This Week in Ocean County, 1921! (September 30th)

10/1/2021

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.

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