The Case of the Disappearing Portapotty
Portapotty 15750, where are you?
Rumor has it that the half-marathon that's been going on in our part of town also had a portapotty disappear. We strain to understand the logic. Is there a black market in portapotties? Is it really that hard to find relief these days? Did someone fall in love with portapotty #15750 and decide to elope? Without regular servicing, that romance is not going to last.
Hopefully this mystery will be solved soon. The apparent theft has a potential silver lining, however. After meeting with a police officer on-site to file a report, I was about to head home when I saw a hiker emerging from one of the trails. I went over and started a conversation, thinking he might have been there earlier in the week and noticed something. He hadn't, but having first visited the preserve 25 years ago, he gave a testimonial about how neglected the preserve had been before we formed the Friends of Herrontown Woods in 2013. Then he said that he has worked at a number of historic houses, and is currently a docent and researcher at the Frelinghuysen-Morris House in Massachusetts.
My jaw dropped a bit, because the Whiton-Stuarts--the wealthy family that first owned what we now call Veblen House--lived for some time in Morristown, and had had a parcel of property near the Frelinghuysen Arboretum there. The Veblen House is a prefab that was originally moved by the Whiton-Stuarts to Princeton from Morristown. He also said that the Frelinghuysen family had a Princeton connection. We exchanged contact info, and will talk more. It would be quite the irony if a missing portapotty led me to someone who can help solve the riddle of the Veblen House's origins and why it was moved to Princeton.