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Looking Back
Going Green Circa 1900
In this season ofblooming flowers and lush foliage, it’ sworth noting that one of the largest nurseries in the country onceoperated in Short Hills. One of the very few commercial enterprises, if not the only commercial enterprise, that Stewart Hartshorn permitted inhis“ ideal community” was horticulture. Nurseries flourished in ShortHills.
One of the more famous nurseries was the U. S. Nursery, owned by Messrs. James Pitcher and W. A. Manda. The vast acreage was onHobart Avenue, near Gap Viewand InvernessCourt.
James Pitcher’ s former home was a large Victorian with a wrap-around porch and gingerbread trim and stands on Highland Avenue, at the corner of Montview. Pitcher ran an insurance company and was passionate about orchids, particularly the hardy Cypripedium.
Pitcher passed away in 1921 and in his obituary: printed in The Florists’ Exchange, Manda wroteofof his former partner:“ If ever there was a man who loved all things in nature, who could see beauty in all that plant growth, who could admire every flower in bloom, whether that of a modest native plant from our woods or the moregorgeous orchid from the tropics, such a man was James R. Pitcher.”
COURTESY OFMILLBURN SHORT HILLS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
72 MAY 2017 MILLBURN & SHORT HILLS MAGAZINE Do you havea great vintage photo? Send your suggestions to millburn @ northjersey. com.