Space Farms Zoo & Museum
Whatever dreams Ralph and Elizabeth Space harbored in 1927, when they bought a quarter acre plot in northern Sussex County, they could not have imagined that their tiny general store, gas station and repair shop would grow to the 100 acre recreational complex it is today. Space Farms might well be Northwest New Jersey's original Roadside Attraction and Menagerie, but only because Ralph wanted to supplement his family's income by trapping predators threatening farm animals for the state Game Department. Bobcats, foxes and raccoons were caged in the spring until their value as pelts would increase in the fall. But when the time came for their demise, many of the animals were saved by the pleas of the Space children. The animal collection soon grew to a size which began to attract attention.
Young Bengal tiger cubs graduate from their nursery to the grassy outdoor enclosure in the zoo. When released to their outdoor home, the infant cubs will weigh about 75 lbs..
Today, people still enjoy doing basically the same thing as they did 80 years ago... visit the animal collection and maybe have some candy and a soda. Of course, there's a little more to it than that, well into the third generation of Spaces hosting visitors to Beemerville. The zoo now holds the largest private collection of North American wildlife in the world, including over 500 animals from than 100 species from around the world including tigers, lions, newborn jaguars and bison. The zoo's most prominent resident was Goliath, who at 2,000 lbs. was the largest bear in the world until he died in 1991. As the zoo has grown, so has the Space Museum which, since the Great Depression, when people traded items for food at the Space General Store, has become home to over 100,000 items collected throughout the USA. Now displayed in eleven buildings, the assortment of rare autos, carriages, wagons, farm tools, antique firearms and artifacts of nearly every description are a marvelous portrait of American rural heritage.
Gone West and Back Again
Space Farms has long been a popular destination, not only for learning about the wildlife in the zoo, but also because the Space family has gathered a wide-ranging collection of American artifacts in the Antique Toy Barn, Doll Museum, Car Barn, Tractor Museum, and the Farm Tool Museum.
Many of the objects are tied directly to local history. One such item is the well-traveled Prairie Schooner, companion to the Conestoga Wagon housed at the museum. The Prairie Schooner is a fleeter, lighter version of the Conestoga. Both helped settle the western United States. The Conestoga is named for the valley in Lancaster Co. Pa. where it was developed by German Pennsylvania settlers to carry freight. The smaller and more agile Prairie Schooner was specifically designed to take emigrants, not just freight, west.
In the mid 1800's, the Wyker family, from what is now Wykertown in Sussex County purchased their Prairie Schooner, packed up and headed to Kansas with all their possessions stuffed into the 15 feet long, by 4 feet wide, by 3 1/2 feet high wooden bed of the schooner. Water, kerosene, tools, fowl and feed were securely fastened to the sides of the schooner bed, which were sloped slightly outward and chinked with tar to facilitate fording rivers. Due to drought, grasshoppers and chintz bugs the family returned to their New Jersey home in 1872, in the Prairie Schooner. Each side of the wagon is marked: thirty-nine hash marks for the days going to Kansas and forty-one for the trip home.
The Prairie Schooner had a set of springs underneath the driver's seat,
in contrast to the Conestoga Wagon which had none. But the springs of
the schooner did not make the ride at all comfortable, and most "riders" chose
to walk. Accounts tell of filling the butter churn with fresh milk in
the morning and having the chore done by the jostling schooner at the
time of the evening meal. Both the Prairie Schooner and the Conestoga
Wagon had lazyboards, a pull out shelf under the bed of the wagon on
the left side. This is where the wagon master rode if he was so inclined.
This left hand seat forced the wagon to the right when it let others
pass. The American custom of driving on the right hand side of the road
was born from this simple fact.
The hardwood wooden wheels had iron rims forged by a blacksmith. The
hand hewn wooden axle of the Prairie Schooner at Space Farms is 8 to
12 inches thick and carved to fit the joining falling tongue that was
attached to the oxen. Cross beams for support underneath the wagon box
are also hand hewn. The hand brake controls wooden 1 foot square brake
pads that press against the rapidly spinning wheels. The hand brake is
ratcheted to hold to the wheel if thrown by the driver or by someone
walking alongside the wagon. The nails of the Prairie Schooner are square,
indicating that they were produced by a blacksmith.
Fred Space recalls many stories told by "Uncle John" Wyker, a close family friend, who took the 4,000 mile roundtrip to Kansas and back as a young child. When the nearby Wyker farm came up for sale, Fred's father, Ralph, inquired about the Prairie Schooner and found it hoisted up into the beams of the old barn on the Wyker property. Ralph Space purchased this piece of local history for the Space Farms Museum. A copy of a letter from John Wyker's mother to the editor of the local paper is on display with the Wyker Family Prairie Schooner in the Space Farms Museum complex.
Fred Space, Natural Historian
Fred Space, president of Space Farms Zoo & Museum, is one of the
last of a breed of men who study nature their entire lives by living
it.
He knows snakes.
With a mix of logic, ingenuity, experience, and a pure love for the wild, Space has gained an insider's knowledge of timber rattlers and copperheads. For instance, he knows that when huckleberries fill the brush the birds came in to get the berries, then the snakes get the birds. "Dad introduced me mostly by observing." In family tradition begun by his father, he, and now his son Parker, brought the magic of these timid snakes to the public. He's never seen a snake make an offensive move at someone. "They're all defensive," he says. "A copperhead, when he can't get away, will strike. If you give him an opportunity to get away, he'll go into the grass. A common water snake can be pretty sassy."
Space knows where the rattlesnake/copperhead dens are in the northwestern part of the state. "We saved snakes in the area. We've taken snakes away from people's homes when they gave us a call. We'd take them back to their den. We found the den just by knowing where people killed snakes. Day after day you go into the mountains around May 1 and soon find the entrance when they all come out on the rocks. A lot of times they're muddy with dirt from below the frost line."
Kittatinny Ridge is where the dens are and Space says that the roads along its bottom are the most damaging factor to local populations. "Snakes travel down to the lowlands for food and have to cross the road. They can only travel when their body temperature is just right. When the temperatures are in the 60s and 70s, the roads feel warm so the snakes stop and recharge. They might lay there for two or three hours because it feels good and the cars run over them." On July 4, 40 years ago, after two days of rain, Space said to his young son, "I think we can find some copperheads on the road." They went and found 22. "That sun had shown in the middle of the road and it felt good after the rain we had. A snake doesn't have much chance to get across the road anymore."
Like many critters with a favorite home, even a snake can be persuaded to have a new one. In the 1940s when Space was a boy, they kept a copperhead for three winters in his mother's basement. Then one spring they released him up on the ridge where they had first found him. That fall, the copperhead showed up at his mother's house to den.
Sometimes snakes follow other snakes to a new den. "If you release a snake when the nights are frosty and the days are sunny you can release him with other snakes. In the northwestern part of New Jersey, I know every snake den that there is. I spent years and years doing that research just because I want to know."
But after almost 75 years of working with snakes, he remains puzzled and curious. For instance, one thing he wants to know is, what's with the millipedes and bees? Could they be baby snake food? "When you find a den the rocks are covered with big millipedes in springtime when the snakes first come out of the den. And I've seen big boring bees buzzing around the rock. Little snakes are born in mid-August. What do they eat? They've got to eat something."
So what's his secret? "Whenever I went to the woods, I read the Book there. You have to teach yourself to read that Book. It's not a book that you can grow up and read, but the Book is there page after page if you just know how to read it. Every Book has a different story to it."
~Mary Jasch
Space Farms: Rt. 519, Beemerville, 973-875-5800 Open May 1- Oct. 31, 7 days, 9-5
Website
Comments
18 Apr 2008, 23:10
1) personal trip: 2 Adults, 1 child
2)pre-school trip: 30-40 children, 5 adults
How do I go about booking those two trips?
14 Apr 2008, 17:32
14 Apr 2008, 10:11
Thanks
14 Apr 2008, 10:11
Thanks