This Week in Ocean County, 1921! (October 28th)

10/29/2021

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)

Oirase no Aki, by Kawase Hasui

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

Sailing, by Thomas Eakins

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 INTEREST

MISSED AN ISSUE?

If you missed any issues of Ocean County 1921 and want to catch up, use the links below!

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!

Your donations support preserving and restoring our shared maritime heritage on the waters of Toms River and Barnegat Bay, through our boat workshop, educational programs and special events. Thank you.

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]

News