Did You Know? A Look at Lacey's History

This feature looks at five facts of Lacey’s history provided by “Forging Ahead: The 125th Anniversary of Lacey Township,” a book developed by the local historical society and stored at the library.

1. The schoolhouse that was located on Frog Holler Road was open as early as 1790 but research indicates it was only used for private instruction. By the mid 1840s, the township did have an actual schoolhouse, probably in the same building.

2. Around that time, the private Good Luck Academy was educating students. The Brindley School of Languages began a decade later in Cedar Creek.

3. The town’s one-room public school was built in Rogers’ Woods in 1858. Forked River’s one-room schoolhouse was built in 1860. A second room was added to Forked River’s schoolhouse in 1884.

4. The Lanoka School burned down in 1977. But the Forked River school survived and became the Lacey Schoolhouse Museum in 1962.

5. Edwin Salter, a historian and legislator, taught in the Forked River schoolhouse. Salter is the author of A History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties (1890). His house, located north of Mario’s Restaurant on South Main Street, burned down in 1928. The Barnegat Fire Company arrived too late, prompting the formation of the Forked River Fire Company later that year.