w

now, the trip, back is possible

The Way It Used to Be

by Ed llarnftl Backward, turn Backward. 0 Time, in your flight . -Vlltabtth Ak*n Alim COLD SPRING - The poet who. wrote that wanted to return to her childhood Almost everyone has at some time wished to return to a happier or more exciting time. Nobody, so far as the records go, has succeeded, but time travel, either backward or forward, is an-imaginative vein that has been thoroughly mined by science fiction writers from H.G. Wells down—or up Their characters have accomplished their journeys through complicated hyper-particular ionizing machines,' slipping through rifts' in the temporal continuum or some equally ingenious and incomprehensible means. There is an easier and less tongue-twisting way of taking a gentle dip into the past without getting far from the present. It’s called Historic Cold Spring Village, which will have its grand opening Saturday, May 23. Entering its tree-shaded, crushed shell lanes brings a picturesque and appealing evocation of how folk hereabouts lived and went about their business over the past 200

years.

THp VILLAGE, on Old Shore Road just north of Cold Spring United Presbyterian Church, includes a variety of buildings going back to the late 18th Century, typical of the utilitarian, if sometimes whimsical ideas of long-gone builders. Some came from nearby sites in Lower Township, others from various places in Soutlr Jersey. All might nave, and look as if they had been, - built where they fctand in the

village.

An introductory look into the past is provided by the Old Grange Restaurant, a few steps from the entrance. The stately white frame structure was built in 1897 to house Cold Spring Grange. A colorful sign over the doorway reproducing the Grange badge, complete with its motto, “Patriotism—Husbandry, ^ greets visitors. It was a leisurely time, and the grange hall served as a center of activity for the bucolic community. It remained a center of rural socializing and meetings until the late-1960s. Dependable William McKinley was President when the grange opened its doors'. The topic of conversation at grange suppers a year later would be the sinking of the U.S. Battleship Maine in Havana Harbor and the beginning of the Spanish-American War, which launched the country.on its way as a world power.. INSIDE. TODAY’S GRANGE hall is lined with reminders of the events which have swirled around it. On (he wall hang; a framed Ed Hornet of North Cape May is a contributing editor of the Herald Sc Lantern.

copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1865 tracing the somber route of Lincoln’s funeral train across the country. Other frames hold faded but stilj legible handwritten indentures, one dated 1811 to formalize a land sale, "including certain swampland”, from JeTemiah Johnson. Johnson was the proprietor of the Dennisville Inn, built in the late 1700s, another of the colonial architectural prizes of the village. In its present time frame, the Grange Restaurant, under chef Marty Adams, will be serving up dishes from recipes carefully preserved by the grange ladies, . including chicken pot pie, onion pie, and assorted calorie-loaded desserts. Buffet service is planned to make it easier for visitors to sample a variety of the goodies enjoyed at the long ago gather-

ings.

THE DENNISVILLE INN takes the visitor a longer step back in time. When it was built, these United States were very new. New Jersey had ratified the Constitution in 1787,. Gen. George Washington, the hero of the Revolution, had delivered his inaugural address in 1789. By 1791, Vermont had approved the Constitution, making it the 14m state. Comment around the cozy fireplace in the ordinary (barroom) of the Inn was that those Vermonters always were slow 'about making up their minds. When both Vermont and Kentucky were formally admitted to the Union in 1795, the original 13-star, 13-stripe flag was changed to 15 stars and 15 stripes. More were to follow as the new nation flexed its muscles and spread out Seeing stars was all right. But as more states were admitted, added stripes were becoming a problem. And the flag was getting closer to

being square.

“It'll take two men and a boy to hoist ’er Up the flagpole,” commented a Dennisville farmer over

his mulled cider.

THE SAME IDEA had occurred

photo by Bonnie Grove PRINTER GEORGE FRAME of North Cape May prepares the old press for another job prior to the opening of the Historic Cold Spring Village this Saturday. He Is among artisans and craftspeople who actually ply their trades there as they were done 100 years ago

to Congress. So, as of July 4,1818, the flag was standardized at 13 stripes for the orginal 13 colonystates, and 20 stars on the blue field. With more stars, it is the same flag that flies now over the village. Not quite so deeply wreathed in history, but certainly the qyist unusual building in the village, is the one-story octagonal Walter P. Taylor House, built in Cold Spring in the 1800s as a chicken coop. One theory as to its design is that knowing chickens like to lay eggs in corners, the builders provided more than the conventional four to encourage production. Another is that the wider angled corners cut down on chick mortality by preventing hatchlings from being suffocated by their own numbers. An interesting, if not illuminating light comes from an article in the May 20, 1870 Cold Spring Argus Sc Intelligencer, of which no copies are extant, if any ever were:

THE COUNTRY STORE, jntt like the lupermarket of today, was a good place to learn the latent goat Ip. Some thlngi never change.

COLD SPRING - It has come to our attention that of a recent morning a resident farmer discovered the proud Chanticler of his flock lying with feathers plucked out, comb tattered and bleeding and spirit broken as the result of a savage attack by the ladies of his entourage. The reasons for this brutal onslaught are unknown at this writing, but it is believed that the feathered furies blamed their erstwhile lord and master for the odd eight-sided eggs they had been laying. Whatever the cause, “They was mad as wet hens/’ reported a hired hand who preferred to preserve anonymity. SUCH UNTOWARD INCIDENTS behind it, the Taylor House now serves as a toymakers and Christmas shop presided over by Shirley Stonecypner. No 19th Century Village could be complete without its general store. Cold Spring has the old Marmora House, built there in the late 18th Century, with two structures pegged and mortised together. During renovation a coin dated from 1794 was found beneath a stairwell. Inside is the mid-1850s Thomas Fleming General Store, transported from Middlefield, Mass., complete with sketch of the interior layout, and set up just as it endured for decades in the Berkshires. Shelves are lined with bins for tea, coffee, and biscuits. An oak cabinet has drawers for J. Sr P. Coats cotton thread spools, bther shelves hold candlesticks, pitchers, cups and candelabra produced by tinsmith Bob Lehman of Wildwood Crest. Bottles and tins hold pharmaceutical staples of (Pages Please I

on the cover * Colleen Slump at the spinning wheel In (he Phillip Hand House. Historic Cold Sorinff Villase.