A new book detailing Sayreville’s rich yet little-known history is available for purchase this month thanks to a sixthgeneration resident.
Jason Slesinski, vice president of the Sayreville Historical Society, spent the last year and a half combing through the crowded archives of the society’s museum and listening to recordings made by elderly residents. The result, “A Cultural History of Sayreville,” is a 222-page tour through the town’s past.
The book focuses on the transformation of land use from the beginnings of the Sayre and Fisher Brick Company in 1850 to the densely populated suburbia of today. As Slesinski, 27, describes it, the town was little more than expansive clay pits before industry and suburbanization made their mark during and after World War II.
“Sayreville’s altered landscape is a drastic departure from its natural state and rather unique for New Jersey,” he said. “It has cultural meaning, showing our aspirations, our values, hopes and fears, in tangible form.”
“A Cultural History of Sayreville” is a passion project for Slesinski, but he hopes to profit from the book, since he said steady jobs for history majors are difficult to come by in this economy. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Montclair State University and a master’s degree in American studies from Rutgers University.
Slesinski’s great-great-greatgrandparents immigrated to Sayreville from Scotland and Ireland in the 19th century. He credits his family’s local legacy for his interest in Sayreville’s history.
The Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission provided most of the funding for the book’s publication by Ultra Media Publications and sponsored the collection of 18 oral history recordings from residents born beforeWWII.
Among the artifacts in Jason Slesinski’s book, “A Cultural History of Sayreville,” is a 1957 Chamber of Commerce advertisement and a newspaper advertisement from 1946 welcoming home veterans from World War II. Slesinski, who works to preserve the borough’s storied past with about 50 active society members, said his book serves as a companion piece to the museum.
“All of the photographs, artifacts and oral histories in the book come from the museum archives, so in a big way, I intend for it to showcase our museum and bring in more visitors,” he said.
In coordination with that effort, Slesinski and society president Art Rittenhouse plan to rotate new artifacts into the museum from the upstairs archives every few months so visitors can stop by more than once and witness different aspects of the town’s history.
The museum currently houses pieces of amber from the largest amber deposit in the world, Leni Lenape tribe pottery, decades of high school yearbooks, an entire school dentist office, centuries-old maps, war uniforms, rare printing presses and Sayre and Fisher bricks, the types of bricks that are currently supporting the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building and the base of the Statue of Liberty.
Recently donated items include an 1889 map of Tangletown/Upper Sayreville that was discovered last summer in a barn in Monroe. The museum also received a book of Sayreville health records from 1889 to 1919 and a map of the T.A. Gillespie shell-loading plant, which exploded for three days in the Morgan section of the borough in October 1918. Itwas the largest domestic disaster of World War I, Slesinski said.
Most of the artifacts pictured in the book have never been shown to the public or displayed at the museum, according to Slesinski.
The book release will take place at the Historical Society’s Jan. 12 meeting at the Sayreville Senior Center. “ACultural History of Sayreville” will be available for a discounted price and the public is encouraged to bring artifacts to the meeting for a show-and-tell.
The Sayreville Oral History Project is ongoing and anyone seeking to be interviewed should contact the museum.