Stafford Chronicles

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.

"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

"For those who love the town and its memories, the book is priceless." — The Beacon / Beach Haven Times

"A living history … which will surely pass the test of time…. Scores and scores of wonderful old photographs." — The SandPaper

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.

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

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.

"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.