Vegas... Paris... Roselle!

What do all of these places have in common?

• Paris, France
• Times Square, New York
• Las Vegas, Nevada
• Roselle, New Jersey

Roselle?  The Union County, Parkway exit 137 Roselle? In what universe does this small town stand as equal to the City of Light, Crossroads of America and Sin City?

The answer is simple: before any of those world-famous destinations could light up the night, one town had to be first, and that was Roselle.

After Thomas Edison perfected the incandescent light in 1879, he knew he had a lot more work to do if his invention was to be successful. What good would a light bulb be if you didn't have the power to use it? He and his muckers began work on an entire electrical system, including generators to make the electricity and the series of wires to bring that power from the generator to the individual lamps. By 1882, the Edison Illuminating Company had established the Pearl Street generating station in lower Manhattan and was supplying power to 59 customers via underground wires. Burying the distribution system under city streets was imperative, given the hazards already present in the nest of overhead telegraph wires strung above the sidewalks.

The work inherent in building an underground system is expensive and time consuming: Edison's crew had to do their work at night, carefully replacing the cobblestones they'd dug up, as not to disrupt daytime traffic. Thus, it's not surprising that the Wizard of Menlo Park would opt for overhead systems in less congested areas. Before he attempted to sell the systems in small towns, though, he'd have to do some tests. Could he, in fact, build a system that would electrify an entire community from a central generating plant?

That's where Roselle comes in. Edison wanted to test his system in a small community near a railroad that also wasn't being served by a gas company for lighting. Located along the Central Railroad of New Jersey line, Roselle was a tiny and growing residential community, yet the gas lines hadn't been extended there from Elizabeth. Plus, the head of the inventor's Company for Isolated Lighting lived in Roselle, making it easy for him to keep an eye on the system as it was being built and put into service.  

Roselle has embraced its history,
though folks in the Menlo Park section of Edison
might have something to say about the "first" part. 

On January 19, 1883, Roselle took its place in technology history when the first overhead wire-equipped electric lighting system was fired up for the first time. When all was said and done, Edison's system included a steam powered generator at West First and Locust Streets, serving local businesses, the train station, about 40 houses and some 150 street lights. Service switched on around dusk and provided lighting until 11 p.m. when the power plant was shut down for the night. The First Presbyterian Church of Roselle also made history by installing a 30 bulb electrolier, becoming the world's first church to use electrical lighting.

More importantly, once the effectiveness and safety of Roselle's Edison system was proven, other towns clamored to switch from gas lighting to electricity. Edison continued to make improvements on the concept in other places and eventually leased the plant to the community when it no longer served his purposes as a tool for testing out theories in electrical distribution.

Look really carefully at the lower left corner
of the Twin Boro Lumber sign,
and you'll see Edison peering down at you.

Today, Roselle's status as New Jersey's (and the world's) first truly electric village is memorialized in the borough seal and "First in Light" motto. There's a plaque outside a lumber store at the corner of West First and Locust Streets that commemorates 100 years of light in Roselle, but it's not readable from the road, nor does it explain the complexities of the lighting system. The power plant itself was demolished in 1892, after Roselle's power grid was converted to alternating current and wired into the larger Suburban Electric Company in nearby Elizabeth.  

From copper mine to steamboat, the New Jersey ventures of Nicholas Roosevelt

When inclement weather forces us Hidden New Jerseyans to curtail travel, we often turn to other means of exploration. The reference books and histories we've picked up over the years aren't quite those roadside markers we stop to check out on county roads, but they've got some unexpected gems, nonetheless.

One of my new favorites is the New Jersey Almanac Tercentenary Edition published by the Trenton Evening Times in 1964 to commemorate the state's 300th anniversary. Besides giving an illuminating look at life in the Garden State 50 years ago, it contains lists upon lists of interesting tidbits like two-sentence bios of notable New Jerseyans, brief descriptions of towns and cities, and a year-by-year guide to events of importance.

It's an entry in that last category that caught my eye during a recent snowstorm. The big event for the year 1794 is: "Nicholas Roosevelt made first steam engine ever built entirely in America at his shop "Soho" in Belleville."

Roosevelt? As in Teddy Roosevelt and FDR? The New York Roosevelts?

Absolutely. Nicholas Roosevelt was not only the cousin (several generations back) of both Presidents Roosevelt, you could say he was one of New Jersey's first industrialists.

Born in New York in 1767, Roosevelt's first foray into New Jersey was in the early 1790s, when he became linked to what, even then, was thought of as the old Schuyler Mine in North Arlington. Originating in 1719 when an enslaved worker on Arent Schuyler's farm found a copper nugget on the property, the mine closed in 1772 after a disastrous fire. Roosevelt and partners formed the New Jersey Copper Mine Association in 1793 to restart mining operations at the site, a venture that ultimately failed.

Though the mine was a disappointment, it was the stepping stone into New Jersey that led to Roosevelt's greater acclaim. Purchasing land in Second River (now Belleville), he built a foundry, smelter and machine shop to build steam engines. Dubbed Soho after a similar enterprise in Birmingham, England, the shop became known as one of the nation's top foundries, supplying engines for notable clients like the Philadelphia Waterworks. The business took a severe financial hit, however, when a government contract to supply rolled copper for warships was cancelled.

Among those taking note of the quality of Soho's engines was transportation engineer John Stevens. Already experimenting with steam-driven boats, he and his partner Robert Livingston commissioned Soho in 1797 to build an engine for the Polacca, a craft with a stern-mounted propeller. Roosevelt was already familiar with self-propelled boats, having experimented with spring-driven paddleboat technology as a youth. When the Polacca proved to be much slower than anticipated, Roosevelt advocated the use of a side-mounted wheel, but Livingston refused to consider the concept.

Roosevelt had, indeed, come up with a solution so workable that it was later adopted by Robert Fulton. You might recognize that name: he's the engineer who's usually linked most directly with the successful development of the steamboat. I've seen a few different accounts of how this came to be, but the most interesting one is that Livingston suggested the side-mounted wheel to Fulton without telling him where the idea had originated. And according to a website citing sources at the FDR Library and Museum, some Roosevelt family members continue to claim that Nicholas was the true inventor of the steamboat.

It's not clear exactly when Roosevelt left New Jersey for good, but by 1810 he'd entered into a partnership with Fulton and Livingston to run a steamboat down the Mississippi River. He died in Skaneateles, NY in 1854, his contributions to steam powered technology now largely forgotten while other inventors continue to enjoy acclaim.

I just wonder what other gems are hiding in the Tercentenary Almanac, just waiting to be unearthed.

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.

Keep a light on: Edison, Harrison and the lost light bulb factory

While Thomas Edison most often is associated with the towns of Menlo Park and West Orange, the prolific inventor experimented in many places around Northern New Jersey. And just as I think I have a good handle on his research projects and where he built facilities, another surprise pops up. One of them is hidden in a 1.4 square mile community on the banks of the Passaic River.

Once known as the Beehive of Industry, the Hudson County town of Harrison was long a manufacturing center, home to corporations that capitalized on the proximity to a major railroad line, Port Newark and eventually Newark International Airport. Its narrow streets were conduits for more than 90,000 factory workers who lent their labor to turning out everything from elevators to beer. My own parents were among them for a time, working as technicians at RCA's sprawling vacuum tube division.

Many years ago, my dad mentioned that on his way to work he'd once seen evidence of one of Harrison's past industrial residents, the Edison Lamp Company. Workers were digging a trench near the street and had come upon discarded bulbs and scraps of glass tubing that, in Dad's opinion, could only have come from the Edison plant.

Indeed, he'd stumbled upon Edison's Harrison location, the largely unknown "second generation" light bulb factory. The first commercially available bulbs had been made in Menlo Park, in the electric pen factory just steps away from where the incandescent technology had been perfected in December 1879. That space, however, proved insufficient to satisfy the impending demand for lighting.

Logic dictated that as the Edison company established electric generation and distribution systems in more cities, the market for light bulbs would grow exponentially. Thus, Edison and his team established a manufacturing plant and testing lab at the corner of Harrison's Bergen and South Fifth Streets in 1882, hiring about 150 employees. The testing lab was also relocated to Harrison, further distancing the operation from the company's Menlo Park roots. Even though the bulb had been successfully duplicated on a large scale, the Edison team continued to refine and perfect both the product and the manufacturing process. Could they make a longer-lasting filament? Was it possible to increase profits by making the bulbs more efficiently? And what about the lamps the bulbs would burn within? All of these issues, and more, were addressed at the Harrison lab.

Made in Harrison: an 1884 Edison light bulb

The Edison Lamp Company merged with several other Edison companies in 1892 to become Edison General Electric Company. Within 20 years more than 4000 people were working at the Harrison plant, turning out hundreds of thousands of light bulbs a year. By that time, however, the business was no longer Edison's concern.  A disagreement with his investors had led to his departure from that company, resulting in the General Electric we're familiar with today.

The Harrison location kept turning out bulbs until 1929, when its operations were moved to other GE locations. A year later, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) purchased the property for its radio tube division. Like Edison, RCA both manufactured product at the site and conducted research and development there, ultimately growing its presence to 26 buildings covering 9.5 acres.

Little indication of either RCA or Edison Lamp Company exists today, victim to economics and technological advances. Manufacturing in Harrison declined after peaking in the 1940s, and the advent of solid state components spelled the end of RCA's vacuum radio tube division in 1976. The corner of Bergen and Fifth is now taken up by a shopping center, and if any light bulbs are being sold there, they're likely compact fluorescents rather than incandescent.

The Vineland wine that wasn't: the evolution of Welch's Grape Juice

With increasing frequency, a drive around New Jersey countryside will have you riding past a vineyard or two, particularly in the southern part of the state. We're not talking big, Napa Valley-sized productions, but several viniculturalists are making a decent living producing and selling wine here.

Historically, though, the most famous product of our vineyards isn't wine at all.

It's hard to think of a time when unfermented grape juice didn't exist, but 160 years ago, it didn't. Sure, you could make the juice, but you couldn't store it very long without ending up with, well, wine. This was a problem for the many 19th century churches that advocated temperance: it was difficult to promote a life free from alcohol when your own ministers were providing wine at each Communion service.

The father of grape juice that doesn't ferment:
Thomas Bramwell Welch

It was especially problematic in Vineland, which had been founded as a utopian, dry community by Charles Landis in 1861. In an apparent contradiction, after discovering that the region's sandy soil was ideal for vineyards, he promoted the community as a worthy spot for Italian grape growers.

While not a viniculturalist by profession, dentist and ardent Methodist Thomas Bramwell Welch cultivated grapes in his Vineland backyard. He and his church's minister, Rev. A.K. Street, were both troubled by the presence of wine during services, and in 1869 they agreed that Welch would produce enough juice from his grapes to supply an alcohol-free Communion.

Welch harvested grapes from his own vines, squeezing them by hand to get the juice. The near-term issue was solved, but what would they do when the grape growing season was over? Even if he were able to bottle enough juice to supply the church for the winter months, they'd eventually end up with wine.

Ever the experimenter, Welch turned to new developments in science for an answer. He'd read about Louis Pasteur's experiments with wine, in which the liquid was briefly heated to about 140 degrees to kill the microbes that cause unwanted acidity. Perhaps modifying the process would eliminate the alcohol-creating organisms entirely, thus allowing pasteurized juice to be bottled and stored for long periods without the danger of it turning to wine.

After more experimentation, Welch hit upon the ideal process, and a new industry was born. Word of the "unfermented wine" quickly spread through the Methodist community, and Welch soon found himself struggling to keep up with the demand. He'd had no intention of starting a business but soon found himself building a small factory, purchasing machinery and incorporating the Welch Fruit Juice Company.

Welch himself didn't seem too impressed with the prospect of growing the business much further, but his son Charles saw possibilities beyond dry Communion. Buying his father out in 1873, he started on an ambitious promotional campaign that encouraged people to buy the drink for home use ("unfermented wine: it's not just for church anymore"?). He even exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, where thousands of people got their first taste of New Jersey grape juice that wasn't fermented. Welch's Grape Juice was a big hit.

Though its "dry" beginnings and sandy soil were fertile ground for the start of the business, Vineland was the victim in Welch's success. When the demand for grape juice exceeded the ability of the surrounding farms to produce enough fruit, Charles moved the business to upstate New York, which was better able to supply the crop. It's since expanded its product line and become a staple of the American household. The company dutifully outlines its New Jersey roots in its website, but I'll bet few people actually realize where this quintessentially American beverage got its start.

Well preserved: the birth of the Mason jar

Few realize it, but New Jersey's southern counties could take a legitimate place among the pantheon of influential sites in preserved food technology. As we learned this summer from our visit to Upper Deerfield Township, Seabrook Farms was a pioneer in flash freezing vegetables and became America's largest frozen food processor. However, the groundbreaking work of Clarence Birdseye and C.F. Seabrook was preceded by another technology that helped millions of homemakers preserve the bounty of their farms and gardens without refrigeration.

Yup, the Mason jar was born in New Jersey, invented in 1858 by a Vineland native named John Landis Mason. To be fair, he was already established as a metalsmith in New York City when he came up with a practical way to extend the shelf life of preserved produce, but he returned to his native state to bring the concept to reality. It wasn't loyalty, just practicality that brought him back: he needed a good jar, and South Jersey's glass industry was in its heyday, with several factories using the local sand to turn out a superior product.

Mason was building on the work of Frenchman Nicolas Appert, who, nearly 50 years earlier, had theorized that the act of heating food would sterilize it to prevent spoilage. It wasn't known why -- Louis Pasteur wouldn't perform his groundbreaking work in germ theory until the 1860s -- but inventors quickly sought ways to capitalize on Appert's findings. The tin can was introduced as a storage option a few years later, but the technology wasn't practical for those who wanted to preserve their own food, nor was the food inside the cans visible. Others had come up with canning methods using cork and wax, both of which proved problematic.

Going a step farther, Mason designed a porcelain-lined zinc lid that would form a protective seal as the food cooled within the glass container. That, however, required a jar that could receive the lid effectively. Mason chose to work with Samuel Crowley, whose glassworks were on the Mullica River not far from Batsto. Outlining his concept, Mason asked if Crowley could make a jar with a threaded mouth that could accept a screw-top lid. Not long after, master glassblower Clayton Parker produced the prototype jar, and a month later, Mason received the patent for the jar that bears his name.

Having proven that the practicality of his concept, Mason returned to New York and went into business with partners there to manufacture his new invention. He eventually returned to New Jersey, moving his family to New Brunswick and working with the Consolidated Fruit Jar Company, which gained rights to his invention. According to the Encyclopedia of New Jersey, he later patented a soap dish and a life raft, but to my knowledge, those have fallen into oblivion.

Today, "Mason jar" is one of those iconic names that has stuck to a group of products, despite the fact that other manufacturers have become far more prevalent. Some still use them for canning, others as beverage glasses. However you come upon them next, take a moment to raise a drink -- or some preserves -- to the man from Vineland who made them possible.

Bang, zoom, straight to the moon, Diana!

If there was intelligent life on the moon, the first call it would have gotten was from New Jersey. Wall Township, specifically.

More accurately, the call was a microwave radio signal, and rather than expecting a message back, scientists were trying to create what became known as moon bounce, or earth-moon-earth (EME) communications.

The Diana antenna, made from four
existing conventional radar antennas.

Known as Project Diana, this classified work was based at Fort Monmouth's Evans Signal labs, birthplace of dozens of 20th century technological advancements. Its urgency was driven by the success of the revolutionary German V1 and V2 guided missiles during World War II. After the United States proved the effectiveness of nuclear weapons in 1945, the fear was that the USSR would combine the two technologies with disastrous results. We clearly needed a way to identify and track the missiles before they entered U.S. airspace.

Colonel John DeWitt and his Camp Evans-based team were charged with the task in the closing months of the war. Before they could work on detection, however, they had to prove that a radio signal could pierce the earth's atmosphere as the V1 and V2 could. A few years earlier, a British communications scientist had theorized that existing technology would be capable of bouncing microwave signals off the moon which, at 238,900 miles away, would serve as an ideal target.

In September 1945, Evans Signal Labs personnel got to work designing and building the necessary equipment: a sufficiently powerful transmitter and receiver along with an antenna array to capture the return signal. (If you're an engineer, astronomer or physicist, you might enjoy reading a more technical description and schematics written by one of the participants.) Three months later, their initial tests were hampered by a series of malfunctions and outright equipment failures.

A new year and heavily redesigned equipment brought better results. At moonrise on January 10, 1946, they succeeded, receiving a return signal 2.5 seconds after transmission. It took some time to determine the right conditions to repeat the achievement, but Evans professionals had made theory a reality.

The first experiment in radio astronomy, Project Diana's impact reached far beyond national defense. Many consider that first successful radio bounce to be the true birth of the space program. Had scientists not proven that human-created radio signals could leave our atmosphere, people on Earth would not have be able to communicate with astronauts in orbit or on the moon. Skylab and the International Space Station would have been pipe dreams. Nor would we have been able to receive signals from long-distance spacecraft like Voyager I and II, which have been returning information to us by radio since their launches in 1977.

And, of course, this experiment on The Big Bang Theory would have been totally impossible.

The original Diana antenna no longer exists, but a support building remains at Camp Evans, now the site of the InfoAge Science History Learning Center and Museum. As we discovered during our visit last July, the expansive yet utilitarian-looking property holds a wealth and breadth of history well worth exploring.

Newark, Bamberger's and the rise of radio

It's hard to fathom now, but 90 years ago, commercial radio was little more than a novelty. Barely past making a sizable investment in a phonograph player, many families were wondering whether it made sense to buy a receiver to listen to one of the few broadcast stations on the air. People got their information from print newspapers and magazines, or from their friends, and the concept of hearing the words of a far-away singer was mystifying. Why would they sink more money into a new gizmo they didn't really need?

Businesses were facing a similar quandary from the opposite side of the transaction -- a chicken-and-egg dilemma of sorts. Retailers couldn't sell radios if there was nothing being broadcast for people to listen to, and owning a radio station was a risky proposition unless a good number of people had the instrument to pick up and follow your signal.

A few brave entrepreneurs, however, decided to take the plunge, among them Newark's Louis Bamberger, owner of New Jersey's largest retail establishment. Already selling phonographs and recordings when commercial radio was introduced in the early 1920s, he saw the potential for radio to be just as big, perhaps even bigger. After all, it could deliver inexpensive entertainment that would never get boring. Unlike a phonograph that required the purchase of new recordings from time to time to stave off monotony, radio offered the prospect of free and varied programming once consumers purchased the receiver.

Bambergers' Newark flagship store,
sporting the massive WOR antenna.

Supplying that programming was the next step in the equation. Imagine how easily Bamberger's employees could sell receivers if the store were to operate its own radio station! Even better, what if it was so close that the signal couldn't help but come in loud and clear?

Bamberger decided to find out, in the process founding one of New York City's most enduring radio stations. From a small studio on the sixth floor of its flagship Newark store, Bamberger's made history on February 22, 1922, broadcasting Al Jolson's "April Showers" on a 500 watt signal on radio frequency 833 AM. Rather than getting the "WLB" call letters he had hoped for, the new station was assigned "WOR," the letters previously designated for the ship U.S.S. California.

Within a year, WOR was demonstrating the power of radio so successfully that Bamberger considered shutting it down for fear it would hurt phonograph sales. Others suggested that he should take a broader view, encouraging him to consider the broadcasting industry as a growth opportunity in its own right. WOR opened studios in New York to supplement its Newark facilities and eventually expanded its reach with a 50,000 watt capacity. The Bamberger Broadcasting Service became a key member of the Mutual Broadcasting System, broadening the influence of radio nationwide during the mid-20th century.

WOR left Newark for good in 1941, and few people remember its New Jersey roots. Bamberger's itself was sold to Macy's in 1929, eventually taking the corporate name in 1986 and closing the Newark store in 1991. Interestingly, in the years since, the old flagship location has returned, in a way, to the business of dispatching information. Its sturdy construction makes it an ideal site for telecommunications equipment and computer server farms, an unintentional though apt link to the early days of much simpler though still astounding means of sharing information.

Bicycles and bigamy: the colorful life of Hezekiah Smith

New Jersey's 19th century industrial history seems loaded with stories of quirky people who built communities around their factories. Such was the story of Eastampton's Hezekiah Smith.

Part inventor, part manufacturer, Smith came to New Jersey in 1865 from New Hampshire, seeking to start an ideal company town. He found a fertile site at Shreveville, Burlington County, a former cotton spinning and weaving factory town that had gone belly up, its water-powered mills rendered obsolete by the introduction of the steam engine. Seeing a good deal, Smith purchased 45 acres of the property from the Shreve family for $20,000. Within 10 years, he'd incorporated the H.B. Smith Machine Company and created housing and amenities to accommodate 250 people. The new community of Smithville included housing, a school and stores in addition to a foundry and factories to manufacture tools and woodworking machinery. Resident workers could enjoy a number of civic and cultural events and resources around town.

Smith must have been a fair employer and a well-regarded member of the community, albeit a bit unconventional. In 1878 he won a seat in Congress after campaigning on a carriage pulled by a moose.

Wisely seeking to diversify the business, Smith cast about looking for additional industries to tackle. On the advice of Smith Machine board member J.J. White (of cranberry fame), he entered into a licensing agreement with Hammonton native G.W. Pressey, who'd recently patented a revolutionary adaptation to the high-wheel bicycle. It literally turned cycling in the opposite direction, with a ratchet drive that put the larger wheel in the back and delegated the smaller front wheel to steering. The arrangement was said to provide greater stability, a selling point Smith later advertised by paying a demonstrator to ride the bike down the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Suddenly, cycling was the focus at Smith Machine, where the newly-formed American Star Bicycle Company perfected Pressey's design and modified the factory to make the new product. Smithville became New Jersey's Bicycle Town as orders poured in for the cycles. Meanwhile, employees enjoyed an innovative new way to get to work. Arthur Hotchkiss developed the world's first bicycle railroad between Smithville and Mount Holly, where many Smith workers lived. The 1.8 mile system was essentially a monorail, with the bicycles hanging from a rail suspended about four feet above the ground. Given the lack of paved roads at the time, the system probably gave a much smoother ride than they would have had by traditional means.

Several hundred of the Pressey-inspired bicycles were made before production halted in 1886, but Smith continued to develop new transportation technologies until his death. Besides innovations in standard bicycles, he invented a steam-powered version (motocycle), roller skates and even a helicopter. It's also said that he invented a steam-driven wagon but deemed it too modern for contemporary tastes.

Smith's story, so far, is one of a driven businessman who built a prosperous community and likely helped improve the lives of many. Perhaps the moose and Capitol stunts indicate a bit of showmanship, but not so much as to be quirky, as I described him in the opening words of our story. What, then, could warrant calling him quirky?

Maybe the best way to start is to note the brevity of his Congressional career: just a single two-year term. It seems that as soon as Mr. Smith went to Washington, ghosts of his past came to haunt him, a scandal that would warrant tabloid headlines even today.

Smithville residents knew his wife to be Agnes Gilkerson Smith, the woman who'd moved to New Jersey with him from New England. Some might have even known that Smith had funded Agnes' education at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, but likely very few if any were aware that Smith had also sent her to a finishing school before that, having met her when she worked in a mill in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Agnes was, in fact, Smith's second wife, and he'd never bothered to legally divorce the first one. He'd met Eveline English in Vermont, and it's not clear whether the pair had ever actually married; some accounts say he'd brought up the idea to her parents a few times but never quite got around to arranging a ceremony. When he decided to seek his fortune in New Hampshire, he took Eveline along, and three months later their first child was born. About a year later, Eveline moved back to Vermont, and the couple never lived together again, though they had three more children over the following seven years. In that time, Smith moved to Massachusetts to open a machine shop.

Smith's relationship with the Vermont family eventually deteriorated to the point where it was based mostly on financial dependency; the timing suggests his meeting Agnes played a big role there. When she returned to Lowell from Philadelphia, the pair began living together, much to the disapproval of their neighbors. They were shunned and excluded from social functions, making life in town pretty miserable. The best option, it seemed, was to start a new life elsewhere. Shreveville, in South Jersey, must have looked ideal: it was far enough away that no-one would know Smith's past, and there was sufficient room to build an entire industrial community.

Before leaving for New Jersey, Smith made one last visit to Eveline, this time to demand a divorce. She refused outright. Lacking her permission to take the legal route, he devised his own very creative approach to severing the relationship. If he couldn't get the papers proving they were divorced, he'd expunge all evidence they'd ever been together. He burned every letter she'd ever written him and then went to her sister's house to cut every reference to their marriage and children out of her family's Bible. Whether it was to buy her silence or out of common decency, he signed the family house over to Eveline and opened a bank account for her in her maiden name. Then he was off to New Jersey.

Smith's bigamy might have stayed a secret forever had he not run for national office, but within two weeks of his election, the word was out. Newspapers carried interviews with Eveline and some of their children, and despite the overwhelming evidence, Smith chose to simply deny everything. The hubbub over the discovery eventually dissipated, but his constituents declined to return him to Washington in 1880.

Then again, voters might have been more forgiving than the election results indicate. Some historians have noted that his Democratic party affiliation could have foretold his defeat in a year when the Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives. And three years later, he was elected to a single term in the New Jersey Senate.

A soft landing and a majestic tree behind the Deptford Walmart

If you've driven through Deptford, you've probably noticed the balloons. Not that the place looks like a birthday party, but the welcome signs and even the town's water tower are bedecked with illustrations of hot air balloons. The colorful decor isn't just a cheerful way of reminding you where you are. It's a reference to the first manned air flight in the United States, which concluded in an out-of-the-way spot along Big Timber Creek.

Put the two together and you've got the basis of the story: the first time any human flew in America was in a hot air balloon, and it landed in Deptford.

Here's the story: a French balloonist named Jean Pierre Blanchard had been touring Europe, demonstrating hydrogen gas balloon flights, when he decided to bring the technology to the United States. On January 9, 1793, he lifted off from the yard of Philadelphia's Walnut Street Jail with the goal of crossing the Delaware into New Jersey. Among the spectators at his departure were President George Washington, Vice President John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Less than an hour later, Blanchard and his balloon landed on the banks of Big Walnut Creek. Some contend that the voyage inadvertently carried the nation's first airmail, too. Before he left Philadelphia, Blanchard secured a letter of introduction from President Washington, for use in the event the balloon's descent caused any problems with angry or suspicious property owners.

I've known the story for quite some time, but the actual landing spot eluded me until recently, when Triton Regional High School students Katie Field and Stephanie Espinal clued me in.

"You know where the Walmart is?" they asked me. Oh, boy. This is even better than the time the guy at the Greenwood Lake Airport sent me to the West Milford A&P to find the story of the first rocket-propelled air mail delivery. With their instructions in hand, I made my way down Clements Bridge Road to what looks like a brand-spanking new Super Walmart.

Rather than parking up front, I followed the truck route toward the back of the building, where the shipping docks are. The students had told me that there's a commemorative marker beyond the perimeter fence, and that there's a trail that brings you right to the site. No need to track through brush and brambles -- it's totally visible from behind a cinderblock wall.

I saw no sign of the marker as I slowly drove the perimeter of the lot, so I pulled over and explored on foot. Just as I'd been told, the trail starts behind a wall, and there's an opening in the fencing to allow you in. What I found was a marker placed on the 200th anniversary of Blanchard's flight, a boulder that appears to have once held a commemorative plaque, and big old oak tree.

I figured that the missing boulder plaque had told the balloon story, but research proved me wrong. The tree, as it turns out, is notable in its own right. Known as the Clement Oak for the family who once owned the land, it's said to have been a landmark to the Lenape before the arrival of the Europeans.

Like the Salem Oak farther south, the 400+ year old Clement Oak reportedly sheltered natives and white men as they negotiated terms of settlement. It also served as a reference point on early land surveys, leading historians to believe that it was held in regard even in the earliest days of European settlement. The Gloucester County Historical Society honored the white oak during the state Tercentenary celebration in 1964, lauding it as a symbol of New Jersey's continuous growth. Today, it's estimated to be 18 feet tall, with a trunk girth of more than 19 feet and an overall spread of more than 100 feet. To my eyes, it appears quite healthy, maybe even healthier than its cousin in Salem.

Who knew you could find so much behind a big box store?

Menlo Park Ink? Edison's hidden link to body art.

What does Thomas Edison have in common with L.A. Ink's Kat Von D, a gazillion bikers and legions of hipster Brooklynites?

If you guessed they all have tattoos, you'd be close. Edison most likely didn't sport ink (I could be wrong), but he invented the electric pen, which was later adapted into the precursor of the instrument used to apply permanent skin artwork today.

Born in Edison's Newark lab in 1876 and patented after his move to Menlo Park, the electric pen was conceived with business uses in mind. His invention was actually a stencil maker, a battery-operated pen whose tip had a stylus that rapidly perforated the paper as the user wrote. The finished document would then be run through a press that forced ink through the perforations onto another piece of paper, printing an exact duplicate of the original document.

Edison believed that document-dependent businesses like banks, law firms and insurance companies would be quick to grasp the time- and labor-saving benefits of his invention, and many did, despite the challenges presented by the device's sometimes temperamental battery arrangement. Not surprisingly, enthusiasm was a bit more muted from clerks whose work was being severely curtailed as a result of the machine's prodigious output. The business soon expanded worldwide.

Other manufacturers soon devised ways around the battery issues, and Edison lost his dominant share in the electric pen market. He sold the patent to Western Electric, then reacquired it and sold it to A.B. Dick, who reverently proclaimed Edison the "father of mimeography." Eventually the whole industry declined with the increasing use of typewriters, though A.B. Dick profitably adapted the printing concept into the mimeograph press many of us recall from the 60's and 70's. (Remember those blue 'ditto' sheets and the chemical smell when they were fresh off the press?)

What does this have to do with tattoos? In 1891 a New York tattoo artist named Samuel O'Reilly realized that with the addition of tubing and an ink reservoir, Edison's pen could quickly and efficiently deposit ink into the skin, saving both time for the artist and probably a lot of pain for the recipient. Other artists later experimented with electromagnetic motors, reducing the pen's weight and allowing for greater dexterity.

Regardless, Edison had inadvertently spurred innovation in a field in which he likely had absolutely no interest. I do wonder, though: if he had gotten a tattoo, what would it be of?

From Wireless to Radar: Camp Evans and the InfoAge Science Center

As you drive down Marconi Road in Wall, it's almost startling to see a military-grade satellite dish on the side of the road, across from a Little League field. Travel a bit further, and you'll see a tall antenna marked with a sign denoting it as Marconi property. Neither device has received signals for many years, but they still stand as important symbols of the site's contributions to the science of communications. Once part of the larger nearby Fort Monmouth, the former Camp Evans has been transformed into the InfoAge Science History Learning Center and Museum. That mouthful of a name doesn't even begin to represent the diversity and magnitude of the stuff there. In fact, it's hard to find a place to start describing it.

Ivan and I visited on a recent rainy Sunday afternoon, and it soon became clear that the roughly three hours until closing might not be sufficient to explore the whole place. Since the town of Wall received the property from the U.S. Army with the intent to preserve its history, a band of dedicated volunteers has been working to tell the story of military and commercial information age technology in the environment where some of it was developed. The result is an interesting patchwork of exhibits and artifacts diverse enough to interest everyone from technology geeks and TV/radio enthusiasts to military history nuts and curious kids. While there's still a lot of work to do to transform the former base to a polished learning center, I could definitely see how a receptive student could find inspiration there for a lifelong passion for technology.

The Marconi Hotel, which is now the main building
of the InfoAge Science History Learning Center
at Camp Evans.

The site itself got into the communications business just about 100 years ago, when the American Marconi Company built its Belmar wireless receiving station there. Paired with a high-powered transmission station at New Brunswick, this facility picked up the weak transatlantic radio signals from other Marconi stations as part of the inventor's worldwide communications network. As was explained to us, the building that now houses the exhibit was known as the "hotel," housing the wireless operators who provided 24/7 monitoring of the airwaves.

The U.S. Navy confiscated Marconi's operations during World War I, marking the first time the property was used for military purposes, but it seems that the site's greatest contribution to our nation's defense occurred during World War II. Evans became one of the Army Signal Corps' top communications research facilities, developing improvements to radar technology that were acknowledged by several Axis-power military officials as contributing to the eventual Allied victory. After the war, American researchers were joined by former German scientists who had been working on similar technologies for the Nazis. Their contributions resulted in Cold War advancements in satellite and microwave technologies.

As you walk down the hall from the lobby to the display area, you're invited to check out a series of posters outlining the many developments pioneered at Camp Evans. For one, a satellite designed at Evans was the first to demonstrate the value of these "eyes in the skies" in predicting weather. Apparently, when the satellite sent its first pictures back to earth, a researcher noticed a hurricane formation within one of the images.

Scattered about the photographs, signage and display cases are a variety of vintage military equipment, including beacons that were used by Allied spies to help guide U.S. aircraft on supply and bombing missions on overcast days when they wouldn't otherwise be able to drop their payloads. To make a point about the evolution of non-military uses of technology developed at Evans, our guide pointed out a "Hot Wheels" functional radar gun atop one of the displays. More advanced than anything built on site, it's now available in toy stores for less than $100.

The next stop on our visit was the Radio Technology Museum and National Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Curated and operated by members of the New Jersey Antique Radio Club, the museum features the evolution of commercial radio and recorded sound, using operating vintage equipment. In an age of MP3 players and satellite radio, club members open visitors' eyes to the days of crystal sets and consoles that required three dials to tune in a station. They've got plenty of sets from the 20s and 30's, as well as phonographs from an Edison cylinder player to a 45 RPM children's record player. Just about every recording medium is there, too, from wire to vinyl, reel-to-reel, cassette, 8-track and CD. The exhibit ends with an assortment of early televisions and a discussion of color TV technology.

There's a lot more to InfoAge than I've outlined here, and we'll be returning to share other stories in the future. That said, right now, the site even has something for birders! A portion of the property has been roped off to create a safe radius for a bald eagles' nest. We weren't able to locate the nest or see any of the raptors while we were there, but a passer-by told us she'd seen an eaglet testing his or her wings earlier in the day.

Lights, camera.... Fort Lee!

Keep your eyes open when you drive around Fort Lee, and you'll see something curious. Instead of the usual nondescript signs, some street corners boast black and white markers bordered with sprocket holes. They're emblazoned with names like Theda Bara, Carl Laemmele and Universal Studios, and a closer look reveals the logo of the Fort Lee Film Commission.

Indeed, the town was Hollywood before Hollywood was Hollywood. Though it's fairly common knowledge that scores of TV shows and contemporary movies have been shot in New Jersey, few realize that a century ago, Fort Lee was the movie capital of the world. I got an eye-opening education in film history during a recent visit to the Fort Lee Museum, courtesy of Film Commission Executive Director Tom Meyers and Commission member Donna Brennan.

Before there were coming attractions, lantern
cards like these advertised upcoming movies.  

The roots of the film industry run deep through New Jersey, starting with Newark resident Hannibal Goodwin's patent of nitrocellulose film in 1887. Thomas Edison's West Orange team developed the kinetoscope between 1889 and 1892, building the Black Maria as the first true film studio. Once the American public got a look at moving pictures, it didn't take long before they clamored for productions that left fake studio backgrounds for more realistic open-air settings.

Considering how built-up Fort Lee is today, it's hard to believe that filmmakers once saw it as the perfect setting for Wild West movies. In the early 1900s, the town's dirt roads and rustic buildings were apt substitutes for the great frontier, just a subway and ferry ride away from downtown Manhattan. Plus, the nearby Palisades offered irresistable opportunities for suspenseful plot twists (cliffhanger, anyone?). Before long, emerging film moguls like Carl Laemmle (IMP and its successor Universal Studios), William Fox (Fox Entertainment) and Samuel Goldwyn (formerly Goldfish, in a predecessor to today's MGM) were building studios along the Hudson River.

Along with them, naturally, came actors, some of whom bought or built houses in the nearby Coytesville settlement. Most notably, Maurice Barrymore settled his family in town; his son John made his acting debut in a benefit for the local fire department. Silent screen legends like Fatty Arbuckle, Mary Pickford and Mabel Normand were regular sights in and around Fort Lee.

Filmmaking got so big that virtually everyone in Fort Lee worked for one of the production companies, one way or another. The studios didn't just shoot scenes in town, they essentially built factories where movies were duplicated and stored, and promotional materials were created and printed. Carpenters built sets that transformed empty lots into medieval cities. Actors and crew had to be fed, creating jobs for cooks and service staff. Even the kids got involved: schools were sometimes closed to allow students to serve as extras in crowd scenes.

If things were working so well in Fort Lee, then why did the business move to California? Weather is often cited as a reason, but as with most situations, there were several contributing factors. Residents were increasingly frustrated by the noise and inconvenience caused by large-scale outdoor shoots, leading local officials to wonder whether the entire town might be blown up during a battle scene. After fires decimated their Fort Lee facilities, some film companies chose to relocate in warmer climes, encouraged by a very welcoming Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Fort Lee, on the other hand, did nothing to encourage rebuilding. One by one, the studios left for Hollywood, leaving only their film vaults behind.

Of the many buildings that supported Fort Lee's film industry, only two still stand. We'll be visiting one of them in the next installment of Hidden New Jersey.

Seabrook Farms: history and diversity through vegetables

Sometimes in our travels we drive through places that just feel as if they have a history but don't give it up with historic markers or preserved buildings. Their stories are so obscure that even if they've been documented and presented somewhere nearby, that place is hidden from casual view.

Such is the case with Seabrook, deep in Cumberland County. Despite the countless hours I've spent banging around back roads and farmland, I'd never found a single sign of its fascinating history. In fact, without knowledge that the community is part of the larger Upper Deerfield Township, it's hard to find Seabrook at all. I knew that somewhere in that flat expanse had been a unique place that had made agricultural history and achieved a level of cultural diversity few rural communities could boast.

After some investigation, I found the story in the basement of the Upper Deerfield Township Municipal Building. The volunteer-run Seabrook Educational and Cultural Center does an amazing job of telling the community's story, from the technological advances made by the Seabrook Farms company to the factors that brought workers of many ethnicities to a remote part of the state to work together.

Photo ID badges 

First, the business of the Seabrook Farms company. Started by Albert P. Seabrook in 1870, the farm really hit its stride under the leadership of A.P.'s son Charles F. (also known as C.F.). Among the agricultural firsts at Seabrook was the use of overhead irrigation and gasoline-powered tractors. In the early '30s, C.F. partnered with Clarence Birdseye and General Foods to quick-freeze vegetables, which subsequently enabled Seabrook to become the first major produce supplier for the U.S. military. At one point, the company operated the largest processing plant of its kind, supplying 20 percent of the nation's packaged frozen food.

Providing that kind of output requires a sizeable workforce, and the need became especially acute during World War II. Migrant laborers, Caribbeans and college students traditionally worked the fields during the summer, but many were called to war, leaving a severe labor shortage. Japanese-Americans who'd been placed in internment camps at the start of the war were eventually permitted to move to other parts of the country for work, and many chose to try Seabrook. German prisoners of war, held in nearby Centerton, were sent as additional labor. Displaced Europeans from Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Hungary and Germany also found their way to Cumberland County and the farm. During the 1940s and 50s, 32 ethnicities were represented within Seabrook's workforce, with more than 20 languages being spoken around the farm. By 1947, the community had the highest concentration of Japanese Americans in the country, representing the largest ethnic group to work for a single U.S. employer at the time.

A representation of part of Hoover Village

With so many new people coming to the community for work, C.F. also realized it was necessary to provide living accommodations. The Japanese named the housing Hoover Village, and exhibits recall the crowded and drafty buildings, with communal bathroom facilities.Whether the housing was better than that at the internment camps isn't said, but it most likely fell far short of the homes they had originally been forced to leave. On the other hand, workers' spiritual needs were addressed with new Japanese Christian and Lutheran churches, as well as what was probably Southern New Jersey's first Buddhist temple.

Many of the WWII-era arrivees chose to stay in Seabrook after the war's end, and the Educational and Cultural Center highlights their contributions to community life. Displayed next to the scout uniforms and sports trophies are various traditional ethnic crafts and artifacts, demonstrating how residents retained their cultural identities even as they became more Americanized. For those who want to learn more, the center maintains scrapbooks of newspaper and magazine articles about Seabrook, dating back to the 40's.

C.F. sold Seabrook Farms to another operator in 1959, and though it remained as a subsidiary for several years, the company name eventually left store shelves. However, if you drive down State Route 77 today, you'll see a small sign pointing to Seabrook Brothers and Sons Company. C.F.'s grandsons have brought the family back to the frozen vegetable business, right in the community where their great-grandfather started it all in 1870.

And the Seabrook Educational and Cultural Center? Its friendly volunteers continue to collect artifacts and oral histories as they work to establish a permanent home for the collection. The museum may be a bit off the beaten track (and hidden, at that), but it's well worth the trip.

Drink it in: the Guinness Collection of Instruments and Automata

Before the days of digital music players, compact discs, cassette tapes and even the phonograph, people were entertained by mechanical music makers in their own homes. And before television, many relied on automated toys for amusement. The nation’s largest collection of such machines – and one of the largest in the world – was assembled by brewing heir Murtogh Guinness, and it’s at the Morris Museum.

About 150 pieces of the 700 object collection is on view in a specially-constructed exhibit space, with the rest housed in a viewable storage area downstairs. Every afternoon, from Tuesday to Sunday, museum docents offer a history of mechanical music makers and automated toys, as well as a demonstration of a few of the museum’s pieces. I was fortunate to attend as Guinness’ former neighbor, Steve Ryder, explained the history of the collection and the technology behind it.

One of the many automata
in the Guinness collection.
Courtesy Morris Museum.

As we learned, the rudimentary principles of the classic music box were discovered centuries ago, but it took until the 1800s before they were produced in quantity. Jewelry and watch makers were among the first to make these smaller devices, given the delicate and exacting nature of the work. At first, Switzerland was the epicenter of the industry, but eventually Germany got into the mix, too.

I was tickled to learn that the mechanical music story has a New Jersey angle. As we learned several months ago from another Hidden New Jersey story, Garwood’s own Aeolian Company was a giant in the player piano trade of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Just a few miles away and around the same time, several music box companies settled in New Jersey. The U.S. government had placed a tariff on music boxes imported from Germany and Switzerland, and the companies got around it by shipping the musical components to the States and assembling them within boxes made here.

The Regina Company of Rahway, in particular, made a series of models for home use. As the phonograph gained in popularity, Regina adapted by creating a dual music box/record player. Ultimately the company gave up on musical devices, shifting its manufacturing might to vacuum cleaners.

Items in the Guinness collection range in size from large beer-hall orchestrons to tiny music boxes housed within a woman’s ring. Steve played two of the larger instruments for us, and if you didn’t know better, you’d think a small band was performing. In essence, it was, since the orchestrons hold drums, pipes, the guts of a piano and even violins. They’re simply amazing!

Impressive as the musical portion of the collection is, I couldn’t wait to see the automata. These are mechanical toys that entertain visually as the music boxes do aurally. Though the vast majority of the automata are too fragile to be demonstrated on a regular basis, museum visitors can watch brief videos showing how several of them work. Steve was kind enough to set two of them in motion, and even to these 21st century eyes, there’s still something very magical about them. I was especially taken with the clown whose head disappears, only to reappear beneath the box he lifts.

While you can visit specifically for the demonstration and lecture, there’s plenty to see and do at other times. Various stations around the exhibit space give you a chance to learn about the mechanics of the instruments, and even to do a little playing around yourself. It’s an especially nice touch for smaller children who may not have the patience for a history lesson.


Many thanks to Hidden New Jersey friend Andrea Marshall for alerting us about these amazing relics of musical, industrial and New Jersey history!

Elizabeth White: berry good for the Pinelands

Blueberries and cranberries may be the perfect foods for New Jersey explorers. Known for their deep colors and vibrant flavors, both berries are lauded as containing several chemical compounds that have been credited with blocking cancer and extending life. Factor in that they taste great and are among the state's largest cash crops, and, well, you'd be crazy not to like them.

You might recall we visited the historic Whitesbog Village cranberry farm a few weeks ago in the futile search for tundra swans. That we were going to end up in the cranberry bogs was a foregone conclusion. What we didn't realize was that we were going to the birthplace of the cultivated blueberry, developed by Elizabeth White.

When Elizabeth was born in 1871, the White family was already prominent in Pinelands farming. Her grandfather, Barclay White, had been the first in New Jersey to plant cranberry bushes for commercial harvest, where others had been harvesting from wild plants. Young Elizabeth often accompanied her father on his trips to the family farm, starting a lifelong devotion to agriculture. It's supposed that blueberries were her favorites and that she often searched out wild bushes of them at the edges of the cranberry bogs.

Though she studied at Drexel University during the winters, she spent the harvests on the farm, supervising the cranberry pickers who came to know her as "Miss Lizzie." She inherited the 3000 acre plantation when her father died, and her self-propelled education in horticulture drove her to keep abreast of developments in various crops. When she read that U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist Frederick Coville was researching blueberry cultivation, she invited him to come to Whitesbog to further his work. She and her father had often discussed the commercial possibilities of blueberries, but they knew that to find a market, they'd have to find a way to grow berries that were uniform in all qualities.

Elizabeth White's instructions
to blueberry plant finders.

Drawing on the relationships she'd built with her neighbors over the years, Elizabeth asked Pinelands residents where she could find the best wild blueberries -- or huckleberries -- in the region. Specifically, she asked about flavor, texture, size, resistance to disease and cold, and how quickly each variety ripened, providing very specific instructions for harvesting plant specimens. She and Coville then propagated and cross fertilized the various specimens to develop the optimal highbush blueberry, releasing their first harvest to market in 1916.

By 1986, New Jersey ranked second in the country for annual blueberry production, but even more importantly, many of the berries grown throughout the U.S. and Canada are products of plants whose roots, so to speak, began in Whitesbog. Elizabeth was honored by the New Jersey Department of Agriculture for her achievement, becoming the first woman to be presented a citation by the department.

Elizabeth's horticultural and agricultural achievements are widely known in the industry, but she's not as well recognized for her advocacy of migrant workers and her Pinelands neighbors. When the National Child Labor Committee published a highly critical pamphlet in 1916 about the working conditions in on cranberry farms, she swung into action to refute the organization's claims. Her close relationships with many of the families who worked at Whitesbog gave her a compelling point of view, which she communicated widely at speaking engagements and through letters to newspapers across the country. After a four year campaign, the NCLC retracted its claims and acknowledged Elizabeth's role in setting the record straight.

Interestingly, Miss Lizzie is also linked with another, more controversial Elizabeth: researcher Elizabeth Kite of the Vineland Training School. You might be familiar with Kite's work on behalf of Dr. Henry Goddard, whose studies of families in the Pinelands erroneously attributed intelligence to heredity. (While Goddard later refuted his own work, it was appropriated by proponents of eugenics to rationalize their own dangerous beliefs.) Kite's own study was perceived to infer that the residents of the Pinelands were inbred and thus unintelligent, lending to the then-commonly held belief about this little-understood region of the state. Miss Lizzie again used her prodigious communications skills to defend Kite's work and advocate for the creation of a training school for the region's people. “I am a ‘piney’ myself," she said. "That I am not generally so classed is simply because of the degree of success my forebears have achieved in their struggle for existence in the New Jersey pines.”

Miss Lizzie died in 1954, having extended her work to the propagation of holly and other Pinelands plants as the founder of Holly Haven, Inc. Whitesbog, as we mentioned after our visit, is now being preserved and interpreted by the Whitesbog Preservation Trust, and Suningive, her home, is occasionally open for tours. Given her love of the Pinelands and her family farm, I wouldn't be surprised if her spirit dwells there still.

Edison and the electric railroad

Today marks the 166th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park and the most interesting of Jersey guys. Bring a kid to the Thomas Edison State Park off Route 27 and ask him or her to name a few inventions developed on the site, and I'll bet you that "light bulb" will be the first answer. Ask the kid about the trains, and I'll bet that all you'll get is a quizzical stare.

Most people don't realize this, but Edison was one of many innovators whose work and patents influenced the electric railways we know today. In fact, he built Menlo Park's first electric train system back in 1880, long before the Pennsylvania Railroad erected the catenary wires that power the trains that now stop at the nearby Metropark Station.

Edison's connection with railroads stretches back to his childhood, when he sold sundries on the Grand Trunk lines in his native Michigan. His interest in using electricity as a power source for trains, however, seems to have come more from his desire to make electric distribution economical. With the perfection of the light bulb came the need for electricity to power it, and by extension, a distribution system to bring electricity from a central generator to the customer. Lighting would be used mostly at night, meaning that generation and distribution equipment would go mostly unused during the day.

The route of Edison's Menlo Park railroad

As a canny businessman, Edison realized he needed to explore ways to balance the demand, or load, on the electrical system. Years earlier, he'd theorized that electric trains could serve well in bringing grain to market, and in fact, other innovators had already shown that battery- and dynamo-powered railroads could work at short distances. Surely he could create a more efficient system. Edison had one of his Menlo Park muckers oversee the construction of a half-mile long U-shaped track across Christie Street from the lab, capitalizing on the topography to test the locomotive's uphill pulling strength. The rails were electrified by direct current, one positive and one negatively charged.

The maiden run of the Edison railroad took place on May 13, 1880, when the Old Man himself took control of the locomotive. As Francis Jehl, one of Edison's assistants, later recalled in Menlo Park Reminiscences, many of the muckers gathered onto the bench-laden open-air passenger car to be part of the history-making trip.

"... [A]s many of the 'boys' as could find foothold crowded on -- about twenty in all... The current was switched on, and amid cheers, hurrahs and the waving of hats and handkerchiefs, the little train started up.... The locomotive picked up speed and we all glided along to the end of the line with excitement and buoyant hopes." 

The locomotive ran well in drive but the return trip faced some glitches. "When the order 'all aboard' was given for the return trip," Jehl recounted, "Batchelor applied the lever so violently that one of the friction wheels burst and disabled the locomotive." Edison ordered design adjustments to the transmission and the team began work anew. By the time the second run took place, the train included two additional cars to carry freight and a newly-patented braking system. The train's generator was the first of its kind to work at 90 percent efficiency.

The railroad 'right of way' in 2013,
now the site of homes, lawns
and woods.

Once the system was shown to work reliably, Edison put his legendary promotional skills to work to attract attention from the press. Reporters, investors and executives flocked to Menlo Park to see his latest invention, some even riding the rails themselves and getting a bit more then they bargained for. The narrow-gauged U-shaped track had been designed on an incline with sharp curves, a dangerous combination once the locomotive gained its top speed of 40 miles an hour. Add to that the natural curiosity and mischievousness of Edison and many of his muckers, and you can imagine how many accidents the little train suffered. While no one was seriously injured, Edison's personal secretary Samuel Insull later recalled that his first trip "about scared the life out of me."

Brilliant though Edison was, his railroad was yet another example of where he neglected to explore other possible applications of his ideas. He was so focused on his original concept -- moving freight -- that it took a long time before he saw the benefits of applying electric power to passenger transportation like streetcars. While we can't look on Edison as the father of the electric railway, his improvements led to several patents and innovations like an electrified third rail to power underground systems.

The tracks of Edison's Menlo Park railway are long gone, but an informative wayside display across from the Christie Street museum and memorial tower offers perspective on the events that took place there. The trucks (or wheels) of the second electric locomotive are on view on the Main Street side of the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange.

The Pulaski Skyway - now cursed, once celebrated

Drivers in North Jersey have a love-hate relationship with the Pulaski Skyway. It's a toll-free alternative to the Turnpike's Newark Bay Extension if you want to get to the Holland Tunnel, but it's also a narrow, claustrophobic and often clogged artery that lacks anyplace for a disabled vehicle to pull over. Anybody who uses the Pulaski on a regular basis will tell you that the road is incredibly outdated, dangerous, way too small for the volume of traffic that uses it, you name it. And there are people who say its black-painted cantilevered bridges add to the ugliness of one of the most industrialized parts of the state.

Say what you want about it, but when it opened in 1932 as the Route 1 extension, it was lauded as the Most Beautiful Steel Structure by the American Institute of Steel Construction. The WPA Guide to New Jersey deemed it "outstanding among state highways" and a "pioneer achievement in ... handling through traffic in one of the most congested areas of the world," especially given the challenges of road building in the marshy terrain. Its cantilevered bridges cross both the Passaic and Hackensack Rivers at a clearance of 135 feet to accommodate War Department requirements; presumably for the safe passage of naval vessels. I can't imagine a warship traversing that far up either river today, but I guess they weren't leaving anything to chance.

The highway was a huge timesaver for motorists attempting to travel between Newark and New York, who had previously been forced to traverse the marshlands in a two-and-a-half hour odyssey of local roads and drawbridges. The opening of the Skyway reduced that trip to an estimated 15 minutes. Engineers promoted its virtues in terms of vehicle miles saved, estimating that the availability of the 3.5 mile long elevated road would save car drivers over 57 million miles of driving per year.

With all of those advantages, why has the Pulaski become such a target of fear and avoidance? According to the State Department of Transportation, its design represents "one of the first attempts to create a coherent elevated highway network," but it seems the attempt wasn't all that successful. Believe it or not, the Skyway was designed by railroad engineers who knew a lot about building train viaducts but not much about roads, and it shows. The lanes are a slim 11 feet across, and where there's now a center divider was originally a breakdown lane that both directions of traffic used as a de-facto passing lane, resulting in many accidents.

And while the Pulaski was envisioned as an expressway between its two terminal cities, powerful Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague insisted that entrance lanes be added midway, in a part of the city he felt was ripe for development. He may have been correct, but in the meantime, he demanded the creation of some pretty scary, steep ramps leading directly into heavy traffic. (Hague was also locked in a bitter battle with union leadership that resulted in a virtual labor war and the death of one worker, but that's a story for another time.)

First called the Diagonal Highway, the causeway was named for Casimir Pulaski shortly after its dedication. A Polish nobleman who fought in the American Revolution, he's considered by some to be the father of the U.S. cavalry. It's said that he was a dashing figure, both brave and aggressive in battle, traits that would serve a Skyway traveler well. If you're feeling particularly brave or foolhardy, the Pulaski also offers slim pedestrian walkways on its outer edges, where shoulders might have been a wiser addition. (Anybody up for a nice Sunday stroll over the meadows?)

The State Department of Transportation recently announced an eight-year, $1 billion project to rehabilitate the Skyway, with some of the work already underway. The biggest hassle will be the deck replacement that will require the closing of Jersey City-bound lanes next year. Ramps will also be updated, seismic structural repairs done, and the whole shebang will get a coat of paint at the end. The DOT estimates that the fixes will add another 75 years to the life of the road.

Some might wonder why they don't just take the whole thing down and build a new highway, but between demolition and construction, the cost would far exceed the rehab budget. As it is, engineers and construction crews will need to honor the original design intent, as the Pulaski is listed on both the State and National Historic Registers. And given the amount of development that's grown around it in the past 80 years, any major structural changes would disrupt a lot more than local traffic. Love it or hate it, the Pulaski Skyway is with us to stay.