Travel back in time with us !
Follow @ TheRecordArchives and share your own local vintage photos using # TheRecordArchives
Looking Back
Going Green Circa 1900
In this season ofblooming flowers and lush foliage , it ’ sworth noting that one of the largest nurseries in the country onceoperated in Short Hills . One of the very few commercial enterprises , if not the only commercial enterprise , that Stewart Hartshorn permitted inhis “ ideal community ” was horticulture . Nurseries flourished in ShortHills .
One of the more famous nurseries was the U . S . Nursery , owned by Messrs . James Pitcher and W . A . Manda . The vast acreage was onHobart Avenue , near Gap Viewand InvernessCourt .
James Pitcher ’ s former home was a large Victorian with a wrap-around porch and gingerbread trim and stands on Highland Avenue , at the corner of Montview . Pitcher ran an insurance company and was passionate about orchids , particularly the hardy Cypripedium .
Pitcher passed away in 1921 and in his obituary : printed in The Florists ’ Exchange , Manda wroteofof his former partner : “ If ever there was a man who loved all things in nature , who could see beauty in all that plant growth , who could admire every flower in bloom , whether that of a modest native plant from our woods or the moregorgeous orchid from the tropics , such a man was James R . Pitcher .”
COURTESY OFMILLBURN SHORT HILLS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
72 MAY 2017 MILLBURN & SHORT HILLS MAGAZINE Do you havea great vintage photo ? Send your suggestions to millburn @ northjersey . com .