Over the River and through the Woods
Literally, this is how Becky and I arrive at each of our mothers’ houses.
Wendy, her mom, lives due south in Salem, NJ, and my mom is due north in Lewisburg. Each trip takes about two hours.
To get to Wendy's, we
drive on mostly two-lane roads through working Pennsylvania farms
saunter through the suburbs of Wilmington
catapult over the Delaware Memorial Bridge
cruise through populated wetlands, and
hop over the Salem River to where her house sits on the upper reaches of the Delaware Bay.
But you’ve likely never heard of Salem, NJ, which is a shame because it’s not only a beautiful region, it also has loose ties to a pop performer whose tune will become lodged in your head if I mention it.
Don’t Mention It
OK, so it’s Bill Haley of the Comets fame. A house that bears his name will figure into Part 2 of this series on Salem, NJ. Now you should be think/singing,
We’re gonna rock (pause) around (pause) the clock tonight!
We’re gonna rock . . .
If that earworm doesn’t stick with you through the day, I’ve failed you as a writer.
Before any of us were rock, rock, rocking around the clock tonight, though, John Fenwick was laying out the Salem settlement in 1675.
Let your brain percolate on that date, and maybe you’ll lose the earworm!
From a Mighty Oak to Acorns
Salem’s emblematic claim-to-fame is The Salem Oak, a massive 600-year-old sentinel under which it’s said that Mr. Fenwick signed a peace treaty with the Lenni Lenape.
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Our kids grew up going on breakfast outings with their Grandpop and Nana Johnson at The Salem Oak Diner. Bop was always sure to play amateur historian whilst pointing out the restaurant’s namesake.
The aluminum beauty is still slinging hash browns, but the beloved tree met its demise on June 6, 2019.
Up stepped the Salem Monthly Meeting (Quakers), who own the former tree’s plot of ground. A year previously they had gathered acorns, grown 60 saplings, and distributed them to Friends’ grounds throughout New Jersey.
That’s life: Acorn to mighty oak and back again.
I can’t speak for the locals, but as a cheer-leading outsider, the downed parent of Salem still disheartens me.
How Low Can You Go?
The Salem Oak witnessed white settlement, tribal treaties, and massive industrialization in the 20th century. Glass and bottling factories now sit shuttered except for Mannington Mills1 on the outskirts of town.
When Haley penned his smash hit and my father-in-law played basketball in the high school gym, who would’ve imagined Salem suffering the dispiriting effects of industrial closings, white flight, and broken promises from big projects?
People First
As the census figures shout, Salem’s (mostly white) population began leaving for the spacious county lanes and nearby subdivisions in Pennsville in the 1950s:
So when Frank Johnson spoke of the “good old days” when Market and Broadway were packed with shoppers, he was partly remembering a quantity of people making the town function like a healthy ecosystem.
Blacks and whites, perhaps mixing like oil and water, shared a place. Not so much anymore.
Frank, like many of his buddies, joined the army, married, earned higher education degrees, and began a professional career away from Salem.
Retiring to his childhood home fueled his affection, nostalgia, and not a little grief for his once vibrant town.
Saplings
Besides the sheer numbers of people necessary to germinate life, another axiom of healthy town life is that incremental change is better than tumultuous change (be it boom or bust).2
In Part 2 of this series, I want to talk about one small change in Salem—an acorn, if you will—that has literally taken root on a side street.
It might just prove to be the sapling for a new kind of flourishing in Salem.
The mill is run by a local family that continues to fund various endeavors of revitalization.
Such principles are enumerated in Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity by Charles Mahron, Jr. I’ve invited him to speak in Lancaster, PA for the Hourglass Community Forum on April 12th. Learn more at The Row House, Inc.