by Ceil Leedom, South Brunswick Township Historian
If you ever wondered why the five corners area of Dayton looks a little modern for a 200-year-old town, blame it on the Pennsylvania and Newark Railroad. What, never heard of it? Dayton’s history as a railroad town in South Brunswick never came to be, because a railroad right through the five corners intersection never came to be. But in this November 1906 The Cranbury Press article said that agents of the “Pennsylvania Railroad Company had been buying up property for the new freight line…The village of Dayton is seriously affected by the new line. The tracks will cut that town in two parts. The proposed line will run directly through the house of Dr. Carroll…The line will pass in the rear of the Presbyterian Church…” The Slack-Carroll house was not purchased. The adjacent Wines Hotel was purchased instead. As a result of this and other purchases between 1906-1917 central Dayton lost some of its historic appearance. This route went along Culver Road, across Georges Road, through the Wines Hotel (now the WAWA site) and on towards Fresh Ponds and beyond. In 1931, the Wines Hotel then rented by Isaac Luttman, was demolished to widen the road.
Contributing to the area’s changed appearance was the great fire of 1924 that burned down three other major five corners buildings — the Terhune/Pindrus Hotel, Ely’s general store and Ely’s house on the southeast corner of Georges and Ridge roads. New buildings replaced these structures, but nothing was built on the railroad lands until after 1956, when the Pennsylvania and Newark Railroad route was finally abandoned.
In April 1903 New Jersey State legislation concerning railroads led to the creation of the Pennsylvania and Newark Railroad Company, headquartered in Camden. Their purpose was to construct, maintain and operate a railroad for public use to convey persons and property from a point on the Delaware River south of Trenton connecting to the Pennsylvania Railroad. It was to run in a northeasterly direction through the counties of Mercer, Middlesex, Union to a point in Essex County near Elizabeth. There it was to connect with the United Jersey Railroad and Canal Company. The length was to be about 47 miles at an expected cost of $10,000 per mile. The agreement among directors and officers from the Philadelphia area and one from Long Branch was signed Dec. 20, 1905 and created a company to exist for 999 years.
The general route was adopted in 1905 and filed with the New Jersey Secretary of State. By the end of 1907 the company had expended $100,000 in surveys, route location and acquisition of right of way. Deed records at the Middlesex County Clerk’s Office show that land from George Bastedo, Maria VanDerveer, John VanDeventer, Wesley Applegate, and others in the Dayton area had been purchased. In 1909, 1912, 1913 and 1915 the company noted its expenditures and that in each of these years an act to “extend the time to complete the railroad” had been enacted. Minutes from the company’s June 1917 meeting show a plan to change in the eastern terminus at Newark to a connection east of Colonia in Middlesex County was approved. These minutes also contain a detailed description of the proposed route through South Brunswick. A copy of this and portions of other documents referred to in this article taken from the New Jersey Archives’ transportation corporate files are in the South Brunswick Public Library’s Local History Collection railroad files. The last continuation agreement referred to was made in April 1919 and the directors reported they had spent $730,000 to date on railroad related costs.
In November/December of 1954 the Pennsylvania and Newark Railroad Co. finally resolved that all actions taken by the Board since 1905 were to be rescinded saying that “the railroad never having been constructed, and the adopted routes, descriptions of surveys…are hereby withdrawn.” The State of New Jersey’s Certificate of Dissolution is dated Dec. 21, 1956. This ended the odyssey of the Pennsylvania and Newark Railroad, but not before forever changing five corners in Dayton.
Thus ended the Wetherill-Wines Hotel, the Vanderventer property on Culver Road, the Tinsmith shop on Ridge Road and other properties along the right-of-way.
Information compiled and text written by Ceil Leedom. January 2008.
Ceil Leedom is the South Brunswick township historian. She can be e-mailed at dayton@pacpub.com.
