One way to celebrate the life and work of historian and preservationist Elric Endersby, who passed away October 13 at age 79, is to read the Recollector--an oral history journal that Elric founded in 1975. The nation's bicentennial was approaching--a good time to capture the stories of life in Princeton's earlier days. In the archived version available on Papers of Princeton. I typed in the keyword "Herrontown," and up popped seven articles that provide a slice of life in earlier days, including hikes to Devil's Cave in Witherspoon Woods.
Particularly nature-oriented were Dorothy Compton's reminiscences in 1978 of early Girl Scouting in Princeton. She had her first troop in 1929, back when Princeton was far more rural, before fields grew up in either trees or houses.
What awaited the girls, as they explored the Princeton landscape and beyond, were the "quavering of a screech owl's song," a "Wild Plant supper" with pokeweed and sassafras tea, and the formidable challenge of making a fire in the woods after three days of rain, while leaving behind "nothing but our thanks." Without the initiative of Elric Endersby, this and many other stories from another era might not have survived. There was a time in Princeton when people could enjoy nature without fear of Lyme disease, when kids camped in town, and stars filled the night sky. Here are some selected stories from Dorothy Compton:
First and foremost we were an outdoor troop, for that is the real fun of Scouting. We hiked all over Princeton to Devil's Cave, to Carnegie Lake, to Stony Brook, to Guinn's Farm on Herrontown Road. We bicycled to Rocky Hill, car-hiked to Cradle Rock ...
Camp cooking was included on most of our hikes, winter as well as in warmer weather. If a tin cup of cocoa was so hot it burned the lips, it could always be set in the snow to cool. The names of the concoctions we found in our guide books! angels on horseback, galloping guinea pigs, spotted dog, poet and peasant, blushing bunny, squaw corn, corn pancakes, hunter's and komac stew, and many more. Flavored with wood smoke, food by any name was manna to those who gathered the wood and built the fires themselves.
Occasionally it took longer than planned to bring fires to cooking heat, and I well remember one trip to the cave when it was dark by the time we had carefully extinguished every ember and left "nothing but our thanks." There was that long and stony path from the cave to the road, to be traversed in darkness. There was but one flashlight in the group, (and it wasn't the captain's!) But the girl who had followed the motto "Be prepared" led the way, and holding hands in a chain we made our way out safely.
... our Princeton girls enjoyed the priceless experience of living in tents, face to face with nature day and night, learning the self-reliance and resourcefulness that living in the open brings. Have you ever had the honor of being selected to go on a "rain hike" after three days of downpour in camp? Of digging tinder out of the center of a rotting log and peeling standing dead wood to get dry centers to cook lunch? The satisfaction of securing a glorious fire under those circumstances!
Did you ever sleep under a mosquito net canopy on top of a hill, waking by alarm clock every two or three hours to watch the changing positions of the constellations? Or dropping off to sleep to the serenade of a grasshopper perched on top of your mosquito net? Or awake at midnight to find a wandering horse snorting at the strange objects in his pasture? Have you sat breathless around a campfire, delaying Taps, while a camp handyman answered the quavering of a screech owl's song, luring it closer and closer until it perched on a branch just overhead? These and a thousand and one other adventures are the never-to-be, forgotten moments of discovery and appreciation and wonder that come to a Scout in camp.
One of our prize projects was a Wild Plant supper prepared one April evening. Our menu? Dandelion sandwiches, raspberry jam sandwiches (from wild berries, made the summer before), dandelion greens wilted with bacon, pokeweed with sour sauce, sassafras tea, sweet flag candy. Needless to say, the occasion was unforgettable.
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