Here's a copy of the article describing the Shafto homestead in Tinton Falls, NJ. This article was originally in the Asbury Park Press, May 2, 1979. Homestead in Tinton Falls Earns Century Farm Award By LEIGH COOK Press Staff Writer TINTON FALLS - A frown covered the face wrinkled by years of sun and toil. "The farms are disappearing. Who will feed the people?" she pondered. And with the sage advice reserved the elderly to impart to youth, she said, "You know, we're put on this earth to help one another." Minerva Knight, Shafto Road, belongs to a vanishing breed. She has lived on a farm most of her life, except for her married years when she and her husband lived in Asbury Park. Sitting in her living room filled with Victorian antiques, shelves lined with books, and comfortable chairs, she recalled the years of bucolic meadows and pristine land. OUTSIDE THE rain drizzled on aging barns and fences. It was mid-morning but clouds darkened the room. She lit a lamp beside her chair. It shone on her white, neatly-curled hair. Slightly deaf she leaned forward to hear questions about life on a farm that once provided all things to a family. The rain continued its steady drip, running down the windows of the house built by Edgar White in 1904. (The original homestead burned July 4 of that year). It fell on the tulips blooming in the yard, signaling another season on the Shafto farm, a landmark here for near\y 200 years. The morning quiet was broken only by the clucking of a few hens. Birds darted among the shrubs that guard the porch of the old gray homestead. And old Smokey, the family watchdog, roamed the grounds, sniffing out his favorite haunts. HER HAND, gnarled with arthritis. held a faded photograph of her childhood home. "That's me," she said, pointing to a young girl surrounded by her parents and aunts, uncles, cousins. "And that's my sister, Atlanta, and that's my sister, Leola (Faby)." One by one, she named her brothers - Cyrus, Leon and Tom, and another sister, Mary, all of whom are dead. "And that's where we slept in the winter," she added, motioning to a second floor over the kitchen of the home that was heated with five fireplaces. It was 75 years ago - she was 11 years old when the original 14-room Shafto house went up in flames. "There were no fire companies then. But we hauled water from the brook and were able to save the ice house," Mrs. Knight recalled. She was born in that house. So were her father and her brothers and sisters. THE HOUSE is gone and with it the rustic sounds of yesteryear - horses faithfully pulling plowshares through the fertile earth, milk cans banging in the back of a cart bound for Wardell's Dairy, and generation of children at play. The Shafto home, 3515 Shafto Road, was commemorated yesterday with a Century Farm award from the New Jersey Agricultural Society. The honor is reserved for farms that date back more than 100 years. This year's awards were presented to farms founded between 1768 and 1800. Records collected by the society show Robert Shafto arrived in 1791 in Philadelphia from his native Yorkshire, England. Nine years later, he started farming on 104 acres in what was then part of Shrewsbury Township. A son, John, born in 1803, expanded the property known as Shafto's Corner, to 1,600 acres. Munroe Shafto Inherited the land in 1858. Mrs. Knight and Miss Atlanta Shafto are now the owners. Sandra Reid, Mrs. Knight's granddaughter who takes care of the house, and Harry Reid, stationed with the Army in Germany, are fifth generation Shaftos. They are the children of Mrs. Knight's daughter, the late Sarah Reid. THE PROPERTY is substantially reduced now. Mrs. Knight estimates that only about six acres of the once productive truck and dairy farm remain. "It was a working farm when my father died in 1932. My brother farmed it for awhile, but now we have only a garden for ourselves," she said, "We've had to sell off most of the land because the taxes are so high. And we could have sold the house many times over. But we (she and her sister, Atlanta) wanted to stay here." She recalled the once productive peach and apple orchards and the vast pasturelands that led up to what is now a racquet club on Route 33. IT WAS A true horse and buggy period. Public transportation to Asbury Park consisted of a stage coach that left from Shark River Station. Structured entertainment was unheard of. "Sometimes we would go to Asbury Park or have friends in. I guess we made our own fun," Mrs. Knight said. "We played checkers or dominoes or hide-and-seek." Christmas was a festive occasion for all the family, together around a big tree decorated with strings of popcorn and cranberries. No lights, however. "We didn't get electricity until 1926, and when I was a kid we had no telephone," Mrs. Knight said. BRIEF SKETCHES of that period came flooding back. "We made our own clothes and we canned most of our food. On Sunday we walked to the church in Hamilton. I remember that the women sat on one side and men on the other. We had a woman we called "Reevy" who'd came in to wash clothes on a scrub board and help my mother. My mother had paralysis before she died but she always loved the farm. Her name was Atlanta White and she grew up in Glendola (Wall Township). Her father was a ship joiner and she told us that when he was drafted into the Civil War his boss paid $300 for someone else to go in his place." The Shafto children walked four miles a day to and from the Hurleytown School where eight grades were taught in one room. WITHOUT A moment's hesitation, Mrs. Knight recalled the teacher's name - Roland Fenimore. "He taught 50 pupils and we took a county test to qualify for high school," she remembered. The Bond Street School in Asbury Park was then the high school. "Because it was so far away, I moved to Asbury Park and lived with my uncle," Mrs. Knight said. She looks now upon the growth of the area and remembers the words of her father "My grandchildren will live to see this area built up all the way to Freehold."