Stafford Chronicles
Stafford Chronicles
A History of Manahawkin, New Jersey
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For many travelers on their way to or from Long Beach Island, Manahawkin may only be the Parkway exit and main highway to the beach. But this rapidly growing community by the bay has a rich past that is intimately tied with the Island and the maritime and coastal traditions of the South Jersey shore. This new hardcover pictorial history explores a shore town whose roots go back in time to before the Revolutionary War. The stories are based in southern Ocean County, but they range to high points of Shore history from the 1600s to the present.
With stories of people, families and landmarks, Stafford Chronicles vividly reconstructs different ways of life in a town that has seen many changes. We hear accounts handed down of sea serpents and ancient whalers. Others tell of the feel of salt spray that braced men working in the now-defunct pound fishing industry on their way through the breakers "over on the beach." Or how women made their mark in the local workplace, such as at New Jersey Bell Telephone in the 1940s. A resident recalls his youth, playing sandlot baseball with Doc Cramer before Doc's pro days. Another tells of fishing from the window, growing up in a house situated on the old plank causeway bridge. And we learn that some of the East Coast's first surfboards were shaped in Manahawkin backyards.
Readers will discover local landmarks - some long gone, others in a new incarnation; they will learn why there is an Old Stone Store and a Manahawkin Lake; they will relive the days of the Tuckerton and Long Beach Railroad; they will visit with world-renowned decoy carver Hurley Conklin; they will discover who Doc Hilliard and Doc Lane were; they will hear living history told by those who lived it. Other chapters have written accounts from older times, such as excerpts from Nathaniel Bishop's "Four Months in a Sneakbox," detailing his trip down the Mississippi.
Stafford Chronicles is a remarkable collection of essays, reminiscences, memories and photographs. Reading it is like sitting on the porch, talking with your neighbors.
This is an essential book for both the families of the founders and newer residents to the region; it gives both a sense of the place and binds the community together. It is also an essential historical document about the Jersey Shore.
Pages: 223
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Dimensions: 10.25” x 8.25” x 0.9"
What is a hurt book?
What is a hurt book?
When we receive books returned from stores and distributors that have been scuffed, or with dings, smudges, or sun-faded covers, we offer them at a big discount. Similar to a used book, we call them "hurt," but other than cosmetic damage, these are perfectly good books — usually clean and unmarked inside. Available 1st-come-1st-served; best condition books are shipped first.
Review
Review
"It's an outsized book, crammed with more than 200 pages of nostalgia-drenched words and pictures…. a wealth of memories in this evocative book." — The Stafford Leader
Blurb
Blurb
The history of the Manahawkin area is presented in an all-encompassing view of the cultural heritage of Southern Ocean County. A historical overview, intimate profiles, architectural details of what exists today and what has succumbed to time and change, and over 160 historic photographs.... We gain a sense of a way of life that today is becoming harder to find, but remains as cherished as ever.
More Info...
More Info...
CONTENTS:
A Brief History of Manahawkin
South Broadway, A Road Not Traveled
The Cranmer Building in Cedar Run
Ed Hazelton
Two Boys of Summer
Doc Cramer: Legacy of a Local Boy
Doc Hilliard: Old-Time Physician
Doc Lane and Lane's Pharmacy
Getting Around
Stagecoach Stops for Seashore Travelers
'How People Lived on the Shore'
Nathaniel Holmes Bishop III
Harold Crane
General Grier and the Cavalry Cottage
Government
Mayors of Stafford Township
Milton Cranmer
Charley Farley
Foundations Of Faith
Thelma Cranmer
Mayetta and Manahawkin Memories
Hurley Conklin
Gone But Not Forgotten
The Three R's
Pearl Cervetto
Daughters of Ma Bell
Lucille Bates-Wickward
Growing Up in 'Hawkin in the '40s and '50s
The Old Stone Store
Manahawkin Lake
The Lake in Its Perpetual Time and Place
Louise Hannold
Dan and Barbara Soper
Barbara Eismann
Mud City and Mallard
Bonnet Gunning Association
The City of Mud
Burrel Adams
Perry Inman
Blacky's Clams
Phil Hart
Beach Haven West
Southern Ocean County Hospital
Surfing
Crossroads
A Picture of Growth
Excerpt
Excerpt
From the Introduction:
The tales of a town emerge from many places. On a windy night, they whisper through the trees. From sepia-toned photographs, the eyes of ancestors seem to speak. From some prescient person in another century who saw that the words were worth something, another picture develops of their place in time. And when today's living legends turn the key to the treasure chest of their memories, yesterday tumbles out.
Milton Cranmer:
As a boy, following his father, Milton learned the outdoors. He rode atop bales of salt hay piled on a scow as it made its way from the meadows down to the train siding at "Hilliards" where the railroad bridge ran across the bay. He speared eels with an old man named Johnny Johnson and hauled them to the rail yard by hundred-pound sacks. He stayed with his uncle, Frank Thompson, the lighthouse keeper in Barnegat Light. In the wintertime, the migratory birds flying south would be blinded by the lighthouse beacon. "They'd fly right into the lighthouse. You could go down there and pick yourself up a mess of ducks."
Ed Hazelton:
His is a Manahawkin of the past, a Manahawkin where little Ned stepped carefully into the imprints left by his father in the snow while the two hunted fox, a Manahawkin where everyone gathered to watch the Stafford Orioles or, in later years, the Stafford Bears play, a Manahawkin where busy sawmills turned out boards of the long-grained, nonsplintering cedar shipped out by train, but it is a past that becomes alive and vibrant again with Ed Hazelton's remembrances.
Another Excerpt
Another Excerpt
"Stafford Chronicles" is a collaborative effort to document living history by reporters at The SandPaper newsmagazine combined with older, previously published works about the community, and a collection of historical photographs.
From the Inside Flap:
From the bay to the pines, from the Colonial period to the new millennium, from a grist mill and general store to suburban developments and a recreational economy, Stafford Township has been home to extraordinary change. Yet it is a community which still retains much of the small-town charm of old Manahawkin.
Stafford Chronicles explores this rich past - a past that includes many of the high points of shore area history. The community witnessed Revolutionary War battles, the heyday of duck hunting in one of the richest gunning locales known, the rise and fall of a railroad to "the beach," and families who made their livelihood from the bounty of the coastal environment and Pinelands.
Stafford Chronicles traces local history as personally as someone retracing their own ancestry. In the book, we come to know Doc Hilliard, an old-time physician who could have been the subject of a Norman Rockwell painting, and we hear the stories of "Doc" Cramer, the legendary baseball player who called Manahawkin home. We meet world-renowned decoy carver Hurley Conklin. The Cranmers, Hazeltons, Inmans, and Sopers share with us generations of local history. We discover where an East Coast surfing legend began.
The National Hotel, the Manahawkin Tavern and Cedar Bridge Tavern, the Pavilion and Oliphant's Promenade by the lake, Charley Farley's store, The Lake House, the Triangle Garage — they all bustle with activity again in the pages of this book. And we visit with the namesakes of a few establishments, like Lucille's and Hannold's, that still give us a taste of the way things were.
We travel roads paved with clam shells and pioneer spirit, and shady streets with gas lights and horse-and-buggies. ³The Yellow Jacket² stops at the train station; the old causeway drawbridge operates again in the pages of this book; and men gather around the potbellied stove of the general store telling tall tales. We meet baymen and oyster sellers, politicians, hunters and teachers, and realize that there are parallels today with the variety of people drawn to this area of fertile fields and bays in proximity to the sea. And, as we come to know the traditions and character of this shore community, we realize how much there is to value in a town at the crossroads of growth and history.
