History

Across New Jersey, thousands of men have entered through the doors of Masonic Lodge buildings, also known as temples, over the fraternity's more than 250-year history in the Garden State.

These buildings, from humble meeting spaces to elaborate single-purpose centers, stand tribute to the memory and influence of one of the oldest fraternities in the world, founded on the tenets of faith, hope, and charity.From governors and US Supreme Court justices to carpenters and stonemasons, Freemasonry has welcomed men from all walks of life, and the temples they built have played important roles in the civic, social, and charitable life of many towns.Although some lodges have been lost, many still remain and are presented here for the first time through photographs and images collected from various historical societies, museums, libraries, and Masonic organizations.This book attempts not to serve as an encyclopedic source but rather to catalog and organize the development of the Masonic temples in New Jersey.

Medford has a rich history, beginning with the original Quaker settlers in the late 1600s. In 1847, state legislators divided Evesham Township, creating Medford. At the time of its incorporation, Medford Township included the communities of Fostertown, Crossroads, Medford Village, Cross Keys, Chairville, Flyat, and Taunton. These small farming communities nucleated around gristmills, sawmills, cranberry bogs, churches, taverns, and isolated country schools. Such settlements laid the foundation for the Medford of the 21st century. William B. Cooper, a photographer during the early 20th century, captured many of the images featured in Medford through the Lens. Using photographs from Cooper and others, we glimpse Medford Township’s visual past within the context of county, state, and national issues, offering new insight into how the municipality developed and how its history can better inform the present.

Dennis McDonald is a Medford Township resident and is the author/coauthor of three previous books for Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series: Medford, Smithville, and Whitesbog. Zachary Baer is a history teacher at Shawnee High School in Medford. He is the author of numerous articles related to South Jersey history and is a member of the West Jersey History Roundtable.

Although Bertrand Island Park closed in 1983, there is no place in northwestern New Jersey that is more fondly remembered. For some seventy years, the park thrilled youngsters and adults alike. The park opened during the peak of Lake Hopatcong's resort years, and its popularity continued as the lake evolved from a hotel resort to a community of second homes and finally into a year-round locale. Generations of school groups, church outings, company picnics, and residents from throughout the region delighted in the wooden roller coaster, the magical carousel, and the scores of other rides and games.

Well-known for its hunting, fishing, and seafaring capabilities, the town of Barnegat, New Jersey, was also once a thriving center of industry and modern technology.

Steam locomotives once raged through the pines, and over 4000 boats were built at the Perrine Boat Works. A downtown business district thrived, and cottage industries--such as glass blowing and silkworm cultivation--also left their marks. The history of the Barnegat area, vividly chronicled in this marvelous photographic history by Kevin Hughes, is a truly varied and fascinating one.

The seaside resort of Cape May was named for Dutchman Cornelis Mey, who sailed past this part of southeastern New Jersey in 1616.

Originally known as Cape Island, the area was settled by a handful of English-speaking farmers and whalers in the 1690s. By 1776, it was advertised as a popular, healthy place for bathing in the ocean. The first boardinghouses were erected in the early 1800s, and by 1850, the town boasted nearly two dozen. Vacationers came from Philadelphia, Baltimore, and even the Deep South, many building summer cottages along the shore. The establishment of rail service in 1863 brought a new era of growth and even more hotels. Although a devastating fire in 1878 destroyed several of the oldest, they were soon replaced by new hotels and cottages boasting broad porches and eaves lavished with gingerbread trim. Today, most of Cape May City is a National Historic Landmark in recognition of its well-preserved collection of Victorian-era buildings. Cape May showcases the rich architectural and recreational heritage of this coastal New Jersey town.

The years that followed are beautifully detailed in Township of Hamilton. These rare vintage photographs make it possible to visit the township in its early days, to stroll into E.C. Bartha's store, or to get a haircut and even a cigar at Underhill's. The kilns at the brickyards are hot, and production at the many shipyards has picked up again in this exceptional history. The faces of our ancestors and early neighbors appear at places such as Gaskill Park, the Little Red School House, and at many other scenes throughout the Township of Hamilton.

In the early 1900s, the Little Italy, Riverside, Stony Road, and Sandy Hill sections of Paterson, all within walking distance of booming factories and mills, became neighborhoods that offered Italian immigrants the opportunity to be near employment and to have a better life for themselves and their families.

Paterson's Italians always helped each other during tough times and contributed to making Paterson a great city and a great place to live. Cooking Italian recipes for fun holidays; gardening in the backyard; and honoring heroes of the military, politics, sports, and the arts are valuable traditions and customs passed down through generations. The works of Gaetano Federici, a sculptor from Paterson, reflect the city's history, especially in front of Paterson City Hall and at St. Michael the Archangel Church. Floyd Vivino entertains audiences and almost always mentions Paterson in his shows, while actor Lou Costello proudly reminded his audience at the end of almost every show that he was from Paterson. De Franco's Lock and Safe, Peragallo's Organ Company, and Ordini Pools are just a few family-owned Italian businesses that began many decades ago and are still in operation today.

This fascinating new addition to the Images of America series offers a glimpse into the unique history of Ocean City, New Jersey.

Ocean City is among the nation's most popular vacation destinations. Founded in 1879, it has evolved from a Christian-oriented summer resort to a year-round community that mirrors the many facets of America's diversity.

The area's wide, sandy beaches and lively boardwalk continue to attract thousands of visitors each year. Ocean City, New Jersey Volume II uncovers many more vintage photographs of the town's seaside attractions and features rare scenes of the community, its politics, the impact of World War II, and the unusual events that have become the hallmark of parades and celebrations held here. From Martin Z. Mollusk to the Miss Miscellaneous Contest, Ocean City has had a long and animated history of offbeat traditions.

Join authors Frank Esposito and his son Robert on an insightful journey back in time to discover the people and places of Ocean City's early days. With a variety of images from the collection of the late Al Senior, this volume provides residents and visitors of all ages with a captivating account of a unique seaside community and its colorful past.

Over 200 photographs document the history of the Spring Lake community.

Spring Lake, an oceanfront community bounded on the south by Wreck Pond and on the north by Lake Como, was named after a spring-fed body of water that spawned the town's settlement in the 1870s. The development of the area was accelerated by the advent of the railroad, which brought building activity to the locale. Eventually, Monmouth Avenue and the lakefront became very desirable locations for seasonal homes. Once promoted as New Jersey's ""garden spot,"" Spring Lake came to contain several private landscape showplaces, exquisite public grounds, and a legendary non-commercial boardwalk. This photographic record of Spring Lake's development illustrates the remarkable architectural tradition whose legacy remains evident in this elegant resort today. From Ballingarry and the Casino to the churches and the New Monmouth Hotel, Spring Lake's stunning built environment is vividly displayed in over two hundred photographs contained in this volume.

See the fascinating 100-year evolution of Seaside Parkfrom a seasonal summer resort to a year-round community.

Seaside Park, located on the Barnegat Barrier Islandin Ocean County, New Jersey, was incorporated in 1898.

Experience the rich history of Seaside Parkthrough the enchanting images within this important new pictorial history to take you back in time, to the Seaside Park of long ago. Many of Seaside Park'sover 200 images have never before been seen by the public. Stroll by the grand hotels representative of the late gilded age, once the main attraction for vacationers from Philadelphia and New York. Ride the long-forgotten Pennsylvania Railroad, which carried passengers and freight into Seaside Park from 1881 until the end of World War II.

Watch organizations central to the community, such as the Seaside Park Yacht Club, the Seaside Park Volunteer Fire Company, the First Aid Squad, and public school students and teachers, pose for the long exposures required by early cameras.

Asbury Park acts as photographic documentation of this city's historic diversity.

Asbury Park, founded as a Christian resort community on the Jersey shore by developer James A. Bradley at the turn of the century, was carved from a small but impressive tract of undulating sand dunes and towering forests. This marvelous new photographic history chronicles the early development of Bradley's resort, and looks at some of the other influential civic and religious leaders who contributed to the city's heritage. Bradley's ability to market and promote Asbury Park in the early years was noteworthy; the first streets in town were named after prominent political and religious figures, and a good deal of signage advertised the city's Christian image to those passing through. To attract visitors, Bradley sponsored the East Coast's first baby parade and music on the boardwalk. Over the years, Asbury Park became home to a variety of different cultures and religious faiths, and this book--published in the centennial year of the city's incorporation--offers early evidence of the city's diversity.

For over one hundred years people have been coming to Atlantic City to swim in the ocean, walk on the boardwalk, and get away from their day-to-day lives.....

Return to the halcyon days of the sand and sun as local writers and long-time locals present stories from Atlantic City's heartwarming past.

Over 200 historic photographs and fascinating text combine to create an illustrated history of New Jersey's thirty-eight lighthouses and forty-one life-saving stations.

From the seventeenth to the twentieth century, New Jersey's low-lying, sandy coast has been the site of thousands of shipwrecks as ships bound for New York City or Philadelphia foundered on its offshore shoals. As coastal and international trade dramatically increased after the War of 1812, the federal government was forced to increase safety aids to mariners. To ensure their safe passage, a series of lighthouses was built and the U.S. Life-Saving Service was created. More than two centuries of the history of New Jersey's treacherous coast are preserved in Guarding New Jersey's Shore: Lighthouses and Life-Saving Stations. Gathered from a wide array of sources, more than 200 historic photographs and fascinating, documented text combine to create the only illustrated history of the state's thirty-eight lighthouses and forty-one life-saving stations. Sandy Hook, built in 1764, is the nation's oldest operating lighthouse. Navesink's Twin Lights was the first lighthouse to use electricity and was the home of Marconi's early radio experiments. From the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, which once served as a lighthouse, to Cape May Point, and up the Delaware Bay and River, the fascinating story of protecting mariners from perils ""Down the Shore"" is presented and preserved in Guarding New Jersey's Shore: Lighthouses and Life-Saving Stations.

Ghostly Fun in the Sand and Sun

The wide sandy beaches, colorful boardwalks and majestic lighthouses of the Jersey Shore share supernatural secrets and unexplainable encounters...

In Absecon the dead pose as guides for a unique afterhours tour of its historic lighthouse. A reformed criminal met the apparition of his victim, learning remorse is eternal, on Long Beach Island. Newly built casinos in Atlantic City have former patrons stopping by for one last goodbye, from beyond the grave. A spectral organist haunts and plays the pipe organ of Asbury Park's Convention Hall.

Author Patricia Heyer uncovers the eerie mysteries that shroud many of the Shore's iconic landmarks.

An engaging pictorial history of Red Bank, a New Jersey shore town whose beginnings are sure to fascinate any reader.

Residents of Red Bank, one of New Jersey's best known shore towns, greeted the publication of a photographic history if their town with tremendous enthusiasm in 1995. For the first time, significant people and events in the town's past were celebrated in a vivid record available to all. The author of that volume, Randall Gabrielan, has produced an all-new second book on the town that incorporates many important images reluctantly edited from the first work and others newly uncovered. In his second Red Bank volume in as many years, Mr. Gabrielan seeks to deepen the view presented in the earlier work and expand the scope of his study. This volume also includes a separate chapter on the West Side, presents a closer look at the influence of the railroad, and extends an examination of Broad Street's changing face.

With the turning of each page, you will journey back into an earlier time.

Have you ever wondered what Verona was like a century ago? Do you enjoy looking through boxes of memorabilia? If you answered yes to these questions, then you will be fascinated with Old Verona. This remarkable new photographic history focuses on the early years of the community and provides vivid images of a time long forgotten. Focusing on the early settlement of Verona and including information on the borough's schools, churches, industry, transportation, and historic homes, the photographs in this book primarily span the period from the 1870s to the 1920s. Old Verona contains little-known information about the borough, including captions relating to Verona Lake's genesis from a mill pond to a recreational hot spot and the railroad tunnel that was abandoned in the 1870s. With the turning of each page, you will journey back into an earlier time.

Folktales, hidden treasures and witchcraft.

The towering skyline of New Brunswick stands in stark contrast with the swampy ceder forest it emerged from in the late 1600s. While the city grew over the original Lenape settlement of Ahanderamock, its history was passed on through whispers of tales both real and imagined. In the Buccleuch Mansion, a skeletal figure dressed as a British Grenadier is said to stagger the halls with a lantern, and at Rutgers University tales of secret societies swirl through campus. Long-lost pirate treasures, some rumored to be connected to mysterious clues etched in stone, remain undiscovered to this day.

Author Mark Neurohr-Pierpaoli uncovers the mysterious stories lurking below the surface of New Brunswick. 

An interesting pictorial history of Franklin Township and its beginnings.

Franklin Township is a picturesque, rural oasis with rich soils and sparkling streams in the heart of Hunterdon County. Settled in the early 1700s by Quakers, it was touched by the Revolutionary War. Although the township was never occupied by British troops, New Jersey deputy quartermaster general Moore Furman's gristmill supplied flour for George Washington's troops. Its beginnings as a farming and milling community remain at the heart of Franklin. Agriculture continues to hold cultural, historic, and scenic importance, and Hiram Deats, who manufactured a cast-iron plow patented by his father, John, in 1828, is still honored. Charming villages and hamlets boast 99 historic stone structures and 183 frame homes built before 1900. This idyllic area stands as proof that nature and bucolic farmland still hold sway in one of the nation's most densely populated states.

Ocean City: 1950-1980 illustrates the growth and change of this seashore community founded in 1879 by a group of Methodist ministers.

The venture was an immediate success, and the area quickly grew into a prosperous year-round community and a bustling summer resort. The Great Depression and World War II slowed this development, but by the beginning of the 1950s, the burgeoning economy and optimism in the country again encouraged people to enjoy family vacations. With the wide beaches, scenic boardwalk, three new major highways, and comfortable family atmosphere, Ocean City became a superb family destination.

Red Bank is a riverfront town that used its location on the water to grow rapidly between the 1830s and 1850s.

The arrival of the railroad in the 1860s accelerated the development of this already-thriving community, and today, the waterfront and business district continue to prosper, as Red Bank itself remains a proud and tight-knit community. Including many rare and previously unpublished photographs, with samples of the work done by early Red Bank photographers Charles Foxwell and Andrew Coleman, this fascinating visual history is a tribute to the people who built Red Bank into the diverse and dynamic community that it is today, and to the photographers who captured moments in time so that we might better understand our past.

A visual history of the Mendhams in New Jersey from the Revolutionary War to its transformation into a community for New York commuters.

The Mendhams is a region of New Jersey once home to the Rock-a-bye-Baby Railroad, early industries, and the mansions of millionaires. This visual history follows the region from the Revolutionary War to the Industrial Revolution, and from the Gilded Age to its transformation into a community for New York commuters. The photographs from years gone by, dating as far back as the Revolutionary War and the Industrial Revolution, allow both young and old to meander down the dirt road of Main Street, past the nation's oldest post office and over the bridges crossing streams that powered the early mills.

Featured in The Mendhamsare views of elaborate historic homes and businesses, including the mill where Jersey Lightning—New Jersey's first applejack—was produced. Also captured in over 200 images are moments in the lives of the people who made this community—not just early town officials, religious leaders, and gilded age millionaires but also store owners, housewives, and children.

High Point State Park and the Civilian Conservation Corps explores the history of the fascinating landmark, which was a gift of Colonel Anthony and Susie Kuser to the people of New Jersey in 1923. The famed landscape firm Olmsted Brothers of Brookline, Massachusetts, was retained to design the park's facilities. The job of carrying out many of the proposals in the plan fell to the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era federal agency that combined work relief efforts with conservation work. The laborers, known as the CCC boys, developed the layout of the park from 1933 to 1941. Much of their work remains and is still used by visitors today.

Images of America: Keansburg is an educational and entertaining volume that will delight residents, visitors, and lovers of history everywhere.

The name of Keansburg usually evokes pleasant memories of the town's forty years of glory as a waterfront resort. But the fact that Keansburg also has a rich heritage of fishing and farming, as well as a fascinating period of transition into a year-round residential community, is often forgotten.

In Keansburg, local author and historian Randall Gabrielan presents a fascinating view of the town's history from its former status as sections of Hazlet and Middletown Township, to its present-day community life. Keansburg has a special focus on the amusement and resort businesses that have brought the town so much fame.

Point Pleasant and Point Pleasant Beach have always been two of New Jersey's most dynamic coastal communities. Visit the history and photographs of their pasts.

Since the development of photography in the mid-nineteenth century, the camera has been used as a tool of both discovery and preservation. Photographs bring alive our image of the past, and can open a floodgate of memories and nostalgia or inspire curiosity and a sense of history. The scenic beauty and simple charm of the area remains undisturbed today, and it is easy to see why it has been a popular tourist destination for more than two centuries. The last one hundred years have also seen the formation and development of several important industries in the region, including shipbuilding and commercial fishing. This combination of business and recreation, of modern industry and Old World charm, is why Point Pleasant and Point Pleasant Beach remain two of the most vivacious and magnetic communities on the coast of New Jersey.

The rich heritage of descendants of English, Dutch, and German settlers in the Hunterdon County population centers of Clinton, Flemington, and Lambertville is presented here.

Life among the rolling hills of northwest New Jersey and in the three small towns that became centers of that area's population has been faithfully recorded by residents since the Civil War, capturing the rural character of their landscape.

What was once a whale-processing center in the 1700s emerged as a destination for sun and fun by drawing the biggest names and the classic American families of the early twentieth century.

Nestled along the New Jersey coastline and built to be one of the original seaside tourist destinations, Ocean City still sets the standard for resort living along the mid-Atlantic. As our country's search for the ideal vacation grew, this 7-mile stretch of beach cultivated a rich history and a reputation as one of the most alluring communities on the East Coast.

By the end of the 19th century, New Jersey coastline was dotted with thriving amusement parks but are just fond and fading memories today.

The Jersey Shore has always attracted people seeking relief from summer heat and humidity. Long before Europeans came here, the native Lenape clammed, fished, and played games on the beach and in the surf. These original people could scarcely have imagined that, by the end of the 19th century, the 120-mile-long coastline would be filled with amusement parks featuring gentle kiddie car rides, terrifying roller coasters, merry-go-rounds, and fast-food emporiums. James Bradley in Asbury Park and William Sandlass Jr. in Highland Beach created mass entertainment for hundreds of thousands of people. Their seaside recreation centers, along with those in Long Branch, Bradley Beach, Pleasure Bay, and others, endured for years. Sadly, they are now just distant and vanishing memories that are resurrected in this piece.

Montclair, New Jersey, like most American towns, has grown dramatically over the course of the last one hundred years.

Much of the early 1900s landscape has been disguised, and the town has come to reflect the popular styles and fashions of changing eras. Streets have been paved, the facades of commercial buildings have been updated, and homes have been altered to reflect contemporary tastes and accommodate modern conveniences. This volume of approximately two hundred postcards from the author's collection, most never before published in book form, captures Montclair as it was in the early twentieth century. The reader will see familiar landmarks such as the Montclair Art Museum, the Marlboro Inn, and the Bellevue Theater as they originally appeared, and discover the vanished predecessors of the Japanese-style mansion on Upper Mountain Avenue and the Rockcliffe Apartments off Crestmont Road.

Egg Harbor City celebrates the historic beginnings of this city through rare and vintage photographs.

Egg Harbor City was founded as a refuge from the sweeping nativism of the Know-Nothings, a group that tried to limit immigration and naturalization into the United States. Egg Harbor City was a place where German Americans could maintain the traditions, language, and lifestyle of their fatherland. The city was designed in rectangular blocks with lots for building, gardening, or farming. Parks were built and a harbor was planned on the north side of the city with rail lines connecting it to the Camden and Atlantic Railroad. Following the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, Egg Harbor City's wines earned the community great respect, and it became known as the ""Wine City,"" drawing hundreds of visitors to its many wineries. Egg Harbor City celebrates the early years of the place once known as the most German city in the United States of America.

Take a fascinating journey through the history of Sea Isle City, New Jersey with more than 200 vintage photographs and anecdotes from the locals who experienced it.

The founder of Sea Isle City, Charles K. Landis, was a man of action. He had a dream of what the ideal seashore resort should be. In the 1870s, his dream began to take shape.

It has been said, Each age is a dream that is dying or a dream that is coming to life. This is the fascinating story of how Sea Isle City, located along the New Jersey coast in Cape May County, evolved. Sea Isle City is a pictorial tour of the founding and early history of this resort by the sea. Almost overnight the island town became accessible by railroad and by turnpike. Hotels and cottages appeared throughout the island. The Braca, Busch, Cronecker, Dever, Kehner, Pfieffer, and Rey families played a vital role in the growth of the town. Another family, the Hafferts, formed the Garden State Publishing Company, which contributed significantly to employment and economic stability. Commercial fishing became an important industry in the development of the town with the coming of the Hatmen at the beginning of the twentieth century. The influential people who shaped the community and countless other families, schoolchildren, and local legends are finally brought together in Sea Isle City.

Author Michael F. Stafford, president of the Sea Isle City Historical Society, has lived his life in and around Sea Isle City. He is active in community affairs throughout Cape May County and has contributed numerous articles to South Jersey magazines.

From Ice Age mastodons to Colonial taverns to the Playboy Club Hotel, Vernon Township covers the vast sweep of the community's rich and diverse heritage. This tour of Vernon's past includes antique images of homes, farms, stores, taverns, businesses, schools, churches, and industries. Also depicted are the evolution of local transportation from horse to train to automobile, notable past residents, and the growth of recreation from summer camps to fine hotels. Many of the unique historical views, some of which were reproduced from the original glass-plate negatives, have never before been published.

Monmouth County’s past encompasses more than just sandy beaches and rural farm life.

George Washington fought at the Battle of Monmouth as the region played a pivotal role in the birth of the republic. Henry Hudson anchored off Monmouth’s shores in 1609 and was the first European to meet with the Lenape Native Americans there. A gun barrel of the USS New Jersey, the most decorated battleship in American history, was painstakingly transported to Battery Lewis, a fortification built along the county’s highlands to protect New York Harbor during World War II. Bruce Springsteen elevated Asbury Park and the Stone Pony into a national music destination, and he remains the unofficial poet laureate of the Jersey Shore. Authors Rick Geffken and Muriel J. Smith highlight compelling stories of the seaside county’s four-hundred-year history.

Fort Mott held a prominent role in the military history of the area from the late 1800s until WWII.

Located on the banks of the Delaware River, Fort Mott was once part of a three-fort system that protected the ports and industry of New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. When completed in 1896, Fort Mott was one of the most technologically advanced fortifications of the period. Originally called the Battery at Finns Point, in 1897 it was renamed in honor of Maj. Gen. Gershom Mott, a New Jersey native who commanded with distinction during the Civil War and later served as state treasurer and commander of New Jersey's National Guard. When fully garrisoned with troops, the Army post was its own little town, complete with a hospital, bakery, stores, and sport fields. Coast Artillery Corps soldiers manned the fort until 1944, when the Army decided to abandon the site. In 1947, the state purchased the property, and in 1951, Fort Mott State Park opened to the public. Today, many of the buildings and fortifications are open for tours, and ongoing preservation and rehabilitation efforts are preserving the site for future generations.

In the early twentieth century, an interconnected web of men and women, led by Dr. V.E. Vivian, fought for a better future in Whitesbog Village, a forgotten town in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens. And they won.

Before their heroic efforts, air, land and sea were riddled with pollution, with few protections. Hope for a better tomorrow seemed unlikely. When they were done, the 1.1 million acres of the New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve became the largest protected and preserved open space on the East Coast.

With the help of numerous color images dedicated to Dr. Vivian, author William J. Lewis chronicles and celebrates the educators and historians who started New Jersey’s conservation movement and successfully crusaded for a better, cleaner world.

Take a fascinating journey through the history of Irvington, New Jersey with more than 200 vintage photographs and anecdotes from the locals who experienced it.

Like a cherished old family album, this collection of more than two hundred fascinating photographs of Irvington brings to life people, places, and events of a bygone era. Although the Irvington depicted here--from the time of the Civil War to the 1970s--has changed significantly, its memory remains fresh in the minds of past and present residents alike.

Culled from the extensive collections of the Irvington Public Library and Irvington Historical Society, this superb assemblage of images will stimulate many memories. Alan A. Siegel takes us on a delightful journey, starting when Irvington was a tiny village known as Camptown, to the twentieth century when Irvington was transformed almost overnight into a busy industrial and residential suburb of Newark.

Shown too are the vital contributions made by successive waves of immigrants who flooded into Irvington during the first half of the twentieth century

Manalapan Township and Englishtown Borough-- originally a part of the township--share a long and rich history dating to the Revolutionary War.

From the late 19th to the mid-20th century, the township was composed of several small villages that sustained themselves through farming. In creating this book, author Richard J. Dalik seeks to preserve the significance of this thriving stage of the communities' heritage. The collection includes fascinating photographs, engravings, and postcards illustrating the early rural way of life in these areas, as well as some early views highlight the Battle of Monmouth--fought mostly on the farmlands of Manalapan Township--and other historical landmarks of that period. Vintage images of farms, mills, houses, schools, churches, streets, and families are presented together with informative captions to transport the reader to an earlier time and another Manalapan.

Here, with over 200 vintage photographs, images of Middletown presents a dramatic view into the realm of our suburban villages and neighborhoods.

Middletown Township has the distinction of being one of the earliest settlements in New Jersey. Although the township does not have any large photograph archives, author Randall Gabrielan has carefully gathered images from many private and public sources.

This fascinating new addition to the Images of America series offers a glimpse into the unique history of Scotch Plains and Fanwood, New Jersey.

This wonderful new book contains more than 200 fascinating photographs, maps, and prints and brings to life the people, places, and events which have defined Scotch Plains and Fanwood over the centuries. These images invite us to explore the area's rich history from the time of its first settlement, in 1684, to the present day.

Scotch Plains and Fanwood were originally one community, also encompassing the area now known as Feltville or Glenside Park. From the beginning, the region played a critical role in American history. The Battle of the Short Hills, from June 14 to June 30, 1777, between the British under General Howe and the Revolutionary Army under George Washington, took place here. During the nineteenth century, Scotch Plains became an important stop on the Swift Sure stage line between New York and Philadelphia. As New York City burgeoned during the nineteenth century and the railroad arrived in Central New Jersey, Scotch Plains and Fanwood became a bedroom community of the metropolis. Finally, in 1895, Fanwood was chartered independently. Later, Feltville became part of the Union County Park System.

Local authors Richard and Suzanne Bousquet have brought together a unique collection of photographs and maps from both the Historical Society of Scotch Plains and Fanwood and from private collections. They have combined this superb collection with informative captions to create a fascinating journey down memory lane that will be enjoyed by old and young, resident and visitor alike.

Burdened with bundles and baskets, a million or more immigrant children passed through the often grim halls of Ellis Island.

Having left behind their homes in Europe and other parts of the world, they made the long voyage to America by steamer ship. Some came with parents or guardians; a few came as stowaways. Whether they traveled in luxury or just barely made it to the other side of the Atlantic, they found themselves a part of one of the grandest waves of human migration that the world has ever known.Children of Ellis Islandexplores this world and what it was like for an uprooted youngster at America's golden door. There would have been an uneasiness created by a collage of language barriers, but also new friendships with other children that never would have been founded in the old world.

Timothy Regan's new photographic history of New Brunswick chronicles the city's development and uncovers its role in the development of New Jersey.

New Brunswick, founded in 1681, developed as a major shipping and stagecoach center by the mid-1750s. The cargo carried to and from New Brunswick via steamships and the Camden and Amboy Railroad shaped the development of the city and the state far more than many realize. Vintage images of long-forgotten hotels, taverns, and houses are featured in Mr. Regan's work, many of which were built in response to the growth of the city's shipping industry. New Brunswick is significant historically in the field of education as well; the evolution of Rutgers College--chartered as Queens College in 1766 by King George III of England--is covered in this volume. Also included are images of notable early residents, including poet and renown journalist Joyce Kilmer.

Tens of thousands of Monmouth County Scouts have taken pride in the art of tying a square knot, the pageantry of the court of honor, and projects that benefit the local community. Monmouth Council Boy Scouts contains a distinctive collection of images featuring an inside view of the Order of the Arrow and the other Boy Scout programs, the camps at Forestburg, Burton-at-Allaire, and Quail Hill, hiking trips to Philmont, National Jamboree tours, and many other Boy Scout events.