Got milk? Exhibit highlights dairy

See the famous Elsie the Cow at the Cranbury Museum this summer.

By: Josh Appelbaum
   Those who find themselves frequently sporting a milk moustache or have a sentimental attachment to Elsie the Cow will find the Cranbury Museum a point of interest this summer.
   The museum will take a look back at Central Jersey’s heyday as the dairy land of the tri-state area with an exhibit on local dairies that will open Sunday and run all summer.
   On display will be more than 100 vintage glass milk bottles, creamers, carafes and milk accessories, called "Go-withs" along with photographs, fliers, pamphlets and brochures from the largest dairy in New Jersey, Walker-Gordon Farms, formerly in Plainsboro, as well as the smaller ones that once called Jamesburg, Monroe and Cranbury home.
   A detailed history of the local dairy industry, with a focus on Walker-Gordon Farms, compiled by 74-year-old Cranbury resident Leo Fenity also will be available to museum patrons.
   Mr. Fenity, whose father worked at the dairy from 1930 until it closed in 1971, started researching Walker-Gordon, Decker’s, Conover and Forsgate Farms dairies in 1991 by talking to former workers.
   He said Walker-Gordon’s dominance of the industry can be attributed to it being located mid-way between New York and Philadelphia, and to its production of milk, specifically for infant feeding, an innovation in the 1890s.
   The Plainsboro dairy opened in 1898, but the company began in 1891 in Boston, the venture of businessman George Walker, and Gustavus Gordon, a scientist and lay minister. Mr. Fenity said pasteurized milk for babies was scarcely available before Walker-Gordon began its operations.
   "At that point in 1891 quality milk for babies was terrible," Mr. Fenity said. "And not all mothers could breastfeed."
   Walker-Gordon Farms was the largest dairy farm in New Jersey and introduced its Rotolacter technology in 1930, an automatic milking machine that preserved raw milk quality and reduced bacterial contamination before pasteurization.
   According to Mr. Fenity, Walker-Gordon was the first to guarantee pure milk and shipped it across the Unites States and to Europe.
   The exhibit also highlights the dairy’s draw as a destination for visitors and school trips, helped along by the popularity of the Elsie the Cow trademark and cartoon.
   Mr. Fenity said that shortly after the Borden company bought out Walker-Gordon in 1929, it introduced Elsie, a cartoon of a real cow that resided at the former Walker-Gordon site, on Plainsboro Road (now a housing development) and which is still used to promote the Borden line of dairy products. Elsie, who is buried at the former Walker Gordon site, also appeared in the flesh at the 1939-1940 World’s Fair in New York.
   (Mr. Fenity said Borden was forced to give up its ownership of Walker-Gordon Farms in 1944 under anti-monopoly laws and was bought by the Henry Jeffers, whose son, Jim, now owns Walker-Gordon Lab Co. in Plainsboro, but retained the copyright on Elsie.)
   Along with Mr. Fenity’s historical accounts, milk bottles and "Go-withs," such as bottle carriers and vessels for cream and milk, the museum will exhibit a collection of Pyro-glazed bottles from local dairies, bottlers and distributors, including several from Cranbury from Monroe resident Ken Eiker, 75. Mr. Eiker’s family owned a potato farm in Cranbury for about 40 years between the early 1920s and the 1960s. 75
   Although Mr. Fenity’s interest in dairy history and collectibles is related to his father’s former profession, Mr. Eiker fell into collecting milk bottles, coffee creamers and Go-withs quite by chance.
   He said his interest in collecting local dairy memorabilia stems from his interest in the land and the soil. In fact, it was in the dirt and soil that he stumbled upon his first collectible.
   "I was taking a nature walk through the woods and I saw a bottle that was partially buried, and I dug it up," Mr. Eiker said. "I kept taking these adventures and digging up lots of different bottles, most of them from dairies (distributors and bottlers) in the area."
   He’s focused his collection on dairies from Cranbury, Plainsboro and Jamesburg that issued Pyro-glazed bottles. Pyro-glaze, introduced just before World War II, was a process used to print colored labels directly onto glass bottles using screen print and a heating mechanism to finish the design.
   Mr. Eiker said he was prompted to start attending collectibles and bottle shows in order to preserve a bygone era.
   "Mostly, all of the milk containers are cardboard now," Mr. Eiker said. "It’s far more economical."
   But Mr. Eiker said he enjoys collecting the small monuments to the heyday of New Jersey dairy and Pyro-glaze, when local dairies Decker’s, Conover, and Cranbury dairies Skok and Muller printed their own unique bottles.
   The milk bottles on display feature intricate designs bearing the names of the dairies, including those of university dairies like Rutgers Dairy, and even slogans promoting the sale of war bonds and highlighting the contributions of famous Americans, like President Theodore Roosevelt.
   Like Mr. Eiker, Mr. Fenity was intent upon preserving the era in which New Jersey was synonymous with dairy. According to Mr. Fenity, no New Jersey dairy still produces, bottles and distributes its own milk. None of the dairies featured in the Cranbury Museum exhibit are operational.
   Mr. Fenity began a project in 1991 during which he interviewed people that worked at and lived near the local dairies. The project was designed to put his dairy collectibles in perspective. Mr. Fenity has plans to donate the respective portions of his bottle collection to the Plainsboro, Monroe, Hightstown and Cranbury historical societies.
   "I said, ‘If I’m going to donate them, I might as well give them a history (of the dairies).’" Mr. Fenity said. "If it wasn’t done then it probably wouldn’t have been done at all because key people I talked to are no longer around."
   He said he’s still collecting data for his manuscripts and will continue to revise them as information comes in.
   Because of Mr. Fenity’s ongoing research, the new exhibit at the Cranbury Museum is a more complete reprise of a similar exhibit presented in 1997, Cranbury’s Tercentennial.
   Jerry Pevahouse, the museum’s co-curator, said the Walker-Gordon Farms and New Jersey Dairy History exhibit was one of the most popular exhibits the museum hosted in recent memory.
   "I was surprised at how many people knew about (Walker-Gordon Farms)," Mr. Pevahouse said. "But they were very good at promotion, and lots of kids went to the farm for school trips."
   The "Walker-Gordon Farms and the New Jersey Dairy Industry" exhibit will run through the summer. The museum is open Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. or by appointment. The curators suggest a $5 donation. The museum is located at 4 Park Place East. For more information call (609) 655-2611.