Home Care In Stockholm, NJ

HARDYSTON -- A group of about 15 people gathered on a beach in Lake Stockholm at noon Saturday to release gold balloons in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

Six bags, each containing roughly 10 to 12 balloons, were released. Organizer Patricia DaSilva said this was the first year the Lake Stockholm beach was the site of such an event.

"This was a function that was planned for my family and a bunch of kids who are fighting cancer because it cuts very close to home." said DaSilva, whose 9-year-old son, Nicholas, was diagnosed with Burkitt's lymphoma non-Hodgkins at age 5 in November 2013.

Nicholas, who was in attendance for the balloon release, went into remission in May 2014, but his mother said there are still risks associated with the disease, including potential long-term effects and secondary cancers.

"People think you look good because you have hair and you're OK," DaSilva said. "There's just a lot that goes with it that people don't know, and this is why we're here trying to make people more aware of kids that are battling cancer."

Similar balloon launches took place around the globe on Saturday as part of One Balloon Away Day, which refers to the idea that the world is one balloon away from raising the awareness needed to increase funding for childhood cancer research.

DaSilva said pictures and videos of the scenes will be shown to child cancer patients in the hospital so they will "know that there are people fighting for them and behind them every step of the way."

The launch was held as an awareness event by DaSilva's organization Kid Nicholas Going Gold 4 Kids, part of the Founding Hope Foundation through the American Children's Cancer Organization. DaSilva announced that Amazon partnered with the organization to donate $1 million to the foundation in search of a cure for childhood cancers.

In addition to September being Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, the state Senate has designated the third week of September as "Going Gold for Childhood Cancer Week." The resolution was proposed by state Sen. Steven Oroho, R-24th Dist.

DaSilva believes the public should do more to combat childhood cancer, and she hopes Saturday's balloon launch will motivate community members to get more involved.

"Kids don't have voices," she said. "Parents are the ones that have to speak for them."

Staff Writer

New Jersey Herald

Stockholm and Snufftown were industrial hamlets from early on. Tanneries, forges and hotels straddled the eastern border of Sussex County along the Pequannock River, which supplied water power. Hamburg Turnpike was formed as a toll road right around the beginning of the 1800s and allowed travelers to enter and settle in the area between lower Canistear Road and Snufftown Road.

Years ago, I had seen a photo of Windham Forge in local author and historian Bill Truran's book about Hardyston, which mentioned that the forge was a huge industrial operation of the area.

Two years ago, while biking a Passaic/Sussex loop, I took a side trip along old Route 23 and caught a glimpse of many stone foundations, a dam and a stone-lined channel with water in it. Wondering if it could be the old remains of the forge, I decided to return one winter day when I could really view the details of these remains. After exploring the old Windham Forge area early last winter, I contacted Truran about a stone I had found on a dam that resembled a webbed footprint. I wondered if it was a fossil, or perhaps the “webbed” imprint was that of a W for Windham Forge. He asked if it could be an M as part of what he referred to as the tri-county marker that's marked with S P M.

The webbed imprint I found was not the marker, which Truran said is a flat stone on the edge of the river with S P M chiseled into it, marking the meeting of the borders of Sussex, Passaic and Morris counties. He sent me a photo from 1897, when Hiram Strait stood on it after he had the created those markings, and also sent many helpful clues.

Putting our information together and meeting up on Friday, Dan Tassey and I set out to find this marker. Reading emails from Bill and Dan's GPS units and my snapshots of an atlas brought us to the general area, but looking for a particular rock among many others was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

The only photo we had was the 1897 black-and-white picture that had one usable clue — a rather large rock, shoulder-height, behind Hiram Strait. That meant that he was in front of a hillside. We soon came to a hillside and we saw a rock in the river, but it had no markings on it.

Dan waded through the river as I scoured its bank. Bella (Dan's dog) kept walking out to that flat rock. At times I'd walk to the shore and ask her if she thought that was it.

The night before, I had emailed Bill Truran a map of the spot and asked him if he could describe where the marker would be using that map. Just as Dan was in the middle of the river, I checked my phone and saw an email come in from Bill. What are the odds of that timing?

His reply was a bit of a riddle that included some more information. Bill had circled the vicinity and also marked his best guess, and he also included a couple of photos from the last two groups to visit the marker. The last photo included Bill and a friend at the marker, and while examining the photo and the rocky hillside in the background we realized that we were standing in just about the same spot where the photo had been taken. Dan moved the picture from right to left as we lined up similar trees and shapes of the rocks until we looked down.

The very same rock that I had stood on five times to look at Bella was the actual rock that we were looking for. (She was probably standing there looking at me and wondering why I was asking her where the rock was when I was standing on it.)

Dan caught a glimpse of a white line on the rock and began to clear the dirt and leaves away. There it was, a chiseled line with white paint inside and a large chiseled S (for Sussex County) and a large chiseled M (for Morris County), all with bright white paint inside. We couldn't see the P (for Passaic County), but it may have been on the other end of the marker. Dan also found a hole bored into the line, maybe the exact point of the meeting of the borders, or perhaps it had once held a piece of metal. We cleared away leaves and brush and also washed the stone with some water from the river. We also left a couple of our own hints in case someone else heads out there to locate it.

Dan placed a baseball-size hunk of coal on top of it, and we also left the remains of a railroad tie standing upright in the ground that we had used as a tripod for our camera. If anyone else is interested in locating this little piece of history, message me through Sussex County Excursions on Facebook and I will send you all the clues that I have.

Jeff Stoveken has been researching Sussex County history for 12 years and started photodocumenting the county's historic sites and buildings as a way to preserve them. Sussex County Excursions began as a Facebook page in 2013 to inform/remind residents of the area's historic attractions and outdoor recreation.

Staff Writer

New Jersey Herald

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HARDYSTON -- Lake Gerard home owners have been told to pay up or face eviction.

Summer residents at Lake Gerard were recently given notice that property owner Harriet Gerard intends to increase rents at the lake community, and those who don't pay will face eviction.

"This is getting to be old hat for us; Harriet has decided to try to evict us again," said William Barrett, president of the Lake Gerard Fish and Game Club. There are 78 homes on the lake, eight of which house full-time residents.

Barrett said Gerard mailed new leases two months ago and told residents that the old leases were no longer in effect. The residents were offered new leases that propose to increase their rents between 350 to 400 percent over the next three years.

Barrett said these leases also contained many new conditions and tenants were informed to either sign the leases or they would be evicted. The rent increases would mean residents would pay between $20,000 to $25,000 per year in rent. Gerard has offered to sell lots to the summer residents for prices ranging from $170,000 to more than $200,000, Barrett said.

Gerard wants to turn the summer homes into full-time year-round condominiums, Barrett said. Association members own their homes but pay rent for the land and lake rights.

Barrett and his wife have had a cabin on Lake Gerard for decades. He said the dispute began in 1991 when Gerard attempted to evict the people who bought modest summer cottages on the lake.

According to Barrett, Gerard has let the lake area fall into disrepair, refusing to provide maintenance of the wells, dams, meeting hall and roads at the site.

In 2006, the Lake Gerard Company filed a public offering statement with the state Department of Consumer Affairs for the purpose of converting approximately 605 acres of land surrounding the 95-acre Lake Gerard into a condominium development.

Leslie Hamilton, Hardyston township councilwoman and member of the Planning Board, said there are currently no plans to build on the Lake Gerard property before the board.

"They are very limited to what they can do because of the Highlands," Hamilton said.

The homeowners offered to buy the lake and 600 acres for $6 million. The family sold 1,200 acres for about $4 million to the state about four years ago, which the state is preserving as open space.

Lake Gerard is an 1,800-acre property in the Stockholm section of Hardyston that was a popular vacation area in the 1920s. In the 1950s, about 156 acres of the property were settled and vacation homes were built, with the homeowners paying rent to Gen. James Gerard for the land on which the homes stood.

The property owners and Lake Gerard have been involved in litigation for years. The Lake Gerard Company sued the renters in 1991, noting that if they didn't sign a rental agreement they would be evicted.

"Ms. Gerard is playing with people's lives. This isn't just a vacation spot. This is the place where we raised our children and grandchildren," said Ed Mueller, a long-time, year-round resident of Lake Gerard."

Community members challenged their leases in 1991, saying the rents were unreasonably increased and the short-term manner of the leases was unfair. An agreement was eventually reached in 2000 when residents settled rights to homes they owned on rented lakefront property.

Under the terms of the agreement, the homeowners received a three-year lease on the properties, with one-year rental agreements after that.

Carol Noonan of Clifton said she has memories of Lake Gerard from the 1960s when her parents took her there to visit friends and she caught fish from the deck and swam in the lake. Five years ago she purchased her own cabin on the lake.

"In 2003 we thought we were preparing a new generation to experience the happiness we had at the lake. My cousin would teach his kids to swim and fish there and it would be just like it was before. I can't afford to stay at the lake, not now. Not with these lease figures," she said.

Barrett said the next step for the home owners will be for them to present their case in court.

Gerard's attorney did not return phone calls.