LAKEHURST – Cedric Derecho is still just a college student but the book he co-wrote with Eric San Juan focuses on historical events that took place long before either of them were born.
The authors’ book Images of “America Lakehurst Borough and Manchester Township” was released earlier this fall just in time for next year’s Centennial Celebration of the borough.
“It is good timing for this book. Since I was a little kid, I’ve been fascinated with Lakehurst history,” Derecho said. He is 21 years old and has lived in Lakehurst since 2005. The book was scheduled to come out back in June but was delayed due to the pandemic. It came out last month instead.
Derecho was surprised that the publisher had not already put out a book focusing on the two historic towns in Ocean County. “When I found out that they hadn’t I contacted Eric and we became the first.”
“I’m a student at Rutgers University in my junior year right now. I’m a history major and a political science minor. We both collaborated together on most of the book,” Derecho said. He noted that there were differences in the borough and Manchester Township.
“I would say that the center of where everything was going on a century ago was essentially in Lakehurst but Manchester had its own section of small communities like Whiting and Ridgeway and we tried to focus equally on all of that. We wanted to give a sense of what Manchester was like as well. Without Lakehurst you wouldn’t have Manchester and without Manchester you wouldn’t have Lakehurst. They are intertwined,” the author said.
Derecho added, “we really focused things like the Pine Tree Inn, the railroad and even a bit on the Russian Proving Ground.” A Russian embassy was present in the borough from 1915 to 1917 and then it was bought out by the U.S. Army.
“It was later used by the U.S. Navy which is why we have Naval station there,” Derecho said. He noted that while the name Lakehurst is almost immediately identifiable with the Hindenburg disaster, it has a rich history beyond that.
“There are so many images out there on the Lakehurst Air Naval Station and we did talk about all the air ships, zeppelins and Navy blimps so we really tried to focus on the town itself and neighborhoods like Pine Lake Park, the retirement communities plus Lakehurst itself. Pretty much everything outside of the airship is in this book,” Derecho said.
The author thanked the cooperation and generosity of the Lakehurst Historical Society. “They were a big help in providing the bulk of our photos. Many of these photos have been rarely published or seen. Eric and I were going through boxes in the back of the museum revealing photos that I had never seen and that he had never seen and we knew people would like to see these rarely seen photos.”
Derecho said that the photos “provide a snap shot of what the town was like a century ago.” He added that what surprised him most in researching both towns is that they were “so very different from each other, they were also very much the same. Even back then it was a working-class community just how it is today.”
“There were differences in that there was railroad and a luxury hotel like the Pine Tree Inn. Things like that aren’t around anymore and the fact that 50,000 to a 100,000 people would flock to the Naval Air Station to watch the zeppelin landing yet the makeup of the character of the town hasn’t changed all that much even after all of those things had left,” he added.
Derecho also noted the importance of the borough’s lake and how people would ice skate there and walk along the nature path. He noted the borough’s founder William Tory “who was responsible for bringing industry into the area. There was already a bog iron furnace in the late 1700s. When that was abandoned it was empty for a number of years until Tory brought the railroad and later the rope industry.”
Like all towns, some of its history features a few skeletons in the closet and for Lakehurst it was the Giberson murder that occurred on Union Avenue circa 1922-23. “She (Ivy Giberson) killed her husband (William Giberson) over a lover and tied herself to a chair and said someone else did it. She blamed it on a robber. She received a life sentence but served only 10 years or something along those lines,” Derecho said.
A famous fire in the town is covered in the book. “We have three photos of the rope factory fire from 1911. These photos were never published before. The photos were taken the day after the fire.
Derecho said the entire process to write the book began over a year ago. “We began in May of last year and we didn’t finalize it until a year later.” He said he is happy that the book is out at last and looks forward to working with the Lakehurst Historical Society regarding any plans to utilize the book during the borough’s big 100th anniversary celebration in 2021.
