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Foreman of Jury 25 Years in Same Job; Nine of the First Ten Chosen Have Families

January 3, 1935 From a Staff Correspondent

Flemington, N. J., Jan. 2--The four women and six men selected today as jurors for the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann average 42 years in age, and all but one, an unmarried man, have reared or are bringing up children. One is the father of a 3-year-old boy.

They all work for their livelihood, with the exception of two housewives and a widow. They include salesmen, farmers, laborers, one teacher and one stenographer.

The first selected, who will be foreman, was Charles Walton Sr., 50 years old, of High Bridge. A man of medium weight, gray hair and a thin-lined face, he played semi-professional baseball as a youth and then turned the steadiness of a pitching arm and accurate eye to account by becoming a machinist in a steel works.

Steadiness has been his dominant characteristic and he has had but one employer in a quarter of a century, the Taylor Wharton Iron and Steel Company of High Bridge, where he still works as machinist. A grown son, Charles Jr., followed his father as machinist in the same plant. Another son, named Thompson, is a student at the Springfield (Mass.) Y. M. C. A. College. He has two other children, James and Marie, the youngest being 13 years old.

Mrs. Rosie Pill, juror 2, is 55 years of age and the widow of Frank Pill, member of an extensive family, and during his life a clothing merchant in Califon. Stout, with an alert but calm face, she was attired in a gray dress with a black coat and hat, and looked the part of a mother who had serenely entered middle life. Her oldest son, Joseph, lives with he at Califon; another, Frank, teaches high school in Hempstead, L. I.

Sitting next to Mrs. Pill was Mrs. Verna Snyder, 36, the wife of Fred Snyder, a man who clings to a dying trade and is a blacksmith in the village of Centreville. Seeing them side by side, the two women appeared to be of about the same age, although Mrs. Pill is 19 years older. Mrs. Snyder, also stout, has a worried look. Her eyes seem weary, her mouth droops slightly at the corners and there are lines on her face. The Snyders have no children of their own, but they care for a boy of about 6 years, the child of relatives.

Charles F. Snyder, the fourth juror, is 40 years old. He is a farmer and described by his friends as prosperous. He lives in Clinton Township near Allerton with his wife and two sons. The oldest, Harry, is 17 and the other, Frank, 9, attends school at Clinton. In the general contour of his face and head and the way he carries it there is a faint resemblance to Hauptmann.

A Prosecutor's Stenographer.

Mrs. Ethel Stockton, the fifth juror, is the stenographer of John V. Aller, a former Prosecutor of Hunterdon County. She is 30 years old, the wife of Elmer Stockton, a machinist in the Milford Paper Mills at Milford, N. J., and they live at Pattenburg. They have one son, Robert, 7 years old. Mrs. Stockton, after finishing high school, took a stenographic course at the Churchmen's Business College at Easton, Pa.

Elmer Smith, 42, of Lambertville is a former insurance agent who now sells special appliances for deaf persons. More than a year ago he retired from the insurance business in his home town and went to California, where he lived for almost a year. He is the father of a 3-year-old son.

Robert Cravatt, 30, of High Bridge is an assistant educational director of a Civilian Conservation camp at Voorhees, which is near High Bridge, the town in which Mr. Cravatt lives. For years his father, Archibald Cravatt, as a machinist in the Taylor Wharton Works, has worked side by side with the foreman of the jury.

Aside from his educational work he takes an active interest in athletics. He is the treasurer of the High Bridge basketball team, member of a league made up of towns in Hunterdon County and adjacent to it.

Railroad Man Selected

For the past fifteen years Philip Hockenbury, 54 years old, of Annandale, has been an employee of the Central Railroad of New Jersey. He is a laborer in a section gang which looks after track maintenance and repair work. He is married and has two grown children. He wears a high, old- fashioned starched collar like those of Herbert Hoover. He became juror No. 8.

George Voorhees, 45, and the ninth juror chosen, is a farmer whose place in Clinton Township is near the hamlet of Bissel. Like Mr. Hockenbury, he is married and the father of two grown children. He is a prominent citizen in his section of the county and takes an active part in local civic and social affairs.

The last juror chosen during the day was Mrs. May F. Brelsford, and the only one from Flemington thus far selected. She is about 38, the wife of Harry Brelsford, an electrician. They have two children--Jack, who is 18, and Mary, 16.

Mrs. Brelsford is a past matron of the Darcy Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star and is active in the affairs of the Calvary Protestant Episcopal Church.

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