Arthur Olden, born in 1890, is seen in front of his Great Eastern Grocery Store in Hewitt. Gus Herman is at left. The man in center is only identified as Tom. (
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Lifelong Hewitt resident Arthur (“Art”) Olden, born 136 years ago in 1890, passed away at age 90 at St. Anthony Hospital in 1980. In the 1970s, Arthur enjoyed telling me about days gone by and I am sharing some of his stories. His wife, the former Catherine Morse, died in 1963. Their two sons were George and Wilbur. When Arthur passed on, he had 12 grandchildren and one great grandchild.
Art managed a Great Eastern Grocery Store on what is now Greenwood Lake Turnpike in Hewitt. His father told him that Mr. Cobb owned the first general store in the area. Later owners were Dr. Utter, Mr. Webb and Mr. Thorne, who Art worked for. Products sold included Babbitt’s Laundry Soap and Satin Gloss, each costing 5 cents. “Fairy Soap” for the face, packaged in a small box was ten cents. Loose grains and cereals were weighed on a scale. Lard, popular shortening, came in tubs and was weighed and sold by the pound. Coffee was also weighed and sold at 20 to 25 cents per pound.
At home in his favorite armchair with his dog, Ralph, at his feet, and his collection of smoking pipes nearby, Art visualized earlier days when Long Pond (Greenwood Lake) was “all fields.” The present lake stretching across the border into New York state was enlarged when the Morris Canal and Banking Company (MC&BC) raised the dam and flooded the area. Art’s birth was almost 55 years after the company in 1836 acquired the right to dam the lake to create a canal reservoir. During his lifetime he heard about earlier historic events from old timers.
Roads were poor and hauling by wagon was expensive and slow with a better means of transportation needed. What better way than a canal? Two mules could easily pull a canal boat with 25-ton cargo without problems. Water from Greenwood Lake flowed down the Wanaque River to a 4.26-mile feed that joined the line of the canal at Mead’s Basin, now Mountain View. The Canal Society of New Jersey site reports that in 1824 MC&BC planned to build a canal that would bring coal mined in Pennsylvania to developing markets along the Eastern seaboard.
Passing through the iron district the canal provided the much-needed transportation system to enable new commercial activity and help growing towns. The 102-mile canal, with a system of 23 left locks and 23 inclined planes built to overcome an elevation change of 1,674 feet, opened for business in March 1831 with later expansions. By the early 1900s the canal was obsolete and ownership passed to the state of New Jersey as part of state’s Department of Environmental Protection.
Art spoke of many families who were in the West Milford area for a long time. He recalled seeing Mr. Cooley cutting hay on the area where Brown’s Hotel, now Brown’s Point Park was located. He remembered when people traveled by train to the New Jersey side of Greenwood Lake. Bill Garrison would meet the people getting off the train depot at the far end of Awosting Road (Hewitt Railroad Station) near the dam and take them to Brown’s Hotel in his small steamboat. So that the hotel restaurant dining room could accommodate people coming for dinner, Garrison, during the ride across the lake, called out, “How many for dinner at Brown’s Hotel?” When he got the number of diners, he blew the steamboat whistle with the appropriate number so that the restaurant people knew how many dinners they would be preparing, The East Shore “Glens” area along what is now Lincoln’s Avenue, starting with the present Thrift Store (formerly St. Catherine Catholic Church) location is where several hundred people gathered annually for picnics and enjoying the outdoors.
