Mr. Sloan's Memories

Men from the Whiting area gather in the evening at Gary Ritter's garage next to his home on Trenton Ave. to chew the fat and drink a beer or soda. In May of 2006 I asked Mr. Sloan senior, age 78, about his memories of Doctors Pond. He recalled it having two ponds and a nudist camp with a two story building and out sheds, outhouses etc,. The first names of the Itallian couple who owned it where Jennie and Antonio (the doctor). He remembered the doctor as a short, thick chested Italian man. The doctor also owned a house on the street next to Sloans Market off of Manchester Blvd. I asked him why he thought the doctor had planted catus on the grounds of a nudist colony. He said that Italians used the yellow flower from the catus in their cooking. I asked him if he remember the doctor having a livery to bring people to the doctors pond with and he said no. He remembers the main two story building and sheds burning down in the early 1960's. He recalled that he bought a windmill from the doctor that was on the property and moved it to behind his house next to the Sloan farm market. Mr. Sloan said it was not so much a commerical enterprise as a nudist camp but rather a place where the doctor brought his friends from the city to bathe in the local ponds and relax in the pines.

Mr. Sloan sent on the say he was born in 1928 and remembers having to go to one of three local wells built by the local men at the headwater of different streams in town to get water for his family every day. If their was a frog in the water it was a good sign because frogs did not use polluted water.

Posted by the Property Tax Doctor

Nature's Rest and Docspond

Between the years of 1924 and 1930, Jennie and Dr. Tony applied purchase 20 acres in Roosevelt City from Joseph Parisi of the Roosevelt City Land and Homes Co. This couple was one of many who bought into Parisi's dream of building a New City to rival New York itself. Many Italian immigrants from Brooklyn had purchased land in Roosevelt City. Most never gets developed beyond the cutting of the roads and the utility roads behind the blocks. Today Roosevelt Boulevard stands vacant of homes or even pavement. This road was to be the grand avenue with statues and fountains on a central island. The only ones to make good on the land was them before 1976.

But much to the ire of the town. See this couple where one of the many to set up a resort within Ocean County. Why not, they had access to tourists from the blimps in Lakehurst and the trains at Whiting Station. Finds dating back to 1938 show they had commercial plates on a vehicle to pick up guests. Also at docspond sits an old Carriage stoop to assist the ladies exiting cabs before the accessibility of cars. But why did this resort brush against the hair of the local God fearing Churchmen and ladies? They were nudists!

Two acres in on the old white sand section of Newark Ave east of Cedar Swamp lies the remains of the once glorious hotel. North east of that sits the house of the Doctor. Now only foundation. Behind that was an old water tower that was torn down to build the a fit trail. One of Portach's Bond Schemes. The Wind mill that drew the water now stands on the Sloan Farm on Manchester Blvd. In front of the house still remains three foundations for the out houses.

Further east towards the dirt road Jefferson that leads to Harry Wright Lake stands two apple trees in a field. Now this gets to the interesting part. In this damn if you do not and damn if you do field, sits the trees of the Garden of Eden. The Doc invited all these nudist from around the country to pay him good money to come to his resort. Now what type of fauna do you think the Doc put in this field. A field that could of been used to sun bathe in? Prickly pear cactus, Bearberry Bushes, and burs. Plus a couple phalic flowering plants and mullein. Also in the field heading from the hotel to his pond also stand Honey Locust trees with branches and trunks encrusted with five inch thorns and Holly trees with the serrated leaves.

What is similar between the Apple tree and the Honey Locust is, that to get the reward you are damned for doing it. See the Honey Locust has sweet sugar juice in its pods. But to get them you risk poking yourself with those spikes. Try that naked.

Now the doc was a pratical joker. See he had three Holy Tree trunks bound by a iron ring. Their limbs grew an igloo like shelter with an opening cut in one side off the sidewalk. Now a new comer would be enticed into sitting in the shade and hanging their feet off the iron band into a hole dug out for them. The joke came when the nudist sat and found out that holly leaves dry hard and sharp enough to pierce skin!

Along with that he would drive through town with a 1930's ford rat hood ornament of a devil thumbing his nose at you. Which went over well with this Christian town.

So when his hotel caught fire in the late 60's, some say the fire department hid in the woods and waited for it to burn. Only venturing to put it out when the woods around the hotel were threatened. That is after they got the fire truck removed from the sugar sand where it framed. After which some one comes back to burn the house, and pump station on Docspond that irrigated the property to the water tower.

Today many people walk past the pond over the bridge walking their dogs. In front of the bridge heading north east is the foundation of the pump house. Straight across from the pump house where the woods are, you can see some examples of the joinery made of rough cut local cedar which was pulled out of the culvert. To the right sits the carriage stoop under a wooden bench.

Behind the bridge is a narrow crick that leads to the Doc's spa. Since ancient days, all resorts had outdoor baths. Nature's rest was no different. A concrete basin remains with stairs leading into it. The whirlpool was powered by an undershot water wheel that sat at the mouth of the first pond that was controlled by a sluice gate on a counter weight. When working the wheel would shoot water through two cedar lined tunnels that emptied on in to the bath. There it would recirculate out a large metal tube back into the first pond. Under that in the sand was the feed pipe to the motor that pump water up the hill to the right and out to the water tower. The carriage road still can be seen that goes past the white sand beach and up and back around the hill back onto Grant Ave.

Previous to the resort, this site along with the Boy Scout Pond could of been one of a string that was used for bog Iron mining. I have excavated beam bridges from Boy Scout used to walk along the waters edge. Similar beams are found at the site to the Northeast side of Lake Road in front of the damn gate on Harry Wright Lake. Bog Iron slag or Bloom can be found on the beaches of Boy Scout and Docspond.

Well I guess the Eppolito's are gone, but the fauna, foundations, and trails they created remain.

History of Whiting Station

Whiting Station was part of the Tuckerton Railroad that operated between 1871 and 1936. It was burned down twice to only to be built up again. Three rails converged on this point, plus one Donkey Cart Line from the Clay pits in Roosevelt City (Now Fox Hollow). The Donkey Cart Line ran on both sides of Lake Road and into Fox Hollow along Pershing to the pond on Newark and beyond Trenton Ave into the Twenty One Lakes region to other clay pits. One rail came up from Tuckerton carrying seafood to the icehouces in the freight yard. The Freight Yard consisted of a water tower, turntable, living quarters, and icehouse. This Freight yard was built by the three rails companies after Nathan C. Whiting closes his Saw mill and head back to New Haven Con in 1872. The rail coming from the North Carried passengers from the city to the Resort that sat next to the station.

This resort also came about after Whitimg's sale of the property first to Tom Ray and then Mr. Lance of Lancewood Land and Improvement Company, Wilkes-Bar Pa. After the Successful article in Harper Collins called In the Pines, people flocked to the Pine Forest House that sat south of the station. This Resort had a health spa, Billards tables, and bowling alleys. In 1940's it was torn down.

Besides Whiting's sawmill, transit lines, and seafood; other industries profitted from the station. A half mile east of the Whiting Bible Church on lacey road behind the old Omlauf house sat the Dupont Powder Works that opened in 1889. This was one of many Gun Powder mills owned by General Dupont from the Revolutionary War. His first works was in Maryland. They produced powder and shells and had a testing range behind the church. Also William Torrey owned a Brickyard in 1866 which might be the the large field past Crows hill's entrance on School House Road. All these industries depended on the rails.

Now all that remain are terra cotta chips, old tools, cellar holes, and burnt posts. But if you are lucky and patient enough, you might find some old coal from the engines, shells from the seafood, or household items from the workers on the rails.