When the saloon license application of Thomas C. Burke came before Judge John E. Foster yesterday, Aaron E. Johnston represented a number of property owners in Freehold. He explained to the court while the remonstrance had been signed in the churches only, the signers had been businessmen and property holders of the town. Judge Foster assured the lawyer that because the remonstrance was signed in church would make no difference in his decision. If the signers were citizens of Freehold, they were entitled to and would receive due consideration. Assis-tant County Prosecutor A.J.C Stokes, representing Mr. Burke, presented a petition in favor of the license being granted. He explained to the court that while a number of businessmen had signed the remonstrance, there were but a few who owned the properties they operated while his petition bore the signatures of many times the number of citizens who had signed the remonstrance and there were many more large property owners on the petition than on the remonstrance. Judge Foster said there was one phase of the whole matter that had been deferred from time to time in order to give Mr. Burke an opportunity to get possession of the first floor of the building in which he had been located in the basement. The matter was finally held over for next week.
Charles E. Close, the Democratic candidate for County Sheriff, had another good inning Tuesday when he made a net gain of 23 votes over his Republican opponent and present occupant of the Sheriff’s Office, C. Asa Francis, in the shrievalty contest. The disputed ballots from five districts were acted upon by Judge Hendrickson. Mr. Close made gains ranging from two to 10 votes in four of these districts, and broke even in the fifth. The strongest hopes of electing Charles E. Close to the Office of Sheriff by unseating C. Asa Francis is based upon a certain class of ballots which have been reserved in a class by themselves for Justice Hendrickson to rule upon at a later date. The ballots in question have slight ink marks on the top of the tickets. Counsel for Mr. Francis contend that the marks were made by a space from the blue slips of paper which separate the passage of tickets when they are sent out from the County Clerk’s Office.
75 years ago
The new state hospital at Hillsdale last Saturday opened its doors to the first group of patients when 15 of them were brought from Greystone Park, Morris County. Fifteen more will be brought here tomorrow and slowly the new institution will be fitted with inmates from hospitals in Trenton, Union County and from Monmouth County. Accommodations are now ready for 500 patients in five buildings now available and when work is completed on buildings now under construction and several still to be erected, 2,000 inmates will be provided for. A small staff has been assembled under the direction of Dr. J. Berkeley Gordon, formerly medical director of the State Home for Boys in Jamesburg, and eventually the institution will have a staff of 10 doctors and a corps of female nurses, as well as a training school for nurses. Dr. Gordon is now assisted by Dr. Annette MacIntire, who conducts out-patient clinics for preventive mental work throughout the state, and Robert Stone, Lehigh University psychologist. Two male nurses and six attendants are also employed at present. “When this is completed, it will be the show institution of the state,” Dr. Gordon declared. “Here at Hillsdale you will find nothing that is typical of the average idea of a hospital for the insane. There are no gray walls, no padded cells — everything is quiet and homelike here, with the most modern of conveniences.”
Albert L. Ivins, lone Democratic member of the Monmouth County Tax Board, should be reappointed. Mr. Ivins has been a member since 1914, when he was appointed to fill the unexpired term of Judge R.V. Lawrence. From the standpoint of experience, ability and honesty, Mr. Ivins has earned another term, if he desires it, which we understand to be the fact. For the past several years the tax board has not had an easy time of it, being ground continuously between the State Tax Board and the local partisan politicians, not to mention considerable individual pressure. In 1925 the state ordered a general increase in county ratables which the county board had to furnish. This arbitrary ad-vance was resented very generally in the county and was described as most unfair …
50 years ago
Route 33 was one of 23 priority highways slated for restoration through the State Highway Department’s 1956-57 construction program. Uncertainty in the amount of appropriations State Highway officials will (provide) make it difficult to estimate when the project will begin or to what extent. The modernization of the section of the highway which runs from Neptune to Hightstown to a finished road will probably be started at the Shore end, one highway official said. But when and where and how much is still unknown.
25 years ago
The Farmingdale Board of Educa-tion is reluctantly going ahead with the original plans for an addition to the Farmingdale Elementary School, as ordered by the Commissioner of the Department of Education — despite the board’s claim of a lack of funds. Board President Glenn Curlis has not ex-plained how the addition would be built without additional funds. The addition was approved by the voters in an October 1979 referendum. Construction was supposed to begin in the fall of 1980, but had been delayed, forcing the school to go on split session. Soon after the $798,000 referendum was passed, the board members revised the original plans when the architects suggested that the new plan would make better use of the building, according to Curlis.
— Compiled by Dick Metzgar