Issue 1
A Wilson Lake walk and the weekend the Cold War came to Glassboro
Fossils & Frights in Mantua, Freaky Friday in Pitman, a Wilson Lake walk at Scotland Run Park, and the Glassboro house where Johnson and Kosygin met in 1967.
Hot picks
This weekend's best bets around here.
Halloween lands on a Saturday this year, so this Friday, Oct 30 is stacked from Mantua to Pitman. Saturday night there's a Halloween jam at a Clarksboro brewery if you've got anything left after trick-or-treat.
Mantua · Fri Oct 30 · 7-11pm · $40, $25 Rowan students · 18+
Fossils & Frights, an adults-only Halloween night at the fossil museum
Edelman Fossil Park & Museum, at 66 Million Mosasaur Way, turns into an 18-and-over Halloween party Friday night, with a costume contest and DJ Interstella spinning all night. The Dinosaur Coast and Monstrous Seas exhibits are open the whole time, and pizza from Steak Out plus desserts from Amici in Mullica Hill are included. The two drink tickets are for soft drinks and energy drinks, so plan on a sober night. There's also a tasting table of edible bugs, which is a sentence I never thought I'd write about Mantua. Edelman Fossil Park & Museum
Glassboro (Rowan) · Fri Oct 30 · 7:30-9:30pm · free to $35, registration required
Lara Downes and Rhiannon Giddens bring "Sounds Like America" to Pfleeger Concert Hall
Pianist Lara Downes and Rhiannon Giddens, who has won a Pulitzer and a Grammy, trade songs and stories about American music at Rowan's Pfleeger Concert Hall, from "Amazing Grace" to Paul Simon's "American Tune." Registration is required through the Rowan box office at 856-256-4545, and open captioning is available. Tickets start at free, which makes a Pulitzer winner on a Friday night the best deal in this whole email. Rowan Today
Pitman · Fri Oct 30 8pm · Sat Oct 31 2pm and 8pm · Sun Nov 1 2pm · $40
Disney's Freaky Friday, the musical, at the Broadway Theatre of Pitman
A busy mom and her teenage daughter swap bodies and get one day to fix it, on stage at the Broadway Theatre at 43 South Broadway. The theater rates it PG, best for ages 10 and up. Tickets are $40 with tax and fees included, and all sales are final. Bring your teenager, and maybe nobody make a wish on the way in. The Broadway Theatre
East Greenwich (Clarksboro) · Sat Oct 31 · 6-9pm
A Halloween jam with Chuck M at Death of the Fox
Death of the Fox Brewing, at 119 Berkley Road in Clarksboro, hosts a Local Music Halloween Jam with Chuck M on Saturday from 6 to 9. The brewery's calendar doesn't list a cover or a ticket price, so check before you go. It's a brewery and a coffee roastery in one building, and the Milky Way Latte Porter is made with their own coffee, which is how I'm staying up past trick-or-treat.
Death of the Fox
Field guide
One useful guide to living around here.
Scotland Run Park · 980 East Academy Street, Clayton
Scotland Run Park - a Wilson Lake walk before the clocks fall back
The clocks fall back at 2am on Sunday, Nov 1, and after that the after-work walk turns into a walk in the dark. So this is the week I'd get to Scotland Run Park in Clayton. Gloucester County calls it its largest park, well over a thousand acres of woods around 80-acre Wilson Lake, and it's free and open every day from sunrise to sunset.
Walking trails start behind the Nature Center and on the lake side of the park, and there's a fishing pier and a canoe and kayak launch on the water. The Nature Center has live snakes and frogs, but it's only open Thursday and Friday afternoons and weekends from 10 to 3, so plan around it.
The full guide has the Nature Center hours and which side of the street to park on if you've got little kids.
The scrap
The best stuff you missed in the area's social media world.
Somebody found a dollar bill with a 1986 Glassboro and Williamstown score written across the top. And Williamstown's scarecrow contest got a skeleton Dolly Parton. Over at the Deptford mall, somebody's ferret rode the escalator on his shoulder.
Glassboro and Williamstown · Reddit
"Interesting $1 bill from 1986"
This dollar has bragged about Glassboro 40, Williamstown 3 since 1986, and Williamstown wants it spent.
Reddit via u/lilgreentomato
Williamstown (Monroe) · X
"Hello Dolly!!"
Williamstown's scarecrow contest got a skeleton Dolly in pink fringe, and she's holding up better than I am.
X via @DrewForecast
Deptford · Instagram
"Not everyone can be in New York or LA"
Somebody's gotta hold it down at the Deptford mall, and that job went to a ferret.
Instagram via @roseandwinstonofficial
What's building
What's going up, getting paused, or getting fought over.
Election Day is next Tuesday, Nov 3, and the county's sample ballots don't show any public questions this year, so this one's short. Plus the last call to weigh in on the Dinosaur Trail between Rowan and the fossil park.
Countywide · Tue Nov 3 · polls 6am-8pm
Election Day in Gloucester County, and what's on the ballot
Election Day is next Tuesday, Nov 3, with polls open from 6am to 8pm. The county's election notice says in-person early voting started Oct 24 and runs through this Sunday, Nov 1. On the ballot are U.S. Senate and House seats, plus county commissioner and local races that vary by town. The county's sample ballots don't show any public questions this year, so the whole thing is offices. Short ballot, same 6am start. Gloucester County sample ballots · Election notice (PDF)
Glassboro, Pitman and Mantua · comments close Fri Oct 30 · 11:59pm
Last call to comment on the Dinosaur Trail route
Gloucester County is planning the Dinosaur Trail, a walking and biking path from the shared-use path on Carpenter Street in Glassboro, through Pitman, to Mantua Boulevard and Edelman Fossil Park. At a Sept 29 public meeting, planners recommended a hybrid route that's mostly off-road and skips the Route 55 option. It also goes around Alcyon Park instead of through it. The Woodbury Warbler reports that some neighbors on Howard and South Cummings avenues still have privacy and safety worries about the trail behind their homes. It's still at the concept stage, with no construction date or cost set, and online comments close this Friday, Oct 30 at 11:59pm. Comment survey · Woodbury Warbler · Mantua Township
Makers
Local makers nights and market tables worth hitting.
No craft fairs land in this window, so I went with two places that make things by hand, or show off what this county used to make. One's a free glass museum in Glassboro, and the other is a Woolwich candy kitchen that just put out its Christmas list.
Glassboro · Wed Oct 28 11am-2pm · Thu Oct 29 5-8pm · Sat Oct 31 11am-2pm · free
The Heritage Glass Museum on High Street
The Heritage Glass Museum, at 25 High Street East on the corner of Center Street, is a free, volunteer-run museum of glass made around here, with bottles from the late 1700s to the 1970s. The current show is commemorative bottles and decanters, including pieces by Clevenger Brothers from right down the road in Clayton. It's open three short windows a week, so the hardest part of this museum is the hours. Heritage Glass Museum
Woolwich · open daily · 2026 Christmas list out now · orders by phone or in store
Damask's Candies puts out its 2026 Christmas list
Damask's Candies, at 2255 Route 322 in Woolwich, says its family has been making candy by hand for more than a century, and Doug Damask is the third generation running the shop. The 2026 Christmas list is up on their website, with a 1-pound box of assorted chocolates for $25 and a 12-ounce bag of peanut brittle for $11. There's no online ordering, so you call 856-467-1661 or order in the store. Order early, and get two boxes of the chocolate covered crackers, because one never makes it home full. Christmas list (PDF) · Damask's Candies
Deep cut
One local history leftover worth knowing.
Hollybush (Whitney Mansion) · Whitney Avenue on Rowan University's campus, Glassboro
Hollybush - the glassmaker's house in Glassboro where Johnson and Kosygin met halfway
If you've cut through Rowan's campus on Whitney Avenue, you've passed a dark stone house with a square tower. That's Hollybush, which glassmaker Thomas H. Whitney built in 1849, and in June 1967 it's where President Lyndon Johnson and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin sat down in the library to try to cool off the Cold War.
Hollybush only ended up on a campus because 107 neighbors chipped in to buy the Whitney land in 1917 and offered it to the state for a teachers' school. Fifty years later the college got 16 hours' notice that the world was coming to the president's house.
The full story has why Glassboro got picked as the halfway point, since the sources disagree on who wanted what, and a myth check on the "three-day summit."
Season
What's in the air right now. Farm stands, orchards, peak harvest.
Harbaugh Village has the Sanderson Sisters on Halloween and a full day Sunday. And the corn maze at Mood's closes on Halloween, so this Saturday is your last shot.
Mullica Hill (Harrison) · Sat Oct 31 10am-2pm (Sanderson Sisters noon-2pm) · Sun Nov 1 10am-6pm · $15.95 online, $19.95 at the gate
Fall Funland at Harbaugh Village
Harbaugh Village, at 126 Bridgeton Pike, runs Fall Funland on weekends, with a corn maze and a 150-foot mega slide among a long list of stuff to climb on. Halloween is a short day, 10am to 2pm, and the Sanderson Sisters are there from noon to 2. Sunday it's open 10 to 6. Tickets are $15.95 online for a set day or $19.95 at the gate. Get there for the Sanderson Sisters and let the mega slide wear the kids out before trick-or-treat. Tickets
Mullica Hill (Elk Twp) · corn maze through Sat Oct 31 · closed Sundays
The last days of the corn maze at Mood's Farm Market
Mood's Farm Market, at 901 Bridgeton Pike, opened its corn maze at the Apple Festival in September, and the farm says it stays open until Halloween. October pumpkin hayrides end with cider and a donut. Mood's is closed Sundays and closes for the season on Nov 7, so the maze is a this-week thing. Go for the maze and stay for the donut. Mood's Farm Market
That's the week
See you at the farm stand.
Drop your email. I'll show up Tuesday morning.