By Chris Rotolo
LITTLE SILVER – A torrential downpour couldn’t douse the community pride demonstrated during the borough’s June 24 centennial celebration.
Following a short delay, the proceedings were underway, as residents lined a parade route that began at the intersection of Parker Avenue and Willow Drive, extended through the municipality’s primary business corridor on Prospect Avenue, and concluded at the community green behind borough hall.
It’s inside the borough hall where Mayor Robert Neff began his research on the municipality’s 100-year anniversary of its official incorporation as a town by an act of the New Jersey Legislature March 19, 1923. Stashed away in a secure vault sat a stack of century-old meeting minutes from April of that year.
Among the pages he identified critical conversations that would form the foundation upon which this community was built.
“It was certainly a different time,” Neff said. “For instance, they weren’t debating about how much to pay a police chief, but whether they needed one at all. And they ultimately deemed, that with such a small population, they didn’t.” At the time Little Silver had just 825 residents. “There is a lot said about this community in that thought process. We’re still a family-oriented town. Folks here do look out for each other. Elements that led to their decision 100 years ago are still prevalent here today,” Neff said.
Looking back on the discussions of that inaugural governing body, Little Silver Council member Stephanie Brannagan was heartened to find the group was quick to set aside weekly appropriations to support community members in need by purchasing groceries and goods from local vendors. There was even an administrator selected to oversee this program who earned an annual salary of $25.
“We’ve grown as a town since those conversations took place, but I think the qualities that define our community, like looking out for your neighbors and caring for one another, they were sewn into the fabric of Little Silver from Day One,” Brannagan said.
She took the lead on yearlong preparations to celebrate Little Silver’s centennial, ensuring the festivities maintained the traditions established at the town’s 50th and 75th anniversaries.
Saturday’s town-wide parade honored the borough’s longest-established residents, including Little Silver’s most-tenured community members, Walt Stearns (90 years), Thomas Bruno (81 years) and Betty Hansen (81 years). Community clubs, youth groups, athletic organizations and civic associations also joined the event, as did the Red Bank Regional Alumni Marching Band. Spectators were treated to a glimpse of the borough’s first fire truck, which predates Little Silver’s 1923 incorporation.
The parade landed at the borough green situated between the Little Silver Public Library and Markham Place Middle School, where residents were entertained by local music outfits like Full of It, Rick Dill & Friends, Little Silver Creek, and Tim McLoone & The Shirleys.
“Celebrating our history is embedded in who we are,” Brannagan said. “It’s an honor to be entrusted with our legacy and the responsibility to honor it correctly.”
Before its incorporation, and well before the arrival and settlement of European colonists, the land that would be designated as Little Silver was inhabited by Navesink Native Americans. The Navesink were an extension of the Lenape, who resided in Monmouth County’s Bayshore and surrounding areas.
The area received its first European settlers around 1667, when brothers Peter and Joseph Parker ventured from Rhode Island and acquired approximately 420 acres of land situated between the modern-day Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers. The remaining 10 acres of this land acquisition are still open to the public as the Parker Homestead, a preserved historical site in Little Silver that features several structures and items that predate the American Revolution. This includes portions of the family’s home, which housed seven generations of the Parker family; most recently Julia Parker, who passed in 1995 and gifted the property to the borough.
The borough has also become synonymous with the name Sickles, including Harold and Elsie Sickles who settled in Little Silver in 1908. The Sickles moved to the area after acquiring acreage from Harold’s mother – a relative of the Parkers – and used the land to establish wholesale produce and gardening market. Sickles Market remains a community fixture on Rumson Road.
However, the Sickles weren’t the first individuals to cultivate a flourishing agricultural operation on borough lands. In 1877, John T. Lovett relocated to Monmouth County from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and quickly established himself as a leading agricultural administrator in the area. After six years working with A. Hance & Sons – a premier nursery in the state – Lovett acquired land in Rumson, Fair Haven and Little Silver where he began experimenting with the growth of fruits and vegetation. In short time, Lovett’s Monmouth Nurseries developed a nationally renowned reputation. Lovett supplied retailers like Sears Roebuck and Macy’s, and earned the nickname “The Small Fruit Prince of Little Silver.”
Lovett’s pioneering efforts were not limited to crops. He would revolutionize sales and marketing by establishing one of the first horticultural trade magazines “Orchard and Garden.” To streamline his distribution of the publication, Lovett also established the Little Silver Post Office in the early 1900s. The structure has since been transformed into a town history museum.
Little Silver officially separated from the neighboring borough of Shrewsbury in 1923. It quickly established a small governing body and a series of public services, including an all-volunteer fire department, which continues to protect and serve its residents today.
“What our governing body was doing 100 years ago isn’t much different than what we do here today,” Neff said. “They were talking about modernizing the community with paved roads and drainage issues, just as we do now. They had their eyes on the immediate needs of the community, as well as an eye toward the future, which is what we strive to do. We’re excited to celebrate their 100-year legacy and continue to build upon what they started. We need a sense of where we’ve come from in order to move forward.”
All proceeds raised from Little Silver’s Centennial Celebration will benefit the Little Silver endowment fund, a nonprofit organization that supports borough educational initiatives, safety upgrades and general maintenance projects.
The article originally appeared in the June 29 – July 5, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
