2013: THE HITS KEEP ON COMIN'

I can always tell the weekend is here. Above is a small sampling of the visit count to this website. It happens every week end. It goes from an average of 3 to 400 per week day, and really unfolds on Saturday. Very interesting. thanks to all who take the time to look back on our past.

1934:TRENTON ARE DINING AND DANCING DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION

For those folks who were not drastically affected by the Great Depression, these would be the nightspots where they spent their weekends dining and dancing. I have posted a number of graphics with text as the feature, but Facebook has a limit on the size of a graphic and those that I have posted render the graphic blurry and illegible. Accordingly, future posts will remain here where those on facebook can hopscotch over and read it comfortably. Unless I am incorrect, none of the nightspots in this ad are no longer with us.

REMEMBERING THAT OLD WATER BOILER

Did you have one in your kitchen? All of my neighbors on Hartley Avenue did, and if you are not familiar with this antique kitchen appliance, read the article above. As I have written hundreds of times over the past 32 years of writing, Hamilton Township was a very rural community. Huge farms surrounded by small housing developments such as ours on Hartley Avenue with the ever present vegetable and flower garden, chickens, geese and many other relics of the past.

1875: PENNINGTON AS IT WAS DURING THE "1776 CENTENNIAL"

What a delightful map! I have digitized this map to allow for close inspection of who was where in the "Pennytown" of  139 years ago. I have a special interest in the town of Pennington. First, because I always wanted to live in a small town where most everyone knew everyone else. (Back then). It also holds a special interest for me as I recall my many visits there to Edna Howe Kuser's place of birth. I had a number of Cola Colas in the Howe kitchen with Fritz and "Mayor," as Fritz always referred to Mr. Howe.

1875: FABULOUS MAP OF 1875 CHAMBERSBURG

I have digitized this map in numerous resolutions. For this website, I chose a lesser number of dots per inch that will hopefully give legible details to the complete areas of  "The Burg," including details of the 1875 boundary.

1892: BUILDING 1 CENTRE STREET, SACRED HEART PARISH

This interesting engraving and the accompanying article tells of the construction of the Sacred Heart Young Men's Club building which is just a very few inches from Sacred Heart Church. The building has survived the years and has been carefully maintained over the past 100-plus years.

1921 - THE EMLEN HOUSE

Not all Trenton historic homes have been the victim of the wrecker's ball. Above is a 1921 photo of the Emlen House at 312 West State Street. It was a circa 1796 farmhouse back in the colonial era of Trenton and obviously the home of a member of the Emlen family. On the right is a Google Earth cut and paste of the home as it is today. Note that a gable has been added over the years, but the structure generally has remained original except for the stone siding.:

1875: EWINGVILLE AREA

For the many Facebook contributors, this area map of the Ewingville area as it was in 1875. Look closely and you will see the Hotel location. The roads shown on the map are much the same today.

1875: THE EWINGVILLE HOTEL; GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

I posted these on Facebook but the graphic size limits fail to produce a really beautiful detailed view. These engravings are from the 1875 Evert and Stewart Atllas and Gazeteer which I have had in my collection for many years. As can be seen, the track and stables hosted many thorobred trotting horses back in the latter part of the 19th century. A 7-11 now occupies the spot on which stood the old Hostelry.

1934: NEW YEARS EVE: A HOT TIME IN THE OLD TOWN!

Trenton's night life was alive back in the depression year of 1934 as can be seen in this incredibly interesting display of "places to go" to ring in the new year of 1935. There are many very famous and former venues in this full page display ad from the "Trenton Evening Times. By the way: Those incredible prices would have stretched the average family pocket book.

1960: The Blizzard of 1960

 MMany thanks to Mr. Tom Tighue, of Ewing for this photo which he found at the "Trentoniana" collection at the Trenton Free Public Library. Tom is a fellow local history source and very knowledgeable in local area history.

 

1916 AND 1921: TRENTON'S B.C. GREGORY SCHOOL

 

Area schools and their history has always been a subject of much interest to me. Going way back to the years of the one room school house up into the middle 1950's when larger schools were built and the "middle school" came int fashion.

1893: THE NEW CADWALADER SCHOOL

 

I am currently working on the "SCHOOLS-MISCELLANEOUS" folder in Local History Collection. These interesting graphics relate to the "Handsome New" Cadwalader School in the West End section of Trenton. The map has been extracted and enhanced to show the location of the school as it was shown in a 1905 map

in my collection.

Circa 1937: West State Street at North Warren Looking West

This pristine view once again reveals a very viable city of Trenton with hotels dotting the inner city landscape. The Hildebrecht and Stacy Trent were two of the most popular and prominent.

THANKS TO MY BUDDY MIKE KUZMA FOR TURNING ME AROUND AND POINTING ME WEST! DARN.....ANOTHER OF THOS SENIOR MOMENTS!

1920's AND 1930's: MERCER AIRPORT: "IN THE BEGINNING"

Actually, Mercer Airport has grown, but at a very slow pace. I remember driving down Bear Tavern Road back in the 1950's to make deliveries to Franklin Machine Company and the Smith Bearing Company. The both had factories on the airport edge along Bear Tavern Road. These relatively scarce photos give an idea of the place in its early years. I was a fan of the Luscombe "Silvaire" which was one of the airplanes manufactured by Luscombe. I must have built 3 "stick" models of that aluminum clad airplane.

NEW JERSEY STATE HOSPITAL AND ST. MICHAEL'S ORPHANAGE

High quality photos of these two institutions are very elusive. In fact, these are the best I could find.

COMMENTS:

.

Tom, is there any clue as to the location of the orphanage?

Ed Millerick

Tom, also of note, one of the folks who followed your site, Joe Zuba, passed away yesterday down in Florida.

Friday, June 21, 2013

Anonymous said...

Ed:

The orphanage was located on the east side of Carter Road just about where the borough of Hopewell line began. There is (or was) an office building directly across Carter Road that formerly was a restuarant, just before the Gas Station, and grade school that have been mainstays at this location. The buildings were torn down some time back in the 70-80s.
I drove past it daily on my way from my farm in Ringoes to my office on Nassau St. in Princeton.
If you are up on Carter Rd. going into Hopewell Borough, you usually will find a copy sitting in what was the orphanage driveway, waiting to nail you for exceeding the 25 mph speed limit.

Good luck, and best wishes

Mike Kuzma

Friday, June 21, 2013

2013: TWO WEEK "HIT COUNT"

I closely monitor the daily, weekly and monthly progress of this website. With over 650,000 visitors, many of them repeat visitors who add to the count, I find a very strange trend in the daily visit count as seen in the table above. I wish I were a statistician. I would try to figure out the very interesting table above which shows the number of visits that have been made to this website over the past two weeks. Note the highlighted numbers revealing 1,000-plus  visits and their frequency, separated by two days of under 500 two day entries. "tis indeed a puzzlement and I am sure there is a logical explanation for the strange uniformity of daily hit counts. 

1930's: WPA WORKERS SHOVELING AROUND THE OLD "COMFORT STATION"

This photo from the TRENTONIANA collection at the Trenton Free Public Library http://www.trentonlib.org/Cit-e-Access/webpage.cfm?TID=92&TPID=9353
comes to us courtesy of Mr.Tom Tighue, former Ewing Township Councilman, and Mayor of Ewing Township . It is a very poignant reminder of Trenton during the Great Depression. It is assumed that these gentlemen are part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "WPA;" or as we knew the Works Progress Administration.

SKELTON SCHOOL: TRENTON'S OLDEST SCHOOL?

 

This rather elusive photo shows the school that goes all the way back to the years when Nottingham Township was a part of the town of Trenton. It is named for Dr. Charles Skelton, a noted Trenton philanthropist. The posts that follow are all Skelton related and a very important part of the history of education in Trenton

 Located on Centre Street between Bridge and Furman Streets

 

 The above book plate honors Dr. Skelton, his early years as a laborer, his unending thirst for knowledge, his ultimate success as a doctor,  and his philanthropic gift to the Trenton Free Public Library

Below are two of the more recent Skelton School articles and photos in the "SKELTON SCHOOL" folder in the Hamilton Township Public Library Local History Collection.

More Skelton School articles and photos will be forthcoming in the future.

1949: ROSEN'S "BARGAIN STORE" SOUTH BROAD STREET

This must have been a store similar to Tracy's "five and dime" which was located in our neighborhood. Perhaps one of our visitors can identify the adjacent barber shop and luncheonette in the photo.

DEUTZVILLE A VERY QUIET HAMILTON SUBURB

 

There is incredibly interesting history surrounding that section of Hamilton which is on the Trenton border. Established on part of the old "Lalor Tract" back in the 1880's, Deutzville was named for Adam Deutz who founded a gold jewelry factory. In early 20th century, Deutzville also had a school, appropriately named the Deutzville School. More on this interesting village in future posts.

1886: THIS WAS COLUMBUS PARK

This very interesting article from 1888 tells of the "Childrens' Home" which once reposed in the area we know of today as Columbus Park. In post Civil War years, it was a home for veterans. Note that the engraving below is from my collection and may not represent the original edifice even though it is described as 3 storys high..

TRENTON'S VILLA PARK

 I had to re-post these graphics. Some sort of "glitch" in Google resulted in an aberration where Ray Paskiewicz's comment was aligned vertically all along the website. I removed the post and re-post it herewith, removing the comments from Ray and Ralph who are welcome to re-post.