ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH TOM COLLINS AND HIS SISTER, MARY COLLINS SALISBURY, CHILDREN OF MR. HARTSHORN’S CHAUFFEUR, INTERVIEWED BY ALICIA ROMAN, OWEN LAMPE, AND FRAN LAND ON APRIL 5, 1976
Alicia R.: This afternoon we will be interviewing Tom J. Collins, son of Mr. Stewart Hartshorn’s chauffeur and Mrs. C. Salisbury, his sister. Both of them lived here most of their lives. Mr. Collins, could you tell us about your childhood here in Short Hills?
Tom C.: I was born here in what was at that time 33 Hobart Ave. It was at the very corner of the Hartshorn property, the property of the homestead. That was in 1919 and during my childhood I had free reign of Mr. Hartshorn’s estate. I could fish in the pond, swim and play hockey on the ice in the winter time. They had seven horses in the stable so I grew up rather fond of horses. My father had a cow at all times. There were two that I can recollect at different times…..because of me….
Mary C.S.: And the milk Mother couldn’t use she sold and that was my spending money at college.
Tom C.: I can remember Dad had quite a flock of chickens, so we had all the fresh eggs we could handle.
Alicia R.: Mary, I just want to get your married name.
Mary C.S.: It’s Mary C. Salisbury…
Alicia R.: …You were saying you lived here for many years.
Mary C.S.: I lived here until I married, in 1924, a year after I graduated from N.J.C.
Alicia R.: How much property did (the Hartshorn) homestead encompass?
Tom C.: The grounds immediately around the mansion were 40 acres and, of course, the railroad ran right through it. I guess it just about bisected it on the way up to the Short Hills Station. There were two ponds on the north side of the tracks. One of them was fed by a little stream which would be fairly close to where the great oak is and the water from it flowed into what I call the number one pond and from there it flowed into the lower pond which was fed by a stream. I think it is completely piped now but it ran from the school on Hobart Ave. down along the property line of the Hartshorn estate along the Knollwood line and then it turned to the west and just about at the railroad there was a dam which would back up its waters to form a second pond. And a waterfall spilled from that and the water went under the railroad. There was a very small arched tunnel there. These waters continued to Millburn Avenue and there was another pond at Millburn Avenue which…
Alicia R.: It must have been fantastic.
Tom C.: I think so. My sister’s recollections go back to its heyday. It was in its decline when I came along.
Mary C.S.: …At one time they had four chauffeurs and ten servants in the house.
Alicia E.: There was a thirty room house?
Mary C.S.: Yes. As you came in there was a large porch on the front of the house and then you came into this huge foyer, the reception area and all furnished very beautifully, nothing ostentatious but very beautifully done. And then to the right there was a huge room you could hold a ball in, and there was a big ball there once. And to show you what kind of consideration Mrs. Hartshorn had for her servants–there were ten of them in the house–they had Sherry’s come in from N.Y. to cater the ball. I remember the night very well. So the servants didn’t have to do very much; maybe show the waiters and other people where to put stuff and how to, you know, around the house. And then, a very well known orchestra, I can’t remember the name now, but it was really an occasion. I mean that’s how considerate she was of people.
And then, directly ahead you walked out into a sunroom, from the foyer directly into a sunroom where there was this aquarium and where you could get a beautiful view of the lawn as it came down and there were large cement steps and trees that also came down.
Alicia R.: I understand that some of the steps still exist.
Mary C.S.: Yes. And then they planted on both sides of them shrubbery and in my day it was not much higher than this. You could still see over and around and it gave a beautiful effect as you walked down about three feet to the ponds. And then to your left as you came in there was a separate entrance that led you into what was the butlers pantry quarters; and they always had two butlers. Their dining room was a beautiful, beautiful room, all in wood beautifully carved. And the largest punchbowl I’ve ever seen in my life. I believe that they gave it to one of the museums after Mrs. Hartshorn died.
Tom C.: It might be among the gifts or bequests to museums. I have a list.
Lampe: That was the Newark Museum?
Mary C.S.: It is the Newark Museum. The rooms were extremely large. There was no feeling of crampedness even though there were all these rooms.
Mary C.S.: And then you came out to the kitchen area. The kitchen was as big as this room and half again and off from that was the servants’ dining room which was another great big room because they seated ten to each meal and maybe more if they had company. And there was a cook and a kitchen maid.
Then, going down to the next level below, they had their own laundry equipment that they had in those days. I can still see the large coal range, a circular coal range, with all these flat irons all around, heating up. And then of course, they had mangles and other things that they had two girls who worked in the laundry. Then in back of that they had what they called the creamery, because they had their cows and they made their own butter. Then beyond that in the next room was the preserve closets with all kinds of canned goods in mason jars, up to the ceiling, that the cook had done with her assistant and beyond that there was a passageway underneath this great big ballroom that I mentioned, Mr. Hartshorn had his recreation area and his billiard table and various other things.
Alicia R.: What did he do in his spare time? What were some of his hobbies?
Mary C.S.: Well, his main hobby, the main reason why he bought up all this property, all of Short Hills and developed it was because of his interest in pure drinking water and in order to establish a water system he bought up all this property. He had his pumping station up there at White Oak Ridge and I believe it supplied East Orange and many East Orange houses still get water from this area.
Tom C.: I think he acquired the Hartshorn pumping station and water system under another name. It was a Summit firm…
Lampe: That would be Commonwealth Water.
Tom C.: Yes, that’s it.
Mary C.S.: That was one thing and then he was interested also in natural resources, like the quarry. For the first house that was built, the materials came from this area.
Alicia R.: (Can you tell us more)about the Hartshorn family?
Mary G.S.: Well…Mr. Hartshorn Sr. and Mrs. Hartshorn and they were just the most democratic, nicest people. She used to always brag about how after they were married and came home from church she took off her wedding dress and put on her house dress and an apron and served everybody.
Alicia R.: You mean she must have been a very down to earth person.
Mary G.S.: Oh absolutely…down to earth.
Mary C.S.: Well, even as a schoolgirl of maybe ten or so, Mrs. Hartshorn always made me feel I was welcome in the house any time I wanted to come in and bring any schoolmates in and show them around, and I thought that was terrific because they had everything, such as the first aquarium I ever saw. It was in the sunroom and I could always go in and look at that or I could play some of the beautiful red seal Victor records. They had a lovely phonograph in the main lobby of the house as you came in to the right, and there were chairs all around it so I could have a little concert if I wanted to. All that sort of thing that you remember.
Mary C.S.: I think I knew every tree on this place.
Alicia R.: Magnificent trees. The great oak has still survived.
Mary C.S.: Yes, indeedy. And which tree had the best moss under it…I used to carry my dolls over and play house with them and it was the most beautiful, I tell you, the dark old trees. That was down near where the garage stood. I remember seeing one with a rust color; I’ll think of it. That’s the only problem I have now. I forget names.
Alicia R.: I can appreciate that. I forget also, very easily. Did Mr. Hartshorn plant these especially?
Mary C.S.: That I can’t tell you because I was too young to have known.
Mary C.S.: And (Mr. Hartshorn) was a grand person. When he wanted to go up to New Hampshire fishing, one time he just invited me to go along with him and my father and we had a grand time.
We had a little dog that knew the sound of the car when it came out of garage before it went up the driveway to pick him up—and we lived in the old cottage, 88 Hobart Avenue, as it was called then—and my little dog would be across the lawn and on the front seat of the car by the time the old gentleman came out.
Mary C.S.: Another thing about Mrs. Hartshorn… when I got to be of high school age and all, she liked to read and I guess her eyesight was beginning to fail so she asked me if I would read to her. I said I’d love to. So every morning I’d read an hour and every afternoon I’d read an hour or two and she liked, well, for example, we read two volumes of the American revolution by an English author, and I’d come back in the afternoon and she could repeat the last sentence I’d read to her and if in the conversation, if the general called the other one not a very nice name, she’d laugh and say, “Great. Read that again.”
Lampe: How old was she at that time?
Mary C.S.: Let me think. I would say probably in her early 70’s because she became interested with a group of women in New Jersey to further the education of women and that there should be an opportunity for them to go to a state university or something comparable. So they organized and started a drive for funds and got the N.J. state legislature interested in it and Rutgers University professors, the heads of various departments and they founded what was called the N.J. College for Women, that later became Douglass. Then I graduated from high school in 1919 and that college had its first class in the fall of 1918 and I wanted to teach so I had already enrolled in Montclair Normal School, and she was told about it, but the principal of the high School and the two of them agreed that I shouldn’t go there. I should go to college. Well, frankly, my parents could not afford it and Mr. Messner who was then the principal of the Short Hills High School (Henry L. Messner) said, “Well, I’m going to see your friend Mrs. Hartshorn and I’m going to talk to her.” So she said, “Oh, I thought May (as I was called then) wanted to go to Montclair Normal. I’ll be glad to help if she’ll go over to this college I’m interested in founding.” So they filled one place there. I was in the second class that graduated from N.J.C. as we called it then. Of course, I knew Mrs. Douglass very well. She knew all of us, believe me. She knew when you got a new dress and she knew when you had a new beau. She knew all about it. She had to meet him.
Mary G.S.: And then I had two roommates and both of them were very popular. One was popular at Princeton and the other at Rutgers and they went to the different fraternity dances and I’d find a note in the box that Dean Douglass wants to see me. And I’d have to go and see her and I’d feel like the three monkeys–see, hear, and say nothing. She’d say, “Who was Beth out with last night? Or Dorothy? What time did they get in?”
Alicia R.: She was checking up on all of you….What was this so-called finishing school that was started in a huge home on the corner of Stewart and Minnisink? I just heard about this last night. Someone started something many, many years ago. Oden Cox brought that out last night at our meeting and I thought perhaps you might know something about it.
Alicia R: Mary, how long was your father a chauffeur for Mr. Hartshorn?
Mary C.S.: Well, he continued after Mr. and Mr. Hartshorn died, with Miss Cora. And they were exactly the name age, she and Dad, and they got along very well. And when the project came up for the bird sanctuary and so forth, Dad became very involved in that with her.
Alicia R.: How do you remember her? What type of person was she?
Mary C.S.: Oh my, very straightforward; just right down to earth too, just like her mother…the whole family. She had a younger sister, Mrs. Harold Hack, Joanna, who was named after her mother and she was just the same too. The whole family was that way.
Fran L.: Was Mr. Hartshorn a friendly sort of person?
Mary C.S.: Very. And a very stately person. He stood so erect, and he wore gray a lot. With his white hair and his little beard…
Fran L.: Was he always in a suit?
Mary C.S.: …(unclear)
Tom C.: …(unclear) went fishing.
Fran L.: Where did you fish?
Tom C.: Lake Winnipesaukee. He was a real buddy of…
Mary C.S.: He was a fishing addict, from the time he could hold a fishing pole. I’ve got one of the cutest pictures of him standing on the steps of 90 Hobart, that I took of him just as he got ready to go fishing – fishing pole in one hand, back pack…
Tom C.: I used to go up with my father to New Hampshire at the beginning of the season and again at the end of the season. He would drive Mr. Hartshorn to Center Harbour, New Hampshire and I would go along for two reasons; one was to get out from under my mother’s feet, and the second was to be a companion to Dad on the trip back. In those days it was a hard two day drive, about 350 miles.
Alicia R.: Were you using a Blue Book?
Tom C.: No. Dad had made that trip in a chain driven automobile back in 1906-07. And in those days he used to stop and show me where the old roads went and we were then on what are now the old roads, if you follow me. But he was pointing out the log-type roads, corduroy roads and all. I guess the first trip that I made would be in the late 20s.
One summer they were preparing for this trip and Mr. Hartshorn suggested to Dad that I ought to spend the summer this time and learn how to fish, so word got back to Mother and of course she objected strenuously. My bag was packed (fingers snapped) and I was sent over to the main house and there always a little ceremony of departure. As Mr. Hartshorn would leave the porch, the limousine was brought up to the portico and we watched for Mr. Hartshorn to make his appearance. On that particular day–I’ll never forget it–he came out in his tailored clothing, monogrammed pockets, huge shoes and he was really something to behold. And he stepped out on the porch and Cora let out a shriek–I can still hear it—“Father!” He was wearing his old fishing hat. So she clapped her hands and one of the girls dashed back in the house and returned with his good hat and Cora squared it away just so on his head and he then went down the steps carrying his old fishing hat and got in the back of the car. I got in and sat next to him and they closed the door. His valet, Jim Paterson, was sitting in the front seat and everyone waved goodbye. We came down this driveway and headed out to Hobart Avenue. Just about the time we reached the gate he took off that new hat. He flung it to the floor and he said, “God damn it!” I jumped. He put the old fishing hat on and sat there.
Alicia R.: He was going to do what he wanted to.
Lampe: But he gave in to the women, didn’t he?
Alicia R.: How old was he when he died?
Tom C.: Ninety-six.
He kept that hat on until we got to a hotel in Waterbury, Connecticut, to a hotel he particularly liked to stop at. Then you’d have to suggest that perhaps he’d like to put the other hat on while we ate.
Alicia R.: Tom, was that the Waterbury Inn?
Tom C.: The one that he loved was the Elm Tree Inn and it was in Northfield…no…south of there. I can’t remember the name, but it was such an old inn that it was kept deliberately in the old style even in the 30s which I like to think of being up to date. It had your washbasin and your pitcher of water and my father would say, “I hope the place doesn’t burn down tonight. Let’s get by tonight.” But Mr. Hartshorn loved that inn. Farmington…that’s where it was. (Transcription editor’s note: There was such an inn in Great Barrington) And another place he loved was Northhampton. There was a Wiggins Tavern there and I think its still in the same family.
Alicia R.: It’s still there.
Tom C.: What he liked about it was that it was an antique shop with a dining room attached and he loved to browse. And this one time–he used to always have me with him browsing–he said “Do you know who that is?” It was a picture of Andrew Jackson. (I replied) “Yes, Mr. Hartshorn, that’s Andrew Jackson.” He said, “You’re right. He was a good friend of my mother.” When you think back to Tennessee and to the times, that’s about right, because Mr. Hartshorn was born in 1840.
Fran L.: What did he like to talk about? Was he a great reader? Did he read newspapers? Or books? Or…
Tom C.: He was a great story teller and he had some good stories. And a lot of his stories were about himself–funny things in his life. He told me once he was traveling in the country and being hungry he stopped at a little farmhouse that had a sign out “Luncheons” or “Dinner” or whatever and he was invited into the dining room and was asked what he would like to have and he was told that the chicken was very good, so he said, “Well, I’ll take the chicken.” He sat there and in a while he heard quite a rumpus out there (laughter).
Lampe: They were killing the chicken?
Tom C.: Exactly. He was very humorous. Finally he told me that the entire meal cost him a quarter. I don’t know what year we are talking about, but it must have been way back.
Lampe: It must have taken quite some time to get that too.
Tom C.: You know, he was quite an inventor and we’d sit at the table at the Inn at Center Harbour and one evening he took a glass of water and he was turning it around and around and he’d go back this way and I wanted to know what was on his mind and he said, “Look here. What do you see?” And I said, “Well, I see a little speck of dirt on the top.” And there was a little tiny speck caught in the surface tension and he said, “I’ve been trying to turn the glass to get that speck away so I can drink from it.” And he said, “And it stays right here.” (I replied,) “Yes, it does.” And he said, “You like airplanes. How about those autogyros?” And I said, “Oh yes, they’re quite…” He said, “Well, I’ll never use this idea but maybe you could use it. Perhaps they could build a big autogyro with the compartment for people suspended in a liquid and it will not turn when everything else goes around.” He used to think of things like that. That was the way his mind worked, always seeing things and trying to relate them to something else.
Lampe: Was he a friend of Thomas Edison?
Tom C.: Not to my knowledge. He could have been, but I never heard Edison mentioned, or anything like that.
Fran L.: Who were his best friends?
Tom C.: I think perhaps Mr. Day. He’s probably the only one I can recall. Joseph Day.
Mary C.S.: No, I don’t. I’m willing to bet though that I’m one of the few graduates of the Short Hills High School.
Alicia R.: I imagine you would be.
Mary C.S.: Mark Oliver was in my class…
Lampe: He died a few years ago.
Mary C.S.: …and there was a Douglas girl who belonged to the family of Horace. …
Alicia R.: Is that how Douglas Street got its name?
Lampe: Yes, that’s right.
Tom C.: They had a plumbing shop where Keenan, I think, took over…right by Taylor Park.
Mary C.S.: There was a Marjorie Peters; she’s Mrs. Wrangler now. She was my oldest and dearest friend because we started first grade together. She lived on Mt. Ararat Road. First they lived on Morris Turnpike and when Morris Turnpike began to be a real busy avenue to Summit, her parents decided to give up the big house and build a smaller one on Mr. Ararat, which they did. But her mother would come by with a little pony and a trap to take Marge to school here. So they would stop for me just around the corner and I’d ride in just the last block or whatever it was. Anyway we went to school together, graduated from high school together, then went to N.J.C. together. She stayed almost to the end of her junior year and then she had to leave because her mother was ill and her father had died. But today we are still good friends. I talked with her last week…
Lampe: I do have one question. When you graduated from the Short Hills High School, did the school contain also lower grades?
Mary C.S.: Everything was there.
Lampe: And do you know if that was true from the beginning of the school when the school was first completed in 1893?
Mary C.S.: I don’t know, but I never saw any change in it. I came here in…let’s see…I was 2 or 2½, so it could have been 1903…until they put that one addition I told you about, on the left hand side. Dad took the house…in the 1920’s.
Lampe: That’s the auditorium, I presume.
Tom C.: That’s correct.
Mary C.S.: No, I don’t think so dear. I think the auditorium was built later. It took more property to build it.
Tom C: When they moved our home, that was to build the auditorium. That was in the 20’s…..in 1928.
Lampe: It was that late? That’s a very attractive room in there.
Mary G.S.: And right out in back………of course the classes were very, very small. I think that there were 8 in my graduating class. I was the valedictorian.
Lampe: Even as late as that?
Mary C.S.: In 1919 and the classes were so small, my goodness, you could have study groups. I remember in one of the largest rooms there we could have a study group in the back while a class was being conducted in the front of the room. And we had a teacher, Miss Loomis, who taught Latin and she used to go on bird walks on weekends and so forth, and she taught me a great deal about bird lore and we used to go walking all through this area, right here before they developed Millwood and I can remember one time distinctly she was teaching and she said to the group, “Now everybody read (so and so) to yourself and I’m going to call on you.” Then she walked down to the back of the room where I was studying and she said, “Listen, dear. Do you hear that? It’s a (certain) bird. Hear…hear…go over to the window if you can’t.” Right in the middle of this, you know. But one story I love to tell is that there was a little brook ran down here to the right of the school. I don’t know whether it’s where that first house is now or not.
Tom G.: It’s piped under now, dear.
Mary C.S.: Piped under? And in the early springtime the boys’ favorite trip was to go down there and take out the little water snakes and put them in their pockets and bring them, without the teachers at the door catching on, and to go upstairs and take the lid—we had desks that the lids lifted up, you know–and they’d put them in the girls’ desks so when the girls came in they’d lift the desk lids and you’d hear “E-e-e-e there’s a snake in my desk!”…that sort of thing. It got so that two teachers would stand at the boys’ entrance and every boy had to be almost examined or gone over, for snakes. So, I used to go down to watch them do it. I can still remember I had an old brown corduroy skirt that I loved and which I wore very often, for one reason–because it had two big patch pockets. And so the boys gave me the snakes and I’d bring them up to the girls’ entrance and give them to them in the cloakroom.
Mary & Tom: …we were just driving around. We thought maybe number 11 (Pinewood?) would be backed up to…where I lived. And mother and dad, of course, lived there too. They wanted to enlarge the Short Hills School and there was a house on the piece of property that they wanted to use and Dad had the nearest vacant lot, next to 88 (Hobart), so they moved that house around there and Dad enlarged it and improved it and all and they moved in there. And for a short time I lived in the cottage before I went to the Washington area to live.
Alicia R.: Then when did you live at 26 Crescent Place?
Tom c.: We didn’t. That was the gardener’s cottage.
Alicia R.: I see. You lived in the cottage on Hobart Avenue.
Mary C.S.: And the gardener’s cottage looks a little different to me today. I still don’t remember the doorway on the road unless…
Alicia R.: Was that used for Cora Hartshorn’s paintings?
Mary C.S.: Yes. It served as a studio in the back part of it…yes. Oh, there were very many pictures. There were even things stored in the huge garage.
Alicia R.: Mary, were you one of the bob sledders who bobsledded from the top of Old Short Hills Road down to town?
Mary C.S.: No. I’ll tell you where I used to go with some friends was to South Orange, up the top of the hill and come down under the railroad. That was beautiful. Big bobsleds.
Lampe: The railroad was elevated at that time, was it not?
Mary C.S.: Yes, right there. I remember an old station right here at the foot of…what was that…Old Short Hills Rd. I remember when there was a station there and I remember when there was a station over by Wyoming too. Like I say,
Lampe: When you were here, the brick house that is on Hobart Ave, was that a store at the time? Opposite where Gaffnew is now.
Mary C.S.: Zehmish’s store.
Lampe: Then that was a store?
Mary C.S: Oh, yes. I remember going over there when things were in bins; like coffee in canisters, tea, etc. and they had to scoop it out and measure it and weigh it and all that. And, then, they lived upstairs. Emily Zehmish and I were very good friends. That family moved to the Oranges I think. Then Mr. Colbert bought it. It was actually a real thriving store.
Lampe: Now, the house that you remember when the school was enlarged, is part of that still standing?
Tom C.: Yes, 90 Hobart.
Mary C.S.: When our folks lived there, Mother and Dad, they had a lovely big porch on the front of it and Dad had lovely shrubbery. He loved plants. I looked there today and it is sad, there’s only one plant that I could recognize that he had planted. Well, of course, the privet hedge between the two properties. But in the back he had…well, he planted for me in the front of the house (now, I’m talking about 88 Hobart Ave)…it died…it was an elm tree. We had a blight that killed our elm trees and Dad had it trimmed down to about twelve feet or so and he planted four different kinds of vines on it; the clematis, dutchman’s pipe, wisteria, and oh, I can’t think, but people used to come by and say to me, “What kind of tree is that? It had a purple blossom on and now its got a big white one?” I have some snapshots around somewhere…
Alicia R.: ….the type of architecture in the area.
Lampe: Do you know Bill Ross, Tom?
Mary C.S: White Oak Ridge Road? Yes, I know the Ross family.
Lampe: He’s coming up here June 15th. He was telling me that Delwick Lane is from the developer Delano and ‘wick’ was for Renwick, who owned the property.
Mary C.S.: That’s right. Now, there was another family here…bankers…the Kauffmans, who lived up at the top of Delwick Lane and every time they had another child in the family they put another extension to the house. It used to be amusing because they had quite a family. They finally moved away from here. I’ve forgotten which bank in N.Y.
Tom G.: They were related to the Littles in some way….the Dukes of Philadelphia.
Lampe: Is that the large house facing the lane?
Tom G.: Oh, that house is gone; it was a beautiful home. It was Spanish architecture. They vacated it to live in this home of theirs in Florida and a caretaker was left there. I think it might have been Mr. Mazurki who lived on the property and was the gardener there. The youngsters at the time found out about this vacant mansion and they began breaking into it and they found the wine cellar, which had champagne and wine. And so they were drinking themselves bleary eyed and then they began destroying the interior. They were bringing rifles in and shooting up the mirrors and all sorts of things. And the word got out and I can recall youngsters in the 30s coming in on bicycles from West Orange. They wanted to know where the champagne house was. Well, they finally sold it and it was torn down. It and the Taylor home were torn down, on Old Short Hills Road. These two homes just defied destruction. They had to use dynamite charges to weaken them to get them down. They were built so beautifully and strong. The Taylor family, one boy, Harold, went to school with me. Let’s see, at the beginning, I think, of the second grade.
Alicia R.: The Taylors…weren’t they owners of large department stores, a chain of department stores?
Lampe: Was that the Taylor of Lord and Taylor?
Mary C.S.: I don’t know if it was the combination of Lord and Taylor. I always had the idea that they came from the Middle West somewhere.
Alicia R.: Was that the Wellington pond by any chance? The Campbell estate?
Tom C.: It seems to me that was one further…
Mary C.S.: That was across the avenue.
Tom C.: The one I’m thinking of is about where Meadowbrook Road is. It was a rather large pond. I don’t know what it was called. I don’t think that this was Wellington Pond. I don’t remember any name like that.
Alicia R.: No wonder Meadowbrook has all the water problems.
Tom C.: There were two ponds where Winding Way is now in back of St. Rose of Lima. This would be one that was between St. Rose’s cemetery and St. Stephens, directly on Millburn Avenue but there was another pond just south of the railroad bend and you would reach it by a driveway that went under a bridge. Now, I don’t know what road that…there’s a road there today. I don’t know what it is called.
Lampe: That’s Winding Way.
Tom C.: Alright. If you went under the bridge, went no more than 20-30 feet you could turn into the little driveway to the left that would lead you to a pond and then what I used to think was a holding tank. It was a very, very deep pool that had sloping sides and very large boulders formed the sides of it and the swans would stay in there all winter. It would never freeze over it was so deep and there was probably spring activity there. It kept the water moving. That area was fenced in and I know I was strictly forbidden to go in there. Of course, if the swans were there I wouldn’t try to go in because they’d attack. But I was told if I fell in there was no bottom and all those horror stories to keep children out. That would be the total of the ponds on the estate.
Alicia R.: The estate itself, Tom, you say it consisted of thirty rooms?
Tom C.: Yes.
Alicia R.: Who designed the house for Mr. Hartshorn? Were you ever aware?
Tom C.: I never heard who designed it.
Alicia R.: Was it Stanford White, by any chance?
Tom C.: I believe not. As far as I know he came here only to design the Casino (now the Racquets Club). That’s a landmark. This goes back to what…about 1870-75, roughly, that Mr. Hartahorn built this?
Alicia R.: Being that the house burned down could you give us a mental picture of what the house was like on the inside?
Mary C.S.: What house burned down?
Alicia R.: The homestead itself.
Tom C.: The homestead was dismantled. The only fire I recall were two occasions of fire in the garage which was quite a stretcher in itself.
Alicia R.: For what reason was it dismantled, Tom?
Tom C.: I guess–and this is a pure guess–they couldn’t find anyone to support it after Mr. Hartshorn died. All of the land here was sold in one swoop and realtors Clemenshaw, Allen, and Clemenshaw were the ones who came in and developed it. I understand there are probably 80 homes here now. But that home was dismantled.
(FRAN LAND COMES IN AT THIS POINT AND IS INTRODUCED)
Lampe: Tom Collins, Fran Land, and Tom’s sister, Mary Salisbury.
Alicia R: Mary is Tom’s sister and she was telling us her recollections as a child of the house on Crescent Place.
Lampe: Mary was in college when Tom was born and she was in the 2nd class in what became Douglass College. So Tom was born in 1919.
Tom C.: Maybe we could fill you in from what do you say, May, from 1905 or 16 to 1937 or 38 or something like that. When she leaves town I’ll try to pick up.
Fran Land: One thing I’d like to ask you…I heard this past weekend that many of the Hartshorn documents, letters and some of the plans for this community are at the N.Y. Historical Society. Is that right?
Tom C.: It’s possible because Mrs. Campbell, Catherine Hartshorn Campbell, his granddaughter, is a member of the N.Y. Historical Society, so there’s a strong possibility.
Fran L.: I wondered if you knew that. We’re really going to get to work on that.
Lampe: Is she still alive?
Tom C.: Yes. As a matter of fact, she and I are working together on a “biography.”
Fran L.: She lives where? In Albany?
Tom C.: She lives in Laudenville which is north of Albany. When I last saw her in October, they were gathering things together because they were going to be moving. They were taking title to a condominium in Boston and I think, sometime later in the year…possibly right about now. They are going to vacate their home in Laudenville. And one of the things I have to find out as I travel north (we’re going up that way) is to see whether she is actually physically moved now to Boston. We try to compare notes every once in a while because we’re on a similar project.
Fran Land: I do want to say that Mr. Freiman would very much like to see you. I did tell him you were coming through town. I did not tell him v/hen you were coming…if you want to call him.
Tom C.: Sure. We’d hoped to see him Thursday but he changed the date. He had originally set it up for Wednesday, but the last we heard it was Thursday, so I’m sort of hoping it will work out Thursday.
Mary C.S: I think he plans for Thursday.
Fran L.: Do you want me to call him tonight? Or do you want to talk to him?
Tom C.: I think we ought to say hello while we’re in town. I’m not sure when he leaves.
Fran L.: I don’t know if you’ve been downtown, but he’s got this very nice collection of early American cooking utensils. Millburn Deli has given us their window and we’ve put them up for display. I think it’s quite attractive.
Tom C.: We didn’t notice it. We walked through town this morning. It was rather windy and brisk. We stopped in a couple of stores and got out right away. The delicatessen…where is that?
Alicia R.: Bairds. Right next to Bairds, rather.
Tom C.: Would that be by the hardware stores?
Lampe: Yes. Lonergans.
Tom C.: Gee, we went right by it.
Land: Oh, well, really you must see it.
(End of tape)
Tape II
Mary C.S.: As I recall there were two more floors and the next floor was for the Hartshorn family, their guest rooms, the Hartshorn suite which faced towards the gardener’s cottage and was over the large room again, and, oh, I’d sometimes go and help the chambermaid just to get around inside the house.
Alicia R.: It must have been lots of fun.
Mary C.S.: It was. And the next floor was really suites for the servants. I mean the butlers, for example, had their suites and so forth, and the French, who was also a seamstress and taught me everything that I knew in the way of crocheting or tatting or sewing or anything like that, her suite of rooms were…and so on and so on, that whole floor. That gives you some idea of what an extensive place it was.
Alicia R.: It’s a shame it had to be dismantled.
Fran L.: How was it decorated?
Mary C.S.: My recollection of it is that there was nothing ostentatious but all very good, like the dining room as I explained. It was the first room I’d ever seen paneled in wood and beautifully carved. That was the decoration of it.
Fran L.: Did they collect antique furniture or…
Mary C.S.: That I can’t tell you because I wasn’t old enough at the time to really appreciate it, or distinguish.
Alicia R.: But it had a quiet elegance?
Mary C.S.: Oh very quiet.
Fran L.: It wasn’t very Victorian and carved?
Mary_C.S.: No, nothing really ornate, and as I was telling you, I used to read to her. Mrs. Hartshorn was the type who always wanted to be helpful to people who were needy, but she wanted to give them an opportunity to earn. She was…it had to be worthy and they’d have to show that they were willing to go along, too. And even as children she tried to set up things for us to do, and in the summertime the one thing was to get the dandelions out of the lawn. Here she had ten men working around, but still she would get ten or twelve little knives that wouldn’t hurt us and still would be alright to dig a dandelion out, and little half bushel baskets and she’d sit on the porch and she’d read to herself. As soon as we filled one we’d come up and she’d check off how many and she’d give us so much for each basket. You know what we little devils used to do. We used to go down to the cow pasture, down below where she couldn’t see us, where the dandelions were this size, and put them in the bottom first, but she got wise after a while. But what I’m trying to illustrate is that she was the kind of person who always wanted to help. She was one of the instigators who started the Neighborhood House in Millburn. She was very much interested in that.
Alicia R.: As you mentioned before she was interested in higher education for women?
Mary C.S.: Yes indeed she was. She really was. She never had it herself, so she was all for it.
Fran Land: Did the house have bathrooms and lighting and all those things?
Mary C.S.: Oh yes, very much so.
Tom C.: As a matter of fact they had street lights all along the driveways. It was quite a sight…incandescent.
Alicia R.: It must have been one of the first in the state, don’t you think?
Tom C.: Yes, I’m sure. He was about the first in everything. First automobiles…and I remember they had electric lights long before we had them in 88 Hobart Ave.
Mary C.S.: In the house, yes……..there were little gas brackets…a thing that came up from the wall, like this, with a flame. I can remember…
Tom C.: …globes and little asbestos chimneys or flues and they disintegrated if you touched them and I remember touching them and getting bit…
Mary C.S.: …and I remember it used to be my chore to clean the kerosene lamps before they were put in, and I was kind of glad they were put in. I can always remember the gardeners on Saturdays; they would always come to the back and call mother and they’d always have several baskets of vegetables for us…tomatoes this size…beets…
Alicia R.: No wonder everything we plant here grows. Very fertile.
Mary C.S.: They had a nice greenhouse.
Alicia R.: Where was the greenhouse?
Mary C.S.: The greenhouse was…well, I used to call it the laundry yard, I don’t know…….says we can pinpoint it for them.
Fran L.: OK. We’re interested in the windmill.
Mary C.S.: If you are interested in the windmill…well, if you want to take a walk to see the ponds on the other side of the railroad, just before you went under the arch to the left stood the remains of the windmill and I was always warned never to go in it or try to get in it. It was still standing when I left this area.
Tom C.: It was just the basement. It was unidentifiable when I came along.
Mary C.S.: It was much higher than that when I saw it.
Fran L.: Well, it’s a curious place for a windmill to be because it seems lower than where they really to get the water. Do you have any idea why they…
Tom C.: Probably because it was on the…he had a main line coming up there for water. If you recall I mentioned he had a pumping station directly south of there on Millburn Avenue, so I imagine that his pipes came right on up through that very area and then he had a large standpipe of sorts up at the very highest part of the town, on Parsonage Hill Rd. I think if we were to draw a line we would probably hit it. It came right out of Springfield up that hill.
Lampe: Now, the North and South ponds were built as reservoirs by him were they not?
Tom C.: Well, there’s the first one. He had some type of building on what is now South Pond. I don’t recall what venture that was. He had a waterworks south of it on Lake Road.
Lampe: But there was brick…
Tom C.: The brick place was on the other side, I understand, where Joanna Way is now.
Lampe: Well, it was a brick work of sorts because there are still parts in the ponds.
Fran L.: You can see them on a clear day.
Lampe: The kids dive in there.
Tom C.: I believe that was part of his attempt to make bricks, using this native clay. 0f course, his pumping station was south of that. There’s a crossroad.
Alicia R.: By south you mean toward the tracks?
Tom C.: If you come down Lake Road from between the two ponds immediately alongside South Pond is a dirt road…
Lampe: Lake Shore.
Tom C.: Lake Shore, OK. If you come down a little further, perhaps 500 feet, there’s another road to the right.
Lampe: Oh, I was going to say west. It’s before West Street. It’s also a little dirt road and the Leftbridges(?) used to live there, next to it. I don’t know the name of it.
Tom C.: Between the two roads…when I was a youngster…the remnants of the foundation of a pumping station…at that point. That’s what my father said, “This is part of Mr. Hartshorn’s water works here; one of his pumping stations.”
Fran L.: I had never heard that he had tried to start an industry in this town.
Tom C.: Oh no, this was fresh water for…
Fran L.: Oh, no, he’s talking abut the brick works.
Tom C.: The bricks, yes. Well, he had a quarry and that’s industry.
Alicia R.: That was in Springfield, wasn’t it?
Tom C.: Yes, but it was all continuously-owned property. Do you know where the quarry was? Alright, you go down Short Hills Avenue past St. Rose’s and the Chanticler till you come to Morris Turnpike. So straight across it and the quarry is about 600-700 feet in there. That was his quarry.
Alicia R.: Can you see it?
Tom C.: I don’t know what is left of it now. I have some pictures of the quarry with Mr. Hartshorn in it.
Fran L.: He had the quarry, but he wanted to manufacture.
Tom C.: That’s my understanding. He tried to manufacture brick but it wasn’t suitable and I think this is recorded in some historical thing done here in Short Hills. I don’t know whether it is in the anniversary…
Lampe: Well, Bill Ross mentioned about the brick works. That’s why I brought it up. He said it was by the ponds.
Tom C.: It’s not so long ago that I saw something on this very subject.
Fran L.: Would you say that Mr. Hartshorn…I had always seen him as sort of a total philanthropic entrepreneur(?) working on his ideal community. I didn’t realize that he was kind of business oriented too except insofar as his real estate was concerned.
Mary C.S.: One of the strong points about him was that he did not want streets and avenues as such, that sort of thing. All the roads must follow the natural contours. I can remember (Tom: “Yes, yes”) on a Sunday afternoon people coming by looking for so and so and there were no street signs, either. That’s another thing. And they’d ask my dad “Where does (so and so) live?” and my father would into lengthy explanations on how you had to go around this way and that way and so forth. Then about a half hour later they were back again.
Lampe: This was true until the late 1940s when they finally put the street signs in.
Fran L.: Were any of the streets paved?
Mary C.S.: Oh yes, they were paved…macadam surface or whatever you call it.
Alicia R: There were a lot of dirt roads.
Mary C.S.: There were sidewalks around here. There were road signs on Millburn Avenue and sidewalks around there. He’s got a picture of me at sixteen…
One of the best friends I had here was a very peculiar person. I guess none of you heard of him, Bert Smith, and he was a hermit. Bert Smith lived at the corner of Hillside and Hobart and at that time it was rather high up the land there and his home, or the ruins of it, were there. He was a recluse and he built himself a hut out of what he could take from the old homestead. And his treasures consisted of a knife and fork box filled with pieces of china which belonged to his mother…china that he had unearthed at some time or other while digging around there. He’d been a hatter in his youth. There was a hatting industry right here in Millburn. He worked as a hatter and then he had a sister who lived diagonally across on the corner of Hobart and Hillside. I think the school has it as a playground…that corner. Well, Mrs. Baldwin lived there. That was his married sister and she had a daughter who married Mr. Lugere(?) who was postmaster in Short Hills for a long time. They also had another brother, Ed Smith, who lived with his sister and Ed used to always tell me that he could grow any plant. All you had to do was give him a leaf. I thought he was the biggest liar in town. Now my favorite sport is growing African violets from leaves, and I always think of him. And then he used to brag that he grew a pumpkin so large that Bamberger’s didn’t have a window large enough to show it. Anyway there was something wrong in the family there so that the old brother who lived on the hill, old Bert, never lived with them and although his sister always cooked his meals and when it was time for him to come for his meals, she’d hang a kitchen towel in the window and he’d go over with his basket and he’d get it and come back. And I spent many an hour sitting in front of his little cabin. You were never invited in of course, even if you wanted to go in, but we sat there and (he was) telling me about the history of the town…how it was when he was a boy and all that. Once or twice a year he would venture down to town, to Millburn, and he looked like Rip van Winkle because he didn’t have a single piece of clothing on that was in its entirety. You couldn’t tell which was the original piece of the coat. I mean it would be a piece from here and a piece form there and he’d be very suspicious of anything you’d bring him. He’d wash it and all before he’d even use it. And then, directly across the street as you turn the corner on Hobart Avenue, he owned the property across the street where the houses are now, where Frank Steppel(?) lived, and he used to grow vegetables and he’s always come around and give my mother vegetables. He’d call me Nanie and one time when he got to the point where he could no longer care for himself, he was put in the county home and he knew it. He was told he was going to go and he came down and called my mother and said, “Please save me. Save me.” It was kind of pathetic, you know. They took him anyway. And he was there for only a short time when he died. I went to his funeral and I looked at my friend and I couldn’t recognize him. He was clean shaven and his hair was cut. He was in a black suit and a white shirt and a necktie. This wasn’t my friend and I sat there and cried. I was the only one there who cried. And I have a clipping from the papers telling about him and showing a picture of him the way I remember him.
Fran L: I’d love to see that. Where was the funeral?
Mary C.S.: As I recall, it was towards Springfield. Some church in that area.
Alicia R.: The Baptist Church? St. Stephens?
Mary C.S.: I’m not sure, dear. No, I know St. Stephens. I used to play basketball in their parish hall. That was before our school had a gymnasium.
Alicia R.: You did everything in this town.
Mary C.S.: I understand that one of my dear friends died three weeks ago…Robert Marshall, Sr. Well, when we played basketball I was the forward on the girls team. He used to say, “Mary, every time you make a basket and score you can have an ice cream cone.” I had a lot of fun.
Tom C.: Mary, while you were talking about Bert, just up the street from him there was a cottage facing on Hillside, is that correct?
Mary C.S.: They were relatives of his also…the Lyons family.
Lampe: That was the Lyons, because the Lyons gave us a picture of the cottage which we now have and in back of it there is the big house which is still there.
Mary C.S: Is that right? (“Yes”). Well, the Lyons family lived there. Russell Lyons, I think. Was he a patrolman, or a fireman? (“Police.”) Well, his sister Norma Lyons…or maybe it was his aunt. It was hi sister?
Alicia R.: Yes, the one who gave us the picture.
Mary C.S.: Well, we were close friends, Norma and I.
Lampe: So the cottage belonged to the Lyons also.
Alicia R.: Tom, you’ve spoken of this Mr. Derrick being a local painter in Short Hills. In what time span? Can you pinpoint it?
Tom C.: Derrick spent summers here. He was actually from N.Y. He had a little studio on 57th Street, but he began spending summers with the Hartshorns, as near as I’ve been able to find out…
END OF TAPE
(Other side of tape)
Lampe: Who bought the land for the realtors? What was their name?
Tom C.: Clemenshaw, Allen and Clemenshaw.
Lampe: Where were they from? Newark?
Tom C.: I have no idea where they came from.
Lampe: So, when the house was dismantled, they…
Tom C.: I assume they were responsible for disposing…
Fran L.: Do you remember what year that was?
Tom C.: About 1941 or 1942.
Alicia R.: Just at the beginning o£ the war.
Tom C.: Yes. If I can pursue that a little further, the Hartshorn daughter, Mrs. Hack, lived up on Old Short Hills Road. The Hack family died out and the estate was inherited by Stewart Hartshorn, III and his sister, Catherine Jennrette, They sold it and they had to get rid of quite a bit of the grounds around here. They were very lucky, I think, to find a buyer, and Lucille Manners bought it. I don’t know what happened to it since then, but to maintain a building like that would have had to be an institution. There were about three furnace rooms in it. In the winter time men were stoking it and you’d think you were on a battle ship. No way.
Back to Mr. Derrick. Where were we on Mr. Derrick?
Fran L.: He’d been…until about 1940.
Tom_C.: I can pick him up in my earliest recollections about 1924 or 1925. He was just one of the Hartshorn family as far as I was concerned. He was here every summer painting the local scenes right there in the homestead. He loved the area. He painted right about here. I remember once he…the orchard, the pond, he loved the ponds.
Fran L.: I wonder if some of these…black on white. We have so many graphics. Did he…
Tom C.: No. Principally he did oils, although he did some watercolors. I have one note I think its in reference…he did in pastel…
Alicia R.: You say you’ve been looking over the country for his paintings. Have you been able to collect any, Tom?
Tom C.: You see, we were fortunate in receiving paintings from Mrs. Hartshorn. May has one and I was given one; she gave me hers. I have two, she has none. Then I found one. I’ve been doing this search and I found one owned by a buyer from the National(?) Galleries in Washington. He sold it to us. I have three now and I have been able to identify, but not actually physically locate, about 45 of his works. And I know I’m only scratching the surface.
Fran L.: Who would have them? Old families?
Tom C.: Well, most of the ones I know of are owned by the Hartshorns the grandchildren.
Alicia R.: Ernestine would have some.
Tom C. I just talked with her this morning. Yes, they have some. She said that when they moved from the large house to her present house there were some that just didn’t fit the smaller house. So she says she is not sure what they did with them but she is going to look into it for me. She is going to help me make an inventory of them. But there are quite a few in Catherine’s family. She has two daughters who have quite a few and she has several…It’s an interesting search.
It’s been going on for three years I guess, a part time project. There was so little about him in the standard references that it piqued my curiosity. There must be more to the man.
Mary C.S.: Was it three years ago I was up in…this magazine and I saw it.
Tom C.: The Magazine Antiques.
Mary C.S.: One of my friends had it.
Tom G.: Oh yes, it’s in there by…it showed one of his paintings on the front here. Then she told me about it and I got all fired up. I have to find out more about him.
Mary C.S.: I used to annoy the man. I know I did. How? Because I was just a little inquisitive and I would go up and see where he was today painting around here and I’d sit down and watch and to get rid of me he’d look around and he’d have one of his —-(?) and he’d give it to me and say, “Go home and see what you can paint.” You know, that sort of thing. It encouraged me to come back again and look for him the next day. And I was always at his elbow. And up in New Hampshire in the summer time, up at the camp, when we used to go up, he’d like to go across over to Blueberry Island which was directly across from their beautiful camp, called The Jungle. I guess he thought he was safe over there, away from everybody and he could sit back and paint. I discovered where he went. I couldn’t take a rowboat and go, so there was one spot at the end of the island where if the water happened to be a certain way you could walk across on the stones. And it was one of the Van Ingen girls who showed me how to do it. They were up there in the summer. Then here I appeared over on the island. He didn’t know what to think. So my mother had made me a rag doll because we weren’t near any place where you could buy toys and we needed something to put a face on the doll and I told him so he gave me whatever…
Alicia R: Other than the Hartshorn family, who was an outstanding family in the community you folks remember?
Mary C.S.: Now, repeat that question.
Alicia R.: Other than the Hartshorn family…as you were growing up…who in the community do you feel left an impression on your memory?
Mary C.S.: Well, the Taylor family. The son of the Taylors was in class with me (the second grade or something like that) till they moved away.
Fran L.: How about the Stewart family?
Mary C.S.: Are you talking about the John Stewart family? I don’t know them, but she was the one, I believe, who started the Garden Club. Am I right?
Fran L.: The Renwicks…did you know any of them?
Mary C.S.: Only by name and knowing that they were close friends of the younger Hartshorn daughter, Mrs. Hack.
Lampe: What about the Benedicts, the house across from Christ Church.
Mary C.S.: I don’t remember them.
Lampe: The reason I ask is that I’ve been in touch with John Benedict and I don’t know…
Fran L.: Where did you go to school?
Mary C.S.: I’m a graduate of the Short Hills High School.
Alicia R.: And there were eight children in her class.
Mary C.S.: Eight pupils and I was the valedictorian.
Alicia R.: She had the best kind of school training.
Fran L: Did Mr. Hartshorn really have four chauffeurs?
Mary C.S.: Yes, at one time.
Fran L.: How could you have four chauffeurs? Where were they going?
Mary C.S.: One for her, one for him, one for young Stewart…
…one of my earliest memories at the time, there used to be a visiting German brass band that came around in the summer time to entertain…wandering minstrels. And they would come up the drive and the first Mrs. Stewart Hartshorn–I’m talking about Junior now-—would come out on the porch and she was a semi-invalid and she was a beautiful blonde woman, who loved music and she would come out in this robe and I thought she was… And they would play. She was always gracious and I used to look forward to these concerts.
Fran L.: Speaking of concerts, did you celebrate the Fourth of July? When you were a child was there a town celebration?
Mary C.S.: I don’t think so…until Taylor Park.
Tom C.: Before that I can remember that they used to have it on the green at the Millburn railroad station.
Mary C.S.: They did? I can remember a parade.
Tom C.S.: They used to have fire works and all kinds of things right there at the railroad. And later came Taylor Park.
Mary C.S.: I can remember a Memorial Day Parade too. They used to have that and then visit various cemeteries and decorate the graves. Do they carry on with that tradition?
Tom C.: I can remember one parade. It had to be an election year and Mrs. Zehmish, over here (her husband ran the little grocery store) and she was boosting for women’s suffrage, so now we can figure what year that was. I was probably four or five years old.
Mary C.S.: I wasn’t even around here then.
Tom C.: I was part of a float that was in the parade and which had the ballot box. I was Uncle Sam. Estelle Greenbaum was Miss Liberty, I think, and the two of us stood on either side of the ballot box. There was another girl, probably a teenager, and she stood in the tableau and a Model T truck pick-up, all decorated beautifully. We all started by the Millburn station where the restaurant is, the Millburn diner–and that was Douglas’ Yard, Douglas Steam Boilers. I used to see their sign. They had a great big wooden fence. We started there, anyways, and went all through town. I couldn’t stand still. I was like any youngster I had ants in my pants, so I began tipping my hat to everyone and boy that brought out the crowd. They’d say you’re not supposed to do that. Aw…I’d show them my big silk hat.
Fran L.: What would be your parade route from here? You’d go up where? Millburn Ave?
Tom C.: I can remember going on Millburn Avenue and being on Main Street, but I don’t know how we got to all these places.
Mary C.S.: I can remember being in a parade of some kind. I was an angel and I lost my wings. I remember Mother being very upset because she’d worked very hard on them.
Fran L.: Do you by any chance know if Stewart Hartshorn was any relation to the Hartshorns who originally settled in Springfield? There is mention of Hartshorns in Springfield before the Revolutionary War.
Tom C.: I think not. I can say that because he was from Tennessee.
Mary C.S.: Mrs. Hartshorn was a Randall.
Alicia R.: From where?
Tom C.: Before the Revolution, Hartshorns are mentioned in Monmouth County history also.
Fran L.: I was just wondering if this German band was something that perhaps he had been tracing his history and perhaps got back to Germany, you know…
Mary C.: I don’t think so. I think it was just the thing…the custom in those days. You’d look for it in the summertime, like the Good Humor man rides around.
Lampe: Could it have been related to like the Traummert(?) Brewery over in Orange which is now Reingold?
Mary C.S.: I don’t really know.
Tom C.: What year are you speaking of?
Mary C.S.: I think maybe 1912. Somewhere in there.
Fran L.: Who was the man who lived along the Parson’s house?
Mary C.S.: Which house?
Fran L.: The one at the corner of Highland and Hartshorn.
Tom C.: You mean Hartshorn and Parsonage Hill?
Fran L.: Yes. The one that the Jr. League had as a…
Alicia R.: It is set way off the road, Mary, with a long driveway.
Lampe: That’s not a very old house though.
Fran L.: He was the only man…that was the only piece of property that was not within the confines of the map. And he didn’t…What?
Lampe: Right on Parsonage Hill, just where Parsonage Hill starts down the deep slope towards W.O.R. It would be on the left.
Tom C.: There was a road coming off there.
Lampe: That’s Hartshorn, yes.
Tom C.: Now where is it? Beyond that?
Lampe: Yes. (Woman’s voice: “No. No.”) The hill drops off right there, where Hartshorn comes out.
Tom C.: Would that be on the left?
Fran L.: On the left.
Tom C.: There was nothing in there until you went in, oh, probably a quarter of a mile and you reached the toboggan slide.
Fran L.: Well, maybe the house now did not exist but the man who owned the property, according to what I’ve read, was the man who introduced Mr. Hartshorn to this area. I can’t remember his name.
Tom C.: I don’t know. It is very interesting, but I understand he first came out here for his health and settling in Springfield and attempting to build a community there while looking into the feasibility of it and he abandoned it to come up here. His granddaughter, Catherine, told me last October that he had T.B. or some problem he was determined to overcome. And when he came to Springfield he built himself up physically. He went to the outdoors and she said he had a great big hollow log that he used as a bathtub outside and she said he’d bathe summer and winter and he had to break the ice to get in and take his bath. Now, he was a tough man. He was a gentleman and all that, but physically he was tough, there’s no doubt about it. His eyesight was fantastic. You know, he could see like a youngster. He had all his faculties even in his 90s. His conversations were lively. I guess he was sick the one day before he died. That was it.
Lampe: Getting back to the top of the hill at Hartshorn Drive…the water tower at the top there, was that part of his system?
Tom C.: Yes, before Commonwealth.
Lampe: I think that’s now East orange. I’m not sure who it belongs to.
Tom C.: It was one of the Hartshorn water systems. I don’t know how old that is. Ancient. You remember they had a water break right here by the cottage…Jones.
Mary C.S.: The gardener’s cottage.
Tom C.: Yes. Ancient pipe. They began going down there…just crumbling away. It was put in there 1870 or something.
Alicia R.: From Jones’ house down the street on Crescent Place, the big house in the middle of the street on the right hand side…who lived in that house?
Mary C.S.: Kilgores.
Tom C.: Kilgore’s home. Not one of the new ones. They were friends of Hartshorns.
Lampe: Is that where the…are now?
Alicia R.: Did he invite people he wanted into the community here? Was that one of his purposes?
Tom C.: Yes he wanted…
Alicia R.: The philosophy of an ideal community.
Tom C.: Bringing people who would appreciate it was one of his ideas.
Fran L.: Do you know anything about Stanford White, or did you hear anything about him? There are so many stories…
Tom C.: Not from here. I know of him of course, because of his fame.
Lampe: You indicated earlier that the only thing that you ever heard that Stanford White did was the Racquets Club.
Mary C.S.: Yes, and I haven’t heard of anything.
Fran L. Do you know who did Mr. Hartshorn’s house?
Mary C.S.: No. we don’t.
Fran L.: Does Catherine, his granddaughter, know?
Tom C.S.: She’s someone you could ask. She’s most interesting.
Alicia R.: Where does she live now?
Tom C.: She’s somewhere between Laudenville, N.Y. and Boston. I’m going up that way.
Lampe: How old is she?
Tom C.: Catherine’s about 70. She’s just finishing…she’s dragging her heels on my project on Derrick, the artist. Curiously we’d both been working on it about a year when she contacted the —– Gallery in Raleigh and asked where they had obtained the Derricks they were selling and in conversation…said it was curious that you are inquiring about Derrick. We’ve had one other inquiry from someone who probably knew him and they gave her my name. I guess she flipped. She contacted me and we agreed to share our findings and we initially were to prepare an article on antiques and now she thinks…a biography. I think I can do it after I retire. I still have quite a family at home. When I break out of this…in five years maybe.
Lampe: Do you keep in touch with any other members of the Hartshorn family?
Tom C.: Stewart just died recently. I stopped over. Way back we used to knock around.
Fran L.: Do you know if Stewart was named for his son Stewart or for the Stewart family?
Tom C.: It’s my understanding that he was named for Stewart Jr. as Joanna was named for Joanna.
Alicia R.: We want to thank you both so much. It was very interesting. Your childhoods were obviously very happy on the Hartshorn homestead. We appreciate your recapping your memories.
Tom C.: Did you attend Christ Church?
Mary G.S.: No, dear.
Lampe: I have another question. When you mentioned Joanna I thought of Stewart Rd. up there. Was that named for Stewart or was that named for the Stewart family?
Mary C.S.: And Joanna Way was named…see, Stewart Rd. was named after Mr. Hartshorn and Joanna Way after his wife and daughter.
Tom C.: I know you are thinking of the Stewart family Stewart of John Stewart.
Lampe: Yes. Well, in the slides we are putting on for the Girl Scouts this morning the question came up about that. Mrs. Land said we better take that slide out. I don’t think it’s correct. But now you’ve confirmed that we were right.
Alicia R.: Do you recall any other streets that were named for the family itself, or people that you recalled while you were growing up, Tom?
Tom C.: No, the streets I remember were…Knollwood, Nottingham. They all had names that were somehow keyed into…I don’t recall any other than Joanna Way and Stewart Road.