This Winter in Ocean County, 1922-23!

Welcome to another era in Ocean County's past, one century ago this winter!

Let your mind wander as you consider life around December 1922 and January 1923, courtesy the New Jersey Courier and Ocean County Review weekly newspapers, from the Ocean County Library archives, and peppered with items of maritime interest (around a 20 minute read).

Island Heights railroad station and span to Pine Beach, facing south, colorized.

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)

Boys and girls had a little skating on ponds and cranberry bogs last week.
Toms River Yacht Club has started a syndicate to build a racing sneakbox for next summer, if enough members are interested. A third of the amount needed was subscribed by a few members last Friday evening.
A holiday dance will be given at the Toms River Yacht Club on Friday evening next, December 29, in honor of the young folks, who will be home for the holidays.
The rains and snow of the past ten days have broken the drought. Some cranberry bogs that were bare are now flooded. Wells have again a little water, that had been dry. The swamps and streams and springs are also fuller. The supply is below normal yet.
The “Peach Orchard Tract” at Cassville has been bought by the Lakewood Farm Lands Co., of Lakewood and will be cut up into five and ten-acre farms.
Toms River merchants as a whole never had a better Christmas trade, nor were there ever more shoppers from out of town. Toms River has an importance as a shopping center that would easily be increased by co-operative action on the part of its business men, if they would be willing to work together.
Christmas day a blue heron, that looked as if it had just been killed, was seen dangling from a tree along the north bank of the river, where somebody had hung it by the legs. Not far away the tracks of the heron could be seen on the sand of the river bottom through the clear water.
The boy or girl who got a sled for Christmas was overjoyed with the little snow on Friday morning.
The only objection I have to seeing the Sheriff Frank Aumack property built up is that I will lose two good friends, when they chop down those two big elms. Those two elms are the finest pair of trees in town—Philemon and Baucis, so to speak [Philemon and Baucis, in Greek mythology, a pious Phrygian couple who hospitably received Zeus and Hermes when their richer neighbors turned away the two gods, who were disguised as wayfarers].
The Chamber of Commerce is working for a new school house at Toms River and recently appointed a special committee to that end. The committee had a session, with Architect Clinton Cook, of Asbury Park, whose plans have been favored by the School Board, and also two meetings with the School Board. The C. of C. members feel that a town like Toms River cannot afford to be behind with its schools, as at present, when all the grades from the first to the seventh, inclusive, are being run on half time.
You can see that the days are getting a little—just a tiny little longer in the afternoon.
Christmas week was a hard luck week for some citizens in Pershing [section of Toms River]. Barzillal Johnson lost a horse and Capt. Ben Asay lost a 300-pound porker.
The west side of Main Street, in the business block, which for many years was one of the charms of the Toms River village to the visitor as well as to the resident, with its big mansions sitting back on the hill, spacious lawns and big trees, is evidently soon to be a thing of the past. Business is crowding out the lawns and trees, and business fronts will before long line its whole block. It is the way of growth, that charm and beauty are often sacrificed to utility. The growth of the business section in any town or city, makes just such changes. We can't be exempt.
The Ladies' Auxiliary of the Toms River Yacht Club will hold its semi-monthly card party this evening, at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Frank Brouwer. Its business meeting for the month will be at the home of Mrs. Harry Mathis, on Wednesday next, January 10.
Fire Company No. 2 gave a dance at the opera house on Friday evening last. This company has not yet raised sufficient funds to pay for the Chevrolet car.
School teachers and pupils from colleges and distant schools, at home for the holidays, have mostly returned. And there are quite a bunch of them.
William Klein, a poultryman on the Main Shore Road, at Quail Run, below Pine Beach entrance, bagged a fine buck in his back yard on Wednesday morning of this week.
The Double Trouble Company has bought the cranberry bog on Jake's Branch, at Beachwood, just south of the Main Shore Road, from Mrs. Frances Falkenburgh, Henry A. and George C. Low.
Here it is the middle of January and neither river nor bay has been closed up with ice yet; enough ice to skate on has been on ponds and cranberry bogs, and on some of the river and bay coves, that is all, and only for a short time.
William T. Harvey, of Bayville, is wrecking the old Potter store, on Water Street, which, while occupied by its owners, the United Feed Company, and William L. DeGraw, was burnt down on Tuesday before Thanksgiving day. There is considerable good lumber left in the frame of the unburnt portion.
January is sliding by.
Coal continues scarce along the shore.
The wood cutters are busy cutting oak into fire wood. This is so all over South Jersey.
A.B. Newbury has broken ground for a residence and chicken farm on Lakehurst road, west of Wright's Bridge. He will put up buildings for a 500-bird flock, and will put the birds on the plant next fall. Sutton and Snyder are at work on the house.
Dandelions are blooming in sunny lawns.
Plans are being prepared for Judge M.L. Berry's proposed new building on Main street, in front of the Sheriff Aumack mansion.
Pretty much all the oak wood within easy haul of town is being cut off and burned this winter. If we have a few more winters without coal, what will we do for fuel?
Edward S. Fritz, who is still working on the Toms River dam, was in town last Friday. “Never say die” is his motto, and he lives up to it.

Men of the Bay Head Life-Saving Station.

THOSE OLD LIFE-SAVERS
Another year has slid past and nothing has been done for the relief of the men who served on the coast in the days of the Life-Saving Service, and were retired for disability, growing out of their service. Most of these men are now old; many of them unable to work, even for an occasional day at a time; some of them are in dire need; and all of them would look at the troubled seas ahead, breaking over the bar of death, with a kindlier feeling toward their land and more certainly of succor in their last years, if Congress would but take note of their condition.
The men who served in the old Life-Saving Service were not housed so well, and had a great deal more danger in their duties than in present days. It is but a few years ago when the beach had its wrecks after every storm—from the fleet of schooners that in those days traded north and south. Today the Coast Guard Service, living in comparative comfort, with but now and then a taste of danger, is well cared for in case of injury or disability. The veterans of the L.S.S. were surfmen bred, could launch a lifeboat in the teeth of a storm, dared wind and wave and sleet and snow. Now they are old—and forgotten. A rich government can succor all Europe, but it forgets its own employees who risked life in its service and were disabled in work as heroic, and in danger as great as that of the brave and gallant soldiers on the field of battle.
It is time that these few men, who are being so fast taken away by the hand of death were given their due by Congress.

Pershing school, Toms River.

ONE-ROOM SCHOOLS
The one-room school has been for the past fifteen years relegated to the dump heap by the school men of the country. The fad has been to close wherever possible one-room schools and carry the children to the nearest graded school. The indictment made by the school men against the country school contains so many and such damning counts, that it has in most places jumped its bail and fled away in sheer terror of the charges. The schoolmen may be all right—but once in awhile facts have a strange way of suddenly confronting fads, and chucking the fads off the highway into the brush.
Last year and this, for instance, the best attendance in any school in Ocean County has been Cedar Crest, a backwoods, one-room school. This school has had for the first quarter this year, a perfect attendance, not a pupil being absent or even late. One of its pupils wrote the essay sent to represent Ocean County in a national and state essay contest.
Figures from attendance records of county schools, as given out by the County Superintendent, and published in our news columns, show that the best attendance has been in some one-room schools, and that some of the two-room schools furnish the second best attendance records, outstripping both the high and grade schools in the large towns...

NEWS FROM HOME
It is not a thing of beauty, its print is sometimes blurred,
But I like to read its pages; yes, I read it every word.
When I am feeling kind of blue, it will drive away a frown
Just to read the little paper from my Old Home Town.

I like to read of those I knew in days of long ago;
I like to know what's happening to Mr. So and So.
No matter what my spirits are, if they be up or down,
I like to read the paper from my old Home Town.

I am going back some day to see the folks I left behind;
I want to see the places that still linger in my mind.
'Twill always be the same to me, no matter where I roam--
The town I left when but a boy will always seem like home.

Next to going back again, the thing that is most near,
Is the little weekly paper; it always brings me cheer.
So, no matter what my troubles, if they be up or down,
I always like the paper from my old Home Town.

Send it to me every week, no matter what the cost;
If I miss a copy I feel there's something lost.
I want to get it regular, where'er I chance to roam--
The little weekly paper from the town I once called home.

Sent in as a clipping, origin unknown, by a Courier reader in Pine Beach.

REVIVAL OF SMUGGLING
Apparently there is no attempt made by the Federal Government—save that put forth by the prohibition enforcement officers—to stop the smuggling of liquors on the coast. The Coast Guard service, as the name borne by its ships—revenue cutters—indicate, was originated to stop smuggling as a trade. But the revenue cutters have no interest whatever in smuggling of liquors.
Any one who has a knowledge of the coast knows that with active cooperation between a few fast revenue cutters at sea and the coast guards on the beaches, smuggling could be reduced to a minimum. If the trade of the smugglers is to be revived, big importers in New York of high-priced, yet small, articles may find it more profitable to smuggle their furs, laces, jewelry, art objects, etc., via the rum-runners route rather than by the old way of buying up customs officers in New York port. The unlawful drug trade in narcotics has already, it seems, taken advantage of the smuggling by rum-runners to get their stuff from Germany and Japan into the United States. If President Harding, Attorney General Daugherty and Secretary Mellon mean what they say, when they talk of enforcing the prohibition law, they could readily cut off at least 75 per cent of the smuggling, by putting a Coast Guard officer of the type of Captain McLellan, who was so long on this coast, in charge of the Coast Guard cutters and patrolmen, and telling him to clean it up.

LESSON OF USEFUL LIVES
No editorial ever written, no sermon ever preached, no oration ever delivered could be so forceful or so eloquent as a busy, useful life. Ocean County, in the past fortnight, has lost three men whose lives had been of that sort. There is a choke in the voice when we meet on the street and speak to one another of the death of “Neal” Kelly, of “Doctor” Austin, or of “Jimmie” Holman. These men occupied a large place in the thoughts and affections of their communities. Kelly and Holman were of old county families and had spent their lives here, with widespread interests, one in the oyster industry, the other in the cranberry industry, and both had been prominent in the development of his particular industry, so that to him the county owed much for its material development. Dr. Austin came here in 1905. For years, as a pastor at Toms River, since then as a comer and goer among us, he was loved at Toms River as it is given few men to be loved by a community...

HEADLINE NEWS

Island Heights station and westbound Pennsylvania Railroad train, colorized.

P.R.R. DEALS HEAVY BLOWS AT FUTURE OF SHORE RESORTS
RAILROAD VOTES TO GIVE UP ISLAND HEIGHTS SPUR

[2023 Note: this marks the beginning of a 50-year reduction and elimination of passenger rail service to the Toms River area and most of Ocean County, with passenger service to Toms River ending in the 1950s, apart from one final special passenger train “saying goodbye” to Toms River in March 1972, something residents and officials often lament. Freight service to area sand and industrial supply plants continued but declined and was ended by Conrail when they said the bridge crossing into Toms River was too weakened for their trains in December 1981.]

If the plans of the Pennsylvania Railroad are carried out, the thriving Borough of Island Heights, and its companion summer resort of Money Island, are facing ruin. It is stated on what seems indisputable authority that the Island Heights Railroad Company, the subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which owns and operates the spur from Pine Beach Junction, across Toms River, via the railroad bridge, to Island Heights, has voted by its board of directors to ask the Utility Board of New Jersey to allow it to discontinue service to Island Heights. The reason alleged is that this service is costing more than it brings on, or does not pay, and further, that it will be necessary to repair, or rebuild, the railroad bridge across Toms River, and that this will add another $100,000 to the expenses [$1.76 million in 2023 dollars]—and there is now way of getting this money.
On the other hand, to discontinue the service would spell ruin to both Island Heights and Money Island. Communities that now have railroad service, and have been built upon railroad service would go backward instead of forward were that service stopped.
The nearest depot to Island Heights that could be reached by land with the Pennsylvania Railroad service there wiped out, and the railroad bridge removed, is that at Toms River, a distance of four miles. What effect it would have upon the commuting population of Island Heights to have to add a four-mile trip by auto to the railroad journey to and from Philadelphia, can be surmised.
There could be but one way of relief, and that would be to compel the county to build an automobile bridge across the river, where the railroad bridge is now, and maintain a draw tender there, or, otherwise, for a private corporation to thus build and maintain a bridge, charging toll. With a bridge across the river at this spot, the railroad depot at Pine Beach could be made to do service for Island Heights and Money Island also.
The Island Heights railroad bridge was built in the early eighties [1880s]. Prior to the construction of this bridge, access by rail to Island Heights was via Toms River. Passengers left the train at Toms River, and either drove to Island Heights in carriages, of which there were a number running, or else went by sailboats, there being a considerable fleet at Toms River in those days, or by steamboat, as there was a good-sized steamer running from Toms River to Seaside Park, via Island Heights, capable of carrying two or three hundred passengers. One of these steamers was a side-wheeler, the Florence, and another a screw propeller, the Seaside Park. These took on passengers at about where the Central Railroad depot now stands [today where the two billboards stand on Route 166 when driving northbound into downtown Toms River; the roadway that separates the station site from the riverfront was not there and Flint Road was the original main highway] also at other times from the dock near where the Crabbe boathouse is now, and again from the cove on the east side of Cedar Point, where a large dock was built out into the river, and a spur run to it from the Central Railroad line.
When the Pennsylvania Railroad, in the early eighties, built its road from Whitings to Toms River, and announced that it would cross the bay to Seaside Park, and also build a bridge across Toms River, it aroused a great deal of opposition at Toms River. The boatmen fought the bridges in the courts, alleging that the draw spans that the P.R.R. proposed for both bay and river bridges would interfere with navigation. In the end the railroad won, and the bridges were both built.
It is understood that the Island Heights Association, which was at that time developing Island Heights, and which saw the necessity of a railroad communication if they were to make a success of their resort, built the Island Heights bridge and railroad and leased it to the Island Heights Railroad Company, a creature of the P.R.R., for a term of ninety-nine years, one of the considerations being that the railroad should provide service for the length of the lease. There is probably but one member of the original Island Heights Association still living. Rev. Ananias Lawrence, of Island Heights. The stock in the old Association, after it had sold its lots, and the borough had been formed and had taken over its streets, was sold for a song, and its owners would probably have little or no interest in fighting to retain the railroad services.
This is, however, not the first attempt to abandon the railroad to Island Heights. Something over a year ago the Pennsylvania Railroad officials worked a squeeze play on Pine Beach, by which they hoped to compel the residents of Pine Beach to be the real applicants for the stoppage of the Island Heights trains. The railroad took away the station agent at Pine Beach, alleging that the spur, running from Pine Beach to Island Heights, cost so much that they could not afford to maintain an agent at Pine Beach. The citizens of that resort naturally replied that they should not be made to suffer for losses made by running trains to Island Heights. At that time the railroad's real motive was explained in The Courier, prominent residents of Island Heights were aroused, and the whole matter had to be abandoned till a more favorable time. That more favorable time is supposed to be now.
However, it is not likely that Island Heights and Money Island will allow themselves to be deprived of railroad service without a protest. Island Heights Borough would lose so large a part of its assessed valuation by the drop in land values, that it must take a hand in the fight, while people who have bought summer homes there, on the implied promise of the railroad to run trains there, are likely also to make a fight, rather than to see the value of their properties cut in half, and the ability they have possessed of reaching their summer homes by rail, taken away. Money Island offers another proposition, and involves the Township of Dover. Here, too, there would be a loss in taxes, through lowered valuations, if the summer residents are not able to come by rail. Dover Township Committee is, therefore, interested, and should be represented before the Utility Board at any attempt to abandon this railroad service.
The County of Ocean is also interested, for, should the railroad abandon its service, there is no doubt but that every effort would be made by the residents of Island Heights to have the county build an automobile bridge across the river. This would mean a considerable expense, even should the railroad, as it once offered to, give its present bridge to the county. On the other hand, if the railroad stops service, it may, under the terms of its lease, lose all its interest in the bridge, and thus not be able to turn it over to the county. The whole situation is one that might have to be settled in the courts if the railroad persists in its alleged plan of getting out of running trains across the river to Island Heights.
It has been suggested that instead of maintaining a regular train at the Island Heights spur, with a steam locomotive, and full train crew, the railroad might substitute a gasoline motor bus, such as has been used on the Union Transportation Company, running through New Egypt, at a considerable saving of expense.
There is also a persistent story to the effect that Island Heights is not the only spur to be given up. Last fall an application was made to the Interstate Commerce Commission, asking that the Pennsylvania Railroad be allowed to discontinue its service on the upper end of Long Beach, from the junction at the bridge, up through Surf City, Harvey Cedars, High Point to Barnegat City. Today the rumor is that another spur on the line from Camden, that which runs into Brown's Mills, is also marked for discontinuance. Brown's Mills, a few years ago, was bought by B.C. Mayo, the founder of Beachwood, and its development was started in connection with the Philadelphia Press. There has been considerable growth at Brown's Mills, though the project was not so successful as that at Beachwood. Nor would Brown's Mills suffer as much as Island Heights and the withdrawal of the spur train, as motor 'busses could there handle the traffic. The trouble at Island Heights hinges upon the fact that there is a river to cross and a bridge to maintain.

==
DEEP REWIND: ISLAND HEIGHTS RAILROAD BRIDGE OPENS, JULY 2, 1884
VISITING ISLAND HEIGHTS
AN EXCURSION TO CELEBRATE THE ADVENT OF THE RAILROAD
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
About five hundred people, residents of Camden and this city, went to Island Heights, New Jersey, yesterday, on an excursion given by the Pennsylvania Railroad to celebrate the opening of the Island Heights railroad. Island Heights is on Toms River, about three miles from the village of that name, and five miles from the Berkeley Arms, the well-known hotel. The railroad is about two miles long, and extends from the Philadelphia and Long Branch Road across Toms River to the Heights. A substantial bridge, 1600 feet long, has been built at the cost of about $11,000, and there are now four through trains daily each way to and from Philadelphia, and sixteen trains arriving and departing at the Heights every day.
Among the passengers were many of the prominent business and professional men of Camden and vicinity with their families. As the railroad has already been leased and turned over to the Pennsylvania there were no formal exercises. The excursionists returned to the city about nine o'clock. The advent of the railroad has greatly stimulated building operations, and nearly a score of houses are in course of construction. There are now about 175 cottages on the ground, ranging in value from $100 to $7000, and over 100 families have already taken up their residence there for the summer.
​
Returning momentarily to 1923--

HEARING ON BARNEGAT R.R. ABANDONMENT APPLICATION
The heaviest blows ever struck at the prosperity of the shore resorts in Ocean County are now coming from the Pennsylvania Railroad, in its efforts to abandon the Barnegat Railroad, running up Long Beach from the Junction to Barnegat City [today Barnegat Light], and in its reported effort to abandon the spur to Island Heights. In each instance the resorts affected by the proposed abandonment have grown because people bought and built in them, with the implied agreement that the railroad would furnish service—which service is now to be withdrawn, if the railroad has its way.
What makes matters worse, and seems to show up the railroad managers in an even less admirable light, is that the P.R.R. has a monopoly of transportation to all the Ocean County shore resorts, and further, that while it has spent large amounts of money in advertising and in train service, on the upper and lower beaches of this state, where it has competition, it has done very little to help the growth of the Ocean County resorts. It has denied them service they have asked for, and that seemed necessary for their growth, and its advertising appropriations have passed them by.
A hearing was held at Trenton Tuesday, before the Public Utility Commission on the application of the railroad to withdraw its service from Barnegat City, Harvey Cedars and Surf City. This application was made to the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the hearing was given by the state body for the federal board. Allen Strong, of New Brunswick, appeared for the railroad; Judge. M.L. Berry represented the Township of Long Beach, the Boroughs of Surf City and Barnegat City, Ocean County Board of Freeholders, the Long Beach Board of Trade, the North Long Beach Improvement Association and others.
Judge Berry denied the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission on the ground that the railroad lies entirely in New Jersey, and the have, he claims, no authority in such cases. Mr. Strong contended that the commission had jurisdiction, in that the road carried interstate traffic. No application had been made to the State Utility Board. Mr. Strong asserted that in his opinion they had no jurisdiction, but it was decided the road should make an application to the state board, and the same testimony should be considered by it.
The railroad mustered their statistics to show that the Barnegat Railroad had an accumulated deficit of $149,000. Further that there was nothing in sight to show that there was likely to be increased receipts. They also showed that since the building of the county road to Barnegat City the railroad receipts had fallen off greatly.
It was argued by Judge Berry that the railroad could cut its expenses greatly by putting on a gasoline motor car, with a smaller crew, the one car to carry both freight and passengers. The railroad objected that this would mean a further capital outlay.
There were about forty witnesses summoned for the opposition. Tuesday, R.A. Meyers, the fish pound man at Barnegat City, showed that he had paid in freights himself nearly $10,000 a year to the railroad. Director W.H. Savage, of the Board of Freeholders, was also on the stand. The hearing will be resumed February 6.

RAIL LINK ABANDONMENT: ISLAND HEIGHTS RESPONDS
Word that the P.R.R. intends abandoning the Island Heights spur and bridge is anything but pleasing to most of our residents. Just what action will be taken is not yet determined. Some of the residents will without doubt fight it in the courts and before the Utility Board.
From word received here within the past few days it seems as though the rumor of the abolishing of the bridge had passed that stage and the report was about to become an actual reality. The facts seem to be that the railroad officials have passed resolutions to suspend traffic over it and that these resolutions will be sustained in the courts. It is understood that they are willing to leave the bridge itself that it may be converted into an automobile bridge should the people so desire. It is creating somewhat of excitement and brings out a number of various opinions regarding it. In all probability a very strenuous effort will be made to retain it, the majority of the residents feeling that its loss would be a detriment to the Heights. Too much like a backward step. We might compare it to an exchange of an electric light for a tallow dip. A few seem to think the change would not be a bad failure. We would prefer not to have the tryout made, however.

FLASH FORWARD: CALL HEARING ON LONG DELAYED CASE
ISLAND HEIGHTS BRIDGE ABANDONMENT WILL BE DECIDED BY HANSON NEXT WEEK
ASBURY PARK PRESS
JULY 15, 1932
TOMS RIVER—A hearing which is expected to finally dispose of the question of abandoning the Island Heights railroad bridge will be held here next Wednesday before a representative of the state board of public utilities, parties interested in the controversy were notified yesterday. The question has engaged the public utilities board for over two years.
The Pennsylvania railroad, alleging it has found the operation of a spur from Pine Beach to Island Heights unprofitable, is asking permission to discontinue the service and substitute motor bus service from Toms River to Island Heights. The Island Heights boro council has opposed abandonment of rail service claiming motor bus service could not be depended upon as a permanent arrangement.
The attitude of the railroad is supported by a group of yachtsmen in Island Heights who are anxious to see the drawbridge removed because they claim it interferes with boating. The county board of freeholders is being asked to have a representative at the hearing which will be conducted by Commissioner Thomas Hanson.

FLASH FORWARD: ISLAND HEIGHTS GETS RIVERFRONT LAND VACATED BY SHORE RAILROAD
ASBURY PARK PRESS
MAY 23, 1935
ISLAND HEIGHTS—This boro has just acquired title to a strip of land 1,340 feet in length along the riverfront. The land, formerly the property of the Pennsylvania railroad may be developed in the future for use as a public bathing beach or for boating activities, boro officials indicate.
Title to the property was transferred to the boro thru Walter Carson, boro solicitor, for a consideration of one dollar. The strip of land had previously been used for the road bed of a railroad line running into Island Heights.
Last year, when the railroad secured permission to abandon this line, a railroad bridge across the Toms River here was taken out and the tracks running along the shore were torn up. Private property owners and boro officials were both anxious to secure title to the property so vacated.
Edwin J. Schoettle, prominent yachtsman here, has a private dock built into the river on the property and has had a fence erected along the major portion of the land to keep the public out. The deed by which the railroad conveys the property to the boro expressly states that the land is dedicated for public use, but give the owners of adjacent property on River avenue the authority to build and maintain private docks at their own expense. Such docks, however, are subject to the “reasonable regulation” of the boro council.
The deed provides that no boathouse or bathhouse may be built on the property or on the docks over the water. These clauses in the deed will apply to property owned by E. Swift Newton, as well as to Schoettle's property, it is said.
The newly acquired land is at the western edge of the boro and borders on River avenue. It has a width of 20 feet at the eastern end and deepens gradually to a width of 180 feet at the western end. The land originally belonged to the Island Heights Association, the corporation that owned and developed the town as a summer resort. It was later transferred in 1885 to the Island Heights railroad and subsequently to the Philadelphia and Long Branch railroad and to the Pennsylvania and Atlantic railroad.
Under the terms of the earlier deeds, it is said, the owners of the property have the authority to terminate any lease within 30 days. Carson has been instructed, officials said, to notify any property owners affected that fences and other obstructions to the property must be removed within the 30 day period.

And now, back to 1923 for good--

APPLEBY TO SAVE “OLD BARNEGAT LIGHT”
$100,000 TO BUILD JETTIES IN APPROPRIATION BILL
Washington, D.C., Dec. 15.—After a long fight, extending over a period of nearly two years, Congressman Appleby finally succeeded in securing an appropriation of $100,000 for the preservation of the Barnegat Lighthouse.
Mr. Appleby made an earnest effort last year to secure this appropriation but after numerous conferences and inspections, in which  he secured the support of both President Harding and Secretary of Commerce Hoover, he was finally turned down by the Bureau of the Budget and the Appropriation Committee, due largely to the opposition of the Bureau of Lighthouses, which had planned to abandon this lighthouse and substitute a lightship some two or three miles off shore...

SILVERTON MAN NABS RUM RUNNERS OFF SANDY HOOK
The daily papers report that last week Loren Tilton, of Silverton, keeper of the Sandy Hook Coast Guard crew, rounded up two boats of the rum-running flotilla, as they attempted to enter the Hook, and seized men, boats and liquor. On Friday last he and his crew of Ocean County lads picked up a motorboat containing 150 cases of champagne, said to be valued at present day bootlegger's prices at $30,000. Two men, William Bennett and Rufus Bailey, of Atlantic Highlands, were running the boat. On Monday Tilton and his crew also seized a motorboat, laden with 50 cases of whiskey.
Keeper Tilton and his crew picked up a third launch on Sunday, December 10. It contained 250 cases of whiskey, according to the story, and was manned by Ted Gaskin, of Long Branch, and Richard Rogers, of Wildwood. Both men were put in the guard house at Fort Hancock for the time being. The coast guards chased the power boat for five miles, and seeing they were being overhauled, the two men in the launch left her and took to a dory they had in tow, but the coast guards rounded up both the abandoned craft laden with whiskey and the crew in the dory.

BAY HEAD TO FLORIDA
Bay Head, Jan. 2.—“The Enterprise” sailed down Barnegat Bay Friday, when C. Blackburn Miller and party left for a two months' yachting tour of southern waters. The Enterprise is rated as one of the finest sailing yachts sailing in Barnegat Bay from Atlantic City to Bay Head. It is built of solid mahogany and is 66 feet over all. It is propelled by a twin 400-horse power engine, with super heating plant. The Enterprise has four cabins, one for crew, which consists of Capt. Charles Tilton, Mate William Clark and Engineer Jack Tilton. The party's first stop will be at Barnegat Inlet, from where they will take the outer course to Cape May, from there going inland to Norfolk, Va. From Norfolk they take the southern island water way all the way to Key West, Fla. After touring the southern waters and the Gulf of Mexico they expect to return home here about the middle of March. Mr. Miller takes this trip every year. He is a member of the Bay Head Yacht Club and is well known in the Bay Head summer colony.

EXPECT ZR-1 TO BE DONE AT LAKEHURST ON JUNE 1ST
Washington, D.C., Dec. 6.—Approval of all elements of design and construction of the airship ZR-1, being assembled at Lakehurst, N.J., for use of the navy, has been given by a group of engineers and experts appointed by the national advisory committee for aeronautics. Tests were made at the request of the navy department, which expects the work of assembly to be completed in about seven months.
Announcing that its examiners had failed to find any flaws in the specifications for the ZR-1, or in the materials used, the committee said it was certain the new airship would prove “measurably stronger” than the ZR-2, which met with disaster in England with a heavy loss of life.
Specifications for the ZR-1 call for a rigid craft, 680 feet long and 78 feet in diameter, built of duralumin trusses and girders. There will be 20 separate gas bags, with a total capacity of 2,155,200 cubic feet, covered by a single envelope. Six separate cars will be suspended from her keel, each carrying a 300-horsepower engine. The fundamental design was based on the German Zeppelin L-49.

SPECIAL REPORT: FOUR LOCAL MEN MAROONED IN BAY.
SPENT THIRTY-SIX HOURS ON WATER, ALMOST WITHOUT FOOD OR WATER.
COLDEST NIGHT OF WINTER.
FREEHOLD TRANSCRIPT, Jan. 19, 1923
The lure of succulent clams that grow with the right flavor, they say, only in Barnegat bay, nearly proved the undoing of a party of four Freehold men, Councilman Charles H. Clayton and Benjamin Quackenbush of Freehold, and DeWitt Christian and Cornelius Hampton of Jerseyville.
Driving down to Forked River Tuesday morning they went aboard the good ship Marie, cast anchor and pulled out in the stream and thence out into the bay. Taking a southeastwardly course (for they know where the best clams are) they had reached a point about five miles from the nearest land when the rudder rope broke and the wind carried the frail craft upon a sand flat.
Working diligently for an hour, they succeeded in floating the craft again but it was only for a few minutes as the boat again drifted back on the flats. When midafternoon came the party desisted from their labors to extricate themselves long enough to devour the few sandwiches members of the party had brought with them. Expecting to return home in the early afternoon, but little food had been taken and little time was consumed in removing all the food in sight. Further efforts to move the boat off the flat failing, a distress signal was raised but it was now growing dark, the wind was blowing a gale and their signals were unseen by human eyes.
Despairing of succor that night the four men decided to make the best of their predicament and they set about making the little cabin as comfortable as possible. Closing all possible openings, hanging a heavy blanket over the open end of the cabin, and lighting a little oil stove, each of the men made himself as comfortable as possible and settled down for the night. They soon found that it was difficult to settle down, however, as that night the thermometer registered 14 above zero, the coldest of the winter. There was no sleep for any member of the party, and when morning came there was little relief in sight and apparently less food. A member of the party, however, discovered in the ice box a loaf of bread, left there on November 22, as well as some coffee.
As there was no water aboard ship with which to make coffee, this offered slight consolation, but in the bread, tho hard and mouldy, there was a ray of hope. Messrs Clayton, Quackenbush, Christian and Hampton now came to know what some of the boys in France suffered from hunger, and they were ready to duplicate some of their deeds in devouring anything in the shape of food. Removing the outer covering of the bread and tasting the interior of the baked dough, they declare they found it deliciously palatable.
But one loaf of stale bread, and part of that spoiled by time, did not make a very hearty meal for four famished men who had involuntarily braved the rigors of the coldest night of the winter on the water, and they were fast nearing the stage of actual distress. When the distress signal floating from the little boat had brought no response at three o'clock Wednesday afternoon, DeWitt Christian, believing it a case of life and death for the entire party, put off in a small row boat in an endeavor to reach land and bring aid to the remainder of the party. Rowing five miles across the bay he succeeded, after breaking the ice for 200 yards from shore and wading thru the shallow water, in landing his boat on land about a mile and a half from life saving station No. 2. Here he was met by members of the life saving crew, who had started cutting a passage thru the ice to launch a boat and come to the rescue, but they received advice from the Barnegat City life saving crew that a crew had put out from there and that the men on the little boat would be rescued. Mr. Christian, his hands nearly frozen, was taken into life saving station No. 2 and provided with all comforts.
Not aware of just what was transpiring on shore, Messrs. Clayton, Quackenbush and Hampton had about given up home of rescue that night and were preparing to spend another night on the little boat when, near 5 o'clock p.m. a life saving boat with a crew of nine men  from the Barnegat life saving station bumped into their little craft. To hear members of the marooned party tell it, they were nimble enough, despite the cold weather, in climbing aboard the large boat from the life saving station. Soon they were inside the station and there a hearty meal awaited them. Never was good food more relished. In the meantime relatives of all the men were spending hours of torturing apprehension in their homes and much use was made of the telephone without result until late evening, when word came from the life saving station that a crew of life savers had gone out to the rescue and a little later that the members of the party were safe in the life saving station and would reach home that night.
Messrs. Clayton, Quackenbush and Hampton reached Freehold at 2 o'clock yesterday morning and Mr. Christian, who remained at life saving station No. 2 over night, reached home before noon yesterday, having been compelled to walk several miles along the beach to reach a railroad station.
Some of the members of the marooned party had a somewhat similar experience last summer, except that the weather was warm and pleasant and, after having been marooned on a sand bar over night they were rescued next morning by members of the crew at the Barnegat light house. The Freehold members of the party who own the boat Marie, were perfectly satisfied yesterday to leave the rescuing of their boat to the life saving station crew. They say that when they go clamming again it will be in warm weather—and they will take a better supply of food with them.

ASKS AID FOR OLD DISABLED LIFE-SAVERS
The following plea for the old and disabled Life-Savers is made by Commander Charles H. McLellan, who is known among veterans as “the man who made the service.” No person is better qualified to speak for the men who served under him than is he. Congress should heed this just plea.
New York, Jan. 3, 1923
Editor New Jersey Courier:
Permit me to thank you for the able and truthful editorial in your issue of the 23d ult. entitled “Those Old Life Savers,” and may I, one of their old commanders from 1878 to the time of their discharge, add my mite in their behalf. There is no comparison between the dangers, hardships and compensation these old petitioners endured under the regime of the old Life Saving Service, with that of the men serving in the Coast Guard Service, on the same duty. Some of these old men in their early years of the service were paid the munificent sum of forty-five dollars a month, supplied their own bedding and table ware.
The old station houses were hastily and poorly built; no laths or plaster, and offered but little resistance to the cold winter winds. Their boats and beach apparatus were not of the approved patterns of the present day, and they had the advantage of the telephone but a few years before their discharge. During their time in the service there was great activity in the coasting trade, and two, three, and four-masted schooners were passing up and down the coast in an endless procession. Many of them were caught out in the winter gales, and driven on shore. Some winters we had from twenty to thirty wrecks on the New Jersey coast alone, and seldom was there a life lost, owing to the watchfulness and courage of these old petitioners. During one winter's gale and driving snow storm, two station crews a little south of Sandy Hook, landed the crews from three wrecked vessels in one night without the loss of a man. Possibly one or more of these petitioners were members of those station crews, and took part in this remarkable rescue work. If not, with their length of service, they were in some rescue work equally as commendable. Some of them have gold or silver medals given to them by the government for risking their lives to save others; even foreign governments have commended them for rescuing shipwrecked crews from their vessels. When they become too old to serve they were pensioned for one year on full pay, and at the expiration of the year, and on application, and the strongest endorsement of their officers, and closest scrutiny of their record, the pension was extended another year and then they were dropped from the rolls and left to shift for themselves after giving the best years of their lives to the service on a salary that was not sufficient for a family and to save something for their old age.
Because of the scarcity of sailing vessels on our coast of late years there are but few shipwrecks as compared with when the petitioner served, occasionally a steamer; in fact, quite a number of the stations have been abandoned on that account. A few years before their separation from the service, the Government commenced building modern stations, giving them more of the comforts of a home, and furnishing improved self-bailing boats, with motors, this reducing their dangers and labors; the men of the present Coast Guard enjoy all of these advantages, with wireless, increased pay, furnace heat, bath rooms, hot and cold running water and a pension for life upon reaching retirement age or disability received in the service. There are but a few of the old life-savers left, and they should receive the same considerations as their successors. It was by their daring and heroic work that made the U.S. Life Saving Service, the model life-saving service of the world, admitted to be so by all its competitors. A bill has just passed Congress raising the pension of thousands of Civil War veterans to seventy-two dollars per month, for serving three years, some but a few weeks, for killing thousands of men and destroying millions of dollars worth of property. These few hundred old men served twenty and thirty or more years, saving thousands of lives and millions of dollars of vessel property, and Congress hesitates to give them justice.
C.H. McLELLAN
Commander U.S.C.G. (Retired.)
 
POINT PLEASANT TO LAKEWOOD TROLLEY TO BE SOLD FOR DEBT
An advertisement now running in The Courier tells that the franchise, real estate and all other property of the Trenton, Lakewood and Seacoast Railroad Company is to be sold by order of the Court of Chancery, on Wednesday, January 3, the sale to take place at Clark's Landing, Point Pleasant. This company was organized to build a trolley line between Lakewood and Point Pleasant, and eventually to be continued to Trenton. The line between Lakewood and Point Pleasant was graded, poles were set, ties were delivered on the ground and rails were laid for a considerable distance. The promoters found it impossible to finance the project to completion and no work has been done on the line in several years.

BIG BAY HEAD PROPERTY SALE
Arthur Strickland recently closed a large real estate transaction to a syndicate of local summer residents for the property from the southern end of Bay Head to the north line of Mantoloking Borough, a piece about a mile long, for $150,000 [$2.6 million in 2023 dollars]. It was bought from the estate of the late Frederick W. Downer, of Mantoloking.

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
The annual meeting of the Chamber of Commerce was held on Wednesday evening, December 27, and the following officers were elected: President, Charles N. Warner; vice-president, O.E. Payne; secretary, F.G. Bunnell; treasurer, George B. Dodd; trustee, Edward Crabbe, J.P. Evernham, H.A. Hanson.
The secretary stated that he had a long letter from a Mr. Smith, in Brooklyn, a descendant of Capt. William Tom, who is supposedly the man after whom Toms River was named, and who gave the date of the visit of his distinguished ancestry to this section as the summer of 1693 [an aberration in the newsprint repeats the dates at 1673 and gives no clarification]. The secretary suggested that it would be well to celebrate the occasion next summer. A committee, consisting of Mr. Bunnell, George W. Hallock, Captain Elwell, Mr. Ewart and William H. Fischer was appointed to look into the matter and report at a later date...
Other matters discussed included river improvement: 1. The removal of the sandspit, and the menace to health and morals it presents. 2. The formation of some system of control of docking space at Huddy Park, so that transient craft can tie there, and it will not be all the time occupied by squatters who stay from year to year. 3. The acquisition by the town of the Water Street front along Robbins Cove, in front of the Beatty, Brant, Lambert and Kleinhans properties, dredging the cove and making dock room there.
Better street lighting was also discussed from many angles. The widening of the hole in the wall [local term for the alley-sized Hyers Street at Washington Street, which once had part of an adjacent building spanning over top], placing of traffic posts and other street problems were talked over.

TWO LOST AS RUM RUNNER IS SUNK OFF BARNEGAT
New York, Jan. 2.—The two-masted schooner sunk off Barnegat, N.J., in collision with the tanker Nora Saturday, with the loss of two of her crew, was identified last night by A.M. Beebe, of the United New Jersey and Sandy Hook Pilots' Benevolent Association, as the Jeanette, of Haifax. Five of the Jeanette's crew were saved.
The Nora, from New York to Tampico, was going full steam ahead through a heavy fog, said Captain Beebe, when she hit the Jeanette amidships, cutting her in two and sending her to the bottom almost instantly. The Jeanette was understood to have been bound north from Nassau, Bahamas, to St. Pierre Miquelon, off the Grand Banks.
The Nora reversed her engines and put over a couple of boats, Captain Beebe said, but only five of the Jeanette's crew could be found struggling in the water. The Nora then steamed back forty miles to the Ambrose lightship, where the survivors were transferred to the pilot boat New York, which brought them to Staten Island. 

RUM-RUNNING CRAFT AS VICTIMS OF THE STORM
The fleet of small fishing schooners lying off the coast to get their cargoes of rum smuggled ashore are said to have mostly left these waters before the storm last week, but the few that were left were badly handled by the storm of Thursday night, December 28. One small schooner ran aground and was abandoned by her crew inside Sandy Hook; a motorboat, whose papers proved to be spurious, came ashore at Manasquan; a schooner was beached near Fire Island and another on Cape Cod. The three schooners still had their cargoes aboard, it was reported, when they struck.

Ocean Gate kids, 1920s, colorized.

OCEAN GATE PROGRESS
The following plans for the year 1923 are outlined by Councilman James Mellville for the property owners at Ocean Gate, telling what council hopes to accomplish, and why:
The Borough Council has prepared its budget for 1923 as advertised and has not for a moment neglected the interest of our people. The Council has done its best to give the people a pleasing budget, which includes electric lights, a comfort station on Wildwood Avenue, good roads and a pier on Angelsea Avenue. Regarding the latter there is much criticism by some of our citizens, who think another pier is not needed. Our Council think it is very much needed because many people spend $3.62 to come down to Ocean Gate [the cost of train fare on the Pennsylvania Railroad, with its station in town, adjusted for inflation is $63.95 in 2023 dollars]; some have neither machines nor boats, and we must cater to transient visitors if we want a better and greater Ocean Gate. We must show the people something above the ordinary, and while Ocean Gate is a garden spot of the world, there are few if any amusements for young people and we must get them.
When we can give them a pier and all the other items that are included in this year's budget, which is about $1500.06 [$26,500.79 in 2023 dollars] less than 1922, meaning a lower tax rate, and at the same time we are putting Ocean Gate on the map to stay, we would like to have a little more co-operation to build Ocean Gate up to the minute. Piers are essential and all lovers of the water must have them, and when we are improving the town and not burdening the taxpayers with a heavy tax like some of our neighboring towns, we think the objectors should come out and be real sports and put their shoulder to the wheel and push forward for a better and greater Ocean Gate.
There are thousands of lots at Ocean Gate unimproved, we must induce the holders of these lots to build cottages and make it a real town. We are putting through an ordinance compelling each property owner to lay a gravel walk in front of his property for pedestrians. At the present time, on account of the automobiles and rains there is no place for a person to walk without wading through puddles, and on the road you are in danger of being splashed by passing vehicles. For the children it is particularly dangerous; it is also hard on the women's white shoes. It will only cost about $5 for twenty feet so you can readily see that it is not expensive and it will shape up the town wonderfully and make traveling more up to date.
We also have in progress two large signs on the Shore Boulevard [today Route 9], one at the entrance of Pine Beach and one at Mott's corner, Ocean Gate entrance. There are millions of people going up and down the Shore Boulevard and we insist they know something about the location of Ocean Gate.

OCEAN GATE SECOND PIER INVITES CONTROVERSY
You've heard about the bull in a china shop? And about the fellow who struck Billy Paterson? Well, they were sewed up in a bag and thrown overboard last Monday afternoon, when Had Graham, Borough Clerk, threw the monkey-wrench into the machinery and read into the 1923 budget an item designed to place a pier at the foot of Angelsea Avenue. Regardless of the parliamentary rule that precludes debate on first reading, an argument started. Finally the mayor took the bull by the horns and cut off all debate, telling the members that ample opportunity would be given them to air their views at the next meeting of Council, which will be held January 13, at 8 P.M., in the fire house. We need a “comfy” station, a casino, a few more piers, and a lot of other things, and we should not rest contented with only a fire house, one pier and a yacht club.

WOMAN KILLED BY C.R.R. TRAIN FRIDAY NIGHT
Cautioned by the crew of the northbound train to be on the lookout for a woman's body along the track between Lakehurst and Toms River, the crew of the late train from New York on Friday night last, December 15, found the mangled corpse of Mrs. Charles Johnson, of Toms River, better known as Rebecca (or Becky) Burke, by the railroad track just west of the westernmost of the two bridges that span the main brook of the Toms River, a half mile west of the village. The crew of the northbound train did not know they had hit any one till they found something the matter with their engine, and looking for the trouble, found a woman's skirts tangled in the machinery. At Lakehurst they left instructions for the southbound train crew to be on the watch.
It was presumed from the blood on the track that Mrs. Johnson was lying on the bridge, near its west end, when the train hit her, and that she was flung and dragged for some distance. Dr. Frank Brouwer, the Coroner, said that death must have been instantaneous, as the skull was crushed in, also her right arm was crushed, and nearly severed from the body, the left arm broken near the shoulder, and the right leg at the knee. The body was otherwise cut and torn.
The Johnsons occupied a houseboat in the river, at the Sandspit. It is supposed that she had been up the track to visit a friend, who has a shack or hut a little farther from where the body was found. Funeral services were held on Sunday, at 2 P.M., by Rev. W.W. Payne, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Lyn, in Berkeley, where she frequently worked. Burial Monday morning at Whitings. Mrs. Johnson was said to have been a member of the Burke family, in Jackson Township. Her first husband was named Hendrickson; the second Caldwell; the third Johnson. She leaves three grown-up children—James and Henry Hendrickson, one living in Pemberton, the other in Camden, and Mrs. Richter, also of Camden.
Another story is told that the crew of the northbound train, which goes only to Lakehurst, knew nothing of the accident till they found blood on the left cylinder head when they put their car up in the round house; and that the crew on the southbound train, seeing something lying along the tracks, stopped, picked up the body, and brought it to Toms River. Frank Hartman is conductor and William Morton, engineer, on the local train that hit Mrs. Johnson. Both are well-known residents of Lakehurst. Harry VanNote and Theodore Brown, both Barnegat residents, are respectively conductor and engineer on the southbound train that picked up the body.

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE URGES VOTE ON NEW SCHOOL HOUSE
14-ROOM SCHOOL HOUSE NOW A NECESSITY
That there is a crying need for a new school building at Toms River to house the children of the community, and to do away with the half-time schedule now in effect for the seven lower grades in the Toms River school, and that it is the duty of the Board of Education again to submit to the voters of the township a plan for a new school house, were the salient natures of a resolution adopted by the Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday evening, January 10, by a unanimous vote of all present. The C. of C. also gave its unanimous approval and endorsement to a set of plans for a building with 14 class rooms prepared by Architect Clinton H. Cook of Asbury Park, which it is estimated can be built and equipped for $155,000.
That there has been need for more school room has been no secret for the past six years. At that time there was not room for all the pupils, and the practice of renting rooms on the outside for a class here and a class there was adopted as a temporary measure. This practice grew till last winter, 1921-22, when one grade was house in the Town Hall, two in the old opera house (condemned and abandoned as a school house 20 years ago) and in the old fire house. Last year, the Board of Education submitted a plan for a new school-house, to cost about $200,000, and it was voted down by a large majority—so decisive was this majority, the board has been doubtful as to the success of submitting any other plan...

OYSTER GROWING WORTH $10,000,000 YEARLY TO NEW JERSEY OYSTER MEN
...It is set forth that New Jersey's modern oyster industry began its development in 1848. From that time to the present the growth of oystering is traced, and it is shown how, under state control, there are now about 100,000 acres of New Jersey seed and oyster beds and that the annual product thereof is in excess of $10,000,000.
As prepared under the direction of the department heads, New Jersey's history of the oyster is as follows:
The beginning of the modern oyster industry in New Jersey dates from 1848, when two Delaware Bay oystermen who had loaded their boats for Philadelphia and New York markets found no demand for their product, and in consequence, weer forced to return with their cargo. On the way down the river they concluded not to put the load back on the natural beds, but to take the oysters on down the bay, nearer their homes. They put them overboard, placing stakes near the spot, expecting to take them up in a few days and return to market, but the glut continuing the oysters were left until warm weather and then over the summer. When the oystermen went to remove the oysters in the fall they had made such a remarkable growth that it gave these men the idea of catching or gathering the small oysters from the natural beds in the brackish waters of the bays, rivers and streams, and planting them farther down the bay, where the water is saltier.
In the early days of the settlement of New Jersey it had been the custom of the Indians from as far distant as the Middle West, to travel to the coast and gather and roast shell fish, more especially the Quohog or hard clams, after which they were strung, dried and then carried back to the various tribes to which these Indians belonged. Only the matured shell fish were gathered from these original natural beds, and as they were allowed to mature, there was always an abundant supply. As the population increased, however, it was found that the shells could be used for various purposes, so that the depletion of the natural beds for purposes of food was accelerated by the commercial utilization of the shells...

PROSECUTOR WANTS WHISKEY BACK FOR HOSPITAL USES
Prosecutor Jayne said at the opening day of court that he had prepared papers, but had as yet taken no further action, to have brought back to Ocean County the cache of whiskey dug up in the summer of 1921 at Barnegat and later taken to Philadelphia by the Customs Department of the federal government, on the ground that it was smuggled into the United States without paying duty. The Prosecutor said that his purpose in asking, as he purposed doing, for the return of this whiskey to Ocean County was that he might have it distributed by court order among the hospitals of the state.
There was supposedly between eight and nine hundred, some figured almost 1000 bottles, of the whiskey. It was found buried in the ground, back of Barnegat, on August 6, 1921. The ground where it was buried belonged to Assemblyman Ezra Parker. There were 103 bags, the bottles being packed in straw in the bags. The labels on the bottles were Haig and Haig, Old Crow, and Black and White.
At the time of the seizure, Andry Grob, of the Extra Dry Cafe, Atlantic City, was held as the owner. He was convicted and sentenced, but when the Court of Errors upset the Van Ness Act (or whatever they did do to it), he escaped penalty. Also after the action of the Court of Errors on the Van Ness act, Inspector of Customs J. R. Agney came here from Philadelphia, removed the bags and took them to a bonded warehouse in Philadelphia. This removal was on Sunday morning, February 5, 1922.
The finding of the whiskey made a big sensation in Ocean County. It was supposed to have been smuggled ashore from one of the first rum runners that reached the Jersey coast from the British Islands.
Prosecutor Jayne said that he would take the matter up with the Customs authorities soon, and ask them for a conference.

FIND NOW THAT DRUM LAST SUMMER DESTROYED OYSTERS
In the last few weeks West Creek oyster planters have discovered that the drum fish last summer played havoc on their planted oyster beds, destroying thousands of dollars worth of what could have been marketable oysters this winter. It is assumed that the presence of the drum in Tuckerton Bay, or Little Egg Harbor, is explained by the opening of the Beach Haven Inlet. Before that opened the West Creek planters were not bothered by drum fish, though they cost the Tuckerton oyster growers, who planted in Great Bay, which opens into the sea through New Inlet, a large amount of stock...

COAL SCARCITY WORSE THAN DURING WAR TIMES
So far as part of New Jersey is concerned the scarcity of coal is seemingly worse now than during the war, in the hard winter of 1917-18. Coal of the domestic sizes seems almost impossible to get. The steam sizes, such as buckwheat, are being forced on the dealers in coal by the operators. Soft coal, which few people in this section know how to use, seems to be the only fuel obtainable just now.
The greater part of the Ocean County shore has been burning wood all the fall. Folks trusted in the word of the federal fuel administrator, that if they would go light on coal til December they could have all they wanted, only to find, as has always been the case, that the coal shortage is being used to hold them up and make them pay more for coal, at a time when their bins are empty, their houses or business places, workshops, etc., cold, and fuel an absolute necessity...
There has been more wood cut and sold for fuel in this neighborhood this fall than was the case during the war. At that time of shortage there were many folks who had some coal on hand, that they had bought in the summer or carried over from the previous winter. This fall found the average household coal bin scraped clean. Wood fires were difficult in these days when so large a percentage of the homes of the country are fitted with water pipes all over the house. That means if a fire goes on a cold night the plumber will be needed in the morning. Few people can keep a wood fire going all night.
What will we do about it?

DEATH OF JOHN WANAMAKER
John Wanamaker, the most celebrated of retail merchants in this country, died at his home in Philadelphia on Tuesday, December 12, at the age of 84. He built up first, not only the Wanamaker and Brown clothing store, known as Oak Hall, famous a generation ago; then the huge store at Market, Chestnut and Thirteenth Streets, in the same city of Philadelphia; and still later bought the old A.T. Stewart Store in New York, and added to it greatly, so that he had two of the largest stores in the country. He is said to be the originator of modern methods of retailing, which we call the department store, and was also the father of modern methods in advertising retail goods.
In this neighborhood the chief interest in Mr. Wanamaker, outside his stores, which are known to everybody, was in the Wanamaker camp at Island Heights, where the boys and girls from the Wanamaker stores in New York and Philadelphia spend their summer vacations. In the past years Mr. Wanamaker, who took a deep personal interest in these boys and girls, made occasional visits here.

OCEAN GATE GIRL MARRIED
Philadelphia, Dec. 11.—Among the marriage licenses issued last week was one to Irene M. Guest, noted swimmer of this city, and Sidney Loog, Jr., of 545 Levering street.
Miss Guest, whose home is at 4400 Market Street, took second place in the 100-meter free-style women's race at the last year's Olympic games in Antwerp. She is 20 years old and a graduate of the West Philadelphia High School.
The young woman, in addition to her natatorial skill, is a violinist, having appeared as a soloist at the Matinee Musical Club concerts. She is a daughter of Dr. and Mrs. George Clifton Guest, and has been a summer resident at Ocean Gate since that resort was started. Her father, Dr. Guest, ,has been Commodore of the Ocean Gate Yacht Club. She began her swimming career as a small girl at Ocean Gate.
The wedding took place last evening, Thursday, December 14, at the Church of the Saviour, Thirty-eighth and Ludlow Streets, Philadelphia, and was a brilliant affair. Ocean Gate friends of the bride received cards.

SHIPPING BLUEBERRY PLANTS
Report from New Lisbon or Whitesbog, says that Miss Elizabeth White, the pioneer in cultivating the blueberry, or swamp huckleberry, recently shipped a carload of these bushes to a New York concern.

DIDN'T LIKE OCEAN COUNTY, JUSTICE, SO HE LEFT JAIL
Asking to be allowed to talk over the telephone on New Year's even, at the county jail, Herman Miller, [Black], serving a six months' term for stealing, slipped from the jail and disappeared. Miller made his request to Rowland C. Buckwalter, the night watchman, who let him out of the jail to talk over the 'phone in the warden's residence. Miller left a note for Warden Brown, saying that notwithstanding he voted for Governor Edwards, Judge Newman did not seem to like [Black] folks, and he felt he was discriminated against. He wrote that others, who had stolen more than he had were allowed to go on suspended sentence, and he was given six months' sentence, and he considered it unjust, so much so that he was going to Philadelphia and wasn't coming back. Tuesday night another prisoner in the jail got a letter from him that had been mailed that afternoon at 2:30 in Philadelphia.
Miller was sentenced for stealing $3 worth of groceries from the Lexington Hotel, where he was working—said to have been a pound of coffee and three dozen eggs. All the neighborhood was scoured for him Sunday night, but he got away.

BUCK DEER A-PLENTY ON FIRST DAY OF SEASON
A large number of buck deer were killed the first day of the season by the amateur deer hunters that thronged the Jersey pines. Perhaps one man in twenty, or one in fifty, of the hunters brought home a deer, but then the rule is that when a party gets a deer every member shares the venison.
The luckiest party reported to The Courier was that out with Adolph Arends, of Waretown, that brought back four, and had all four hanging in Arend's garage last night.
Capt. Ben Asay, of Pershing, was a proud man, for his son, Ben, Jr., killed a seven-snag buck, weighing 250 pounds. Ben will have the antlers and head mounted.
Postmaster Ben F. Butler, of Bayville, brought in a nice buck. Monroe Thompson and Eph Benson, of Toms River, each killed a deer. A number of deer were taken through town Wednesday afternoon and night in automobiles, generally lashed outside, so everybody could see them. The deer season will continue on December 27, January 3 and 10.

FOUND STILL WITH MASH COOKING ON THE STOVE
A group of officers went over to Seaside Park on Sunday last, and at Little Italy, surprised Samuel Nagrius with a still on his kitchen stove in full operation. The still was seized, along with some of the finished product, also a bucked of mash as an exhibit for the court, and all were brought over to Toms River by the officers. Before Justice A.C. King, Nagrius pleaded guilty, and was held for court. When the officers rushed the place they found Nagrius, his wife and child in the kitchen. There was a large quantity of mash, in a large barrel or hogshead. The stuff in the still was cooking. Nagrius was formerly cook at the Hensler fish pound. The officers who made the raid were headed by Edward J. Kelly, and included R.C. Buckwalter, Leon Gwyer, Clarence Atterson and Charles Ludlow.

THE OLD ARMY COAT
(From Newark Call)
There are many of us left who can remember seeing as boys the old blue army coat of the Civil War. It was a familiar sight in the towns and villages of New Jersey and of the Country at large in the first and second decades following the war. It included a cape and made a warm and comfortable overcoat in winter. Originally it mostly was worn by ex-soldiers or members of their families, but occasionally, in the course of time it passed, with fading glory and increased rents and tatters, to others. It was a conspicuous sight on the forms of stage drivers, coachmen and farmers, and perched high on the seat of the old “buckwheat” market sleigh it gave amid the sweet-toned jangling bells, a glory to the old turnpike that never as yet has returned. The good-natured [Black] man of the village, who often was an ex-soldier himself, was the last to wear the sacred old blue coat, but long since its wearer and itself, like its color, had faded forever from our sight. But it leaves a memory and a tender regret.
Already, like the old-time blue army coat, the recent buff coat of the world war is finding a place in the days of peace, and the coming winter will bring it increasingly into use. Brothers of soldiers, too young to get into the army, but big enough to wear the uniform, have been seen during the recent cold spell proudly wearing the buff army coat. It is less conspicuous than its predecessor of blue, and it may be worn without display. It will be worn with pardonable pride and often with tender memories of someone who will never wear it again. As the years go by it, too, like the old blue coat, will fade and wear out, but wherever for a while it shall be seen it will make a glory that the thoughtful patriot will view with deepening gratitude.

BOROUGH OF FORKED RIVER
A bill has been prepared and is in the hands of Assemblyman Parker to introduce in the legislature, for the creation of the Borough of Forked River. In this issue of The Courier is printed a notice of this application to the legislature, signed by many prominent citizens of Forked River, and designating the boundaries proposed to be established for the new borough. It includes all the territory between Oyster Creek and Stout's Creek (South Branch), and from the bay, three and a half miles west, or west of the Central Railroad.

MAYOR TINDELL TAKEN TO STATE HOSPITAL FOR INSANE
Mayor Howard L. Tindell, of the Borough of Point Pleasant Beach, was on Friday morning of last week, December 29, taken to the State Hospital for the Insane at Trenton. It was known for a long time that Mayor Tindell had been drinking heavily, and that his actions were full of vagaries. On the advice of Prosecutor Wilfred H. Jayne, Jr., it was decided to send him to the Trenton Hospital. He was taken by Officer Mason, of the Prosecutor's force. Mayor Tindell is a dentist, and had a profitable business in Point Pleasant at one time. He came there from Trenton, where his father was a well-known reporter and newspaper correspondent. He was elected mayor in 1921, after serving two years in that office, and having been mayor once before, some years since. Mayor Tindell ran in opposition to the Republican ticket as an independent with the Democratic nomination.

SOLD BARNEGAT PIER HOTEL
Frank W. Sutton, of Toms River, has sold the Edgemoor Hotel, at Barnegat Pier [today approximate site of B2 Bistro & Bar Restaurant on Good Luck Point in Berkeley Township] to Mr. Davis, of Newark. Title will be transferred about March 1. Sutton has owned the place for the past thirty years.

FIRE CO. NO. 2 BUYS ITS MOTOR CHEMICAL ENGINE
Fire Company No. 2 has bought this week and now has ready for service, its new chemical engine. The outfit consists of a Ford chassis, on which is mounted an eighty-gallon tank and pump, built by the American-LaFrance Company. The outfit was bought from the Lawfer Automobile Company, of Allentown, which makes a business of assembling these light fire fighting machines. The company were allowed in a trade $1000 for the Packard chassis they bought last summer for $800. They recently received in donations $120; they received $75 from the sale of extra tires they had for the Packard; and will need about $900 more to complete the payment on their new equipment.
No. 2 boys now feel they are well outfitted for quick response to fires in the suburbs of the town, and that their 80-gallon tank will answer if they reach the fire before it gets too much start. On Saturday evening last, at the Legion Field, they gave a demonstration of the fire-quenching power of their engine. A huge bonfire had been built up and started, and an alarm sent in. They started from their quarters on West Water Street, went around by Robbins Street, and up Main to the field, and in a few minutes had the fire out.

POULTRYMEN EXPAND ALONG NEW LINES
HATCHING ASSUMES LARGE PROPORTIONS AT TOMS RIVER
The business of hatching chicks for the trade, either as custom hatching, where the customer supplies the eggs and takes away his chicks, or for the sale of day-old chicks, the hatchery supplying the eggs, is growing into large proportions at Toms River. There are now two large concerns of this kind here, the Hathaway Hatchery and the Authorized Breeders' Association. The Hathaway Hatchery has its incubators at the old George W. Cowperthwait homestead, on upper Main Street, now occupied by Mr. and Mrs. H.A. Hathaway. It has already 290,000 eggs contacted for its custom hatching business for this season, and has its first batch of 5000 eggs, just a tryout, in the incubator.
The Authorized Breeders' Association, which was formed by a number of enthusiastic and prosperous poultrymen of this locality, primarily with the idea of meeting their own requirements in hatching, has branched out and will take in the day-old chick business. They have orders already for about 100,000 chicks, though they have not yet begun to advertise in the poultry journals. They have built a plant on upper Main Street, on a piece of land bought from the Queensbury Farms, and have their two large incubators installed...

OCEAN COUNTY BOYS GOT FOUR RUM-RUNNERS AT HOOK
Elwood Butler of Bayville, in temporary command of Sandy Hook Coast Guard Station, on Friday night last caught four rum-runners in Ambrose Channel, trying to sneak into the bay from the rum-running craft anchored outside the three-mile limit. There was said to have been 1000 cases of whisky in the four boats. The biggest of the four was the Margaret B., a cabincruiser 35 feet long, which was laden with eight 50-gallon barrels and 200 cases of whisky; the others were the Evelyn, a 25-foot bank-skiff; an unnamed launch and a rum-runner's boat. The boats were all said to have been from Highlands, N.J.
New York papers were profuse in accounts of sixteen vessels off the Hook, trying to land their cargoes. The Coast Guards and the prohibition enforcement officers said that these stories were highly colored and greatly exaggerated.

AFTER BOLD BURGLARS
It is reported that Prosecutor Jayne has detailed Officer MacDonald to investigate several recent burglaries and attempted burglaries at Toms River, one being the robbery of Fred G. Sutton's place, on Main Street. Officer MacDonald thinks that he has a line on who has been up to mischief and that he will eventually bring them to book. Our town could well afford better police protection than it ever had. Times are different now, there is more crime going on; no community the size of this is free from crime.

COAST GUARDS ORDERED TO WATCH FOR RUM RUNNERS
The Treasury Department at Washington, Tuesday of this week, informed all Coast Guard Stations that they hereafter will assist in the prevention of liquor smuggling.
This was the first definite order to the Coast Guard, which is under supervision of the Treasury Department, to act against rum smuggling.
The order will place three thousand more men in the prohibition enforcement ranks. There are two hundred and four Coast Guard Stations on the coast besides the revenue cutters on the high seas.

THE ROAD TO WHITESVILLE
The Dover Township Committee should ask for county aid for the road from Toms River to Whitesville. The county has already paid 75 per cent of the cost in rebuilding this road from the New Egypt road, near Bunker Hill bog, through Whitesville to the Dover Township line. Without doubt the county will continue this work to the Lakewood road, above the cemetery at Toms River, if Dover Township will put up its quarter of the cost.

MATHIS AFTER MORE STATE HIGHWAYS AROUND HERE
Monday night Senator Mathis, chairman of the highway committee in the Senate, introduced bills to make the route from Camden to Toms River, via Lakehurst and Brown's Mills, a state highway. Also a bill adding the road from Adelphia to Lakewood in the state highway system.

SHIP BOTTOM WRECK, 20 YEARS AGO, COST FIVE LIVES
Twenty years ago, January 20, 1903, five lives were lost from the wreck of the barkentine Abiel Abbott, which stranded and went to pieces on the outer edge of Ship Bottom bar, Long Beach, Ocean County. The Abbott was 27 years old, heavily laden with salt from Turks Island, Bahamas, for New York. Five of her crew tried to get ashore in boats and were drowned. The rest (four) stuck to the ship and were saved by the life-savers.
Captain Hawkins, of the Abbott, said in his testimony: “With the mass of wreckage in the water, being tossed in every direction, I do not see how the life-savers launched the boat at all; but they did, and even then they could not get to us. Finally when the cabin top (on which the captain and men were) broke adrift, they launched their boat again, when no man could have expected it. I did not think it possible for them to get to us, but somehow they did, and got us ashore, and I think it was a miracle that I am alive to tell the tale. No men could have done more than the life-savers did.”

GOULD ESTATE, LAKEWOOD, FOR SALE
The Gould estate, Georgiancourt, at Lakewood, is said to be on the market. A few years ago, Lakewood folk would have thought this a calamity. Now the enterprising people of Lakewood recognize that this large property stopped the growth of Lakewood to the northwest, its most promising residence quarter, and many of them would not be sorry to see it cut up into smaller holdings, each with a home on it.

PERSONAL
Charles D. Mower, of New York, the famous designer of small racing yachts, was at Toms River on Tuesday, the guest of Edward Crabbe, for whom he is designing a 28-foot racing catboat. On his way home he stopped off at Bay Head, where Mort Johnson is building several boats from his design.

FISH AND GAME
North Jersey sportsmen are writing to their favorite papers and telling of the large number of partridge and pheasant they have killed. Either there are more of these birds in the northern section than down in the pines, or they are harder to shoot down this way because cover is thicker.
Fish pounds and off-shore fishermen are catching large quantities of codfish off the Jersey coast. The fish are said to be large and fine.
The upper Barnegat Bay fishermen are hauling seines for perch, and occasionally make a catch that pays them for a month's work in one day's haul. Those hauls do not come often, but when they do—oh boy! A haul of 35 barrels is reported by our Mantoloking correspondent.
Did you ever stop to think that along shore, a man who goes out with a gun goes gunning and is classed as a gunner. In other parts of the country, a man who starts out with a gun after game is a hunter, and goes hunting. The distinction is between the wild fowl shooting and upland shooting. It apparently grew from the fact that a man who starts after deer, rabbit or upland game birds really hunts for them; while the man out after wild fowl generally puts out his stools, lays in wait, and guns for them if they come along. If you can explain this difference or distinction, in terms in a better way, let us have it.
An exchange says the following—is it so, or is it not? Perhaps some of our baymen can tell us: Ducks are ducks, and geese are something else yet again, as the following information, gleaned from an old-timer shows—Most gunners are under the impression it is best to have live ducks along with their wooden stools, but according to this veteran sportsman this is all wrong. The live decoys scare off their wild brothers and sisters by their quacking instead of attracting them. On the other hand, he said, experience has taught him that a live goose among the stools is the best possible lure to bring down the honkers winging overhead. But care should be taken to anchor the captive bird in the shallowest water, where they may stand if they so desire. Many are the mysteries of nature—and here is just another one of them.
According to the Lakewood Citizen—and Senator Hagaman as a member of the Fish and Game Commission, ought to know—the Commission will import into New Jersey 2000 Kansas rabbits to restock the woods, most of them to be placed in South Jersey, as the climate and environment is figured as being better for them in this neighborhood than that of the North Jersey mountains.
Some folks say that one reason deer were not killed in larger numbers is that the dwellers in the pines are fond of venison, no matter whether the season is open or closed. It is a well-known fact that the woodsman, from the days of Robin Hood, and farther back than that, has had little regard for game laws unless there was a game warden close by. So it is possible that there may be an occasional deer killed out of season.
114 licenses to operate the fish pounds on the Atlantic coast were issued by the state in 1922, besides 42 in Sandy Hook, or Raritan Bay. Licenses to menhaden fishermen numbered 15 steamers and 23 sailing vessels.

RECENT DEATHS
Montraville Irons
Montraville Irons, a well-known character about Toms River for the past fifty years or more, died on Wednesday, January 17, at his home, on Dayton Avenue. He had been failing for some years, but was about till a few weeks ago, when he had an attack of paralysis. For more than a generation he was the village carter, bringing from the railroad depots the goods for the various stores in town, and also carting trunks and baggage. He was 83 years of age, the son of the late Capt. John B. Iron and Abigail (Applegate) Irons. He leaves a widow and seven children: Walter, of Trenton; George, of Bradley Beach; Edward, of Red Bank; Disbrow Irons, Mrs. Walter Johnson, Mrs. Thomas Gaskill, Mrs. Sarah Austin, all of Toms River. There are also a number of grandchildren and great grandchildren.

MISSED AN ISSUE?

December 8th, 1922
November 17th-December 1st, 1922
November 10th, 1922
November 3rd, 1922
Summer-Autumn 1922 Catchup
May & June 1922
April 1922
March 1922 Part II
March 1922 Part I
February 17th, 1922
February 10th, 1922
February 3rd, 1922
January 27th, 1922
January 20th, 1922
January 13th, 1922
January 6th, 1922
December 30th, 1921​
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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