Colonial Park - Bowker Family Memories
A typical Colonial Park home
A Look Back...
Note: John D. and Linda Bowker, with daughter, Wendy and son, John S., moved into 14 Canoe Brook Drive the Tuesday before Thanksgiving 1959. The memory below was taken from the Fall 1996 issue of the Historical Society of West Windsor's "Broadside," our erstwhile newsletter:
"We were about the fifth family to move into Princeton Colonial Park. All occupied homes that first year were along Canoe Brook Drive. Other streets such as Princeton Place were laid out, but no houses were ready for occupancy, except possibly the house first occupied by State Trooper Jerry Dollar on the southeast corner of Canoe Brook-Princeton Place (5 Canoe Brook Drive). That house was later sold to the Fogelins. It is owned today (1996) by Mike and Linda Kriebel.
We had purchased out house on August 17, 1958 and were told it would be ready by late spring 1959. It wasn't. The builders, Werner-Ziff, ran into one problem after another. Stefan Guzy adds: "Werner-Ziff never went bankrupt, to my knowledge. They had financial problems because of construction delays. Our house took 14 months. to complete. Mrs. Ziff provided financial backing to complete the first section. The balance of the development was sold to Hilton Realty."
Note: John D. and Linda Bowker, with daughter, Wendy and son, John S., moved into 14 Canoe Brook Drive the Tuesday before Thanksgiving 1959. The memory below was taken from the Fall 1996 issue of the Historical Society of West Windsor's "Broadside," our erstwhile newsletter:
"We were about the fifth family to move into Princeton Colonial Park. All occupied homes that first year were along Canoe Brook Drive. Other streets such as Princeton Place were laid out, but no houses were ready for occupancy, except possibly the house first occupied by State Trooper Jerry Dollar on the southeast corner of Canoe Brook-Princeton Place (5 Canoe Brook Drive). That house was later sold to the Fogelins. It is owned today (1996) by Mike and Linda Kriebel.
We had purchased out house on August 17, 1958 and were told it would be ready by late spring 1959. It wasn't. The builders, Werner-Ziff, ran into one problem after another. Stefan Guzy adds: "Werner-Ziff never went bankrupt, to my knowledge. They had financial problems because of construction delays. Our house took 14 months. to complete. Mrs. Ziff provided financial backing to complete the first section. The balance of the development was sold to Hilton Realty."
Sewer lines being added in the late 1970s. Bowkers lived in blue home in center.
By late October 1959 several of the houses were substantially complete. We clearly recall that the houses on the south side of Canoe Brook, at least those from Penn Lyle Road as far east as 13 Canoe Brook (then and presently owned by Frances and Charles Raleigh) appeared ready for occupancy. Several on the north side, including ours, looked ready too. On a visit to the property the weekend before Thanksgiving, we noted that Jerry Dollar and the Guzys had moved in. Electricity had been turned on in the Collar home. In order to have power, they had run and extension cord across Princeton Place to the Baker house at 3 Canoe Brook Drive.
Two days later we moved in... without closing or giving other notifications to the builder. There had been so many hassles by then, the builder probably thought it best just to let people move in and rough it until the papers could be drawn up.
The first house owners along the south side of Canoe Brook Drive, starting with the house on the corner of Penn Lyle and Canoe Brook, were: Morgan, Baker, Dollar, Stoller, House, Guzy, Campbell, Naistadt, and Larrick. The Campbells never moved in, and within a few weeks, that new house was sold to the Raleighs who still live there today.
On the north side of Canoe Brook Drive, the family names taken in groups of three were, by coincidence, arranged alphabetically, again starting at Penn Lyle: Campbell/Macleod/O'Brien, Farrel/Kirchgesner/Pugh, and Bowker/Froehligh/Lynch! Incidentally, this Campbell family is no relation to the Campbells who originally brought 13 Canoe Brook. However, the Campbells were not the original owners. They had been preceded by the Hunt family, who sold to the Campbells in 1962-63.
Two days later we moved in... without closing or giving other notifications to the builder. There had been so many hassles by then, the builder probably thought it best just to let people move in and rough it until the papers could be drawn up.
The first house owners along the south side of Canoe Brook Drive, starting with the house on the corner of Penn Lyle and Canoe Brook, were: Morgan, Baker, Dollar, Stoller, House, Guzy, Campbell, Naistadt, and Larrick. The Campbells never moved in, and within a few weeks, that new house was sold to the Raleighs who still live there today.
On the north side of Canoe Brook Drive, the family names taken in groups of three were, by coincidence, arranged alphabetically, again starting at Penn Lyle: Campbell/Macleod/O'Brien, Farrel/Kirchgesner/Pugh, and Bowker/Froehligh/Lynch! Incidentally, this Campbell family is no relation to the Campbells who originally brought 13 Canoe Brook. However, the Campbells were not the original owners. They had been preceded by the Hunt family, who sold to the Campbells in 1962-63.
Coward Farm barns next to Colonial Park - pre-1973
Diana and Michael Manduca recall a family, possibly named "Hunt," that lived on the corner of Canoe Brook Drive and Penn Lyle Road. They had a tall flagpole on their front lawn. When a flag flew at the top, all the neighbors were welcome for drinks in the later afternoon. They were a colorful pair!
Canoe Brook was really a brook! Its path was rather straight and ran mostly along the line of its present course. Near the Pugh-Bowker line, the brook turned rather sharply south and made a sweeping U-shaped bend that cut the original Bowker property quite in half. At the eastern edge of the Bowker-Froehlich line, the routing was back to its present course. The builder straightened the brook out to its present alignment and gave a special warranty that a septic system would still work for the Bowker property even though a brook had flowed for many years across the position of all the new septic drain fields.
The day we bought the property in 1958, we walked all across the field that was to become the Canoe Brook Drive properties. It was basically flat with many, many small trees hither and yon. This indicated to me that the field had not been farmed for a couple of decades at least. There was a structure (I'm fuzzy bout this) that I believe was a barn in terrible repair. It was used for the storage of lumber and machinery during the initial construction. It was located about halfway along the present alignment of Ziff Lane. There were no roads at first, of course. The trucks hauling the pre-cut lumber stored in that barn simply took the most direct route in each case.
Canoe Brook was really a brook! Its path was rather straight and ran mostly along the line of its present course. Near the Pugh-Bowker line, the brook turned rather sharply south and made a sweeping U-shaped bend that cut the original Bowker property quite in half. At the eastern edge of the Bowker-Froehlich line, the routing was back to its present course. The builder straightened the brook out to its present alignment and gave a special warranty that a septic system would still work for the Bowker property even though a brook had flowed for many years across the position of all the new septic drain fields.
The day we bought the property in 1958, we walked all across the field that was to become the Canoe Brook Drive properties. It was basically flat with many, many small trees hither and yon. This indicated to me that the field had not been farmed for a couple of decades at least. There was a structure (I'm fuzzy bout this) that I believe was a barn in terrible repair. It was used for the storage of lumber and machinery during the initial construction. It was located about halfway along the present alignment of Ziff Lane. There were no roads at first, of course. The trucks hauling the pre-cut lumber stored in that barn simply took the most direct route in each case.
View of the Coward farm in 1960 from 4 Canoe Brook Drive. In the farm's place today sits High School South.
I recall that the sidewalks were poured before the streets were paved. This is a vivid recollection since a huge truck full of concrete rolled over directly in front of the Raleigh house while pouring the sidewalk. The street was so muddy, the wheels on one side just sank in. The driver was uninjured, but that truck stayed there several days until a wrecker could get enough of a firm footing to right it and then drag it away. In the meantime, of course, the cement in the truck and in the trough leading down to the unfinished sidewalk hardened. We all watched it happen, totally helpless to lessen the mammoth problem.
Other things during construction were not always done in the right order either. We recall the day they put down the first layer of macadam on Canoe Brook Drive. We were not permitted to drive on it for a day or two. However, all of our macadam driveways had been put down a week earlier.
We moved in and I loved it. For some reason the new furnace did not function well although we could feel that the pipes in our split level home warmed up nicely that first November evening of occupancy. Around midnight, I began to get really cold, so I went over to the newly installed heat transom, took off the decorative cover, and found the pipe neatly stuffed with a beer can. It seems the workers wanted to keep scraps of wall board from falling into the heat pipes and the beer cans were just the right caliber. By one o'clock that next morning I had removed 9 beer cans from 9 heat outlets and our house was warm.
The view out our back window (looking north) was of open fields. The Coward Farm ran the whole length of Canoe Brook Drive across the brook and filled what is now the WW-P High School property. It was not uncommon to visit the Cowards to buy rhubarb and eggs. The family leased their farmland for 2-3 years to the Campbell Soup Company for growing tomatoes. They were delicious, too!
At night, we could clearly see the illuminated sign at Hall's Esso (now the Valero station in 2020) on the corner of Alexander Road and Princeton Hightstown Road. There was no vegetation between us for the first year we lived there until our shrubs and trees took hold.
Other things during construction were not always done in the right order either. We recall the day they put down the first layer of macadam on Canoe Brook Drive. We were not permitted to drive on it for a day or two. However, all of our macadam driveways had been put down a week earlier.
We moved in and I loved it. For some reason the new furnace did not function well although we could feel that the pipes in our split level home warmed up nicely that first November evening of occupancy. Around midnight, I began to get really cold, so I went over to the newly installed heat transom, took off the decorative cover, and found the pipe neatly stuffed with a beer can. It seems the workers wanted to keep scraps of wall board from falling into the heat pipes and the beer cans were just the right caliber. By one o'clock that next morning I had removed 9 beer cans from 9 heat outlets and our house was warm.
The view out our back window (looking north) was of open fields. The Coward Farm ran the whole length of Canoe Brook Drive across the brook and filled what is now the WW-P High School property. It was not uncommon to visit the Cowards to buy rhubarb and eggs. The family leased their farmland for 2-3 years to the Campbell Soup Company for growing tomatoes. They were delicious, too!
At night, we could clearly see the illuminated sign at Hall's Esso (now the Valero station in 2020) on the corner of Alexander Road and Princeton Hightstown Road. There was no vegetation between us for the first year we lived there until our shrubs and trees took hold.
The Penns Neck Swimming Pool - from the NJ State Archives
During our second year there, a number of us got the idea of starting a community swimming pool. True, there was a really terrific public outdoor pool - a big one with a deck where the adults could lie and sunbathe and chat while the kids were in the pool. It was located where the tennis courts are now on Washington Road.
But with all our new neighbors we wanted to have one closer to Colonial Park. We formed a corporation. Then, three of us called on Mr. Coward to see about buying a couple of acres of his farmland along Penn Lyle Road near Canoe Brook. The best price he could quote us was $2,000 an acre! That was so far above what we were prepared to discuss so we gave up without another meeting.
On February 9, 1963, we awoke to find that the split-level house owned by Paul and Patty O'Brien had burned to the ground, and that Patty had been killed in the fire. Paul rebuilt that house a year or so later in a fresh architectural style. The rebuilt house is there today at 6 Canoe Brook Drive, exhibiting a true colonial style.
I recall how some local events prompted Steve Guzy (perhaps among others, but I think he was first or among the very few) to invest in life-saving gear. There was no ambulance in the vicinity."
To this, Guzy added:
"In the summer of 1960, the Naistadt boy was hit by a car in front of his house on Canoe Brook Drive. A call to the state Police was relayed to the Princeton First Aid Squad (as the Twin W First Aid Squad would only be formed in the 1970s). No one knew where Canoe Brook Drive was, and when the ambulance had finally arrived, it was too late - the boy had died.
Art Stoller and I decided to become local first aiders. We joined the Princeton First Aid Squad, trained and responded to calls within the Squad. When available, we were dispatched directly from our homes to West Windsor victims and provided the necessary first aid until an ambulance arrived. We resigned after two years, now assured that the Princeton First Aid Squad could be responsive."
But with all our new neighbors we wanted to have one closer to Colonial Park. We formed a corporation. Then, three of us called on Mr. Coward to see about buying a couple of acres of his farmland along Penn Lyle Road near Canoe Brook. The best price he could quote us was $2,000 an acre! That was so far above what we were prepared to discuss so we gave up without another meeting.
On February 9, 1963, we awoke to find that the split-level house owned by Paul and Patty O'Brien had burned to the ground, and that Patty had been killed in the fire. Paul rebuilt that house a year or so later in a fresh architectural style. The rebuilt house is there today at 6 Canoe Brook Drive, exhibiting a true colonial style.
I recall how some local events prompted Steve Guzy (perhaps among others, but I think he was first or among the very few) to invest in life-saving gear. There was no ambulance in the vicinity."
To this, Guzy added:
"In the summer of 1960, the Naistadt boy was hit by a car in front of his house on Canoe Brook Drive. A call to the state Police was relayed to the Princeton First Aid Squad (as the Twin W First Aid Squad would only be formed in the 1970s). No one knew where Canoe Brook Drive was, and when the ambulance had finally arrived, it was too late - the boy had died.
Art Stoller and I decided to become local first aiders. We joined the Princeton First Aid Squad, trained and responded to calls within the Squad. When available, we were dispatched directly from our homes to West Windsor victims and provided the necessary first aid until an ambulance arrived. We resigned after two years, now assured that the Princeton First Aid Squad could be responsive."
