USA > New Jersey > Morris County > Dover > Dover dates, 1722-1922 : a bicentennial history of Dover, New Jersey , published in connection with Dover's two hundredth anniversary celebration under the direction of the Dover fire department, August 9, 10, 11, 1922 > Part 20
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went to work, determined to grow barley on my farm here. I have grown fifty-six bushels per acre here, as fine as ever grew anywhere, and scores of farmers are now growing very profitable crops of barley where none was grown ten years ago.
We were told that spring wheat could not be grown here. Why? No satisfactory answer. So I have grown thirty-six bushels per acre of splendid spring wheat here on my farm, that sold at premium of fifteen cents per bushel. We were told that sweet potatoes and peanuts, sugar cane and cotton could not be grown here; so we grow them every year.
World's records are now being broken almost daily in every branch of agricultural endeavor. Not being satisfied with the horse that could trot a mile in three minutes, the horse has been bred that does his mile in less than two minutes. Not satisfied with the cow that gave 15,000 pounds of milk in a year, the cow has been produced that gives 40,000 pounds of milk a year. Not satisfied with the cow that gave a pound of butter per day, one has been produced that gave four pounds of butter per day. Not satisfied with the hen that laid sixty eggs per year, the hen has been bred that laid 316 eggs in a year. Not satisfied with a hog that weighed 600 pounds, one was produced that weighed 1,800 pounds. Not satisfied with a steer that weighed 1,200 pounds, one was produced that weighed two tons.
Similar progress has been made in growing fruits and vegetables. Specialization has brought perfection in these branches of agricultural endeavor. Perfect specimens of apples, peaches, pears, plums, berries, grapes may be found growing on our farms annually, and, with the exception of grapes, no better flavored fruits grow in this world. To grow them requires extreme vigilance and untiring effort. When we see the leaves curling on our cherry trees we know we must spray at once with "Black Leaf 40." If we had brown rot on our peaches last year we work to prevent it this year by spraying with selfboiled lime-sulphur. If we had wormy apples last year we prevent it this year by spraying with arsenate.
If grubs are boring in our peach tree trunks we hasten to apply Paradichlor-benezene. Having the remedy at hand and applying promptly counts.
Some years ago, being troubled with potato beetles, I succeeded in breeding another beetle, a parasite, that is very fond of the potato beetle. This little parasite, not as large as a potato bug, will kill thousands of potato bugs in a season. He kills and eats what he needs and then kills more potato bugs just for the fun of killing them. I have no more trouble with potato bugs.
With the importation of the best grains, fruits, vegetables, and plants from foreign countries by our national government, annually, there have been many insect pests, fungus diseases, etc., introduced with them; so that with every valuable introduction there is liable to come, and in fact have come, some of our most unconquerable plant enemies and fungus diseases, which demand of the farmer greater vigilance and more work every year.
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But with all this, from time to time, there is discovered some new method by which the farmer is saved labor, while at the same time his profit may be increased.
On the modern dairy farm with the milking-machine, the farmer may milk three cows at a time. Each cow's product is immediately weighed and a record made. At the end of the year this record shows just what each cow in the dairy has given in milk, and frequent tests show just what the butter fat content is.
The modern poultryman set his alarm clock for four o'clock. By an electrically wired connection the electric lights in his hen house are turned on, his hens jump down from the roost, get busy eating and drinking the food provided for them the night before, and by daylight the owner may pick up some brand new eggs, which may be delivered by aeroplane to his city brother in New York for his eight o'clock breakfast.
The farmer of old was delighted if he found a few wild straw- berries in the old pasture in June; the modern farmer is not satis- fied unless he has strawberries in September and October, as well as in June.
With all the wonderful advance we have made in agricultural science and method, with all the improved facilities and inventions, with all the new and better varieties of fruit, vegetables, grains and livestock, with all the improved machinery, means of travel, and modern means of entertainment, with all our churches and ministers and means of worship, the farmer of old, who worshipped in "God's first temples," the groves, was a better citizen, a better Christian than the average man of to-day. He was more law-abiding; he was more honest; he lived more closely to the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments; he: honored the Sabbath day.
It was only a few years ago that I saw the first man working a-field on Sunday. I thought him a heathen. I still think I was not far wrong. The most unsatisfactory condition that exists in our land to-day, from the farmer's standpoint, is the amount of lawlessness prevailing everywhere, and the ever-increasing number of extrava- gantly paid officials, whose duty it is not only to obey the law, but to enforce the law; yet, who do neither; and whose sole purpose in life seems to be to draw their salaries, do but very little or no work, and keep out of jail. The burdens thus imposed are fast becoming unbearable.
If our personal rights, our property rights, and our constitutional rights were safeguarded by the judiciary of our state, we could the better bear the burden. A noted writer and traveler has said that a man's life and property are safer among the half-civilized tribes of Central America than in New Jersey. This condition would seem to indicate that the civilized people of our fair land should get together and demand that all public officials honestly do their job and earn their salaries, or other men, regardless of party, would be elected or appointed.
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The farmer of to-day is willing, yes, more than willing, to do his part toward making this a law-abiding, God-fearing, Sabbath honoring land, and with it would come a greater prosperity, a greater contentment, and happier lives for all.
Agriculture is the basic industry of the world ; and if the farmer's business is unprosperous, or if too heavy burdens are placed upon him without his receiving proportionate benefit then the younger gener- ation deserts the farm and production diminishes. The farmer is doing his part toward making the world a better place to live in. Even with our most earnest endeavor and very closest attention to our work we still sometimes fail.
For us Agriculturists it is
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,"
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as is so beautifully expressed in Tennyson's "Ulysses."
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ILLUMINATION
Time was when a Candle factory on Penn avenue undertook to supply Dover with the means of household illumination. Previous to this the folks made their own tallow dips as a regular part of their household economy and hung the product on the "candle tree."
A visit to the power plant at the base of that tall yellow chimney which towers up on the north of Dover reveals the miraculous change that Science has brought about in this department. Situated on the Rockaway River, across the stream from the slag dump of the Wharton Furnace, the new electric plant has the advantage of a water supply from the river and railroad connection from either railroad to bring in coal, of which it consumes about eight tons a week. Powerful fur- naces with forced draft under control and huge boilers together with intricate modern electric machinery here collect the invisible current that is transmitted from this distributing center to furnish light and power for domestic and manufacturing uses, as told in the report of the Company.
Augustus K. Shuman, engineer, the oldest employee of the com- pany, tells how the Dover Electric Light Company began business January 3rd, 1889, in a little shop on Union street, just south of the bridge. Among the stockholders were David Young, Alex Kanouse, and Isaac Searing. They employed half a dozen men and used a push- cart to carry the wire for their lines. Later the plant was located on Essex street, where Birch and Bassett now have their coal office.
Everett Thompson bought the plant and sold it later to the Eastern Pennsylvania Power Company.
With this brief introduction let the Company tell how Dover is now becoming a center of light and power for a population of 85,000.
The Gas Company also has something to say about illumination.
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THE NEW JERSEY GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY
The New Jersey Gas & Electric Company is a company organ- ized and existing under the laws of the State of New Jersey. It was organized in 1916 and was the successor to the business of the Dover, Rockaway & Port Oram Gas Company, which was founded in 1900 or 1901 by Mr. Addison Ely of Rutherford.
This company supplies gas to the Town of Dover and the Borough of Wharton through both what is known as a low pressure distributing system and a high pressure system. Dover, itself, is principally supplied by low pressure direct from the plant, while in Wharton the gas is pumped to a pressure of from 5 to 50 pounds per square inch and reduced to the proper pressure for domestic use by an individual regulating valve or governor on each service.
All the gas supplied to Dover prior to January I, 1922, was produced by a process known in the gas field as the "Lowe Process of Water Gas Manufacture." The gas produced by this system is commonly known as Carburetted Water Gas or more often called Water Gas. In this system the gas is produced by decomposing steam over a bed of hot anthracite coal or coke. The gas in this state only has a heat value of approximately 400 British Thermal Units per cubic foot and as the companies throughout the State are required to maintain an average heating value of 525 B. T. U. per cubic foot it is necessary to enrich this gas with fuel oil to bring up the quality to the proper standard.
Since January I, 1922, Dover has been supplied with coal gas. This gas is produced by distilling bituminous coal in a retort. The gas is then ready to burn, with the exception of purification, which is done by passing the gas through a material made up of wood shavings and iron oxide. The iron oxide absorbs sulphur from the gas, thereby making it better for commercial use.
From the coal gas system there are the by-products of coke and tar. The coke is of great commercial value and is used in many different ways.
In the coal gas system now used in Dover the following men are employed at the plant: One foreman, two licensed firemen and eight ¿unskilled laborers.
The officers of the company are Mr. A. F. Beringer, President ; Mr. L. M. Symmes, Vice-President; Mr. G. W. Johns, Secretary, Treasurer and General Manager.
The operating force is made up of Miss Laura Collier, Bookkeeper and Cashier; Miss Gladys Lobb. Stenographer; Thos. F. Gannon, ;Superintendent; A. C. Malkin, Meter Reader and Collector; Chas. Severo, in charge of meters and distribution system; Carl Wright, pipe fitter. Laborers are hired from time to time as the occasion requires.
It is generally understood and, of course, most Public Utility men believe that there is no other business exactly like it. Dealing with and coming in contact with the public in the way of a gas man does give:
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him many opportunities of seeing the different kinds of human nature. This in itself makes the working with a Utility Company very inter- esting.
THE NEW JERSEY POWER AND LIGHT COMPANY DOVER, NEW JERSEY
The New Jersey Power & Light Company was incorporated under the laws of the State of New Jersey in December, 1915. It owns and operates the electric light and power system in the Dover, Boonton, Newton, Bernardsville, Lambertville and Flemington sections of New Jersey. This company is a subsidiary of the W. S. Barstow Manage- ment Association, New York City: W. S. Barstow, president; L. H. Tyng, vice-president; W. Buchsbaum, treasurer.
Dover is favored with the general offices of the Company, which are located at 30 West Blackwell street.
The personnel of the general operating officers consist of :
E. L. White, Vice-President and General Manager
F. J. L. Doyle, Asst. Treasurer and Asst. Secretary
H. R. Masker, Auditor
G. S. Stone, Superintendent
W. H. Vance, Assistant Superintendent
E. H. Walton, Purchasing Agent
The business of the Company shows a constantly increasing healthy growth. The territory served has an estimated population of 85,000.
The nature of the business requiring constant service gives steady employment to an approximate total of 150 persons.
The confidence of the Company in the future of Dover and the dis- trict served by Dover is forcibly shown by expenditures now under way, which when completed will exceed one-third of a million dollars, the principal proiect being the completion of the high tension transmis- sion line now under construction, to connect the Dover plant with that of the Pennsylvania Edison Company, of Easton, Pa., an associate com- pany. The construction of another proposed line to extend connections to the plant of the Metropolitan Edison Company, at Reading, Pa., another associate company, will establish a unit control of one of the largest power territories in the United States.
The Company supplies electricity for all purposes in thirty-six com- munities in Morris, Sussex, Somerset and Hunterdon Counties, New Jersey. The communities served in the Counties of Morris, Sussex and Somerset are within the radius of twenty-five miles of the power plant at Dover which supplies those districts. The communities served in Hunterdon County are supplied from the power plant at Lambertville.
The towns served include the following: Dover, Wharton, Rock- away, Kenvil, Succasunna, Mt. Arlington, Lake Hopatcong, Stanhope- Netcong, Newton, Hamburg, Denville, Mt. Tabor, Boonton, Bernards- ville, Far Hills, Peapack-Gladstone, Millington, Chester, Bedminster, Mendham, Brookside, Ralston, Oldwick, Lamington, Whitehouse, Rin- goes, Lambertville, Flemington and Sussex.
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The main power plant is practically new and is located on a ten- acre tract of land owned by the Company, on the Northern outskirts of Dover, on the Rockaway River. This plant has an installed generating capacity of 7,000 K.W.
The power plant supplying the towns of Ringoes, Flemington and Lambertville is located in Lambertville and has an installed generating capacity of 690 K.W.
The Company has three generating stations which are held as reserve equipment, one being located at Boonton with an installed gener- ating capacity of 2,100 K.W., one at Flemington with an installed gen- erating capacity of 225 K.W., and the other at Newton with an installed generating capacity of 275 K.W.
It is axiomatic that a community is as good as its Public Utilities and Dover has reason to be proud of the fact that its Electric Light and Power Company, its Gas Company and Railway Company are completely equipped, well managed and capable to provide ample facilities far into the future.
Truly we are living in an electrical age, our social, commercial and industrial life to a large measure being dependent on the flow of the mystic current called electricity which, with immeasurable rapidity is instantly ready to serve us. Electricity may well be called our most faithful servant. By a mere pressure of a button, or the throw of a switch, our homes, business places and thoroughfares are flooded with the brightest of artificial light, the machines of industry are propelled and our vehicles of transportation moved with the dispatch that our fanciful writers of the past conceived as mythical. The Arabian Nights tale of Aladdin's lamp and the flying rug surely have come to pass.
From the moment our modern lady arises at the start of day until its close, is she reminded of the faithfulness of her ever-attendant elec- tric servants. She performs her ablutions with water heated by an electric water heater and in the meanwhile has in its progress the morning breakfast, being prepared by the electric range, the toast brought to the table in its electric toaster, and simultaneously the family coffee is in the making by the electric urn. The breakfast dishes are cleaned with an electric dishwasher and later the rugs and house cleaned with the electric vacuum cleaner. The family clothes are washed by the electric washer, dried by the electric dryer and ironed by the electric ironer. Daughter curls her tresses with an electric curling iron, brings the glow to her cheeks with the electric vibrator. Dad lights his pipe with the electric lighter, reads his paper beneath the rays of the electric lamp, goes to business in the electric car, produces his wares by the energy from the electric motor, reduces the summer temperature with the electric fan, adds up his accounts with the electrically propelled adding machine and in the evening enjoys a concert from the electric piano. Little son's aches and pains are soothed with the application of an electric pad, his clothes are repaired with the electric sewing machine and his toys are propelled electrically, and all performed with less effort than Aladdin of the fairy tale required in rubbing the lamp.
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MORE POETRY
As the Firemen intersperse bands of musicians in their parades, to enliven the procession, so the editor of Dover Dates calls up his POETICAL RESERVES now and then, to relieve the mind of the reader as these solid battalions of dates and facts march by in review.
Let me give credit for some unsigned poems included in my last article on "Poetry."
The poem, "To My Mother," was written by Uzal Newton Crane, of Crane Hill, Dover. the metre being adapted from a poem which he found in the London magazine, "Punch." The "Song of Dover," was written by a youth in the Dover High School named Abe Bacon, now dignified by the title of "Doctor." The lines on "Ford Pond," were written by Laura DeWitt, then a little girl in the Dover High School. They present, in naive and unaffected form, the child's point of view with reference to our local "Lake," as it was once called by Mr. Hall, in his school prospectus of 1861.
Aside from the above explanation, unsigned poems in this book are contributed by the Editor.
REMINISCENCES OF DOVER
I know a man who remembers the night
They turned on in Dover the first 'lectric light. Before even that yet, there's some could tell When they heard the first sound of the new fire bell. The palace of pleasure was Whitlock's Hall, The scene of the Annual Firemen's Ball. And many a man remembers how grand Was the music of Kenstler's big brass band.
The park by the roadside, the old town pump, The hitching posts, handy for boys to jump; Floating leviathians on the canal,
And circus, much better than carnival- These things and others I well recall, Because I enjoyed them when I was small; With lots of good fishing in Granny's Brook, If only you knew how to bait your hook.
But, dear me! I ramble, nor yet have I told How Dover became two hundred years old. I suppose the town just naturally grew, Like most of us people are bound to do, By starting out young and making our way Along life's highway by night and day. Old Time does the work as he moves along ; Here endeth my reminiscent song.
- Whittier-Holmes.
Contributed : Author not known.
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DOVER TELEPHONE HISTORY
The community of Dover was nearly 160 years old before it had its first telephone, but in the succeeding forty years up to the cele- bration of the city's 200th anniversary, Dover's telephone system has made rapid strides. With the second hundredth year about to be reached, there are more than 2,000 telephones in daily use in Dover and the importance of the part they have in the business, industrial and social life of the community is unquestionably great. Behind these 2,000 telephones in 1922, there is a system representing an investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and containing hundreds of miles of wire and a vast amount of intricate, delicate apparatus which is seldom seen by the casual observer.
The story is told in Dover's telephone history that some time during 1880, sufficient persons were interested in telephone service so that it became possible for the village to have a small central office. The system was constructed and a central office established with a switch-board no larger than that used to-day by a fair-sized business concern. About thirty telephone subscribers were on the original roster, among them The Iron Era, the Atlantic Dynamite Company and the George Richards Company. The "central office" was placed in a small room on the third floor rear, of the National Union Bank Building, and was equipped with trunk lines to Morristown, Paterson and Hackettstown.
At that time, the telephone service was furnished by the New Jersey Telephone Company, which, in 1883, sold its Dover system to the New York and New Jersey Telephone Company, the predecessor of the present New York Telephone Company. This transaction was followed by the establishment of a new central office in the Berry Building on Blackwell street, where it was maintained for several years.
In the meantime, the system was growing rapidly. The thirty original telephones had grown to nearly 100 in 1900, and from then on development was rapid. 1910 saw 600 telephones in service, and at the beginning of 1920 there were 1,560 telephones in daily use. Two years later this number had increased to more than 2,000. Sep- tember, 1912, was an eventful month in the Dover telephone system, because it marked the opening of a brand new central office in the Post Office Building on South Warren street, which was the founda- tion of the central office serving Dover to-day.
In 1908, the telephone company deemed it advisable to open a business office in Dover, and assigned the management to Mr. O. A. Marquard, who previously had been in the Morristown office. Mr. Marquard began his close association with Dover people at that time and has been a resident of Dover ever since, where he has enjoyed the confidence and friendship of a large number of Dover residents.
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Dover's central office is presided over by Miss Julia A. McGuire, the chief operator, who began her telephone service here in 1898. Another popular Dover telephone worker is J. C. Johnson, who, as local deskman, has had charge of the Telephone Company's plant in the Dover district. The present central office force numbers 16 operators, who in a normal day handle 9,039 local calls and 3,749 out- going and incoming toll calls.
Dover's telephone system is not standing still by any means. To the already large local investment of the Telephone Company, thou- sands of dollars have been added in the past few years in building up and extending the system. Large sums will continue to be added in the future, for it is recognized by the Telephone Company that, as Dover grows, the telephone system must grow with it in order to keep on providing that quality of telephone service of which Dover people are justly proud.
HIGHWAYS OF SPEECH
When man first gave to man in rough, rude signs The image of his thought, how wonderful
The flight of an idea from mind to mind ! How overjoyed was he that key to find To unlock his heart and break the barrier dull That to the thinker his own thought confines !
And when speech came to be, how far he fared Upon the path to social joys, how far Forward he bounded on the road to power,
To progress in the arts : the beauteous flower Of genius budded, bloomed-sun, moon, and star Received their names ; through speech ideas were shared.
Then alphabet and writing opened up A wider avenue for growing thought
And man grew wise in hoarded knowledge; lore Of earlier ages filled his pathway more And more with light, as ripe experience taught The new-born souls that quaffed life's brimming cup.
With years came printing: wider grew the ways,
The broad highways of thought, more rich the store Of treasured wisdom, garnered from the past.
But living speech has leaped the gulf, at last, Of sundering space, and now the open door Of telephonic speech evokes our praise.
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THE CRYSTAL ICE COMPANY
A visit to the Crystal Ice Company, Salem street, East Dover, reveals some interesting facts about the manufacture of ice.
On March 20, 1922, Joseph F. Scott became the proprietor of the plant first established as The Hygeia Ice Company, eight years ago.
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