Prosecutor Nevius and assistant A.J.C. Stokes are determined that houses of ill repute or gambling resorts shall be given no quarter in Monmouth County. Early last Sunday morning Mr. Stokes headed a raiding party that visited an alleged disorderly house on the main road from Lower Squankum to Lakewood on the site of the old “White Elephant.” They arrested a couple, formerly of Long Branch, along with four other women. Two men, said to be the sons of millionaires, were also arrested but gave cash bail and were released. The rest of the party were brought to Freehold and were arraigned before Justice of the Peace J.W. Hulse, who admitted them to bail to await the action of the grand jury. The alleged proprietress of the resort appeared before Judge John E. Foster in court in Free-hold yesterday, represented by Joseph Bailey of Red Bank, and entered a plea of non volt, without awaiting the formality of a grand jury investigation. The same plea was given to the two charges under which she was held, for keeping a disorderly house and for selling liquor without a license. She was fined $500 and costs and further sentence was suspended, with the understanding, as represented by her counsel, that Monmouth County authorities would be troubled with her no more as she would leave the county forever. Judge Foster told the woman that her advanced age was all that kept him from sending her to prison.
Although counsel representing Charles E. Close, in his fight for the office of sheriff, still claim there is a possibility of his ultimate victory, things do not look that way now. Estimates of C. Asa Francis’s majority of last week ranged all the way from 27 to 47, but from what would seem to be good authority it is now stated that the majority is nearly 46. Tuesday of this week Justice Hendrickson again took up the disputed ballots and the result of one day’s work was a net gain of 16 for Mr. Francis. Even in Ocean Township, where Mr. Close was expected to make large gains, in the three districts counted he lost a total of five votes more than Mr. Francis.
75 years ago
Although the untiring efforts of Freehold Chief of Police Cornelius DeVries, and Detectives Horn and McKinnon of the State Police are believed to have resulted in the capture of two of the bandits who, early on the morning of Jan. 14, stole a truck load of A&M Karagheusian rugs, it is doubtful that they will be brought to Freehold for trial. Lack of sufficient identification to secure their extradition from New York is expected to block the move to bring the men to justice here. The men, one a former Newark policeman, 37, who has “done time” in state prison, and the other, 35, an old offender, were arrested in New York on Wednesday of last week. Freehold’s Chief of Police and two State Police detectives were members of the arresting party of officers. Elias Emmons, driver of a Clayton Transpor-tation Company truck which was seized as he was mounting a hill at Wickatunk early in the morning, was dragged from the seat and his eyes bound up with adhesive tape so quickly that he did not get a look at any of the five or more men in the party. The bandits took the truck with a load of rugs valued at more than $10,000 and disappeared and carried Emmons to a pleasure car to a point near Verona and dumped him out in a woods, bound hand and foot. The truck was abandoned in Kearny last week, but the rugs have not been recovered. Working night and day since the theft, and until the capture in New York, Chief DeVries and Detectives Horn and McKinnon uncovered clues that elicited the aid of New York and Newark police and resulted in the capture of not only the aforementioned two men, but three other well-known crooks.
Built to accommodate 132 patients, the Welfare Home at Briar Hill, Free-hold, had 80 inmates at the close of the first month of this operation. Statistics gathered at the institution, which was opened Jan. 1, compose an interesting study and disclose the character of the population that is designed to become permanent. Ten or 12 inmates of the former state hospital at Trenton are being received at the institution this week. These are said not to have been mental cases, but aged persons who had no relatives capable of caring for them. Of the 80 persons admitted, the youngest is 53 years of age and the oldest 93, and five, three men and two women, are blind.
50 years ago
Mrs. R.V. Micelli, the first and only woman to ever hold a seat on the Free-hold Borough Council, resigned from that position Monday night, but not without first becoming involved with Mayor Barton Callahan and Councilman Harry Sagotsky in a heated discussion as to whether she is or isn’t a resident of the borough. Mrs. Micelli told the Freehold Transcript two weeks ago of her intention of resigning at this meeting because, she said, she intended to move from the borough. Her typewritten resignation was not handed to Borough Clerk Charles H. Evold, however, until after the discussion and after the mayor called a five-minute recess to allow her to sign an affidavit stating she is a borough resident.
25 years ago
The Freehold Township Committee is expected to approve a resolution at Monday’s meeting recommending that Joseph H. Lerner, director of the State Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, award a retail distribution license to Foodarama Supermarkets Inc. None of the other applicants seemed surprised that the committee recommended at the end of a work session Tuesday that Foodarama get the license. Martin. L. Mintz, Freehold accountant, who with his partner, Morton D. Rodetsky, an architect, presented plans for a liquor store as the hub of the 14,000-square-foot building to be erected at the Route 9 jughandle, across from Huffman-Koos, said he has “no bitterness” against the committee. He said he felt the Mintz-Rodetsky application was judged fairly by the committee.
— Compiled by Dick Metzgar