ELECTRICITY – On Dec. 23, 1903, the Frenchtown Star reported, “An electric plant is being put in to run the Worman Mills by dynamos. The upper and lower mills are connected by insulated wires strung on heavy poles and the power is furnished at the upper mill, wherein is located the large engine that also furnishes the power for the Frenchtown Water Company.”
Thus Frenchtown's first power plant was installed in the Cemetery Street grist mill, which Barnabas Devitt was renting from David Worman. (That street is now Trenton Avenue, and that mill is now Euphoria salon.)
In 1906 the borough went into the electricity business. Council bought some land from coal and livestock dealer James E. Sherman (1854-1929) and built an oil-burning municipal power plant where ArtYard is building now, at Lott and Front streets (although those streets would not have those names until later). Its dynamo was run by a 100-horsepower engine.
The accompanying map is from 1912 and shows the power plant. Sanborn maps were color coded. Pink=brick, yellow=wood, blue=stone.
Down the block, Irvin Taylor was hired to run the Devitt/Worman plant in 1911. (I'll tell you about his industrial accident in a later post.) By 1916 that dynamo was furnishing round-the-clock electricity to about 50 parties, including the bank and the railroad station.
In 1911 the Star reported that The National Hotel had been electrified with municipal power, and that Edward P. Slack put an electric fan in his barbershop. The Star gave the same kind of play to the important and the trivial, so it's hard to know how much excitement was sparked by Slack's new amenity.
In 1915 Oliver R. Kugler, who had just sold his retail business to the Roach brothers, was appointed superintendent of the powerhouse. It paid $25 a year, plus free electricity for his home. He resigned at year's end.
Frenchtown Uptodate, a pocket guide to local business, reported in 1916 that the municipal plant was powering street lights and some homes. It outlasted the Devitt/Worman generator, and in 1919 it was supplying electricity all night. Service was extended into dark mornings at the friendly whim of engineer Elmer Ruth. He resigned later that year and a new practice was formalized at year's end: There would be electricity on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. But expanded hours were imminent.
On Dec. 9 of 1919 the borough plant began generating current 24 hours a day, but that only lasted a few weeks, and the plant reverted to limited service. It should be noted that Ruth was back at the powerhouse, and he was the man to see if you wanted to rent a vacuum cleaner by the day or the hour. But people were also buying their own vacuum cleaners as well as washing machines and electric irons. Barber H.H. "Doc" Slack's acquisition of “a new electric hair cutter” was reported in November of 1919. Factories were converting to electricity, too. In 1920 I.M. Walker extended a power line down Trenton Avenue to electrify residences there.
In 1922 wires and poles were installed to bring power to Frenchtown from Easton, Pa., through Milford because the Frenchtown plant would soon cease operation.
In 1923 the Star wrote: “How do you like the all-day electric service – light and power? We find it to be a big step forward.”
Gloria Sipes Paleveda wrote about the advent of electricity in her home, which was on Bridge Street directly across from Trenton Avenue and owned by Mrs. Elisha “Mommy” Opdycke:
Lloyd Walker coming to our row home on Bridge Street was an exciting occasion. Mr. Walker was not a commanding-looking figure, indeed he was short, round-faced with thin hair and wire-rimmed glasses and had a club foot, but he was important.
He was one of the few electricians in the Valley in the early 1920s, and he installed electricity in our end row home in the mid-'20s.
For electricity had come to Frenchtown… No longer did folks, whose homes were being wired like ours, have to do chores, read and eat by kerosene lamps, carrying the often smelly lamps room to room, or wash the smoky globes twice a week as my mother and eldest sister Ethel did.
Lloyd Walker's installation of our electricity consisted of tacking electric wires across the ceiling to the center of each room where, on the end of the dangling cord, hung the bare bulb with a pull chain. For a neat finishing touch and for safety, the ceiling wire was covered with rounded wooden molding. And that was it, that was the extent of our home's electricity.
On Dec. 18, 1923, Jacob Gulick, age 31, was electrocuted in Bert Trimmer's store (now Frenchtown Cafe). His father, Stephen, sued the borough for $10,000, alleging there was a greater charge in the wires than there should have been. Borough Council was angered by the claim, but a jury awarded $2,000 to Gulick.
The borough sold its electric plant to New Jersey Power & Light Co. in 1925 after residents voted for the sale 323-76. Then NJP&L sold the property to Richard Kerr, who demolished the brick powerhouse in 1926 to make way for his huge chicken hatchery.
From "Rick's Frenchtown Encyclopedia"
Comments