The Return of the Shad – A Lambertville, NJ Tradition
Written By NJ Historian
Each year like clockwork, the shad return to the Delaware River to spawn. It is an ancient cycle first observed by the Lenni Lenape and has continued ever since. Today, in Lambertville, New Jersey the townspeople commemorate the arrival of the shad the last weekend in April with an annual Shad Festival. However, despite settlement in Lambertville dating to the 1750s, the festival’s first year was not until 1981.
At the Shad Festival
Lambertville is a town built around the Delaware River and the Delaware and Raritan Canal. During the eighteenth century, the city was named after various operators of ferries across the river to Pennsylvania, ultimately becoming known as Coryell's Ferry, after Emanuel Coryell who owned the ferry. The city became known as Lambertville in 1814 when the post office was established, in honor of John Lambert, a local resident, who had served as United States Senator and Acting Governor of New Jersey. Lambertville was officially incorporated as a town in 1849 and reincorporated as a city in 1872.
In the nineteenth century, Lambertville, due to its proximity to the canal and the United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company (now defunct), became a factory town with a diverse range of industries; lumbering, sawmills, gristmills, paper, iron and rubber manufacturing. After the introduction of the automobile, the canal, and eventually the railroad became obsolete and the factories shut down, one by one.
The effect of the factories along the river and canal hurt the annual shad migration. In the 1940s and 1950s the pollution on the river was so bad around the Philadelphia area that there was zero dissolved oxygen in the water and caused a “pollution block” to the shad migration. Fewer and fewer shad were able to make it up the river to spawn. According to local shad fishermen, 1963 was the bleakest year when none made it past the block.
Lambertville City Hall - built circa 1870.
The town remained stagnant between the 1940s and 1960s. In the 1970s, young people who had grown up in Lambertville but left to make their fortunes elsewhere returned with a mission – to reenergize their home town. The city began to attract artisans and entrepreneurs. During this same time period, the river was cleaned up to a point that the shad returned and the festival was started in 1981 to celebrate the successful renewal of their migration.
Today much of Lambertville’s eighteenth and nineteenth century charm remains in its architecture, much of which has been restored or adaptively used. The town has become a tourist destination, with many shops, galleries, antique shops, restaurants, bed and breakfasts, and one lone commercial shad fishery, standing the test of time and in business since 1888.
In front of the James Marshall House - Marshall lived in Lambertville between 1817 and 1834 and
discovered gold at Sutter's Mill in California in 1848.
Here are a few of the best historical events happening this weekend. Hope to see you there!
Weekend in Old Monmouth Saturday, May 5, 2012 and Sunday, May 6, 2012
Saturday, May 5 from 10 AM-5 PM and Sunday, May 6, 12-5 PM. Forty sites of every description will be open to the public free that weekend. A tour booklet and map will be available at each site and can be previewed on the Monmouth County Historical Commission. Planning the tour will help the visitor see the most for his time and per his preferences.
The purpose for the coordinated open hours is to stimulate visitation by making available a lot of history in a single two-day period. Since the 40-site itinerary cannot be seen in one weekend, choosing one's preferences will help make the tour more enjoyable and leave other possibilities available for another year. The simplest division, geographical, has been outlined in advance as the tour is divided geographically into three sub-tours.
The tour can be done by location or theme. If you like historic houses, you can organize your own historic house tour. The same applies for museums. Several sites have a Revolutionary War tie. If churches are your preference, there are outstanding examples that date from the mid-18th century to the early 20th century. The tour also includes two of the most important lighthouses in the nation, two former one-room schools, a former industrial village (Allaire), a working mill, an active farm with live animals, two colonial taverns and the oldest medical office building in New Jersey and possibly the country. In short, there is something for everyone and a lot for most.
Sussex County History Day Saturday, May 5, 2012
The Sussex County Historical Day will be held on Saturday, May 5 at the Sussex County Community College, One College Hill, Newton, N.J. The event will take place in the gymnasium of the college. The hours will be 9 am -3 pm and admission is free. The day will reflect the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. There will be an encampment by the 15th and 27th N.J. Volunteers, vendors selling items used during the Civil War, lectures, and music performances of Civil War songs.
Historic Whitesbog Moonlight Walk Saturday, May 5, 2012
Whitesbog Preservation Trust (WPT) will host a moonlight walk at Historic Whitesbog on Saturday, May 5, at 7 PM. By the soft glow of moonlight, walk through the dark, mysterious pines, along white sugar sand roads, to the shimmering cranberry bogs. The air will be alive with birdsong. The leader will offer stories of the people who built Whitesbog, the local "Piney" folk, and the more recent American immigrants, all of whom worked here to make it one of the most successful agricultural enterprises in New Jersey.
Fee is $5 per person. Call 609-893-4646 or email to WhitesbogPreservationTrust@comcast.net. Visit www.whitesbog.org for more information about moonlight walks and other upcoming events.
Macculloch Hall Civil War Event Sunday, May 6, 2012
Visitors are invited to visit a living history program in the garden of Macculloch Hall Historical Museum. Reenactors with the 12th NJ Company "K" will be available to meet visitors, answer questions and share camp life information with visitors. This demonstration is presented to complement the current "Gone for a Soldier:" Jerseymen in the Civil War exhibit. Macculloch Hall Historical Museum in collaboration with the New Jersey Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee (NJCW150) created this major exhibit which commemorates the participation and heroism of Jerseymen in a major turning point in U.S. history. The exhibit brings together for the first time nearly two hundred objects from the Civil War from over thirty museums, historical societies, and private collections
Also in attendance on Sunday, May 6, accomplished author and Civil War historian Joe Bilby will be available in the "Gone for a Soldier" exhibit. Mr. Bilby will be selling and signing New Jersey Goes to War: 150 Biographies of New Jerseyans of the Civil War Era, New Jersey's Civil War Odyssey: An Anthology of New Jersey Civil War Stories, Freedom to All: New Jersey's African American Civil War Soldiers, as well as some other titles from his collection to museum visitors.
The Museum is open to tour the house and view exhibits on Wednesdays, Thursdays & Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. Adults $8; Seniors & Students $6; Children 6 - 12 $4. Members and children under 5 are free. Call the museum weekdays at 973-538-2404 ext. 10, visit our website www.maccullochhall.org. Macculloch Hall Historical Museum, 45 Macculloch Ave., Morristown, NJ 07960.
Mark your calendars for Next Saturday, May 12, 2012
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