Phew! It's been a year!

New Jersey’s 350th anniversary year is coming to a close, and I'm constantly amazed by how many more topics, events, people, places and birds pop up, just waiting for us to research and share with you. Just when we think we've found about as much as we can possibly find, we stumble upon another hidden spot, a reader sends an intriguing lead, or research on another topic leads to a completely different story.

Here are just a few (well, more than a few...) of our favorites from 2014:

Our favorite inventor, Thomas Edison, continues to inspire, even though his Harrison lightbulb factory is long gone and the Portland cement factory in Stewartsville has been adapted for other purposes. While his Menlo Park workshop was long ago shipped to Michigan, the re-interpreted museum on his lab site off Lincoln Highway tells the story of his many inventions.

Liberty and Prosperity, baby!

Speaking of inventors, we met several this year, including a seemingly unlikely Episcopal priest-chemist who derived the formula for flexible photographic film and the irascible Trentonian who arguably was the first to develop the steamboat.

Industrial New Jersey New Jersey’s industrial history keeps popping up in the most interesting places, including a former nail factory grounds turned park in Bridgeton, a World War munitions plant turned Atlantic County park, and the one-time piano and organ capital of the world, disguised as a lovely Warren County town.

Our perpetual search for avian visitors brought us to the first New Jersey sighting of the Neotropic Cormorant and the third-ever sighting of the Whiskered Tern. And, of course, there’s the annual wild goose chase to find rarities among the herds of Canada Geese wandering open farm fields and corporate lawns.

A search for the rarely seen King Rail led me to discover other treasures in Bayonne, including a world-class links golf course and the distinctly agricultural heritage of what was once the world’s largest petroleum refineries. Earlier in the year nature had brought me to vestiges of the city’s contribution to the American war effort of the first half of the 20th century, the ELCO electric boat works that had built the iconic World War II PT boat.

During one of my Hidden New Jersey library appearances earlier this year, an attendee asked why I wasn’t talking more about roads themselves, rather than things we find on the side of the road. Good question, as we keep finding out interesting things about the thoroughfares we travel. Some take the path of the Revolutionary-era Washington-Rochambeau Route, while others are the vestiges of a highway envisioned to honor our 16th president. Then there's the pretty much inaccessible monument that honors a man who dedicated his career to the fight for good roads (boy, do we need him now!).

And while we’re talking about thoroughfares, I'm still absolutely gobsmacked about what we’ve learned about the Morris Canal. Between our engineering lesson at the Jim and Mary Lee Museum and our stop to visit a lightly-restored excavated inclined plane at Montville, I’ve got a newfound respect for this onetime express route through the hilliest part of the state. Wandering the now-quiet landlocked port towns of Port Colden and Port Murray opened my eyes to the canal’s impact on local commerce.

We found religion, too! Not really, but travels in the southern part of the state gave us an up-close look at how communities of faith have shared fellowship in more rural areas. A tiny shul in Cumberland County stands as a reminder of the vibrant Jewish agricultural community that once farmed the surrounding fields. The Methodist camp at Malaga is as observant today as it was at its founding, with cottage owners held to strict religious requirements.

And, as always, we found plenty to recommend New Jersey as the Crossroads of the American Revolution. Researching one of our favorite lighthouses led to a surprising story of Sandy Hook as a loyalist stronghold during the war, while travels in Passaic County led to the rarely-told stories of patriot mutinies during the darkest days of the war.

On the more positive side, we discovered the stories of some pretty kick-butt Revolutionary Neighbors, including a sculptress-turned-spy, a healer who became the defacto doctor for her community during the war, and a Newark farmer who took matters into her own hands when Hessians attempted to take over her homestead.

What’s in store for 2015? We’re still mulling over invading Delaware, but even if we don’t, we’re convinced it’ll be a busy year. Between chasing down rare birds, taking on speaking engagements and finding even more obscure New Jerseyana, we’re looking forward to learning right along with you!

Washington's Crossing: more than meets the eye

It's not exactly hidden New Jersey, but the annual reenactment of General George Washington crossing the Delaware River was a bit of an eye opener for me when Ivan and I attended this Christmas.

This year's reenactment looked nothing like this.
Washington Crossing the Delaware, Emanuel Leutze.
Metropolitan Museum of Art collection,
gift of John Stewart Kennedy, 1897  www.metmuseum.org

Every American school child learns the story of the crossing and events that led to it, or should. Having lost the Battle of Long Island and Forts Washington and Lee in the summer and fall of 1776, Continental troops retreated across New Jersey to the relative safety of Pennsylvania. During these bleak days, morale plummeted and troops deserted in droves, having lost confidence in Washington's leadership. Philosopher and pamphleteer Thomas Paine, traveling with the retreating forces, was inspired to write some of his most famous words in The American Crisis: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

Washington knew that he would have to make a daring move to save the young nation that had been born with the Declaration of Independence less than six months earlier. While a diversionary attack would be waged farther downstream, he would lead 2400 men across the Delaware about eight miles upstream of Trenton on Christmas night. Once ashore they'd split up and march southward to surprise and engage Hessian troops at their winter quarters.

Today we know that Washington's plan succeeded. Wins in three battles over the following ten days gave the Continental Army a much needed shot in the arm and the encouragement to continue fighting for the cause of freedom. Artistic representations of the Delaware crossing are part of our shared vernacular and are used everywhere from New Jersey's contribution to the state quarter series to The Simpsons.

But... you don't really get it until you see it. At least that's what I came to realize as Ivan and I stood on the banks of the Delaware this Christmas, waiting for the reenactment of the crossing.

When we arrived at Washington Crossing State Park that morning, skies were cloudy and the temperature around 50 degrees. Winds were blustery, though, and while there were no ice floes as there were on the original night, the river current was running briskly. We walked across the narrow bridge that spans the river to get to the Pennsylvania side, where the small town of Washington's Crossing was buzzing with a growing number of reenactors and spectators. Altogether, the group may have totalled about half the number Washington had with him that night. A few Durham boats had already been brought down the riverbank and positioned in the river, only a small representation of the number that the general had commandeered for the crossing.

The relatively warm weather and all of the hubbub made it hard to envision what Washington and his troops faced on that stormy, bitterly cold night in 1776. Even when we returned to the New Jersey side to await their arrival, the event was taking on a carnival atmosphere. Children chased each other between chatting adults, the local Lions Club was selling hot chocolate and a historian was describing the events that led up to the fateful night.

As we often do, Ivan and I had brought our binoculars for some casual birding as we waited for the event. They came in handy as we gauged how close the crossing was to starting; when the reenactors walked down toward the boats, we probably had a much better view than most of the people on the Pennsylvania side, but it still seemed to be taking a long time.

"Eagle," Ivan said, looking over the Washington's Crossing Bridge. Indeed, a nearly-adult Bald Eagle was soaring overhead, unnoticed by the people around us but entirely fitting for the event. It circled once or twice and then winged away, perhaps looking for someplace a bit less crowded to set down in a tree.

And finally, a small party of about six or eight reenactors made their way into the smallest of the boats -- a bateau -- to make the initial foray across the river. We're accustomed to thinking of Washington and his men rowing directly across the Delaware in more or less of a straight line, pushing blocks of ice aside along the way. Bergs weren't a factor for the 21st century patriots, but the current seemed to be. First struggling to row a few hundred feet upstream, the crew valiantly started making their way across in somewhat of a V pattern. For a bit, they seemed to be losing to the force of the river, leaving me to wonder if they might actually end up traveling to Trenton by boat rather than possibly reenacting the march.

We're so accustomed to seeing history represented in movies with action-heightening editing and dramatic music that an actual reenactment can seem tedious by comparison. Watching the struggles of the batteau men, however, seemed so much more realistic and perhaps truer to history, even if the weather, time of day and river conditions weren't consistent with the actual event. Were they going to be able to make it to New Jersey safely? We didn't know. Would all of the boats make the trip, or would the organizers decide conditions weren't right to finish the reenactment? Only time would tell.

The uncertainty, more than anything else, made an impression on me. Washington truly didn't know if his plan would work. He wasn't sure that all of his troops and their horses and equipment would make it across the Delaware, and in fact, it took hours longer than he expected. Further downstream, the diversionary attack was aborted without his knowledge. If the crossing we were watching had been cancelled, it would have been disappointing but not a tragedy. Had Washington's not worked, the future of the United States would have been in question.

Ultimately, in 2014 all of the boats made their way to New Jersey, their crews welcomed by loud applause and cheers from a happy crowd. Reenactors got into formation and marched across the bridge back to Pennsylvania, many of them undoubtedly looking forward to a big Christmas meal.

For the rest of us, they'd provided a memorable insight into the realities of one of the pivotal events in our forefathers' fight for independence. It's one I'll not soon forget.

American Freemasonry, Colonial land battles and corruption: Made in Trenton?

Sometimes when we find a historic spot, it sets us down a path of research that lands me in a far more different spot that I originally expected. Such was the case with a modest fieldstone building at the corner of Barrack and West Lafayette Streets in Trenton.

Amid all of the government buildings scattered around our state capitol, this historic Colonial-era property tells a unique story. Now hosting the Trenton Visitor Center, the small two-story building began its existence as one of the oldest Masonic temples in the United States. While the local lodge it hosted was founded in 1787, its existence in Trenton arguably gives it standing as the spiritual birthplace for American Freemasonry nearly 300 years ago. And as I was checking that out, I found a personality who would probably garner about the same reaction to his actions today as he did in Colonial days.

Freemasonry itself has gained a reputation for mystery and intrigue over the years, but at its core, it's a fraternal organization with roots in medieval English trade guilds. Many of us are familiar with the Founding Fathers and signers of the Declaration of Independence who had masonic ties, from Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock and George Washington to New Jersey's own Richard Stockton, but the organization has much earlier ties to the colonies.

While some sources say that Pennsylvania hosted some of the first Masonic lodges in the New World, they appear not to have had the official backing of the governing body. According to the WPA Guide to 1930's New Jersey, several masons in the colonies of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania petitioned the Grand Lodge of England, for a provincial grand master, or leader, to preside over Masonic activities in the region. Trenton resident Colonel Daniel Coxe was selected for the post in 1730, thus becoming the first Mason to hold the post in the New World.

Coxe himself was here essentially as a real estate manager. His father, Dr. Daniel Coxe, had purchased substantial holdings in West Jersey in the late 1600s, becoming governor as a result despite never visiting the colony. The younger Coxe arrived in West Jersey in 1702 at the age of 28, living first in Burlington before moving to Trenton as the city's political and social standing grew within the colony. Frequently traveling back to England to manage his father's land holdings, he'd become a member of the Mason's lodge at the Devil's Tavern at Temple Bar in London.

Regardless of his social standing in England or Freemasonry, Col. Coxe became a less than popular guy in New Jersey, largely to his zealous defense of a tract of property his father had owned in the Hopewell area. It seems that when the elder Coxe sold his New Jersey properties to the West Jersey Society, there may have been some irregularities with the paperwork, meaning that the folks who later bought the property from the Society didn't actually own it. As far as they were concerned, the younger Coxe had no claim on the land, though the courts eventually ruled in his favor. To stay on the land they thought was theirs, the disputed owners had to either purchase or lease it from Coxe, or leave on their own. Otherwise, they'd be evicted.

Some of the owners paid up, realizing they had little leverage against Coxe's political and social standing. Others hired a lawyer in a futile effort to plead their case in the courts. Prospects there were dim: Coxe had been appointed as a justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court, leaving little doubt how any further appeals would be received. Some angry former property owners, frustrated by what they saw as an impossible situation, burned Coxe in effigy.

Several left the colony altogether, migrating south to form what became known as the Jersey Settlement in Rowan County, North Carolina. It might have been the first case in which New Jerseyans were so frustrated by official corruption that they voted with their feet.

Was the paperwork truly muddled during the transactions between Dr. Coxe and the West Jersey Society, or had the entire incident been a Machiavellian attempt to maintain control of valuable real estate? Right now your guess is as good as mine, but initial research suggests this disputed land grab may have been one of the early grievances in the growing appetite for independence from British rule. More to come!

The silken past of Stirling

Paterson may be nationally known as Silk City, but if you wander around New Jersey long enough, you'll find other places with legacies of weaving the lustrous fabric. A historic marker on Route 206 noting a silk truck hijacking and resulting murder led us to the story of Newton's silken past, and now another informative plaque further proves that the Great Falls area didn't have an exclusive on mills.

A few weeks ago I was meeting a friend for lunch in the Long Hill community of Stirling when I came upon this description of the village.

Given the placid, sometimes rural charm of much of Morris County, it was a bit of a surprise to discover that Stirling had been an industrial town. Looking around, I saw only a small business area surrounded by suburban houses. We've been to plenty of factory towns, and Stirling doesn't look like one. If there was a story to be told, I'd have to do some digging.

As it turns out, the hamlet of Stirling owes its existence to the foresight of an insurance company and a railroad. Shortly after the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York announced interest in investing in Morris County land in the late 1860s, the Passaic Valley and Peapack Railroad purchased land in present day Stirling for the construction of a railroad station and right of way. Trains started running in 1872, and the line would eventually extend to the Delaware River, raising the prospect of Pennsylvania coal being shipped through the new community. Organizers named the community for William Alexander, Lord Stirling, the Revolutionary War notable who'd once owned land in the area.

Reliable transportation made it easy to bring in raw materials and labor, and ship out finished product, but first a town needed to be built. Bit by bit, the village came together, starting with eight houses and a railroad depot, followed by a Presbyterian church. The first factory was built on Railroad Avenue to make buttons; it eventually employed 125 people. By 1885 the plant was silenced, victim of an economic downturn, and the entire village, houses and all, was put on the market.

The Stirling silk mill

Silk came to Stirling in 1886 when Jersey City mill owner Claude Chaffanjon bought the factory and surrounding buildings and homes. Having immigrated to the United States years earlier, he brought skilled Italian and French weavers to work in the mill; as was the custom in Europe, many others came with looms of their own and weaved in their homes. The boon in population and industrial output brought growth in the community, too: Chaffanjon donated land for a new Catholic church, and an additional public school was built.

Chaffanjon's stay in Stirling was brief; within a year he'd sold the factory to Julius Schlachter, who brought German and Swiss weavers to town. In 1896 the mill burned down, replaced a year later by a new building. Within 25 years of the opening of the original mill, Stirling's population had become a veritable map of Europe, with Armenians, Germans, Italians, French, Hungarians and Russians mixed with the local born population. Their children generally attended school up to the eighth grade, foregoing high school to follow their parents' path into the mills. When Stirling Silk went bankrupt in 1908, it was bought by the Swiss company Schwartzenbach-Huber.

Though 30 miles away from the state's silk hub, the mill at Stirling wasn't immune to the labor unrest that struck Paterson. A June 1915 New York Times article notes that months of unrest followed management's decision to enact a new wage scale, and that several looms were being sent to other Schwartzenbach-Huber locations in Bayonne and Pennsylvania, presumably where labor was more compliant.

Nor was the Stirling plant protected from a wave of silk thefts that swept the region in the early 1920s. The fabric was a hot commodity - foreign suppliers were still recovering from the ravages of World War II, making U.S.-manufactured silk that much more desirable on the open market. A few months after thieves hijacked a silk mill truck on present-day Route 206 in Sussex County, thieves struck Schwartzenbach-Huber. On November 24, 1924 three masked and armed bandits broke into the factory and beat a 60 year old night watchman unconscious when he confronted them. After restraining him with cloth, they pulled a getaway truck up to the shipping dock and loaded it with 50 cases of silk worth a total of $35,000.

Stirling's silk days have been over for the better part of a century. Schwartzenbach-Huber had sold the mill and housing in 1928, but the weaving trades continued in much smaller companies around the village up to about 1940. As for the old silk mill itself, it burned to the ground in 1974 in its incarnation as a polyurethane foam factory.

The wild goose chase: a rite of winter birding

In New Jersey, the onset of winter brings the spectre of the wild goose chase.

"What?" I can hear you wondering. "Why would anyone make the effort to see geese when they seem to be everywhere?" As any casual observer or office park manager will attest, they've become fixtures in New Jersey, much to the frustration of anyone who's dodged, uh, goose bombs while on a stroll.

Thing is, some pretty remarkable birds are out there if you take the time to look. Some of the Canada Geese you see in the winter months actually are from the northern reaches of the continent, though they might not look that much different from the Jersey guys. Flocks migrate south as their ancestors have done for centuries, sometimes mixing in with the resident population to loiter at athletic fields or farm acreage dotted with mown-down, decaying cornstalks. And with those 'foreign' flocks sometimes come the proverbial needles in the haystack: the rare goose species that literally made a wrong turn at Greenland. Best guess is that some of the "not like the others" birds get caught up in a southbound flock and decide to stick with it rather than attempt to find others of their own species.

The Greater White-Fronted Goose, courtesy
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Gary Kramer

That's what makes them so attractive to a doggedly persistent breed of birders. There are folks who will stand at the edge of a big field, using a spotting scope to scan hundreds, if not thousands of Canada Geese in the hopes of finding a stray Greater White-Fronted, Pink-Footed or Barnacle goose. Those out for a real challenge will seek out a Cackling Goose, which looks essentially like a smaller, shorter-necked Canada Goose. It's a hobby that's not for the faint of heart, especially when you're struggling to hold your ground against arctic-temperature gusts as you slowly scan a massive flock that won't stand still.

That's why I was relieved to hear about the presence of not one, but four different rare goose species frequenting fields over the weekend. Reports were that a Pink-Footed and a Ross' Goose were sighted at two locations in Wall Township. We needed both for the year. Another Pink-Footed was said to be with a Barnacle and a Greater White-Fronted on a farm in Monroe, but we chose to head for the shore instead.

The Pink-Footed is a relatively new visitor to New Jersey; the first sighting of the species was in Bergen County less than four years ago. It ordinarily winters in Great Britain or the Netherlands after breeding in Greenland, but the word seems to be out in the Pink-Footed community that New Jersey is a welcoming place. The species has already been sighted in a few places around the state this fall. From my relatively novice perspective, it's a welcome visitor, as it's easily distinguishable within a big flock of Canadas: it lacks the white chinstrap and black neck, preferring shades of brown instead. And, of course, its feet and legs are pink.

The Ross' Goose, I knew, would stick out like a sore thumb: it's nearly all white. The only other bird you might confuse it for is the larger Snow Goose, so I was good with ID as long as none of the bigger guys was there.

We set off at mid-morning and promptly ended up at, well, the wrong spot due to a miscalculation by yours truly (long story short, mea culpa). After roaming a few spots on the Shark River estuary, we grabbed a late breakfast in Belmar and stopped to check out Wreck Pond in Spring Lake. While there was a fine assortment of ducks, a Great Blue Heron and Great Egret, the only geese were Canadas, a couple of Snow Geese and a pair of domesticated Egyptians (cool, but not countable).

Somewhere in our wandering, we found some birding acquaintances who pointed us in the right direction. The Pink-Footed, it turns out, was seen in a few places within about a mile of the location we'd originally tried to find. Perhaps if we went back and made a right turn instead of a left at a crucial intersection, we'd find the bird. Worked for us. We had about two hours of daylight left -- not a lot of time.

Sometimes finding the bird is a matter of finding the birders first. We got to the first place in the directions to discover several cars pulled over on the shoulder against a broad grassy field, with several spotting scopes already pointed toward a large flock of geese. Pay dirt. The assembled birders told us that both the Ross' and the Pink-Footed were milling among the hundreds of Canadas on the slope just above the pond.

I got the Ross' Goose without trying too hard, its whiteness a stark contrast to the assorted black and browns of the Canadas. The Pink-Footed was a bit harder, but it wasn't long before Ivan had it spotted with the scope. At one point, the two rarities were so close together they could be seen well without moving the scope at all. Considering it was my first time seeing the Ross' and the third time for the Pink-Footed, it was a sight to remember. We could head home with the satisfaction of a successful wild goose chase.

But, for me, the adventure wasn't quite over.

Ivan was committed to do a Christmas Bird Count on Sunday, so I was on my own. What the heck, I thought. I'll head to Monroe and see if I could spot the Barnacle or the Greater White-Fronted. The Pink-Footed would be a nice bonus, but thanks to our sighting in Wall, I wasn't particularly concerned about finding it.

I knew I was heading into an iffy situation, but I was fairly confident about my chances. As I got off the Turnpike and drove past the cluster of senior housing developments just off Exit 8A, I considered my situation. I was heading out badly equipped: Ivan had the sighting scope. But, I figured, if the birds were present, there would be birders with scopes there, too.

Indeed, when I reached the area and made the turn to drive along the edge of the designated field, this is what I was confronted with:

The farm field in Monroe. Those black spots are all geese. Your guess is as good as mine.

Yup: an undulating cornfield with a conservative estimate of several hundred geese milling about, pecking at the ground, a couple hundred yards away. To make matters worse, the farmer seemed to have cut the cornstalks a little higher than average, giving the geese more space to hide. The two birders already there had a spotting scope but were packing up. They hadn't found anything: not the Barnacle, not the Greater White-Fronted, not the Pink-Footed. Me, with my decent but not spectacular binoculars? I figured I'd stick around and see what happened.

Luckily, a few minutes later another birder showed up, though he also lacked a scope. Together we scanned what we could see from our vantage points, until he announced, "I think I have something." The Greater White-Fronted Goose happened to be scanning the space between two cornrows that ended right about where the birder was standing. The result was a nearly perfect though distant view, as long as the bird stopped for a moment or two. After he gave me a couple of landmarks to gauge from, I found the bird in question and agreed, first that it wasn't a Canada from the orangey legs, and then, after a few frustrating attempts to see its neck and face, I was sure.  

Satisfied that the identification was a strong one, I decided enough was plenty. Finding the Barnacle Goose in that flock would be enough of a challenge in good light, and the combination of clouds and early-setting sun were not my friends that day. Add to that, the Barnacle's plumage is nominally close enough to the Canada's, so playing the avian version of "one of these things is not like the others" wouldn't serve me well.

The fates seemed to want to give me one last treat before I headed home. Just as I was turning the car around, I noticed a slender raptor gliding overhead, toward the field of geese. Pulling over again and jumping out of the car with my binoculars, I tried to confirm my suspicion that the bird was, indeed, a harrier. The setting and the behavior was right, I considered as the bird decreased its altitude to coast just several feet above the field, but with the light and distance I couldn't call it definitively. As in so many other cases before, I couldn't be sure what I'd seen. All I knew was that I'd enjoyed seeing it.

(FYI, photos of the Pink-Footed, Barnacle and Cackling geese mentioned here are available with an article on Pete Bacinski's excellent All Things Birds blog on the New Jersey Audubon website.)

Caveat emptor and labor struggles: the odd history of Consumers Research

Wander around long enough, and you're bound to find some real ironies revealed not by commemorative plaques or statues, but in conversations you have along the way. For instance, our visit to the Bread Lock Museum led to a local resident who told us about a 1935 labor strike that grew violent in the outskirts of Washington, Warren County. Rather than the typical manual labor action against factory management, it pitted a consumer advocacy watchdog against researchers and scientists devoted to product safety.

When I checked further, I discovered that management who had previously voiced, in the words of the WPA Guide to 1930s New Jersey, "caustic criticism of employers who showed hostility to organized labor," was all too willing to halt the creation of a union when it got in the way of his own goals.

Who was this union-resistant business entity, why had its leaders made the about-face, and why did all of this happen in the foothills of Warren County? To find out, we need to go back to nine years before the strike, and the birth of the consumer advocacy movement.

New York resident Frederick J. Schlink had worked at the U.S. Bureau of Standards, the federal agency charged with testing products to help government procurement entities get the best buys and most effective products. Frustrated by the dubious claims advertisers made to the public, Schlink, with a coauthor, wrote the book Your Money's Worth in 1926 to raise public awareness of false advertising and inferior manufacturing processes, and to call for the creation of an independent testing organization to protect and educate consumers.

Finding a receptive audience, Schlink founded the Consumers' Club and published the Consumers' Club Commodity List, which ranked products by quality and value. Rather than testing the products themselves, Schlink and his colleagues drew their information from assessments made by trusted sources like the Bureau of Standards and the American Medical Association.

By 1929, the renamed Consumers Research was nearly 100 employees strong, publishing three different periodicals from its New York City offices. They'd begun testing some of the products they reported on, but many reviews were still based on the work of outside laboratories. The publications drew a small but ardent subscriber base, prompting Schlink to dream that the movement could take on enough momentum to spawn a political party and even a federal Department of the Consumer.

Growth, however, would depend on the organization's ability to test products on its own, free of any financial indebtedness to advertisers or others who might attempt to influence product ratings. Unable to attract a major donor for the consumer foundation he sought to endow, Schlink relied on donations from club members and the dramatic expansion of subscribers to the list. With money an issue as the Depression hit and wore on, he came up with an idea that's been conceived by countless business leaders since: move the entire operation out of the city. Not only would a rural location be less expensive, it would offer more space for research labs, and a lower cost of living would justify lower salaries.

The Consumers Research board of directors considered several locations before Schlink purchased the former Florey Piano factory in Washington. He felt that the town, with its all-American culture, was the ideal example of the community that the average consumer called home.

Employees and board members, many of them city natives, were aghast. Considering the relative isolation of life outside cities at the time, it's not surprising: '30's era transportation and communications were far from the standard we enjoy today, and while Washington was a well-developed town, it lacked the amenities of Manhattan. One Consumers Research board member is said to have noted that he'd prefer suicide to living in a small town.

Nonetheless, many of the workers, committed to the consumer advocacy movement, made the move with Schlink and his management team. Many didn't last long in the rural environment and returned to New York, but others continued with the organization as it moved to larger quarters just outside town.

Over the years that followed, several of those who stayed grew increasingly discontented over pay, job security and working conditions. Finding Schlink to be less than open to their input, they organize a union to negotiate with management. It wasn't a surprising move, considering that many Consumers Research employees were activists, drawn to the company by its principled stand on behalf of the average American and its reputation as a haven for progressives.

When they approached the board for a meeting to discuss their concerns, the newly formed union was turned away, its three organizers fired. Board members who'd agreed to talk with the union were dismissed from their duties, too. Seeing no other way, more than 40 employees walked off the job on September 4, 1935, seeking protection against being fired on management's whim, the dismissal of two labor-unfriendly board members, reinstatement of the fired union members and a minimum weekly wage of $15.

Hostilities grew quickly, as a bus carrying replacement workers was stoned by strikers on September 10 and one of the opposing board members was assaulted. Violence escalated over the following days until a riot started on October 15. As The WPA Guide described it:

"Armed guards patrolled the acreage about the main building... a constable mounted on a farm horse rode into a crowd of several hundred strikers and sympathizers from local unions assembled on the road. His act provoked a riot that lasted for hours. The crowd surged through the ropes, showering the buildings with stones; automobiles were overturned and wrecked. By nightfall the guards were reinforced by hastily deputized farmers, armed with shotguns and rifles. ... Guns blazed as the deputized farmhands chased university graduates up and down the country lane... Strikebreakers barricaded within the building were evacuated in moving vans, with an escort of farmers. Miraculously, no one was killed or seriously injured."

The strikers' efforts became a cause celebre in New York, with more than 1000 people attending a meeting led by sympathetic Consumers Research board members and journalist Heywood Broun. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, American Civil Liberties Union co-founder Roger Baldwin and others attempted to talk with management on behalf of the strikers but were unsuccessful. It seems that some CR board members could not be dissuaded, as they believed the union was under Communist Party influence. And others couldn't reconcile the fact that the very people they needed to make the consumer movement succeed -- independent thinking professionals with integrity -- would want to have some say in their own working conditions.

Ultimately, the National Labor Relations Board heard from both sides, ruling for the workers. Consumers Research appealed the ruling and lost again but ignored the NLRB's decision. The strike ended on January 13, 1936. Many of the dissenting workers, along with two former board members, started Consumers Union, the testing and research organization that publishes the influential and highly-respected Consumer Reports.

The two organizations continue to provide useful and timely information to their subscribers, but their fates differ sharply. While Consumer Reports' subscriptions and testing labs grew, Consumers Research lost both paying supporters and influence. Schlink continued to operate the labs on Bowerstown Road in Washington until 1981, when he sold the operation to a conservative radio personality. The laboratories closed two years later as the organization moved from testing to focusing on the impact of legislation and regulation on consumers.

I tried to find the building on a recent trip to Washington but found no evidence of it on Bowerstown Road. The only evidence you'll find of a labor dispute, or of the useful work of Consumers Research, that you'll find in locally is in the memories of old timers and local historians.

Pork roll poseur? Tasting the challenger to Taylor and Case.

I had to do it. Honestly, I couldn't resist.

You may have heard that Whole Foods Market has done what many loyal New Jerseyans will label sacrilege. They paid someone to "reinvent" pork roll. Even more scandalous, they found a guy in New York, from a charcuterie named Vincenza's, to do it. And, by the way, they charge $14.99 a pound. For that price, you could get at least double the weight in Taylor ham or Case pork roll. Or scads more of the Shop Rite brand, if you're slumming. Just sayin.'

Now, you know I take my station as Hidden New Jersey reporter very seriously, as I do my dedication to the gift Senator John Taylor bestowed on a grateful state in 1856. If anyone is going to challenge the established hierarchy of the official meat of the Jersey breakfast, I'm going to check it out.

I heard that Whole Foods locations were selling the stuff as quickly as they could stock it, so I optimistically went to the Vauxhall location to try my luck. This is what I saw in the prepared meats case:

"Nostalgic for that Jersey breakfast treat?" Seriously? I could pick it up at the supermarket down the street. Small batches? Traditional linen casings? I spied the roll behind the counter glass to see that its place of origin is in Queens. Feeling generous, I supposed that they had to leave the area of Taylor/Case dominance to get someone uninfluenced to put together an original recipe.

I requested a quarter pound, and as the deli counter person sliced it, I asked if they were selling a lot of it. Indeed, several customers a day were calling to check availability, with many coming in to make a purchase. What I didn't think to ask was whether people are coming back for seconds. Sliced meat in hand, I wandered off to find a good kaiser roll.

Once I got home, I got all of the necessary items together:

(Yeah, I could have gone with fancier cheese, but it would have detracted from the experiment.)

The pork roll was sliced much thinner than the pre-sliced boxed version of Taylor ham -- probably somewhere between 1/8 and 1/16 of an inch thick. Consistent with the "finely crafted" aspect of the brand, there were actually inadvertent holes in some of the slices, probably where the meat hadn't been ground sufficiently.

I decided to cook it two ways -- traditional frying and the old reliable "I'm too hungry to wait" method, microwaving. This is one place where the Whole Foods folks win: the stuff fries up so quickly that there's no real advantage in nuking it...

... except for the grease, which will get soaked up by the paper towels you should nest pork roll in when you toss it in the microwave. The Whole Foods option, ironically, seems to kick off a lot more fat than either Taylor or Case, which, while offering a degree of deliciousness, is not exactly recommended by four out of five cardiologists.

And as I discovered, one of the big drawbacks of the thin, thin, thin slice is its inability to retain heat. By the time I got the cheese on it and transferred it to the roll, it was lukewarm. I didn't dare add ketchup, lest it drop the temperature another ten degrees or so. And it just didn't seem to be enough meat to measure up to the average-sized kaiser roll.

As for the taste, well, I'll give them this: it's got a very pleasant flavor, distinct from either of our storied brands. The label refuses to list the various spices, but a Bergen Record report says that coriander, port wine and white pepper are among them, combined with "natural smoke flavor," sea salt and sugar. I'll take their word for it. If they were going for something closely approximating pork roll, I guess they've accomplished that.

Thing is, I don't see the stuff overtaking our old traditionals anytime soon. Perhaps Martha Stewart will use it along with an artisinal cheese in her take on the Jersey Breakfast, but I'm guessing it'll be a long, long wait before you see it on a diner menu. Myself, I'm not convinced enough to spend the extra money, though I wouldn't toss the Vicenza's stuff if someone gave it to me. Bottom line, Senator Taylor's folks have nothing to worry about: they still have my business.


Addendum: Twelve hours after ingesting said gourmet pork roll, I awoke with agita. Not that I'm blaming the product. It just may have been my body's attempt to reject non-New Jersey pork roll like a mismatched donor organ.

Making beautiful music in Washington, the Organ Capital of the World

A hundred years or more ago, beautiful music came from a Northwestern New Jersey community in such abundance that the area was said to be the Organ Capital of the World.

Words from an 1897 catalog paint the picture: "Nestled among the green hills of Warren County... lies the beautiful little city of Washington, where for more than a half century, Cornish Pianos and Organs have been built. [...] Here is no great rush, but an infinite care and painstaking labor are exercised in a quiet co-operative way."

There's no sign of the company or the factory at its old location on the corner of State Route 57 and South Lincoln Avenue today; we learned about it from a docent during our visit to the Bread Lock Museum a few months ago. Astoria, Queens may be the birthplace of the more famous and fabled Steinway and Sons piano dynasty, but one could say the impact of Washington, Warren County on the world of music appreciation for the common person was greater. If the manufacturers in this town had their way, every American family would a piano or organ of their own. According to its own promotional materials, Cornish put out 40 complete instruments every working day, producing up to 12,000 a year in its factory.

Unlike Steinway and its luxurious Manhattan showroom, the Cornish Company eschewed retail. Rather, it sold direct to consumer via catalogs and advertisements that emphasized both the quality and relative affordability of the instruments. Potential customers could pick from several ornately-carved cabinets to accent their home decor, and "every responsible person in the land" was encouraged to purchase an organ or piano on credit. Cornish promised that purchasers could return their instrument within a year and get back the payments they'd made plus six percent interest. As an added inducement, the company made arrangements with a correspondence school to provide piano lessons to customers who may not have already known how to play a keyboard instrument.

The factory itself started as a much smaller structure built by a furniture manufacturer in 1858. After purchasing the building in 1880, the Cornish family and built several additions until it took up most of a city block. Nearly two dozen smaller keyboard instrument manufacturers followed, earning Washington its title as Organ Capital of the World.

The ultimate end of the Cornish company and its factory aren't quite clear. Local historians feel that the rise of the phonograph may have led to the company's demise, a good theory considering one didn't need to invest time in lessons to learn to play a record. Some reports say that the company never recovered from a 1922 factory fire, and a 1926 New York Times article states that the building was to be converted to a hotel, with 40 rooms on the second and third floors. Fifty years later, The Star Gazette of Hackettstown and Washington reports that after the company went into receivership in 1921, a former baseball player named Socks Farrell purchased the property, renovating a portion of the old factory to become the Farrell Arms.

Ultimately, the structure appears to have been destroyed in a 1934 fire, replaced over time by a gas station and then the Krauszers food store that stands today. Cornish organs and pianos, however, still stand beautifully in living rooms and parlors around the world, handed down over the generations to their original purchasers' offspring.

What in sand-hill? Cranes make Somerset a habit.

After a few years of birding, you get to know where the rarities are going to be, and when. It's more than understanding that Red Knots are going to arrive on the Delaware Bay in May or that the Short-Eared Owl will be hunting the grasslands of the Wallkill National Wildlife Refuge in the dead of winter. It's knowing that if a certain species is going to show in New Jersey at all, it'll be within a certain range of dates at a given location.

You might even say that it's a given that if the unlikely is going to happen, the experienced birder is going to know when and where it will occur.

Where's Sandy? The Randolph Road Sandhill Cranes,
neatly camouflaged in corn stubble.

It's that way for Sandhill Cranes. Ask a longtime birder if she's seen one this year, and she'll tell you whether she's recently visited a certain street in Somerset. I don't know if anyone knows exactly why the birds have adopted the spot for a late fall visit over the better part of a decade, but this year up to eight at a time have been seen in a cornfield across from a corporate park on Randolph Road.

About the height of a Great Blue Heron but twice as heavy, Sandhill Cranes are normally western birds, known for hanging out in large numbers in prairies and the type of grasslands that are not natural habitats in New Jersey. Spending their summers in Canada, large flocks make their way to Nebraska and other points south and west for the winter. Talk to folks in New Mexico, and they'll marvel over the spectacle of thousands of Sandhill Cranes congregating at the state's Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, their rattling calls heard up to two miles away.

Sandhill crane. Credit: Department of the Interior/USGS

New Jersey's crane visitors appear to be a lot quieter, or at least their sparse numbers don't gain the same level of attention for their calls. A few birders at a time might stop on the shoulder of the road to get a good eyeful or a couple of photographs as the birds forage for leftover corn or the occasional rodent. Otherwise, they go without notice, blending rather nicely with the stubbled cornstalks on the field.

Besides Somerset, Sandhills have been known to show up in Cape May, Mercer and Camden Counties at times over the past 20 years, but it's not clear whether those places produce sightings as reliably as the Randolph Road cornfield. We saw them among a foraging herd of longhorn cattle in New Egypt a couple of years ago while on a chase to see the even rarer Northern Lapwings, but nobody's reported them since.

Why these individuals aren't with a larger flock, we'll never know, but I'm selfishly happy to be able to see them here, rather than having to travel west for the spectacle. If they're looking for a bit of solitude or distance from the clamor of the Sandhill Crane lifestyle, it's ironic that they've chosen the country's most densely populated state to spend a few weeks in.

On the other hand, they may have a good reason. Interestingly, while I was checking into the cranes' visitation to these parts, I came upon one of the most novel bird-related theories I've ever read. A group of Jersey Devil hunters submits that some of those who've claimed to see Mother Leeds' 13th child may have actually seen a Sandhill Crane instead. With their height and impressive six foot wingspan, the cranes would give an unsuspecting wanderer a good fright, but I'm skeptical. The cranes, on the other hand, may just be stopping by to find their storied cousin.

It's as good an explanation as any. Right?