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

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

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

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM
TOMS RIVER SEAPORT SOCIETY!

BREVITIES AND EDITORIALS

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

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

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

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

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HEADLINES AND NEWS NOTES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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TOWN LIFE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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MISSED AN ISSUE?

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

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