Hidden Bargains on the Garden State Parkway

Eagle-eyed travelers along the Garden State Parkway might notice subtle yet distinctive differences to the road's construction as they travel between the New York state border and Cape May. Specifically, in the area between Woodbridge and Cranford, overpasses take the form of attractive stone arches, or in the case of railroad trestles, a combination of stoneface walls and horizontal steel beam. 

Not coincidentally, these small relics of the Parkway's origins also mark a small stretch of the road that's truly a bargain. Those fourteen miles of highway are absolutely toll free.

Not just "no toll plazas, no EZPass." Absolutely free. It's a fine distinction, but hear me out.

The Parkway, like many things in New Jersey, has a complicated origin story, as I was reminded recently when researching a 40 cent difference between the price of gas at the Colonia service areas and every other service area on the Parkway. How is this possible when the NJ Turnpike Authority (and the NJ Highway Authority before it) requires service area operators to maintain the same price for all locations on the road?

The Parkway's early stoneface elements are evident
where the road crosses the Rahway River in Cranford.
Centennial Ave crosses overhead. 

It all goes back to the birth of the Parkway in 1946, when the New Jersey Legislature authorized the State Highway Department to build what was then designated the Route 4 Parkway between Clifton and Cape May, with a spur from Woodbridge to Trenton. Nothing in the original legislation required the legislature to increase the State Highway Department's budget to build a 150-mile long road.  

Ground for the toll-free highway was broken in Clark that year, and the four lane parkway -- including a broad grassy median separating north- and southbound traffic -- began to take shape. A total of 22 miles was built in Union, Ocean and Cape May counties before funds were exhausted in 1952. 

Perhaps the mandate-without-funding method wasn't the best way to go? Governor Alfred Driscoll (namesake of the Raritan-spanning bridge) was committed to getting the highway done and the New Jersey Highway Authority (NJHA) was established in 1952 to complete the project. The NJHA was entrusted to issue voter-approved bonds as a reliable funding source for land acquisition and highway construction, rather than leaving it to the fate of annual state budget negotiations. Bond holders would be paid back with the proceeds from tolls charged at eight planned cross-highway toll plazas and a few on- and off-ramps. Once the debt was paid off, the tolls would be eliminated.*

The legislation that created the NJHA also mandated that the portions of the Parkway that had been built by the State Highway Department with funds from the state budget would be exempt from tollbooths.** Depending on how you define the term, you could say the Parkway is a freeway for that stretch. Considering there was neither a state income tax nor a sales tax at the time, the average New Jerseyan got a pretty good deal from that back in 1952, even if the average 21st century driver doesn't know the difference.

But what's that got to do with the price of gas in Colonia, you ask? 

We get a hint from NJHA brochures issued in the early days of the highway. Chock full of useful details and convenient north-to-south and south-to-north maps, the handouts list the Colonia stations' location as "State Section," indicating that they were constructed with the original part of the Parkway. Indeed, a 2017 NJ.com article notes that the stations were built on private property, though the Turnpike Authority owns the land surrounding them.

Because the gas stations aren't on Turnpike property, they're not required to follow the same pricing rules as the Bon Jovi (Cheesequake), the Houston (Vauxhall) or any of the other service areas. That's why Ivan and I got the pleasant shock of actual cheap gas on a recent drive home from Cape May. 

Whether the big price difference will stick or not, only time will tell, but it's worth keeping an eye on if your travels bring you along that stretch of the Parkway on a regular basis.

At the very least, enjoy your free ride between Cranford and Woodbridge.

*Insert cynical statement here. 

**You can read it in PL1952, chap. 16, page 91, helpfully digitized by the New Jersey State Library here.

Firing up a celebration of joy in New Brunswick

John Adams famously predicted that the anniversary of America's independence would "be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty." In a letter to his wife Abigail just after the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the states, he said, "It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."

That brings up the question -- when did celebrations actually begin? Who declared the day an official event for commemorating the act of separation from Great Britain and the official birth of the United States? I'm sure if you go to Massachusetts or Pennsylvania, you'll find people who say their forebears were the first to make July 4 a major holiday, but they'd be wrong. Like so much of what occurred during the Revolution, the first celebration was held in New Jersey, ordered by General George Washington himself. You can't get much more official than that.

The story brings us to 1778, just after the Continental Army fought the British at the Battle of Monmouth on June 28. Having demonstrated to the enemy in a daylong conflict that the Americans were a force to be reckoned with, Washington led his 11,000 Continentals to New Brunswick to rest. The Raritan River would provide refreshment to the parched and exhausted troops, who camped on both banks during the first week of July while the General made his headquarters at Ross Hall on River Road in Piscataway.

Marking the route of the 1778 Independence Day celebration
on River Road in Piscataway.

Washington capitalized on the massive gathering of soldiers to make a LOT of noise on the Fourth. He ordered them to line the Raritan's edge in a single file that ran two miles from White's Farm -- the present-day Buccleuch Park -- to Sonman's Hill, where Douglass College of Rutgers University now stands. Bolstered by an artillery force of more than a dozen cannons, the men then fired their muskets one by one in sequence in a feu de joie, or fire of joy.

That was just the start of the celebration. Every soldier was issued an extra ration of rum, and the officers gathered at Ross Hall for an evening party. Notables including Baron von Steuben, Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette were among the 100 people in attendance at Ross Hall.

Imagining the celebration as it occurred is a little difficult these days -- subsequent development and Route 18 have obliterated the 18th century landscape in New Brunswick, though the terrain remains a little more natural once the Raritan flows into Piscataway. Ross Hall was torn down in the 1960s after a destructive fire, though a single wall was saved for eventual restoration; plans are to have it displayed at the nearby Metlar-Bodine House. However, anyone driving the length of the highway along the river can appreciate the sheer mass of humanity it took to create a two-mile long shooting range, along with the duration of the gunfire they created, firing one after the other in sequence.

We can still get a little taste of the 1778 celebration every year on Independence Day. On the afternoon of July 4, reenactors gather at New Brunswick's Buccleuch Park for a smaller though no less enthusiastic feu de joie, a reminder not only of our fight for independence, but of New Jersey's significant sacrifice toward the goal.

Visiting the Governor's house in Perth Amboy

A few years ago, we were absolutely blown away by the history we found nestled among the old industrial grittiness of Perth Amboy. Once the capital of East Jersey, the city is home to the oldest public building still in use, the state's oldest Episcopal parish, what was arguably once the oldest corporation in America, and the vestiges of a once-busy port. We barely scratched the surface on our visit and vowed to return sometime to see more.

The opportunity came with the arrest of a governor. Well, the reenactment of an arrest -- of William Franklin, the last Royal Governor of New Jersey. As befits his title, Franklin was a Loyalist allied with the government of Great Britain during the time of the American Revolution. His home, known as the Proprietary House, survives, representing the only royal governor's home still standing on its original grounds.

I'd seen photos of the house's exterior, but I was still taken aback when we pulled up. This was a massive pile of bricks in a residential neighborhood, a real survivor. How could it have been there all these years without being more widely known?

The inside, what we could see of it, was just as impressive. We walked in to find a spacious center hall flanked by two parlors, one of which was decorated as a stately dining room. One of the basement rooms was interpreted as the kitchen, complete with massive hearth, while a barrel-vaulted storage room was set for a future event. Upper floors were off limits, but a view up the center of the staircase sent the imagination reeling. How many rooms are up there, and how many stories could be told in them?

No doubt, the awe we felt was exactly what its architect intended for the home of a provincial leader. Construction on the first portion of the house began in 1761, funded by the Proprietors of East Jersey as the official residence for the Royal Governor. The design, while somewhat severe on the outside, was grand: constructed of brick imported from England, its two stories, plus an attic and full basement made it one of the largest houses in the 13 colonies. Four chimneys served its many fireplaces.

Franklin was appointed governor in 1763 but didn't move into the Perth Amboy mansion until 1774; he'd lived at his Burlington estate until funding issues for the home could be worked out. While he sometimes gets a bad rap due to his loyalist leanings, Franklin enjoyed moderate popularity in the early years of his tenure, developing a welfare program of sorts to help farmers during lean years, and running lotteries to fund bridges and roads. After the start of the Revolutionary War, he supported a reconciliation with Great Britain, a stand that eventually led to his arrest on June 17, 1776. While his wife Elizabeth remained at the Proprietary House until escaping to New York in 1777, Franklin was imprisoned in Connecticut. Neither ever returned to the Perth Amboy house.

Wow, that's a lot of stairs!

Reportedly the house was used by both the American and British forces at various points during the Revolution; what's known for sure is that it suffered a near-devastating fire. A merchant and real estate investor named John Rattoon bought the property in the 1790s, repaired the damage and sold it to New York hotelier Richard Woodhull in 1808. Renaming it Brighton House, Woodhull envisioned two new wings for the house, which, with its location on a bluff above Raritan Bay, became what was arguably one of New Jersey's first seaside resorts. However, he only managed to get one wing built before the War of 1812 prompted an economic downturn. By 1817, he'd sold the property to Matthias Bruen, one of the wealthiest men in America, who made it his family estate.

Following his death in 1846, Bruen's heirs made the property a hotel once again, later donating it to the Presbyterian Church as a retirement home after another financial downturn in the 1880s. Ultimately, the Proprietary House became a rooming house known as the Westminster, the spacious land surrounding it sold as separate lots, and Kearny Avenue run through what had been its front yard. Conditions deteriorated in the early 20th century, but local historians raised hopes that the building would eventually be restored to tell the story of Franklin and the turbulent Revolutionary years.

Today, the Proprietary House is owned by the State of New Jersey and managed by the local Proprietary House Association, which is responsible for raising the funds to restore and interpret the ground floor and first floor of the building. A separate organization is managing the restoration of the 1809 wing and the upper floors of the main structure as offices, reflecting the realities of historic preservation today. While the dream of any historian would be to restore a building to its original condition, the economic realities of managing such a large structure usually point to finding tenants. And buildings nearly always fare better when they're occupied.

Walking around the house, I could understand why the Proprietary House Association folks are proud of the building and eager to tell the story of Franklin and his arrest. The Revolution was more complicated in New Jersey than most people realize, and Franklin seemed to be doing the best he could in what quickly became a no-win situation for him and his family. While he supported reconciliation with Great Britain, his own Assembly pushed for independence, a force too powerful for him to deny. It's a story not often told, and fortunately the Proprietary House still stands to help tell it.

The unlikely link between chickens, deli food, bandages and art

What do Johnson & Johnson, a good brisket sandwich and art have in common? Interestingly enough, Rutgers University and New Brunswick, sort of, by way of George Segal.

That's George Segal the artist, not George Segal the actor.

A lot of people don't realize it, but Rutgers' New Brunswick campus was at the center of a vibrant and influential art community in the late 1950s and early 1960s. For example, now-legendary Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein was a professor in the Douglass College art department, right around the time Rutgers College instructor and performance art pioneer Allen Kaprow was beginning to conceive of what became known as Happenings. Enjoying both the proximity and distance from Manhattan's scene, they and others found the freedom to experiment on radical new ideas.

Segal found his way from his native New York City to Central New Jersey in 1940 when his father bought a chicken farm in South Brunswick as part of an organized effort to boost food production during the Great Depression. After briefly attending Rutgers, he studied art at Cooper Union in the early 40s and Pratt Institute several years later, marrying Helen Steinberg, the girl next door, in the interim. Ultimately he earned his bachelors degree at NYU, graduating in 1949 with a degree in art education.

The Segals bought their own South Brunswick chicken farm in 1953, but when finances got tenuous, he started teaching English and art in local high schools. Kaprow lived nearby, and the two became friends, with Segal's paintings eventually becoming part of Kaprow's exhibitions. The pair also shared wall space in New Brunswick's Z&Z Kosher Delicatessen in New Brunswick, perhaps hoping that patrons would fancy a nice piece of art with their kreplach.

A portion of Segal's
New Jersey Turnpike Toll Booth,
as installed at the Newark Museum.

Eventually, Segal's worlds combined: he hosted one of the first Happenings on the chicken farm and began using poultry netting (chicken wire) to frame out the basis of plaster sculptures that he'd arrange in front of painted canvases. He soon abandoned the wire in favor of placing plaster-soaked J&J gauze bandages directly on his models, reportedly coming upon the idea after one of his students gave him the material doctors used to create plaster casts for broken bones. Segal would plaster his models with the gauze, allowing it to set only to a certain firmness, then gently removing and reshaping it back to its three-dimensional form. Thus he'd have a fully-formed, accurate human being, albeit in ghostly white. He'd then place the form -- or several -- into a tableau that he called an 'assembled environment.' It might be a group around a kitchen table, couples on a park bench (as in New York's Christopher Park) or a toll collector in an authentic Holland Tunnel booth (as in the Newark Museum's garden).

Segal's molding methods evolved over time, allowing him to create intensely lifelike details in his plaster sculptures. Understanding that his models had to stay in the same posture for more than a half hour as the plaster hardened, he came to realize that what he was capturing was not a pose or posture, but the subject's actual true stance, revealing a great deal of who they were as people and lending truth to the art itself.

Over the decades, Segal's art has been installed widely -- chances are you've seen either the plaster works or those cast in copper, like the Breadline installation at the FDR Memorial in Washington D.C. If you're like me, they've prompted you to want to participate somehow. Maybe you've found yourself wanting to line up with the hungry men waiting on the bread line, or maybe handing fare to the toll collector at the booth in the Newark Museum Garden. Either way, they've drawn you into their lives and made you wonder: what's on your mind? What challenges are you facing today? And perhaps, in some small way, they've encouraged you to consider the same questions about yourself.

Segal eventually became successful enough as an artist to leave teaching behind, but he maintained a 6000 square foot studio at the South Brunswick chicken farm until his death in 2000. Whether he still had chickens at that point, I don't know.

New Brunswick's Guest House: maybe, maybe not.

When is a guest house not a guest house? When it’s the Guest House next to the New Brunswick Public Library.

You may have already guessed (no pun intended) that the house in question actually belonged to someone whose name was Guest. In this case, it was Henry Guest, one of the Hub City’s early prominent citizens.

The Guest House as it looked in 1938,
courtesy Historic American Buildings Survey.

Built in 1760, the 2.5 story, finely-cut stone house originally stood at the corner of Livingston Avenue and Carroll Place (now New Street). A city alderman, Guest seems to have been a very busy man with his hand in diverse industries. The stone for his house is said to have come from his quarry on Burnet Street, and he was also a whaler and tanner who developed new processes for treating leather. In fact, he claimed before the New York Society of the Arts that his specially-treated hides could be used for roofing in place of copper. Records of his claims against British raids show that he lost a substantial amount of hides and leather shoes to looting or burning in late 1776 or early 1777.

The Guest House, however, gets its greatest acclaim, ironically enough, from a guest who may or may not have stayed there for a short period during some of the darkest hours in early American history. Ardent patriots, the Guest family was friendly with notables including future President John Adams and pamphleteer Thomas Paine, and it’s said that Paine hid in the house for a short time in December 1776, as the British were making their charge across New Jersey. You might recall from a previous Hidden New Jersey entry that Paine was, at that point, writing The American Crisis, which inspired patriots when the Revolution seemed all but lost. No existing records indicate the exact dates when Paine was there, but a 1951 New Brunswick Sunday Times article theorizes it may have been early December, just before the city fell to the British.

Regardless of whether Paine took refuge there or not, the Guest House can claim some glory as home to Captain Moses Guest, who led the 1779 ambush and capture of Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe, Loyalist commander of the Queen’s Rangers.

Henry Guest reportedly said that if his descendants “would only keep a roof on it, the house would stand till Gabriel blew his trumpet.” However, the house itself very nearly became casualty, not to war, but to 20th century development. In 1925, the Livingston Avenue lot was purchased by the Elks as the site of their New Brunswick lodge. Pharmaceutical titan J. Seward Johnson saved the day, buying the house and offering it to the city, along with $50 in seed money for a fund to finance moving the house to another location and setting it on a new foundation.

Today, the Guest House tells its story in an understated fashion, sitting unobtrusively next to the library. Renovations in 1993 brought a new cedar shake roof, woodwork restorations on porch and portico and a new chimney. Under the care of the library administration, the house now hosts community meetings.

Oysters to country club to bungalows: Laurence Harbor and Raritan Bay

You might notice the name on an exit sign as you drive along the Garden State Parkway: Laurence Harbor. Spelled as it is, in a slighly-unconventional manor, the community's name, for me at least, has always evoked a degree of exclusivity, or maybe just a little hoity, without the toity, so to speak. When I checked The WPA Guide to 1930s New Jersey, I found it described as a "small resort," leading me to wonder whether it had been more along the lines of Keansburg or Deal, Seaside Heights or Avalon.

Today, it's part of Old Bridge, and we ended up there a few weeks ago, when our birding exploits found us exploring Raritan Bay via Route 35. It's not exactly the place most people think of when they're looking for interesting gulls and shorebirds, but it's been productive in the past, particularly at South Amboy, whose shoreline is a regular birder hotspot (and a particularly scenic view of Staten Island).

Fortunately, Old Bridge seems to be making the most of its shoreline with series of boardwalks in its Waterfront Park. The area was hit hard during Hurricane Sandy but to our eyes the walks and surrounding parkland looked largely (or at least convincingly) restored.

Laurence Harbor, back in the day.

In certain areas, small bungalow houses were packed tightly together, reminiscent of other shore communities that evolved from summer vacation enclaves to year-round residences. Laurence Harbor, in particular, seemed especially packed, hemmed in on one side by Route 35 and by the edge of a bluff on the other. It's ringed by the one-way, ovular Shoreland Circle, which we were basically forced to take if we had any hope of getting out of the neighborhood.

Once we got to the waterfront, we were taken by the views -- it's obvious why someone would want to live on the bay portion of Shoreland, with its modest altitude affording a beautiful perspective.

As it turns out, the shorefront community is just the latest in a series of settlements there. First the property of the well-heeled Provost and Travers families, who owned the property from the 1700s well into the late 1800s, it eventually came into the hands of the man whose name it now bears: Laurence Lamb. He converted 400 acres of shorefront land to a luxurious country club, complete with golf course, clubhouse and dining amenities. It's said that from its opening in early 1899 into the first two decades of the 20th century, the club attracted celebrities ranging from members of the Vanderbilt family and the Prince of Wales to Clark Gable and Guy Lombardo, coming to enjoy the bay's native chingarora oysters. (Both Gable and Lombardo would have been a bit young - and not yet celebrities, but heck, it's a good story.)

The current residences are the latest iteration of a community created in 1922 by developers who'd bought the storied Laurence Harbor Country Club. Plots of 25 by 100 feet were sold to bungalow dwellers at prices ranging from $75 for the more inland tracts to $500 for shorefront property the boasted panoramic views of Staten Island and the hills of Monmouth County. To complete the seaside atmosphere, summertime residents enjoyed a boardwalk with a merry-go-round, concessions, a dance hall and bandshell.

Evolution from summer haven to year-round residences came with the Great Depression of the 1930s, as many owners winterized their weekend houses and lived more cheaply at the Raritan Bayshore. The boardwalk lasted through the 1940s, but a combination of three devastating hurricanes and the construction of the Garden State Parkway in the 1950s spelled the end of Laurence Harbor as a shore resort. North Jersey residents, it seemed, were finding it easier to head farther south to towns along the Atlantic coast, rather than weekending on the bay.

Today, that boardwalk is replaced by a new walkway, but with a more natural setting. A portion of the Old Bridge Waterfront Park runs along the Laurence Harbor coast, phragmites blowing in the wind and gulls wheeling overhead. Our visit was curtailed by frigid gusts, but we'll surely be back when the breezes are a bit milder and we can explore a bit more.

Keeping track: railroad vestiges lead to a storied past

It's not all that unusual to run across railroad tracks while wandering around New Jersey. With a few thousand miles of track laid over the past 185 years or so, any trip within the state is bound to have you hearing the "clunk-a-clunk-a" of tires over tracks, or traveling beneath a railroad overpass.

However, when you see tracks that look like this:

you stop and take a look. And when you run into them at two different locations over the course of a couple of weeks, you get curious. The first occurrence was in Hightstown, where the stones and rails were placed near North Main Street downtown. The second was within a 15 minute drive, at historic Dey Farm in Monroe Township. Connecting rails were pulled away years ago, leaving these two segments as utter curiosities. The stone is virtually the same as the sleepers we've seen on old Morris Canal planes, though with gaps in between rather than in abutting blocks, making us wonder when the now-common wooden railroad ties came into vogue. And where did this railroad go?

We'd stumbled on vestiges of the Camden and Amboy, the first railroad built in New Jersey, incorporated in 1830 and chartered on February 15, 1831. How old is it? It's so old that the first train that rode the tracks was pulled by horses.

The Monroe stretch is pretty short
and offers new homeowners
the frustrating reality that while they live
near the railroad, it'll get them nowhere.

The Camden and Amboy was the realization of the ambition of John Stevens, who we know from his earlier forays into steamboats, namely the establishment of the first regular steam ferry service between Hoboken and Manhattan. While he successfully laid a small bit of track on his own property to run a British-built engine, it was left to his sons Robert and Edwin to take the concept to a larger scale.

The first stretch of the railroad linked Bordentown through Jamesburg to South Amboy via horse-drawn cars. Rails were spiked down onto granite sleeper stones reportedly produced by inmates at New York's Sing Sing Prison. Only when shipments were late did Robert Stevens consider laying the rails on squared-off wooden crossbeams, creating a more reliable bed that prompted him to replace all of the granite with wood. Stevens was also responsible for the development of the "T" shaped track and railroad spikes we're accustomed to; used together, they provided a smoother ride overall.

As workers continued laying track, the Stevens brothers purchased their first locomotive, the John Bull, from a Newcastle, England manufacturer. In a situation that's familiar to anyone who's bought Ikea furniture, the engine arrived in several pieces and without instructions for assembly, leaving railroad mechanic Isaac Dripps to reason it out though he'd never seen a locomotive before.

It would be another two years before the engine would serve the line, but Robert Stevens cannily made a test run in November 1831 to give select New Jersey legislators and other dignitaries a chance to enjoy the new technology. This, perhaps, was an early taste of the outsize influence the company would have over government officials in its most powerful years; at one point years later, pundits would jokingly refer to New Jersey as the "State of Camden and Amboy."

In fact, the C&A secured a monopoly on transportation across the state's waist, merging with the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company by a 1831 act of the Legislature that created "the Joint Companies." Passengers would travel by rail, while the canal would handle freight shipments from Bordentown to New Brunswick. The new company agreed to pay the state a $30,000 annual franchise fee that effectively financed government operations. By 1834, the railroad finally reached the breadth of the state between its namesake cities, later buying out rivals to extend its chokehold.

The history of New Jersey's railroad industry is long, complex and loaded with intrigue that would confound J.R. Ewing (consider, for example, Hopewell's frog war). Ultimately, the C&A was bought out by the larger, more powerful Pennsylvania Railroad in its quest to control New Jersey's transportation system, but it had already made its mark as a true pioneer.

Have you seen other portions of the C&A?

The wild goose chase: a rite of winter birding

In New Jersey, the onset of winter brings the spectre of the wild goose chase.

"What?" I can hear you wondering. "Why would anyone make the effort to see geese when they seem to be everywhere?" As any casual observer or office park manager will attest, they've become fixtures in New Jersey, much to the frustration of anyone who's dodged, uh, goose bombs while on a stroll.

Thing is, some pretty remarkable birds are out there if you take the time to look. Some of the Canada Geese you see in the winter months actually are from the northern reaches of the continent, though they might not look that much different from the Jersey guys. Flocks migrate south as their ancestors have done for centuries, sometimes mixing in with the resident population to loiter at athletic fields or farm acreage dotted with mown-down, decaying cornstalks. And with those 'foreign' flocks sometimes come the proverbial needles in the haystack: the rare goose species that literally made a wrong turn at Greenland. Best guess is that some of the "not like the others" birds get caught up in a southbound flock and decide to stick with it rather than attempt to find others of their own species.

The Greater White-Fronted Goose, courtesy
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Gary Kramer

That's what makes them so attractive to a doggedly persistent breed of birders. There are folks who will stand at the edge of a big field, using a spotting scope to scan hundreds, if not thousands of Canada Geese in the hopes of finding a stray Greater White-Fronted, Pink-Footed or Barnacle goose. Those out for a real challenge will seek out a Cackling Goose, which looks essentially like a smaller, shorter-necked Canada Goose. It's a hobby that's not for the faint of heart, especially when you're struggling to hold your ground against arctic-temperature gusts as you slowly scan a massive flock that won't stand still.

That's why I was relieved to hear about the presence of not one, but four different rare goose species frequenting fields over the weekend. Reports were that a Pink-Footed and a Ross' Goose were sighted at two locations in Wall Township. We needed both for the year. Another Pink-Footed was said to be with a Barnacle and a Greater White-Fronted on a farm in Monroe, but we chose to head for the shore instead.

The Pink-Footed is a relatively new visitor to New Jersey; the first sighting of the species was in Bergen County less than four years ago. It ordinarily winters in Great Britain or the Netherlands after breeding in Greenland, but the word seems to be out in the Pink-Footed community that New Jersey is a welcoming place. The species has already been sighted in a few places around the state this fall. From my relatively novice perspective, it's a welcome visitor, as it's easily distinguishable within a big flock of Canadas: it lacks the white chinstrap and black neck, preferring shades of brown instead. And, of course, its feet and legs are pink.

The Ross' Goose, I knew, would stick out like a sore thumb: it's nearly all white. The only other bird you might confuse it for is the larger Snow Goose, so I was good with ID as long as none of the bigger guys was there.

We set off at mid-morning and promptly ended up at, well, the wrong spot due to a miscalculation by yours truly (long story short, mea culpa). After roaming a few spots on the Shark River estuary, we grabbed a late breakfast in Belmar and stopped to check out Wreck Pond in Spring Lake. While there was a fine assortment of ducks, a Great Blue Heron and Great Egret, the only geese were Canadas, a couple of Snow Geese and a pair of domesticated Egyptians (cool, but not countable).

Somewhere in our wandering, we found some birding acquaintances who pointed us in the right direction. The Pink-Footed, it turns out, was seen in a few places within about a mile of the location we'd originally tried to find. Perhaps if we went back and made a right turn instead of a left at a crucial intersection, we'd find the bird. Worked for us. We had about two hours of daylight left -- not a lot of time.

Sometimes finding the bird is a matter of finding the birders first. We got to the first place in the directions to discover several cars pulled over on the shoulder against a broad grassy field, with several spotting scopes already pointed toward a large flock of geese. Pay dirt. The assembled birders told us that both the Ross' and the Pink-Footed were milling among the hundreds of Canadas on the slope just above the pond.

I got the Ross' Goose without trying too hard, its whiteness a stark contrast to the assorted black and browns of the Canadas. The Pink-Footed was a bit harder, but it wasn't long before Ivan had it spotted with the scope. At one point, the two rarities were so close together they could be seen well without moving the scope at all. Considering it was my first time seeing the Ross' and the third time for the Pink-Footed, it was a sight to remember. We could head home with the satisfaction of a successful wild goose chase.

But, for me, the adventure wasn't quite over.

Ivan was committed to do a Christmas Bird Count on Sunday, so I was on my own. What the heck, I thought. I'll head to Monroe and see if I could spot the Barnacle or the Greater White-Fronted. The Pink-Footed would be a nice bonus, but thanks to our sighting in Wall, I wasn't particularly concerned about finding it.

I knew I was heading into an iffy situation, but I was fairly confident about my chances. As I got off the Turnpike and drove past the cluster of senior housing developments just off Exit 8A, I considered my situation. I was heading out badly equipped: Ivan had the sighting scope. But, I figured, if the birds were present, there would be birders with scopes there, too.

Indeed, when I reached the area and made the turn to drive along the edge of the designated field, this is what I was confronted with:

The farm field in Monroe. Those black spots are all geese. Your guess is as good as mine.

Yup: an undulating cornfield with a conservative estimate of several hundred geese milling about, pecking at the ground, a couple hundred yards away. To make matters worse, the farmer seemed to have cut the cornstalks a little higher than average, giving the geese more space to hide. The two birders already there had a spotting scope but were packing up. They hadn't found anything: not the Barnacle, not the Greater White-Fronted, not the Pink-Footed. Me, with my decent but not spectacular binoculars? I figured I'd stick around and see what happened.

Luckily, a few minutes later another birder showed up, though he also lacked a scope. Together we scanned what we could see from our vantage points, until he announced, "I think I have something." The Greater White-Fronted Goose happened to be scanning the space between two cornrows that ended right about where the birder was standing. The result was a nearly perfect though distant view, as long as the bird stopped for a moment or two. After he gave me a couple of landmarks to gauge from, I found the bird in question and agreed, first that it wasn't a Canada from the orangey legs, and then, after a few frustrating attempts to see its neck and face, I was sure.  

Satisfied that the identification was a strong one, I decided enough was plenty. Finding the Barnacle Goose in that flock would be enough of a challenge in good light, and the combination of clouds and early-setting sun were not my friends that day. Add to that, the Barnacle's plumage is nominally close enough to the Canada's, so playing the avian version of "one of these things is not like the others" wouldn't serve me well.

The fates seemed to want to give me one last treat before I headed home. Just as I was turning the car around, I noticed a slender raptor gliding overhead, toward the field of geese. Pulling over again and jumping out of the car with my binoculars, I tried to confirm my suspicion that the bird was, indeed, a harrier. The setting and the behavior was right, I considered as the bird decreased its altitude to coast just several feet above the field, but with the light and distance I couldn't call it definitively. As in so many other cases before, I couldn't be sure what I'd seen. All I knew was that I'd enjoyed seeing it.

(FYI, photos of the Pink-Footed, Barnacle and Cackling geese mentioned here are available with an article on Pete Bacinski's excellent All Things Birds blog on the New Jersey Audubon website.)

The Vanderbilts of New Brunswick: a fortune started on the banks of the Raritan

Wander around the exhibits in the removed and restored Indian Queen Tavern at East Jersey Olde Towne, and you'll find reference to several comparable inns and taverns that once accommodated steamboat travelers. Not surprisingly, New Brunswick was a busy place, with travelers transferring from boats to the overland stagecoach across the state on their way to Philadelphia, Washington or any number of other points beyond. Among the many names mentioned in the Indian Queen's exhibits, I was surprised to see a very familiar one: Vanderbilt.

Vanderbilt? As in Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt? I knew he'd been born on Staten Island and that the family was involved in the early days of the ferry system between there and Manhattan, but I had no idea their influence extended along the Raritan River. Indeed, an article in the February 8, 1901 issue of the San Francisco Call declared that the Bellona Hotel in New Brunswick was the origin of the Vanderbilt fortune.

Vanderbilt's Bellona Hotel, well after the family had sold it.
Courtesy New Brunswick Free Public Library.

It makes sense when viewed in context. By the early 1800s the growing city was becoming a viable shipping port, both for freight (as we saw from Raritan Landing) and for the increasing numbers of people traveling and simply seeking a pleasurable excursion. William Gibbons' New York and New Brunswick Freight Company ran freight and passenger sloops between the two cities in direct competition with Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston.

Vanderbilt had followed his father into the ferry business in 1810, starting his own company at the age of 16. The ensuing years were important ones for the budding mogul: first he married his cousin Sophia Johnson, and then he met Gibbons, who was determined to break the Fulton/Livingston monopoly. Having heard several accounts of Vanderbilt's feats as a boat captain, Gibbons believed he'd found his secret weapon.

Seeing the opportunity to learn from one of the wealthiest and most successful businessman of the time, Vanderbilt agreed to work for Gibbons, even though it meant a cut in pay. Included in the deal was Halfway House, a ramshackle tavern on Burnet Street, near the river. Gibbons expected the Vanderbilts to get it back in habitable shape and run it as an inn, returning 20 percent of the revenue to him. It would also be their home.

The couple divided the labor: Cornelius handling the boating while Sophia ran the lodging. She named the inn Bellona Hall (or Bellona Hotel, depending on the source), after one of the company boats, and it soon became an attraction drawing patrons from New York. President John Quincy Adams even stayed there for an evening in 1826 while traveling from Philadelphia.

Sophia proved to be a supremely able innkeeper, managing all aspects of the Bellona through the birth and raising of 13 children. In addition to cooking, cleaning and entertaining guests, she kept the books and negotiated with wholesalers for the best prices on food, liquor and other supplies. Over the 12 years the Vanderbilts were in New Brunswick, Sophia made a handsome profit, all the more necessary because Cornelius refused to contribute toward the household expenses. Reportedly, she even lent her husband a substantial sum to buy controlling interest in a steamboat.

It's not quite clear exactly when the family left New Brunswick, but it's probably safe to say that it was probably around the time Vanderbilt left the steamboat business in favor of the railroads. With the advent of the Camden and Amboy Railroad and the Delaware and Raritan Canal, New Brunswick's prospects were clearly no longer with the Vanderbilts.

The building itself seems to have fallen into less able hands over time. Some reports labeled it a tenement. A 1908 New York Times article on the sale of the property for $15 and an equal amount of back taxes noted that "In late years the hotel has been used as a boarding house for foreigners." By 1913, the building was razed and replaced with a slaughterhouse.

There's some question about the exact location of the Bellonia, but it's most likely somewhere under the pavement of State Route 18, or maybe somewhere in Boyd Park. Save for Rutgers and a few churches, New Brunswick was notoriously bad about preserving its past, and all vestiges of the old docks and wharf area have been obliterated either by the highway or the redevelopment of the past 35 or 40 years. It's a shame, really. With the proper focus and care, the city's nautical past might have been a big draw for 20th and 21st century visitors.

History under River Road: the vanished town of Raritan Landing

Over the weekend, we made another visit to East Jersey Olde Towne, a collection of historic buildings moved to Middlesex County's Johnson Park when threatened with destruction. This time around, the buildings were open and we arrived just in time for the afternoon tour.

The buildings themselves are interesting examples of colonial-era architecture, with ties to the area's original settlers and their descendants. The really fascinating part of the tour, however, wasn't the structures or their former owners, but of another town whose remnants remained hidden below the grounds around us. 

A hint of its existence is in the name of the Landing Lane Bridge, which crosses the Raritan River near the borders where New Brunswick, Franklin Township and Piscataway meet. The name always seemed a little odd to me, but it suddenly made sense when I learned the name of the hidden community: Raritan Landing.

True to its name, Raritan Landing was a busy port community starting in the early to mid-1700s. The sons of New York merchants, eager to strike their own fortunes, realized that there was money to be had in the productive lands of the Raritan Valley, if they could get the bounty to the city. Farmers had plenty of grain, timber and livestock to sell, and the growing city populations had a large appetite and shrinking amounts of available land on which to farm. Shipping by boat would be the fastest and most productive route, leading them to set up shop on the farthest inland point of navigation on the Raritan River.

Raritan Landing, courtesy Rutgers Libraries

Warehouses started popping up on the northern banks of the Raritan River, west of New Brunswick as farmers learned of the new opportunity to sell their crops. It's said that 50 or more wagons at a time would be lined up on the Great Road Up Raritan (now River Road), waiting for their opportunity to unload their wares. A small but dense community grew around the commerce with residents building houses, stores, stables and a mill, among other structures.

Land along the Raritan is low, and Johnson Park floods in a decent-sized storm, as we've seen with Hurricanes Floyd, Sandy and Irene. Raritan Landing was a good three feet lower than the land is today, and residents found themselves flooded out time and time again. Wealthy merchants retreated to the bluffs above, building stately houses befitting their success. Today, the stone Cornelius Low mansion stands near the corner of Landing Lane and River Road, the only visible sign of the community that once bustled below.

So why did Raritan Landing disappear? Its demise came in stages. First, the Revolutionary War brought raids from foraging British and Hessians who first looted property and then burned buildings down, driving many residents away in the process. Some locals returned, but many sold their lots to wealthier merchants, changing the character of the community in the process. In the 1830s, newer, faster transportation came to the area in the forms of the Delaware and Raritan Canal and the Camden and Amboy Railroad, enabling farmers and merchants to get their goods to market faster. Raritan Landing essentially became obsolete.

By 1870, many of the buildings had been dismantled, the land converted to pasture. Sixty years later, visible traces of the village were obliterated, covered by three feet of fill dumped there when land across River Road was excavated for the construction of Rutgers Stadium. Fortunately, local historian Cornelius Vermeule created a map of Raritan Landing based on his own childhood recollections and stories garnered from family members. 

Ironically, much of what we know about Raritan Landing comes thanks to sewer enhancements in the 1970's and road-widening projects of the late 90's and early 2000's. The New Jersey Department of Transportation was required to underake an archaeological survey before building the Route 18 extension into Piscataway, resulting in the unearthing of several building foundations and a treasure trove of 18th and 19th century artifacts. Luck played a role in the project, too. Archaeologists were about to walk away empty-handed in the 70's when a local resident came by to ask what they were up to. He recalled the mounds of excavated dirt dumped near the river bank from the stadium construction, leading the researchers to dig much deeper for their quarry.

Several of the more interesting artifacts from the digs are on display at East Jersey Olde Towne, but frustratingly, DOT archaeologists unearthed only a portion of what remains of Raritan Landing. The state was only required to investigate areas that would be disturbed by road construction, leaving much more of the old village below the surface. Even the foundations they discovered are now invisible to the eye, having been covered over again. Some might have even been paved over.

The thing is, it's still there, waiting for future generations to find it. Who knows when it will be unearthed, or by whom. We can only hope that if our descendants choose to build more road there, they'll care enough to dig for the treasure of our shared past.

Pandas rejoice: bamboo abounds in New Brunswick

We didn't see any pandas on our last trip to New Brunswick, but I honestly wouldn't have been shocked if we had, based on what we found.

Toward the end of our recent visit to Rutgers Gardens, we found ourselves in a less showy part of the property. A greenhouse, service buildings and a tractor or two got me thinking that we might have inadvertently walked into an area where visitors weren't encouraged to go. No signs were warning us away, so we figured we'd keep going until they did.

Then, at a point, the usual New Jersey-type overgrowth of shrubs, grass and vines evolved into a monoculture of bamboo. I mean, a LOT of bamboo. "This can't be a coincidence" quantities of bamboo. A break in the exotic wall of greenery drew us onto a footpath arched by distinctly Asian overgrowth. We'd stumbled upon Rutgers Gardens' real secret: its one acre bamboo forest.

Neither Ivan nor I had ever seen a grove of bamboo so expansive, except maybe at a zoo somewhere. As we continued our exploration, a winding path brought us to a rocky brook crossed by a simple wooden footbridge. I half expected to find a Zen sand garden, or perhaps a statue of a sitting Buddha nestled somewhere, but all we found was green foliage and the gentle babble of water streaming by.

The grove's species, Phyllostachys nuda, is known as running bamboo for its tendency of spreading aggressively if it's not hemmed in by concrete or water barriers. While that creates challenges for gardeners, it's a boon to the environment: the faster a plant grows, the more carbon dioxide it removes from the atmosphere. Native to China's Zhejiang province, this evergreen plant can withstand temperatures as low as -15 degrees Fahrenheit, making it more than suitable to New Jersey's climate. Growers in Idaho have seen the species do well in areas where temperatures dip into the -30 degree Fahrenheit range.

How did bamboo get to Rutgers, and why? According to the Gardens' website, a small grove was originally planted on site in the 1940s as a winter home for honeybee colonies. Maybe it wasn't intended to become the forest it's grown to be, but Rutgers is making the best of it: once a culm (as the stalks are called by botanists) reaches the end of its five to seven year lifespan, it's removed in order to let a newer, healthier one take its place. The cuttings are sold during the Gardens' annual spring flower fair in May. Considering that a new culm can grow to a height of 30 feet in just a few weeks, any bare patches in the grove are filled pretty quickly.

Every culm around us looked healthy and about two inches around at most; a good knock on a few revealed a very solid report, similar to what you'd hear from a good quality tree wood. Rutgers might be missing out on an opportunity here: combine rampant bamboo with the seemingly ubiquitous Phragmites growing in marshes and on roadsides, and you've got building and roofing material in abundance.

In any case, we're getting ahead of ourselves. The Rutgers bamboo grove is beautiful just as it is: a quiet, out of the way place to relax and contemplate life, and an authentic Zen-type experience. Save the plane fare to the Far East: bamboo heaven is just a few miles from Turnpike interchange 9.

Oh, and here's a bonus haiku:

Rutgers bamboo grove

Bliss hidden in New Brunswick

Peaceful, calm and green

A surprising secret garden grows between the Turnpike and Route One

For a while, we've been meaning to get to Rutgers Gardens, the 180-acre bit of bliss located not far off Route One on Ryders Lane in New Brunswick. It's tucked so securely away from the hubbub of the University that many New Jerseyans, let alone Rutgers students and alumni, know about it. Though I visited once or twice during my college years, I honestly forgot exactly where it was and how to get there. Directional signage from the major campuses is virtually non-existent, and if there's any indication from the highway, I must have missed it.

In any case, I had visions of beautiful flowering gardens, well-kept trees and shrubs, and maybe a Rutgers-bred hybrid or twenty in the mix. Given that the WPA-built Log Cabin building on the grounds is a popular wedding reception site, I figured odds were good that we'd see a newly-married couple posing amid the greenery.

The recently hitched folks weren't there yet, but the gardens didn't disappoint. Ivan and I visited on a cloudy August morning, hoping to dodge the rain that was supposed to fall sporadically through the day. We basically had the place to ourselves, give or take a dog walker or two, but it was still early.

Consistent with Rutgers' leadership in holly breeding, visitors are greeted to the site by the nation's second largest American holly collection as they drive onto the grounds. Not far away is an impressive variety of shrubs, leading Ivan to comment that RU had missed its chance to rename its mascot the Scarlet Knight who says NI! (Bring them a shrubbery, anyone? Anyone?) Evergreens, ornamental trees and rhododendrons all get extensive space, too.

Stopping by a cheery potting shed that doubles as a gift shop and information desk, we met a friendly volunteer who filled us in on the latest. The gardens were started in the 1920's as a teaching tool for students in the plant sciences and has evolved over the years to include a broad range of species. Though the land and buildings are owned by the University, the gardens are totally self-sustaining, gaining their revenue from facility rentals and events like farm markets, classes, tours and membership fees, which enables them to offer free admission to the property. In fact, we just missed the annual open house, a major fundraiser that included tours, discussions with horticulturists, a wine tasting and plant sale.

The showiest area of the property is the Donald B. Lacey Display Garden, named for the state agricultural extension specialist in horticulture who converted it from a huge bearded iris collection to a display of annuals the home gardener can grow in his or her own plot. To celebrate the display's 50th year, Rutgers Gardens' "Best in Show, Sun to Snow" theme highlights what the staff feels are the best species of annuals, perennials and vegetables to grow in New Jersey. The selections change regularly to reflect the growing and blooming seasons for each species. Just behind a locked gate was a large volunteer-run vegetable garden with tomatoes and all sorts of summer squash ripening tantalizingly.

Hikers looking for a less manicured bond with nature can check out the Frank G. Helyar Woods, a 70 acre old-growth forest of beech, hickory and oak trees. Unfortunately the well-marked 2.5 mile path was blocked by a felled tree about 20 yards in, preventing us sandal-shod explorers from trekking much further. Maybe another day, with more energy and wearing more suitable gear, we'll check it out again; it's said to be a nice jaunt out to Weston's Mill Pond and an abandoned Christmas tree farm left to grow on its own.

As we looped around the back end of the Gardens, we found another forest with a more passable trail, but that's a story for next time. Stay tuned!

Flying saucers make history in New Brunswick

In a history-making event that garnered virtually no media attention, flying saucers hovered just feet above the ground on Rutgers University's New Brunswick campus one Monday afternoon in the fall of 1972.

No, not this one.

No, the flying saucers weren't of the "take me to your leader" variety, and their appearance on the Banks on November 6 was entirely planned by terrestrial beings. The hovering craft we're referring to are the rimmed plastic platters better known as Frisbees or, more generically, flying discs, and they were making their debut in college competition. Sprinting that day almost literally in the footsteps of their forebears of more than a century before, Rutgers and Princeton students added Ultimate Frisbee to the rivalry between the two old schools.

That's not to say that Frisbees themselves were a rare sight on campus. The link between college students and flying discs was forged in the 1940s, when Yale undergrads discovered that tins from the nearby Frisbie* Pie Company would sail a good distance when thrown a certain way. By the late '60s, Wham-O was selling plastic discs by the millions, and sailing one from person to person had become the perfect low-key campus activity. It took some enterprising New Jersey teenagers to turn the toss of a disc from a casual pastime between friends into a competitive sport.

Ultimate frisbee combines aspects of football, basketball and soccer, with two teams of seven playing on a field about the size of a football gridiron. The World Flying Disc Federation attributes the start of competitive ultimate to a student at Maplewood's Columbia High School, who proposed the game to the student council in 1968. Rules were written, a playing field was determined and two years later Columbia and Millburn High Schools competed in the first interscholastic game.

That brings us to the fateful day on the parking lot behind Rutgers' College Avenue Gym in New Brunswick, not coincidentally the birthplace of college football. By November 6, 1972, the historic field had been paved over but still retained enough favorable qualities to host the first intercollegiate ultimate disc game. Echoing the outcome of the schools' first history-making meeting in 1869, Rutgers won by two goals, though the 29-27 score was significantly higher than the original 6-4 football game. The Scarlet Knights continued their dominance as competitive ultimate spread to other colleges, winning the first National Collegiate Championships in 1975 and the successor National Ultimate Frisbee Championship in 1976.

Both universities continue to field both men's and women's ultimate teams, as do several other colleges around the state. Consistent with the laid-back nature of the ultimate culture, Rutgers fields a competitive men's A team while welcoming students of any skill to play on a B team without having to try out. There's no expectation or pressure on team members to develop (or want to develop) the skills that would enable them to play on the A level. It's all cool.



*That's not a typo. The bakery name was really spelled "Frisbie." Wham-O changed the spelling to avoid copyright infringement.

The Wizard's roots, better than ever: the Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park

With multiple stories already written on Thomas Edison and features on his lab and home in West Orange, it's remarkable that we haven't yet made a proper visit to the town that proudly bears his name. Specifically, I'm talking about the site where he built his first invention factory, the community that led to his famed sobriquet: the Wizard of Menlo Park.

The Thomas Edison Center, also known as the Menlo Park Museum, sits modestly on a side street off Route 27, honoring a man whose inventions changed the world. Long-time readers might recall that we've gone there a few times before, notably to find the site of the first electric railroad and get lost in the adjacent woods and trail in what's officially Thomas Edison State Park. The two most notable historic aspects of the park, the museum and the memorial tower, were closed for renovation during those earlier visits.

The great news is that while the tower is still mired in the restoration process, the small museum is open again, and better than ever. Housed in what was originally built to be the tower's visitors center, the pre-renovation museum was cramped with enough artifacts to qualify it for the world record for most history per square foot. While it gave a good representation of his work at Menlo Park, there were so many display cases that it was difficult for a tour of more than a handful of people at one time to visit comfortably.

Now, visitors are welcomed with an overview of Edison's work, not just in Menlo Park, but throughout his career. A timeline in the entry area indicates the start of his career as an itinerant telegraph operator and follows him to the East Coast, to Newark, Menlo Park, New York and West Orange. Additional panels illustrate the brief history of Menlo Park as a failed residential development that Edison saw as an ideal setting to build his invention factory. And a corridor into the main display area is lined with copies of a small selection of the 400 patents he was granted for new technologies developed on site.

While half of his 1093 patents were derived from work done at the West Orange labs, Edison is best remembered for two Menlo Park inventions: the phonograph and the perfected incandescent light bulb. The newly-curated exhibit gives ample attention to both but also highlights other lesser-known yet still very recognizable innovations. A rusted rail and spike represent the electric railroad he built on the property, while a motorized pen, printers' roller and tube of mimeograph ink introduce the electric duplicating system he invented in Newark and patented in Menlo Park. Another part of the room includes the carbon button microphone Edison developed in 1877 as an improvement to the telephone Alexander Graham Bell had patented a year earlier. Various equipment represent the machine shop where workers made parts that would be assembled into inventions.

The best part of a visit to Menlo Park hasn't changed much: the storytelling ability of the Thomas Edison Center's volunteer museum guides. A visitor could definitely learn a lot just by studying the interpretive text around the exhibit, but the volunteers give life to Edison's persistence and belief in the process of invention.

Once you've heard the stories and seen the artifacts, you're hungry to explore the places where Edison walked, thought and toiled. Regrettably, very little remains to represent his physical presence on the site, as the lab and other structures were taken down in 1929 and reconstructed at Henry Ford's Greenfield Village in Michigan. If you go to the edge of the Menlo Park property and look carefully atop the rise at the corner of Christie Street and Tower Road, you'll find the sunken foundation of the building that housed the inventor's office, plus another, smaller building. A gnarled, barely-recognizable portion of the doorstep remains, giving visitors the chance to step, literally, where Edison did.

The 129-foot high Memorial Tower stands over the actual site where Edison lit the first long-lasting (14 hours) incandescent bulb. A gift from early associates who dubbed themselves the Edison Pioneers, it was constructed of 13 different mosaic mixes of Edison Portland cement, from dark at the base to light at the top, and topped with a 13 foot, 8 inch high Pyrex light bulb. The ongoing restoration includes repair work on the exterior cement and the installation of 21st century lighting and sound systems that Edison surely would have approved of. It's expected to open sometime this summer.

The Thomas Edison Center is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, making it the perfect starting point for an Edison exploration day. It's close enough to the Parkway that you could easily spend an hour or two there and then zip up to Thomas Edison National Historical Park to learn more about his later years.

The right to vote, and beyond: the legacy of Florence Eagleton

If you're a follower of New Jersey politics, you've no doubt heard of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. Located on the Douglass College campus at Wood Lawn, the Institute conducts research on the state's political climate and serves as the University's educational arm on public policy. Countless numbers of state policy makers, journalists and elected officials have benefited from the Institute's programming and resources, whether in undergraduate or graduate-level classes, or seminars targeted to segments of the public.

I've always wondered who it was named for and why it happens to be headquartered on the campus of Rutgers' women's college. As I found from my research, both the setting and the focus of the Institute makes perfect sense once you learn its origin.

The name and the heritage traces to a classic New Jersey Woman With Moxie who wasn't content to simply live the life of a member of late 19th-early 20th century Newark aristocracy. Rather than simply settle for luncheons and charity events, she became one of the state's leading advocates for women's rights in a time when change was neither guaranteed nor completely supported within her social stratus.

Florence Peshine Eagleton was born in 1870 to parents whose families traced back to the earliest days of Newark's founding. Following her education at one of the city's exclusive finishing schools, her parents arranged her marriage to Henry Riggs, who at more than twice her age was already widowed and the father of a 20 year old son. According to Lives of New Jersey Women, their marriage, though without passion, resulted in one son, and they divorced as friends several years later. Though Riggs thought well enough of Florence to name her a beneficiary in his will after their separation, her own family disapproved of the divorce and considered her to be a fallen woman, in the parlance of the day.

Her second marriage was far more successful. At the age of 43, she married Newark neurosurgeon Wells Phillips Eagleton, a far better match, both in age and mutual affection. They were an accomplished pair: he as a well-regarded and often-published physician and she as a philanthropist and advocate for social change.

Florence had come of age during a time when the fight for women's suffrage and access to family planning were coming to a fever pitch. Already having helped found the New Jersey Birth Control League, she dove headfirst into the movement to ratify the 19th Amendment. As leader of the state's Women's Political Union and vice president of the New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association (WSA), she drove a hugely successful petition drive in Newark, prompting the state legislature to vote to make New Jersey the 29th state to ratify the amendment. That achieved, Eagleton became the first president of the Newark League of Women Voters, the successor to the WSA which is dedicated to educating voters about public policy issues. Under her leadership, the LWV conducted a series of "citizenship schools" to help women make better educated decisions at the polling place.

The leap to the Eagleton Institute, then, becomes easy to understand, but why the Rutgers connection?

An advocate of women's education, Eagleton was an early board member of the New Jersey College for Women (now Douglass College) and later became one of the first women to serve as a trustee at Rutgers University. She no doubt became intimately familiar with the school and saw a fertile field in which her life's work could continue well beyond her death.

In her will, she bequested $1 million for the establishment of the Wells Phillips Eagleton and Florence Peshine Eagleton Foundation, directing that the funds go toward "the advancement of learning in the field of practical political affairs and government [so] that a knowledge of the meaning of democracy may be increased through the education of young women and men in democratic government." Further, she wrote, "It is my settled conviction that the cultivation of civic responsibility and leadership among the American people in the field of practical political affairs is of vital and increasing importance to our state and nation ... I make this gift especially for the development of and education for responsible leadership in civic and governmental affairs and the solution of their political problems."

Florence Eagleton died in 1956 and the Institute was organized not long after. Now the home of the Center for American Women in Politics, it continues her efforts to build and enhance women's influence on the public policy stage, even as it broadens its scope to study immigration, the role of the governor in American states and a host of other issues. Perhaps Florence is little known today, but more importantly, her mission continues.

Piscataway's brush with anarchy: the Stelton Modern School and Ferrer Colony

A few weeks ago we explored the Stelton area of Piscataway to tease out the history of early 20th century settlement there. You might recall we were trying to figure out the differences between Friendship Farm, the Ferrer Colony and an unnamed (at least to us) community of chicken farmers.

Distinguishing one from the other proved to be a little bit of a challenge, as many sources refer to Friendship Farm and the Ferrer Colony in the same breath. In truth, they were quite different. While Friendship Farm was largely the province of formerly-urban and taciturn German transplants, the Ferrer Colony took a decidedly anarchist turn, fostered by adherents of Spanish educator Francisco Ferrer.

Well-known for his political beliefs, Ferrer had founded the Escuela Moderna in Barcelona in 1901 as a means of promoting the tenets of anarchism. After he was executed for his alleged participation in an insurrection, free-thinkers around the world, including some in New York, sought to perpetuate his teachings through additional Modern Schools.

Relief sculpture on the side of the Goldman house
in the former Ferrer/Modern School Colony.

The prompt for the Modern School's move to Stelton came through two sources: a vision and a bomb. Troubled by the "evil influences" of the city, founders of the New York Ferrer movement theorized that they'd be far better able to effect social change if the school was physically cocooned within a supportive community of like-minded individuals. Meanwhile, students from the school's adult classes were linked to a 1914 explosion that was said to be a bomb intended for the Rockefeller family. Overall, Manhattan was turning out not to be such a great place to be an anarchist.

Not long after the blast, one of the Ferrer group leaders was visiting friends who lived at Friendship Farm when an a solution materialized. Dissatisfied with the Farm's conservative environment, one friend suggested that the New York group could purchase the adjoining land and start their own settlement in New Jersey.

One of the Ferrer Colony's remaining tiny houses.

Compared to a cramped existence in Manhattan, the Stelton farmland must have appeared as nirvana. The Ferrer group bought 143 acres of land and subdivided it into one- to two-acre plots to be sold at a profit to individual members. Sale proceeds would be used to construct roads and other shared facilities. Like their Friendship Farm neighbors, the Ferrerists built their own homes; many were, by today's standards, ridiculously small (as in, they make the classic Edison concrete houses look like McMansions). The land itself was reportedly treeless, dusty and devoid of a water source. Roads were meant to be built as a communal effort, which didn't work quite as cooperatively as the founders had envisioned. Common facilities, like a dormitory for students coming in from New York, were only completed after severe financial difficulties.

Through it all, the ever-important Modern School attracted the support and attention of parents who wanted their children to benefit from a progressive, if not revolutionary education. The school had no curriculum or study requirements, supporting the community's belief that allowing students to make their own choices would result in responsible adults. After a brief morning gathering, kids could experiment with several options, including outdoor games, woodworking and art. Traditional academics were available but not forced; oral histories note that some children didn't learn to read until they were nine or ten years old.

The school and community persisted through the lean years of the Great Depression, losing many students whose parents couldn't afford tuition or had become communists. World War II seems to have struck the death knell; the construction and operation of nearby Camp Kilmer reportedly brought crime and hostility to what had been peaceful farmland. Nonetheless, the Modern School managed to stay open until 1953, most of its few students reportedly around kindergarten age.

Today, the only overt sign of the Modern School is a plaque erected on the site where it once stood, 79 School Street. Though many of the common buildings have been torn down and replaced by retail establishments, some of the small houses still stand in the general area, including the Russian, or Goldman house, notable for the bas relief artwork on its outside walls.

Exploring the Joyce Kilmer house

To many people, the name Joyce Kilmer means one of three things: the poet who wrote Trees, a rest area on the New Jersey Turnpike, or an army base that once operated in Edison. If you've lived or gone to school in New Brunswick, a certain street might come to mind, too. And if you've walked down Joyce Kilmer Avenue, you might have noticed a small cream-colored house with a plaque saying, simply, "Kilmer House." Its first floor now the home of the city's Dial-a-Ride program, the upper portion of the house quietly remains a shrine to the poet and World War I hero.

The Kilmer birthplace

The facade of the house is a puzzle, with no indication of whether any aspects of the family's life there have been preserved, or when one might be able to return to learn more. A bit of sleuthing revealed contact data for New Brunswick Historian George Dawson, who kindly agreed to meet me there and share some insights on the family and the house.

As advertised, the entire first floor is the domain of city employees, yet there are still nice touches befitting a 19th century home. I climbed the narrow stairs to the second floor, walked down a slightly wider corridor and found myself in the room where Kilmer was born. It's uncertain whether any of the furnishings in the room belonged to the family, but the bed, rattan chaise, mantlepiece decorations and wallpaper were all reminiscent of the era when the Kilmers lived there. The rooms farther back contain memorabilia like a chunk of the aged Kilmer tree, the mighty oak on Rutgers' Douglass/Cook campus that was considered by some to be the inspiration for his famed poem. (The tree succumbed to age and disease and was cut down in 1963.)

Alfred Joyce Kilmer was born in the front bedroom of the house in 1886 and was baptized at Christ Church, his first name taken in honor of the parish curate and his middle name from the Episcopal rector, Rev. Elisha Brooks Joyce. His parents, Frederick and Annie, had moved to the house at 17 Codwise Avenue a few years earlier, and Fred operated a pharmacy downtown until 1889, when he joined a new company called Johnson & Johnson as its first scientific director.

Taking the job at J&J appears to have been a wise move for Fred; when Joyce was just five years old, the family moved to a larger house on College Avenue. (Regrettably, that house was demolished in 1960 to make room for the uninspired architecture of Brower Commons.) Fred went on to develop the company's iconic baby powder and contribute to several other advancements; check out J&J's informative Kilmer House blog for more on his fascinating career.

After completing his primary and secondary studies at Rutgers Preparatory School, the younger Kilmer attended Rutgers College, where he was an associate editor of the Daily Targum and a member of Delta Upsilon. Writing came easily to him, math not so much. At the time, college regulations required that students pass all of their subjects before being allowed to move to the next year's studies, and poor grades in sophomore mathematics meant he'd have to retake all of that year's classes before advancing. Instead, he chose to complete his studies at Columbia University, where, it might be presumed, the policies were a little less rigorous.

From his earliest years, Kilmer was deeply spiritual and eventually converted to Catholicism, prompted by his interest in Irish heritage and nationalism. He's also said to have told friends that Catholics write the best poetry. He married Aline Murray in her home Episcopal parish in Metuchen in 1908, but by 1913, the couple were members of New York's Roman Catholic Church of St. Paul the Apostle.

Kilmer graduated from Columbia in 1908 and taught English and Latin at Morristown High School while working to make his mark in New York's literary community as a reviewer. Stints at publishers eventually brought him to the New York Times Sunday magazine, even as he published several volumes of poetry. He and Aline moved to Mahwah, where they welcomed a son and daughter, and where he's said to have written Trees.

This representation of Kilmer
hangs on the wall in the room
where he was born.

Having joined the New York National Guard's 69th Regiment in 1914, Kilmer became part of the regular army after the United States entered World War I. His feelings about war were evident in his poem The White Ships and The Red, published by the Times after the sinking of the Lusitania. Despite his college education, he chose not to pursue an officers' commission and went in as a private. He shipped out to France in October 1917 and was promoted to sergeant five months later. On July 30, 1918, he was killed in action, shot in the head by a sniper. Only 31 years old at the time of his death, he was buried in a military cemetery at Fere-en-Tardenois and remembered by his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel William Donovan, as "a cool-headed solider... full of eagerness at all time to give his full measure of service." The French awarded him the Croix de Guerre posthumously in recognition of his valor.

Back in New Brunswick, the local American Legion post wanted to honor Kilmer, the local enlisted man who'd served so honorably. The Codwise Avenue house had passed through several owners since Fred and Annie sold it in 1903, and the Legionnaires felt it would be an ideal home for their post. They bought the property in 1929, dedicating it the next year with a blessing on the birthplace room from a Christ Church rector. It was henceforth known as the Joyce Kilmer Shrine.

Declining membership, vandalism and rising maintenance costs forced the Joyce Kilmer Post 25 to sell the building to the state as a historic site in 1969, and local historians created the Joyce Kilmer Birthplace Association to drive restoration. The city of New Brunswick took possession in 1983, with the stipulation that the second floor shrine be maintained.

Few people visit the house, as evidenced by the number of signatures in the guest book. You'd hope that local schools would arrange field trips so kids could learn a bit about a local writer and war hero, or that Rutgers might encourage English or Journalism students to stop by. In any case, if your curiosity is piqued, mark December 6 on your calendar. The house is open every year on Kilmer's birthday, and you're more than welcome to stop by and learn more about this hidden but not really hidden New Jersey notable.