Ocean County: 100 Years Ago This Week! (October 9-15, 1925) Life & Seasons

Oirase no Aki, by Kawase Hasui

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Welcome Back!

After several years' absence, the Barnegat Bay Maritime Museum is proud to return this popular feature to our members and readers, inviting all to gaze through a window to exactly 100 years back from our present moment in time.

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

We begin this new version of our feature with the New Jersey Courier's 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. More highlights will follow in the coming week from this newspaper plus the Ocean County Review and Tuckerton Beacon to present a more complete picture of our area in 1925.

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

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LIFE & SEASONS

​Leaves are falling.
A touch of fall in the air.
Columbus day next Monday.
Farmers have corn in shock.
Nights are now longer than days.
Yachtsmen are laying up their boats for the winter.
Miss Helen Sever has a new Studebaker coach.
Dover Township Committee met last Friday night.
Autumn leaves flaming at every point of the compass.
Saturday was warm and wet. It has hardly been warm since.
No school last Monday, owing to teachers' institute at Lakewood.
The J. Ziemer Co. plans a contest to obtain a slogan for its business.
All lumber yards in town report more orders than there is coal to fill them.
Rather a cool and fall looking day for that Mauch Chunk excursion on Wednesday.
Sam Cattanio is planning to build a garage on North Main Street between the Havens and Quick properties.
Heavy rains on Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon. Cooler weather too, and more or less cloudy days.
Some of those all summer bareheads are now wearing hats and caps--male bareheads, I mean.

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

​The frost of October 1, in most parts of the county, ended the life of sweet potato, potato, bean and tomato vines. It left them black and withered.
Sunrise tomorrow at 6:05 and sunset at 5:29, making the day 11 hours and 24 minutes long.
Chickadees are now heard around the houses, taking the place of summer birds. The blue jays stay with us.
Look for at least a foot of snow, if the old saw holds good, for the old field balsam is a foot high in fallow fields.
The moon that is now waning was that rare autumn moon, when there is nearly a week of almost full moon, rising only a little later each night.
If you want to send in a fire alarm, all you need do is to open the red box, and pull the handle down as far as it will go, then release it. That's what they tell me, and I pass it on. No, I didn't try it.
A parrot, belonging to Dan Crabbe, and a memento of the famous cruise of the Windjammer to the West Indies, escaped on Sunday, and could not be lured back to its home.
Mr. and Mrs. Fred T. Gaskill have rented the Schwartz and Jeffrey house on Hooper avenue, pending the construction of their new home on Hadley avenue, where he and his father-in-law James Allardice, of Beach Haven, have bought lots and will build homes.

​Fall flowers, like the asters and goldenrod, make the countryside well worth looking at, while the autumn leaves are a joy to every one who beholds them.
Maple leaves in the swamps, all yellow gold and flaming scarlet; sassafras, orange, tipped with red; wine red sumac--take a walk or a ride out in the country and see them in all their autumn glory.
Navy Day, October 27, is also the birthday of Theodore Roosevelt. The Naval Air Station will have doings that day, and invite everybody to come and see them.
The Kiwanis Club on Monday evening had a demonstration with liquid air, so interesting that the boys wanted to know if Mr. Snyder, who gave it, could not come again.
October will twice have the moon full--last Friday, October 2, and Saturday, October 31. This last will come just right, as it comes on Hallowe'en.
Just 433 years ago next Monday, Christopher Columbus and his three ship's crews found the Bahama Islands, after a cruise lasting from August 3.
Look at the concrete at the corner of Washington and Main street the next time you pass. You'll be surprised at the wear it shows. No wonder dirt roads tear up so easily.
A Beachwood man just back from a trip to Lake George says the worst piece of road on the whole trip was between Toms River and Beachwood.
Fire Prevention Week was well noted here with a nasty store fire that might have destroyed the whole building. Let's look over our places today and see if everything is O.K. and be careful of fire when starting up the ol' furnace for winter.
The Toms River Athletic Club gave its first dance of the fall season on Friday night last at the St. Josephs parish hall, and a good number of young people attended. Music was by Galipoli's orchestra, from New Brunswick.
Ralph Chamberlain and his orchestra played at a dance and dinner at the Sunset hotel, Barnegat City, on Saturday evening last. The affair was given by a fishing club, spending some time at the inlet.

​Toms River seems to be a storm center the state over, and Barnegat Light is getting almost as much prominence in the state papers as Toms River bridge.
One man you see on the street wears an overcoat, and very likely the next has neither coat nor vest over his shirt.
Last Saturday Mr. Henry A. Low, president of the First National, Frank W. Sutton Jr., and Vernon Sutton, having bought Pierce-Arrow cars from Kenneth Lillie, went to Buffalo, N.Y., to drive them home. With them went Mr. Lillie, Roy Tilton, Clayton C. Wills and George H. Alsheimer. The Sutton Bros. reached home Wednesday night after a leisurely drive, starting at noon on Monday. Mr. Low took a little more time for his drive.

1925 Pierce Arrow Runabout

​Mrs. Nathan Disbrow was given a surprise party on Monday evening, October 5, by a number of her friends at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Asay, of Washington street. The evening was spent in music, games and cards and at a late hour, a chicken salad supper was presented with a number of useful presents.
Dick Benson and Pete Cowdrick see to it that the American Stores downtown live up to the clean sidewalk ordinance.
P.P. Elkinton is architect and has prepared plans for the ice making plant of the Barnegat Power and Cold Storage Company, a branch of their Seaside Heights plant. Mr. Elkinton is also supervising remodeling of the Hensler building, on Water street, which is to be moved by Harty Poland, of Bradley Beach.
The roof of the new Wells Memorial Church, in Berkeley, is now being put on, the concrete block walls being finished some time ago. Rev. J.E. George, the pastor, and Alexander Wells, the senior steward, say that they have been aided materially by the white folks of the village, and that they are very grateful for this aid.
The morning train down on Wednesday from New York, went off the track a couple miles west of town, and it mixed up the train service and the mails for that day. Much of the mail matter due that morning got here on Thursday morning.
Two stores sold the same week, and the same day--Sanders Levy's and Max Leet's.
The Boy Scouts take their tests tonight at the M.E. Church. There are a number of applicants for badges.
Under Sheriff Walter Brower purchased a Chrysler coach this week from Miss Garrison, agent of Ocean Gate.
In this issue of the Courier appear the statements of the Toms River banks. The First National shows deposits of $2,171,696.84 and assets of $2,696,456.91. The Trust Company has deposits of $1,422,741.70, and assets of $1,613,512.88. A very creditable showing for a town the size of Toms River, with a bank in every town of size nearby.

Sanders Levy, because of ill health, has retired from business, having sold the business to M. Klinghoffer and Brother, of Asbury Park, who have stores in that city, Lakewood, Atlantic Highlands and other places.
Toms River high school plays Freehold at Freehold this afternoon: and South River at Toms River, Saturday, October 7.
Prosecutor Jayne, Sheriff Grant, and the Prosecutor's force spent most of yesterday investigating the Cedar Run muddle.
E.S. VanNostrand has the heating contract for the Riverview house on Water street.

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