Ralston Heights story sure to fascinate local history buffs

Located off North Greenwood Avenue in Hopewell Township just over the northern border from Hopewell Borough, Ralston Heights consists of "the castle," an enclave known as the Ralston Heights Condominiums, and the neighborhood just north of the Highland Cemetery. It has been identified by Hopewell Township as one of nine potential historic districts or historic sites

By: Kathy Bird
   My next-door neighbor, Janet Six, is doing her doctoral dissertation for the University of Pennsylvania on her extensive research into uncovering a wacky piece of the Hopewell Valley’s hidden history: the Future City of Ralston Heights.
   Located off North Greenwood Avenue in Hopewell Township just over the northern border from Hopewell Borough, Ralston Heights consists of "the castle," an enclave known as the Ralston Heights Condominiums, and the neighborhood just north of the Highland Cemetery. It has been identified by Hopewell Township as one of nine potential historic districts or historic sites.
   Ms. Six is giving a presentation, "From Dogma to Dog Chow: The Architecture of Ralston," at the Calvary Baptist Church in Hopewell Borough on Sept. 12 at 7:30 p.m.
   Based on the recent conversation I had about Ms. Six’s extensive research uncovering this piece of hidden local history, I guarantee you it will be fascinating, humorous and surprising to all fortunate enough to hear her story.
   It came as a surprise to me that I’ve been living for the past 11 years in what was designed to be a utopian community, a health cult, founded in the 1870s. Ralston is the same "Ralston" of Ralston-Purina – therefore the name of Ms. Six’s lecture and slide presentation.
   But there was no Mr. Ralston. It was a pen name of Webster Edgerley, who wrote more than 80 books on everything from how to live a better life to ventriloquism to personal magnetism.
   Rather, the seven letters in Ralston are the first letters in the words that form the seven principles of Edgerley’s cult of Ralstonism. The "o" stands for oxygen and the "n" stands for nature.
   According to the 1904 marketing brochure, the location was picked for the founding of the Future City of Ralston Heights for the reasons that people still love and live in the Hopewell Valley – it’s "absolutely pure air," and it’s "absolutely pure water."
   As a township Planning Board member living atop the Hopewell Fault, a huge aquifer recharge area, I didn’t know until Ms. Six told me that the water was bottled and sold more than a century ago for its medicinal value.
   Area residents who hear the story should keep in mind that it was an indication of the times, and therefore needs to be viewed for what it was when it was happening during the 1870s and early 1900s when there was no political correctness. The story is rich in detail.
   The "castle" at 74 N. Greenwood Ave. and its surrounding properties where the eight Ralston Heights Condominiums are located were to be a planned community of 430 home sites, 16 farms and seven palatial estates. The community was designed intricately, incorporating the seven laws of Ralstonism to build seven rooms on each floor of the castle.
   It was a 14,000-square-foot house with rooms on the third floor designed for their acoustics, with students to be trained there in oratory and elocution skills.
   This story includes everything from mind control, personal magnetism, sexual magnetism, every other possible kind of magnetism, the medicinal power in the water, and all kinds of crazy stuff! Sidewalks arranged in angles so everyone could walk around on the balls of their feet. Maybe Ms. Six has found out and can reveal why Mr. Edgerley thought that was important.
   There were lush gardens with exotic plant species including a huge greenhouse with pineapples, limes and lemons, and dozens of varieties of peaches. Ralston Heights was a place where noxious odors and barking dogs were banned. So was alcohol, and there were protective clauses in landowners’ deeds to guarantee their health and guard them from a laundry list of specific offensive odors. Women had a God-given responsibility to help their husbands on the farm so the family didn’t go bankrupt, and even the children were expected to do chores.
   Wood was brought in from Argentina and so were bricks specially fired in England. There were acres and acres of manicured parks and water features where the Ralstonites (or Hopewellians who converted to Ralstonism) would frolic. Ginkos from China were planted. Other exotic species were brought in and planted. Roads were planned and streets were named, including our driveway, which was to be Parkland Avenue, and all of those "paper streets" that appear on some township maps but not others — and why the delivery men still get lost up there today.
   This exclusive, healthy community was all designed to appeal to the wealthy men from New York and aristocrats from Philadelphia. Located on the rail line between Philadelphia (where you can buy low) and New York (where you can sell high), Ralston Heights was a place of elite, white capitalism.
   The story includes the development and installation of modern infrastructure, including the Hopewell Borough Reservoir just north of the Highland Cemetery and the bringing in of electricity.
   It just goes on and on …
   Anyone who has a fascination for local history or wants to know about how the company that marketed the "Ralston Health Biscuit" is now the same corporation peddling Twinkies and animal chow, should come on out to here Ms. Six’s lecture and see her slide presentation on Sept. 12.
   For instance, you will learn that no two rooms in the "castle" are alike.
   And that breakfast cereal in America today traces its roots to the cult/health/ movement of 100 or more years ago.
   And Hopewell Township was a wacky part of it with Webster Edgerley and his proposed "Temple of Ralston" on the hill above Hopewell Borough.
   Based on the sampling I got from Ms. Six, I am sure that anyone with any interest in local lore, history, architecture, rich detail and craziness will enjoy this presentation. This is a story that has not been completely pieced together yet or told locally at all.
   For instance, a man from Florida showed up at my doorstep months ago with the story of how the place looks the same as it did when he lived there 50 years ago. He told about the reporters during the Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial living in the buildings that became condos in 1994, and how the photographers developed their pictures in what is now a utility room for our oil furnaces.
   See you at the Calvary Baptist Church on Sept. 12 for Janet Six’s compelling tale.
   Kathy Bird is a resident of Hopewell Township and a Hopewell Township official.