Hampton Park’s cranberry packing house

A change of management in wartime

The March 1942 issue of Cranberries described a 175-acre Hampton Park cranberry property long operated as Rider-Wilkinson, Inc. It reported that the C. W. Wilkinson estate then controlled the property and that Ralph B. Clayberger, the estate’s trustee, would take over management of the bogs on April 1. Harold B. Scammell, who had managed them for two years, was leaving. The notice also connects Clayberger with C. Wilkinson’s Sons, a Philadelphia produce firm. This is a contemporary account of ownership and management, not a description of the packing house’s machinery. Cranberries, March 1942, p. 7.

What the family saved

In 2010, a Pine Barrens forum administrator shared two photographs identified by descendant Daryl W. Goodrich as showing the Clayberger & Goodrich packing house in 1946. One shows the long white building above a stone lower level. The other shows a truck marked “Clayberger Goodrich Growers of Cranberries” beside that stonework. Goodrich also supplied an “Eatmor Cranberries” promotional flyer. The images preserve the building’s scale and a later business name, though their dates and identifications come from Goodrich’s captions rather than from an independently checked archive catalog. Building photograph; Truck photograph; Promotional flyer; Goodrich account as posted by the forum administrator.

Goodrich recalled cranberries being stored, sorted, and packed in barrels for shipment to New York and Philadelphia. He described a stationary Otto engine in the basement turning leather belts and line shafts that powered sorting machines on the floors above. He also recalled a cable and winch for the elevator and a generator added by his father. These are unusually specific memories of work inside a building now known largely by its ruins; the engine, machinery layout, and shipping records have not been independently examined. Goodrich family account.

The later farm and its loss

Goodrich identified his mother Elsie Clayberger, father Robert Goodrich, and uncle Charles Clayberger as purchasers of the farm from Wilkinson heirs. He recalled the later business as Clayberger & Goodrich, Inc., and said that his family left when New Jersey condemned the property in 1964. The 1946 truck photograph supports use of the Clayberger & Goodrich name. The 1942 notice independently establishes Ralph Clayberger’s earlier management role; it does not document the later purchase or taking. Truck photograph; Goodrich family account.

Goodrich also passed on a tradition that the building used timber salvaged from Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exposition. That origin remains unverified. The forum discussion speculates about when the building burned after the family left, but supplies no fire report or secure date. Forum discussion.

An earlier Hampton Park record

The archive also follows the 1916 attack on Henry D. Rider’s payroll trip. That case documents the earlier cranberry enterprise associated with Hampton Park; it does not establish the later packing house’s construction date.