Visiting the almost town of Aeolia

Take a good look at a map of New Jersey's towns and cities, and you'll see the names of once mighty companies that built them or were the dominant employer.

Somerset County's Manville was once home to Johns Manville's massive asbestos processing operation.

Roebling, in Burlington County, was built to house employees of John A. Roebling's Sons and Company, manufacturers of the steel rope that still supports mighty bridges across America.

Helmetta was built around George Helme's snuff factory in Middlesex County.

And then there's Aeolia, in Union County.

Aeolia? Okay, I fudged that one. You might recognize it as Garwood, smack between Cranford and Westfield. The only indication left of the little-known alternative name is the header atop the entrance to the crenelated red brick building on North Avenue. Workers in this century-old building once made pipe organs, player pianos and perforated music rolls for the Aeolian Company, the leader in its industry.

These days, player pianos are a rare novelty, but apparently they were huge in the early days of the 20th century. A 1899 New York Times article stated that Aeolian became the sole player piano company in the United States after absorbing two of its competitors. The company consolidated operations at a new plant in Garwood, built along the Jersey Central Railroad line. As a condition of moving to New Jersey, the article said, the company had the option of naming the town Aeolia.

It's an interesting statement, given that Garwood wasn't even an incorporated town at that point. Rather, it was a real estate development the railroad had carved from the towns of Westfield and Cranford. Named for Samuel Garwood, president of the development company, the community was largely industrial, with Hall Signal Company and Hercules Tube Works being the major employers before Aeolian came to town.

Garwood was a tight-knit, working class community, but its uncertain status caused a fair bit of confusion. According to the town's website, Westfield and Cranford often disagreed over which town was responsible for providing essential services within the less than mile-square enclave. Which school system would Garwood students attend? Who was responsible for paving Center Street through the business district? The Aeolian Company settled the matter of fire protection by forming its own squad and buying equipment.

Most of the issues were resolved when the roughly 400 Garwood citizens achieved independence from their squabbling neighbor towns in 1903. It's an interesting thing to consider these days, as consolidation of municipal services is frequently raised as a cost-cutting alternative to the status quo. For the residents of the newly incorporated Garwood, however, it made a huge difference in solidifying what they could expect from their local government.

Over a hundred years later, much of Garwood's industry has left, and many of the old factory buildings have been torn down or repurposed as retail space. The office section of the Aeolian building still looks neat and manicured, though the factory portions could use some help. For a while, a paperboard recycler operated there, but in recent years the place has looked unused. Whatever becomes of the property, I hope they keep the brick building and the Aeolian sign above the main entrance.

Remnants of the South in Middlesex County

Drive down Middlesex County Road 615 and you'll eventually run into the town of Helmetta, its welcome signs highlighted by a rendition of the community's most notable feature: the Helme Company snuff mill. It's not hard to locate the massive brick factory building that housed the business. Located adjacent to the road and the paralleling railroad tracks, the structure is emblazed with a fainting painted sign stating

Helme Products Inc.

Manufacturers of Snuff & Tobacco

Factory No. 4 5th Dist NJ

Just a small part of the existing Helme Products mill.

Given that snuff is a form of pulverized tobacco, one would wonder why it would be manufactured in New Jersey rather than below the Mason-Dixon line. The Helme factory was once the world's largest snuff plant, primarily shipping its products to southern states.

This dichotomy mirrors the life of the founder of the company (and the town), George Helme. Though born in Pennsylvania, he practiced law in Louisiana and was an officer in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. His wife's family lived and operated a small snuff mill in Spotswood, and George soon became a partner and then sole owner of the company, incorporating it under his own name in 1884.

Expansion of the business also called for expansion of the community. In classic company town fashion, Helme bought additional land to build more factories along with worker housing, government services, and the like. He named the town Helmetta after his daughter, Etta. At a point, 500 people were employed at the mill, likely making for a lively, close-knit community of families. According to the WPA Guide to New Jersey, the snuff business continued to be profitable even through the Great Depression while providing solid jobs to 375 people.

Today, Helmetta is much quieter. Many of the homes that mill workers and management lived in are still there, though updated and individualized to the point that they don't look much like company town housing anymore. The mill stands empty and silent, having been shut down in 1993 by a successor company that moved the New Jersey operations to West Virginia. Though the mill district was been placed on the US and state registers of historic places in 1980, several of the structures have been demolished since.

As I've researched the town, I've discovered that plans have been put into place to demolish the plant buildings and erect townhouses, multi-family housing (apartments?) and a community center. The borough council put several stipulations into place, apparently to ensure that the demolition and construction would be  completed as quickly as possible after a suitable developer was chosen. Some of the area appears to have been cleared, and the pond I visited was clearly remediated, but otherwise, there's no sign the mill will be coming down anytime soon.