By: Iris Naylor
Stockton’s newest place to meet and greet the neighbors is Errico’s Market in the old railroad station.
The station was built in 1869, a "neat, convenient and commodious depot," to replace the old building that was moved a short distance and turned into a freight station. It was always a place for Stocktonians to congregate, to wait for the mail, to exchange gossip, to greet new arrivals and to say farewell to old friends.
If the structure could speak, it could tell many tales of the good old days. Like the time in 1894 when thieves tried to blow open the safe to get the $1,700 payroll belonging to a local quarry. Instead, they blew up the station, which then had to be rebuilt, and they never did get the money.
Then there was the time the rubber company was destroyed by fire in 1923. It was only 100 yards south of the station. No trains could pass through Stockton for several hours because of the heat and the smoke.
In 1888, an explosion at a quarry in Prallsville caused the death of a foreman and damage to many of the houses in the area. The shock was felt as far away as New Brunswick The blast occurred Thursday, and Sunday, an estimated 3,000 people came to view the damage, many of them arriving by train.
Funny things happened at or near the station. One time a Lambertville man at the Stockton station attempted to turn his horse and bakery wagon around on the tracks in front of a train. He thought he could beat the train but the train was too close. It struck the wagon, throwing it about 25 feet and scattering breads and cakes all over the road. Fortunately, driver and horse were not seriously injured.
Then there was the time a gentleman from Sergeantsville backed his wagon up to the station platform to load a barrel of molasses. The barrel landed on the ground instead of in the wagon, bursting the hoops and spilling molasses all over.
Quarry accidents were frequent and serious, and often the injured were put on a train at the station to be taken to one of the hospitals in Trenton.
During the 1870s, as many as 25 carloads of stone a day were shipped from Stockton. The quarries employed a lot of men. They worked hard, and on pay day they played hard. One Stockton woman was heard to remark in 1883, "It is of no use to try to sleep in Stockton after pay day."
The men were paid, and immediately the money began to flow out and the whiskey in, and as "the wit goes with the money," midnight carousals were the result.
Carloads of apples and cherries left the Stockton station in the 1890s, bound for markets in New York and Philadelphia. Crates of baby chicks were shipped by rail from the Stockton Pine Tree Hatchery. Spokes from the spoke factory, paper products from the paperware factory, rubber products from the rubber mill and bicycles from the bicycle factory all found their way onto the railroad station platform to be shipped out by train.
Newlyweds Anna Larison and Edward Venable caught the 4:20 train from Stockton for a short wedding trip, "amid a shower of rice and old shoes." Jacob Rake came by train from Rock Island County, Ill., to visit family and friends in the Sandy Ridge area. William Hoppock, who had spent most of his life farming in Illinois, returned to Stockton to pass his remaining years among old friends and relatives
The ticket agent at the Stockton station sold tickets to those who wished to shop in Trenton or Philadelphia to the south and Easton and Phillipsburg to the north. A $20 round-trip ticket to the Switchback at Mauch Chunk, Pa., included a nine-mile scenic ride over Mt. Pisgal and Mt. Jefferson. Excursion trains to New York City and to Atlantic City could be boarded at Stockton.
The network of railroads stretched all the way to the Pacific Ocean, and the ticket agent at the Stockton station would sell you a ticket to anywhere you wanted to go.
