IT'S A SAD FACT THAT MANY OF OUR YOUNGER WERE NOT AROUND THE HAMILTON TOWNSHIP AREA WHEN THE AREA WAS LARGELY FARM LAND. IT WAS A SURE SIGN OF SPRING TO SEE THE FARMERS OUT WITH THEIR TRACTOR, PLOWING THEIR FIELDS AND GETTING READY FOR A JERSEY "GARDEN STATE" GROWING SEASON. SOME OF OUR OLDER RESIDENTS WILL REMEMBER HORSE-DRAWN FARM IMPLEMENTS.
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS: tglover320@optimum.net
Saturday, April 05, 2008
1934: HARBINGERS OF SPRING
IT'S A SAD FACT THAT MANY OF OUR YOUNGER WERE NOT AROUND THE HAMILTON TOWNSHIP AREA WHEN THE AREA WAS LARGELY FARM LAND. IT WAS A SURE SIGN OF SPRING TO SEE THE FARMERS OUT WITH THEIR TRACTOR, PLOWING THEIR FIELDS AND GETTING READY FOR A JERSEY "GARDEN STATE" GROWING SEASON. SOME OF OUR OLDER RESIDENTS WILL REMEMBER HORSE-DRAWN FARM IMPLEMENTS.
Mr. Glover,
ReplyDeleteI am Carolyn Hamran Pape. My family owned the farm that now is the land of Hamilton/R.W. Johnson Hospital and Veteran's Park on the White Horse-Hamilton Sq. Rd. side. We owned the farm and my grandfather's children still own land in front of the Park where my grandfather gave my father, John, his sisters Anna and Margaret each an acre, and where he saved an acre for himself and built a home. I remember him not wanting to sell to developers and wanting something useful to the community when he decided not to farm any longer. That's why he sold to Hamilton Hospital, who in turn sold some land for Veteran's Park. We purchased the farm in 1942 and my Aunt Margaret Hamran Wospil and cousin Gregory Peck still live on. I went to school with Tom Bertothy and Tom Tyndall, whose family owned the Abbott house. I can remember the Smith brothers owned the farm across from ours, May's,Scobey's and Slavonik across Klockner Road. Hatala and Panak's farm were further down the road toward Kuser Road. It was a great time to grow up and Hamilton Square was my grandparents, parents and aunts/uncles homes til their death. Living in farmland has been something both my brother, John, who graduated from Steinert in 1960 and I (1969) both missed. Sadly John passed away in 2009, but both he and I returned to areas in Virginia and Maryland of open farmland as Hamilton once was. We will never forget how wonderful it was growing up in such an amazing community.