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818 York Road Black-Locke House The history of the home and business at this site centers on the Black-Locke family, who have run a nursery here for over 125 years. The first members of the family in East Windsor were brothers Charles (1842-1936) and Joseph H. Black (1844-1930), who came from Middlesex County to work at Isaac Pullen's nursery (see page 25). After Pullen's death in 1867, the Blacks bought the nursery and the house in the photograph above. The photograph on the cover of this book shows the Black brothers posing with their wives in front of the house during this period As the nursery grew, the Blacks gave jobs to their brothers William F. and Elias, finally renaming the nursery "Charles Black and Brothers" in 1876. The nursery became "Joseph H. Black and Son" when Joseph and Jenny's son Walter C. (1867-1962) bought Charles' share of the business in 1888. Joseph and Walter expanded their land holdings until they owned more than 1600 acres between Cedarville Road arid Hightstown. Joseph used his expertise as a nurseryman to create a number of new varieties of fruit, such as "Joe's Strawberry," which he and Walter advertised in thick, beautifully illustrated catalogues. One of their most popular trees was the "Mercer Cherry" that Joseph created in 1895. Their catalogues described it as the "only sure-bearing, non-rotting Heart Cherry" available. The Blacks used the Pemberton and Hightstown railroad track at the western end of their property to ship their plants and trees to farmers around the country (see page 6). Joseph and Walter kept busy ont>ng the winter by establishing one of Mercer County' s First Christmas tree farms with Norway spruces imported from Europe They delivered flyers door-to-door throughout the township to advertise their trees, which they delivered in time for Christmas. After Joseph's death, Walter inherited the house and business, along with Brookwood Farm on the eastern side of York Road. Walter and his wife Sarah F. Shinn later donated much of this farm to the Peddie School for use as a golf course. Throughout his life, Walter was devoted to schools and education. Besides teaching mathematics at Rider College, he also served on the Peddie School board for thirty-eight years and on the East Windsor-Hightstown Board of Education for fifty-four years. The township honored Walter's work in education by naming the school on Stockton Street for him.
When Walter retired from the nursery in 1957, his grandson Joseph B. Locke began running the business and renamed it "Village Nursery." The son of Walter's daughter Elma J. and her husband Harry C. Locke, Joseph had begun working at the nursery after school as a boy; he continued full time when he came home from serving in World War II. Once Joseph took over the property, he and his wife Ruth Crandall began restoring the house next door, which had stood empty for twenty-five years. Besides running the nursery, Joseph Locke also served as township treasurer, then as a number of the township planning board. Public service is something of a family tradition. Joseph's great-grandfather Joseph Black served as the Mercer County Collector and as a freeholder. Walter C. Black was the East Windsor Tax Collector from 1902 to 1961. Since the township had no space for a tax collector's office, in 1916 Walter began using thc building that now serves as the Village Nursery office (above) for tax collections. He let East Windsor use the building as a polling place, as his grandson Joseph has done. The Available evidence suggests that this office is the Cedarville School House in which Clara Barton taught (see page 20). The Hightstown Gazette reported that Walter bought the school at public auction for $70.00 on August 31, 1914. A date from the 1880's was recently found written on the southern interior wall of the office; the school was rebuilt after a fire in the 1880's. The size and style of the building certainly resembles the township's one-room schoolhouses (see page 17).
When Clifford Louis Conover (1885-1958) bought the ninety-acre farm surrounding this house from James Laird in 1915, he began operating it as a potato farm. Ten years later, Clifford bought sixteen purebred Guernsey cows and began transforming the farm into a dairy. He delivered milk to his first two customers, Dr. Tracy Dawes and Dr. George Franklin of Hightstown, In a Model-T Ford panel truck. Within a few years, Conover's business quickly grew into one of the two large commercial dairies that supplied milk to township residents in the twentieth century. At one point, the dairy delivered 16,000 quarts of milk a day. As their herd grew to over 160 cows, they bought Additional land until the farm included five hundred acres. In 1937, Clifford was elected to the American Guernsey Cattle Cub in recognition of the size and quality of his herd of cows. With the business growing, Clifford enlisted his wife Ann Hancock and their seven children to help him run the farm. Leo W. Fenity's history of the farm (see page 38) describes what a typical day was like for the Conover children. After rising at 5:00 a.m. to milk cows and fill milk bottles, they quickly made deliveries and ate breakfast in order to reach school by 9:00 a.m. Once school ended at 3:00 p.m., they spent another two hours milking and filling bottles before eating dinner and doing their homework. The photograph above shows the massive porch that the Conover's added to the house. They also made three large additions to the original section of the house, which C. R. Laird built around 1860. After the dairy closed in 1972, Clifford's son Clifford H. opened a popular antiques and clock business in the house.
678 York Road "New Hightstown" With its operable louvered shutters and slate roof, this stuccoed home is the only remaining building from " New Hightstown, " the first residential development in the township. In 1798 the Shield family of Pennsylvania proposed enlarging Hightstown by building seventy-five homes along York Road between today's Conover and Airport Roads. Although the Shields advertised their project in public places such as Moore's tavern (see page 33), they sold few lots; York Road Farmers eventually bought the rest. After World War II ended in 1945, several black veterans began meeting with their friends to organize social events. In 1952 the men incorporated their group as "Club Eight" named for their eight founding members: President Louis Greenwood, Secretary Charles Parrish, Treasurer Richard Parrish, Frank Jordan, Jake Robinson, Wes Gregory, Louis Bowman, and George Howard. The club quickly became the focal point of the township's black community. Besides sponsoring annual events such as its Easter Egg Hunt, the club also began raising money for a scholarship fund. In 1972 the club purchased this building from Paul Davis, who had constructed it in 1948 as a restaurant.
201 Hickory Corner Road Updike-Lee Family Farm Aaron Forman, an East Windsor farmer, built the original five-room section of this home in1802 A barn Forman built about the same time still stands to the west of the house. Between 1800 and 1850, various owners added eleven rooms to this house, the centerpiece of the surrounding fifty-four acre farm. The first members of the Updike-Lee family to live here were Levi C. Updike (1844-1918) and his new bride Abbie C. Applegate (1845-1915). Levi, who was born in East Windsor, moved here soon after he wed Abbie in 1868. Like other East Windsor farmers, they raised grains such as corn and oats. Their daughter LaMattie (1874-1964) soon began school across the street in the "Hickory Corner School," a one-room school on the corner next to a large Hickory tree. The tide from one of Lalviattie's school essays, "Perseverance, the Key of Success" (1892), could be taken as the Updike-Lee family motto. Seven generations of the Updike-Lee family have lived in this home and operated this farm, adapting their business to suit their needs. One of the first important changes came in 1897 when LaMattie began managing tile farm with her husband Charles Simmons Lee (1868-1947). Instead of continuing to raise grain crops, the Lees planted a variety of fruit trees and renamed the farm "Lee's Orchard." Charles bought a wagon for $50.00 and began selling fruit, eggs, and chickens to small grocery stores in Trenton. In 1914, they bought one of Henry Ford's popular Model "T" cars so that Charles could make deliveries quickly With the profits from their sales, LaMattie and Charles began modernizing their farm. In 1905, they installed radiators in the house to create the first central heating in the township. In 1910, they installed a pump house which supplied the house with the first running water in East Windsor. In 1913, they installed acetylene gas lights, then in 1920 they added electric lights powered by a generator.
Charles and LaMattie retired when their son Levi U. Lee (1899-1986) took over the management of the farm with his wife Virginia May Perrine (1899-1994). Although business dropped sharply after the stock market crash of 1929, Levi and Virginia managed to keep the farm running throughout the Depression. They sold what produce and poultry they could and used the profits to keep the buildings and machinery in repair. The photograph above shows Levi and Virginia's son, Richard Hulse Lee (b. 1927), handing the first turkey poults he ever raised to 4-H President Frank Oakerson. Richard raised thirty-three chicks for this 4-H project in 1938. He had such success raising turkeys that when he took over the farm, he converted it for turkey production and in 1951 renamed it "Lee's 'Turkey Farm". Today, the farm produces over five thousand turkeys a year. Richard and his wife Ruth Helen Daywalt Lee made another important innovation in 1964 when they became one of the first Farms in the state to sell pick-your-own fruit. While reading an article about a pick-your-own farm in Michigan, Richard realized that he had found a solution the rising costs of packaging and labor. A radio talk show host on WOR in New York soon recommended Lee's to his listeners, and people from all over the region began driving to Lee's to pick fruit. With help from their children, Ronny and Donna Lee, the Lees soon added vegetables for customers to pick. Richard also found time to serve in township government as his father and grand father did. When Richard retired as a Master Farmer in 1989, his son Ronny and his wife Janet Mecham Lee began running the farm. Along with their children Charlie, Cassandra, Sadie, Nicole, and Dylan Levi, Ronny and Janet have added more than fifty-seven varieties of vegetables to the pick-your-own selection. Their hay-rides and tours have continued to make Lee's Turkey Farm a popular site with both area residents and tourists. Back to table of contents Next Section
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