Randolph Reporter
By Tamara Scully

Randolph TWP

Apples were big business
in Randolph, and the surrounding
areas of Morris County, since the
Revolutionary War times.

As a matter of fact, most of today's
housing developments
were probably once apple orchards.
The soil and terrain here were
suitable
to orchard crops, and apple and
peach orchards were prevalent.

Bill Wilkie, a railroad and history buff
from the Mendham
area, presented this intoxicating
lesson in local history to a crowd of 40
or so people gathered in the
community room of the Randolph
Township Free
Public Library.

According to Wilkie, many families
produced an excess of
apples, even after making pies,
canning and drying the fruit, and
storing
some of the crop for winter
consumption.

There wasn't much of a local market
for apples- everyone
grew them- and the fruit would get
damaged in transit to more urban
areas
which, at that time, were served by
Bergen County farms.

With apples readily available, cider
was routinely
processed. It was the main beverage
of choice for colonial Americans.
Water
was not readily accessible, and
because of water-borne illnesses, it
was not
always safe.

Hard cider had a long shelf-life, so it
was always
available, well after the harvest. It
was the beverage, consumed by all
members of the family, to quench
thirst.

Enterprising businessmen took cider
a few steps further.
First, as sweet cider fermented, hard
apple cider was produced. Hard cider
was about 60 proof. When a second
distillation was made, the resulting
120
proof liquor was then diluted down to
100 proof, and the barrels aged. The
result was an 80 proof product that,
when bottled, became known as Apple

Brandy, or Apple Jack, or "Jersey
Lightning." A booming business was
born,
Wilkie said.

"Farmers would take their apples to
the cider mill, and
the mill owner would keep a
percentage of the juice in payment.
To distill
that juice in to Jersey Lightning was
to make a sought-after product from a
commonplace staple. It was big
business."

Entertaining them with a slide show to
accompany his
commentary, Wilkie kept the
audience's attention as he explained
the lore of
Jersey Lightning.

The legal distiller had to pay the tax
man. And, he had to
pay taxes on all of the 100 proof
liquor he made, Wilkie explained.

"Unfortunately, that meant that he
was paying for alcohol
that wouldn't exist when the product
was finished and ready for sale."

"Government measures how much
you make at 100 proof and
levies a tax at the time its made,"
Wilkie explained. However, the
product
is then aged for 3-7 additional years,
and by that time, a good amount of
evaporation has occurred. That taxed
product that later evaporated was
known
to distillers as the "angel's share,"
Wilkie said.

The distiller also had to store his
barrels in a special
structure, with steel doors and
windows, which became known as a
"Lincoln
house".

This was to ensure that no one could
get to the product
before the tax man levied the
appropriate taxes. A certificate of
taxation
was then affixed to the barrels with a
tack and shellacked in place.

Apple Brandy was "one of the largest
industries in the
state of New Jersey from the early
1800s through to the Civil War,"
Wilkie
stated.

With major stage-coach routes
between Easton, Pa and the
ports of New Jersey and New York
City running through Morris County,
Jersey
Lightning found markets elsewhere.
Unlike the raw product, apples, the
liquor would not bruise or rot during
the arduous trips. Because the route
took more than one day to traverse,
travelers would have to stay overnight
in local inns.

"They were served Jersey Apple
Jack."

That, stated Wilkie, is how the
reputation of the local
apple brandy spread, and how
"Jersey Lightning" became known far
and wide.

Civil War to Prohibition

"The fame of the New Jersey Apple
Brandy became known and
it became, between 1804 and the
Civil War, the largest cash crop in
New
Jersey," Wilkie said.

According to the 1830 census, there
were 388 legal
distilleries in New Jersey. Fifty-three
of those were in Morris County, and
four of those were in Randolph
Township. Nearby Roxbury Township
had dozens
more, and Chester had five.
Hunterdon and Warren Counties
were also home to
many distilleries.

During the Civil War, the government
imposed a very high
$2 per barrel tax on the Apple Jack.
Coupled with the loss of business
from
the southern states, distillers were hit
hard. And railroads made the
stage-coach routes all but obsolete.

Following the war, the use of alcohol
in the United States
more than quadrupled, according to
Wilkie, perhaps offsetting some of the
loss of business and profits the
distillers had suffered. This, however,
set
the stage for the next era in the saga
of the distilleries: Prohibition. The
18th Amendment to the Constitution,
ratified in 1919, ushered in the age of
Prohibition, and no distillery was legal.

Lasting 14 years, Prohibition was an
era of illegal
distilleries, many of which
undoubtedly were found here in
Morris County. At
least one known mill, that on Route
24 in Ralston, did stop its production
around the time of Prohibition.

It's machinery was left relatively
unchanged since then.
Inside, the belts, pulleys, and presses
remain. The mill, recently acquired
by Mendham Township, produced
Tiger Apple Jack, from approximately
1906-1920.

Some distilleries and Lincoln houses
found new uses
following the demise of the Jersey
Lightning heyday.

On Route 24, near Parker Road in
Chester, Wilkie reports
that the stone house, now a vicarage
for the Episcopal Church, was once a
distillery. It was known as the
Mountain Spring Distillery, and its
Lincoln
house remains intact on an adjacent
property.

The most prominent of the Randolph
distilleries is also
now a home. At the intersection of
Park Avenue and Sussex Turnpike, in
the
Ironia section of the township, is the
Bryant Distillery.

Now a beautifully restored home, the
Landmarks Committee
of Randolph Township has honored it
with a plaque.

The location of the other distilleries is
not certain. It
is known that about 1,000 gallons of
apple brandy were legally made in
Randolph Township during the days
of Jersey Lightning.

Most evidence of such production
has long since
disappeared.

Jack Hopkins found the presentation
enlightening in many
ways.

"It was an interesting talk that
combined some local
history with a look at some of the
economic realities in colonial New
Jersey," he stated.

Another audience member, John
Oehler, was unaware of the
legacy of Apple Jack distillers in
Randolph Township.

"I had to attend the recent
presentation at the Randolph
Library to find out. I was not
disappointed with the history lesson
and
great presentation," he said.

The person responsible for
scheduling these popular
presentations is Deborah Rood
Goldman, the programming manager
at the
library.
©Recorder Newspapers 2005