof. Lewis Haupt's jetty, on the south point of Manasquan Inlet, has been stopped by the federal authorities, on the ground that no permission had been obtained from the government at Washington to undertake the work. According to Point Pleasant Leader, the inhabitants on the south shore want the work to proceed, and those on the Monmouth County, or north shore, are opposed to it.
The Borough of Point Pleasant Beach has an entire gravity system sewer with an outfall into the ocean, and including salary paid to the superintendent, its upkeep last year was about $500 [$8300 in 2022 dollars].

SEASIDE HEIGHTS
The Seaside Heights Fire Company have installed in the fire house a hot water heating system that is giving satisfaction in every way. It was bought by Edgar Hart, the local dealer, who, with the help of the firemen, installed it free of charge.
While returning from Lavallette, where he had gone after gasoline last Sunday night with his Ford sedan, A.W. Driver, of this place, had the misfortune to have his car strike a rut in the road near Ortley which caused the car to leave the road and tip over, causing to catch fire and burn up. W. Houser, who was with Mr. Driver, and Mr. Driver, escaped without injury.
The Lakewood and Coast Electric Company, who are furnishing the Heights with electric current, have removed their wires on the east side of the boulevard and have placed them on the west side, thereby eliminating the double row of poles that were on the boulevard for several blocks.

SEASIDE PARK
Mr. and Mrs. Ben Ellis were Toms River visitors last Saturday, taking in the movies at the Traco.
Frank Hewitt and Andrew Wickham made a trip to Surf City last week, returning with ducks and geese galore.
C.W. Mathis is building a bungalow on the boulevard in the upper part of the borough.
Miss Louise Parker is back at the telephone exchange, after several weeks of sickness and under the doctor's care.
Dr. L.L. Righter has been here this past week looking after patients who seem to be troubled with the popular cold that's going the rounds.
F.W. Gregor has purchased a piano for his daughter, Dorothy.
Young Horace Lippincott, we hope some day, will master his new violin received on Christmas.

SILVERTON
The stock, wagons, hay, corn and farming implements of the late Watson Irons were sold at public auction on Tuesday of this week. William Mason, of Lakewood, was the auctioneer.

WEST CREEK
The State Highway Commission are rebuilding the two bridges on the Main Shore road in this town. Steel girders are used to hold the plank deck. The bridges will be much strengthened. Formerly they were posted to carry four tons weight.
John D. Van Horn has bought the lot adjoining his property and is rebuilding the ice house and barns and making other improvements.
Amos Ridgway of Coastguard station 112, spent his liberty day at home.
Mrs. Rhoda Brown is visiting in Bayonne. Mrs. Robert Aspinwall of Forked River is teaching the village school in her absence.
Curt Fenimore is still keeping up his record as a game hunter. He and Clarence Parker, killed over eighty geese and ducks last week. Curt's aim is sure... but he can't trap opossums.

January 6th, 1922
December 30th, 1921​
December 23rd, 1921
December 16th, 1921
​December 9th, 1921
December 2nd, 1921
November 25th, 1921
November 18th, 1921​
November 11th, 1921​
November 4th, 1921
October 28th, 1921
October 21st, 1921
​October 14th, 1921
October 7th, 1921
September 30th, 1921
September 23rd, 1921
September 16th, 1921
September 9th, 1921

Your donations support preserving and restoring our shared maritime heritage on the waters of Toms River and Barnegat Bay, through our boat workshop, educational programs and special events. Thank you.

(After Jan. 18th) Open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays - 10 am to 2 pm
78 East Water Street, Toms River, NJ 08753
Guided Tours By Request - New Members Always Welcome
(732) 349-9209 - [email protected]

Welcome to another Wooden Boat Wednesday!

This week the clock spins backwards 150 years to January 1872, where an article in the New Jersey Courier - at that time carrying the long additional name of Ocean, Monmouth and Burlington Fruit Grower - proved the crew of Life Saving Station No. 9 at Squan Beach an integral part of shore shipping safety.

NEW JERSEY COURIER
OCEAN, MONMOUTH AND BURLINGTON FRUIT GROWER.
TOMS RIVER, N.J., WEDNESDAY, JAN. 10, 1872

​On Tuesday, 26th of last month the Keeper and crew of the government Life Saving Station, No. 9 on Squan Beach, were instrumental in rescuing from certain death, by means of a life-saving apparatus, the crew of the Italian barque Villotine, numbering fifteen persons.

The vessel hailed from Genoa, Capt. G. Chiwpeli, with a cargo of marble, bound for New York; and came ashore at half-past ten o'clock at night, a heavy surf rendering it impossible to use the boats. As soon as discovered from the shore, James Chadwick keeper, of the station, immediately mustered his crew, and with such apparatus as was available under the circumstances, safely brought every man on board to shore, where they were properly cared for, and transportation furnished them to New York.

The above incident satisfactorily demonstrates some of the benefits to humanity which the Life Saving Station is designed to accomplish when properly directed. Evils have been allowed to creep into the system in the past, but it is hoped that a new order of things will be observed in the future. To this end the present Superintendent, Ex-Senator Ware, is devoting his energy and attention. Additional houses are being built and life-saving facilities increased and improved. Where he has considered it expedient for the better efficiency of the service he has made other appointments, but in no case has a change been made which was detrimental to the interests of the service. Perhaps the best proof of what we have here stated which can be offered is the noble record made by the service since Mr. Ware's appointment in November. This shows a list of names numbering some fifty and upwards of persons who have been rescued through the instrumentality of our Life Saving institution from wrecks, on the Jersey coast.

Your donations support preserving and restoring our shared maritime heritage on the waters of Toms River and Barnegat Bay, through our boat workshop, educational programs and special events. Thank you.

(After Jan. 18th) Open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays - 10 am to 2 pm
78 East Water Street, Toms River, NJ 08753
Guided Tours By Request - New Members Always Welcome
(732) 349-9209 - [email protected]

Welcome to another era in the Toms River area's past, one century ago this week!

Let your mind wander as you consider life around January 6th, 1922, courtesy the New Jersey Courier weekly newspaper and Ocean County Library archives, and peppered with items of maritime interest (around a 15 minute read).

(written by NJ Courier editor, William H. Fischer, as he sat at his desk above Main Street near Washington Street; it was much like a collection of online social media updates seen today)

1922
January
First month.
Wintry weather.
Bay frozen over.
Moonlit evenings.
A week of skating.
Days getting longer.
Full moon next Friday.
Rain on Wednesday afternoon.
Lincoln's Birthday is the next holiday.
The Christmas tree has lost its glory.
Plenty of strong winds; also plenty of dust.
A New Year's dance was given at the Marion Inn on Saturday evening, and was taken advantage of by the young people of the village.
The Toms River Yacht Club gave a dance last Friday evening at which many of the members appeared as Pierrots or Pierrettes, and the chief refreshments were hot dogs.
Young folks have had lots of fun skating. The Jakes Branch cranberry bog [located between Beachwood and what is today South Toms River Borough, now derelict and grown over for many decades] has been the favorite spot hereabouts. Down at Pershing the cranberry bog was also in use.
Automobiles shed their green and white tags on Saturday last and blossomed forth in the 1922 black and white colors. Dealers tags again have a big D in front of the number; passenger carriers have the letter O, for omnibus; freight carriers the letter X.
John Collins, of Keyport, on Saturday, took his “Moving Inn” back to that place, after having it at Prickly Pear Island all the fall. The “Inn” is what our English cousins would call a caravan—a house on a big truck, as large as the biggest moving vans you see. The interior has a kitchen and supplies, with oil stove, four bunks and two transoms for sleeping, a coal stove, folding table, wash bowl, toilet, etc. with running water and electric lights.
Old Man Winter has a firm grip on us now.
The Boy Scouts give a dance tonight in their hall in the Bump building, with Wardell's Orchestra to supply the music.
The teachers in the village school who live out of town and who went home for the Christmas holidays were all back “on the job” on Wednesday.
Former Sheriff Chafey had some fine shooting the first of the week, going down to High Bar from his home at Point Pleasant—at least it was a fine goose that he left at the home of the Courier man.
The sun rises his very latest this morning, at 7:25. Beginning to-morrow he will rise a little earlier each day till June 22.
Monday, January 2, the holiday, was the coldest day of the winter. A cold wind blew and it froze, even in the sun, all day. The mercury hit five above zero that morning.
Clifton Avenue is coming along in fine shape. The new owner of the Ida Robinson farm is building ten laying houses, and will go in for chickens extensively. The new owner of the Frank Hankins house has doubled its size. Rev. I.E. Hicks has been making additions to his home.
The following were added to the membership of the Toms River Yacht Club last Friday evening: Jesse W. Herman, Martin Wellbrook, Arthur S. King, C.H. Grier, Philip F. Conover, P.P. Elkington, Joseph B. Willits, Lincoln Boger, C.B. Dickson, Joseph R. Johnson, all of Toms River, and Frank B. McKaig, of Philadelphia.

JETTIES ARE HOLDING THIS WINTER AT BARNEGAT INLET
While there have been no great storms or storm tides so far this winter on the coast, the jetties at Barnegat Inlet are said to be holding and also to be accumulating and holding sand. The dwellers at the beach are pleased that there has so far been no loss over last summer, though the winter is nearly half gone. Complaint is made that sand which was gained by one or more of the jetties was scraped up and carted to another place by the contractor, who had the government contract to fill in at the new site of the coast guard station, but at the present time it is not necessarily thought that this will do any great damage.

CAUGHT MAKING HOME BREW IS FINED $75 IN COURT
Charles Basler, of Beachview, near Manahawkin, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to the charge of making intoxicants at his home. He was fined $75 [$1,240 in 2022 dollars], and given a warning that the jails were built for violators of the law. Owing to its being a convenient place for the fishpound men from the beach to assemble, Manahawkin has had a good deal of trouble with illicit liquor; but the officials think they are getting it cleaned up.

BUILD CRUISER ROUND ENGINE
Mayor “Bill” Rote, of Island Heights, is showing yachtsmen a new scheme in boat building. In putting together a fifty-foot cruiser for Charles K. Haddon, of Haddonfield and Island Heights, Bill, instead of building the yacht and setting the engine in it, set the engine on its bed, bolted to the yacht's keel, and is building the boat around the engine. The engine is a forty-horse Wolverene, and weighs a couple of tons. That was why the unusual method was devised. During the war, and up till this fall, Mayor Rote had charge of the building of pontoons at League Island Navy Yard, Philadelphia, for seaplanes put together there, and had a good many boat builders from this section working there.

STATEN ISLANDER GIVES T.R. EGG PLANT A BOOST
In a recent issue of the Staten Island Daily Advance, a third of a column was devoted to the views of a couple of their residents who had recently made a visit at Toms River, and while there inspected the Egg Packing Plant. They praised the new proposition and declared it the only way of getting fresh eggs direct but they found fault with the prices as they compared with New York quotations. They didn't stop to consider that city eggs, as a rule, are storage eggs, even those that are sold as strictly fresh.

TOMS RIVER BOY GOES TO REBUILD WAR-TORN FRANCE
Henry C. Irons, of Plainfield and New York, a Toms River boy, one of the foremost construction engineers in this country, whose services were recently sought by the French government to undertake the task of rebuilding the devastated areas, sailed with Mrs. Irons on the Aquitania Tuesday, for Europe, for the purposes of making a personal inspection of the situation and learning the extent of the reconstruction work...

T.R.R. WORTH $503,946 SAME AS YEARS AGO
Last week the Interstate Commerce Commission, at Washington, valued the line of the Tuckerton Railroad Co., operating 29 miles of road, between Whitings and Tuckerton, at $503,946 [$8.3 million in 2022 dollars], as of June 30, 1916.

TRY C.R.R. FOR DEATH OF EIGHT AT PERTH AMBOY
The Central Railroad of New Jersey must stand trial for manslaughter on January 9, next Monday, on a charge of manslaughter, growing out of the grade crossing accident at Perth Amboy last summer, when eight firemen of that city were killed. Allan Ridgway, of Barnegat, was conductor, and Theodore Brown, of the same village, was engineer, on the last train from Jersey City to Barnegat, and were coming through Perth Amboy, at forty miles an hour, when a fire truck, answering an alarm, crashed into the train at a grade crossing. Eight of the firemen were killed.
The railroad attorneys demanded that the gate tender, who is also under indictment, be tried first, so that he might testify in the railroad trial without incriminating himself. This motion was refused by Judge Daly, sitting at New Brunswick. It would look from this as if the railroad defence might be that the flagman was at fault.

LANOKA MAN'S CAR HIT AT FARMINGDALE CROSSING
A car driven by Harry Rhodes, of Lanoka, who was on his way home from Newark, and had with him his little son, Harold, aged four years, was hit at the Main Street crossing, Farmingdale, on Saturday night last, December 31, by a train of empty passenger cars of the Central Railroad going back to Jersey City from Lakewood. Rhodes car was mashed to pieces and his boy was badly hurt, but Rhodes himself was almost unhurt.
Passenger traffic on the New Jersey Central Railroad, between New York and Lakewood was unusually heavy Saturday, necessitating the running of several trains in two or more sections. That night, at 9 o'clock, a long train of empty passenger coaches returning to Jersey City after transporting passengers to Lakewood, struck Rhodes' Brisco touring car on the Main Street crossing.
Rhodes was not familiar with the road and did not know that he was approaching the railroad track until the train was within a few yards of his car. Realizing his imminent peril, intuitively he swung his steering wheel and ran his automobile parallel with the track in the same direction as the train, which was speeding a mile a minute. The locomotive missed his car, but the latter unfortunately swerved slightly toward the right, when it struck an obstruction and was side-swiped by a passenger coach.
Owing to the high speed of the train the impact was terrific. The automobile was hurled thirty feet more and completely demolished. Rhodes was thrown through the windshield, but escaped practically uninjured. His son, Harold, aged four years, was not so fortunate, as he sustained severe injuries, one side of his body being badly bruised and he was also probably internally injured. The impetus of the train was so great it was nearly a mile before it was stopped and then backed to the place of the accident.
Dr. Walter P. Havens attended the injured lad who, with his father, remained over night at the home of Jonathan C. Ackerman. They were taken to Lanoka Sunday morning by Walter I. Applegate.
Rhodes was a frequent visitor in Newark, but formerly traveled the Adelphia-Lakewood road. He was advised yesterday to change his route and return home through Farmingdale.
The car was literally crushed to fragments and the escape of the occupants from instant death is inexplicable. The crossing where the accident occurred has a flagman on duty during the day. At night the only precautionary signal to warn travelers that a train is approaching is a bell that rings automatically when the train is in the block.

NEED WATER FOR BOGS
Will New Jersey be compelled to adopt water-right laws similar to those covering irrigation systems in the arid western states? This question is agitating cranberry bog owners in a wide stretch of the central Jersey water shed, where thousands of acres of vines are said to have been ruined during the last week, as far as next year's crop is concerned, by inability of the owners to collect in the reservoirs a sufficient quantity of water to flood the bogs. Bogs at the headwaters of the streams are well supplied with water, but while their reservoirs were being filled, following a long summer and fall drought, it is the contention of owners further down stream that their bogs were deprived of their natural supply.
With drought conditions having created similar trouble, more or less serious, during recent years, the ownership of water in the tiny streams that flow out of the central Jersey swamps has become a matter of increasing dispute. Bogs at the headwaters of the streams have advanced in value, but the owners of other bogs have refused to recede in their argument that they are entitled to a share of all water flowing from the original springs. Some owners have settled the question for a time by purchasing the waste swamp land along the entire water course from which they fill their reservoirs, but their position is attacked by the other owners, who claim the water in the streams is a publicly-owned resource.

LETTING PROF. HAUPT HOLD THE BAG AT SQUAN INLET
Reports from Point Pleasant seem to confirm the suspicion that the resorts up that way are letting Prof. Lewis M. Haupt, a summer cottager there, hold the bag, in the matter of inlet improvement. The story is that Professor Haupt has gone ahead at his own expense and with what he could borrow from friends, to build the jetty that is expected to maintain the inlet, and that now there is no way open to reimburse him or to complete the work.
In the early part of 1921 the Manasquan Inlet closed three different times, and had to be opened each time by the residents along the river. There was grave danger that it would close again during the summer, as a bar formed only a little way outside the inlet, only needing a storm to fling its sand all the way across. As some put it, the sand which formed the bar across the inlet when it was closed, was only moved a few hundred feet to sea when the inlet was opened. It was the talk of all that section that three boroughs in Ocean County, Point Pleasant Beach, Point Pleasant and Bay Head, and the Township of Brick, and the boroughs in Monmouth County of Brielle, Manasquan, with Manasquan Beach and Wall Township, would unite to keep the inlet open.
Now these municipalities all seem to agree that they have no warrant for spending money outside their limits. Application has been made to the state and to the county, but the county is also questioning its power to spend money in this way, and the Department of Commerce and Navigation say the state has provided them with no funds for such purposes. Joseph F. Moran and another summer resident of Point Pleasant Beach offered $500 each [$8,272 each in 2022 dollars] for the work, but the public subscription idea did not get much farther. While unable to say who is to be blamed in the matter, it looks as if aged Professor Haupt was likely to lose most of the money he has put in this jetty. He agreed (by the way) to ask nothing for this work unless it did what he claimed it would do. Mr. Haupt is now in his winter home in Cynwyd, Pa. The matter was before the Board of Freeholders on Tuesday. The general opinion seems to be that the maintenance of waterways is a matter of the federal government as that government claims jurisdiction over navigable channels.

BARNEGAT CITY JCT. DEPOT WILL BE BEACH ARLINGTON
Reports received from Long Beach indicate the removal of the Barnegat City Junction Station to Beach Arlington soon. The Pennsylvania R.R. hopes to do away with an extra stop by making this change and at the same time give Beach Arlington the benefit of an agent during the summer season. Beach Arlington and Ship Bottom, combined with their fish pounds, should net the R.R. a nice revenue, and with the additional service the population of the two resorts should increase [Beach Arlington later joined with Ship Bottom to incorporate as a unified municipality].

DEER HUNTER WHO LOST FOOT LATER LOST HIS LIFE
Edmund Hayes, of Camden, who was shot in the deer woods the first day of the deer season, December 16, died last week as a result of the wound. His foot was amputated at Mt. Holly Hospital, and he was removed to Camden. Later it was found necessary to take off still more of the leg, but the infection spread, causing his death. Hayes was watching the operation of a new gun, or trying it out himself, when the charge went through his foot. This is the second death from the deer hunting season, from wounds received near the Ocean-Burlington County lines. The other death was that of Henry Johnson, of Red Bank, a Toms River boy, who died at Kimball Hospital, Lakewood, from a gun shot wound received at Pasadena, from the gun of John Oakes, an employee, of the Red Bank Register, and a friend of Johnson's.

BEFORE JUSTICE KING
Two Manahawkin cases were heard by Justice A.C. King, on Tuesday, in the Court House:
Harry Fromm, a Manahawkin farmer, “swore his life against” Mr. Basler, a Beachwood farmer, growing out of a dispute, Fromm alleging that Basler had threatened him. The latter was “bound over to keep the peace.”
Randall Thompson, for years the draw tender on the Bay bridge, at the Bonnett, between Manahawkin and Long Beach, was accused by Game Warden J. Hamilton Evernham, of selling eight wild ducks, and was fined $20 on each charge, or $160 [$2,647 in 2022 dollars]. Randall is a poor working man, and that is a big sum for him to raise, accordingly his counsel, Judge Berry, will appeal. Randall's defense was, and he had five or six witnesses to back him up, that the ducks were not wild fowl, but “munglers,” raised by Captain Holmes, of the Ship Bottom pound fishery, who had fifty or sixty ducks in which black ducks, mallards and various breeds of tame ducks were hopelessly intermixed.

FISH AND GAME
The Board of Freeholders on Friday of last week paid bounties of $3 [$50 in 2022 dollars] each on 84 foxes. The fox pelt is worth about $5 [$82 in 2022 dollars], so that the fox hunters are not altogether wasting their time, though it would be poor business if they were doing it to make a living, as many a day they have no fox pelt, but only their fun for their day's trouble. The “Thompson boys,” of Toms River, have bagged five foxes this winter, and sold the pelts at $5 each, having a standing order for skins at that price. The Britton boys, of Berkeley Township, have the record this winter with about fifteen foxes.
With the bay frozen up te gunners are looking for better shooting among the wildfowl. The bay closed up last week, and the cold weather the first of this week strengthened the ice. Saturday morning, between the ice and the southerly gale, there was some pretty good shooting, if you happened to be at the right spot.
Saturday, Dr. O.C. Bogardus, of Keyport, with a party of friends, came through town on their way home from the Doctor's gunning place, on “Ma'shelder” Island in the lower bay. They had a fine lot of black duck, and were bewailing a cruel fate that compelled them to leave for home Saturday morning, when the fowl were flying. But the fact was that they had 1921 tags on their car and were taking no chances in coming up the shore with green tags on January 1—not with the state police patrolling the roads.
The Newark Call says that Thomas Hawley, of Elizabeth, recently got a goose and 15 ducks at Green Island, and is coming back for another chance at them. Fred Neiman, of New Brunswick, will come with him. The Call also says that George Wald, of Newark, brought up a backload of ducks and geese last week from Beach Haven. His good luck will result in a number of his friends going to Beach Haven this month.
Bert Dorsett and Paul Cranmer, of Toms River, have bagged a number of ducks “up the creek,” hardly a day going by one or the other getting a shot. That comes of living right on the gunning ground, so to speak.
Our Courier “Devil” [printer's devil was an apprentice in a printing establishment who performed a number of tasks, such as mixing tubs of ink and fetching type] spent the New Year gunning at the mouth of Goose Creek, and at the Bay Bridge. He says he killed a redhead; but others who are envious insist that the duck had its feet frozen in the ice, and was untouched by shot. Still, if he got the duck--

PERSONAL
Burtis H. Ellis, who for the past five years has been president and general manager of the Manhattan Electrical Company, of New York, one of the large electrical concerns in that city, retired from active business on December 31. Mr. Ellis is the son of Sheriff Frank Ellis, of Toms River, and has a summer home in Barnegat. He has been with the Manhattan Company for more than twenty-five years, and seen almost the entire growth of electricity as we now use it in daily life.
Edward Crabbe, Jr., accompanied his sister, Mrs. Starr Ballou, to her home in Concord, N.H., this week, returning to Princeton University.
Capt. C.M. Elwell, U.S. Army, left last Saturday for the University of Pittsburgh, where he is an instructor in army tactics and strategy. Mrs. Elwell expects to join him in that city in a week or so.
Miss Harriet Simpson has returned from Amatol, where she spent the holidays with her parents [Amatol is today considered a “ghost town,” having been a WWI munitions factory town. More can be learned of it through Atlas Obscura, here: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/amatol-ghost-town]

TRENTON GOSSIP
Governor Edwards announced that there is no probability of the state of New Jersey losing Camp Dix as a military reservation, either now or in the immediate future. This information is the result of correspondence which has passed between Secretary of War John W. Weeks and the governor, covering an extensive period...

RECENT DEATHS
Cassius W. Seymour
For twenty-five years known to all of downtown New York City as “The Blind Stationer of Maiden Lane,” Cassius W. Seymour, a former Toms River boy, died at his home in Passaic, N.J., on December 28. His body was brought to Toms River, and laid away in Riverside Cemetery on Saturday last. He lives a widow and one son. Mr. Seymour spent his boyhood in Toms river, and learned the printer's trade on The Courier, going from here to New York, where he was employed on the Weekly Witness, at that time an important religious and family paper. He later went in the jewelry business and built up a successful trade in the wholesale jewelry line, when he went blind. Undaunted, though unable to continue his jewelry trade, he started a stationary business which he carried on for a quarter century at 37-39 Maiden Lane, New York City. He was 60 years of age. A few years ago he spent a summer with his family at the Seymour house, on Lein Street, where he was brought up, and renewed old acquaintances. His ear was so keen that he recognized voices of old acquaintances after years of separation. It was always his desire to return to Toms River to live.

BARNEGAT
A number of young people attended the dance at Manahawkin last Monday night.
J.H. Gaskill is making another improvement in his movie theatre. He has lowered the floor near the stage, making an orchestra pit and will install a larger electric organ and orchestra.

BAYVILLE
The young folks are having a fine time skating.
The Cardinal bird almost daily visits at the home of Mr. and Mrs. James Cornelius.

BEACH HAVEN
The advance guard of the company at Red Bank, who were awarded the contract to move Bond's Coast Guard Station, arrived this week, and is making arrangements for the job, hiring men, engaging stable and garage room. The station is to be moved back and south a total distance of a thousand yards, and placed on the west side of the road. This distance from the continually encroaching sea, which seems to be more active in that section of the island, the government officials believe will insure the station's safety.
The cold snap of the first part of the week found our people well prepared, as it had been expected during all the pleasant weather of the past month. There is plenty of coal here, as well as other fuel, and the spring and summer's prosperous months have well fortified the citizens for a period of idleness if it is forced on us by the weather.
With the advent of snow and ice on the meadows and feeding grounds of the wild fowl our gunners are wearing their white suits, giving them the appearance of a “white-cap” raid when several of them walk up the Dock Road in company. Fowls are plentiful and especially fat and fine flavored.

FORKED RIVER
The New Year's even dance at the Greyhound was one of the most successful ever given there, about two hundred couples from various parts of Ocean County, and from the cities being present. The six-piece orchestra music was much enjoyed. Prizes were given in a number of events.
A good-sized seaplane, called the Bluebird, has been hauled out at Wilbert's boat-yard.

LAKEHURST
“Jimmie” Maleady tried a new stunt on the ice at the lake Tuesday. He was riding a bicycle with his skates on when he struck a thin place and went through. Fortunately there was help enough to get him out without any delay.

PLEASANT PLAINS
Water is scarce out in this part of the country. Some have to borrow water of their more fortunate neighbors.
Mr. and Mrs. Cephas Johnson have moved from Cedar Grove back on the farm. Cephas is busy sawing wood for his neighbors. We are glad they are back with us.

SEASIDE PARK
William Bates is substituting at Coast Guard Station, 109.
The Daughters of Pocahontas held a cake and ice cream social on Saturday evening, in the hall. The large crowd present remained to see the old year out and usher in the new year.
The community tree, which stood on the church grounds was dismantled on Tuesday last.
Several of our young folks attended the dance at Bay Head on Friday evening.
Mr. and Mrs. Otto Wickham are the proud parents of a nine-pound girl, born on Monday, in Philadelphia.

SHIP BOTTOM
Andrew Martin has returned home after spending one year in Alaska.
Calvin Falkinburg, Keeper of the Coast Guard Station, spent a few days in Tuckerton this week with his family.
Clarence Olsen is keeping the fishery's horses for the winter.
We have one of our streets all graveled for the summer season.
It looks like winter on this part of the beach, with the bay all frozen over.
While gunning one day last week two of our boys killed four geese and some black duck.

SILVERTON
Some of the sports here livened up a little Saturday night just as the clock struck 12. The church bell rang, guns were shot off, etc. Don't know whether they were welcoming the New Year in or the Old Year out—at any rate, they seemed to be having a good time.
There is an epidemic here that seems like colds—most every family has one or more members sick.
Monday was truly a bitter cold day for outside work or sport. However, it being a holiday a party of gunners, including James Riley, Thomas and William Quigley and Cecil Elmer, of Mt. Holly, motored to Silverton and went out on Barnegat Bay to shoot ducks, but all they got was a good cooling off. There was too much ice for gunning.
Bartine Clayton and his saw mill are kept busy here these days since the cold weather began.
Dan O'Hare killed a large hen hawk last Thursday that measured over three feet across its wings, from tip to tip.
Dick Thomas, of Manasquan, a frequent visitor here (because of a charming young lady you know) went down to Barnegat Inlet last week for a short time duck shooting. He bagged nineteen black ducks, one goose and a brant.
Mrs. Herbert Brand, of the Larue Farm, has recently had a fine chicken house built for her beautiful flock of black Leghorns.

December 30th, 1921​
December 23rd, 1921
December 16th, 1921
​December 9th, 1921
December 2nd, 1921
November 25th, 1921
November 18th, 1921​
November 11th, 1921​
November 4th, 1921
October 28th, 1921
October 21st, 1921
​October 14th, 1921
October 7th, 1921
September 30th, 1921
September 23rd, 1921
September 16th, 1921
September 9th, 1921

Your donations support preserving and restoring our shared maritime heritage on the waters of Toms River and Barnegat Bay, through our boat workshop, educational programs and special events. Thank you.

(After Jan. 18th) Open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays - 10 am to 2 pm
78 East Water Street, Toms River, NJ 08753
Guided Tours By Request - New Members Always Welcome
(732) 349-9209 - [email protected]

Welcome to another Wooden Boat Wednesday!

This week we give the pirates and shore wreckers a break and turn our attention now to the majestic ocean-going sailing yachts of the late 19th and early 20th century. Appearing in the pages of the New York Tribune on September 23rd, 1902, the thrilling race for the Ocean Cup was on from the western shore of Coney Island down the entire coastline of the Jersey Shore to the Cape May lightship and back again. Enjoy!

SHE MAKES HER WAY WITH THE OCEAN YACHT CUP ON HER TIME ALLOWANCE.

​With the wind whistling through her rigging and the steep seas combing over her lee bow, the stanch little schooner yacht Iroquois, that weathered the blizzard of 1888, came tearing past the Highlands of Navesink at noon on Sunday, the winner of the handsome ocean yacht race cup offered by Commodore Robert E. Tod of the Atlantic Yacht Club [Brooklyn, est. 1866].

Close on her weather quarter the big schooner Coronet, famous as the winner of the $20,000 race [$646,390 in 2022 dollars] to Queenstown, was slowly but surely overhauling her, and at 12:40 she passed the Iroquois. Nip and tuck on the same starboard tack they had fought it out in the heavy seas for thirty-eight miles from Barnegat, the smaller yacht staggering under a reefed mainsail, while the other carried whole sail.

​After sailing something over 230 miles each, these two yachts that started only 2 minutes 37 seconds apart finished off Sea Gate [western end of Coney Island] with the Coronet leading by only 4 minutes 30 seconds—a truly remarkable contest. By reason of the time allowance given the Iroquois by the Coronet the former wins the race by quite a good margin.

Strange to say, the schooner Endymion, owned by George Launder, Jr., which won the two former ocean races arranged by the Atlantic Yacht Club, was the leader in the race all the way from Sea Gate to the outer mark—the Northeast End Lightship, off Cape May—when the wind was free and light and the water smooth, but when the windward work began in a strong breeze and a heavy sea the other two yachts outsailed her.

​The Thistle, Commodore Tod's handsome topsail schooner, behaved splendidly in the heavy sea, and sailed fast with the wind free, but in the windward work she was much hampered by her yards on the foremast, causing her to fall off and to make leeway. While the others were able to sail within four points of the wind, six points was about as close as she would lie—a great handicap in such a contest. Commodore Tod's guests on board the Thistle were C.E. Schuyler, of the regatta committee; Major J. Fred Ackerman, George W. Rowan and Ernesto Simardetti.

On board the Endymion as guests of Mr. Lauder were Charles A. Forster, J.A. Ruland and Richard Sheldon. Horace Bullock, of Philadelphia, was the guest of J.G.N. Whitaker, the owner of the Iroquois.

​A better start one would not wish to see than the five schooners when they crossed the line at 9:45 on Saturday morning, with a splendid breeze from the eastward, and all plain sail set, for they were not permitted, according to the rules, to carry their club topsails and other light sails. Down the Swash Channel they went, the big Endymion leading the way, with the Sachem crowding her close for a time, the Iroquois following close in her wake, and the Coronet, having passed the Thistle just before they reached the bell buoy at the entrance to the Swash, a few lengths ahead of that yacht as they passed the Romer Shoal Lighthouse.

​While the others were passing out by Scotland Lightship at a ten knot clip, Commodore Tod cut off corners by sending his schooner Thistle through the channel inside the False Hook [east of Sandy Hook], and gained at least a mile by it.

Down the long thirty mile stretch of Jersey beach they went, the Sachem dropping out soon after passing Seabright and returning to the city. The others were surprised, for she was well ahead when she quit, and she really had a good show of winning the race if she had kept on.

Sea Girl was abeam of the Thistle at 1 p.m. The Endymion was then two miles ahead; the Iroquois had just passed the Coronet, and had taken second place. These two passed Barnegat at about 3 o'clock, and as the wind grew lighter the Thistle, with her foresail, topsail and topgallant sail set, began to overhaul the Coronet, which was then on her starboard bow.

​Little Egg Harbor was passed by the Thistle at 5:20, and at 7 p.m. Absecon and Atlantic City were passed at a distance of about four miles.

Two hours later the red and white twin lights of the Northeast End Lightship began to twinkle right ahead. The yachts rounded that mark in the following order and times:

Yacht – Finish H.M.S. – Elapsed Time H.M.S.
Endymion – 9:16:00 – ----------
Iroquois – 9:24:00 – 11:37:30
Coronet – 9:55:00 – 12:05:53
Thistle – 10:07:00 – 12:20:10

This shows that after sailing 110 miles the Endymion had only beaten the Iroquois 8 minutes 25 seconds. The latter had outsailed the Coronet 29 minutes 23 seconds, and the Coronet had outsailed the Thistle 14 minutes 17 seconds.

Close hauled on the starboard tack they all began the return trip in the moonlight, but the weather was hazy, and overhead the scud was flying, presaging wind. It came with a vengeance at 1 o'clock, piping out of the east-northeast, and driving a big sea before it that soon made things lively for all hands on board the racing craft. The Coronet and the Iroquois both made a short tack inshore until they made the bell buoy off Atlantic City, then they stood offshore for five miles, and when they came in again they made Barnegat Light at 4:30 o'clock on Sunday morning.

Standing offshore again for several miles into the now heavy seas, they were able, from the good offing, to lay their courses without another tack for the Scotland Lightship. It was quite thick weather all the forenoon, but they made out the Endymion far to leeward of them for a short time. She, like the Thistle, had made several short tacks inshore, hoping to shorten the distance, but the breeze was too strong and the sea too heavy to admit of much tacking with profit, so they both lost ground by the operation. The Iroquois had to lower her foresail to repair a head earring, and she reefed her mainsail soon after. The Coronet carried whole sail all through the bad weather to the finish, but the Thistle was compelled to put one reef in her mainsail when it blew the hardest. Whole sail was made again, however, after passing Barnegat, and she made good time during the last hours of the race, coming up the Bay and through the Swash Channel carrying four lower sails and a flying jib. The night was clear, but very dark, and the wind blowing fully thirty miles an hour.

The official summary, as furnished by George Hill, of the regatta committee of the Atlantic Yacht Club, is as follows:

Yacht and Owner – Finish H.M.S. – Elapsed Time H.M.S.
Iroquois, J.S.N. Whitaker – 1:40:00 – 27:54:00
Coronet, Louis Bossert – 1:35:30 – 27:39:30
Endymion, George Lauder, Jr. – 3:04:00 – 29:56:09
Thistle, Robert E. Tod – 9:30:00 – 35:35:00

Thus the Iroquois wins by 14 minutes 30 seconds actual time. The corrected time will be given out on Wednesday, when the time allowance has been calculated.

Your donations support preserving and restoring our shared maritime heritage on the waters of Toms River and Barnegat Bay, through our boat workshop, educational programs and special events. Thank you.

(After Jan. 18th) Open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays - 10 am to 2 pm
78 East Water Street, Toms River, NJ 08753
Guided Tours By Request - New Members Always Welcome
(732) 349-9209 - [email protected]

Welcome to another era in the Toms River area's past, one century ago this week!

Let your mind wander as you consider life around December 30th, 1921, courtesy the New Jersey Courier weekly newspaper and Ocean County Library archives, and peppered with items of maritime interest (around a 15 minute read).

(written by NJ Courier editor, William H. Fischer, as he sat at his desk above Main Street near Washington Street; it was much like a collection of online social media updates seen today)

Happy New Year.
1922 begins Sunday.
One day left in 1921.
Days lengthen slightly.
Not a bad winter so far.
New moon last Wednesday.
Some fine days this week.
A little snow on Thursday.
It was a spendthrift, lavish Christmas.
Toms River Grange [fraternal organization for farmers] met last evening, in Boy Scout Hall.
Local merchants say they had an unusually heavy Christmas trade.
Eleven new names were added to the T.R.Y.C. roll last Friday evening.
A dance was given Monday evening, in Boy Scout Hall by the Boy and Girl Scouts.
The Toms River Yacht Club gives a New Year's dance this evening (Friday) at the club house.
You can't get ahead of the modern boy or girl; when the ice won't bear they get out their roller skates.
The Sun sure is a lay-a-bed these mornings; but there is already a perceptible lengthening of the afternoon.
Electric lights will be extended out Cedar Grove road as far as the church, from Hooper Avenue. It will take about seventeen lamps.
Hiawatha Council, Degree of Pocahontas, made a merry Christmas for a number of families in this section. There were nineteen old people whom they remembered with baskets of fruit; 34 children who received candies, fruit, toys, shoes and stockings, etc., and numerous baskets of groceries and articles of warm clothing were sent where they could be used.
School resumes Wednesday, January 4.
There will be a New Year's dance at the Marion Inn on Saturday evening, December 31.
The village Christmas tree is some sight, and can be seen from almost all parts of town.
Dave Marion was called to New York yesterday on business connected with his theatrical affairs.
Steel erectors yesterday put up the uprights and girders for J.P Evernham's new building on Main Street.
The teachers in the village school who live out of town went home last week for the holidays and will return next Tuesday.
Louis Arm is expecting soon to move into his new bungalow on Seward Avenue, which is being built by the American Constructing Co.
The new bus for transporting pupils to the public school arrived yesterday. It is a Mack truck chassis with a body built in Long Branch.
If you don't get your license card and auto tags tomorrow, you can't drive with the old ones. One of those mounted policemen will pick you up if you try, most likely [referring to the state police force, which just began the prior month].
Both on Sunday morning and Sunday night there was a singing of Christmas carols on the streets. This beautiful custom was made still more beautiful by the singers visiting the homes of those who were sick or shut in.
George W. Holman, Jr., has been putting in baths and running water all through the historic Ocean House. Mr. Holman says that the old Ocean House was remarkably well built, huge timbers, hewed out with the adz [early hand tool for shaping wood], being used—as they found out in cutting to put in pipes.
Santa Claus, according to schedule, visited the Electric Store, on Water Street, Monday morning, and the electric train was given to James Fisk, son of Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Fisk. This gift was from Leonard Clark. Mr. Dittmar also gave away another electric train, and this time to Fritz Huttinger, Jr., was the proud lad. Boxes of candy were passed out as gifts from Mr. Clark to the boys present, and there was a bunch of boys there, you can bet.
The big light at the top of the Toms River Christmas tree can be seen from Crossley, five miles or more away [today Crossley Preserve, located to the west of the Holiday City retirement development, once site to both a railroad stop and clay mine].
After January 1, the age for which an automobile driver's license will be issued is 17 years instead of 16 years, as formerly.
The Water Company is planning to extend its mains up Hooper Avenue as far as the Hurry property, now owned by Samuel Kaufman. The latter is remodeling the house into apartments, and has enclosed the porches. If things work well he will build a number of bungalows on this tract.
George Clayton, of Claytontown, says that there is some family in this vicinity he hopes had a Merry Christmas. George drove to town Saturday night, and after making his Christmas purchases for the family, put them in his car. When he got ready to go home he found somebody had taken the bunch of gifts.
Up through Burlington County, where cranberry bogs were laid out on small streams, growers complain that they can't get enough water to flow them.

HAIL 1922!
Here's to you, 1922.
What you are bringing to us we don't know. We may wonder, and yet we refuse to dread or to fear what you have in the bag on your back. A world that has survived since 1914, seven years, each seemingly worse than its predecessor, will be able to stand the worst you can do, 1922. And a world that has withstood the effects of its own wickedness, its own follies, its own crimes for these seven years, ought by this time to have learned enough about the ill results of such wickedness to turn away toward higher things. If the world has so learned, 1922 will be the dawn of a brighter and better era. So that bag of unknown possibilities, carried by the New Year, may contain good instead of ill; may be the abode of hope and not of fear.
Here's to you, 1922.
Let's hope you bring more brotherly love, and less greed; more kindness and less hard-heartedness; more sympathy and less hate; more faith, and less fear; more co-operation, and less suspicion.
But why put the blame on 1922? He is but the innocent bearer of our own deeds. It is for us to say whether 1922 is to be the dawn of a new era of hope, or the culmination of seven years of hate and fear.

GIVE THE BOYS A CHANCE
Just now the country over, and just as much in our own little villages, there is a feeling that is more or less of revulsion against the American Legion. This is hardly fair. While the boys were in France, we idealized them as demi-gods and heroes. On their return we wanted to shout for them and give them the earth. Now that they have been home a couple years and have shown that they are just ordinary folks like the rest of us, apt to make the same kind of mistakes, subject to the temptations of youth, wanting to go ahead, as youth does, a little faster than some of us who are older, the rest of the country is finding fault with them.
This is unfair. Give the boys a chance to find themselves. They went to France. They faced the unknown death. They bore the hardships. Now the rest of us should bear with them and stand by them. If in our greater wisdom we don't agree with them, and think they are wrong now and then, we might at least tell them so, instead of telling the world. Or we might perhaps aid them with a little more sympathy and a little less advice.
Give them a chance. If they could find themselves on the battle front, they will find themselves in civil life.

TOMS RIVER REAL ESTATE SELLS AT RECORD PRICES
A new record was set in Main St., Toms River, real estate prices this past week by two sales of the Union house property. Charles M. Shull, of Ambler, Pa., a summer resident at Seaside Heights, has agreed to buy twenty-eight and a half feet of the north side of this property, including the stores now occupied by Meyer Williams and Harry Irons, for $9000 [$139,750 in 2021 dollars]. It is understood that his intention is to remodel the place and put in an up-to-date five, ten, twenty-five and fifty-cent store, on the Woolworth plan. He will also make apartments of the second story.
Accompanying this sale, Mrs. Sarah Lewis, former owner of the Union house, sold the small building adjoining on the north, occupied by Henry South, to R. Ricosai, who has the fruit store in the Union house building, for $3500 [$54,347 in 2021 dollars].
The Toms River Amusement Co. has sold 130 feet front by 100 feet deep on West Water Street, near the Ocean House property, to A. and J. Novins. This property also brought a record price.

OIL KILLED STORMY PETREL
Last Saturday John Wilbert of Island Heights picked up a stormy petrel [a small seabird of the open ocean, typically having blackish plumage and a white rump, and formerly believed to be a harbinger of bad weather] where it was washed in on the beach. It was of the variety known in the books as Wilson's petrel. Its feathers were all matted together from oil or tar, and the beachcombers said that was what had killed the bird. August Clippers of Island Heights brought it to Toms River and put it in Joe Grovers store for the boys to see. It was about seven inches long, black on top and white underneath, with slaty gray under its wings. It had a tail like a duck and webbed feet.
Baymen say they have picked up waterfowl of various kinds washed ashore from the sea, all matted up with crude oil, and are agreed that it is deadly to these birds.

BARNEGAT MAN HURT FALLING FROM CENTRAL R.R. HAND-CAR
One of section foreman Tom Galvin's crew, at Barnegat, a Mr. Theodore Arnold, was badly hurt on Saturday last, December 24, while helping pump the hand-car on the Central Railroad, near that town. The cross bar with which the motive power is applied to the car broke as Arnold was on the upstroke and his upward pull flung him off the car, on the track, ahead of the car, as he was on the front of the car, facing backward. He was badly hurt and it was feared his back was broken. He was taken to the Kimball Hospital, at Lakewood... The latest news received was that his back was not broken, but nevertheless he was hurt very badly. The doctors are in hops that he will soon be restored to his wife and three small children.

MORE WORK PROMISED AT LAKEHURST AIR STATION
From present indications there will be another period of activity at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station. Rumor has been busy the past week telling of big things to be done there. The stories that are going about say that the big dirigible is surely to be built, and also that a huge gas holder will be erected there, capable of containing a supply of gas for those big bags, as well as a gas generator. The story says that the Bethlehem Steel Company has the gas plant and holder contract, and will have a hundred men on the job soon. The fact that the big men at the plant are all the time urging Toms River to supply more housing and are now endeavoring to get a work train to and from Lakehurst from Toms River on the C.R.R., is looked upon as very favorable sidelights on these rumors.
Commander Eddy, the naval air craft constructor, was given a farewell dinner Wednesday night at Allaire by the officers at the station.

STATE POLICE ON JOB
Announcement is made that John Corrigan, of Toms River, was arrested by one of the state police Friday for driving a car without registration plates. He was fined $5 and costs [$77 in 2021 dollars], the car being held until the fine was paid.

CARRIER PIGEON TIRED OUT
An exhausted carrier pigeon landed in Main street at noon on Saturday and tried to get into Grover's store through the glass in the door. It was tame, or else very tired. Henry South took it in his place, warmed and fed it, and let it go. A band on its leg had the legend, “1756—A.J. 21 C.”

SET FIRE TO CADILLAC ALONG BROWN'S MILLS ROAD
Driven into a gravel pit, a hundred yards from the Lakehurst-Brown's Mills road, a seven-passenger touring car was set on fire and left to burn on Wednesday, December 28. Charles Becker, of Lakehurst, was coming home with a truck, when not far from the Job Ireland Turnoff, two cars passed him, going fast. The first was a Cadillac, the second a Ford taxi, both with two men in. A few minutes later the Ford taxi came back with four men in. This made Becker suspicious, and he found the Cadillac in the gravel pit, all afire. He put the fire out, but the body and engine were both pretty well damaged. She carried the Pennsylvania license tag No. 136934, and was a model 57K. While Becker went to Lakehurst after another car to tow her to a garage the men are supposed to have come back and stripped her of license plates, batteries, etc. It appears to the authorities to be another attempt to collect insurance by destroying a car so that it could be reported stolen.

MUST BE GOOD TIMES; SHERIFF HAS NO SALES
It would look as if these were good times, as Sheriff Holman has not a single sale advertised. He has had a number of writs to advertise, but the debtors have come across with the money, paid up the claims and kept their lands. What a fine thing it would be if they could always do that very thing.

T.R.Y.C. NEW MEMBERS
Eleven new members were elected last Friday evening by the Toms River Yacht Club, as follows: J.W. Coates, Frank Fellner, A.W. Brown, Jr., Dave Marion, A. Novins, H.J. Samuelson, C.H. Bond, of Toms River; Harry E. Newman, of Lakewood; J.H. Perrine, of Barnegat; Paul J. Fields, of Philadelphia; Frank Truscott, of Camden.

OLD-TIME SHOOTING MATCH
An old-time shooting match was held Monday afternoon, at the Toms River Gun Club grounds, near Bert Dorsett's in Berkeley. The prizes were fowls, such as turkeys, geese, ducks, etc...

MORGAN OUT ON BAIL
Howard Morgan, the twenty-year-old Philadelphia lad, brought to the county jail last week, on the suspicion that he had blackjacked and robbed shoemaker Jones, of Seaside Park, is out on $500 bail [$7,763 in 2021 dollars]. Some of those who have investigated are not so sure that Morgan is the guilty man. Morgan himself stoutly protests his innocence, and has a statement on page I of this issue, to that effect.

MR. MORGAN'S STATEMENT
To the Courier:
I wish to have the statement about my case corrected, and the statement of Mr. Jones put in, that he has said that I am not the man. For he says himself that he was out of his mind when he said it was me. For I want my name cleared of that charge. For further facts, got to Justice of the Peace. (Signed) Howard Morgan, Seaside Park, Dec. 23, 1921—adv. [this was a paid placement “advertisement” purchased by Mr. Morgan and not a regular news item] 

ALUMNI OF T.R.H.S. DINE AND SPEECHIFY AND DANCE
The Alumni Association of the Toms River High School was revived at a dinner and dance given on Wednesday evening last, December 23, at the Ocean House, when some fifty of the graduates from the old school dined, listened to speeches, and wound up with a dance in the grill room. Dinner was served at 7 P.M. In the Ocean House's most approved style, and as said before, some fifty sat down to the tables.
Following the dinner, with William J. Gruier acting as toastmaster, there were addresses by Judge William Howard Jeffrey, on “The Future Needs and Opportunities of the Toms River Schools;” by Miss Dorothy Jones, on “The Aims and Possibilities of the Alumni Association;” by Edgar M. Finck, on “Under Graduates I Have Known;” by William H. Fischer [editor of this New Jersey Courier weekly newspaper], on “Toms River School as I Recall It;” followed by a symposium upon the theme, “Out in the Cold World,” by Allen Brouwer, University of Pennsylvania; Farland Updike, Rutgers College; Charles McKaig, Drexel Institute; Arthur King and Erwin Van Nostrand, of Lehigh University, and others...

COURT ROOM FILLED AT THE VILLAGE CHRISTMAS SERVICE
Christmas eve is a busy time for most folks, but this Christmas eve the people of Toms River and vicinity halted their many duties and pleasantries long enough to spend an hour at the village Christmas service, held in the court room at the Court House between 7 and 8 P.M. The court room was crowded, with a large number standing in aisles, and the entrance to the court room at the top of the stairs was also filled with people standing...
Outside, on the Court House green, the village Christmas tree had been lighted up. This was the same tree lighted last year, a sixty-foot ornamental spruce, towering over the other shade trees and buildings in that section, with strings of bright lights, and at the top a bright white light illuminating an American flag. This tree is lighted each evening this week, and will continue so till Monday next, January 2, after which the bright lights will disappear...

BEACHWOOD GUN CLUB
At least fifty people, men and women, attended the Christmas shoot at the Beachwood Rod and Gun Club, on Monday last, at the club house, coming from Beachwood, Toms river, Island Heights, Barnegat and High Point...

FISH AND GAME
River pollution is said to have banished the once popular and toothsome smelt from Raritan River, where Long Island Sound streams, where smelt fishing in winter was once a lucrative job for a number of fishermen. River pollution is death to fisheries and shell fisheries. But factories and cities seem to get away with it still. Some day it will not be allowed—that day will come when the value of fisheries as a food supply is fully realized by the country at large, as it is today by such far-seeing minds as Herbert Hoover.
Frost fish make a welcome addition to the bill of fare on the beaches. Now that there is no moon, the frost fish gatherers take baskets and lanterns, or flashlights, and wander along the surf.
The Newark Sunday Call says that Peter Holden, John and Nat Curry, of that city, killed 27 ducks in lower Barnegat Bay one day last week; and that J.L. Phillips, of Caldwell, came home from Barnegat last Friday with 35 brant.
The cod fishing this winter has been very successful, large catches being made by the trawlers, and also by the hook and line fishermen who fish from ocean piers and from boats that run out to the banks from New York City every favorable day.
While the law makes it a crime to haul a seine under the ice in upper Barnegat Bay or its tributaries, for pike, perch or striped bass, the lakes in the upper part of the state are open for hook and line fishing under the ice, beginning January 1, for twenty days. Anybody who has a license and wants to use tippy-ups or fish with hook and line through holes in the ice, can do so in this section in fresh water ponds and streams.

BARNEGAT
Maximilian Foster, a well-known and popular writer, was a guest at the Little Beach Gun Club for a few days recently.

BARNEGAT CITY [today Barnegat Light Borough]
Keeper of the Light, Clarence Cranmer, spent the week end at Barnegat with his daughter, Miss Amelia Cranmer, of Trenton.
Keeper R. Palmer, Coast Guard Station 113, is home at Manahawkin on leave.
William Chadwick, of Barnegat, is substituting at the Coast Guard Station.
A very enjoyable Christmas entertainment was given at the school house on Thursday, December 22. Great credit is due the little group of scholars who participated and to the teacher who trained them. Two plays were given, folk dances, singing and speaking selections. The entertainment was well attended by the townspeople besides visitors from High Point, Manahawkin and Barnegat...

BEACH HAVEN
The pound poles have arrived for the fisheries for next season.

FORKED RIVER
George Morehouse always aims to spend Christmas on the beach with the boys of the Coast Guard service. This Christmas he had the pleasure of dining with Capt. Fred Bailey and crew of Station 107, Mantoloking, where they had roast turkey, roast oysters and all the fixings, including mince pie. George also called at a number of other stations to wish the crews a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. The Coast Guards would hardly believe Christmas had come if George did not come along with Old Chris, and George enjoys it fully as much as the guards do.

ISLAND HEIGHTS
Charles K. Haddon, Jr., Frank Kennedy, Jr., and Robert Schofield, Jr., motored from the city to inspect the new boat at Capt. Will Rote's yard.

LAVALLETTE
Last week was very good for duck shooting. There were quite a number.
Several gunners went deer hunting, but brought none home.
The building boom is still going on. Several contracts were given out the past week.
There has been several complaints about chickens in the borough doing damage to people's lawns, etc. The owners should take care of their chickens, as it is not very pleasant to have your yards all torn up by them.
W.H. Nugent is building several row boats for use next season.

PLEASANT PLAINS
Dr. E. Ill has quite a flock of sheep on his farm.
Little Connolly Clayton and brother, of Claytontown, received a wagonload of Christmas presents.

POINT PLEASANT
Point Pleasant has a building boom. A number of homes are going up and realtors are building bungalows for rent or sale on the beach front, near the inlet. Henry Osborn will build six of these, each six rooms and bath. Dr. Denniston has built several and expects to build more. Others have got the idea, and will follow.

SILVERTON
Guess we can say we had a white Christmas, eh? Just enough snow fell here to make a white coating on the ground Sunday morning, but it soon vanished.
David Tilton (Coast Guard man) was privileged to be at home with his family for the Christmas dinner for the first time in sixteen years.

​December 23rd, 1921
December 16th, 1921
​December 9th, 1921
December 2nd, 1921
November 25th, 1921
November 18th, 1921​
November 11th, 1921​
November 4th, 1921
October 28th, 1921
October 21st, 1921
​October 14th, 1921
October 7th, 1921
September 30th, 1921
September 23rd, 1921
September 16th, 1921
September 9th, 1921

Your donations support preserving and restoring our shared maritime heritage on the waters of Toms River and Barnegat Bay, through our boat workshop, educational programs and special events. Thank you.

Open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays - 10 am to 2 pm
(Please Note - Museum will be closed Jan. 1st -10th, 2022)
78 East Water Street, Toms River, NJ 08753
Guided Tours By Request - New Members Always Welcome
(732) 349-9209 - [email protected]