NOVEMBER 2022 FREE
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A new perspective on WW history By Dan AUBrey
The West Windsor Community Farmers’ Market was recognized with a proclamation by West Windsor Council. At rear are council members Michael Stevens (left), Linda Geevers and Martin Whitfield. In the middle are WWCFM board member Craig Goodfriend, market manager Chris Cirkus, market teen board liaison Sidd Janakiram , Mayor Hemante Marathe, town council member Andrea Mandell, and WWCFM board members: Thomas Calabria and JoAnn Parla, and council President Sonia Gawas. At front are WWCFM board members Muthiah Mohan and Curtis Hoberman.
Market named Best in Jersey EDiTeD By Bill Sanservino
The West Windsor Community Farmers Market has been named New Jersey’s favorite farmers market, number one in the Northeast and placed fourth in the nation in the American Farmland Trust Annual Farmers Market
Celebration. The AFT and the Farmers Market Coalition recently announced the winners of the 14th annual America’s Farmers Market Celebration, a national event that ran between June 21–Sept. 19. Markets receiving the most public votes are declared the national
winners. The celebration also recognizes top markets in five regions nationwide and in all 50 states. “Placing fourth in the nation allows us to celebrate and bring more awareness to our nearly 20-year-old market, whose mission has always been to support See WWCFM, Page 3
The Historical Society of West Windsor is celebrating the township’s 225th birthday by giving the community a present: the publication of the “West Windsor Then and Now: A New Perspective”—a book that builds on the previously published West Windsor Then and Now, written for West Windsor’s 200th anniversary. According to HSWW vice president Paul Ligeti—author of the current anniversary edition—the book “was something never seen before: a comprehensive analysis of centuries of West Windsor history, released amid a related yearlong celebration. Authored by Henry Innes MacAdam and designed by Jeff and Ruth Currie over the span of just a few months, the original West Windsor Then and Now brought to residents stories familiar and new: tales of early settlers, community growth, personal lives just as nuanced and important as ours, scientific breakthroughs, and even an ‘alien invasion’—to name just a few.” Ligeti, who also writes the West Windsor Chronicles column in The News (see page 14), says about the new publication: “The new book was written with the intent
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that it should be easy for anyone of high-school reading level and above to pick up and become wellversed in our collective community history. We incorporated color images onto almost every page of the book—historical photographs, documents, illustrations, maps, and more. It also has a list of the nearly 200 still-extant local sites we believe are 100 years old or older (some dating to the 1700s). Divided into 20 sections, the 172-page publication starts off with “Natural Resources” and the simple yet often forgotten premise: “To understand West Windsor’s environment is to understand its historical foundations. The town’s natural resources were fundamental in influencing how life developed here.” That includes natural water ways such as the Millstone River and a portion of the Assunpink Creek and later the humanmade Delaware and Raritan Canal, which fed off the nearby Delaware River. “Rivers, creeks and watershed did not just provide water for drinking and irrigation. They also served as important transportation corridors for those traveling by canoe, such as the indigenous Lenni Lenape. Residents further used waterways for fishing, recreSee LIGETI, Page 4
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