A blog about living in Aberdeen, New Jersey.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

History: Aberdeen Inn, Matawan, NJ - Part 2

This is a follow up to my recent research article on The Aberdeen Inn of Matawan. Below are some more original citations about the property, including a New Jersey Bell advertisement from 1969 that discusses the first switchboard operators in town.

Aberdeen Inn To Change Hands
W R Cartledge, the present landlord at the Aberdeen Inn, has sold his interests there to Arno Knuecht of Newark and the latter expects to take possession next Thursday upon the transference of the license to him.

Mr Cartledge, it is said, will return to his old home at Camden, where he will take things easy until he feels disposed to re-engage in business.
Source: The 16 Feb 1911 edition of The Matawan Journal, image 2 of 8

List of Signers to Hotel Licenses
Summary: Six local hotels presented a hotel operating license application with an accompanying list of names of local people willing to vouch for the owner's "good repute for honesty and temperance". The list was published by order of the Matawan WCTU. Their names also vouched the need for and conduciveness towards the public good that such an inn or tavern operating in Matawan.

The six hotels and their operators were as follows: Road House (Ellen Sullivan), Eagle Hotel Ann Concannon), Matawan House (James Furey), Mount Pleasant Hotel (Louie Hartenstein), Woodbine Hotel (W A Kennedy), and Aberdeen Hotel (Arno Kunath). The signatories for the Aberdeen Inn were: H D Smith, Thomas A Smith, S C Towler, A V Hulshart, Frances M Lambertson, George Linzmayer, Jr, John J Knuahel, W A Close, John Barney, Frank Tourine, Dayton Stillwagon, Patsy Sarabuchelle, Joseph Poccardta, Luiga Taronici, Pasqualia D'alio, and Abraham D'alio.
Source: The 10 Sep 1914 edition of The Matawan Journal, image 5 of 8

CARNIVAL SHOW ATTACHED
A Kunath Holds Up Goods For Unpaid Bill of $27.50
Last Sunday A. Kunath, proprietor of the Aberdeen Inn, swore out an attachment against five members of the Kline Carnival Show to recover an unpaid bill of $27.50 for board. . . .
Source: The 8 Jul 1915 edition of The Matawan Journal, image 1 of 8

MATAWAN AND VICINITY
John Reed of Keyport has purchased the Aberdeen Hotel, opposite Matawan railroad station. Mr. Reed conducted this hotel several years ago but now buys it as a matter of speculation.
Source: The 22 May 1925 edition of The Matawan Journal, image 5 of 8


TO EQUIP SERVICE STATION
Samuel Mann Will Install One at the Corner of Aberdeen Hotel

Samuel Mann, proprietor of Aberdeen Inn, has equipped the gas and oil station at the corner of the hotel and will give his personal attention to conducting the service station. A little later he proposes to open a restaurant in the hotel where a special cater will be made to lovers of sea food. About September 1, John Reed, who owns the building, plans to open a fish stand in the new store adjoining the hotel proper. Mr. Mann is much pleased with the patronage he is receiving and says he has so many calls for rooms for night lodgings and longer stays that he frequently has to turn people away.
Source: The 7 Aug 1925 edition of The Matawan Journal, image 1 of 8

MATAWAN AND VICINITY
John F Reed, who formerly conducted the Aberdeen Inn and later a fish market in that building, is preparing to open a fish market in Princeton next week.
Source: The 20 Jan 1928 edition of The Matawan Journal, image 5 of 8

MATAWAN IS AN INDUSTRIAL TOWN; LARGE AMOUNT OF MANUFACTURING DONE HERE
Matawan will soon have another new industry, which will mean even more employment for men and women. In the very near future, the Curedent Corporation of America, manufacturers of the Curedent Tooth Paste, expect to have their plant in order and going strong. The old Aberdeen building at the Railroad Station Plaza has been purchased by the firm and some of the machinery has already been installed. It is said that there is a delay in getting started due to part of the equipment and machinery which is being manufactured in Europe and has not yet arrived.

The main floor of the building has been made into spacious offices for the concern, the rest of the entire building will be used for the manufacture of Cureden, "Cure-a-dent," Tooth Paste. After the weighing and compounding of chemicals, which is done by expert chemists, the ingredients are never touched by human hands, even to the filling of the tubes which contain the paste.

Some of the members of the firm expect to locate in Matawan. S J Oberwager of New York, president of the concern, said that Matawan had impressed him very favorably as not only a splendid location for manufacturing with the fine shipping accommodations, but as a most ideal town to live in. S J Oberwager, who is a well-known dentist in New York, is a brother of Judge C A Oberwager and Dr John Oberwager, Chief Medical Inspector of New York City.
Source: The 24 Aug 1928 edition of The Matawan Journal, image 10 of 10

OBITUARY:William H Perrine
William H Perrine, a former Matawan resident, died at his home in Newark last Saturday. Mr Perrine was the son of James H Perrine, who a number of years ago conducted a saloon in the building now used by the Bell Beef Company. Mr Perrine was a professional athlete and trap shooter, being the winner of a number of prizes both in this and foreign countries. At one time he conducted a hotel at Keansburg, it being the first opened in that borough; conducted the Aberdeen Inn in Matawan for a time, after which he went to Newark, opening sporting headquarters which he conducted until the enactment of the prohibition law, when he headed a detective agency, which business he was the head at the time of his death. He is survived by a wife and a married daughter. He was 72 years of age.
Source: The 9 Nov 1928 edition of The Matawan Journal,image 5 of 10

PORCH OF ABERDEEN INN HAS BEEN REMOVED
The porch around the old Aberdeen Inn has been removed and an addition will be built to the rear of teh building for the use of the manufacturing company now in possession of the building. Celluloid novelties will be produced.
Source: The 14 Nov 1930 edition of The Matawan Journal, image 1 of 6

RENOWNED ABERDEEN INN ON STATION PLAZA HERE MAY BE RECONDITIONED AS A HOTEL -- LONG UNOCCUPIED, FORLORN
Widely Known Place of Former Days To Be Restored And Improved at Cost of Over $12,000 For USe by "Manny" Einziger; Had Been Factory
Negotiations are underway between Emanuel Einziger of Keyport and The Matawan Bank for the re-opening of the old Aberdeen Inn opposite the railroad station. This property was acquired by the bank some time ago as security on foreclosure proceedings. Mr Einziger is now proprietor of the Monmouth Wine and Liquor Company, located in the old Mansion House at the corner of Main and Broad Streets, Keyport.  Prior to the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment he was proprietor of the Monmouth Furniture Company. . . .Lengthy article, nice summary of hotel's history.
Source: The 30 Nov 1934 edition of The Matawan Journal, image 1 of 14

Aberdeen Inn Razed For Service Station
Demolition of the famed old Aberdeen Inn at Station Plaza in Matawan, is nearing completion. The three story brick structure is being taken down to clear the way for construction of a new service station on the Plaza site.

The Aberdeen Inn was constructed in 1891 by W. A. Close and was conducted as a hotel by Christian Croxon for a number of years. The first telephone booth in Matawan was located at the Aberdeen Inn and the first extension phone ran from from the hotel to the office in the barn of the hotel's livery stable.

In 1928, the building was leased to a New York firm for the manufacture of tooth paste, but when the  venture proved impractical, the building remained unoccupied for some time.  Over the past 30 years, it has been leased to numerous manufacturers.
Source: The 14 May 1964 edition of The Matawan Journal, image 1 of 26

Looking Backward: Sixty Years Ago
Supt. Blodgett has had planking put down between the tracks recently laid across Main St. and the macadam stone has been placed up to the west rail. A carload of Manasquan gravel is in the freight yard for use about the station grounds and a new flag walk is to be laid from the Aberdeen Inn property to the walk leading to the station.
Source: The 26 Jun 1969 edition of The Matawan Journal, image 4 of 20

New Jersey Bell Ad on 100th Anniversary of The Matawan Journal
...in 1891 to be exact, telephone service arrived on the scene. The first telephones linked two local drug stores, one owned hy Dr. E. McKinney at the comer of Front and Broad Streets in Keyport and the other
owned by C. K. Slater on Main Street in Matawan. But until "Central" was set up at Slater's in 1896, calls were handled at a switchboard located in Long Branch.

Mr. Slater and his clerk, Tom Moriarity, served as the first telephone operators in the Matawan-Keyport area. They connected calls when they weren't mixing prescriptions! When the switchboard was moved down the street to the Aberdeen Inn in 1898, John F. Wright, the bartender, alternated his telephone operating with mixing drinks.

Other young men who served as telephone operators at the Aberdeen were George Dominick, Arthur Hawkins, Kobert West and V. V. Close. The '98 telephone directory listed these customers: In Keyport, Thomas R. Brown Estate, A, W. Hoff, Benj. B. Ogden and J. G. Schanck. And in Matawan: C. E. Close, W. A. Close, Edward Farry, N. J. Terra Cotta Co., F. H. Slater and the Matawan Journal.

Young men continued to serve as telephone operators until 1905 when Miss Edna Craven took over the board. As the exchange grew, Miss Winnie Ahearn became the first chief operator. She was succeeded by Miss Rae Hopkins who demonstrated outstanding public service during the blizzard of March 1,1914, when she remained at the switchboard from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday.

By 1916 there were about 500 phones in Keyport and Matawan, and modern phones like this were all the rage. Over the years, the number of telephones continued to climb, and phone styles changed as much as the fashions. Dial service was established in 1958. And now, of coarse, many Keyport and Matawan families are making phone calls twice as fast with convenient tap-the-number Touch-Tone® telephones.

Today, on this 100th Anniversary of this newspaper, we're connecting your calls to almost anywhere in the world. But we're not satisfied with that. Right now we're working on cordless phones so you can make calls on the run and remarkable picturephone® sets so you can see who you're talking to.
Source: The 31 Jul 1969 edition of The Matawan Journal, image 45 of 72

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