The Lure of Washington Street

The Lure of Washington Street. . , Bishop Memorial Library (c. 1941) , 101 Washington Street , Writer and traveler Nathaniel Holmes Bishop (1837-1902), born in Medford, Massachusetts, moved to Toms River when he was about 27 years old. His adventurous spirit and his fascination with the sneakbox brought him to Toms River to learn about this small boat that can be sailed, rowed, poled, or sculled. It is predominately associated with Barnegat Bay and is used for duck hunting or sailing on the bay. His fascination with the boat stirred him to row a sneakbox from Pittsburgh to the Gulf of Mexico via the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. He wrote about his solitary adventure in his book, Four Months in a Sneak-Box (1879). Bishop recorded and published his many other adventures and also became a successful cranberry grower and owner of sixty properties. He and his wife lived in a house on Water Street for many years. He died in 1902 and is buried with his wife at Riverside Cemetery in Toms River. In his will, he left a bequest to fund the construction of a public library in Toms River. Some 39 years later, it was finally built on the east side of the Town Hall quadrangle that faces the south side of Washington Street. Dedicated in Bishop's name in 1941, this redbrick township library remained a significant part of the town's cultural life for 35 years until it joined the Ocean County Library System in 1976. Today, this charming building, which still features a warm wood trimmed interior and a cozy brick fireplace, is used primarily for community activities and meetings., The Presbyterian Church of Toms River (c. 1858) , 101 Washington Street , Construction of The Presbyterian Church began about the same time as construction of the new Ocean County Courthouse in 1850. Completed in 1858, the church's façade was altered many times over the years with multiple coats of a variety of paint colors, replacement of horizontal clapboards with vertical boards, and coatings of stucco. The building was eventually overlayed with red brick to match its contemporary neighbor, across the street, the Ocean County Courthouse. In 1972, when the congregation vacated the church building and moved into a new larger building about a mile north on Hooper Avenue, Dover Township purchased the 114-year-old Gothic Revival building. It was used for a variety of purposes for several years until it was sold to the county to become a part of the new administrative library headquarters built for the Ocean County Library System. The old church steeple was replaced in 2007, but the original chime was recorded so that it can still be heard hourly in the downtown village area. This old church building retains much of its original architectural integrity and continues to serve the downtown village community as a retail business.