Days of Yore
.
as recounted by

Bill Day

 


Memories (Fire Companies)
For many years there was a difference of opinion between the Haddonfield Fire Company and the Mt Holly Fire Company.  Each claimed to be the oldest volunteer fire company in the United States.  Finally, a committee met with records and the end result was that the Mt Holly Volunteer Fire Company is the first volunteer organization in the nation.  That was once that Haddonfield came in second.

* * *
Steel framework of a building that was built on the Sesqui-Centennial Exposition grounds in South Philadelphia was dismantled at the conclusion of the Exposition.  It was brought to Haddonfield and reassembled on a lot at the corner of Wayne avenue and Wood lane and on it was built the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Our Savior in 1927.

* * *
The front window of the Horn and Hardart retail store on the highway once featured the following pastries, and the prices are hard to believe.  A square of nine cinnamon buns, 28 cents; butterfly shaped coffee cakes, six for 25 cents; Easter season bunny cookies, 20 cents a dozen; hot cross buns, 24 cents a dozen; fully decorated Easter egg pound cakes, 69 cents.  These 1926 prices are no more, and even Horn and Hardart is gone.

* * *
Remember taking an empty jar into B.F. Fowler's General Store, and giving it to a clerk who would, with a ladle, fill it with molasses from a big molasses barrel that stood in the rear of the store?  The aroma from that barrel was delightful.  That was the way molasses was sold then.

* * *
The Kay family once lived in a fine old Victorian house on the corner of Chestnut street and the highway.  They possessed a broken tea cup that members of the family had preserved as an heirloom.  The story of the cup was that it had been dropped and broken by a Hessian officer when the British Army was passing through the town during the Revolution.  That old mansion was demolished to make way for a new Bank, The Haddonfield Trust Company.

* * *
In the early 1900's Dr William Anderson was a leading physician in Haddonfield.  However, when he first opened his office in town he was having difficulty in getting established.  An oldster suggest that he spend his many free hours riding in his horse and buggy around town and thus be prominently seen on the streets, and people would believe that he was making his house calls.  Doc followed the advice and his practice prospered.

* * *
Remember the flight of wooden steps that once existed on each side of the ravine separating South Atlantic avenue and west Park avenue.  The boards laid between the rails made for a smooth, easy walkway.

* * *
Remember, too, the steep footpath down and up the cut in the Cottage avenue section that only the younger element could use to get across the tracks.  To get from the east to west side of Haddonfield now in the area one must go to Lincoln avenue.  Things are just not as convenient now as they used to be.


DayHikes.info Homepage
Contact Alan Day
Days of Yore Homepage