Matt Mlynarczyk, who now lives in Virginia, sends us this scan of a Riverton fire engine. (We last heard from him last summer (Dig this, July 4, 2016) when he sent in a photo of a rare bottle labeled “MacMullin” he had found.)
Local residents may have read the Philadelphia Inquirer story in August about a two officers who rescued a “treasure” of thousands photo negatives that were slated for disposal by the Cinnaminson Police Department. This undated photo was among them.
Please advise if you can identify and date the above photo. – JMc
Ok, so it’s not a confirmation that a founder’s home was a station on the Underground Railroad, but it’s a piece, nonetheless.
HSR members Jill and Hank Croft recently gave us another example of things that aren’t there anymore in these undated photos of Klipple’s Fine Pastries.
The Klipple family’s business was in the building at Broad and Main now occupied by Orange Blossom Bakery and Cafe, Milanese Pizza (2022)
Klipple’s Fine Pastries, undated photo courtesy of Jill and Hank Croft
I had only mentioned in a September blog post that a photo of that bakery was one requested by our web visitors.
This excerpt from Betty Hahle’s booklet that accompanied the Romance of Riverton, a 1926 film turned to DVD in 1989, explains earlier incarnations of that spot.
1911 Riverton Sanborn map detail
The small building on the corner (formerly Klipple’s, now Zena’s Patisserie ) was erected by the Gas Company in 1900, became the Railway Express office (in 1926 moved to 1st floor Price Bldg.) and is seen here very briefly as a butcher/grocery store. Although directories identify it as Riverton Market House at this time, it was occupied very briefly by Ludlow’s Market, and identified as such by Paul Gibbon who, as a boy, made deliveries for Ludlow.
Carl McDermott, 2013
In this 2011 blog post Carl McDermott recalled how his mother was a telephone operator in the upper story of the attached structure to the left of Klipple’s (toward Palmyra).
If a reader can date the photos, please advise.
We are still seeking any photos of the Sharon Shop when it was a favorite lunch spot for Riverton students and teachers, among others. Wishing has worked so far. – JMc
Arbor Day falls on the last Friday of April every year.
Riverton earned its Tree City designation over 27 years ago on Arbor Day, April 28, 1989, as the result of efforts by some dedicated tree huggers.
Then Shade Tree Commission Member Nancy Washington explained why.
To get the circumference, of course, for the tree census.
Commission Chair Mr. Barry Emens and his fellow commissioners had previously measured each one of them and noted their condition as part of the task of applying to the Arbor Day Foundation for the Tree City title.
In marking the occasion that day, Mr. Emens addressed a group of k-5th grade Riverton School students on the Christ Episcopal Church lawn.
Mr. Emens enthusiastically listed some benefits of trees:
Trees give us a good feeling inside.
They keep the noise down.
They keep your parents’ fuel bills down.
They increase property values.
The kids cheered when Emens announced they would each get a white pine seedling.
Music teacher Naomi Horn directed students in singing “Arbor Day, Sweet Arbor Day” to the tune of “O Christmas Tree.”
Raise your hand, kids, if you witnessed an Arbor Day tree planting. Or maybe you planted one of those tree seedlings.
One of our town’s trees has even been to outer space.
Well, at least its seed was in space.
Space Shuttle White Pine plaque, 2018Space Shuttle White Pine tree, 2018
During another Arbor Day assembly in 2011, the borough received a white pine grown from seeds flown aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997. Riverton’s new tree was on display in a planter in the school gymnasium before being planted in Riverton Memorial Park along the edge of the Pompeston Creek.
According to the Board’s current Tree Census, Riverton Borough has 2474 trees lining the streets & parks; that’s almost as many trees as its people population of 2,772 (2013). Over the years, Emens and company have succeeded in making Riverton home to a staggering 151 diverse tree species!
Did you know the creation of Riverton’s Shade Tree Commission followed the presentation of an illustrated lecture (probably in 1908) at the Porch Club? See a description of the Porch Club’s early years in this July 1911 issue of Suburban Life,and about that 1908 lecture in this excerpt from Jersey City’s Evening Journal, May 4, 1908, p5.
The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 29, 1989, pB3
Added 10-13-16: A great friend of the HSR, Gary Weart, contributes over 30 autumn pix, but you need to visit Facebook to see them.
In 2015, Nancy and Bill Steel’s family photo album yielded early 20th-century images of what may have been Riverton’s first swimming pool, H. McIlvain Biddle’s iceboat plying the Delaware River, a bi-wing seaplane afloat near Riverton Yacht Club, and a group of apparent suffragists lunching at Haine’s Pond, Burlington Pike.
Visual treats, indeed, despite the lack of accompanying notes that might have given them more context.
In a year in which a woman is the first female presidential nominee of a major party, the enigmatic photos of crowds walking, singing, and bearing “VOTES FOR WOMEN” signs at several Burlington County locales warrant revisiting the Steel photo album.
Col. Ida Kraft speaking at Bridgeboro, Steel Family Album
Peculiarly referred to in captions as Col. Ida Kraft* (spelling varied), Corp. Martha Kaltschkin*, and Gen. Rosalie Jones, the women, and their “Pilgrim Army” had piqued my interest. (see CORRECTIONS below)
Mrs. J. Hardy Stubbs, Miss Ida Craft, Miss Rosalie Jones, Library of Congress
Some newspaper research and many Google hits later led me to this Library of Congress photo documenting the 1913 suffrage hike from New York City which culminated in an immense suffrage parade in Washington, D.C. timed to coincide with newly elected President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration.
excerpt: Mob buffets hikers now in Philadelphia, New York Times, Feb. 17, 1913
Newspaper accounts confirmed that the hikers did indeed pass through these parts.
Turns out, the Steel family album documents an important chapter in the long fight for women’s right to vote.
What would those pioneers think of today’s developments in the Election of 2016?
Dubbed “The Army of the Hudson” by newspapers, General Jones considered the movement of women to become enfranchised of as much importance to this country as General Washington’s celebrated crossing of the Delaware. Jones and her “pilgrims” marched 230 miles in 17 days to the nation’s capital.
Women Open Headquarters, January 11, 1913, Denver Post, p. 8
Meanwhile, Alice Paul, the acclaimed 28-year-old Quaker suffragist from nearby Mt. Laurel, had been in Washington working for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) since December 1912.
As chair of NAWSA’s Congressional Committee, she strategized, raised funds, organized, and maximized publicity for the first suffragist parade in Washington, D.C., known officially as the Woman Suffrage Procession.
Woman’s Journal and Suffrage News, March 8, 1913Inez Milholland Boissevain preparing to lead the March 3, 1913 suffrage parade
Imagine a parade of 8,000 marchers with 26 floats with costumed suffragists, bands, speakers, and mounted brigades led by Inez Milholland, acknowledged as “the most beautiful suffragist,dressed in Greek robes and astride a white horse as a half-million spectators clogged the Pennsylvania Avenue route to the White House.
March 7, 1913, Philadelphia Inquirer, p.5
The nation observed the spectacle through countless newspaper accounts.
A later scandal asserting a lack of response by police to the violence perpetrated by suffrage opponents in the crowd fueled tremendous sympathetic publicity.
However, it was not to be until 1920 that the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing no state could deny the right to vote on the basis of sex.
Some circumstantial evidence suggests that perhaps at least some Rivertonians took part in the women’s suffrage events of 1913.
Alice Paul graduated from Swarthmore College in 1905, a Quaker institution co-founded by her grandfather, Judge William Parry, an important figure in local history. Accounts inform us that, at the parade, she marched with a contingent of Swarthmore friends.
Many members of prominent Riverton families had attended Swarthmore including Beulah and Susanna Parry, Hetty Coale Lippincott, Martha McIlvain Biddle, Clara Atlee, Ruth Hunt Conrow, Abigail Mary Ellsworth, Esther Fisher Holmes, Anna Lippincott Miller, and Elisabeth Somers Williams.
Alice Paul’s father, William Mickel Paul, was vice-president of the Riverton and Palmyra Water Company and owned stock in the Tacony-Palmya Ferry Company.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the record also shows that Riverton clubwomen such as Mary Van Meter Grice, Mrs. D. Henry Wright, Mary L. Thomas, Amelia Coale, Edith Coale, and others were involved in the women’s movement.
In 1904, Helen Lippincott, Swarthmore alum and Porch Club Charter Member, called for the formation of a Suffrage Section, or department, at the Porch Club. Later she served as a delegate to the November 1912 National Convention of the Women’s Suffrage Association at which Alice Paul was an alternate delegate.
Suffice it to say that the timing and locations allow for the possibility that at least some Riverton women helped advance the cause of women’s rights.
Gen. Rosalie Jones and gospel wagon Miss Alice Freeman* in background, Steel Family Album
Here’s my question: Are the pictures in the Steel album because an ancestor or acquaintance participated in the march? Further, is there a deeper connection to Riverton history somehow?
The captions do not say and the Mr. and Mrs. Steel do not know.
We could use a hand with this one, Readers. – JMc
Added 11-4-2016: See a more detailed version of this story in the November issue of the Gaslight News.
Added 4-7-2019: Roger Prichard explains where the luncheon at Haines Pond took place. Give the large file a sec to load.
*Corrections 7-7-2021: Further research has confirmed that the captions included with the original photos incorrectly spelled Craft with a “K.” Also, Martha Kaltschkin should be spelled Martha Klatschken and Alice Freeman was misidentified as Elisabeth Freeman. Thank you to Jane Swersey who put us on the right track.
Richards Restaurant-Caterer, Rt 130Aerial View of Hoeganaes Sponge Iron Corp. 1963
We have several old postcards that are over a century old, the accepted age of something that is an antique. However, these modern chrome postcards are getting up there.
Hoeganaes Sponge Iron Corp. is the only postcard that has a date.
Can a car buff date that Caddy at Roger Wilco or any of the autos at Richard’s Restaurant? The phone number for Roger Wilco listed on the back is RIverton 9-1400. – JMc
Farmers and Mechanics BankRoger Wilco Liquor Store, Palmyra, NJ
Rev. 10/2/16 Roger Prichard:Thanks! Richards Restaurant is today’s Whistler’s Inn, I’m guessing?
Thanks to HSR member Roger Prichard for his suggestion on our Facebook page that Richards Restaurant is today Whistlers Inn. Although enlarged and transformed, it sure looks like it. My mouth is watering for Whistlers’ Smoke House BBQ ribs. The postcard shows a Route 130, Riverton address, and Whistlers gives a 901 Route 130 Cinnaminson address.
Every artifact, photo, ephemera item, old newspaper clipping, etc. we get helps add another stitch to the fabric of Riverton history.
Recently, Colin Cattell, a Palmyra High School student who loves history, saw this single Kodachrome slide up for auction on eBay, bought it, then went to Phyllis Rodgers’ home and gave it to her for the Society. The HSR President reports that Colin was so proud of his find and would not take anything for it.
Classy, Colin.
Collective Federal Savings fire 1979 scanned photo-edited slide image
According to the date stamp on the cardboard slide mount, photographer Bucky Reeves documented this 1979 Riverton fire that destroyed the Collective Federal Savings building that once stood next to Freddy’s Shoe Repair on Main Street.
008_1979-07-27 Huge Riverton Fire Trenton Evening Times p4
This dovetails nicely with a number of photos posted here in 2011 from Mary Yearly Flanagan’s family album. Among them was this newspaper clipping that summarized the event.
Can a firefighter or resident add any further context for that incident?
You may know Colin’s dad, Mike Cattell, as the author of those cool Then and Now videos that show a vintage image of a local landmark morphing into a modern scene, matching sizes and perspectives perfectly.
We thank Colin for his generous donation of this slide and appreciate the fresh perspective his dad, Mike Cattell has given to some vintage local images. – JMc
9/24/2016: Friend of the Society, John Hartnett, sends in these 3 pix of the 1979 fire mentioned above. He writes, “This photo was taken by George Mathis who, at the time, lived in the apartment above what is now Milanese Pizza.”
1979 Riverton fire photo by George Mathis1979 Riverton fire photo by George Mathis1979 Riverton fire photo by George Mathis
Those almost forgotten vintage postcards, family photos, and old newspaper clippings tucked away in attics and drawers still are the best sources for images about the Riverton of yesteryear.
If you have something you can find, please donate it or send us a scan. Recent requests for pictures include Klipple’s Bakery, The Sharon Shop, Woolston’s Esso, Palmyra’s bowling alley, Millside Farms, and others. – JMc