Ocean County: 100 Years Ago This Week! (October 16-22, 1925) Life & Seasons

Autumn geese in flight, by Joiseyshowaa, used by creative commons rights permission.

Read and experience these long-ago people with their celebrations, tragedies and seasons lived through the same shores, streets and towns we inhabit today.

Presented here is this week's New Jersey Courier Brevities column (we’ve taken a bit of editorial license and renamed it Life & Seasons), written by NJ Courier editor, William H. Fischer, as he sat at his desk above Main Street near Washington Street. Next week begins more news and features from this newspaper plus the Ocean County Review and Tuckerton Beacon.

Full editions of each week's newspapers will soon be available to Barnegat Bay Maritime Museum members to enjoy. If you haven't yet, please consider supporting us by joining today!

---

LIFE & SEASONS

​Court this week.
October half gone.
Columbus Day is over.
Froze ice Sunday morning.
No school on Monday last.
Rainy days now and then.
Potatoes scarce and high.
The October haze is in the air.
Dandelions bloom in the grass.
Fall wild flowers stay with us.
Frost has not yet got all the flowers.
October has given us cooler weather.
Election day is the next legal holiday.
Hallowe'en two weeks from tomorrow.
Several people report apple blossoms.
Autumn leaves set the swamps aflame.
Chamber of Commerce met last Friday night.
The smell of burning leaves is everywhere.
Rambler rose blooms are seen in many places.
Political campaigners and candidates are on the go.
Lawns are losing some of their green in spite of rains.
Assessor Longstreet is getting his fieldbook in shape.
Last week was fire prevention week, but just as many cigarettes were smokes, just as many buts and matches dropped, as if there had been no such week.
The Royal Class of the M.E. Sunday-school held a food sale on Saturday last at Elwell's store.
A chicken salad supper is to be given by the Service class of the M.E. Sunday-school on Thursday, October 29, at the church.
Hiawatha Council, D. of P., will give a card party at the opera house on Friday evening next, October 23.
Sam Taylor, of Barnegat, more recently of Asbury Park, is working at Theodore Fischer's barber shop.
E.S. VanNostrand has bought a lot 25 foot front on Hyers street, just off Washington street, from Charles Knox, and will put himself up a plumbing shop.
Dr. H.H. Davis is building a new garage in the rear of his home on Main street.
Jack Costa arrived home Saturday, after spending the summer in New England, with a group of flyers, and doing wing-walking and other stunts in the air. Jack said it got pretty cool before he left.
Gorgeous autumn leaves add to the beauty of the scenery now. Even some of the oaks, usually the last to turn, are showing color.
Assistant Postmaster S.B. Pierce has been on the sicklist this week.

Flags were out for Columbus day, and again on Tuesday, when Senator Whitney and the Republican candidates reached town.
Low tides last Saturday and Sunday, even up in the river, flats being bare that are not seen more than once in several years.
Sam Pierce boasts a bartlett pear tree, with its leaves all blown off, but with several blossoms, coming out Tuesday of this week.
Court Toms River Foresters of America, have taken the room over the Purpuri shoe store on lower Main st., for a lodge room. The first meeting was held there last night.
William Johnstone, of Toms River, talked before the State Poultrymen's Association in Atlantic City last week upon, "Feeding for High Egg Production." Bill knows.
Max Leet, who is giving up business, says he intends to go on the farm, presumably a chicken farm. Max says he was brought up on a large farm of some 680 acres, belonging to his father, in Lithuania, and he has always had the urge to get back to the soil.
Saturday, October 31, will be Hallowe'en.
The season for wildfowl shooting opens today.
J.K. Allardice has been on the sicklist this week.
Yesterday was the first real October weather we have had. But it was one glorious day.
Raymond Keisel, of Ocean Gate, is operating the Toms River dairy and milk route, formerly owned and run by August Hartbrecht. The latter had to sell out because of illness, and is now in Vermont with his family.
South River high school plays football at Toms River with the village high school team tomorrow afternoon, October 17.
The Women's Relief Corps will hold its yearly supper on Hallowe'en, Oct. 31, at the G.A.R. post room.

​Leroy Tilton is working on the Lakewood Times and Journal.
Work of rebuilding and moving the Hensler Building on Water street is now in progress. The Chinese laundry, which had moved upstairs, continued business as usual during the jobs.
Ben Novins is moving his pool room from the Hensler building, adjoining his restaurant, to the former feed store on the north side of West Water st.
Baseball by radio spread out the game to millions, touching every part of the county. Toms River fans got it, you may be sure.
Some farmers are husking corn--a little.
The rains now occasion a big drop on leaves.
A letter to the Courier from Mrs. Annie B. Newbury says that she had intended coming from California, to Toms River this summer, but that something happened to keep her away. She is expecting to reach Toms River next summer. She asks to be remembered by her friends in Ocean County.
Boo, but can't you still hear that wind b-l-o-w-i-n-g early on Saturday morning last, when the cold clearup came.
From the large supplies of acorns and walnuts, we may presume that the squirrels are looking forward to a hard winter.
Cranberry men are about through picking, except some of the smaller growers. The crop is rather small, take it for all of New Jersey, and the prices start off pretty well, at $8.00 per barrel.
On Monday afternoon last, some of the baseball fans, listening in on the game, heard the announcer say that his old friend "Gus Waldron, of Trenton," was standing beside him. Gus is well known at Toms River and on the beach, having a home at Seaside Heights in the summer. He was in Toms River on Tuesday.

Wreck of the U.S.S. Shenandoah airship, Ohio, September 1925.

​The handsome prizes to be given away in their popularity contest by U.S. Shenandoah Post, Veterans of Foreign Wars, are on show in Worstall's window on Main street. The contest is put on to raise money for the widows and orphans of the Shenandoah's enlisted men.
Emil Then's orchestra played on Monday night at the opera house at the Odd Fellows meeting, and again on Tuesday night at the Manhasset hotel, Seaside Park, when the ladies of the Catholic church gave a card party and dance.
Toms River Water Company has begun work on the foundation of its new standpipe on Horner street, opposite the high school. The foundation will be of re-enforced concrete, 36 feet in diameter and six or seven feet deep. The standpipe will be 105 feet tall, and will hold almost 380,000 gallons, and will be erected by the Pittsburg and Des Moines Steet Works. It is hoped to complete the whole job this fall.
Fire last night damaged the Carl Eckhardt house on the north side of town slightly.

New Ducks of the Barnegat Bay t-shirt, in Marine Green, available to order through our online shop (click image to go there directly).

---

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