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Joanna Hagan

Helmetta’s Heart

It’s late July, and nature has staked its claim on the Helme-Herbert House, the now vacant three story Victorian estate tucked away on High Street, in Helmetta, New Jersey. Lush green vines are creeping up the walls of the white mansion and its outbuildings, the lawn is overgrown, and the expansive horseshoe driveway in front of the wraparound porch is being overtaken by weeds and tree litter from giant maple trees towering overhead.


Visually, between the Victorian details and growing neglect, the estate has all the makings of a classic haunted house, but the air of calm and quiet that surrounds it is anything but frightening.  In fact, like the rest of the small community, it can only be described as peaceful, and despite no one being there to welcome visitors, somehow inviting. It’s a feeling perfectly suited for the place and its long history of devotion to community.


But time is short for the former home of Olivia Antoinette “Etta” Helme Herbert, daughter of Helmetta borough founder George W. Helme. Although an official timeline for the project has not yet been provided to the borough, the house is expected to be demolished to make way for a new age restricted housing community, and the last of the three historic Helme family mansions will be gone.


Dating back to the 1880s, the Helme-Herbert House has, “probably the most interesting history [of the three mansions] unrelated to the Helme family’s snuff mill,” according to Joseph Sapia. And he would know. Sapia’s family first settled in Helmetta around 1900, and he has lived in the area his whole life. A semi-retired journalist with a passion for local history, Sapia wrote Helmetta’s town history in honor of its centennial celebration in 1988. He has since published a number of articles and regularly gives talks about the history and ecology of Helmetta, the one time company town built around the George W. Helme Tobacco Company’s snuff mill in the 1880s.


Even a quick read through Sapia’s research is enough to prove his point. Throughout its 130 year history, Etta’s home has assumed a number of aliases and distinct purposes. Despite the obvious differences in each, a common sense of devotion, particularly to wellbeing and community, underpins each of the home’s chapters in history.


Herbert House

The Helme-Herbert House started life in the 1880s as home to Olivia Antoinette Helme, born in 1862 and her husband, John Warne Herbert Jr, born 1853. Married in 1885, the couple devoted themselves to their family and local community. John, a successful New York lawyer, gave up his practice when he married to become a director at the snuff mill, and served as mayor of Helmetta from 1890 to 1902. But it was his devotion to another New Jersey institution that would lead him to make his mark on popular American history. As a student and member of the Rutgers University football team in 1869, Herbert played in the first collegiate football game against Princeton University.


Etta lived a life devoted to philanthropy. She was one of the founders of the St. George Episcopal Church, established in 1895 in a Gothic English style church, which is still in operation today on Main Street, a short walk from her former home. She later endowed the John Oliver Herbert House for homeless children in town. But, her most enduring claim to fame can be found in the town name itself. “Helmetta” is a contraction of the Helme family name and her nickname, “Etta”.




Physical Culture City’s Health Home No. 1

In addition to their home in Helmetta, the Helme-Herbert family spent extended time at their homes in New York City and Augusta, Georgia. In 1905, Etta’s home found a new calling when it was loaned to millionaire American publisher Bernarr Macfadden for a unique project. Macfadden, a health and fitness enthusiast, purchased 1900 acres of land along the boundary of Helmetta to build what was dubbed “Physical Culture City”, a resort community devoted to promoting the lifestyle of exercise, healthy eating and time outdoors espoused in his Physical Culture magazine.


A 1907 ad in Physical Culture refers to Helme-Herbert House as, “Physical Culture City’s Health Home No. 1” – A place for those who are “weak or ailing”. In the ad, patients are offered treatment “in strict accordance with physical culture methods.”  [I feel like I should add a little more about the community here?]


While MacFadden’s magazine inspired an enduring health and fitness trend in the United States, Physical Culture City itself was short-lived, folding sometime around 1907. Sapia surmises the failure of the project was due, at least in part, to legal troubles brought on by Anthony Comstock, head of the New York Society Suppression of Vice.


A 2013 Esquire magazine profile on Macfadden entitled, “The Strange Tale of a World-Changing Fitness and Sleaze Titan,” notes that regular near-nude photographs published in Physical Culture led to a series of court cases against Macfadden, and an article published in the magazine in 1907 about the dangers of syphilis left him with $2000 in legal fees and a 2 year jail sentence, which he was spared serving thanks to a pardon by President Taft.


Christ Church Home

In 1935, the Helme-Herbert House began its next chapter when Etta formally donated it to the Episcopal church. The home received a new name, Christ Church Home, and was first used as a shelter for homeless girls. In his research, Sapia notes the devotion of the caretakers to the health of the residents, citing a 1935 report detailing the ample amount of fresh food grown onsite, physical health examinations, and mental health care provided by Dr. Anna Starr of Rutgers University.


Dr. Anna Starr and her husband, Henry Starr, were well regarded in their fields. They established the Psychological Clinic at Rutgers University in 1929, according to A History of Psychology at Rutgers University by Professor Seymour Rosenberg. A Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, by 1935, Anna Starr was also appointed associate professor of social psychology at the university. As a 1938 New York Times article on her work attests, Dr. Starr was a vocal advocate for the welfare of New Jersey’s children, especially those in need.


" ‘We had the tools, we found out, but we were not doing all the work we could do,’ is the way Dr. Starr summarizes the findings [of a survey of New Jersey special needs children]. Sitting in her sunny living room, which looks out on the campus stretch where the first intercollegiate football game in the country was played... Dr. Starr talked enthusiastically of her hope that the first interest of the university women may some day be the children of the country."


With the help of devoted professionals like Dr. Anna Starr, more than 200 girls aged 4 to 17 were cared for in Christ Church Home until it closed in 1948.


Episcopal Convent of St. Helena


After the closure of the girl’s home, Helme-

Herbert House became home to a new group of devoted women - the Episcopalian nuns of the Order of St. Helena (OSH). Founded in 1945, the OSH was established as a more traditional monastic community of religious sisters. According to Sister Ellen Francis of the OSH, 9 sisters first moved to Helmetta in 1948. While there, the order’s work consisted of missions in local Episcopal churches, giving talks about religious life, leading retreats, visiting the sick, and teaching Sunday school.


In his writing on this era of the home’s history, Sapia includes a quote from a 1951 Freehold Transcript article on the convent. “From the moment you set foot on the broad veranda and are admitted to the reception hall… you feel that here, at last, is genuine peace. The quietly pervading atmosphere is one of calmness, imperturbability and the problems that seem so weighty…somehow seem less of a burden here at this lovely white house.”


While the sisters had full use of the house, due to provisions made when it was donated to the church, the local bishop was unable to give ownership of the home to the OSH. “It seems the sisters saw [the home] as a temporary solution,” notes Sr Ellen Francis. By 1953, the OSH purchased property in Vails Gate, New York to accommodate their growing number of members and guests, drawing the Helme-Herbert House’s time as a convent to a close. In 1962, the home was purchased by Helme Tobacco where it was used to house mill staff members. The home was sold again sometime in the early 1980s when it became and remained a private residence until 2024.


Small Town, Big Heart

Today, the borough of Helmetta wears its motto proudly. Banners, flags, and every street sign in town proclaims, “Small Town, Big Heart.” Looking back over the history of the Helme-Herbert house, it’s clear Helmetta’s “Big Heart” has been present in that large white home on High Street from the very beginning - from the Helme and Herbert families’ devotion to philanthropy and public service, and Macfadden’s grandiose love of physical fitness, to the compassionate care provided by the St. George Episcopal church community and Dr. Anna Starr to young girls in need, and the pursuit of a larger, transcendent love through prayer and service by the sisters of the Order of St. Helena.


And while the house may soon be gone,  the “Big Heart” devotion its residents inspired will live on. Etta herself will be with Helmetta as long as the town bears her name. Devotees of Physical Culture can still find plenty of opportunity for outdoor exercise in Helmetta’s local park and nearby hiking trails. St. George’s church still cares for those in need with its New Life Food Pantry and other community outreach services. And a short walk along the waterfront of Helmetta pond on a quiet summer evening is enough to find the same sense of calmness and “genuine peace” that the Sisters of the OSH brought to town.



Joanna Hagan, author, is a student of Middlesex College.

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