BREVITIES AND EDITORIALS
(often 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)
Very dry fall.
Tag day tomorrow. New moon next Sunday. Hallowe'en next Monday. Cooler weather this week. Three more days in October. Ice made yesterday morning. Demand for houses keeps up. Days whittle off at each end. All Saints' day next Tuesday. Flowers blooming out of doors. Quite a frost Thursday morning. The jitneys are back on Main street. Election day a week from Tuesday. School children had a holiday last Friday—Institute Day. Francis G. Taylor is driving an Overland sedan, bought from Grover and Son. Mr. Marquis has moved on the farm he recently bought from Miss Ida Robinson. Sunrise tomorrow, 6.26; sunset, 5.01. This makes the sunshine 10 hours and 25 minutes long. If cold weather doesn't come till the springs are full, we are due either for a whole lot of rain, or a warm winter. Remington and Vosbury have their men at work surveying streets to draw a building line in the business part of the village. Many wells and springs are dry and cranberry men are wondering where the water is to come from to flood bogs on small streams. Swamps are dry. Charles N. Warner is driving a special Studebaker six. Some trees are bare of leaves; some have hardly begun to shed. Two of our young men, Joe Finley and Victor Wainwright, have made a partnership, known as Finley and Wainright, in the electrical wiring line. Rents have more than doubled in the last four years. A new cement block company has been formed, under the firm name of the Conti-Augustine Co. They have rented the machine shop of Robert Froriep, on South Main Street, Berkeley [today South Toms River Borough], and put in machinery and moulds for making blocks. The Toms River High School football team went to Princeton on Friday last and played with the Princeton High School. The latter won, score 33 to 0. Some of the boys had the pleasure of staying over and seeing Chicago and Princeton Varsity play on Saturday, when Chicago was the winner. I.H. Westervelt has bought from Mr. and Mrs. Otto C. Luhrs the Antrim Van Hise property, at the corner of Washington Street and Hooper Avenue, consisting of the house and an additional lot on Washington St. Westervelt will make many improvements and will occupy it as his home. It is expected that when he moves from the Presbyterian manse, Rev. I.E. Hicks will move into town. The A.B. Newbury Company has a building operation that is the third big one in the village this year, the other two being the Marion Inn and Traco Theatre. They have put up a mammoth lumber shed, stables of hollow tile, and are at work on a large mill and glazing rooms of hollow tile, on the South Main Street front of their yards [today South Toms River Borough]. The new buildings cover a large space, and are constructed in a substantial manner, and as near fireproof as possible under the circumstances. Freeholders meet again next Tuesday. William T. Giberson has completed four small houses on the river bank in Berkeley, and started two more. HEADLINE NEWS
YACHT CLUB HALLOWE'EN DOINGS HELD TONIGHT
The Toms River Yacht Club will hold its Hallowe'en doings tonight, when the yachtsmen and their ladies will gather at the club house on the water front. A committee, consisting of Frank Buchanan, John Hensler and Dr. S.A. Loveman, have prepared the program. The club house will be decorated in Hallowe'en style, and a little stage has been arranged in one corner of the big room for a sketch that will be given. Hallowe'en games, music, dancing, etc., will complete the evening. The club is about to start on a drive for new members, and expects to get in quite a number. The new Commodore, Horace A. Doan, has taken hold of the club with a great deal of energy, and has prepared a program of extending its influence in the village. Mr. Doan has a wide vision and sees the possibility of making the yacht club a community center where all the village may gather for recreation and amusement. The club is fortunate, so its members think, in getting Mr. Doan for its commodore. His program would include enlarging the club house and putting in a heating plant, so that the club house could be used in winter, and not in summer only. At a meeting of the club on Friday evening last the new commodore appointed committees as follows: Governors, Justice James M. Minturn, Harold B. Scammell, Otto C. Luhr; house committee, S.R. Applegate, Dr. R.R. Jones, Frank W. Sutton, Jr.; regatta committee, Edward Crabbe, Dr. George T. Crook, Amos Birdsall, Jr.; membership committee, P.L. Grover, Charles A. Morris, William L. Gruler; dock committee, E.E. Snyder, Edward Schwarz, Louis Tilton; entertainment committee, Frank Buchanan, John A. Hensler, Samuel A. Loveman; fleet surgeon, Dr. Frank Brouwer; harbor master, Charles D. Brackenridge. The Toms River Yacht Club is now fifty years of age, having been formed in 1871, and is thus one of the oldest clubs in the United States. It is said to be the oldest club in New Jersey with one exception, a club on the Delaware River above Philadelphia. In its early days it was a racing club, and in the first thirty years of its history this club developed the fastest fleet of catboats in those days to be found anywhere. The trio of racers, Gem, Martha and Lou, were without rivals for years, though many craft were built at various points on the Jersey coast to compete with them. Of late years there have been no races for the old Toms River cup, the oldest New Jersey yachting trophy, dating back to the early 70's. One of Commodore Doan's plans is an attempt to revive the racing spirit, if only in the sneakbox class, and put Toms River Yacht Club's blue and white flag back on the bay where so long this club ruled as the one racing organization.
OIL NUISANCE THREATENS BARNEGAT BAY FISHERIES
The oil nuisance, caused by the dumping of the refuse oil from oil-burning steamers, just as they are about to enter New York harbor, in the last month or two has begun to threaten the existence of Barnegat Bay fisheries, the term fisheries including both the oyster and clam industries, as well as angling and netting fish. Baymen and off-shore fishermen say that the oil comes down the beach in great slicks, sometimes several miles long, and rods wide, and these slicks get caught in a flood tide, and are brought into the bay. The oil is in all sizes from huge blobs the size of a pumpkin, of thick, gummy, tarry oil, to the tiny globule that floats on the surface in the form of rainbow covered scum. In either form it is deadly to all that lives below the surface of the water, if there be enough of it. The scum cuts off the air from the water beneath and smothers the life below the surface. Baymen say they have just noticed the effects of these oil slicks during late summer and fall. When Herbert Hoover visited Barnegat in July, he was anxious to learn if the oil had any effect upon fishing. He at that time was told that Barnegat Bay was free from the oil menace, though on the beaches it had had a serious effect upon the bathing and upon the popularity of beach resorts, the tarry globules washing upon the beach, and making bathing, or sitting on the beach, unpleasant, by getting all over the person or clothing of the bather or the lounger. Were it possible to get Secretary Hoover back to Barnegat again, at this time, the baymen say a different answer would have to be given, as the oil now begins to threaten the bay fisheries. According to these reports as they reach the Courier, the oil is accumulating in the bay in such quantities as to give alarm. A new cable bent today and flung over with the anchor, will be found oily and slimy when pulled in a few hours later. The oily slime is heavy enough to make a deposit on the sides of craft, on duck stools; on anything in the water. It is seen first near the inlet, but has worked back from the inlet as far as Manahawkin on the south, and not so far north because of the fresh water running down the bay. It is assumed that in some degree at least it was responsible for the lessened number of fish in the bay as the summer waned; and it is feared that fish cannot come and oysters, clams, crabs, etc. cannot live if it settles down on the bay bottom in a slimy covering. Some baymen are blaming it for the “eel sickness,” which has made the eels unfit for food this summer and fall. Similar reports of the ill effects of the oil on marine life come from Raritan Bay, where the oil penetrated before it reached down to Barnegat Inlet. Congressman Appleby has been much interested in this condition on our coast, both as it effects shore resort bathing beaches, and as it is deadly to fisheries. He has introduced a bill (H.R. 7369) making illegal the pollution of navigable waters of the United States by refuse oil. A hearing was given Tuesday of this week by the Committee on Rivers and Harbors of the House. A number of Jersey shore people were at the hearing and others sent letters and telegrams.
WARDEN FOUND ELEPHANT AND CAMEL IN DEER WOODS
It takes some little to phase Game Warden J. Hamilton Evernham, of Toms River, but Hammie admits that things he saw in the deer woods near Bamber one day this week had him going. Hammie had hitched up his trusty Henry and started for a cruise in back of beyond, through the Pines from Lakehurst to Bass River, just to see if the boys were leaving the deer alone till the season opened. Down near Bamber he was swish-swashing the rush on each side of the track as Henry followed the ruts in the sand, when he came to a fork, and looking down the other road, saw a camel standing there. Hammie rubbed his eyes, looked again and rubbed his eyes again. Sure the camel was there, hump and all. “Somebody has been stuffing up a fake to fool somebody,” said Hammie to the Warden, and the Warden suggested to Hammie that it was a good thing to investigate. So out hops Evernham, first tying Henry to a pine stump, to keep him from gassing away in the interim, and starts down by the road. The thing stood still on four stilts, its hump lying over on one side of its back—when—“Gosh a-mighty,” said Hammie to the Warden (or the Warden to Hammie, whichever way you like, seeing the Warden and Hammie are one and the same), “the blame thing's alive.” Sure enough, the long neck stretched out, and the long lips began to browse on the bright red huckleberry brush along the road. The Warden stood stock still in amazement, and rubbed his eyes again. “Woo-oo-oo-ie, woo-oo-ie!” trumpeted in the brush behind him, and both the Warden and Evernham turned as one man. Crash, crash, crash went the brush, and out came an—elephant. Yes sir, an elephant. “Am I seeing things or what?” asked Hammie of the Warden. “I'm seeing them all right,” said the Warden to Hammie. “Gosh a-mighty, an elephant as well as a camel; what's next?” Next was a man on horseback, galloping up the road. He reined up by the Warden, and called out: “Say, you ain't seen a camel and an elephant around have you?” “If you want 'em you can have 'em,” replied the Warden. “They went over in the woods that a way.” And the horseman cantered off and the warden hunted up Henry and started for Wading River. Wonder what Hammie would have thought if he had run across the rest of the Bamber menagerie? There is a small circus wintering at Bamber. The circus has rented John Anderson's store, torn out the partitions, shelves and counters out, built a cage in one corner, and moved wagons, cages, and all in the building. There are three lions and a lot of ponies, beside the camel and elephant which roam at large more or less, and a bear, which is chained out in the woods. All the pine dwellers are making up errands to visit Bamber, but when the lion tamer wants to make them acquainted with his pets, the pine dwellers say, “Sorry, but I've got to be going now.” And what is going to happen if some deer hunter runs across the camel, the elephant or the bear during the gunning season? And what might happen if the lions got loose and went for the deer woods? If you want to know, ask Hammie. But alas for the Hawkin Bear—his nose is sure out of joint!
CRANBERRY THIEVES WITH TRUCKS TRAVERSE THE PINES
Cranberry men in the pines have had a new trial this fall. It has always been considered safe as a safe deposit vault to leave the picked berries at the side of the bog or in any kind of an old building over night. This fall a gang of cranberry thieves with trucks have been traveling about the cranberry country, lifting crates of berries from the bogs or from buildings that they could enter. From all reports they must have done a good business “picking” cranberries in this way.
FLEEING BURGLAR KILLED BY BAY HEAD MAYOR'S BULLET
Breaking away from two officers, one of them Mayor R. H. Metcalfe, of Bay Head, after he had tried to force his way into two houses at that resort, Aldur Anderson, a Swede fisherman, in the employ of the Bay Head Fishery, refused to halt when ordered to do so, and was shot, either by Mayor Metcalfe, or by Mr. Bonnell, who assisted the mayor in making the arrest. This occurred last Saturday night, October 22. Anderson was placed in a car and rushed to Ann May Hospital, where he died at 6:30 P.M. on Sunday, the bullet having gone clear through his body, perforating the lower left lung. Anderson, with two employees of the Bay Head Fishery, when paid off last Saturday, started out to look for excitement, and found it in the bottled form. It is alleged that they went to Manasquan. The fishery is between Bay Head and Mantoloking, and they reached Bay Head in the evening, all three the worse for their trip. The other two men went on down to the fishery, reaching there about midnight, according to Captain Anderson, of the fishery crew. About 10:30 Saturday evening, Mr. and Mrs. Payson, living on East Street, near the ocean front, were awakened by breaking glass, and Mr. Payson went down to see what had happened. The Payson house, like most seashore cottages, is built with a basement story entirely out of ground, bringing the first floor about eight feet above the ground level. Payson went to the kitchen where the sound of breaking glass seemed to come from, and found that a man had forced his way into a small entry at the top of the back stoop, and had tried to get into the kitchen by breaking a window opening into this entry. He demanded to know what the man wanted, who he was, and why he was trying to get in, but the intruder only mumbled an answer that Payson could not understand. The householder then called up Mayor Metcalfe, telling him a man was trying to break into his home, and asking protection. The Mayor tried to locate the Borough Marshal but failed. He found a young ex-service man, Mr. Bonnell, and the two started out, armed, to locate the burglar. On the same street as the Payson house, but across the road, they found a man trying to enter another house. He had torn out the wire screen, reached in and unfastened the net door, but could not open the wooden door back of it. Metcalfe and Bonnell told him he was under arrest, and started with him to the borough lock-up. He held back at first till they told him they were armed, and that if he ran they would shoot, but if he went peaceably nothing would happen. The supposed burglar went along till within a block of the lock-up. The fisherman was a big and powerful man, and he broke away from the two who held him by either arm, and started running down the street. Both men fired, and the fleeing man fell. He was found to be bleeding from the chest, and when Mayor Metcalfe called up several near-by doctors, they all told him it was a hospital case, and declined to come to Bay Head to look after the wounded man. So a car was got from Bob Applegate's garage, and the fisherman was hurried to the hospital at Spring Lake. It was found that the bullet had pierced the lower end of the lung. It was not thought he was dangerously hurt, and all Bay Head was astounded Sunday night to learn that he had died. Sunday morning Mayor Metcalfe called up Sheriff Chafey and told him what had happened. Knowing Prosecutor Plumer to be out of the state, the Sheriff went to Bay Head, interviewed Captain Anderson, of the fishery, Mayor Metcalfe, Mr. Mayson, Bonnell, and others who might know something about the matter. In breaking the window at Payson's, Anderson had cut his hand so that it bled badly, and the trail of blood led from the Payson kitchen door across the street where Anderson had tried to get into the other house. It was plain that Mayor Metcalfe's straightforward story of the arrest of a man who had tried to break into two houses, and was shot when trying to break away from the officers, was indisputable. Bay Head, like all summer resort towns, has suffered nearly every winter from burglaries of unoccupied summer homes. Mayor Metcalfe thought he had under arrest one of these robbers. The Mayor said that Anderson had evidently been drinking, but was not drunk at the time of arrest. He was able to walk and fight. It is the theory at Point Pleasant that he had been pretty well drunk on doctored booze in the early evening, but was a man who could carry a lot of liquor, and its effects were now leaving him, making him in a dangerous mood. At the fishery it was said that Anderson was a native of Sweden, had been in the crew for three summers, and was well liked by the other men. In Bay Head borough he was said to be a peaceable, pleasant and easy-going man when sober, but apt to be rough when in liquor. The fishery captain said that Anderson had been this summer going with a servant girl at Bay Head; and he thought the man might have been prowling about looking for the house where the girl worked; others of the crew thought Anderson might have been looking for a place to sleep off his drunk. Neither of the houses broken into had servants that might have been the one Anderson knew. Coroner J. Holmes Harvey, of Point Pleasant, took charge of the body. He considered an autopsy unnecessary, as it was known that the man died from the bullet wound. Mayor Metcalfe was very much upset over the shooting and still more so after the death of the man; but insisted that he and Bonnell had done only their duty. They had fired low, to hit the man in the legs as he ran, he said. It is possible, that being unused to shooting, the pistol might have kicked up, or that in the excitement the aim was not what it might have been. Had the shot been a few inches lower it would have hit the fleshy part of the hip and have done little harm. All Bay Head and Point Pleasant were, of course, excited over the happening. The pound crew men naturally took the part of their comrade, saying that he should have been well enough known in Bay Head so that no one could think him a burglar. But it turned out that Mayor Metcalfe had never seen the fisherman before. The average person seemed to think that while it was very regrettable, yet the man was himself responsible, and the officers were justified under the circumstances, thinking they had to do with a burglar. Anderson was said by the fishery crew to have an uncle, a well-to-do man, at 49 Ridge Street, Orange, N.J., also a brother, in Newark. Coroner Harvey empanelled a jury consisting of Wm. T. Newbury, Rosia Clark, Herbert Rogers, Freeman Stines, Harold Christie, O.B. VanCamp. These men viewed the body before its burial. The inquest will be held Friday evening, October 22. John Anderson or Orange, the dead man's uncle, came to Bay Head on Tuesday. He was very wroth and threatened vengeance for the death of his nephew, and threatened to take the matter up with the Norwegian consul in New York, as the dead man, though eight years in this country, was not a citizen. It is not thought that Anderson had any intention of robbery. TAG DAY TOMORROW FOR PLAY GROUND APPARATUS The Home and School Association will hold a tag day tomorrow, October 29, to raise money for the play ground apparatus they are planning to install at the playground. The children of the school have contributed their money to the fund this week, and are almost all wearing green tags. You'll wear one tomorrow—sure thing. OCEAN COUNTY SOCIETY PHILADELPHIA IS FORMED With about one hundred members, the Ocean County Society of Philadelphia has been formally launched, and is now on the hunt for more Ocean County folk living in the City of Brotherly Love. The plan is to hold a banquet soon, at which prominent Ocean County people and also Philadelphians, who summer in Ocean County will be among the guests; in fact, it is announced that at this banquet all interested in Ocean County are expected... PROSECUTOR PLUMER GOES WEST Prosecutor Richard C. Plumer and Constable Richard Riley went to Arizona last week to bring back by extradition, Robert Bruce, under indictment for assault on a girl under fifteen years. It is understood that Mrs. Plumer accompanied her husband, and they will make a trip to the California coast before returning. CHAMPION BERRY PICKERS Harper Applegate, of Chatsworth, was in Grover's store Tuesday night, and was telling us something about champion cranberry pickers as he knows them. (Harper, by the way, holds the scooping record so far.) He says that this fall, on the Dave Applegate bog, at Chatsworth, Miss Lillian Donfee, of Chatsworth, a 16-year-old girl, picked by hand, eight bushels of cranberries in one day. The biggest day's work at hand-picking that he ever heard of was, he says, several years ago, on the Cranmer Place bogs, when one man, on a bet with the overseer, picked twelve bushels and three pecks in one working day. DIPTHERIA CLOSED SCHOOLS Owing to an outbreak of diphtheria in upper Jackson township, the schools at Jackson Mills, Pleasant Grove and Hyson have been closed. C.R.R. TO CHARGE EXTRA FOR TICKETS ON TRAINS Now that there is little advantage in buying return tickets, so many of the people who travel on trains have formed the habit of buying their tickets on the trains instead of at the ticket office, that the C.R.R. Has announced it will charge more for tickets bought on trains when there is a ticket office where the ticket might have been had. In addition to the fare ten cents will be charged, five of which will be kept by the railroad and five of which can be redeemed at any ticket office.
FISH AND GAME
Aside from the black ducks that were found about the bay and the ponds the first few days of the season, and the crow ducks and cub heads in the upper bay, there has been little shooting of wild fowl. The mild weather has made the fowl late coming from the north. There have been a few geese killed, but very few, and those mostly from points in the upper bay. The geese are going on south, but as yet in no great quantities. Even coots and oldwives are said to be scarce in the bays. Upland gunning season will begin on November 10, the Thursday after election day. On that day it will be lawful to shoot rabbits, quail, squirrels and similar upland game. There are reports coming in daily of large numbers of quail and rabbits, but I've noticed for years now that sportsmen always see plenty of game before the season opens, and wonder where it all went to after their first trip into the woods and fields with dog and gun. So perhaps it will be just as well to say that the game is about as plentiful at least as on an average year, with perhaps a few more quail than an average year shows, as the dry summer was good for young quail, the gunners say. Baymen say that eels and crabs are bedding down in the mud for the winter. There were more crabs this summer than in many years. This was possibly due to the mild weather last winter and the early spring. Some of the bay crabs bed down in the bay and some of them go outside the inlets to bed down in the bottom of the open sea. The Newark Call says that John Mitchell and Tony Ames, of that city, each got four ducks at Barnegat last week, missing several good shots. Also that in Tuckerton Bay, Joseph Hart, Fred Burns, Carl Sommer and Alfred Joyce got near the limit each day for two days, and will go back later for another try at wild fowl. RECENT WEDDINGS Bartlett-Lane Miss Frances Bartlett and Albert Lane, both of Tuckerton, were married at Elkton, Md., on Sunday, October 9. The bride is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Bartlett and the groom is the son of Mr. and Mrs. George M. Lane. PERSONAL Reports say that the United States is to withdraw half of its force on the Rhine about November 15. Toms River friends of Lester Irons, son of Mrs. Jacob Irons, of this place, are wondering if he will be in the 8000 to be brought back to this country. Lester enlisted in the summer of 1917, got over to France in the spring of 1918, went to Germany in the first troops sent to occupy the Rhine area, and has been there ever since. RECENT DEATHS Albert S. Pharo Albert Smith Pharo, who was born at West Creek, December 4, 1854, died at his home, in Lakewood, October 19, 1921. The days of boyhood up to eight years of age, was spent in the village of his birth. Then, while the Civil War was raging, his mother with her three little boys, moved near Staffordville, and a little later right in Staffordville, while the boy's father was the first part of the time a sailor and the last part a soldier. Here the boy lived and grew to manhood, being very industrious, working at some useful work the entire time. He worked awhile in the machine shop of H.B. Smith, at Smithville; he helped the Tuckerton railroad, as a shoveler and in laying the rails in 1871; for awhile he was a sailor; one or two winters he, with several old friends, gave entertainments, he using his banjo, at which he was an expert. But the principal work of his life was the work of a carpenter. This trade he learned when quite young, and always followed it thereafter up to his final sickness. In 1892, when about 38 years of age, he married Miss Susan A. Cranmer, daughter of Job E. and Matilda Cranmer, of Mayetta. The first two or three years of his married life he lived at Moorestown, and then he soon bought a lot in Lakewood, built a fine double house on it, and there he and his wife enjoyed life for about twenty-five years. Four children were born to them—Mrs. Dorothy Solly, wife of Alfred Solly, who married about three years ago, and lived nearly the whole of it in Tulsa, Oklahoma, returning this summer just in time to see their father in his rational moments; Raymond Pharo, who enlisted as a soldier in the World War, and who lived in Detroit, Mich., for two years, returning in an automobile with his sister, Mrs. Solly; and Addison, who is now assistant purchasing agent for the Lawrenceville high school, a position for which his scholarship eminently fits him, he being a graduate of Rider School, of Trenton. One child died in infancy... The burial was at Cedar Run Cemetery.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: NEW BUILDING AT BIRDVILLE
[A.P. Greim, the founder of Birdville, a quirky birdhouse construction company, chapel and overall motorist's destination in what today is South Toms River, speaks to a recent article written on the new construction there. The building stands at the corner of Mill and Center streets under a healthy crop of vines he planted a century ago this season.] Dear Mr. Fischer: The statement in the Courier some weeks ago, that A.P. Greim was building a cement block addition to his shop was far from giving the real facts. What we are building is for residence and office and not of blocks, but poured concrete, which we think far superior to block construction, the blocks have uses of their own. Poured concrete does not absorb moisture—may get wet on the surface, but will soon dry off after a shower. When you come over and look our house over you will admit there is at least nothing in Toms River like it, and also nothing near so lasting. At present we are still using some of the old wooden structures so as to have sufficient room until completion of poured concrete house. We plan to be three years building, but are even now using the section built this year. You hear much nowadays about “people building their own houses.” This is truly one such, for, with the aid of Stanley Grover, and one high school boy, this is absolutely our own work; besides at times I had rheumatism so bad that I had to be helped on the scaffold in the morning. We are disciples of Henry C. Mercer, of Doylestown, Pa., in the architecture of our building, and I think have caught some of the beauty he sees in rough concrete. This work is not to be painted or plastered, but it only relieved by the highly colored tiles manufactured by Mr. Mercer, as well as some colored pebble “tiles” of our own inventing. We have had many visitors during three months past, and remember some of their remarks, one calling it a fort; another remarked, “it would make a splendid cellar, and when are you going to plaster it?” “I suppose you will paint it before moving in,” etc. Another suggested a motto, “Here to stay.” The only wood about it are a few doors, and we would have those metal if we could afford it. We had a chance to practice splendid economy. The much lumber needed comes from an old building we are wrecking. Sand and hauling costs us something, for we used the cleanest and best to be had here. The plate glass used I had on hand, and it came to me rather cheap some years ago. A small concrete mixer I expect to sell for half price when we are done with it. We started by driving a well that is now enclosed in the building. Next we built a fountain to try out the mixer; then we started the foundations, deep down on solid bottom. The part built this year consists of a large living room and office, kitchenette with breakfast corner, pantry for electric pump and refrigerator, bath room complete, with hot and cold water. In the breakfast corner we have used a set of twelve tiles, representing the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and we three builders each have a star over our respective birth month. At present the floors are concrete, but eventually will be covered with tiles. The completed plans call for a stage and real pipe organ, and a chapel such as you see in castles in Spain. The architecture is “modified Moorish.” The highest part of the house will be surmounted with a half sphere dome. Part of the building has a roof garden. Large flower bed already in bloom. Vines are planted all around and will soon cover walls. Come and look us over. A.P. GREIM. TOWN LIFE
BARNEGAT
Accidents are happening more frequently at our Main Street crossing and each year sees an increase in traffic. It is only a matter of time when we will see something that will stir us up to devise some means to protect our people as well as regulate the careless drivers, who are not for themselves or anyone else, but it is usually some one else who gets the worst of it. Not until something of that kind happens will we wake up to the fact that we have a very dangerous crossing. Ed Hand, Jr. has recently been married to a Beach Haven girl. We wish him a pleasant passage as he embarks on the sea of matrimony. May his joys be as deep as the ocean and his sorrows as light as its foam. Our gunners get up very early, go to the bay and lay in their boats all day waiting to get a shot at a goose. How different a few miles back in the woods. Tilden Estlow saw two geese out in the pond at Well's Mills, just picked up his trusty, walked out, took aim and let go, and the wind floated them ashore right at his feet. Eating wild geese in the pines while our bay men can't get a look at one. While going out to the gunning ponds the first morning of the season, Capt. Zack Zimmerman had four small boats in tow, when off Little Beach, he heard a scream, and stopping his engine, found that the last boat had capsized, throwing the man overboard. He was guided through the darkness by the cries of the man and found him in water just up to his chin; had it been a foot deeper he probably would have been drowned before aid reached him. It seems that Harry Van Note found deer tracks in his yard, and immediately notified friends that there would be a venison dinner at his house soon after the season opened. But to insure against anyone finding out the deer was touring his yard nights he had them sworn to secrecy... Much preparedness was being made but the women were not to know of it until the very day as they might let it out. Things were going on merrily, an extra cook had been engaged, waiters, music and other things that usually go with pulling off a big feast such as this promised to be. Several of his railroad friends had printed invitations to attend a venison dinner, but when his castles were built real high, Dave Errickson came along and spoke a few words which caused them to come crashing down about him. It was Dave Errickson's hog broke out of the pen and made the tracks in Harry's yard; but Dave did not tell him until the dinner was arranged, then he told us. Each of the invited neighbors was to have a different stand the first night of the season, and the deer was to be annihilated on sight; but the affair is all off and Harry says he is no judge on tracks and only took the other fellow's word for it. BEACHWOOD Arthur O. Brown, of East Orange, has been here for the week end, preparing his home for the winter. Mr. Brown recently bought several more lots adjoining his property here. He is a firm believer in the future of Beachwood. A number of new houses going up and more promised soon. The Beachwood garage seems to keep busy all the time, what with Beachwood folk and with passing cars that stop for supplies or repairs. Mrs. Kennedy is planning to open a dancing class at the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst. BEACH HAVEN W.W. Hoopes, after spending the summer here, has returned to his winter home in Paoli, Pa. He had a great deal of sport sailing while here. Bart Manion, of Moorestown, formerly station agent here, is now purser on a ship between San Francisco and Honolulu, Hawaii. CEDAR RUN [a section of Stafford Township] Those from the Hub who attended the turkey supper at the Ocean House, Toms River, were Assemblyman Cranmer and wife and Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hampton. All report a good time. Duck hunters have been on the job and the game has graced the tables of many of our citizens. The family of S.B. Conkling, who have been running the Magnolia cottage, at Beach Haven all summer, are back in their home for the winter. FORKED RIVER We are more than glad to have with us up-to-date butchers, Gray and Rutter, and up-to-the-minute butcher shop so handily located. These gentlemen are progressive business men and we all should appreciate their effort to serve the needs of the home in the very best quality of meats, etc. We also point out the courtesy with which every customer is met, a point you will agree, in the right direction. Lloyd Reeves took out a party of gunners and they killed 27 black-ducks. Henri Chegnay has sold his large power yacht to New York parties. ISLAND HEIGHTS Dr. Stoeckel has bought a lot at Bay front and intends to build there in the spring. If Earl Davis and Howard Carslake make as good a job of painting the Boroughs house as they did of the Applegate house on Van Sant Avenue, it will be quite an ornament to the corner of Oak and Ocean. Miss Dorothy Stokes, of this place, and Miss Beatrice Wainright, of Toms River, are through their course of training at the Germantown Hospital, and are spending a short time here. Freeholder William L. Butler and family closed their summer home here and returned to Merchantville for the winter. C.O. Hierholzer spent the week end here. He has made a regular thing of driving from Brooklyn for the week ends whenever possible and enjoys roughing it here. Ed Johnson, our plumber, says he has more work than he can get men to do. So far the unemployment epidemic has not reached Island Heights. The Couriers [this newspaper, the weekly New Jersey Courier, out of Toms River, which came out on Fridays] failed to get here until Saturday night last week. It was a hungry crowd that waited around the post office for them to come in. Most of the yachts have been laid up for the winter, but a few still are at their summer moorings, ready for use. Some of our bay fishermen are getting nets and gear ready for the fall fishing. We hear little just now of the plan to do away with the Island Heights station, bridge and spur on the Pennsy. Publicity must have been too much for it. LANOKA On Wednesday last, Captain Redden Penn and daughter, Lydia, motored to Manahawkin and called on Thomas Hazelton, an old veteran of the Civil War. He and Captain Penn were boys together and served in the same regiment for four years. They are about the same age, 84 years. After leaving there they went on to Beach Haven. Capt. Mart McCarthy of Coastguard station 109 was home Monday. MANTOLOKING Misses Susan and Louise Warren have vacated the Such ocean front cottage and gone to New York City for the winter. Capt. H.M. Horner was a recent visitor here. Mrs. Henry Earle and family have closed their Bay Shore cottage and returned to Philadelphia for the winter. SEASIDE PARK The new cottage on Central Avenue, which is the new home of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Zisgen, is nearing completion, and they are planning to have their Thanksgiving here. Captain Martin McCarthy, of Coast Guard Station 109, spent Monday night with his family at Lanoka. Little Miss Serena Gillison was a patient in an Atlantic City Hospital last week while undergoing a slight operation. Mrs. Gillison was relieved from duty at the Central telephone office to be with her. Mr. and Mrs. Fred Sharp are putting their boats in storage for the winter and making arrangements to return to Philadelphia for the winter. A number of week-enders were here for the fine weather Sunday from the city. TUCKERTON Tuckerton is building an athletic field to have it ready for next summer. The ground has been cleared and is being graded; the fence and grandstand come next. It is planned to have the opening on Memorial Day, 1922. WARETOWN Last Friday evening as Mr. and Mrs. Eayre were passing the Camburn homestead (which has been closed since the death of Mrs. Matilda Camburn), they saw a light in one of the rooms. Knowing that none of the family were there they went after Mrs. J.R. Horner, a daughter of Mrs. Camburn who lives here, and Mr. and Mrs. Horner together with Mr. and Mrs. Eayre went to the house. All was dark and still when they entered, but Mrs. Horner knew at once that someone had been there as things were moved around and a bed had been made up. They searched all around and were about to give up when Mrs. Horner noticed a peculiar looking bunch between the bed and the wall. Upon investigation it proved to be a man. He was all ready to retire but was told to dress and come with them. He tried to beg off but was compelled to walk down to Gaskill's store, where they telephoned the sheriff. After a short wait the sheriff arrived and the housebreaker was taken to Toms River and given a bed in the county jail. The man was a stranger who claimed to be on his way to Mexico. C.B. Bowker is the proud owner of two blooded fox hounds. The foxes will have to be more sly than ever if they elude Benton and his dogs. WEST CREEK Miss M.A. Willits has returned to her home in Brooklyn after a pleasant visit at her sister's, Mrs. Clarence Seaman, calling on old-time friends and exchanging ideas about our town's advancement and new population, the latter increasing very rapidly by people from the cities and city suburbs buying up properties formerly occupied by our town's people who have passed away. Most of these purchases are being remodeled with up-to-date homes. ADS OF INTERESTMISSED AN ISSUE?
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October 21st, 1921 October 14th, 1921 October 7th, 1921 September 30th, 1921 September 23rd, 1921 September 16th, 1921 September 9th, 1921 Enjoyed this article? Please consider making a one-time or recurring donation today!
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Welcome to another Wooden Boat Wednesday!
This week begins a series from Kobbe's 1891 Jersey Coast and Pines guide, focused on our Barnegat Bay areas. Enjoy!
The earliest description of Barnegat Bay is found in the log of Henry Hudson's Half Moon. After getting out to sea from Delaware Bay, Hudson stood northeasterly making land September 2, 1609, probably near Great Egg Harbor. The same day the Half Moon passed Barnegat Bay and Barnegat Inlet. From the log book of the Half Moon, September 2, 1609:
"The course along the land we found to be northeast by north from the land which we first had sight of until we came to a great lake of water, as we could judge it to be, being drowned land which made its rise like islands, which was in length ten leagues. The mouth of the lake had many shoals, and the sea breaks upon them as it is cast out of the mouth of it. And from that lake or bay the land lies north by east and we had a great stream out of the bay." The lake mentioned in this extract is Barnegat Bay; the “mouth” of the lake, Barnegat Inlet. The reference to shoals proves that in those early days already the reefs on which many a gallant ship has fought its last fight existed. In fact, Barnegat Bay derives its name from the breakers whose foam hisses over these shoals, the name being a corruption from the Dutch Barning Gat, meaning Breakers Inlet, which was given to the inlet by the Dutch navigator Captain Mey, after whom Cape May is named. The tide still rushes as furiously through the inlet as it did when the sea was “cast out of the mouth of it, and the tall, slender light-house tower rises up from out of the dunes on the south side like a finger raised in warning. The inlet has always jealously guarded its rights against the efforts of the Government to erect lights to warn vessels off the treacherous shoals. It licked around the foundations of the light-house put up in 1834, until they melted away and the structure fell into the waves, which since then have been hurling themselves with such destructive force against the beach south of the inlet that there is now deep water where the old tower stood , and the site of that erected in 1858 is seriously threatened. This light-house, red and white, 165 feet above sea level, showing a first order light, flashing white every 10 seconds, is so exposed to the fury of winter storms, that the vibrations of the structure are violent enough to cause water in a pail placed on the floor of the top story to splash over. The wear and rapid changes produced upon the beach by Barnegat and other inlets through the beaches south of it can be readily understood when it is remembered that, for instance, the average rise and fall of tide in Barnegat Bay is 1 foot, which for its area of 72 1/2 square miles means that a volume of 2,016,000,000 cubic feet of water passes through Barnegat Inlet four times daily, making in the year more than thrice the amount which flows from the water-shed of the Hudson in the same time and that to the impetuous rush of the tide must be added the destructive effect of wave action. Barnegat Bay really resembles a lake more than a bay, so that the description of it in the log of the Half Moon is apt, It is separated from the ocean by two beaches, Squan and Long. That portion of the former, from the site of the old Cranberry Inlet (now closed), opposite Tom's River, to Barnegat Inlet is often called by its old name of Island Beach, the entire length of beach from the Manasquan to Barnegat Inlet being about twenty-four miles. Long Beach stretches from this inlet to Little Egg Harbor Inlet, a distance of about twenty-one miles. The depth of the bay north of the inlet scarcely exceeds ten feet anywhere, a considerable area next to the beach being less than five feet. Southward it reaches twenty feet near Lovelady Island. Barnegat Inlet has now about seven feet of water on its bar at low water, and from eleven to twelve feet at high tide. The bay is about twenty-seven miles long and from one to four miles broad . The west shore of the beach and the mainland across the bay are fringed with salt meadows, and in the bay itself are many sedgy islands, these being so numerous in places as to form a net-work of narrow, sinuous channels which the natives call thoroughfares or “slews” (sluice-ways). Metedeconk River, Kettle Creek, Tom's River, Cedar Creek, Forked River, Oyster Creek, Gunning River, and several smaller streams, flow into Barnegat Bay. There are settlements both on the narrow beaches and along the main shore. The beaches , having the ocean before them and the broad bay in their rear, seem to offer delightful sites for summer settlements. Between Bay Head and the point where the Philadelphia & Long Branch Railroad extension of the New York & Long Branch Railroad leaves the beach and crosses the bay to Tom's River are Mantoloking, Chadwick's (a famous old-fashioned gunning resort), Lavallette, Ortley, Berkeley Arms and Seaside Park. South of Barnegat Inlet are Barnegat City and Harvey Cedars. The expectations of the founders of some of the summer settlements among the places named have unfortunately not been realized , for certain winds bring the mosquitoes over to the beaches in such swarms that life becomes almost unendurable. Barnegat Pier is a station about half way across the Philadelphia & Long Branch R. R. bridge, from where many pleasure-boats start for the fishing-grounds down the bay. Barnegat Bay is the most northerly of a series of bays formed by a strip of beach on the east and the main shore on the west, and receiving the waters of the ocean through narrow inlets. These bays are separated from one another by encroachments of the salt meadows fringing their shores and by sedgy islands. Through the channels between these islands one can pass from bay to bay, so that it is possible to sail in small craft by an inland route from any of the resorts on Barnegat Bay clear through to Cape May. Enjoyed this article? Please consider making a one-time or recurring donation today!
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(often 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)
Autumn leaves.
Moon is on the wane. Wild fowl season is on. Ten days left in October. Chrysanthemum time now. It was a glorious full moon. Elections two weeks from Tuesday next. Most of the cranberries are harvested. Did you see the eclipse Sunday evening? Sewer coming up Main Street business block. Republican dinner at the Ocean House. This is one year when the Kiefer pear is scarce. One of the dryest summers on record from the middle of May to the middle of October. Remington & Vosbury are at work drawing a building line for the business part of town. Take a tramp or a ride through the woods and fields and see the bright colors these autumn days. Fire Company will have a big mardi gras and costume parade on Hallowe'en, as they have for two years past. Home grown apples are sold from $1.50 to $2 per basket. While not at all plentiful, apples were of fine size and condition this year, being but few on the ordinary tree. The library has a nice new lot of books, some on the pay shelf and others on the free shelf. The boys and girls were specially remembered in buying books this time. Toms River High School went to Point Pleasant on Saturday last and weer beaten at football by the high school there, score 20-0. The boys put up a game play, but were not in it with their opponents. Toms River Yacht Club will hold a Hallowe'en affair on Friday evening, October 28. The committee is arranging the program is Frank Buchanan, John Hensler and Dr. Loveman, which is a guaranty that something novel will be staged. The firemen are looking forward to the big Hallowe'en parade. A big gathering of poultrymen at the court house on Wednesday night. Sunrise tomorrow, 6:15; sunset, 5:10. 10 hours and 12 minutes of sunlight. Main street business men are up against it till the street can be cleared. Yesterday morning for awhile the wind blew a gale out of the west, and it was followed by showers. Charles R. Applegate is building a house on Thomas Street, in the rear of his Dayton Avenue home. We must depend on California and Florida for fruit this fall and winter, as few housewives have any canned this summer. J.P. Evernham last Friday started to excavate the site of the store he will build on Main Street on the Sheriff Frank Aumack front. James Hurley is rather proud of the fact that he picked two quarts of strawberries last week, and revelled in a strawberry shortcake supper. M.L. Cranmer had his Chevrolet showroom opened in the Veeder Building, in charge of his son, Adolphus, who reports the sale of [series] 490 Chevrolets to Albert G. Johnson and C. Ellenberger. Several people of late have captured specimens of that curious insect, the praying mantis, a native of the West Indies. It has been found several times on cranberry bogs. In some respects it resembles the katydid, but in others is very unlike that insect. Professor Hervey, of the Poultry Department of the State College, at New Brunswick, addressed the Ocean County Poultry Association, at the court house on Wednesday evening upon poultry breeding. This association is having monthly lectures on poultry raising by the best experts of the country. These lectures are attended by hard-headed, practical poultrymen, who come to get the latest discoveries in the poultry game. Gas and kerosene are both up for the winter. Pupils of the high school gave a dance at the Ocean House last Saturday evening. Sugar can now be bought at one-fifth its price two years or so ago. This week local stores advertise five pounds for 27 cents, and not long ago the profiteers were gouging us at 28 cents for a pound [approximately during the First World War]. Farmers mostly cut their stalks early, and are now husking out the corn; sweet potatoes have been dug and pumpkins harvested. There's not much left on the ground or in it. Cranberries are mostly picked. Samuel Kaufman has bought the Hobbs house property on Hooper avenue from the Hurry estate. There is a large house and a considerable tract of land. He is planning to remodel the Hobbs house into a three-family apartment, make another house out of the barn and perhaps build several bungalows on the Hooper Avenue front. His present idea is to make the rest of the big lot into chicken farm, as there are six or seven acre there. The frost last week blackened sweet potato vines and on Saturday many people harvested their crop. The potatoes are fine this year. The Double Trouble Company finished picking their bogs on Monday. They had upwards of 12,000 bushels. Italian scoopers did the work. The Toms River Yacht Club holds a special meeting tonight. The sewer contractor blocked off Main street Tuesday, from Washington to Water streets.
YES, HE GOT HIS COW
Last week County Agent E.H. Waite bought from John A. Maguire, of the Bay-lea farm, a young cow that was delivered to Mr. Borgi, the one-legged man, told of in last week's Courier, who was unfortunate enough to lose his cow. Mr. Borgi wishes to thank all who helped so generously. It came as a complete surprise to him, but now that he has had the cow a week he says, “Oh, but you ought to see my babies now that they are getting plenty of milk.” It seemed as if quite a number wanted a hand in buying this cow. Maguire, the seller, threw off $25 on the price of his cow, selling it for $50. Oscar Hodgkinson, of Cedar Grove, will send over a lot of fodder for the cow. Those who gave money suggested that if there was a balance, it be used for feed for the cow. There is a balance and it will be so used... HEADLINE NEWS
HALLOWE'EN PARADE TO BE GIVEN BY FIRE COMPANY
For the third time the Toms River Fire Company is planning a Hallowe'en parade for Monday, October 31, in the evening. As in the past two years, it now looks as if, with favorable weather, all roads would lead to Toms River that night. There will be music, it is expected, by the Boy Scout Band, of Paterson. Lots of red fire will illumine the parade, as Hallowe'en this year comes in the dark of the moon. The business men of the town have arranged for a score or more of prizes which will be given to the best costumed couple, best group (four or more), best costumed lady, man, boy and girl, under 16 years; best comedy couple, best comedy group (four or more), best comedy lady, man, boy and girl, under 16; most original fancy costume, most original comedy costume, most original comedy costume and most original costumed group. Entries are made with Sid Harris, at his cigar store. Following the parade will come a dance at the Boy Scout Hall, when three prizes will be given away—$20, $10 and $5 [$306, $153 and $76 in 2021 dollars].
PICK TOMS RIVER BOY TO REBUILD WAR-TORN FRANCE
Announcement was made in the New York papers of Monday that Henry C. Irons, of the firm of Todd and Irons, builders of many huge structures in that city, had been asked to come to France by the French Government, and take entire charge of rebuilding the war-swept portion of northeastern France. The New York papers stated that Mr. Irons admitted he had been asked to go to France on this rebuilding work and was considering the matter. Henry C. Irons, while now living in Plainfield, and doing business in New York, is a Toms River boy. He is the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. William G. Irons, and a brother to Miss Kate Irons, of Main Street and Seward Avenue. As a lad he worked his way through Princeton college, and studied law in New York city. With another friend he formed the firm Todd and Irons, and in the nineties [1890s] plunged into the real estate game in New York City with nothing but their brains and their nerve as capital. He is now rated a millionaire [$1 million in 1921 makes about $15 million in 2021 dollars, for reference]. Both New York and Philadelphia papers, and, in fact, papers all over the country, take it as a signal honor to this country that France should send over here for the man to boss this big job. They also see a big export trade in building materials as the result of such a choice. And if the country at large is honored, then Toms River surely is, to have one of its boys thus chosen.
JACK FROST HAS COLORED SWAMPS AND UPLAND, TOO
Old Jack Frost the past week got out his paint brushes and colors, and spread color around with a lavish hand. The high lights were put in the swamps, where maple and bilsted [American sweetgum] and sumac are aflame with yellow, orange and red. On the uplands the oaks are turning, and some of them rival the swamp maples for bright red tints. The upland sumac are a wine red, and the sassafras are gold, and orange, tipped with flame red. Some of the trees will not be so handsome this year as on other occasions. The foliage this summer was nipped by the frosts that came after its unusually early start, and was also hindered by the droughts of June and early July. So that the leaves on many trees are not many nor so perfect as in the average year. The very dry fall also caused the leaves to drop from the trees before they had a chance to color up. But nevertheless he is hard to suit who cannot find color enough in the Jersey woods just now to feast his soul upon. GAME WARDENS ARE ACTIVE Game Wardens are active and it hardly pays to take a chance breaking game laws, and then paying a big fine. Warden J.H. Evernham, of Toms River, had six men fined $20 each [$306 in 2021 dollars] the past week for running counter to the laws. Up at Point Pleasant four men were netting striped bass, and it cost them $20 each. They were Harry, Elmer and Stephen Ortley and Harry Letts. Out on Good Luck meadows last Sunday night, J.E. Hannaway, of Long Branch, accompanied by an Italian named Steruko, was shooting at ducks. They were also fined $20 each. FUND FOR OLD GRAVEYARD An unnamed correspondent sends the Courier a dollar bill [$15 in 2021 dollars] as the start of a fund for keeping the old Methodist Graveyard, at Washington Street and Hooper Avenue in better shape. The writer says that there are many who have loved ones buried there who might be willing to give a little something each year to keep this “God's Acre” free from weeds and looking nicely. The matter is well worth consideration. The dollar is a start. PERSONAL R.J. Bump, of Binghamton, N.Y., owner of the Bump Building, at Main and Washington Streets, has been spending a few days at Silverton gunning for wild fowl. Mr. Bump could see possibilities in Toms River real estate when the residents here could not, and probably would not unload for less than three or four times what he put in property here. Mrs. George Alsheimer and Mrs. Harold Murphy walked from Toms River to Lakehurst one day this week. They have several longer hikes in prospect.
FISH AND GAME
The wild fowl season opened on Monday morning, with scores of gunners on the points and islands of the bays. Scores more in the upper bay were out after crow chickens, while others haunted the tide ponds and swamp holes on the beaches and meadows for black ducks. During the week prior to the opening of the gunning season there were large flocks of duck arriving in both upper and lower bay waters. Geese also arrived and are still arriving, with the ducks, in goodly numbers. The crow ducks were at their usual feeding places in Applegate's Cove, Kettle Creek, etc. The other ducks were largely black ducks, which were raised about the bays this summer, widgeon, broadbills and rednecks. In the lower bay the geese and ducks were well out in the water and very few were killed. Black duck suffered a heavy casualty list, chiefly among this year's birds, it is said. For, while the gunners have a saying, “as wary as a black duck,” still the young birds, that had never been shot at before, and weer used to seeing men around all the time, were ready victims to the gunners. The crow ducks were mostly got in the good old way of chasing them up into the coves' heads with rowboats, and shooting them when, unable to retreat any further, because driven up to the land, the ducks rose to fly over the boats. Reports say that for a week or two past there had been a slaughter of black ducks at night, or in the early evening dusk in some places along the upper bay. Game wardens were pretty busy up that way, at any rate. Game wardens have their eyes on some folks who have been shooting quail since early October. They say they know their men, and may make arrests any time. Fishing is about over for the season. There were fewer fishing parties out this week and, there are more fish caught any December or January night in Joe Grover's store, at Toms River, or any afternoon in the winter, in Conrad's store, at Barnegat, than all that were landed this week end on the Jersey coast [the writer is joking about the “fish tales” that abound among gathered men in the town general stores mid-winter evenings]. Anglers say that the striped bass are about the inlets seeking fresh water for the winter. Seabass are still found, and also flounders. It is now about time for the winter flounder to come in the inlets, replacing the summer flounders that have been very plentiful since early spring this year. The winter fish are appearing on the coast, and tomcods, ling and whiting can b e looked for any time. Some fishermen say they have caught tomcod. Gus Meisselbach, of Newark, has been fishing New Inlet for striped bass and channel bass both, and with his friends has made a number of fine catches, says the Newark Sunday Call. This paper also tells of a visit paid to Forked River last week of a party of ten Prudential Insurance Co. employees, who motored down in two cars, leaving Newark at 3 A.M. They went out with Capt. Adam Hebeler, after first getting breakfast, and caught two big weakfish, some flounders, blackfish, seabass and several baskets of crabs before starting back to Newark. Baymen say there is much feed for the wild fowl in the bays this fall, and they should fatten up at once after their flight. When a Central Railroad train reached Elizabethport from the shore one day last week, a cock pheasant was found wedged in the cowcatcher. The new Bradley Beach fishing club proposes to make itself popular with its members. It announces that it will have as star attraction a clubhouse on the shore of Barnegat Bay, somewhere close to fishing grounds, and another at New Inlet. Buck deer have their horns full sized now, though partly in velvet. They will be hard and bony in a short time, with cool weather. Reports from back in the pines say that there are some folks who are enjoying fresh killed “pork” that once wore horns. Game Warden Charlie Morton, of Mt. Holly, will know all about that “pork” if the killers are not careful. He has a way of learning things that the piners do not like. RECENT DEATHS Mrs. John C. Post, Sr. Mrs. Mary Post, widow of the late John C. Post, Sr., of this place, died suddenly on Monday night, from heart trouble, aged 82 years. She had been in good health and spirits up to within a short time of her death. She leaves two sons, John C. Post and Elbert T. Post; three grandchildren, Walter Davis, and the Misses Hazel and Helen Post also one great granddaughter. Her maiden name was Pendleton. She was a sister to Mrs. Henrietta Thatcher, of Water Street. She came here with her husband and family about thirty years ago. Mr. Post, Sr., was a Grand Army veteran [a Union soldier in the Civil War] and also a veteran New York fireman, and moved here on retiring from the department, buying a small farm on the north side of town. He died some years ago. Mrs. Post was remarkable for her cheery disposition and high spirits, always trying to make other folks happy, and she had a host of friends... Burial at Riverside Cemetery. TOWN LIFE
BARNEGAT
How blessed we are who live at the seaside where fish, oysters, clams, ducks and other bay foods are right at our door. At least that is what our city friends think; but the city friends need only step out to a market and get these things just when they want them, while we, who live at the edge of the bay are fortunate to be able to get them at any price. Gunning season is here now, and many sportsmen are here also. Some of our baymen complain that private parties are buying all the islands and meadow points where the best shooting is. These islands and points have been here many years, and so have some of our baymen, but they failed to see that the steady march of advancement was steadily encroaching on their privileges. They have enjoyed these bay privileges all these years without molestation, or cost to themselves. If these islands and points are so valuable, why not get together and buy some of them? Then on the other hand, where do they make the most money—out of the sharpshooters, or by gunning for themselves? Many days they cannot get a feather and if they do they cannot sell the same. But when they gun for the stranger they are sure of their pay. So, if they owned the islands where would they be any better off, as the owners usually hire some one to take them out, and very few of them object to others gunning from their meadows when they are not there. The railroads are waking up to the fact that they must cut rates, especially on freights, as vast amounts of freight carried by truck is making inroads in their profits. Most all roads are dependent on their freight traffic for their main revenue, and with their large expenses, cannot let this trade slip away from them. How this railroad problem will pan out is hard to tell, as the roads say they cannot reduce rates without a cut in wages, and the employees say they cannot live if their wages are cut, and the public cannot live with such high freight rates. So what will be the outcome; we can only wait to see. Railroads are very expensive affairs to operate, taking the first cost and the daily expenses. For instance, suppose we want to go to Waretown, a distance of three miles. We go to the depot, and there is a building that cost several thousand dollars with an agent at a good salary. He will sell us a ticket at 15 cents. You go out and there stands an engine and three cars, the cost of which may be $50,000; then there is an engineer, fireman, conductor and two brakemen to help you on your way. You run over three miles of track that cost several thousand dollars per mile, and at the end of your trip you find another depot for you to get off at. And you may be the only passenger on the train—all for fifteen cents. The jitney has no depot, no agents, no tracks to keep up, but ask the jitneyman to take you to Waretown for fifteen cents. But the roads get some of it back when they have a circus train or a special that must get there in a certain time—there is no fifteen-cent rate then. BEACH HAVEN Mr. and Mrs. Guhle, of Tuckerton, have moved here and are living on Second Street. Gunners were busy from Monday all this week. Mr. Dougherty is building a new and large bungalow. It is stated that during January and February the railroad bridge over the bay from Manahawkin to Long Beach is to be repaired, the draw particularly. Passengers and freight will use the state bridge and travel by autoes while the railroad bridge is closed, the report goes. BEACHWOOD Mr. and Mrs. G. Siffert came down for the week end with Mr. R. Swanson and Miss K. Thomas, of New York. [Mrs. Siffert was the heiress of the Thomas English Muffin “fortune,” and a popular old Beachwood story is that she would wash her money and dry it out on the clothesline at their home on the southwest corner of Compass and Harpoon, which still stands today.] Mr. and Mrs. N.T. Pulsifer have closed their house. [Their house later was donated by Mr. Pulsifer to become what is today the Beachwood Library, still housed in the original bungalow on Beachwood Boulevard.] CEDAR GROVE Woodie Applegate has moved from the Cattus farm to the Wm. Miller house on Vaughn avenue. A family from Staten Island has moved in his place. The people of Cedar Grove are justly proud of their new hall, and wish to express their gratitude to all who in any way helped by giving money or labor. Special thanks are due to Mr. Freeman of Island Heights, Rev. Ira Hicks and Mr. Dave Marion for their liberal contributions. CEDAR RUN [section of Stafford Township] All the sportsmen at the Hub went duck shooting on Monday. Gunning stories are now all the go. We are looking, however, for the game. Jack Peer, who some time ago started to walk around the world, has not been heard from in a long time. Capt. Samuel B. Conkling, who spent the summer on the beach, is now at his home here, gathering his vegetables and fruit. The rest of the family are expected to return here for the winter in a few days. One of our busiest men is Robert Hampton, who is making many changes in the W.S. Cranmer store, of which he is now manager. FORKED RIVER Capt. Joe Smires has just built a new sneakbox for Jess Miller, of Toms River and started two more for the High Bar Gunning Club. Wesley Craw sold his motorcycle and is driving a new Ford. He has also built a garage. He is the guard at the gate at the Naval Air Station, Lakehurst. Some of our citizens claim they came across a bear track in the southwest part of Lacey Township. Outside fishing is good our fishermen say. Watson Penn caught a barrel of fish with hook and rod line outside last Friday. Joel Barkalow recently sold his place to George Kenfield, of Rockfield, Mass., and has moved into the house on Bay Avenue, he bought from the heirs of Robert Andrews. He is making a big change, clearing up the underbrush. The Kenfields also moved here last Friday, with cow, chickens, etc. Capt. F. Brouwer had a party out gunning and got over thirty ducks for the opening day. John Horner has a new house-boat for his gunning parties. Gray & Rutter have opened a meat market at Forked River in Al Grant's store. ISLAND HEIGHTS Harvey Stanwood's new house is going to have some cellar. We are eagerly looking for Captain Kidd's treasure to turn up. Ed Dilley motored down from Philadelphia to inspect the work on his cat boat, which is being turned into a sloop. Charles K. Haddon's new yawl boat is progressing well at Rote's yard. LAKEHURST The schoolhouse fence is looking better for the application of several coats of paint. With one good-sized store and restaurant and two stands at the entrance to the Naval Air Station, it looks like a little Wrightstown there. The entrance to the station is now closed off with a gate, and you must have a pass to get through. Some of the men are being laid off at the station. LANOKA The curve at Lanoka, on the C.R.R., running from the bridge to the side track has been raised about three feet. A gang of about fifty men have been working two weeks and will take another week to finish it. Several other places will be raised along the line, which ought to have been done years ago. LAVALLETTE Our new school teacher is getting along nicely with the pupils. They all like her and that seems to be half of the success of the teacher in a public school. Mr. George Jones is going to build a bungalow on his lot on President Avenue and Bay Boulevard. Some people think they have the right to cart sand off the beach front for grading, etc. There is no sand to spare and no one will be allowed to take any away. There are many people thinking of building here. It is quite a job to keep track of them. We welcome all who come to buy lots or build on them. It is hard to keep pace with them which all helps to promote the growth of the borough. The Lakewood & Coast Electric Co. will put in the extension from Reese Avenue to Brown Avenue. Osborn Bros., of Osbornville, have closed their store for the winter. The duck gunners had quite a good day's sport on Monday. Percey Johnson and his brother Enis got thirteen ducks; Oliver Osborn and his partner got eleven; and several others got quite a few between them. We only heard of three wild geese being shot on the first day. MANAHAWKIN The public school has been closed during the past week owing to several cases of scarletina. Conductor James V. Jones, of the Long Beach Railroad, is building himself a bungalow at Beachview section of Manahawkin. William Manlove is doing the work. PINE BEACH Several new families are expected to become all-year residents of Pine Beach. Some new houses are to be built this fall and winter. Recently, when a bungalow was bring moved from one street to another, a young lady was seen sitting on the porch of the house quietly knitting, while one of the movers was perched on the roof. Victor Dittmann is attending a class in commercial law, and account in the Wharton School of Finance at the University. Jas. Pentoney, his cousin, is taking a course in salesmanship in the same institution. Mr. Victor Donahue, who is a teacher in West Philadelphia High School for Boys and teaches night school in the same building, was held up recently near his home on his return from night school. Having served in the A.E.F. [American Expeditionary Forces, American soldiers in the first world war] he was not as much afraid of a gun as the robber thought he would be. Mr. Donahue thought it was a joke at first, but when he heard the voice back of him saying, “Hands up,” and turned to look, he saw a man with a black mask on holding a revolver pointed at him. His army experience made him tell the burglar to go to a warmer climate, while he took to his heels and fled, zigzagging as he went. He reached his home safely. SEASIDE PARK William Burdge is building a bungalow on Island avenue. At the pinochle and euchre party held Friday evening at the Manahassett for the benefit of the Board of Trade several prizes were donated. The first prize, a half ton of coal, donated by Frank Hewitt, was won by William Bates. For highest score at pinochle, a ten pound roast of beef, donated by Wm. Gregor, was won by C.W. Mathis. Refreshments were served and dancing followed. Mrs. H.S. Lippencott is enlarging her store. SILVERTON Game Warden Evernham was on the job early last Sunday A.M., but nothing doing. Our sportsmen would not break the Sabbath, so the warden had things all to himself. Look out you boys, though, for the new deputy warden who lives here. Those who watched the moon rise eclipsed last Sunday evening thought it worth looking at. Birds of various kinds were heard singing like in the springtime last week on those fine days we had. The sweet notes of the blackbirds, that came in large flocks particularly attracted attention. Must have been their farewell visits, for they haven't been heard since. Ill luck came to Watson Irons last Tuesday, when he fell twelve feet from his barn roof while putting on shingles. Dr. E.C. Disbrow was called and he found him in bad enough shape, but could have been worse. No bones broken, but he was sent to bed. We all hope to see him around and O.K. very soon. County Agent Waite spent Tuesday afternoon with Hamilton Tilton and his sweet potato patch, looking for prize sweet potatoes. Ham's sweet potatoes were a success this year. TUCKERTON Tuckerton Borough Council will take electric lights from the Atlantic City company, which will run wires to Tuckerton, having also furnished the current for the wireless plant below Tuckerton. Reuben A. Gerber has opened a new dry goods store at Tuckerton. Nathan Gerber's Sons have remodeled the original Gerber store and are running it as a department store. WEST CREEK Our cranberry growers are shipping their berries at very good prices to city markets. Owing to the absence of frost until most of the harvests were gathered the berries are in abundance and excellent condition. ADS OF INTERESTEnjoyed this article? Please consider making a one-time or recurring donation today!
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(often 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)
Mid-October.
Fine weather. Moonlit nights. Full moon Sunday next. Autumn coloring shows. Many boats still being used. First frost Sunday morning. Wednesday was Columbus Day. Hallowe'en Monday, October 31. Rain on Saturday afternoon last. Three weeks left for the political campaigns. Road scrapers were busy after the rains last week. Warm in the middle of the day, cool at night, has been the rule. Days get appreciably shorter. You need artificial light now by 5:30 P.M. Russel Harned is working for the Double Trouble Company at Double Trouble. The High School has its first football game next Saturday (tomorrow) at Point Pleasant. Mr. Taylor, the moving spirit in the new band, expects to have it out in the Firemen's Hallowe'en parade. Edward Crabbe started on Wednesday to pick the cranberry bog in Berkeley on the Main Shore road at Jake's branch. As high as fourteen deer have been seen in one herd between Toms River and Double Trouble by people who travel that road in autos, this fall. Sam Lefferson, of Lakehurst road, has a covey of quail so tame that they come around his yard where his chickens feed. He counted fifteen quail crossing the road in front of his house one day recently. Sunday morning was the coolest of the fall up to that time, with frosts that blackened the sweet potato vines here and there. Sweet potato growers say that the nice weather saved the crop, as an early frost would have killed the vines with potatoes half grown. Gasoline has gone up two cents this week, a cent Monday and another on Tuesday. This makes the retail price 26 cents a gallon [$3.98 in 2021 dollars]. The lowest it has been in several years was 24 cents [$3.68 in 2021 dollars], for the two or three weeks prior to last Monday. When Standard Oil goes up, Gulf is right with it, as close as a shadow. The frosty Sunday did the cranberries no harm. Wednesday was a holiday for banks and public officials. The firemen are planning a big parade for Hallowe'en. Rumor says that the Moderna farm has been sold to a party from Yonkers, N.Y. Mrs. Mary E. Ingraham is planning to build a house on South Main Street, not far from the Pennsylvania station. The Toms River Amusement Co. is building its sixth house this summer on Irons Street. I.J. Westervelt, who bought the other five, will buy this one too. One of the houses at Double Trouble occupied by Italian cranberry pickers, caught fire last Friday night from an outside cooking fire and was burned. The Italians were able to save the other near-by buildings. Eclipse of the moon Sunday evening. The High School will soon issue another number of the Cedar Chest [prior to an annual yearbook, the school put out semi-regular digest magazines of school activities, with the last one of the school year containing the traditional yearbook photos and features]. Sunrise to-morrow, 6:10; sunset, 5:22, making a day 11 hours and 12 minutes long. Evan Hicks, of Cedar Grove, son of Rev. and Mrs. I.E. Hicks, a member of the Toms River Poultry Club now forming, has a record in poultry raising. From January 1 to October 1, 1921, his nine old hens Rhode Island reds, produced 1663 eggs; he has 58 pullets hatched since March 8, and has sold enough eggs to raise the pullets to date. C.E. Payne reports that he has sold the big McClenahan house on the Parkway to one of the superintendents of construction on the ZR-1 [airship, later named U.S.S. Shenandoah] at Lakehurst, who will make it his home; the Charles Ptacek place on the South Lakewood road, to Mr. O'Connor, of Newark; the Moderna farm, on Hooper avenue, to Mr. Troop, of New York; Harry Tice farm, on Cedar Grove road, to Mr. Corrigan, of the Panama Canal Zone. The trees along the streets of Toms River are entitled to more consideration and care than they have been getting. When electric wires were first strung, linemen slashed trees unmercifully and without regard to necessity. Since then many trees have had limbs, large and small killed by insulation rubbing from light wires, and short circuiting when the branches were wet. The Electric Company, trying to obviate this latter difficulty, has at last obtained what Superintendent Case thinks is an effective tree insulator, which consists of a screw to go into the limb, holding a porcelain insulator to keep the wire at least three inches from the limb. These are being placed on trees by the company wherever they know they are needed. If you know of such a tree where wires rub the branches let Superintendent Case know. Mat Cranmer, of Mayetta, the Chevrolet dealer, is opening a show room in the Veeder building on Main Street. H.J. Samuelson has bought out the interest of his father-in-law, Samuel Kaufman, in the United Feed Company, and will continue in its management. Barnegat must buy potatoes out of town for this winter, the local crop being short. Samuel Kaufman has bought from the Toms River Amusement Co. a tract on West Water Street, adjoining the Ocean House property, with an eight-foot front and running north some 300 feet. Dr. Paul Goble, who is spending some time at the Lister cottage, Seaside Park, said that on Wednesday morning, as the sun came up, and the shower broke in the west, one of the most beautiful and brilliant rainbows he had ever seen spanned the western sky. Cranberry growers, as well as other growers of fruits and vegetables, have their own troubles with certain class of city folks who spend the summer in the country, and who think themselves privileged to help themselves to whatever they may find growing, no matter what, where or whose it is. Automobile parties are even worse offenders, as they take things in many instances from fields or orchards, grab sacks of potatoes or baskets of tomatoes or fruit from the fields, and now have a new trick of stopping at the little wayside markets which so many farms have along the road, helping themselves to what may be setting out there and speeding away. Farmers are demanding special legislation to meet these evils. To hit the automobile thief, the coming legislature will be asked to pass a law so that the Motor Vehicle Commissioner will have power to revoke the car's license. LET'S GET ANOTHER COW Last week the Courier told the story of a one-legged man's brave struggle to support his wife and two babies, and how he had been robbed of his crops and swindled by a cowdealer who had sold him a sick cow, which is now dead. Some of the Courier readers think that we ought to buy this man another cow. The Courier had the same idea, and last week arranged with County Agent Waite to look out for a cow for him, Mr. Waite entering heartily into the plan, and agreeing with the Courier to guarantee the cost of the cow. One day this week I received a letter from Mr. E.P. Taddiken, secretary of the J.E. Linde Paper Co., one of the largest wholesale paper houses in New York, who had the same idea. He sent the Courier a check for $5 [$76 in 2021 dollars], saying he had read the item last week, and it seemed to him the public ought to be enough interested in a man like that to buy him another cow. Mr. Taddiken, by the way, began to come to Toms River as a boy in the eighties [1880s], when H.H. Luhrs ran the Riverside house, and he still makes visits here and reads the Courier weekly. So to date there is $40 offered to help buy this cow: E.H. Waite, $5; Charles W. Herflicker, $5; E.P. Taddiken, $5; the Courier, $25. You may send yours to the Courier, or hand it to Waite or Herflicker as you choose. But that man must have another cow. HEADLINE NEWS
HALLOWE'EN CELEBRATION
Toms River Fire Company No. 1, following the custom established two years ago, will hold its Hallowe'en Mardi Gras again this year. The other two affairs were so successful, both financially and otherwise, that the company is encouraged to try it once more. Prizes for fancy costumes will again be given by the fire laddies, and as an extra added attraction prizes will be given away. The parade will be in charge of Edward Dempsey, as chairman of the Parade Committee. Charles W. Ludlow will handle the Prize Committee, while Roland L. Buckwalter will be in charge of the Dance Committee. TYPHOID EPIDEMIC ABATING Reports from New Egypt, Jacobstown and other centers of typhoid infection, that apparently started with the church supper in Jacobstown last July is that the sick ones are recovering. Many of them were near death's door for weeks, and are nothing but skin and bones, but are beginning to mend. It was one of the most virulent outbreaks of typhoid known in many years, and, coming as close to Camp Dix as it did, gives rise to the impression that the germs may have been brought from the other side by some returning soldier or soldiers, who were themselves inoculated against typhoid, and thus had it too lightly to be noticed.
CRANBERRIES AT $10 TO $12 PER BRL. FOR PACIFIC COAST
The Pacific coast is taking most of the early shipments of Jersey cranberries and paying $10 to $12 per barrel for them [$153 to $183 in 2021 dollars], F.O.B., the starting point. Local growers have shipped several carloads to Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other Pacific coast cities. The prices range from $10.50, the opening price on early blacks, to about $12 for Howes, per barrel. The cranberry barrel is of a special standard size, and holds 100 pounds. The old Jersey crate, still largely in use, holds 28 quarts; the new box used this season by some shippers, holds just half a barrel. It takes at present schedule ten days to roll a carload of berries from Toms River, or any eastern shipping point, to the Pacific coast, as berries, like Pacific coast fruits coming east are allowed special routing. They are shipped in refrigerator cars, carrying from 225 to 240 barrels, the smaller number being what the shippers are allowed to pack this fall in one car most of the time. Some of the local growers are getting larger yields than they looked for. They say the berries this fall are mainly underneath the vines and could not be seen, but the scoopers find them. George H. Holman, of Toms River, says he is picking twice as many berries as he expected to when he started. The Double Trouble Company is another instance in point, as they will get many more berries than they were counting on. They have picked 11,000 bushels now, and have another 1000 to pick. They ship two carloads this week and another next week to the Pacific coast... EXTRA DRY MAN ARRESTED AS BEING SELLER OF WET John T. Fortman, of Atlantic City, one of the proprietors of the Extra Dry Cafe, on Atlantic Avenue, was arrested Saturday on charge of selling wet goods. Fortman and Andrew Grob, who had the bottled whiskey buried at Barnegat, and was under arrest in this county, are partners in the Extra Dry, according to reports. Fortman went Grob's bail at Toms River; Emanuel Katz, caught with another truckload of booze last summer, in Cape May County, went Fortman's bail.
H.A. DOAN COMMODORE OF TOMS RIVER YACHT CLUB
At the annual meeting of the Toms River Yacht Club, held last Friday evening at the club house, Horace A. Doan was elected commodore, to succeed Edward Crabbe, who declined renomination in favor of Mr. Doan. The other officers include John A. Hensler, vice-commodore; John H. Stoutenburgh, who is rear commodore for life; Percy L. Grover, secretary, and Edward Crabbe, Dr. George T. Crook, Clarence Birdsall, Henry A. Low and William H. Fischer, trustees. The trustee chose the treasurer, who is Henry A. Low. Plans were talked over for putting a heating plant in the club house and having the club open in the winter as well as summer. To raise funds for that purpose an entertainment committee was appointed... They will start off with a costume dance, accompanied by an entertainment for Friday, October 28, a Hallowe'en affair. The past summer has been one of the most successful seasons the club has had, and it was able to make a substantial payment upon its small debt. It was voted to ask the township committee to name the street on the west side of Robbins Park in honor of Commodore John H. Stoutenburgh, by calling it Stoutenburgh Place, recalling the fact that it was from Mr. Stoutenburgh that the township purchased the little park running from Water Street to the river. FOR CHILDREN'S PLAYGROUND The mothers of Toms River village have decided that they want a village playground for the children. The location is already at hand at the school house, and the Home and School Association is planning a tag day to raise money for swings, slides, seesaws and rings and simple playground paraphernalia. The bringing of all the children in from the outside districts has entirely changed problems at the school house also, or rather raised new problems. The children are dumped out on the school ground and kept there during the noon hour, and the teachers say they should have something to do. The older boys have baseball, football, and outdoor basket ball, but the little shavers can only look on. You can be sure of one thing—if the mothers want the playground, they'll get it.
$25,000 WORTH OF EGGS HANDLED FIRST MONTH
The first month's business of the New Jersey Poultry Producers Association amounted to about $25,000, which is looked upon as a fine start. These eggs were shipped to New York from two stations, Toms River and Vineland, and the period covered by the $25,000 is from September 9 to October 8. Next Monday the third shipping station will be opened at Somerville. It is possible that others will be established. U.T. CO. WILL TRY OUT AUTOMOBILE RAILROAD CAR New Egypt, Oct. 12.—The Union Transportation Company has ordered a gasoline propelled car with a capacity of 48 passengers, to be operated by the railroad, to take the place of the usual locomotive and passenger cars. The new car has been operated at much less cost and is said to be quite as comfortable and speedy as the train service. T.R.H.S. FOOTBALL TEAM The Toms River High School has put a football team in the field this fall, and will play Point Pleasant, at Point Pleasant, tomorrow, October 15. Friday of next week, October 21, they expect to go to Princeton to play the high school there, and stay over for the big game at Princeton University next day. Another game is expected to be played with Clinton High School, of which Prof. E.L. Heilman, formerly of the Toms River School, is principal. A game with Lakewood and one with Point Pleasant, both at Toms River, are also expected, but the dates are not determined. PERSONAL Sunday's New York papers had a long story about an old-time Toms River boy, Cassius W. Seymour, of Paterson, who is known in all the lower end of Manhattan as “the blind stationer.” The story said that Mr. Seymour had been found wandering about New York, suffering from a severe attack of amnesia, being unable to remember who he was or where he belonged. Cassius as a boy, lived on Lein Street, Toms River, learned the printer's game at the Courier's shop and went to New York to work at the printer's trade. He afterward got in the jewelry business and had built up a nice trade when he lost his eyesight. Not by any means discouraged he started in life all over again in the stationary business, which he has carried on for years. Jon Harrop, of Gibbstown, a former Toms River man, was here for the week end. John is now pensioned by the DuPont interests and has retired from active work. He was formerly in the dynamite making game at Toms River and when the DuPonts bought out the plants here and wrecked them, he went with the bigger DuPont plants on the banks of the Delaware.
FISH AND GAME
The open season for wild fowl is from October 16 to January 31, inclusive. The opening day coming on Sunday next, ducks or geese cannot lawfully be shot until next Monday. The chief shooting on our bays next Monday is expected to be the black duck, which were raised in these parts this summer, and have never been shot, and accordingly have not yet learned the danger of being near to man. Those who escape the first day's shooting will probably be shyer and wilder... The Fish and Game Commission have a series of motion pictures taken at the State Game Farm at Forked River, at different periods covering a year in all, to show the raising of game birds and their various states of development. They have another series taken at the State Fish Hatchery at Hackettstown. When the Toms Rive r school gets its motion picture machine these films will be loaned it by the state without doubt. Vreeland Risden, at Point Pleasant Beach, landed a 21-pound striped bass fishing with a squid off the flats at the south end of the boardwalk. This fish was 36 inches long and measured 23 inches in greatest girth. Joe Forsyth caught one weighing nine pounds, and a number of smaller bass were hooked. Cool weather last week end made fishermen rather scarce for the first time in several months. Some weakfish have been caught up Toms River. They seem to follow the small fish on which they feed. Striped bass are coming inside the inlets for the winter. There ought to be some reports of good-sized bass being caught in the bay before the anglers quit for the winter. The eel sickness is on the eels this year and men who usually make a business of catching eels have done little of it. The eel breaks out in sores or “blisters” as the fishermen call them. Ordinarily the eel fishermen would be setting pots now and shipping eels to the city. The eel is a great delicacy for many foreign-born people in the big cities. Ducks are beginning to show up in the bay. With the cool days of mid-October the crow ducks are due in Kettle Creek, Applegate's Cove, and similar feeding grounds in the upper Barnegat Bay. While really gallinules, or rails, instead of ducks, these “crow chickens” are listed as ducks in the game law, and cannot be shot until the duck and goose season opens. Other rails are now lawfully shot. As told last week in the Courier, there has been a flock of fat railbirds in the grasses of Toms River where it loops south of the Central Railroad, and some fine bags have been gathered. William H. Eddy, of Philadelphia, Charlie Grover, of Toms River, and crew, are planning their yearly November trip to the inlet in their houseboat. Sampson is putting the houseboat in shape for the voyage. TOWN LIFE
BARNEGAT
We noticed in the editor's column last week about Ocean County being a sight-seeing place for tourists going through. We might suggest a few more things for which it is famous: We have as much or more pine barren or scrub land than any other county; we have the finest streams with the most ideal locations on either side along the coast. Why, the editor forgot to mention his own Toms River. Where is there a finer body of water for pleasure or profit than our bay. On our beach the first life-saving station was erected in 1848, at Harvey Cedars, and it was called a volunteer station until 1869. The first crew was put on at Barnegat Inlet in 1871, when the government appropriated $200,000 and erected a few stations on the coast. There were salt works at Barnegat, Waretown, Forked River and Toms River during the Revolution. There was a salt works at Toms River owned by the State of Pennsylvania, and on November 2, 1776, an officer and twenty-five men were sent there to guard the works. Ocean County is also noted for the historical wrecks along its beaches. In Ocean County the Barnegat pirates gained their reputation. It was on the beach at what is now Surf City, the first whaling station on the Jersey coast was operated. Some of the greatest cranberry bogs in the state are here. Last, but not least, we have more bottled booze in our county jail than any other county in the state—at least 1300 quarts was taken there, unless by the contraction and expansion, caused by change in temperature, loss may take place... To show that it pays to advertise you should see the inquiries received by J.H. Perrine, our boatbuilder. He doesn't believe in doing business altogether with those who live so near the shop they can hear the sound of his hammer, but he reaches out and takes in the town, county and state, and the whole wide world knows of Perrine's famous Barnegat sneakboxes. Here are the starting points of a few of the letters he showed us recently: Glasgow, Scotland; Mobile, Ala.; Portuguese East Africa; Halifax, N.S.; Honolulu, H.T.; Cairo, Egypt; Montreal, Canada, and from all the states on the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts. BEACH HAVEN The older folk in Beach Haven were interested in reading in last Sunday's papers the account of a bronze statue, erected in the city of Duluth, Minn., by the city, of Jay Cooke, the Philadelphia banker, who for a lifetime was a summer visitor at Beach Haven. Duluth honored Cooke with a statue because he was practically the founder of that city and built up that section of the country by a railroad he pushed through and other enterprises he backed there. It was Cooke who floated the Civil War bonds for Abe Lincoln to get the money to run the war, and his plan of appealing directly to the people instead of financiers and big capitalists only, was followed in the recent war. Cooke was very fond of the bay and of fishing. He was also extremely fond of his family, and was usually accompanied here by quite a group, including his own children and grandchildren. Fishing parties are thinning out and gunning parties are looked for next week. It is reported here that the government has decided to build the stone jetties at Barnegat lighthouse, and that there will be work for all on Long Beach who may need it this fall and winter. At least several of our men are counting on it. BEACHWOOD G.G. Mayo, son and executor of the late B.C. Mayo, has been on East from his home in Los Angeles, Cal., looking after his father's estate. The real estate interests at Beachwood and Browns Mills come in for a large share of his attention. He arranged with agents to dispose of the Mayo holdings in this borough which are mostly the desirable lots between the boulevard and the river in the most thickly built-up section. It is understood that the agents are finding a ready sale for these lots at good prices. CEDAR RUN The movies at Manahawkin are well patronized by the people of our shore towns. The theatre was recently enlarged to accommodate the crowds. FORKED RIVER Roger Wilbert, a C.R.R. employee, is located at Lakehurst. The first frost here Sunday morning, but it did no damage. The Forked River ball team beat a team from Toms River last week. Leroy Frazee, assistant cashier of the Barnegat Bank, was in New York to see the world series ball games. George Gravatt, of Forked River, died at the Kimball Hospital, Lakewood, after an operation for appendicitis, and was buried on Friday last, October 7, at Good Luck Cemetery. George was a Toms River boy, son of Capt. James Gravatt, a well-known sailor of party boats in years past. About seven years ago he married Gertrude Taylor, of this place and was father of four small children. Five years ago he moved to Bordentown, but afterward returned to Forked River. He leaves beside his own family, a brother, Jame Gravatt, also a sister, both living at Long Branch. He was well thought of here. George was taken with acute appendicitis while huckstering [selling items probably door to door] in Toms River village and was hurried to the hospital for the operation which was however too late. There was quite a good-sized crowd at the hotels for the week-end fishing. Those caught were large, weighing as high as ten pounds. ISLAND HEIGHTS Mrs. Harris is about to leave us again and will spend the winter at her art store in Lakewood. Her many friends wish her a prosperous winter. Mr. and Mrs. Lee, who recently purchased the Burroughs cottage, at Oak and Ocean avenue, are making some much needed improvements to the property. Mr. Leo Mamp, our lone fisherman, one day last week caught a king fish, a porgie and a perch, which were presented to your correspondent for her breakfast this being the last catch of the season there being nothing left to catch. Mr. Mamp returned home to Philadelphia after spending the season on the water-front with an occasional visit home to sleep. Miss M.V. Cook, of Maple Inn, having closed that boarding house, has returned to Mt. Airy, Pa., for the winter. Benjamin Adams, one of our well-known yachtsmen has gone to Philadelphia for the winter. Delbert H. Penn is working third trick at the Browns Mills Station on the P.R.R. this winter. Thomas Wallace, Sr. is building a new greenhouse. Roy Staples is doing the work. LANOKA William East, while looking after Capt. Daniel Wilbert's horses last Monday morning, was severely kicked in the breast by a horse with both feet and will have to lie in bed six weeks. It is said that some bones are broken. This happened while he was about to water the horses. They started to run, kicking their heels up, and Will happened to be behind one. Both feet landed in his breast, knocking him down. Hearing his cries, help came, and they took him home. Dr. Bunnell, of Barnegat, is attending him. The stork visited the home of Capt. George Chamberlain on last Tuesday morning and left two baby girls. LAVALLETTE There are several families staying here, enjoying the beautiful fall weather. Mrs. Pettit's bungalow, on Reese Avenue, is getting along nicely. When completed will make a very good appearance. Mr. F. Gregor, the butcher from Seaside Park is going to build a large store on the corner of Vance and Grand Central Avenue. Mr. Charles Hankins, the boat builder, has a new car. The work on the electric light system is going along nicely and the borough will be lighted up very shortly with electric lights. At the last Council meeting a petition was presented for a water system to be put into the borough. L.B. Osborn has been gathering cranberries the last week and will have quite a good crop. Berries are quite large and well colored. Lavallette has her share of weekend visitors. Many can be seen on the boardwalk enjoying the fine balmy weather. MANTOLOKING Theodore Peters closed his ocean front cottage on Monday and returned to his New York home. Mr. John Norcross is in Lakewood hospital on account of being injured from falling off a load of hay recently. POINT PLEASANT Up at Point Pleasant Beach, a hardware store had on its outside wall a sample rural delivery mailbox. It was put up last spring, and a short time ago it was taken down to show a prospective customer. In it were found 165 postcards and four letters, placed there by summer visitors, in the thought that it was a mail box visited by the carrier daily. SEASIDE HEIGHTS The Colonial Theatre, which is open twice a week, is drawing a large crowd from other towns nearby. The latest report is the contract has been given out for an American Store to be built in the near future. SEASIDE PARK Col. Charles S. Gaskill, son of Judge Joseph H. Gaskill, who spent part of the summer here while in the States for a couple of months, sailed again on Wednesday of last week on the Aquitania. He goes this time to Russia, to have charge of railroad transportation for the American Relief Expedition, under Secretary Hoover. A card party has been planned by the Board of Trade, to be held at the Manhasset Hotel on Friday evening, 14th. Proprietor H. Ross Turner is planning extensive improvements in the way of enlarging the dining room of the Manhasset Hotel. WEST CREEK Henry Cowperthwaite and family closed their cottage in Beach Haven and returned home here for the winter. Mr. Grey was very fortunate in having his cranberry crop gathered before the frost arrived. He reports a very good season. Mr. VanDuersen, a Civil War veteran, died at his home on the Forge Road on Tuesday evening, from a paralytic stroke. ADS OF INTERESTEnjoyed this article? Please consider making a one-time or recurring donation today!
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Today we share with you a 2013 presentation hosted by the fabulous New Jersey Maritime Museum of Long Beach Island, "A Brief History of Organized Maritime Lifesaving," presented by USCG Boatswains Mate Third Class John M. Kopp. CLICK HERE TO WATCH ON YOUTUBE For more information on the NJ Maritime Museum, head over to their site (njmaritimemuseum.org) for operating hours and upcoming programs and events. BREVITIES AND EDITORIALS(often 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) October. Tenth month. Nights gain on the days. Time for moonlit nights. Freeholders met Tuesday. New moon last Saturday. Boys are playing football. 1921 is three-fourths gone. Autumn colors are not very profuse yet. Rain on Friday and again on Monday. Judge Wells, of Burlington County, set here in court on Monday. A summer with two droughts is rare, but that was the record this year. Many Toms River and Ocean County people visited the Trenton Fair last week. Hallowe'en will come on Sunday, October 30. Quite likely the celebration will be on Saturday night. “Skip” Cowdrick, “Cap” Grover and “Lakehurst” Bryden, of Toms River, caught four big fellows at Oyster Creek Channel last week end. C.C. Engle has moved his family to Trenton, where he will give all his time to the selling end of the Crossley Clay Mining Co. This company is developing some new clay mines in other sections. He has for some time past been the resident manager at Crossley Station mines. Jesse P. Evernham is about to break ground for another store and apartment building on the west side of Main Street, next to the Evernham and Mathews' Building. It will be two stories, with a large store on the ground floor and apartment on the floor above. Delos Thomas, the flyer, with the seaplane, was at Toms River again on Saturday and Sunday, taking up passengers. He made several trips from here to Barnegat Inlet and return. J.E.C. Brown, the publicity man with the plane, says the company expects to have several boats on Barnegat Bay next summer—perhaps two in the Toms River-Seaside Park section, one at Bay Head and one for Beach Haven and Barnegat Station. Toms River High School football team is booked to play Point Pleasant on October 15. Last Saturday night showed up so cold that cranberry men who had a head of water flooded their bogs. It turned out, however, that the mercury went only to 30 degrees on the bogs, the same point it reached on the bogs the night before. No frost is reported from it on the uplands, and berries are now so well ripened that they can stand a little freeze. Oscar Hodgkinson, of Cedar Grove, brought into The Courier office from his farm on Tuesday, appleblooms, cherry blooms and a cluster of green apples about hickory nut size. Large gatherings of swallows, millions of them if you go by the looks, on Long Beach these days. On Squan Beach there are hundreds of starlings in flocks. Mrs. Jannet John took over the Sunnyside October 1, and is continuing it as a boarding house, which is a great public convenience. There is room and need for several good boarding houses in Toms River. A.E. Adam, who has followed the oil game from Texas to India, and thence to Jackson Mills, is now occupying the Miss Amalie Franco farm at Pleasant Plains. Adam says he has been in the oil game all his life and is now settling down to raise a few chickens and run a small farm. He is still interested in oil, however. Henry, the twelve year old son of Farm Demonstrator Waite, has had a flock of chickens and belonged to the Junior Poultry Club for a year and a half, and in that time clearing $106 [$1600 in 2021 dollars] from his flock. Henry's idea is to run a poultry farm when he gets big enough. Overcoats and wraps were all right this week, at nights. THE MEANEST OF THE MEAN On the outskirts of Toms River village is a man who some time ago, through misfortune, lost a leg near the hip. He has never whimpered or whined, but has met fate face to face and tried to make a living for himself, his wife and little ones. With one leg he farms his little place and makes out the best he can. This fall he had a few watermelons. There were some people, the meanest of the mean, who stole those melons from that hard-working, one-legged man. I hope that it was thoughtlessness rather than meanness that led to this despicable trick, for I would hate to believe that anyone could descend to such low estate. I also hope that if the persons who did it read this article, as they very likely will, it will show them how small a thing it was to do, and will arouse in their breasts the determination to in some way to pay back the loss to this hard-working but unfortunate man. Since the above took place another piece of hard luck has befallen this family. A few weeks ago this man bought a cow that he might have milk for his little family and perhaps some to sell as a source of a little income in the winter. Monday the cow died, and that hope is gone. HEADLINE NEWSKITE BALLOON WENT TO SEA TWO MEN IN IT ESCAPED The big kite balloon used as an observing station and practice balloon at the Naval Air Station, in Lakehurst, broke loose from her moorings in the heavy west wind on Wednesday and went to sea. Two men were up in the balloon when the cable snapped; they let out enough gas to get it to the ground, and then jumped. Relieved of their weight the balloon shot up again in the air. It was seen Wednesday morning passing over the south edge of Toms River village toward the sea. Later reports said the east wind to seaward drove it back to shore, and it had been seen near Atlantic City. It was a big fish-shaped balloon, with three-fin tail to steady it, and carried an observation basket. A cable and winch let it out and brought it back to the ground. SCHOOL TO HAVE MOVIE MACHINE The Toms River Home and School Association voted last Wednesday at its first meeting this school year, to buy a motion picture machine for school use. The opera house, used as assembly room for the school, has a booth and the state supplies educational films. 50,000 BUSHEL HARVEST AT WHITESBOGS THIS SEASON A Mt. Holly paper says that the Joseph J. White Company, owners of Whitesbogs, near New Lisbon, will pick 50,000 bushels of cranberries this fall and have a small army of 500 Italians from Philadelphia doing the picking. Up to last week they had already shipped more than twenty carloads to the middle and far west, some going to California. The same paper says that County Clerk William H. Reebes, of New Lisbon, and Mr. Warner Hargrove, of Brown's Mills, have harvested good-sized crops of cranberries. LOST DRILL at 2000 FEET Reports from the Jackson Mills oil field via Lakewood Citizen, is that the oil well there is down 2000 feet, and at that depth a drill was lost and so far they have not been able to recover it. That means the 2000 feet is lost. A new well is to be started at once. HANGAR A BIG ATTRACTION The past summer the approved thing to do for all visitors in this section of the shore was to motor to Lakehurst and look over the hangar. As the Lakewood season opens up visitors at that resort are making the hangar one of the points they will want to see. THE COURIER'S 72nd BIRTHDAY TODAY Today the Courier starts its seventy-second year. It is the oldest paper in the county, having started its career in 1850, the year Ocean county was set off from Monmouth. It is new, as it has always been, looked upon as the paper identified with the interests, the welfare and advancement of the county as a whole, and it is accordingly rewarded by a wide and ever-growing family of readers. It is prouder however of the confidence of its readers in fairmindedness and honesty of purpose than it is of growth in columns or in circulation. It is this confidence it has striven to deserve, and will endeavor to retain. FISH AND GAME Gus Meisellbach and party from Newark, while fishing at New Inlet recently brought in ten large channel bass, the largest weighing 42 pounds, and being caught by Al Hunt. If the federal government builds a big stone pile at Barnegat Inlet to save the lighthouse, it would be a good place to stock with baby lobsters. The Fish and Game Commission late this summer have put out in the woods and fields of the state 1406 pheasant, grown at the Forked River Game Farm. Earlier in the spring there were several thousand put out. Only the cock pheasant can be shot lawfully, and the commission is hoping in this way to get the state well stocked with these birds. The commission also announces that it has been putting out wild turkeys from the game farm in places that seem to make a natural cover for these big game birds. There is a closed season on them, and already in parts of the state they have been fairly well established. These flocks are found by wardens in fairly wooded sections. Big fish have been running this past week. The bay is full of small mossbunkers and the big fish have chased them up Toms River into fresh water where numerous schools of the mossbunkers have been seen, and where some of the big weakfish have been caught. Pound nets are said to be catching great quantities of albacore, a fish that resembles both the bonito and the mackerel. They are caught off the coast of late in large schools running from six to thirty pounds. Anglers have gone off shore after these fish with light tackle and have had great sport. PERSONAL Capt. Clifford M. Elwell, U.S. Army, left Toms River last Friday afternoon for Pittsburgh, where he is to be one of the instructors of military science in the Pittsburgh University. Mrs. Helene Klienhans and family have closed Sunset Farm on Hooper Avenue and returned to her home in Newark for the winter. Edward Crabbe has returned to Princeton University for his sophomore year. McEwan and Birkbeck Crabbe have returned to the Berkshire School at Sheffield, Mass. Andrew Applegate, assistant keeper of Barnegat Lighthouse, has been spending several days this week at his former home in Cedar Grove. Miss Ida Robinson, is now in Alhambra, Cal., having left Los Angeles, after a long stay there. She is now staying at an orange ranch and tells of a trip into the Sierra Madre Mountains, and camping there. When she returns East she expects to live near New York, having sold her home at Toms River. Henry Edwards and family of Beachwood, sail on Tuesday next, from Philadelphia to Jacksonville, en route for a winter at Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Jack Birdsall, son of Capt. And Mrs. Clarence Birdsall, has entered Princeton university. Franklin Doan, son of Mr. and Mrs. Horace A. Doan, has gone to Princeton, preparing to enter the university next year. RECENT WEDDINGS William Gwyer of Toms River and Miss Mary Jane Harris of Camden and Island Heights were married on Saturday last at Manasquan. The groom is the son of Captain and Mrs. Edgar K. Gwyer of this place and is well known as a player on the Toms River baseball nine. The bridge is the daughter of Herbert P. Harris, a P.R.R. man. TOWN LIFEBARNEGAT Added facilities adds to business but there is little use trying to increase our yachting and fishing crowds as there are not enough boats to accommodate them. Nearly ever night one can see yachtsmen looking for some one to take out their parties but everyone is busy. There are many parties who would rather have the old-fashioned sail boat for a day's outing than the modern gas-propelled craft. When the new cross-state road gets through and our baymen come to realize the great amount of business it will bring, of course they will advertise in all the Burlington and West Jersey papers. They will have large signs along the road, telling of the great fishing, sailing and crabbing is in Barnegat Bay and the rates but will not keep the ordinary people away, and above all accommodating and courteous captains who will treat visitors so they will come again and bring their friends. One could make good money with a dozen row boats furnishing nets, lines and bait for crabbing parties. But like one man said when the summer was over, “you would have to take care of them during the winter.” He might find some charitable organization to do that after he had made a good summer's work with them. As we have said before it will pay the town to spend a little money at the landing in making it attractive for visitors. The money would soon come back, but if we are going to wait for outsiders to force the business on us while we doze and grieve that we have no accommodations, many parties will leave and go elsewhere and never come here again. If we want the trade we must cater to it, make the place attractive, and then when we attract them, have something for them to enjoy. A day's outing is what the people come for, not to pay us a friendly call, but to satisfy their desire for sport—sailing, fishing, crabbing, rowing, bathing or just sitting on the wharf watching the boats come and go, enjoying the salt air and then spreading out their lunch. But whatever their desire is, try to please them and they will come back again. There are other places far more attractive than this, but let's get together and make our landing as attractive as some others. Billy Hankins has purchased a power-boat from Ezra Parker and is having her overhauled at Perrine's boat shop. He expects to burn the water when he gets his new up-to-date speed engine attached. Not for years have we had such night fishing. Those who go mostly come back with from half dozen to thirty weakfish, weighing from four to eight pounds, which is a pretty catch. Many are salting them for winter use. The Central Railroad will run its annual Mauch Chunk [renamed to honor Native American athlete Jim Thorpe in 1954] excursion this season. Why not make a change as nearly every one has been there, and it's too long and tedious to take a second time? Why not go up the Hudson as they use to do and give the people a view of New York City and the beautiful sights along the river which is rightly called the “Rhine of America”? Or they might take a run through the East River to Long Island Sound, down the Sound to Glen Island or any one of the many great pleasure resorts near New York. Austen Colgate, head of the large Colgate toilet industries, who owns a large slice of ground at the mouth of Barnegat River, is a frequent visitor to Barnegat these days. He had much sport fishing there this summer and fall. J. Howard Perrine is increasing the size of his boatshop in Barnegat. He is making a specialty of one design, sneak-boxes, and has his shop arranged to turn them out on standard specification. Albert Petterson, who has been employed at the Toms River station all summer, is back again with C.H. Brandt. BEACH HAVEN Capt. Jack Henson's and Sam Hayes' homes have had a visit from the stork. BEACHWOOD Polyhue Yacht Club, the youngest club on the beach, feels that it has done something this year, in that it has introduced the fifteen foot sneakbox as a separate racing class. There is little doubt now that next summer there will be a fleet of forty or fifty of these craft. Beachwood, Bay Head, and Mantoloking have boats of this size now; Seaside Park has ordered some sixteen or more of them; Island Heights is getting together a bunch of people to build boats of this type; so that next year racing of these small crafts on an inter-club scale seems assured. [The club], which recently leased from the borough three years the boathouse on the river bank, has installed a runway with skids and car for hauling out boats, and storing them. The Borough Commission at its meeting on Saturday night last had two big problems put up to it, the development of Beachwood Heights being petitioned, and charged against Frank Turner, as clerk and marshal, being preferred, and his removal asked. Mayor Senior being absent, Chas. H. Haring presided. The petition from residents of Beachwood Heights, was read, asking for more improved streets and street lights, also better police protection. The request was favorably received by the Commission, having been anticipated by them, and these matters having been the subject of much anxious thought on their part. Mr. Haring read a statement showing why the river front section was first developed by the borough. He said the blocks between Wave street and the river, about one-eighth the borough's total area, paid over 51% of the taxes and had only a small amount of 1920 taxes left unpaid; the part of the borough south of Wave street, some seven eighths of the total, is assessed at less than 49% of the total valuation, and a much larger proportion of its 1920 tax remains unpaid. The area south of the railroad being largely unimproved it has been thought wise to spend the greater proportion of the taxes at first in the improved section, the benefits of which expenditure are enjoyed by all Beachwoodites in their daily visits to the water front. Fear of what a forest fire may do is perhaps the reason that in many properties the wild shrubbery is being thinned out and the trees thinned also. It takes away from Beachwood its original look of nature in its wildness, but it may save the place from a conflagration some time if it is done with care. A new series of Beachwood postcards, in colors, has been printed by The Albertype Company, of Brooklyn, and placed on sale. It embraces several views of the Polyhue yacht races and the different colored sails are very attractively shown. Also scenes on Bayside Avenue, the bathing beach, Indian Spring, etc. To S.D. Priest, of Toms River, belongs the credit of having brought out these most interesting and pretty cards. CEDAR RUN The Tuckerton Railroad is now running on standard time. William De D'Fanti, the new owner of the Eugene Reeder Farm, has a tractor plowing up his fields and has a couple of men building new chicken houses, as he expects to enter the chicken industry on a large scale. C.N. Taylor is assisting the delivery of coal in town, and by the looks of things, our coal bins will be well filled this winter. Last winter our citizens were forced to purchase their coal out of town and then had to pay extra for delivery. FORKED RIVER The cranberry crop has been pretty good and has escaped frost so far. John Horner had one week-end party out fishing that caught 28 big weakfish, running up to ten pounds in weight; another of his parties caught 20 big yellow fins. Capt. Jos. Smires has a contract to build a new boat for a Philadelphia party. The Captain is now driving a Ford sedan. Mr. Rodgers, the “science man,” gave a very interesting lecture on some of his experiences in China and Japan last Monday evening, and despite the inclement weather, had a fairly good audience. ISLAND HEIGHTS Mr. and Mrs. Randolph Cramer, who are staying at the Hallock cottage on the water front, paid a visit to Old Barnegat last Saturday, and were shocked to see what destruction had been done since last year. Emil Bartells and Misses Helen, Dorothy and Marguerite Bartells sailed over from Seaside Park last Saturday and called on Mrs. T.E. Wainwright, the ladies returning home via airplane. Who says we are not progressive? Charles M. Haddon, son of Charles K. Haddon, and master of the fast catboat Zulietta, which this summer won the Morgan cup, and other races, is now a student at Philips Exeter Academy, Exeter, N.H., where he is preparing for college. Charles K. Haddon and family have closed their summer home, returning to Haddonfield. LAKEWOOD The Laurel House, Lakewood's first big hotel, and still the favorite with many Lakewood visitors, opened for the season on Saturday last, October 1. Indications point to a big year in Lakewood and an early opening of hotels. The Strand, the new Ferber Theatre in Lakewood, will open in December. Barney Ferber is now interested in picture production, having bought stock in the Associated First National Pictures. MANAHAWKIN Congressman Appleby, Lighthouse Commissioner Putnam and party took dinner at Tom Cranmer's bridge house last Friday. Tom served them a shore dinner that ought to have helped save the lighthouse. Mr. and Mrs. Walter Bolton Jr. of Manahawkin were among those taking flight in the seaplane at Beach Haven last Friday afternoon. Conductor James V. Jones, of the Long Beach train, has moved back to Manahawkin, after spending the summer at Barnegat City [now Barnegat Light Borough]. Jason Fenimore, who had his family at Harvey Cedars during the summer, has also moved back to Manahawkin. NEW EGYPT Latest reports are that the typhoid epidemic near New Egypt, centering in Jacobstown, has apparently run its course. While there are many still very sick, it is now thought they may recover. Just now there is another typhoid outbreak in Trenton and its surroundings. OCEAN GATE The seaplane spent some time here taking up parties. One party consisted of Mayor William H. Newlin and Marshal Joseph F. Selinger. PINE BEACH There are likely to be several more winter residents here than last year. L.J. Hutchinson is living in his cottage this winter. L.T. Sacrey is occupying the Haines apartment on the water front. The bungalow on New Jersey avenue which Miss Mulrenan purchased last spring has been moved to Huntington avenue. POINT PLEASANT The tin Lizzie has featured in many roles, but figured as a life preserver for Frank Hennessy, an electric light lineman here, when he fell 16 feet from a pole and hit the hood of a Ford, breaking the force of his fall and perhaps saving his life. George T. McGirr, of Point Pleasant, is recovering from a severe attack of typhoid. He served in the Eleventh Engineers in France and was gassed. SEASIDE PARK Winfield Donat of Philadelphia spent the week end here and took back a good catch of fish. Wm. C. Conover with his family is among the last to leave the resort, but he is now storing his boats to go away. A number of houses are to be built during the winter and spring. The State Board of Health has notified the borough that overflow of sewage into the bay must cease, and an engineer will try to see how the matter can be remedied as early as possible. Mr. and Mrs. Edward Mangold are spending a couple of weeks cruising down near Barnegat City [today Barnegat Light Borough]-- a vacation marking their first wedding anniversary. Operator Clayton Sterling, who spent the summer here as operator at the P.R.R. has returned to his home in Maryland. SHIP BOTTOM The pound fishery is lifting large catches of all kinds of fish. We have fine artesian water and by next summer will have all the cottages piped. Our old fisherman, Jake Applegate, has been taking out parties after those big fish. SILVERTON Marauders have been helping themselves to some of Theo. Irons' crops. About three weeks ago they picked and carried away a generous lot of his nicest apples; later, they dug some of his sweet potatoes, and have taken most of his cranberries. Mrs. C.L. Warwick of Seaside Heights spent Monday here with her mother, Mrs. D.H. Tilton, and other relatives. Her husband has finished his summer's work at the Penn. station, Toms River, and today goes on duty at Jamesburg, where they expect to live this winter. Bartine Clayton has his cranberries about harvested. Watson Clayton had the misfortune to lose his hog last week, after keeping it over all winter and summer. It is quite a loss, and so near the killing time, too. TUCKERTON Tuckerton Borough will give up its gas street lights and put on electric street lights, using current from Atlantic City. Mr. and Mrs. J.J. Pharo have closed their home here and gone to Philadelphia, where they will spend the winter. WEST CREEK Mr. Lumbreyer of Berry Lodge, is quite extensively engaged in the manufacture of candy which he retails at a very reasonable price. Another new industry started from present prospects good. Hamilton Pharo, Joseph B. Cox and Miss Maud Cox went to Atlantic City recently to attend a surprise birthday party to Miss Adele Parsons, one of our town girls, but now residing in the City by the Sea, whee she is teaching in one of the schools. Needless to say they had a good time. Josephus A. Seaman, station agent at Beach Haven, is spending his vacation at his home here interspersed with trips out of town. Harry Seaman and family have returned from Beach Haven, where he has been employed during the summer. We are glad to see our people coming home again. Several of our town's people took in the excursion to Mauch Chunk, Pa. ADS OF INTERESTPOOR MAN'S PARADISEby Robert Barrie I HAVE sailed at odd times on Barnegat Bay, and one summer kept a launch there, and pottering about found it more interesting than I had supposed. It is the largest of the lagoon-like sheets of water on the New Jersey coast, and a pretty good place for the small boat sailer and lover of open air life. With a land breeze on a summer's night the mosquitoes are the bugbear of the place, but then there are mosquitoes at Mt. Desert and Nantucket when the conditions are right.
The greatest length is about thirty miles; this is in a north and south direction from Bay Head to Harvey Cedars. At the lower end, opposite the Inlet, the width is about five miles; this width gradually decreases up to Bay Head, but there are quite a number of broad and deep indentations on the western shore, such as Toms River, the Metedeconk, Forked River, Cedar Creek, Kettle Creek, Oyster Creek, and others that considerably increase and add variety and interest to the cruising ground. It seems as though these rivers must one day have emptied directly into the sea. The western shore is quite bold; for instance, the bluffs at Island Heights are eighty feet high, and it would have been a nice piece of coast, with several good harbors up these rivers, if the action of the sea had not beat up a long range of sand dunes. which commencing above Bay Head must have gradually worked down the twenty-five miles to the Inlet, as these Jersey outlets are called. Outlets they certainly must be, for if it were not for these openings, kept clear by the surplus waters of the rivers, they would certainly have closed long ago. Proof of this is to be found in smaller bodies, such as Wreck Pond, north of here, where an easterly blow will bank up a bar ten feet high that will completely close the opening, which will remain like a dam until the pond behind it has filled up. Once filled, however, as soon as the slightest stream begins to flow over, the dam is doomed, for a rapidly increasing cut soon eats down to low tide level and the "Inlet" is again in being. The sand dunes, more picturesque in themselves than those of Holland, are ranges of little hills covered in most places with long, bright green, wiry grass and sturdy shrubs. In parts there are wind-twisted cedars. The marshy spots are, in summer, covered with large marshmallows. Indeed, the scene on the eastern shore of the Bay -- on a morning in late summer, when after a squally night there is generally a brisk northwest wind and cloudless sky, is one seldom equaled outside the tropics. The western hills with pines of the darkest blue, the waters a slightly lighter shade, and the sky a still paler blue make fine contrasts to the almost inconceivable gayness of the other colors, no mere tints, that range from pure white of the sands through the pinks of the marshmallows to the riot of the bright yellows, greens, and vivid reds of the marshes. It is a paradise of color for painters. The western shore is bordered with large patches of pine woods, stretching far back into the country, which give to the water in the upper reaches a coffee color, but there is no muddiness, and the water is perfectly transparent. Where the good land comes down to the Bay there are prosperous farms; these are seen at their best near Toms River. In general, however, the shores are as wild and deserted as the most violent hermit could wish. In winter these pine-strewn glades should be fine camping grounds for consumptives. The average depth of water in the channels of the upper Bay, that is above Barnegat Pier, is about five feet; in some rivers there are stretches with thirty feet. The depths appear not to change, and the reason is found when one anywhere in a channel shoves over the bronze end of a boathook and feels the clank as it strikes the shale on the bottom. Apparently, the floor of the whole thing is glacial drift not likely to change in centuries. Out of the channels there is a mixture of mud and sand; in the lower Bay generally only the latter, perfectly clean and hard. For some reason the Bay is a great place for breezes; possibly because Barnegat, the elbow of Jersey, so sticks out into the ocean; at any rate, there are seldom calms and any are of short duration. In addition to sailing, fishing and shooting are the great sports of the Bay. In summer when the weakfish are running they can be hauled out as fast as one can bait; down by the Inlet and outside all sorts of sea fish are to be had, with, in particular, bluefishing in season. Beach birds and duck will fill the cruiser's larder if he is a shot, so that to the man in a small, light draft boat this little world makes a pleasant little cruising ground. For the racing man there is plenty of fun; the sneakbox and cat classes show some clever sailing. The Barnegat gunning sneakbox has been so often described that it seems unnecessary to do so again here; the boats used in racing are a development of the same idea, twenty-one feet over all, nine feet beam, eight inches draft; the crack boats being fitted with hollow spars and silk sails. Morton Johnson, the boat builder at Bay Head, seems to be the most successful designer and builder of these; at any rate, owners of his boats seem to win the most prizes, and the Bay Head Yacht Club, where many of his boats are owned, appears to be at the head in this class. The catboats, generally about twice the size of the "boxes," are from the boards of well-known designers, such as Cary Smith and C.D. Mower. William P. Kirk, of Toms River, is the most successful builder in this class, and in this the clubs at Seaside Park and at Island Heights generally come off best. These little yacht clubs on the Bay are wonders; they all have a good membership of live men who take an active interest in sailing. Their initiation ($10 and dues ($5) are as modest as in the English clubs. They have surprisingly good houses and the members get remarkable service; for example, the care of a boat costs but five dollars for the season; this means pumping out, drying sails, bringing in to the landing stage for owner and taking back again to mooring every day in the four months of the season if he wishes it. A good mooring, made of cement, can be rented for two dollars per season; so the man without a bulging purse does very well. The weak point is that sleeping accommodations and restaurants are not, but where the clubs are there are hotels. These clubs are at Bay Head, Mantoloking, Toms River, Island Heights, and Seaside Park, the two latter have the largest clubhouses and best anchorages, and are the most convenient as to trains for Philadelphians. Bay Head can be reached in two hours from almost any part of north Jersey. Seaside Park itself is a Godforsaken looking place, without a bush or blade of grass, on the sand dunes between the Bay and ocean, with buildings of an unutterable ugliness; but a fine healthy spot that might be made as green as the New Yorkers have made Seabright, where the conditions are precisely the same. Seaside Park has the great advantage to Philadelphians that there one has saltwater within ninety minutes of Broad Street. If there was a yacht club station with bed and board and a shipkeeper at the little harbor at the western end of Barnegat Pier it would be a fine spot to keep a little boat, for from there there is ample sailing ground, and a short run of twelve miles would take one down to the Inlet, where there is a good harbor, the dike behind the Sunset House, and plenty of salt, and fishing, and bathing. As there is good train service up in the morning and cheap commutation, it would be a boon to the business man who wants to get into old clothes and a boat and have a sniff of the sea, but does not care for Atlantic City with all its silly caravansaries and the summer boardwalk rabble. An ideal spot for a sailing headquarters could be made at the deep cove known as Winter Anchorage at the lower end of the long stretch of land that runs down from Bay Head. It is at the north side of the Inlet, protected on the south and southwest by a small island and on the north and northeast by the hook of the land, has ten to fourteen feet of water at low tide, with sticky bottom. The twelve miles of this land below the Pier all belong to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, which could create a fine cottage colony there if a good road were built down to the point. It would be practically an island, as it would be surrounded by water in every direction; the ocean on the outside and the Bay on the inside would make the nearest land five miles away and practically no breeze could be a land breeze. A lot of Japanese could turn it into a garden spot; today, within a couple of hours of the two largest cities in the country it is absolutely deserted except for a couple of lifesaving stations. If the new places like Seaside Park are appalling in their rawness, the villages of old Barnegat, Waretown, and Toms River on the western shore, with their overhanging elms and oldtime flavor more than compensate. The best of these to my mind is Toms River, of revolutionary date, which has a little the air of Nantucket village about it. It is at the head of navigation on the Toms River, seven miles from Seaside Park, the longest east and west stretch to be had on the Bay. Here Kirk has his shop and seems to do a good business, both in building and laying up. Faunce Brothers are also here, but further down stream at the deeper water, so they get the larger craft. Still further down, at Island Heights, are shops and hauling out yards; so that, bearing in mind those at Bay Head and old Barnegat one sees that this little sheet of water is the best supplied in this respect of any of its size and depth in this country. Indeed, there are few bits of water, cut off as it were by themselves, that can equal Barnegat in turnout of small sailing craft, and some of them are high sided, able seagoing vessels that surprise one until he sees what they have to face down at the Inlet. Engines are being put into lots of old boats and all the new cruisers have them. There is a horror of grass, but this terror can be got rid of by a quick reverse. The engines take the place of poling as a means of getting home on quiet nights; before they came, when the wind died out, the plan used to be to work over into shoal water and then one could pole along on the sand as fast as a man could walk along the deck; some tall stories are told at Bay Head about this sort of work. The people about the Bay appear to have all the good qualities that we are in the habit of attributing to Anglo-Saxon water folk all the world over; their records on the lifesaving stations are equal to any, and if there was wrecking and robbing by decoying vessels ashore in the old days, as historians and romancers claim, the habit does not descend to the present generation, for prices are no worse here than at other sailing centers. Barnegat men make good sailors; I have known several yacht hands who have become masters. They are spunky too; one man when a boy of thirteen used to make regular trips from Toms River to New York in his father's trading schooner in the days before the railroad. Rough runs outside they of course sometimes had; they risked it once too often, and one night the schooner went ashore just above Sea Girt and broke up, and all the father saved was his boy, whom he managed to bring ashore on his back through the surf. It must have been a ticklish run, for although the Inlet is over a mile wide and the channel is deep, yet it is crooked and shifting, and the two outside entrances north and south of the Shoals are not easy to pick up. The Shoals themselves, stretching out almost a mile to sea, are nasty. I have seen them on a moonlight autumn night in a dying southeaster twisting and boiling, like the rapids at the whirlpool below Niagara, in an awe inspiring way. I was on shore, I am thankful to say. Struggling along against the wind I passed down to the beach near the lifesaving station; here the wind was driving along the sand about a foot above the beach in a never ending stream that produced the same feeling of dizziness that one gets in looking closely at the road from a fast motorcar. Nearby, as I went back awed and cheerfully gloomy, I passed gruesome reminders of the Shoals' work in the shape of over a dozen figureheads of wrecked ships decorating the grounds of a bungalow. In the Bay the small boat cruiser, the fisherman, the gunner, and the lover of wild life in general, has pasturages which may not be the greenest and best in the outdoor world, but which are far from being the worst by a long shot. If he thinks he can better them he can go south inside through the various bays and sounds almost to Cape May, but will come back sadder and wiser and assured that, in Jersey at least, there is no better place for the purpose to be found. If the Englishman had Barnegat he would have painted it, and written books about it, and gloated over it as he has the Norfolk Broads, but in our great wealth of cruising grounds it is almost entirely overlooked. BREVITIES AND EDITORIALS
(often 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)
Autumn.
Last Day of September. Three months left of 1921. School is now fairly underway. Did you go up in the sea plane? Nights are a little longer than days. We surely have had some fine days. The clock was set back last Sunday. Fields are still gay with wild flowers. September weather has averaged warm. Jury will come back second week in October. September was the finest month of the summer. Cranberry men have a large part of their crop off the vines. The sewer was put up Horner street to the school house Monday. Tuesday was primary day—all aboard for the general election, now! Night comes pretty early, since the clock went back to standard time. Net fishermen will soon be overhauling their gear for the winter's fishing. A flock of quail were seen feeding on the J. Brown Burr lawn on Allen street Wednesday. Somewhat of lightning, and not much rain, Sunday evening, followed by a baby gale that afternoon. Now that the rush is over, is the project of widening Main street to go over till next August. Flocks of starling are seen on the beaches, much smaller in numbers, but much in the same nature as flocks of swallows. Huddy Park has been used more this summer than ever before. It has been common to see people sitting there this year, while heretofore it was rarely done. Days are now less than twelve hours long. Main street was too narrow again on Saturday night. Cranberry men are sending berries to the middle west. Thrashers and catbirds are seen in the thickets, and the robins have also taken to the swamps. Quite a number of folks went flying the first of the week; it was too good a chance to miss. Lee Dunton is working with manager M.R. Hecht at the Poultry Producers' Association egg shipping plant. Eggs are coming in pretty fast for this season which is a dull season for eggs. Lima beans and sweet corn stay by us. Lots of late sweet corn, but the corn worm did riddle it. The first party to go up in the sea plan Monday consisted of William C. Nolte, Joseph Y. Murphy, Hans A. Hanson, Jesse Woolley and William H. Fischer. While all the rest is going on, we must not forget that the entrance to Hyers street, at Washington street, must be widened and the sky parlor removed. The mild September, with no frosts, leaves most of the trees still green as summer. Gums, sumac and sassafras are the chief exceptions. Here and there a maple has turned yellow or crimson. The Pennsylvania Railroad winter schedule went into effect on Sunday last. Trains will leave Toms River during the winter for Camden and Philadelphia at 8.12 a.m. and 3.56 p.m.; arrive here from Philadelphia at 10.09 a.m. and 5.41 p.m. This week only there has been an extra train up in the morning and back at night. The yacht club house is closed for the summer. Many reports come in of apple and pear trees in bloom. Charles W. Herflicker reported three apple trees in his orchard blooming last week, former Assemblyman Adolph Ernst has a pear tree in bloom. A fire to the southwest of town was last Saturday headed off from the Wyckoff bogs, owned by George H. Holman, on Sunken Branch. It did burn an old bog, which was once owned by “Billy” Irons, a well known cranberry man, forty years ago. Edward Crabbe and other fire wardens from Berkeley township aided Mr. Holman's men in fighting the fire. The biggest asset Toms River has is first, the river; second, the trees. Both are shamefully neglected. The town is losing on both everyday, and nobody does anything to stop the loss. HEADLINES AND NEWS NOTES
BUREAU CHIEF HOLDS FATE OF LIGHT HOUSE
WANT UNCLE SAM TO SPEND $100,000 ON BARNEGAT LIGHT Making his second trip to Barnegat Light this summer, Commissioner George R. Putnam, head of the Lighthouse Bureau, conferred with Congressman Appleby, the engineers of the State Department of Commerce and Navigation, and Jesse Howland, of Seabright, a well-known practical builder of jetties and bulkheads on the north Jersey coast, with an idea of reaching some plan by which Barnegat Light can be saved. It is believed that the federal government is willing to spend as much as $100,000 on saving the lighthouse, partly as a matter of business, partly in deference to sentiment; but that the administration does not feel like going any farther than that sum. Two plans were presented on Friday last at the lighthouse. One was suggested by Mr. Howland, as the outcome of conferences with Lighthouse Bureau engineers: It is to build a wall of stone, eighteen feet above mean low water, starting from the sand hill inside the lighthouse, and curving around it on the lines of the present partly destroyed timber jetties, and leaving an opening at the east end, into which the sand may wash. This stone pile, or wall would be higher by several feet than the ground at the base of the lighthouse. The second proposition was presented by B.F. Cresson, Jr., Consulting Engineer of the State Department of Commerce and Navigation, with Henry Sherman, Assistant Engineer, and Robert F. Engle, of Beach Haven, one of the commissioners of that department. It would be to build jetties of timber piling, with a row of sheet piling between two rows of piles, all cross braced and strengthened with a rip-rap of stone on each side. These jetties would take somewhat the same shape as the Haupt jetties that were not completed. It is estimated that the Howland plan would cost $100,000; Messrs. Cresson and Sherman think that their plan could be worked out for half that, but the stone piles would not be so massive. It is understood that Howland is to meet this week with the State Department engineers to go over a modification of the two plans... This is Commissioner Putnam's third visit to Barnegat Light since the Courier began its fight to save the lighthouse early in 1919. He was at Barnegat City [now Barnegat Light Borough] in the summer of 1920, when it was decided to proceed with the jetties the borough had started under plans of Prof. Lewis M. Haupt; he was here again last June with Congressman Appleby. While not willing to admit that Barnegat is the most important of the 14,000 or so lights on the coasts of the United States, the commission cheerfully admitted that it is easily the most widely known and has the most friends of them all. The commissioner feels that navigation would be best served by a lightship off Barnegat Shoals, and there is little doubt that one will be placed there soon, no matter what may or may not happen to the lighthouse. Mr. Putnam, like Secretary Herbert Hoover [later, president], on his visit to Barnegat Light, tells the Courier that had the light been built with a deep foundation it might be saved by surrounding its base with a heavy rock pile or cement casing, down into the sand, but the records of the department say it was built on a timber crib, which is not very deep in the ground...
FLYING BOAT TAKES RIDERS AT BAY AND RIVER TOWNS
A flying boat of the Aeromarine Airways, Inc., whose headquarters are at the Times Building, New York, has been for the past two weeks taking out passengers (as reported in the Courier last week) from the bay and river resorts. After having spent ten days at Bay Head, Mantoloking, Seaside Park, Island Heights, Ocean Gate and similar towns, the boat arrived at Toms River on Monday and flew from here that afternoon and the next day. The pilot of this craft is Delos Smith, who holds the world record for sustained flying in a flying boat when in 1919 he was in the air 20 hours and 10 minutes in navy plane F-5-L, from Hampton Roads. The men with him were George Walker, mechanic, and J.E.C. Brown, publicity agent. Mr. Brown said they were visiting the seashore resorts in a publicity campaign. In the summer these planes fly from the northern summer resorts, and in the winter from southern resorts such as Palm Beach, St. Petersburg, Miami, Key West, Bimini, Tampa, New Orleans and from Cuban resorts. Thursday of last week, at 5 P.M., one of the larger planes belonging to this company left the Columbia Yacht Club, on Riverside Drive, New York, and Sunday arrived in Havana, Cuba, carrying two passengers. The company runs excursion trips to seacoast cities and resorts all around New York, as far as Newport to the east and Atlantic City to the south. They also have an American Cuban mail contract. Some of their large boats are fitted up with a cabin containing six chairs. The boat in use here was a naval coast patrol plane, altered so that it had an open cockpit seating five beside the pilot. [CLICK HERE for the Aeromarine Airways history website, with many interesting large photos and further information]
HANGAR STICKS OUT LIKE WART ON A MAN'S NOSE
Wherever you go in this section the big hangar at Lakehurst, on its cleared hill, sticks out like a wart on a man's nose. At Barnegat Light, the keepers say it is plainly visible on a clear day, and when the searchlights at each end are lighted up, as was the case Thursday night of last week, the lighthouse keepers almost thought that the twin lights of Navesink had been moved to Lakehurst. From an airplane it is just as conspicuous. What would happen in event of war if enemy planes got within eye-range of it? Perhaps it might be camouflaged in case of war. But if it is built as it is so that its own birds will be able to locate the home nest, it looks as if they might in ordinary weather without much trouble. AMERICAN LEGION BAND American Legion Band is the name adopted by the new band organization in Toms River, and the band will be affiliated with the Legion, many of the boys in Vanderveer Post joining the band. Organization was completed at a meeting on Wednesday night of this week. Lester Yoder is president; Arthur C. Taylor, vice-president, Charles R. Berrien, Secretary; Richard Garland, treasurer; Edward E. Snyder, librarian. It was voted to incorporate the band, and E.E. Snyder, was named a committee to have the body incorporated. Dues were fixed at 25 cents a month [$3,82 in 2021 dollars], and initiation fee at $5 [$76.42 in 2021 dollars]. It is the plan to give band concerts next summer at Huddy Park. Thirty pieces, with a reserve force of thirty more is the strength proposed. The band will also accept honorary paying members. BEEN SELLING FARMS H.J. Faby reports the following farms changing ownership through his agency: W.C. Pinkerton farm, Pleasant Plains, to Brooklyn people; Warren Applegate homestead, Cedar Grover, to Lester Fellner, of Toms River; Albert Sanders farm, Washington street, to Arlington people; Capt. Oscar Bull farm, Pleasant Plains, to New Yorkers; Walker Rushton farm, Pleasant Plains, to Hoboken people. SOME BIG CRANBERRIES Harry Holloway, who is picking the Applegate and Austin bogs at Dover, last week brought to the Courier office a cranberry that was seven-eights of an inch long, and the same size in diameter, or 2 an 3-4 inches round it. It was a handsome, red berry. W. Scott Jackson brought to the Courier office a box of one of his fancy varieties of bell shaped berries, nicely colored, and each berry a full inch long, or longer. They were a handsome lot of fruit, and Mr. Jackson is lucky enough to have quite a lot of them. WHO IS THE BEST SCOOPER? Some of the cranberry harvesters want to know who is the champion scooper. For two years past “Young Saul” Applegate had the record in this locality with forty bushels scooped in six hours. Last Friday on Freeman bogs at Goose Creek, Myron Wilbert scooped 25 bushels, starting after eleven in the morning and ending so that he was home at three P.M. The same day and on the same bog, in about the same time, Clifford Applegate and Ed Tice, working as a team, scooped 64 bushels. These boys think they have the record. Some of the growers are paying fifty cents a bushel to scoopers; others are getting by with thirty cents. Some are paying 50 cents for hand picked berries and some eighty cents. But, if any scooper can beat these achievements, these men would like to hear of it through the Courier. ADS OF INTERESTEnjoyed this article? Please consider making a one-time or recurring donation today!
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