About a year ago I wrote about what we found here when we moved to West Windsor from Princeton in 1957. I told about all the farms and about how residential development was just getting started, most of it being confined to Penns Neck, Princeton Junction, and the Edinburg area.
According to U.S. Census figures, the population of West Windsor Township in 1957 was approximately 3,400 people. Today it’s about 29,000, an increase by a factor of over eight. Just since 1980 it has more than tripled. Of course, many other communities in central New Jersey would show similar growth as agriculture in the state has diminished substantially during that time.
Before the major surge in residential development got going in the 1960s there were dozens of family farms in the township. (At one time there were nearly 150.) Now there are only a few. If Mercer County Park had not been developed as it was in the late 1960s, there might be another 4,000 people here.
What little residential development there was in 1957 was confined to Penns Neck, Princeton Junction (Berrien City), and the Edinburg area. Much of this dated to a much earlier period. In addition, a few new houses were found in the Grovers Mill area. On Penn Lyle Road, the first sizable “modern” development — Colonial Park — was under construction. It featured West Windsor’s first “split-level” houses, a new design concept at the time. Also during the 1950s Glen Acres, the pioneering racially integrated development, had been built on Alexander Road.
Within this largely agricultural environment, there were a few large businesses — even then. The most important was the research lab opened in about 1941 by the Radio Corporation of America—RCA. It occupied a large tract on Route 1 in Penns Neck. After having gone through several name and ownership changes in recent decades, the same facility is known today as SRI International. During the 1950s the first successful color television system was developed there.
Not far away on Route 1 was the Hayden Chemical Corp. at the intersection with Alexander Road. Probably the single largest commercial land-holder then in West Windsor was American Cyanamid, which operated its agricultural research center on both sides of Clarksville Road between the railroad and Quaker Bridge Road. Today the new owner of that property — Howard Hughes — is deciding how to use it. Also on Route 1 — in the other direction, just across the Millstone River in Plainsboro — was the Food Machinery Corporation (FMC).
For many years West Windsor had seven population centers, some of which had at least one commercial enterprise: Among several other small businesses on Route 1, Penns Neck had a food store and a couple of gas stations. Princeton Junction had a gas station, a lumber yard, a moving and storage business, and an upholstery shop, and Grovers Mill had a seed, fertilizer, and garden equipment business. Dutch Neck and Edinburg had general stores.
Clarksville and Port Mercer had no businesses then, although the latter still had the house that was once occupied by the tender of the bridge over the D&R Canal. Also, the Edinburg hotel was there as it is today, but not in business. Commercially, except for our airport, a couple of swimming pools, and a few dozen small family-run businesses, that was it in 1957. The Princeton Shopping Center was just starting up, and nearly everyone in West Windsor had to go to Princeton to shop.
During the next few decades the face of West Windsor changed dramatically as one farm after another was sold to housing developers and commercial buyers, all of whom promised to bring a better lifestyle and prosperity to the community. But those in charge of planning and regulating all this growth were not always able to keep track of what was going on and consider its consequences. Although a certain amount of the remaining open space has been preserved, it is sometimes hard to see how all the traffic and overcrowding represent “improvement.” But that’s the way it is, and we have to make the best of it.
Last year’s story covers many of the old businesses that were here in 1957 and some of the new ones that started up in the first few years we were here. Along Washington Road, or Route 571, between Cranbury and Clarksville roads we had Schaefer’s Tydol gas station and convenience store, and across the road there was the Conover and Emmons lumber yard. For a few years before it closed due to competition from the big places like Home Depot and 84 Lumber, it was called The Building Center.
Just across Cranbury Road at Route 571 was a single business that occupied the corner that was recently referred to as “Ellsworth corner.” That’s the place with all the buildings that have bright blue roofs. Although the Ellsworth family no longer has an interest in the property, it was once the site of John Ellsworth’s first West Windsor business: LIQUOR STORE. That’s all the large lighted sign said. Nothing else.
And it was that way for years, until office space opened up in back and a new building was constructed on the property. That’s the one with the hairdresser at one end now. Early on, the second floor had an office for the “Airline Pilots’ Association.” One of the local pilots who used it was Larry Sullivan, a fellow member of the Mercer-Bucks Running Club with whom I sometimes ran on the club’s Sunday morning 12-mile workout.
Two of the oldest businesses in town that I have not mentioned before are Herman’s Sweater Barn in Edinburg and the Desautelle Florist on Washington Road. During our first years here, we passed them many times but never had occasion to patronize them. Herman’s was on Windsor Road just a little way out of Edinburg. Today the Goddard School occupies the same building. Desautelle the florist was replaced by the present business, Perna’s Plant and Flower Shop, about 25 years ago.
As I have mentioned many times, the character of a community changes radically as more people move in. That is no surprise. But there is no fixed effect that determines whether the change is good or bad. We all have to adjust and get used to it. Looking at what we had here in 1957, I think I like the West Windsor of today a bit better over all. But one reason for liking 1957 better is that I was 59 years younger then.
