Saving a part of Bucks County's agricultural history: Milk wagon finds home at community college
When Gene Epstein was a boy, his mother bought him a Craftsman band saw to learn woodworking. His father had died the previous year and she thought he needed a hobby.
He made signs for addresses and sold them, like he did used cars while he was in high school on his way to owning and operating auto dealerships, including the first Mazda dealership in the Northeast. But his love for both transportation and wood turned his interest to old carriages drawn by horses.
His expertise in restoring these vehicles led to his learning how to drive them and he and his wife, Marlene, became members of carriage associations while their daughter was on the United States Equestrian Team, and even led to a visit with the Queen of England.
Epstein now has put his knowledge of carriages to use again as he helped save a rare, old glass-windowed dairy wagon that was to be auctioned by Brown Brothers Auction in Buckingham. A buyer from Ohio was interested in the unusual wagon but members of the Newtown Historic Association didn’t want to see it leave the area where it had its route delivering fresh milk and other dairy products.
David Callahan, an associate board member and former owner of Newtown Hardware House, said he approached Epstein about possibly purchasing the wagon.
“The Newtown Historic Association tried to purchase this at Brown Brothers Auction two weeks ago. They went to their financial limit, but were outbid by a dealer from Millersburg Ohio. I purchased it,” Epstein said. He became the highest bidder, paying more than $7,000 for the vehicle.
He was going to make it available to the historic association but the group had no place to keep it.
“After purchasing it I contacted people at Bucks County Community College to see if they would like to have it and they were excited to be able to display it in the auditorium for performing arts. It is my donation to the college with the understanding that should Newtown Historic Society build a facility that would be easily accessible by a large amount of the public, then the college will either give it to them on loan or(as) an outright gift” Epstein said.
Bucks County's dairy legacy
“We’re lucky he preserved it,” Callahan said, saying the vehicle dates to the 1890s.
Epstein gently washed and cared for the leather roofed vehicle with the words “Torbert’s Dairy, Newtown, PA” and “Milk and Cream” stenciled on its side before turning it over to the college.
He explained the driver would sit on a milk stool in the front and could lower the window so to hold the reins to the horse. On rainy days, the window was raised and the reins were looped through a rectangular hole at the top of the wagon.
Virginia Torbert of Lower Makefield said her husband, Harry Torbert Jr., owned the wagon. He passed away last year at age 92, so it was time to sell it. His family ran their dairy farm in Lower Makefield for many years in the early 20th century before giving up milk production in the 1960s.
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The family's involvement with the dairy business began in Newtown.
Harry’s grandmother, Lena Finney, lived on Sycamore Street in Newtown. She had a house built next door for her daughter and son-in-law, Anna and Harry Torbert Sr. They had worked for Goodnoe's Dairy and started a milk bottling business behind their house. It is now the Sycamore Veterinary Hospital, Virginia said. In 1923, she lent her son-in-law $600 to purchase the Newtown milk delivery route. Harry Jr. was born in 1929.
In 1934, the family bought a 110-acre farm in Lower Makefield still called Torbert’s Farm to raise their own cows for milk. Virginia said she now leases the land out to another farmer.
Young Harry, an only child, helped his dad deliver milk every day. He graduated from Council Rock High School in its first graduating class in 1947. His father passed in 1955 and Harry Jr. ran the milk delivery business until the late 1960s before selling it to another dairy and then working for them on his route.
“Every day he was late for school. You had to do what you had to do,” she said. The milk wagon was used in the early days and is lined with metal so that ice could be put in it to store the fresh dairy products. At the holidays, they would also sell eggnog.
Virginia Torbert said she is pleased the old milk wagon will stay in the Newtown area. “It is so much a part of the history of Bucks County,” she said.
At the community college’s campus in Newtown Township, the carriage is now on display next to the Zlock Performing Arts Center. College President Felicia Ganther said, “Bucks County Community College and the College Foundation are honored to be the recipients of this extremely generous gift from Gene and Marlene Epstein.
“In light of its Newtown connection, the Torbert’s Dairy delivery wagon is a particularly meaningful historical artifact and we are very pleased to have it on our campus. We are proud of the college’s Newtown roots, and our home in the historic Tyler Family mansion. Since the Tyler property included a dairy farm with a herd of prize Ayrshire cattle when George and Stella resided here, it seems appropriate to have a dairy wagon here.
To be able to expand our collection of historical items of local interest with this wagon is exciting and we are grateful to the Epsteins for keeping the wagon where it belongs, in Newtown, Bucks County,” Ganther said.
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Gene Epstein saves milk wagon as vehicle to Bucks County's dairy history
