Agriculture
*Note: This description comes from Paul Ligeti, Vice President of the Historical Society of West Windsor in 2022. For more on the story of West Windsor's agriculture, and the township's history in general, visit the Historical Society of West Windsor's website!
Until the last quarter of the 20th century, West Windsor was historically a farming community. Although it might be hard to imagine today, only a few decades ago, all the land around us was a sea of crops, stretching as far as the eye could see.
Farming in the Garden State began with the indigenous Lënape, who required a predictable food source (especially during long winter months) to supplement wild-grown plants and animals. They “girdled” trees (stripping their bark and letting the tree die and fall) to clear land and used stone tools to till the soil.1 Like many other native societies, they cultivated the “Three Sisters” of agriculture: squash, beans, and corn.2 As explored previously, agricultural work among the Lënape was divided by gender. Men hunted and fished, while women farmed and gathered fruits, nuts, and other wild plants – some of which also offered medicinal benefits.3 The Lënape used raised beds of soil to germinate seeds. Weeding was practiced to ensure crop health and fire helped clear forests and flush game out of hiding spots.4 European colonists brought new crops, tools, and cultivation methods to New Jersey from the early 1600s onward and in turn adopted indigenous planting techniques. They introduced the expansion of cultivated fields, orchards, and livestock for not just self-sufficiency but also surpluses that could be sold at profit. Cows, hogs, chickens, and more now roamed a landscape that just a few generations prior were vast swaths of woodland. Many crops were also transformed into end products such as flour, syrup, cider, and whiskey. Mills were often used to produce these commodities, and one still remains in town at Grovers Mill, albeit long since repurposed. In the land that would become West Windsor, this agricultural boom required the deforestation of thousands of acres of land – i.e., the area’s first major topographical transformation. In 1748, the Finnish naturalist Peter Kalm remarked after traveling between Trenton to Princeton: “Near almost every farmhouse has a spacious orchard full of peaches and apple trees in such quantities to cover nearly the whole surface. Part of the fruit they left to rot, since they could not take it all in to consume it. Wherever we passed by we were always welcome to go into the fine orchards and gather our pockets full of the choicest fruit without the possessor so much as looking after it. Cherry trees were planted near the farm on the roads.”5 The area’s agricultural abundance remained unchanged throughout the 1700s and 1800s. However, as more families immigrated to the region, properties shrank. While a pre-Revolution farm could have often been several hundred acres, by the early 1800s,6 the average farm was between 100 and 130 acres.7 Censuses reflect West Windsor’s agrarian identity. The vast Farming, Faith, & Families Page 42 majority of those listed as employed throughout the 1800s are referred to as “farmers” or “laborers” – likely farmhands.8,9,10 And, regrettably, farming’s ubiquity in the region incentivized the enslavement and indenture of fellow human beings, as explored previously. Throughout the eighteenth century and beyond, many of West Windsor’s farms primarily produced grain – wheat, rye, oats, and more, and possibly sold to other regions such as New England. The chartering of Brunswick Pike in 1804,11 the opening of the Delaware & Raritan Canal in 1834,12 and the completion of a West Windsor line of the Camden & Amboy Railroad in 183913 brought more rapid and profitable access to metropolitan markets. And increasingly advanced mechanization of formerly hand-powered cultivation techniques allowed fewer people to accomplish the same tasks in shorter time frames. Naturally, township meeting minutes from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are filled with agricultural references. Stray dogs killing sheep, runaway bulls, and more anecdotes tell the story of an agrarian township concerned primarily with the challenges of everyday rural life.14 Pictured adjacent is a particularly fine work of art from 1822 identifying a runaway bull.15 After the turn of the 20th century, specialization transformed the agricultural landscape. Dairy and poultry became especially widespread, and potato farming and sheep and cattle raising also grew, especially after World War I. Whereas a typical farmer in the early 1800s would have owned three to four horses and cows, it was not uncommon to see herds of livestock roaming certain properties during the 1900s.16 Malcolm Roszel, West Windsor’s mayor from 1961-1970, described memories of an agrarian West Windsor in the Historical Society of West Windsor’s Fall 2001 “Broadside” newsletter: “When I was growing up in Dutch Neck, we had a dairy [farm] of about 20 cows, and we raised corn, wheat, and hay for [them]. Dad rented a couple of farms too. At one time we were farming 400 acres. Potatoes were always a big cash crop. At first we did our farming with six work horses, but one of my earliest memories is driving Dad’s … flatbed truck while he loaded potatoes in the field … We took [bags of potatoes] to the Lawrence (railroad) station to be shipped out … For a number of years we raised turkeys – 4,000 to 5,000 of them every year. I’ve killed them by the hundreds. We sold them to local restaurants and butcher shops … What did we do for fun? We worked! We milked cows very early, before school and after school. In Page 43 the summertime we worked from daylight to dark. We had hay, wheat, rye, corn, and potato crops. When we did have time off, we went swimming [in Grovers Mill Pond].”17 In the late nineteenth century, New Jersey began to see the growth of “migrant workers.” Laborers - usually Black or African American and from southern states - worked during the harvest season, moving northward from farm to farm and state to state. Their travels took many of them to West Windsor. In town, they set up temporary residence at local farms and worked for several months. They became part of the community - an expected sight in the summer - and local schoolchildren grew up recognizing familiar faces and names as class size swelled during the harvest season.18 Rex Goreleigh - an influential Black artist who worked in Princeton in the mid-20th century, and who lived in and managed a teaching studio along the Delaware & Raritan Canal in West Windsor,19,20 was well known for his depictions of migrant workers in New Jersey.21 It was not until after World War II that the second major manmade topographical change in West Windsor began to take place. Suburbia replaced agraria as hundreds of acres of centuries-old farmland were transformed into manicured grass lawns. Still, much farming remained throughout the third quarter of the 20th century. In 1964, about two thirds of the township’s land was still devoted to agriculture.22 In 1978, that number was just over 50%, with corn, wheat, and soybeans being the primary crops during that decade. However, fewer than twelve resident farmers remained in the township by that point.23 In the 1950s, American Cyanamid – a multinational agricultural and industrial chemical conglomerate – purchased hundreds of acres in Clarksville, transforming family farms into a vast agricultural research complex specializing in animal feed, experimental crops/livestock, and more.24 After 2004, this facility sat vacant off the intersection of Clarksville and Quakerbridge Roads and was only very recently demolished (early 2022) in anticipation of further development. Page 44 Increasingly rapid residential and commercial development during the last quarter of the 20th century was ultimately the death knell for West Windsor’s identity as a rural community. Thousands of acres of farmland were bulldozed to make way for houses, and in turn, a population boom that saw the township more than triple in size between 1980 and 2022. By 2010, only about 3,700 acres were devoted to farming – in contrast with nearly 9,000 just 24 years prior and significantly more in the centuries prior.25 As we will explore in later chapters, comparatively recent court-mandates will likely shrink that figure by a few percentage points. Partially in response to this growth, several initiatives took hold during the twilight years of the 20th century. In 1993, the township adopted an Open Space Tax, incorporating an agricultural preservation philosophy into its ambitions of an “open” township.26 Its first purchase was the Leroy Grover farm off of Village Road East, just next to Grover Middle School.27 The Farmland Preservation Element of the town’s Master Plan, as well as the Agricultural Advisory Committee, guide the township’s farming policies. A “Right to Farm” ordinance further recognizes agriculture as a ubiquitous and natural right throughout West Windsor.28 Various community groups also support West Windsor’s farming identity. In 1996, the Friends of West Windsor Open Space formed to ensure the preservation of multiple types of land – including agricultural tracts.29 In 2004, the West Windsor Community Farmers Market formed to promote local farmers and vendors and is a popular destination to this day.30 And, of course, the Historical Society of West Windsor was established in 1983 to memorialize local history. At the Schenck Farmstead, thousands of artifacts from the 1700s onward are housed in several venerable buildings. The fields bookending the museum complex are still farmed, carrying Page 45 on a tradition stretching back centuries. Take some time to explore this complex, visit West Windsor’s weekly farmer’s market, and enjoy the scenery - especially along Old Trenton and Windsor Roads - and you might just experience a semblance of a much more bucolic West Windsor
Until the last quarter of the 20th century, West Windsor was historically a farming community. Although it might be hard to imagine today, only a few decades ago, all the land around us was a sea of crops, stretching as far as the eye could see.
Farming in the Garden State began with the indigenous Lënape, who required a predictable food source (especially during long winter months) to supplement wild-grown plants and animals. They “girdled” trees (stripping their bark and letting the tree die and fall) to clear land and used stone tools to till the soil.1 Like many other native societies, they cultivated the “Three Sisters” of agriculture: squash, beans, and corn.2 As explored previously, agricultural work among the Lënape was divided by gender. Men hunted and fished, while women farmed and gathered fruits, nuts, and other wild plants – some of which also offered medicinal benefits.3 The Lënape used raised beds of soil to germinate seeds. Weeding was practiced to ensure crop health and fire helped clear forests and flush game out of hiding spots.4 European colonists brought new crops, tools, and cultivation methods to New Jersey from the early 1600s onward and in turn adopted indigenous planting techniques. They introduced the expansion of cultivated fields, orchards, and livestock for not just self-sufficiency but also surpluses that could be sold at profit. Cows, hogs, chickens, and more now roamed a landscape that just a few generations prior were vast swaths of woodland. Many crops were also transformed into end products such as flour, syrup, cider, and whiskey. Mills were often used to produce these commodities, and one still remains in town at Grovers Mill, albeit long since repurposed. In the land that would become West Windsor, this agricultural boom required the deforestation of thousands of acres of land – i.e., the area’s first major topographical transformation. In 1748, the Finnish naturalist Peter Kalm remarked after traveling between Trenton to Princeton: “Near almost every farmhouse has a spacious orchard full of peaches and apple trees in such quantities to cover nearly the whole surface. Part of the fruit they left to rot, since they could not take it all in to consume it. Wherever we passed by we were always welcome to go into the fine orchards and gather our pockets full of the choicest fruit without the possessor so much as looking after it. Cherry trees were planted near the farm on the roads.”5 The area’s agricultural abundance remained unchanged throughout the 1700s and 1800s. However, as more families immigrated to the region, properties shrank. While a pre-Revolution farm could have often been several hundred acres, by the early 1800s,6 the average farm was between 100 and 130 acres.7 Censuses reflect West Windsor’s agrarian identity. The vast Farming, Faith, & Families Page 42 majority of those listed as employed throughout the 1800s are referred to as “farmers” or “laborers” – likely farmhands.8,9,10 And, regrettably, farming’s ubiquity in the region incentivized the enslavement and indenture of fellow human beings, as explored previously. Throughout the eighteenth century and beyond, many of West Windsor’s farms primarily produced grain – wheat, rye, oats, and more, and possibly sold to other regions such as New England. The chartering of Brunswick Pike in 1804,11 the opening of the Delaware & Raritan Canal in 1834,12 and the completion of a West Windsor line of the Camden & Amboy Railroad in 183913 brought more rapid and profitable access to metropolitan markets. And increasingly advanced mechanization of formerly hand-powered cultivation techniques allowed fewer people to accomplish the same tasks in shorter time frames. Naturally, township meeting minutes from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are filled with agricultural references. Stray dogs killing sheep, runaway bulls, and more anecdotes tell the story of an agrarian township concerned primarily with the challenges of everyday rural life.14 Pictured adjacent is a particularly fine work of art from 1822 identifying a runaway bull.15 After the turn of the 20th century, specialization transformed the agricultural landscape. Dairy and poultry became especially widespread, and potato farming and sheep and cattle raising also grew, especially after World War I. Whereas a typical farmer in the early 1800s would have owned three to four horses and cows, it was not uncommon to see herds of livestock roaming certain properties during the 1900s.16 Malcolm Roszel, West Windsor’s mayor from 1961-1970, described memories of an agrarian West Windsor in the Historical Society of West Windsor’s Fall 2001 “Broadside” newsletter: “When I was growing up in Dutch Neck, we had a dairy [farm] of about 20 cows, and we raised corn, wheat, and hay for [them]. Dad rented a couple of farms too. At one time we were farming 400 acres. Potatoes were always a big cash crop. At first we did our farming with six work horses, but one of my earliest memories is driving Dad’s … flatbed truck while he loaded potatoes in the field … We took [bags of potatoes] to the Lawrence (railroad) station to be shipped out … For a number of years we raised turkeys – 4,000 to 5,000 of them every year. I’ve killed them by the hundreds. We sold them to local restaurants and butcher shops … What did we do for fun? We worked! We milked cows very early, before school and after school. In Page 43 the summertime we worked from daylight to dark. We had hay, wheat, rye, corn, and potato crops. When we did have time off, we went swimming [in Grovers Mill Pond].”17 In the late nineteenth century, New Jersey began to see the growth of “migrant workers.” Laborers - usually Black or African American and from southern states - worked during the harvest season, moving northward from farm to farm and state to state. Their travels took many of them to West Windsor. In town, they set up temporary residence at local farms and worked for several months. They became part of the community - an expected sight in the summer - and local schoolchildren grew up recognizing familiar faces and names as class size swelled during the harvest season.18 Rex Goreleigh - an influential Black artist who worked in Princeton in the mid-20th century, and who lived in and managed a teaching studio along the Delaware & Raritan Canal in West Windsor,19,20 was well known for his depictions of migrant workers in New Jersey.21 It was not until after World War II that the second major manmade topographical change in West Windsor began to take place. Suburbia replaced agraria as hundreds of acres of centuries-old farmland were transformed into manicured grass lawns. Still, much farming remained throughout the third quarter of the 20th century. In 1964, about two thirds of the township’s land was still devoted to agriculture.22 In 1978, that number was just over 50%, with corn, wheat, and soybeans being the primary crops during that decade. However, fewer than twelve resident farmers remained in the township by that point.23 In the 1950s, American Cyanamid – a multinational agricultural and industrial chemical conglomerate – purchased hundreds of acres in Clarksville, transforming family farms into a vast agricultural research complex specializing in animal feed, experimental crops/livestock, and more.24 After 2004, this facility sat vacant off the intersection of Clarksville and Quakerbridge Roads and was only very recently demolished (early 2022) in anticipation of further development. Page 44 Increasingly rapid residential and commercial development during the last quarter of the 20th century was ultimately the death knell for West Windsor’s identity as a rural community. Thousands of acres of farmland were bulldozed to make way for houses, and in turn, a population boom that saw the township more than triple in size between 1980 and 2022. By 2010, only about 3,700 acres were devoted to farming – in contrast with nearly 9,000 just 24 years prior and significantly more in the centuries prior.25 As we will explore in later chapters, comparatively recent court-mandates will likely shrink that figure by a few percentage points. Partially in response to this growth, several initiatives took hold during the twilight years of the 20th century. In 1993, the township adopted an Open Space Tax, incorporating an agricultural preservation philosophy into its ambitions of an “open” township.26 Its first purchase was the Leroy Grover farm off of Village Road East, just next to Grover Middle School.27 The Farmland Preservation Element of the town’s Master Plan, as well as the Agricultural Advisory Committee, guide the township’s farming policies. A “Right to Farm” ordinance further recognizes agriculture as a ubiquitous and natural right throughout West Windsor.28 Various community groups also support West Windsor’s farming identity. In 1996, the Friends of West Windsor Open Space formed to ensure the preservation of multiple types of land – including agricultural tracts.29 In 2004, the West Windsor Community Farmers Market formed to promote local farmers and vendors and is a popular destination to this day.30 And, of course, the Historical Society of West Windsor was established in 1983 to memorialize local history. At the Schenck Farmstead, thousands of artifacts from the 1700s onward are housed in several venerable buildings. The fields bookending the museum complex are still farmed, carrying Page 45 on a tradition stretching back centuries. Take some time to explore this complex, visit West Windsor’s weekly farmer’s market, and enjoy the scenery - especially along Old Trenton and Windsor Roads - and you might just experience a semblance of a much more bucolic West Windsor