From the June 26 Register-News
125 years ago
The Germantown Telegraph advises its readers not to eat Delaware River catfish as they are affected with a disease from which large numbers have died. It is said that they are unusually scarce in the river this season.
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Feminine notes: Bordered madras ginghams are largely imported.
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Yesterday the Sunday School of St. Mary’s Church had a picnic on private grounds on the Crosswicks pike.
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Less than $7,000 will buy an 8,500-acre farm near Bordentown. Buildings and fences worth the amount.
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100 years ago
It was stated that five of the hateful (smallpox) cards were hung out in the city and one in the township; that the necessity of complete isolation of the patients and the appointment of most rigid guards was apparent. Then for two or three days came an increase in the list of cases, until now there are sick and convalescent 14. To Trenton, whose dailies added no little to the nervous feeling in the community, Bordentown is indebted for its first case of smallpox Joseph Kelly, who worked in a rubber mill in that city.
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Last Sunday Rev. Wm. H. Carter, of the White Hill M.E. Church, exchanged pulpits with Rev. Peter Carty of Hedding.
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75 years ago
The Weccacoe Hose Company opened its carnival on the Warner lot on Crosswicks Street, last Saturday night.
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Harry Pappitt and Leon Seidel, two of the Red Arrow merchants, acted as very capable auctioneers on Tuesday evening. Samuel F. Garrison, Mrs. P.D. Asay and Capt. Thomas Burris were all located as carriers of five dollar lucky arrows.
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An original photograph of Clara Barton, autographed by herself, was presented to the public schools by Clarence Fennimore of West Street. He was a student of Miss Barton when she conducted her small school on Crosswicks Street.
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50 years ago
Fire destroyed the Roebling plant of the Charlotte Manufacturing Company early Wednesday morning with a loss estimated at $500,000. The fire alarm was given at 2:25 a.m. when a neighbor, Mrs. Irene Bird, of 148 Norman Ave., saw flames in the factory. She had been waiting for her husband, Frank Bird, to return from work. Bird telephoned an alarm to the Florence Township police.
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The extreme hot weather last week resulted in a critical water shortage in the city Thursday and Friday. Heavy use of lawn sprinklers in both the city and township caused the water pressure to drop to a very low point. A gauge in the police room at the City Hall registers the water pressure in the city and when this began dropping suddenly Friday evening, the officers on duty notified City Commissioner Edwin C.B. Clark, who immediately sent out Lynch’s sound truck to urge people in the township to turn off their lawn sprinklers.
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(Compiled by Vanessa S. Holt from the Bordentown Register, 1878-1953).
