Vernon Stories of Jacobus Van Brug

Previous Stories

Bad Day for Snakes   Overdue End of a Landmark

Train Wreck at DeKay's  History In A Lost and Found Box

Epitaphs I  Epitaphs II  Vernon Witch Project  Devil's Track

Coal ("Skimmerton")  Jasper Cropsey

Ross Winans, Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4

The Black Creek Site

Remembering Edgar Stehli  David Alyea

Rocketry! The Story of Reaction Motors, Inc.

--Jacobus Van Brug

People driving along Route 515 between Vernon and Highland Lakes any Holiday season probably notice the Christmas tree farm about half way up Sisco Hill. The entrance is marked by a boulder with a large "S" painted on it. This is Stehli Christmas Trees, where about 250 people go every year to cut their holiday tree. It provides acres of green open space in an otherwise built-up part of Vernon Township. It also recalls memories of a most remarkable actor who made Vernon his vacation home for over forty years: Edgar Stehli.

Edgar WHO? That's the response you'll likely get if you mention the name Edgar Stehli today. Indeed, it was the response you might have gotten when he was alive, even though The New York Times called him "one of the oldest and most versatile actors of stage, screen, radio and television." From the 1920s through the early 1970s, Edgar Stehli was the actor whose face and/or voice you probably knew (even if you couldn't place his name) from a myriad of stage and radio productions, and from a wide variety of small but masterfully executed roles in film and television. He was one of the great character actors, and since 1928, he and his family have been part of Vernon's story.

He was born in 1884 in Lyons, France, of an English mother and a Swiss father. The Stehli family were in the silk business in Europe, and young Edgar also spent time in Switzerland as a child, and consequently was fluent in both French and German. The Stehli family came to America in 1888, living first in New York, and soon moving to rural Montclair. Attending Montclair schools, Stehli entered Cornell University, studied languages and architecture, and graduated in 1908 with a Master's Degree.

Young Edgar Stehli was an excellent student, and was offered a teaching position at Cornell. But somewhere along the way, recalls his daughter Nancy Stehli Knoerzer, he "fell in love with acting." The Autumn of 1908 found Edgar Stehli not apprenticed over a drafting table or in front of a class, but as a member of a Bayonne stock theater company. It was the humble beginning of a long and distinguished career on the stage.

There were times when the Cornell teaching position probably seemed like an opportunity squandered, because success did not come fast to Stehli. He spent eight long years in stock theater, playing small roles. But later critics remarked that these years in obscurity were not wasted, because it soon became clear that Stehli was a man who had learned his art. In 1916, he was offered a position in notable theater company of the day, Stuart Walker's Portmanteau Theater.

It is important to note here that Edgar Stehli was not, physically, what is generally termed "leading man material." He was a smallish, lithe man, good looking, with a particular talent for European dialects. The Montclair Times summed him up in 1933: "Not the handsome, languorous or virile matinee idol; a small, sensitive artist." Because of his size, as a comparatively young man he found a niche playing little old men--a genre which he grew into in later years. The qualities which made him such a natural for character parts likewise determined his career as one of mainly supporting, rather than leading, roles.

By 1920, Stehli was appearing steadily on Broadway, and he would continue to appear on stage steadily for the next forty years. In 1922 he appeared as "Osric" in John Barrymore's famed production of "Hamlet," one of the great Broadway productions of the 1920s. In 1924 he was with Eugene O'Neill's Provincetown Players, and performed in O'Neill's play "The Fountain." In 1922 he also starred in "He Who Gets Slapped," a strange melodrama that was later made into a movie with Lon Chaney.

On a personal level, Stehli's life was equally agreeable. In 1923 he married pianist and fellow Montclair resident Emilie C. Greenough, whose parents had come to Montclair to be part of the George Inness art colony there. The Stehlis lived in Upper Montclair, easy commuting distance from Broadway, and soon had a son and a daughter.

And by the late 1920s, the Stehli family did what lots of other middle-class families where doing at the time: they went looking for a summer place in the hills. Herewith enters Vernon into the Stehli story. As Stehli's daughter recalls it, her mother and father used a compass to draw a thirty-five mile radius around Upper Montclair, and proceeded, each weekend, to explore all the terrain therein. Coming upon the long hill leading down into the Vernon Valley, with its splendid northward view, they knew they had found the place. They bought fifty acres from farmer (and town clerk) Grant Sisco in 1928. Thirteen of those fifty acres are now Stehli Christmas Trees.

Stage acting was Edgar Stehli's first love, but it was not (at the time) the best paying work. By the early 1930s, with the Great Depression in full swing, the Stehli family was feeling the pinch. As fate would have it, Stehli's next-door neighbor in Upper Montclair was an advertising man with some connections in broadcasting. So it was that Stehli entered a new and entirely different field of acting: radio.

The year was 1933, and the radio program was "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," the futuristic fantasy that thrilled Depression-era audiences with its tales of spaceman Buck, his female assistant Wilma Deering, and their adventures defeating various criminals in outer space, including Killer Kane and Black Barney. Stehli was hired to play Dr. Huer, the inventive genius scientist who builds the fantastic gadgets and devices (like his "cybro-destructor ray gun" and "gravity-defying inertron") that help Buck save the day, and play such an important role in the series.

It wasn't Shakespeare, but it definitely helped pay the bills (to see a photo of Edgar Stehli and the cast of "Buck Rogers," go HERE). And it had an added benefit: since the fifteen-minute radio program was broadcast (live) at 5 P.M. each afternoon, Stehli could still act on stage in the evenings. The Stehli children came to see the broadcast whenever they could.

Through the 1930s and 40s, Stehli was in a wide variety of radio programs, including weekday morning soap operas on WABC, WJZ, WEAF, and WOR. The names of some of the shows are still famous, while others have faded into obscurity. Stehli played District Attorney Miller on the program "Crime Doctor," and had frequently recurring roles on "Easy Aces." Other radio programs he acted in include "The Goldbergs," "Columbia Workshop," "Crime Clues," "The O'Neils," "Personal Column," "Floyd Gibbons," "Big Sister," "Mr. Kean," "Mr. and Mrs. North," "Gang Busters," "Inner Sanctum," "Arthur Hopkins Presents," and the ever popular "Dick Tracy." He frequently played on religious programs, "sometimes" (recalls his daughter) "playing a priest, a preacher, and a rabbi all in the same day." He did many "Eternal Light" programs for the Jewish Theological Seminary, some written by Morton Wishengrad. In the evenings, he acted on stage.

Acting both on the radio and on stage was a dramatic contrast, which Stehli discussed in a New York Times interview in 1941. "Pull up a chair alongside Edgar Stehli and in a very few minutes you can learn a lot about acting on the radio," the piece begins, "Or, more particularly, about acting on the radio as compared to acting on the stage. For Mr. Stehli has spent the last fifteen years or so skipping nimbly from footlights to microphone and back again, absorbing a tidy knowledge of each along the way."

Preparing for a role was, Stehli felt, the most radical difference for an actor. In a stage play, you had three or four weeks to prepare a role and get it right. In radio, you had--maybe--an hour and a half before broadcast to review your lines. On stage, an actor had the benefit of costumes, lighting, and make-up to assist him, not to mention--most importantly--the response of a live audience to guide his performance. In radio, you had none of these benefits . And on radio, if you muffed a line or had a coughing fit, hundreds of thousands--maybe millions--knew it, and not just that night's audience. Of course, sensitive radio microphones also allowed an actor to use his voice naturally and intimately, while on stage he had to make sure that even the last row could hear him.

Stehli resisted being a regular part of any radio show cast ("Buck Rogers" was a notable exception). In the 1941 interview, he noted "I honestly prefer not to be on any set program. Change keeps me from getting stale. Besides, I'm supposed to have a distinctive voice and they tell me the public would recognize me instantly if I appeared too often in different roles on the same program." The interview also notes "As a matter of fact, anonymity is the lot of most radio actors, Mr. Stehli pointed out a bit ruefully." Both factors contributed to Stehli's being the actor whose voice (and later, face) you knew, but whose name was elusive.

All the while, Stehli remained active on Broadway. He played "Slimy the Snake" in a 1938 play called "The Greatest Show on Earth" (no relation the circus epic filmed some years later), in which one critic referred to him as "one of the four greatest actors alive." He also starred with Henry Fonda in the 1937 play "Blow Ye Winds," in which he got better reviews than Fonda. When this fact was pointed out to him by an interviewer in later years, Stehli replied with typical modesty, saying Fonda was a great actor who had simply been miscast in the play.

Stehli would get one of his most famous roles in January, 1941. Playwright Joseph Kesselring had come up with a hilarious black comedy about an old house in Brooklyn inhabited by two deceptively sweet old ladies and their brother. The old ladies, Aunt Abby Brewster and Aunt Martha Brewster, have an odd sense of charity: they find sad, lonely old men they feel sorry for, invite them over for a spot of wine and food, and proceed to poison them and bury them in the cellar. Their brother thinks he is Teddy Roosevelt.

The play, of course, was "Arsenic and Old Lace," a popular stage production to this day, and later made into a motion picture. Readers familiar with the play will recall that the story involves the return of the Brewster's sinister nephew, Jonathan, and his plastic surgeon and sidekick, a creepy man called "Doctor" Herman Einstein. Dr. Einstein is an eccentric little man with a German accent and a taste for drink, a true character role. The producers cast Edgar Stehli to originate the role.

One of the great jokes in the original production of "Arsenic and Old Lace" was a gag where various people would note that evil Jonathan reminded them of Boris Karloff--something to which Jonathan took great offense. The role of Jonathan was played, of course--by Boris Karloff. In playing his weird accomplice, Edgar Stehli developed a good working friendship with Karloff, which continued for years to come.

Nancy Knoerzer recalls that, on stage, her father had a distinct advantage over Karloff. Primarily a motion picture actor, Karloff was accustomed to having several "takes" to get a scene right, a luxury not possible on stage. As such, he was rarely completely comfortable on stage. Knoerzer also recalls that her father and Karloff had an ongoing rivalry to make the other one "break up" (laugh) on stage, via various tricks. One night, when Stehli as Dr. Einstein opened his medical bag, a hundred pennies came spilling out on the stage, surreptitiously planted by Karloff.

Karloff and Stehli continued to play Jonathan Brewster and Dr. Einstein in the hit play for three years, both on Broadway and on tour. Hollywood took notice, and a movie version of "Arsenic and Old Lace" was soon in the works. The producers wanted most of the original Broadway cast for the movie, but Karloff was under contract to another studio, and could not get a release. As such, the team of Karloff and Stehli were replaced in the movie. Raymond Massey took the role of Jonathan, while the role of Dr. Einstein was given to the great Peter Lorre, who gave the role his own unique twist.

Three other members of the original cast--Jean Adair, Josephine Hull, and John Alexander--went to Hollywood to film the movie while the Broadway play continued with replacements. Nancy Knoerzer recalls that her father and the rest of the cast were highly irritated about the situation. As it was, the movie of "Arsenic and Old Lace" sat on the studio shelf for almost four years. Some sources say it wasn't released because the play was still running on Broadway, while other sources say that when the nation entered the war, the subject matter, though comic, was deemed a tad too macabre for wartime audiences.

Edgar Stehli did, however, have a career in motion pictures, but it did not start until he was in his early 60s, often playing older, sometimes world-weary men. His first (small) film role was in the respected 1947 Elia Kazan movie "Boomerang." Most of his film roles were small, and he seems not to have minded too much. His daughter Nancy Knoerzer recalls that he disliked filming movies because they are usually filmed out-of-sequence, making it difficult for an actor to get into character.

In was in 1941, the same year that "Arsenic and Old Lace" premiered, that Eugene Burr, drama critic of "Billboard" magazine, paid Stehli one of the greatest compliments of his career. Noting his ability to insert himself into variety of highly different roles with equal ease, Burr called Stehli "probably the greatest actor in our generation." It was something many critics said of Stehli over the years: he had a complete ability to be absorbed into his roles. Other critics who gave Stehli good reviews included Ed Sullivan, Brooks Atkinson, and Walter Kerr.

In addition to the critical kudos his acting garnered, there seems to have been one other outstanding virtue which people recognized in Edgar Stehli throughout his life: he was a genuinely nice man. Without a hint of pretension or ego (rather unusual in show business), he was a good family man, a well-liked member of his community, and a modest person, whose typically quiet demeanor belied his ability to transfix an audience. In spite of the long and grueling hours his profession demanded, he seems to have been uniformly courteous and open with fans, reporters, and neighbors.

Just as radio had turned into a valuable source of employment for Stehli in the 1930s, so too did the new medium of the late 1940s and the 1950s: television. Stage and live-radio actors like Stehli, accustomed to live audiences and no-retakes, were at ease in the brave new world of live broadcasting. In the late 1940s he was in five episodes of "The Philco Television Playhouse," including playing the title role in "The Emperor Norton," as well as the "Hallmark Hall of Fame," and "Studio One." In the 1950s, he was seen in some of the most popular shows of the decade, including a 1955 episode of "Gunsmoke" entitled "Pucket's New Year" (he played Ira Pucket).

Nancy Knoerzer recalls that her father's experience on "Gunsmoke" epitomized his misgivings about film and television. The producers of the show flew him out to the West Coast to film the episode, after which he returned to New York. During editing, the producers realized they needed Stehli to dub a groan in one scene. They flew him back to the West Coast to dub that one groan. Just one.

Still, his career in television was much like his career in radio: frequent appearances on popular shows, but avoiding recurring roles in favor of stage work. He in fact created a number of roles both on radio and television, only to decline appearing in later seasons. He didn't want to get "stale" in a role, he said. He also correctly pointed out that few series get better as they get older. He appeared on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "Perry Mason," "Buckskin," "Cheyenne," "X-Minus One," "The Untouchables," "The Kate Smith Hour," "The Rogues," "I Spy," "Tales of Tomorrow," "Suspense," "Hazel," "Dennis the Menace," and "The Twilight Zone."

Stehli's appearance in "The Twilight Zone" was in an episode entitled "Long Live Walter Johnson" (an episode shown on the Sci-Fi Channel just a couple of weeks ago). It deals with a college professor (Walter Johnson, played by Kevin McCarthy) who seems to know more about history than he has a right to know. An older colleague, Professor Samuel Kittridge (played by Stehli) is suspicious of Johnson, and confronts him--with the usual shocking "Twilight Zone" results (to see a photograph of Edgar Stehli and Kevin McCarthy in the Twilight Zone episode "Long Live Walter Johnson," go HERE.).

He did have one recurring role in early TV, playing the travelling salesman Mr. Abercrombie in "The Egg and I," which was the first TV soap opera. His daughter recalls that at the time, it was difficult for Stehli to go out without being greeting with cries of "Hey, Mr. Abercrombie!" Still, he was generally recognized by face, not by name. Once, taking the train from Montclair to New York, Stehli was recognized by a fan who was most enthusiastic, even though she couldn't come up with his name. "Are you . . are you . . .?!" she sputtered. "Yes, I am!" replied Stehli. It was par for the course.

Stehli's film career was similarly healthy, and included roles in such respected movies as "Executive Suite" (1954), "The Brothers Karamazov" (1958), "4D Man" (1959), "No Name on the Bullet" (1959), which starred Audie Murphy, and Frank Capra's last movie, "Pocketful of Miracles" (1961). His film work also included some decidedly schlocky stuff, including the forgettable "Atlantis, the Lost Continent" (1961), in which he plays King Kronos (his voice was ultimately re-dubbed). Nancy Knoerzer notes that her father took some roles for purely financial reason, all the while regarding the stage as his true home. Stehli's agent advised him that if he were to move to California, he could have far more work in film. But Stehli did not care for film work (it was "craft, not art," he said), and the family was loath to leave the New York area.

And through all his television and film work, the stage was indeed his home. In addition to "Arsenic and Old Lace," his stage credits included the Rogers & Hammerstein production "The Happy Time." Set in Canada, the comedy play is a coming-of-age story of a young French Canadian boy, his father, uncles, and his "Grandpere" (grandfather). "Grandpere," an uninhibited old gent who is alternately philosophical and rakish, was played by Stehli, and the role garnered him some of the best reviews of his career. Playing on Broadway for three years, from 1950 to 1953, it was also Stehli's longest run. One of his last big Broadway plays came in 1965 with "The Devils," in which he starred with Jason Robards and Lauren Bacall. Based on the Aldous Huxley story "The Devils of Loudun," it was a story of witchcraft and political intrigue set in Renaissance France.

Stehli also wrote and performed monologues, something he started in the 1930s, and resumed later in life. These one-man pieces were on a variety of subjects. "7:30 A.M." dealt with a father who must get his children off to school one morning when his wife is sick. Based largely on the Stehli's home life, it was comic tour de force. Other of his monologues include "The Alien," the tragic story of a violinist who has fled Nazi Germany, and is forced to support his sick grandson by playing on the street. His daughter recalls these pieces with awe: "He would have you falling off your chair laughing one minute, and crying the next. He could have the audience in the palm of his hand."

He was still acting at the age of 81. In 1965, he was hailed by Actors Equity Association (the actors' union) as the oldest living member of the union, and still busy on stage. In 1970, he starred in a PBS Channel 13 broadcast of three short plays by William Saroyan. It was his sixty-second year as a professional actor.

As if his acting did not keep him busy enough through all these years, Stehli and his family eagerly tended to their Vernon property, squeezing in time there whenever they could. The Stehlis were (and are) enthusiastic walkers and hikers, and ardent conservationists. Stehli himself was extremely enthusiastic about plants, and with his wife had an outstanding wildflower garden at their Upper Montclair home. Stehli and his family rescued numerous specimens of rare plants and flowers from the bulldozer and transplanted them on their Vernon property. At one time, there were forty-eight species of native New Jersey ferns kept on their land.

Keeping their Vernon land open and green became a major concern in 1973. It was on July 25, 1973 that 89-year-old Edgar Stehli died at his Upper Montclair home. In its obituary headline, The New York Times remembered him for his most famous role on the airwaves: "Radio's Dr. Huer is Dead," and noted that in his career he had played over 200 roles on the stage.

Shortly after his death, the town re-appraised the Stehli property, causing a radical increase in property taxes. To keep the land, the Stehli family started growing Christmas trees, giving the property farm tax assessment. It is the family's hope that the property can be maintained as open space in perpetuity. In this way, all who pass through that wooded, green stretch of Route 515 can see the legacy of Edgar Stehli the conservationist. The legacy of Edgar Stehli the actor is already preserved--on film, on videotape, in the Museum of Television and Radio, and in the memories of those lucky enough to have seen this durable and versatile character actor on his first love: the stage.

TO SEE PHOTOS OF EDGAR STEHLI:
WITH THE CAST OF "BUCK ROGERS," GO TO: www.buck-rogers.com/radio_serial_cast.htm
IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE EPISODE "LONG LIVE WALTER JAMESON, GO TO: www.twilightzone.org/html/episodes/02/ep01/jameso_1.html

REFERENCES: "Edgar Stehli" vertical file, Montclair Public Library. "Edgar Stehli, 89, Versatile Actor." New York Times, 27 July 1973. Knoerzer, Nancy. e-mail to author, 11 Jan 2001. Knoerzer, Nancy. Interview with Ronald J. Dupont, Jr., 31 August 1999. Parke, Richard H. "Contrast in Acting." New York Times, 9 February 1941. The New York Times Directory of the Theater, Personal Name Index. What A Character.Com, "Edgar Stehli."

Having been a Vernon farmer, a pioneering railroad inventor, engineer, and manufacturer, a legal gadfly to corporate railroads, a Civil War political prisoner, and an experimenter in iron steamships, one would think that Ross Winans had packed enough activity into his busy life.

Not hardly.

In addition to all these things, Ross wore a variety of hats over his long lifetime, due in no small part to his restless spirit and omnivorous intellect. One of the projects that filled his later years was rather remarkable for the time: safe, clean, affordable housing for the working class--particularly railroad workers.

In his decades in industrial manufacturing, Ross undoubtedly saw that the average laborer lived in conditions that were passable at best, terrible at worst, and in his retirement he pursued a philanthropic remedy to this situation. Investing his own money to the tune of over $400,000, he built in 1873 "The Winans Sanitary Housing," sometimes also called "Winans Row." It was two solid blocks of apartments in Baltimore, a hundred dwellings in all, located near the Mt. Clare Shops of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

For reasons unclear, the working class Ross so eagerly wanted to assist did not much care to live in his model apartment buildings. One of Ross's obituaries noted "Although the houses were well finished and comfortable in every respect, the people for whom they were intended refused to live in them, and they have for the most part been tenantless." As such, Ross's investment in affordable public housing proved, it seems, both a financial and social failure.

Though he made his name in engineering, Ross apparently did not forget his roots as a farmer, and in the 1860s he owned a large tract of land a short distance from Baltimore on which he conducted experiments in scientific agriculture. In this respect, he was not much different from other men of wealth and leisure in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who operated farms as a genteel "hobby."

Ross's ever-inventive mind also turned itself to unique household contrivances. One old newspaper account of Ross notes the following: "His home in Baltimore, and the houses of his children, had in them many mechanical appliances. An old Roman Emperor was said to have had a dining room where the table was made to rise from the floor or disappear at pleasure. Such an arrangement was planned for Louis XIV in his palace at Versaille."

In his travels, Ross did much reading in ancient history and philosophy; in all likelihood, he read about this unique dining room table and decided he must build one for himself. And so he did: "Winans would invite the guests who visited him into this lunch room, and when they were seated upon the sofas, he moved a lever and the floor opened and a table rose, covered with wines and eatables. This was also made to disappear in the same way."

Most of Ross's life was dedicated to advancing the practical arts--engineering, agriculture, housing, naval design--and yet he also made a mark in a very different field of endeavor: theology.

As noted above, in his travels Ross did a lot of reading, and theology and philosophy were among his special interests. Over the years, he read dozens of books on the religions of the world, history, and schools of philosophic thought. All the while, he copied down passages that impressed him, and made notes of his own. In later life, as a man of fame and importance, he seems to have given lectures on these subjects. (Whether he was asked to give these lectures or simply gave them is another question.)

Ross's religious beliefs seem to have been a mixture of Deism (which holds that organized religion is superfluous and that the nature of God is evident to man's reason) and Unitarianism. Deism is sometimes termed natural religion--the belief that there is one God, and that God is at work in the hearts of all men everywhere. It also generally holds that God is equally reflected in every religious system and spiritual belief throughout the world, and everything that does not reflect this natural religion is of no value. Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were Deists.

By 1870 he had collected his varied (and quite unorthodox) religious views into a manuscript, entitled ONE RELIGION, MANY CREEDS. The title encapsulated his basic beliefs about the religions and spirituality of mankind: that they were all equally valid manifestations of one true God, and that Christianity was neither more valid or more logical than any other. Or as Ross himself puts it (in the "Introductory" chapter): "Our stand-point is the omnipotence and perfection of the One God, a sense of whose existence is an instinct common to our race, and who governs man solely by the properties originally implanted in him."

He continues: "The history of the human race shows that various and widely varying forms of worship, creeds, doctrines, dogmas, and theologies have been propounded, preached, and pressed upon the attention of man, at different times and in different countries. We believe, however, that there is but one religion existing in any country, or in any age, that is acceptable to God; that whatever else takes upon it the name, form, or guise of religion is of no practical value."

Ross's beliefs had radical implications, and he wasn't shy about stating them: that the Bible was an unreliable, fallible document; that Jesus as depicted in the Bible was "an impossible compound of God and man"; miracles, angels, and the like were highly suspect; and that "Christianity, as taught among us, is no better than other systems taught in other than Christian countries, and in some respects not so good."

Among those "other than Christian" systems Ross thought valid were Zoroastrianism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Judaism. He also accorded high respect to the ancient religions of North, Central, and South America, Egypt, Greece, and Iceland--pretty much all the "isms" he could lay his hands on. And he took a flamethrower to most organized churches as we know them, attacking "Priestcraft," threats of Hell-fire and Eternal Damnation, the "crimes of the church" (including the Crusades and persecution of the Jews), and the massacre of the Aztecs and the Incas by the Conquistadores (church-sanctioned, he argues).

It seems doubtful that Ross got invited to any church socials after the publication of ONE RELIGION, MANY CREEDS. But his beliefs found an audience, because the book went through at least three printings in the 1870s. It was just one of several books and numerous pamphlets that Ross wrote on the subject of religion. He wrote and published many more pamphlets on other subjects that interested him.

Perhaps Ross focused on issues of faith and religion late in life because he could see his own mortality more clearly (he was seventy-three when he published ONE RELIGION, MANY CREEDS). He was just half a year shy of his eighty-first birthday when Ross Winans, the son of a Vernon innkeeper, died at his home in Baltimore on April 11, 1877.

Our own New Jersey Herald, in an obituary published soon after his death, remembered Ross as "the inventor of many of the most useful attachments and appliances that now enter into the construction of railroad cars and engines," noting further that "He was very far from being orthodox in his religious belief, but he was nevertheless an honorable, upright, and conscientious man." A later account noted of Ross that "although possessed of abundant means in advanced years, he never cared for luxuries himself, and plain clothes and plain food suited him best. When quite old he would go to the forge and work at the anvil with his men."

But these quotes are ancient history. What about today? Has Ross become a minor, dusty footnote, or does his name still have the power to awe? For this question, I asked Courtney B. Wilson, Executive Director of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum in Baltimore. How would he place Ross in the broader context of American railroad history? His response was as follows:

Ross Winans was nothing short of an American original. Armed with advanced mechanical skills and a penchant for invention, Winans was a shrewd businessman who was largely responsible for re-inventing English railroad technology and adapting it for the unique American terrain. Headstrong, cantankerous, opinionated but charitable, his skill and invention dominated American railroad technology through the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from its inception through the Civil War.

"Nothing short of an American original." Not bad for a farm boy born in the hills of Vernon, New Jersey.

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for a Prosperous 2001!

--Ronald J. Dupont, Jr.

"Jacobus Van Brug"

With the war in America, the Winans decided to move their cigar ship experiments to Europe. In particular, they went to the country that had been the source of so much of their work and wealth: to Russia.

In 1861, Ross's other son, William, built a prototype of a cigar ship at St. Petersburg, Russia, hoping to gain the interest of the Tsar. The Russian navy had been uninterested in the concept until William had convinced Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, general-admiral of the navy, that the cigar ship had military potential. This was, after all, a time when England and U.S. were seeing the development of various types of ironclad warships.

The prototype ship was demonstrated at Kronstadt (in the harbor near St. Petersburg) in the fall of 1861, but with unimpressive results. The ship did, however, manage to impressively deflect an artillery shell, and the concept of using the vessel as a floating cannon platform was pursued. William Winans continued to experiment with his cigar steamer, and after various delays another, larger version was demonstrated in 1865, but the results were still not impressive to the Russian navy, which soon lost interest. So ended the history of the Winans Cigar Steamer in Russia.

Down in Paris and London, the other members of the Winans clan were still building cigar boats. In 1865, they built the "Walter S. Winans" at Le Havre, France. This was another relatively small boat, 72 feet long and nine in diameter, but it made a number of trial runs across the English channel, evidently with success. It ended up moored in England, at Southampton.

In 1866, the Winans built their last, and biggest, cigar ship. It was called, appropriately enough, the "Ross Winans," and it was huge--256 feet long and sixteen feet in diameter, displacing 400 tons. Unlike previous ships, this one had a nearly conventional superstructure atop the cigar hull, 130 feet long and ten feet wide, which contained finely appointed cabins and compartments, including a wood panelled salon with crystal chandeliers. It was referred to as a "yacht,' and indeed it was--one of the strangest vessels then afloat, yet quite luxuriously appointed.

The "Ross Winans" was the last ship the family built. Ross himself was getting on in years, and with the end of the Civil War, the family was spending time back in America. They seem to have given up their cigar ship experiments, and the cigar ships themselves remained dockside curiosities for years. The European ships, the "Walter S. Winans" and the "Ross Winans" remained moored near Southampton, England, for decades, and were finally sold for scrap around the end of the 19th century. The ship they built in Baltimore met a similar fate.

It is difficult to say what, if any, impact these fantastical experimental steamships had on the future of maritime engineering. The general consensus seems to be, however, that the Winans Cigar Steamships were viewed more as remarkable curiosities than as vessels which advanced the theory of Naval design.

But--while it seems the Winans Cigar Steamers had limited influence on the future of maritime engineering, these most curious ships apparently did have an influence in someplace wholly unexpected: literature.

The wide press coverage received in London by the "Ross Winans" cigar steamer, a vessel that looked almost like a sea creature yet sported within a parlor with panelling and crystal chandeliers, seemingly caught the eye of one French author. Note the following paragraph from a work of popular fiction set in the year 1866:

"Here, Monsieur Aronnax, you have the various dimensions of the boat you are in. Its shape is that of an elongated cylinder with conical ends. It looks very much like a cigar, a design already adopted in London for constructions of the same nature. The length of the cylinder, from end to end, is exactly seventy meters, or 228.9 feet."

Trivia time here: what's the book? What's the author? The reference to cylindrical, cigar-shaped ships in London make it clear the author knew of the Winans Cigar Ships, and seems to have used them as the inspiration for the fictional boat described above. Well, at least he was partly inspired by the Winans Cigar Steamers--because the fictional ship being described (in Chapter 13, "A Few Figures") is the "Nautilus," from Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," and the Nautilus, of course, was a submarine, something the Winans boats never were.

Still, a number of scholars of both science fiction and maritime engineering have concluded that the outward description provided by Verne of the "Nautilus" was pretty much derived from the Winans Cigar Steamers. Verne, being the technophile he was, undoubtedly read all he could find about them, and probably saw the real ones, too. So while they may never have inspired an actual submarine, the Winans Cigar Steamships inspired the world's most famous fictional submarine.

For more information on the Winans Cigar Steamships, as well as pictures, check out the great website listed below, from which much of my information was derived.

JACOBUS

REFERENCES:
"The Winans Cigar Ships"
Verne, Jules "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."

NEXT TIME: THE CIGAR STEAMSHIPS IN EUROPE

New Jersey lost a true historical resource this year with the death of John Bruce Dodd, architect, at age 81. John was one of the first men in the state to specialize in historic preservation architecture--the study and analysis of old buildings, and their restoration and preservation. He began in the field in the 1950s, making it his main business, and by the time of his death he was a legend, and had designed restorations at many places, including Valley Forge and Waterloo Village.

Being an architect, John was essentially a scientific man. He was rational, objective, dispassionate. Though a man of great good nature, wry humor, and much warmth, he was not a casual kidder, a jokester, a leg-puller. He spoke softly, deliberately, and with great care. So it was stunning when he told the story of his father and the Ouija board.

His father and the Ouija board. I know the story because John was a good friend, and one who taught me much. Some might tell such a story around a campfire, in a bar, or on a long drive, and you could dismiss it as the kind of dime-store Twilight Zone story that everybody has a few of. Not this story, and not coming from John. John didn't tell stories to impress or to scare. That was not his nature. John told this story because it was--well, a number of things. Astonishing. Riveting. Eerie. Inexplicable. And absolutely true.

I'm not sure when I first heard it from John. A decade ago, anyway--probably in October, when thoughts turn to strange shadows, supernatural tales, and things not to be understood. I would visit John and his wife Cherry at their beautiful old stone farmhouse, sequestered on an isolated stretch of the Old Mine Road in Layton, beyond Peter's Valley. Even in those years, I only got the abbreviated version of the tale. It required a little effort to extract details. And I only got the full story after John's death, from his widow. Such a strange tale. And it happened so long ago . . .

"Did I ever tell you about my father and the Court Jester?" John would ask dryly, not expecting you to believe, or quite believing it himself. "Well, my father and his friends got to fooling around with this Ouija board, see, and it was the darndest thing . . ."

"Mystifying Oracle" is what it says on most Ouija (pronounced "wee-ja" or more commonly "wee-gee") boards, and many people believe them to be just that. In the mid-1800s, when Spiritualism, seances, the afterlife, etc., first became a public fascination in America, communication with the dead was sometimes attempted via a planchette--a tiny device resembling a palm-sized table, that held a pen or pencil. When (presumably) directed by the spirit being reached (via the hands of its living operator) the planchette wrote messages on paper.

But this was often cumbersome, and entrepreneurs soon produced a board for a pointed, lens-holding planchette to operate on. Sometimes called a Spirit Board, the board had the alphabet printed on it, and the numbers one through ten, along with a few select words--"Yes" (in French and German, respectively, "Oui" and "Ja," supposedly the origin of the name), "No" , and "Good Bye." From the beginning such boards were produced by toy and novelty companies. Parker Brothers still makes them.

But--ARE they a toy?

Some would say: decidedly NOT.

And in evidence we present the case of Mark Dixon Dodd.

The year was 1916, and in Europe the First World War was destroying a generation of young men. In America, Mark Dodd, a Jersey-born artist, was in Maine for the summer. It was at Ogunquit where Mark and a group of friends first decided to amuse themselves by trying out a Ouija board. The fascination with Spiritualism (which a later generation would re-dub "Parapsychology") was still running high.

A Ouija board is operated by two people, sitting on opposite sides of the board, laying their fingers lightly on the planchette, and asking a question, or simply waiting for the planchette to move. Another person writes down the letters and numbers that the planchette travels to (if it travels to any). The first attempt by Mark Dodd and friends produced a meaningless, run-on jumble of letters. Proof it was all nonsense, they decided.

Or was it? One of the group reexamined the long sequence of letters and realized that if broken down into words, it wasn't gibberish.

It was French.

Specifically, it was a message from a French-Canadian soldier killed in action in the war in Europe, asking that his mother be informed of his death, and giving her Canadian address.

The group complied with the request that "came over" on the board. Some time later, they received a reply from the dead soldier's mother. She confirmed that she had received official notice of her son's death. He had died just about the time the message had come over on the board.

"Mystifying Oracle. . . . . . "

Stunned, the group now took a serious attitude towards their meetings with the Ouija board. It soon transpired that whenever Mark Dodd was operating the planchette, something equally or more remarkable happened: the only thing that came over the board was poetry.

Old English poetry.

Stanza and stanzas of poetry--funny, stirring, eloquent, sad, sarcastic--describing life in and around a court and village of the Sixteenth Century. One, for example, extolled the singing abilities of the village blacksmith, named Waldron:

Ho! Waldron the Smith of Dalgon Down
hath all the full measure of vast renown.
Hileera! His song of the whipple hedge
Timing the measure with anvil and sledge.
He chants of the damsels he's wanting to woo,
Of knights to do battle for aught else to do.
Full fold of the lyric ye'll hark in the myth
Would ye list to the music of Waldron the Smith.

Finally, a member of the group asked a question of the board: "WHO IS SENDING THESE MESSAGES?" And promptly came the reply over the board: "LOMBO--A POET, A JESTER OF DAYS LONG PAST."

Lombo, the Jester. During one session, an architect named Titcomb was present. A skeptic, he returned the next day to read a wry poem he had written expressing his doubts about Lombo. At once, over the board came Lombo's pungent reply:
Whence doth thy wit come, Titcomb?
From under thy saucy hat?
And such a weeny wit is it
Twould fit a swineherd's vat!"

What must it be like to have a Court Jester dead 400 years tell you your poetry is fit for swineherds?

Now, it would be easy enough to dismiss these episodes as a clever practical joke played by Mark Dodd. Some people can carry on a practical joke for a long time indeed--a few days, a few weeks. A few months maybe.

Lombo the Jester kept coming over the board for the next thirty years.

Pages and pages of poetry and plays--over four hundred pages in all, which came over the Ouija board via Mark Dodd from 1916 until at least 1945. No one I ever knew could keep a practical joke going for three decades. Whatever the phenomenon of Lombo was, it was no joke. Over the decades, Mark Dodd married, had children, and moved a dozen or more times--from the north to Florida. Always, every time, when the board was brought out, it was found that Lombo had followed.

Fortunately, Mark Dodd's wife Vivien Moran Dodd took the time to write down the details of the Lombo story in September 1968. She was, of course, a witness to the events, and it is from her history that we will quote:
"Mark had been given a large dog, an Airedale, which had not been given a name, until the group found that whenever Lombo started coming on, the dog would growl and retreat into a corner with his hair bristling. Mark named him Lombo."

In describing Lombo's poems, Vivien Dodd notes: "In one Lombo gave a vivid picture of the king and his courtiers drowsing off after gorging on a big meal, in the banquet hall with a roaring fire in the huge fireplace. He said 'e'en the hounds lie sleeping by the fire.' Lombo airs his real opinions of the king and the court in very uncomplimentary terms, all in vigorous 16th century language. But when, after a while, the king starts to stretch and shows signs of waking up, Lombo changes his tune and starts flattering his royal highness and the courtiers."

"In another poem a tournament is about to begin. Lombo gives an authentic description of the forms observed in tournaments of that time, all, of course, in his rich Old English verse. A handsome knight on a beautiful snow-while stallion is about to do battle with a wizened, pathetic knight on a scrawny old nag. Just as 'the king hath dropt the royal flower' (this procedure was authenticated by us) and the two knights ride towards each other, Lombo, who has only been dreaming under a tree, is awakened by a sudden rainfall and the rain drops coming down on his head. This left us in suspense, naturally."

"Lombo had a wonderful sense of humor. Once, when [our friend] George Herrick and Mark were working the board, George took his hands off the board and, while lighting a cigarette, said flippantly,"I don't think Lombo will mind if I take time off for a puff and a spit." Lombo's response was:

"A puff, a spit"--what rot to wreath in rhyme--
Egad! I'd loathe to live in such a lowly time.

Jacobus Van Brug

REFERENCE:
LOMBO, A JESTER AND POET O' DAYS LONG PAST. By Vivien Moran Dodd (Mrs. Mark Dixon Dodd) September 28, 1968. Privately printed script.

"DILETTANTE"--the word derives from the Latin "delectare," meaning "to take pleasure in." In English, it means a person who is seriously interested in something purely for the pleasure of it, an amateur. Ross Winans and his son Thomas DeKay Winans dedicated their lives to the very professional, practical, money-making work of developing railroad technology, both in America and Europe. By the late 1850s, they had the money and the time to starting pursuing projects purely because they were interesting--and boy, did they ever.

Like the old saying, the difference between the men and the boys is the size of their toys. Like big kids who were bored playing with train sets, Winans Sr. and Jr. did a 180-degree turn, and starting experimenting with another mode of transportation entirely: steamships.

THE WINANS CIGAR SHIPS IN AMERICA

We can only guess just what led Ross and son Thomas DeKay Winans to maritime engineering. It was a time when both of their careers were in transition: by the late 1850s, Ross was getting out of railroads, and Thomas was finished with his Russian contracts. No doubt at some level they hoped that their naval experiments would ultimately prove as practical and profitable as their railroad engineering.

That would not prove so, despite immense sums they spent on their steamship experiments. But the Winans ships did become legendary as some of the most remarkable seagoing vessels ever built anywhere.

Because what they conceived of was no ordinary ship. Obviously, it would be steam-powered. By the 1850s, sailing ships were becoming a thing of the past. It would, somewhat more radically, be built entirely of iron.

But what was really radical was the hull--tossing two thousand years of shipbuilding blithely out the window, the Winans iron steamship would be long and round, like a cigar. It would have no keel, and would taper symmetrically from end to end. Nor would it have a deck per se. With powerful steam engines, the giant iron cigar-shaped steamship would--they hoped--slice through ocean waves like a knife through butter.

The Winans built their first cigar ship in Baltimore harbor in 1858. It was 180 feet long and was--literally--shaped like a giant cigar: a long cylinder, sixteen feet in diameter, gradually tapering to a point at both ends. It displaced 350 tons. It had, in place of a conventional flat-topped deck, a raised catwalk above the round hull, with railings, a lookout tower, and four smokestacks for its two engines. To modern eyes, the vessel looks for all the world like a bizarre, steam-powered submarine.

Most odd was its propulsion. It did not use a conventional screw propeller, but rather a huge radial propeller that rotated around the entire body of the vessel, like a giant fan blade or turbine. This feature in particular proved unsuccessful, throwing up a huge spray of water so that no one on the catwalk could hope to stay dry.

Over the course of several years, the Winans fiddled with the cigar steamship, testing it, taking it apart, rebuilding it (it ended up being 235 long). Several years before the famous ironclads "Monitor" and the "Merrimac," the Winans family had built an all-iron, low-in-the-water steamship.

The Winans Cigar Steamer, as it was usually called, attracted lots of attention--as might be expected. Newspapers and magazines, including Harper's Weekly, ran stories and illustrations about the bizarre-looking ships. Technical journals likewise provided coverage and commentary on the Winans experiments with naval engineering, much of it skeptical, some of it downright negative.

Scientific American, in particular, took the Winans efforts to task, saying that the successful aspects of the ship were nothing new, and the truly innovative aspects of the ship were not successful. The Winans, for their part, defended their ship as making important contributions to maritime engineering.

Whether or not they were right soon became moot, because the whole Cigar Steamer endeavor was sidelined by that major road bump in the history of 19th century America: the Civil War. Pretty soon, the Winans Cigar Steamship was impounded and under guard by Union troops, and Ross--well, Ross found himself on the losing side of a National argument.

NEXT TIME: Ross Winans, Political Prisoner

--Jacobus

IRONIES OF HISTORY, VOL.1: When Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, et al, travelled by railroad from Moscow to Leningrad, these Communist foes of America were riding on a railroad designed and built under the supervision of an American capitalist--and one born right here in Vernon, New Jersey.

For explanation, read on.

As we noted at the end of our last story, the Empire of Russia (having performed badly in the Crimean War) embarked upon a massive modernization campaign. This included the construction of railroads, and in that regard they hired the Winans family of B & O Railroad fame to assist them. Your humble scribe admits that, in retrospect, this is not quite correct. Because in fact, the Winans connection with Russia had its roots long before the Crimean War of the early 1850s.

As we have already noted, around 1830 Ross Winans went to England to inspect and learn from their railway system. He went in the company of a number of other engineers, among the George W. Whistler. Whistler was a hustler in his own right: by the late 1830s, while Ross was prospering in Baltimore, Whistler was working as a consulting engineer on what was to be the first railroad in all of Russia. It would travel from the ancient capital of Moscow, northwest 600 miles to St. Petersburg (later called Leningrad), on the Baltic Sea. This was being constructed under the aegis of Tsar Nicholas I, and was hence called the Nicholas Railroad. Like Tsars before and after him (not to mention Soviet Premiers), Nicholas I was a ruthless dictator reigning over an inadequate, often inept government. In 1842, the Tsar made a foreigner Superintendent of Railroad Construction: George W. Whistler.

Meanwhile, back in Baltimore, a new generation of Winans was being raised. Just as Ross had probably scampered about his father's tavern, Ross's sons Thomas (Thomas DeKay Winans in full) and William P. were apprenticed in their father's machine shops. Thomas rapidly showed his skill in engineering. Born in Vernon in 1820, Thomas Winans was a mere lad when his father packed the family off to Baltimore. By 1838, Ross had put his eighteen-year-old son in charge of a contract for delivery of locomotives to the Boston & Albany Railroad. That was how much faith he had in his son's abilities.

It was a faith to be put to the test. In 1842, Ross's old friend and engineer George W. Whistler came to Ross with a proposal: come to Russia and take charge of the mechanical and machine shops on the Nicholas Railroad. Ross Winans was the perfect candidate for the job--but he declined. He was already enmeshed in his legal battles, and at the age of 47, probably feeling a bit middle-aged for such an ambitious job. He had a counter proposal: send his sons Thomas and William instead.

This was no cinch: the Russian government was offering a contract to both finish the Nicholas Railroad, and equip it with locomotives, rolling stock, and all other equipment. The job was to be completed in five years (Russians seem to like five-year-plans). The payment: five million dollars. M as in million. Five Million Dollars. $5,000,000. Just for comparison, in 1842, $5,000 (five thousand dollars) would have bought you about the biggest and nicest farm in Sussex County. It was an enormous sum for an enormous job. And locomotive builders throughout Europe would be bidding on it.

To better compete for the bid, Thomas Winans formed a partnership with the Philadelphia firm of Eastwick & Harrison, locomotive builders. The new company, Harrison, Winans, & Eastwick, got the contract.

In Russia, Harrison, Winans & Eastwick set up shops at Alexandrovsky, near St. Petersburg, and began the enormous task of finishing and equipping the Nicholas Railroad. In this day and age, we always hear about massive construction projects running long over their construction deadlines. Harrison, Winans & Eastwick finished the Nicholas Railroad more than a year ahead of schedule.

The railroad was not the only project the Winans brothers built in Russia. They received a $2,000,000 contract to build and erect the first iron bridge over the Neva River at St. Petersburg. But it was not, apparently, all business for Thomas Winans. What was first intended to be a temporary stay in Russia turned into five years and more. During that time, Thomas met a Russian lady of French and Italian descent, named Celeste Revillon. On August 23, 1847, Celeste Revillon became Mrs. Thomas DeKay Winans.

[Thomas also had a sister, Julia Winans, who married the son of the engineer George W. Whistler, George W. Whistler, Jr. The son of Whistler Sr. and half-brother of Whistler Jr. was James McNeill Whistler, the famous artist best known for "Whistler's Mother."]

In 1851, Thomas Winans and his Russian bride returned to America. Eight years of filling railroad contracts for the Russian Empire had made him, to put it plainly, filthy rich, and he was able to live out his remaining years as a dilettante, which he pretty much did. His return was too late for one thing: a last meeting his grandfather, the venerable tavern keeper William Winans of Vernon, who had died in 1850. His brother, William P., stayed behind in Russia to keep their railroad enterprise going.

As we mentioned previously, Tsar Nicholas I died in 1855, near the end of the Crimean War, and his son, Alexander II, rapidly embarked on a program of modernization and reform (it was he who freed the serfs in 1861). For all the work that had been done by the Winans family and their partners, the fact remained that in 1855, there were still only 600 miles of railroad in all of Russia. America had over 10,000 miles of railroads. The Tsar was true to his word, and by the time of his death in 1881, that 600 miles had been increased to over 14,000 miles of railroad lines. The Winans firm kept busy in Russia until 1862, when all their contracts were completed.

In 1866, they were recalled to Russia for a new eight-year contract to manage the Nicholas Railroad, but in 1868 the Russian government bought out their contract with a large bonus, and this effectively ended Winans involvement in Russian railroad affairs. The Winans family had helped build the Russian rail system for twenty-five years. The years after the Civil War saw the Winans family at its zenith. Financially, the family was worth millions. Socially, they were among the elite of both Europe and America.

All the result of a funny kid building a model railway in the attic of The Sea Captain's House back in the late 1820s.

REFERENCES:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volume X. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1936.
New Jersey Herald, 18 July 1888
Encyclopedia Britannica, 1989 ed.
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press, New York, 2000.

NEXT TIME:
ROSS GETS BUSTED BY THE UNION
ROSS'S FINAL YEARS
THOMAS DE KAY WINANS, DILETTANTE
THE WINANS FAMILY, MILLIONAIRES

- Jacobus

By 1830, Ross Winans had left Vernon for Baltimore, and was established as the chief mechanic/engineer for the new Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. He was put in charge of the B & O's Mount Clare machine shops, which were famed in the 19th century for their technological innovation. His scale-model designs and his famous frictionless wheel bearing had made him fairly famous. Having come from Vernon to Baltimore, he was already near the epicenter of cutting-edge American railroad thinking. But he knew there was someplace where the railroad had been developed longer, and he knew he should pay it a visit: England.

A story is told of Ross's visit to England. As an American (and one born in the hinterland at that) Ross was apparently the butt of a few practical jokes in England. Dining at an elegant house, his guests thought they would have some fun with their rustic guest from the "frontier" of America, and asked him to carve the bird served for dinner. Ross replied seriously that he'd carve it in true American fashion--there being (guffaw) no knives and forks in the frontier--and proceeded to rip the bird limb from limb with his bare hands, and distribute it to those seated. It was probably the last time they razzed Ross Winans.

England had been fiddling with steam engines and railroads for a few years longer than America, and upon visiting and inspecting the English railways, Ross noted something important. English railroad cars had four wheels, and they were fixed to their carriage just like those of a regular wagon--they could not pivot or swivel--a system called "rigid frame." This necessitated railroad lines that did not curve beyond a certain degree, lest the cars derail. It also meant that railway cars could not be very long.

Ross saw the answer to this: instead of fixing four wheels directly to the railway carriage, insert four wheels into a frame or "truck," with a swivel on top--rather like a lazy susan--two of which four-wheel trucks were then fastened to either end of the bottom of the railway car. Springs provided cushioning for the carriage, which,, thus equipped, could navigate far tighter curves than any English railway car.

What this meant, in practical terms, is that instead of blasting through a mountain to provide a sufficiently straight course, a railroad could take a more circuitous route and wind its way around the mountain--providing mind-boggling savings in construction. It also meant railroads could carry long pieces of stone and timber.

Ross designed and built a railway car with just such a eight-wheeled system. It was the first such car ever designed for passengers, and Ross--never too humble to begin with--gave his creation an appropriate name: the "Columbus." This design of car was in use on the B & O by 1833, and Ross applied for and received a patent for his eight-wheeled double bogie carriage in 1834.

We noted above that Ross's was the first such eight-wheeled railway car to be used for passenger service. To that, Ross's ghost would no doubt harrumph: "Not just for passenger service--for ANY service!" But alas, to that there is some doubt. Because even though Ross is almost universally credited with being the inventor of the eight-wheeled double bogie railway carriage (it is one of his major claims to fame), the facts are more complex.

Think of it in these terms: who invented the computer? Who invented television? Who invented the rocket? No one person--teams of people, sometimes working together, sometimes with no knowledge of each other. It was much the same in early railroading days. Eight-wheeled railroad carriages had been around for a few years before Ross patented his. Gridley Bryant in Massachusetts and Horatio Allen in South Carolina had both developed versions, and other inventors had filed patents.

Nevertheless, Ross either wasn't aware of some of these other designs, or--more likely--felt that his design was sufficiently different and superior from the others that it was distinctly his creation. He also, no doubt, saw the rapidity with which the eight-wheeled car was being adopted by American railways. A few years slipped by--perhaps Ross was uncertain about the relative role his design played, maybe he resented not being recognized as its inventor, or maybe he just saw money slipping away in all the patent royalties due him from railroads using his design. Whatever the case, in 1838, he did what any red-blooded American would do: he sued.

In particular, he sued the Newcastle and Frenchtown Railroad, which had been using eight-wheeled cars. The suit was only for $500, and the railroad settled. A series of additional suits against other railroads brought similar results--no huge sums of money, but a verdict in Ross's favor. Some argued that Ross had a deeper motive--get railroads to settle for small amounts, primarily to establish the validity of his claim. Then, later, sue big time. Whatever his motives, Ross soon became a veritable lawsuit machine, suing left and right (a true Vernon man, indeed).

In 1845, he sued the Troy and Schenectady Railroad. This time, it was for no paltry $500. It was for $100 a year for every eight-wheeled car on the line, plus the same amount retroactive for every such car they had ever operated. Whew. Serious money. Ross won, but settlement was delayed by appeals, and Ross only ever saw $100. Ross didn't know it, nor did his opponents, but it was the middle of what came to be known as The Twenty Years War against the Railroads--waged by inventor Ross Winans. It was not the end of legal battles--it was the beginning.

Between 1852 and 1853, Ross and his attorneys sued three New York railroads, as well as three railroad car builders, for the same terms: payment for each and every such eight wheeled car that ever was, or would be, used on their lines. A victory for Ross would have meant an annual fortune for life. A loss for the railroads would have meant something akin to financial ruin. And so the railroads did the only thing they could: they fought back--tough.

The fight was led by the New York Central Railroad, who hired a 19th century "dream team" to discredit Ross's case. The lawyers interviewed old-time machine shop engineers, and assistants, examined old plans, conducted research--in short, conducted a thorough investigation into the development of railroad technology in early America in all its aspects. Thorough, indeed--their report was 1,300 pages long. All of it focused on one major question: was the eight-wheeled car the creation of Ross Winans, and of Ross Winans ONLY?

Well, the answer--as we already know--was: not quite, not really. Ross's version was probably the best and the most widely used, but the general concept predated him, and was too widely developed for him to lay sole claim to it. Ross's long legal travails ended in 1859. He lost suit after suit, and finally gave up. He made no windfall from his lawsuits in defense of his eight-wheeled carriage, but to this day, his name remains most significantly associated with its development.

In any event, the 1840s and early 1850s had been good ones for Ross Winans production shops, turning out cars and engines for many railroads (at least the ones he wasn't suing).

Ross's other significant invention of the era was a locomotive design he called the "Camel." Not to be confused with the "camelback," a later design, Ross's "Camel" locomotive was the first designed to use mineral coal, as would all future locomotive engines. It was called the "Camel" because the engineer's cab sat right atop the main boiler, looking something like a camel's hump. It was a popular design early on, on the B & O and other lines, but gradually began to lose favor to other designs--in particular, engines where the cab sat behind the boiler. When at last Ross's own beloved B & O decided to drop the "Camel" engine, Ross engaged in a long and acrimonious public debate with B & O officials over the merits of his design. Once again, Ross lost. The "Camel" became the Betamax of early locomotives.

Indeed, by the mid-1850s, there were increasingly few railroads who wanted to buy anything from Ross Winans, The Original Mr. Sue-the-Railroads. By then, it mattered increasingly less to Ross, who was already a rich man. He retired from locomotive building in 1860. He had lots of other projects to keep him active and interested, and two young sons entering the business. And there was to be one big project that would keep the whole family busy. They could hardly have seen it coming . . .

Far away, in Europe, on the Crimean Peninsula, the British, the Turks, and the French were stubbornly, methodically beating the stuffing out of the Russian Army. How could the Russian Army, which defeated no less than Napoleon, perform so badly in a war practically in their own back yard? The young new Tsar, Alexander II, wanted to know this. One answer among many was: the British and the French had railroads at their disposal, fast, efficient transportation, while the Russian Army was forced to schlep across the Steppes.

The Tsar knew Russian needed to catch up with the west, particularly in transportation. There was no home-grown industrial know-how, and so the answer would be to import the talent. No European nation was eager to assist the Russian bear. But maybe in America. . .

Perhaps Tsar Alexander thought to himself: What was the name of the railroading genius in America whose name was always in the paper over lawsuits? The Tsar had a job for him.

As it happened, it was not Ross who went to do business with the Tsar of Russia--it was his sons, William L. and Thomas D. (for DeKay) Winans. Pop was in retirement from the railroad biz, and busy with projects of his own--one of which got him arrested.

NEXT TIME: THE WINANS FAMILY GOES TO RUSSIA

REFERENCES:
Brown, William H. THE HISTORY OF THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVES IN AMERICA. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1871.
New Jersey Herald, 25 July 1888.
White, John H., Jr. THE AMERICAN PASSENGER RAILROAD CAR. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978.
-- Jacobus

Spring is here, lilacs are in bloom, the peepers are peeping, all's well with the reborn world. But what's this? Shattering the ever-peaceful, ever-harmonious, ever-tranquil political scene in Vernon Township [NOTE: THE PREVIOUS SENTENCE INTENDED FOR IRONIC PURPOSES ONLY; NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH ANY ACTUAL VERNONS, LIVING OR DECEASED; FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY; DO NOT TAKE INTERNALLY] comes the news that a piece of the Maple Grange Road tract slated for recreational development, the former Fagan property, contains a prehistoric Indian site. And the Historical Commission wishes to designate the site formally.

When the town council heard this one, you could have knocked them over with a feather. The other problems with the property--the steep slopes, the ledge rock, the unusable wetlands and swamp, the also unusable worked-out soil mines--these things they evidently knew about. But Indian artifacts? FUGGEDABOUDIT! In the days of Henry the Eighth, the answer would have been to send in a couple of swordsmen to knock off the entire Historical Commission while they were in session. That no longer being possible, the Commission's charter is getting re-written to make their "power," limited though it may be now, even more moot. Historical designation will be subject to the owner's willingness.

Actually, even some casual inquiries by almost anybody associated with the purchase of the Fagan property would have clued them in--local arrowhead collectors have known about the site since, oh, about when Ulysses S. Grant was elected president. An Environmental Impact Study, which the township should presumably have to undertake anyway, would have likewise revealed the fact.

As it was, the news came from Historical Commission Secretary Rick Patterson, who among other things is employed as a field archaeologist by a Butler cultural resource consulting firm, Sheffield Archaeological Consultants. Patterson's interest in the Indians that lived in northern New Jersey, the Lenape, and in Vernon archaeology goes back about fifteen years. His knowledge of local archaeology, though mostly avocational, is comprehensive. A Vietnam veteran, he seems willing to endure brickbats in defense of what he believes is important.

Over the years, thousands of Vernon schoolchildren have seen and enjoyed his hands-on presentation on the Lenape Indians, and many have attended his hikes to archaeological points of interest. Some would call Rick Patterson a Vernon treasure. Others would call him an eccentric gadfly provocateur pain-in-the-you-know-what.

Having become a bone of contention, it is only a matter of time before the two sides address the Black Creek Site issue in the usual cool, rational, respectful Vernon tradition of rolling out their howitzers and blasting each other to smithereens, providing great front-page material and reinforcing Vernon's image as Ground Zero of municipal disunity. So while we can--let's look at the issue. What do we know about this Indian site, and what are the potential ramifications?

It's worth mentioning that an archaeologist who had never laid eyes on the site itself, looking only at a topographical map, could have identified the property as a place likely to yield signs of prehistoric habitation. Over a century of research has generated a model of the kind of sites Native Americans favored for their villages and fishing and hunting camps. In an age when creeks, streams and rivers were important for transportation, sites near the junction of streams were particularly attractive. High bluffs, immune to floods, overlooking expansive wetlands, source of all manner of fish and fowl, were likewise favored. And sites close to sources of flint and chert, the raw materials for their arrowheads and other tools, where also favored.

As it happens, the Black Creek Site is all three of the above. A thirty-foot bluff overlooking the spreading marshlands around the junction of Black Creek and Old Wawayanda Creek, with flint present in the local bedrock, it was ideal for Indian habitation--the prehistoric equivalent of Boardwalk and Park Place.

As noted, the site has been known to Indian artifact collectors for generations. More conscientious than virtually all other such collectors, Patterson has field mapped and then catalogued and numbered the artifacts recovered from the area, providing a permanent record. As such, each artifact or arrowhead is thoroughly documented as to where and when it was found on the site. Patterson's study of the site over the last decade has yielded only a small fraction of the artifacts the site has provided over the decades.

Even so, it is a remarkable assemblage--hundreds of prehistoric stone tools, including hammerstones, anvils, drills, pestles, grindstones, bi-faces, axe/celts, cutting tools, chopping tools, and abrading tools. The variety of tools suggest that the Native Americans weren't just camping overnight here, or stopping by for a smoke. They were processing materials--processing stone for tools, processing animals for food, clothing, and materials, and processing plant and vegetable matter for cooking. For thousands of years the site was used for hunting/fishing camps, and a village site, and workshops.

Such tools, however telling, do not provide clear clues as to the age of the site--how long ago the Indians used it. For that, we can look to the points found on the property. Typically they're called arrowheads--a term eschewed by archaeologists because many such points were in fact not used on arrows, but on spears, atlatls (a kind of mini-spear thrown with another stick) or knives.

Patterson has archived in excess of six hundred points from the Black Creek Site, and the variety of ages and cultures they exhibit is shocking. Point typologies developed by archaeologists over the last decades give fairly precise ages to different point styles. The ones from the Black Creek Site span the period from 8,000 B.C. until the Late Contact Period--when the first European settlers came to our valley.

Points found at the Black Creek Site begin with large specimens, probably spear points, from the Early Holocene (8,000-6,000 B.C)--the kind you could use to take down a mastodon. The Middle Archaic Period (4,000-3,000 B.C.) at Black Creek Site is represented by such point styles as Kittatinny, Brewerton, and Vosburg. The Late Archaic Period (3,000-2,000 B.C.) is well represented by a variety of point styles, including Lackawaxen, Lamoka, Bare Island, Poplar Island, Susquehanna Broadspear, Normanskill--the list can go on.

Already having used the site for some six thousand years or more, the Native Americans of the Transitional Archaic (1,500 B.C.) continued to use the Black Creek Site, as demonstrated by such point styles as Orient Fishtail, Dry Brook Variant, and Perkiomen Broadspear. The Early Woodland Period (c.500 B.C.) shows up with Meadowood points, the Middle Woodland (A.D. 500) with Fox Creek and Jacks Reef points, and the Late Woodland (A.D. 900-1600) with Levanna and Madison points. These small, triangular arrowheads where the ones that the Indians were still manufacturing (of Vernon flint) when the first settlers arrived.

The evidence thus suggests that the Black Creek Site was used by Native Americans over a span of something like nine to ten thousand years--or some five hundred human generations. The specific varieties of flint used to make points found there come from as far away as New England and the Midwest--a hint at the large and sophisticated trade networks the ancient Native Americans had developed. A remarkable human record indeed.

It has recently been suggested that the Historical Commission's interest in the Black Creek Site is politically motivated. Whatever the case may be with regard to that, the fact remains that Patterson registered the Black Creek Site with the New Jersey State Museum some ten years ago, long before the Township of Vernon ever considered acquiring it. The State Museum Bureau of Archaeology/Ethnology entered the site into its Smithsonian Site registration program, giving it the I.D. number 28-Sx-297.

In addition, when the D.O.T. was planning the new Maple Grange Road bridge, they hired Louis Berger & Associates, a worldwide-known firm, to perform archaeology in the bridge area. Berger's Phase III archaeological project added trade beads and Indian pottery from the 1600s to artifacts found on the site, concluding that the bridge site was in fact probably a part of the Black Creek Site, a few hundred yards away.

What are the ramifications of an archaeological site on land slated to become playing fields? The town will presumably have to follow the same rules it lays down for private developers (such as Intrawest) and perform an archaeological study to determine the significance of the site and how negative effects on it can be mitigated.

This means the unfortunate delay of some of the new playing fields for the town's ever-popular youth sports programs. While this loss will be temporary, what will be gained is a permanently enhanced understanding of the ancient cultures that inhabited this valley of ours before the days of the Pyramids, and the Ancient Greeks, and the Biblical Patriarchs--our own North American ancient history.