I’m Home Again

Whew, that was quite a trip I took. We started out in Avoca, New York. The site of our annual family reunion. Only, this year the 4th of July was on a Wednesday and it was very confusing to the planning of the festivities. So, it ended up being just us visiting with the New York branch (with a little South Carolina thrown in!). ha. We stayed overnight. On our way to visit my Aunt Barb in PA, we visited Aunt Diane and Grandma Moore in the cemetery. This was my first time up to New York since Diane’s funeral, so it was an emotional visit.

We spent the evening with Barb, and headed into New Jersey to find a hotel. We had some time the next morning before my Aunt Lori got off work. I was actually very grateful because this was the first time I had been in Caldwell without any time constraints. We could tool around as quick or slow as we liked. We started off needing breakfast, so we ate at the Caldwell Diner. It just so happens the Caldwell Diner is right next to the site of the old Thorward Meat Market. So while I had the Caldwell Special, I had a perfect view of the meat market building!

I only wish I knew the exact years that the meat market was in business. While Grandpa Moore was alive, he told me a couple stories about it. He wasn’t very good with dates though, so I’m left to try and reason that out myself. I do have a newspaper clipping about the market, the only problem being it doesn’t have a date. (I previously wrote about the Market as my very first entry on the blog!)

Market Celebrates 25th Anniversary

Thorward and Van Duyne’s Market, Caldwell, is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary this week.

The market, the first in Caldwell, was established in 1856 by Frank Dobbins, who later sold the business to George H. Vanderhoof. After a few years the market was operated under the name of Vanderhoof and Wilton until twenty-five years ago when Thorward and Van Duyne took it over.

Lewis Thorward, a partner in the business, has been in the store for forty-two years. The market has Caldwell’s No. 1 telephone.

After eating at Caldwell Diner, we went by a lot of the old homesteads. I got pictures of a few, but because traffic was so heavy, it was hard to get pictures most of the time. I will admit, the heat kept me in an air conditioned car. We’ll still be going back to visit more thoroughly, I stopped briefly at the West Caldwell Library but that was all the “research” I got in. I did find an awesome book with pictures of Historic Caldwell. I liked the book so much I ordered my own copy off Amazon!

Next time I’m in Caldwell, I hope to visit the Methodist Church that Llewellyn is always mentioning in her diary and maybe a few more libraries to see what they have.