Sunny Sunday salvages stormy Saturday

The 22nd annual Shad Festival drew lots of visitors, particularly during beautiful weather the second day.

By: Linda Seida
   LAMBERTVILLE — Jim Mastrich knows where the gold and the bodies are buried in town.
   He shared that knowledge and other unique facts about the city when he served as the guide for a walking tour of Lambertville during the 22nd annual Shad Festival held over the weekend.
   Saturday’s cool and overcast skies on the first day of the festival were a blessing in disguise for festival-goers who opted to take the tour offered by the Lambertville Historical Society. Although a healthy number of visitors swelled the city’s streets, it was nowhere near the 30,000 visitors who poured into the city during previous festivals.
   "There’s no way we could ever walk down here during a regular Shad Fest," Mr. Mastrich said as he stood in a light drizzle on the sidewalk in front of the Lambertville House, where guests enjoyed refreshments as they people-watched from behind the iron railing of the historic restaurant’s covered front porch. "We’d never be able to hear each other."
   Because of the rain, the Kid Zone, which offered entertainment and rides for children and was a new attraction this year, had to wait until the Shad Festival’s second day to get going. The weather Saturday also kept about 25 percent of the vendors away, according to Steven Stegman of the Lambertville Chamber of Commerce. Vendors with goods that could be damaged by the weather, such as oil paintings or fine fabrics, chose to wait for the festival’s sunnier second day.
   And what a day Sunday turned out to be.
   "There were tens of thousands of people in town yesterday, a great crowd really happy to visit our city," Mr. Stegman said Monday. "The food vendors just sold out. The fire companies made thousands of dollars and the Kiwanis, too."
   He added, "We parked a lot of cars yesterday," noting proceeds from the parking lot fees would benefit such nonprofit groups as the Lambertville Education Foundation, the Youth Basketball Association and the Lambertville-New Hope Rotary.
   "The shad dinner sold out on Friday. That’s the first time that’s happened since I can remember," Mr. Stegman said.
   He added some seekers of a shad dinner were even accommodated at the last minute as walk-ins.
   The poster auction, the proceeds of which benefit college-bound art students, raised more than $25,000 this year.
   "The highest raised yet," Mt. Stegman said.
   The poster that auctioned for the highest amount, $2,000, was created by Robert Beck of Lumberville, Pa.
   Lambertville’s merchants, too, were pleased by their weekend draw.
   "They had a great weekend," Mr. Stegman said. "They were happy with their sales. They look at it as a way to promote their businesses in a fun atmosphere that spreads word of mouth, and it highlights what a great place Lambertville is to buy art and antiques."
   Even the local police were pleased by the turn of events this weekend. No injuries or other major incidents were reported over the course of the two-day event, according to a spokeswoman for the Police Department.
   During Mr. Mastrich’s tour for the historical society Saturday, as the past overlapped with the present on Lambertville’s streets, it was obvious the same could not always be said of the city. Tour-takers found out about the naughty shenanigans that occurred in years past on — of all places — Church Street.
   Today, First Presbyterian Church marks one end of the street. Long ago another church, now gone, marked the opposite end. In between were housed numerous brothels and their shady ladies.
   Another twist connected with Church Street surrounds the location of the bodies of some of the city’s founding families. To the casual observer, nothing seems amiss in the graveyard of First Presbyterian Church — a building that faces Church Street but actually sits on North Union. The tombstones are suitably old and weathered in a city whose history extends hundreds of years into the past. Well cared for, they stand at attention like silent sentinels.
   The problem is, those old gray stones are little too close together, a little too neatly aligned, as if someone had laid them all out at the same time with an eye for appearance. And in a way, that’s exactly what happened. When the gymnasium behind the church was built, where the congregation’s youth now play basketball and other sports, the headstones were moved. But only the headstones were moved, leaving the bodies exactly where they had been for hundreds of years — now underneath the gym.
   So now you know where the bodies are buried if you weren’t one of the fortunate few who took a tour with Mr. Mastrich last weekend.
   As for the buried gold, city and police officials most likely wouldn’t like to learn gold seekers were tearing apart historic old buildings in a treasure hunt after reading about it in the newspaper. To find out where the gold is, you’ll have to take your own tour with the Lambertville Historical Society.
   But it’s not at the Marshall House. Rather, it’s inside another city building’s foundation, according to tour organizers.
   Rest assured it’s real gold. James Marshall, whose discovery of gold in 1848 in Sutter’s Mill, Calif., sparked the gold rush of 1849, was once a resident of the city. He brought the nuggets back with him when he returned to Lambertville. His house at 62 Bridge St. is now home to the historical society.