No bull: Stoney's Auction at Woodstown

Wandering around Woodstown a few months ago, I relied, maybe a little too heavily, on my trusty copy of the WPA Guide to 1930s New Jersey. If anything old and interesting were to make itself known, it would likely be noted with a line or two, at least, in the mapped tour of Salem County.

Instead, the writeup on Woodstown brought a bit of a mystery. According to the guide, the property at 158 North Main Street (also known as State Route 45) was home to a sizable auction lot. As the book describes:

"...spread over several acres, stand rows of stock and storage barns. Each Tuesday morning throughout the year long caravan arrive with everything from ancient household utensils to livestock, all to be sold at Stoney's Auction. Everything is offered: fruit, battered furniture, the old cocked hat of some Revolutionary hero, hand made needle work, livestock on the hoof, and modern refrigerators. The auctioneer wears a 5 gallon hat and high boots into which his trousers are tucked. He snaps a 20 foot whip over the heads of cattle to center the crowd's attention. Thousands attend the auction in the course of each year."

It's that kind of description that makes me wish that every copy of the WPA Guide came with a wayback machine, either to go back to the preceding Tuesday (if the auction was still there) or to 1938 (a Tuesday, preferably), when the writer had obviously checked it out. Even though I wasn't in the market for livestock, it sounded as if an afternoon at Stoney's was well worth experiencing.

A drive down Main Street confirmed my suspicion: where once there had been a sign bearing a bull and the words "Stoney Harris Sales Co. Office," there was nothing but a series of pleasant-looking houses of older vintage. What happened to the auction?

The pieces started coming together after I returned to Hidden New Jersey headquarters and did a little research. Knowing, as I did, that Cowtown had been operating nearby for quite some time, I wondered if it might have had some connection to the now-absent auction.

As the guide stated, Stoney Harris had been operating very successfully in his Woodstown neighborhood for quite some time, augmenting the weekly sales with an annual rodeo in conjunction with the Salem County Fair. Popular as the auction was, it drew increasing numbers of people and traffic along with it, which the town tried to manage through ordinance. Frustrated, Stoney bought two farms on U.S. 40 in Pilesgrove and moved the entire operation there in 1940. And though he'd already left town, Stoney wanted to make one final statement about the way his business had been treated by the local government. According to a descendant, once the auction was settled in its new space, Stoney erected a large statue of a cow on the property next to the highway, its back end facing Woodstown.

Today the sales operation is billed as a farmers' market but sells many of the items you'd expect to see at a flea market, from apparel to used goods (vintage, anyone?) along with fresh meats, produce and plants. Come to think of it, today's wares don't sound that much different from what Stoney was auctioning in his day, except maybe now that "modern refrigerator" would be seen as a valuable antique. I wonder if that old cocked hat might show up on a vendor's table sometime?

Woodstown: an architectural gem in Salem County

I've driven through enough small towns in the rural reaches of New Jersey to know they can be anything from run-down shells of their former selves to quaint and overly precious scenes out of a Thomas Kinkade painting. After my stop to admire Earl L. Erdner's edge-of-town warehouse-side wit and wisdom during a road trip in November, I wasn't sure what to expect from Woodstown. It's located at the intersection of U.S. 40 and State Route 45, a logical point for commerce, yet in sparsely-populated Salem County, one can make no assumptions. It might be vibrant and well kept... or maybe not so much.

Indeed, Woodstown is one of those 'donut-hole' communities, a municipality completely surrounded by its larger neighbor. (Metuchen is another example that comes to mind, surrounded as it is by the much larger Edison.) In Woodstown's case, Pilesgrove's acres and acres of farmland (and the Cowtown Rodeo) are the moat which separate it from the rest of the world. I'd driven around the donut many times in the past, but it never occurred to me to find out what was in the center.

I had reason to be hopeful about what I'd find. The WPA Guide to 1930s New Jersey describes the town as having "many old houses, including fine examples of Colonial architecture." With development pressure far less prevalent in Salem County than it is in Northern New Jersey, I had to believe that few if any of the structures referred to would have been torn down or modified negatively.

What I found was a classic, almost frozen-in-time community, in a good way. Route 45 evolved into Main Street, and with it, an exhibit of vintage homes of Federal, Victorian, Italianate and, yes, Colonial style. It reminded me in some ways of a less-traveled Haddonfield, or maybe a more rural but slightly more modern Burlington City.

Just a few of the Colonial-era houses in Woodstown.

While I could find no markers to note significant past residents or historic events at any of the homes I stopped to admire, I came to realize that the structures themselves are the stars, specifically because they've survived to be appreciated over the years. Each was clearly cared for by its owner, but they're definitely homes, rather than museums.

Just past the point where 40 and 45 converge, I came upon the Woodstown Friends Meeting House, built in 1783. Enlarged several times since then, it retains its classic, simple Colonial look, and one could easily imagine parishioners from any era -- late 18th century to early 21st -- entering its doors for meeting. Across the street, a simple yet rambling brick building once held the Friends Infirmary, the community's primary acute healthcare facility before the Elmer and Salem hospitals were built in the 50s and 60s. Though there haven't been overnight patients in the building in some time, its larger purpose remains to be care of those in need: several medical professionals and related agencies have offices there.

With evening approaching and a long trip ahead of me, I reluctantly left Woodstown before exploring all of its charms. I'll definitely be back, with the Historic Preservation Commission's helpful map in hand. And hopefully I'll time the trip to get to the Cowtown Flea Market when it's open, too.

Wisdom in Woodstown: finding the meaning of life at Earl L. Erdner's warehouses

Bad planning is often the route to an excellent road trip. Usually when I head out on my own, I aim for one key location, anticipating that other equally interesting finds will pop up along the way. When planning the Paulsboro trip, I cheated a little and researched a few more possible destinations before I left Hidden New Jersey headquarters. Well, it's not cheating as much as preventing future remorse: there's nothing quite as frustrating as coming back from a road trip, only to discover you were two blocks from something totally astounding.

I was hoping a little extra prep would pay off. At the very least, I figured I'd find the places and decide whether they warranted further research and a return visit.

So, before I left on Veterans Day, I got GPS coordinates from the trusty Historical Marker Database, printed out the directions and took off without reviewing them. Only thing was, the addresses were missing and I'd neglected to write down the names of the destinations. When I got to what I thought were the sites in question, the markers seemed to be obscured, or even missing, so I was left idling in front of some very nice, very old houses as I paged rapidly through the WPA Guide the New Jersey, hoping not to arouse the neighbors' suspicions. (Not that I was doing anything suspicious, mind you. I'm just sensitive to the hypervigilance of the Gladys Kravitzes of the world.)

Those opportunities blown, it was time to riff. Shaking off my gaffe, I buzzed past the diner where I'd had the Taylor ham/pork roll debate, through Mullica Hill and then southwest. Signs started pointing the way to towns with familiar names: places I'd been past, but never through.

Woodstown fits into that category. I'd seen plenty of signs pointing in that direction on my many trips through Salem County, but in my mind, it was just a collection of farmland with no discernible population center. It was time to find out what's there.

I hit paydirt before I got into town. At the intersection of Route 45 and Bypass Road, I saw a cluster of white cinderblock buildings, low and long. The short end of the building closest to the intersection was labeled with faded painted lettering reading "EARL L. ERDNER. WAREHOUSE No. 11 CANHOUSE BROKERS."

What's a canhouse broker? Given the farmland I'd just driven through, did it have something to do with the local harvest? Had these been processing facilities and storage for canned food?

The mystery got even more curious as I continued driving. The long side of the building, running along the road, held faded lettering, looking much like calligraphy. Rather than the loopy ramblings one sometimes sees in roadside signs, these sayings seemed to be life lessons, perhaps coined by Mr. Erdner himself. No one would ever confuse the plains of Southwestern New Jersey with the Himalayas, but had I stumbled upon the works of a Garden State Guru, the Sage of Salem? I pulled over to take a look, and a few photos.

Turned out I'd come upon Erdner's Busy Corner Warehouse. As the story goes, Erdner erected the buildings in the 1940s and soon started using their walls as a canvas to express his approach to life. He continued to paint the sayings on the walls well into the 1960s, adding the collected wit and wisdom of friends and family to his own. Among them:

"Life is like an exciting book and every year a new chapter."
"Anyone who thinks he is indispensable should stick his finger in a bowl of water and notice the hole it makes when he pulls it out."
"Keep your troubles to yourself and make people believe you're having a wonderful time."
"Rise to the occasion. But know when to sit down."

As you can see from the photos, the paint is fading, the sayings along with it. Erdner died years ago, apparently without finding someone to maintain his wise sayings. Who knows -- maybe he'd have preferred it that way, allowing his words to fade from memory as if they'd never been written.  

For the time being, at least, they're there for passers-by to read if they want to take the time to stop and hunt them down around the property. Whoever now owns the property hasn't whitewashed the wisdom over, and I'm told that many more sayings can be seen if you walk around the buildings to look. Maybe they don't reveal the meaning of life, but you could do a lot worse. And they're a thought-provoking welcome to what's a very lovely town.