The Lab Formerly Known as the Post Office

by | Mar 15, 2024 | Local Businesses

Perritt Labs building.

The old post office as it looks today. This is currently Perritt Labs.

Back in the Spring of 2020 I had a chance to tour Perritt Labs on South Main Street, formerly the location of the Hightstown Post Office. At the time they came across some old blueprints and photos of the building and wanted to share it with the historical Society.

In case you’re not aware of what Perritt Labs does they are the leading child-resistant package testing laboratory in the world. In fact, they are pioneers in child-resistant package testing. So, if you’ve ever opened an ibuprofen bottle or a container of weed killer odds are the package was tested at Perritt Labs.

Before we get into the tour, I’d like to take you through a brief history of the Hightstown Post Office.

The first post office opened in Hightstown on February 24, 1819, on the second floor of the Smith House (now Musings Antiques) at 137 Stockton Street. At the time, the building was also a general store and the residence of Sara Smith. The first postmaster was Robert Purdy who lived across the street.

Then the post office moved several more times due to needing a larger space. After the Smith House, the post office moved to:

  • A building that used to stand where the Bank currently stands at 105 South Main Street
  • The building that once stood at the point where Mercer Street and South Main Street meet (109 Mercer Street)
  • The Allen and Stults building at 106 North Main Street
  • Then to the building that once stood where Wells Fargo’s parking lot is now
  • Then back to the point where Mercer Street and South Main Street meet
Three photos of Universalist church and Mrs.Keeler's Home, Main Street Post Office being built, and Main Street post office today.

From Left to Right: Universalist Church and Mrs. Keeler’s Home, Main Street post office being built, and Main Street post office today (aka Perritt Labs).

Then in 1936, the United States Post Office noticed that the annual receipts for Hightstown Post Office went from $8,000 in 1910 to $27,000 in 1935. This dramatic increase in sales meant that Hightstown was ready for a building built specifically for use as a post office, and nothing else. Up until that point the post office was tucked away inside a building that was already in use as something else (like how the Smith Building was also a grocery store). Two properties were purchased, the Universalist Church for $6,500 and the home of Mrs. Charles J. Keeler for $7,000. [Side note: the Keelers tended to sell their properties to institutions. Their home prior to this one was sold to Peddie School in 1906 to be used as a dorm.] The opening of this new post office was a big event in Hightstown. The office opened on July 17, 1937, with a parade featuring three bands, the Lions Club, the Hightstown Fire Department, Girls Scouts, WPA Playground Children (recreation leaders for public parks), Parade Marshall J. Ernest Davison, and the volunteer organizations Grange and Junior League. The businesses all along the parade route were decorated with flags, bunting, and banners. This was followed by an opening day ceremony featuring speeches by Senator A. Harry Moore and Congressman D. Lane Powers. Eventually, even this location wasn’t large enough to handle the influx of mail and several annexes were added to manage the overflow.
  • 1970 – Auto Boys store at 116 North Main Street (now Rise and Metro PCS)
  • 1971 – Fabric Mill in Warren Plaza West Shopping Center at the corner of Route 130 and Dutch Neck Road
  • 1974 – 625 Mercer Street (Now Pawsitively Perfect). This took over for the Auto Boys store when the overflow became too much for them to handle.
But the flow of mail kept growing (up to $3 million dollars annually by the early 1970s!) and a new post office, our current post office, was built. That opened on October 28, 1975, to a lot less fanfare. By 1975, post offices were all over the place, so it wasn’t that big of a deal anymore. Ok, I promised you details of my Perritt Labs tour. Here goes. Richard Jakober, VP Director of Laboratory Services, invited me to check out the photos taken during the building progress (taken so the main postal office in Washington, D.C. could see how construction was coming along) and the numerous blueprints that lay out every detail of the building from how the molding should be created to how the letters should be stenciled on the doors.
Inside the lobby of Perritt Labs looking like the inside of a post office.
Post office windows indicating which is for money orders and which is for C.O.D.

The first thing that struck me was how much of the building still looked like a post office. The lobby was currently being used as a cubicle workspace, but if you cleared all that out it would be easy to imagine dropping off and picking up mail in this space. Even the safe was intact (door, alarm, and all!), but now it was being used as someone’s office. The postmaster’s office was now Mr. Perrit’s office. Some rooms were altered, but these were mostly rooms being used as labs that needed to be brought up to date.

While in Mr. Perritt’s office, Mr. Jakober showed me what I considered to be the most interesting part of this building. In the bathroom was a door that led to a hallway that was painted black. This hallway led down to a hidden room next to the sorting room. There were two slots built into the wall that allowed the postmaster to see into the sorting room without being detected and allowed him to watch the sorters ensuring that pieces of mail weren’t being opened and read or having money taken out of them. That’s why the walls were painted black, so no light would come through the slots which would let the sorters know that the postmaster was watching them. Today the sorting room is a breakroom, and the black-painted hallway is used for storage.

Two photos. Back hallway and former sorting room.

Back hallway and the former sorting room. Notice the two slats in the upper right corner.

It was an interesting morning touring Perritt Labs and I thank Mr. Jakober for taking the time to show me around.

Let’s end this article with some Hightstown Post Office fun facts.

1833: The Post Office Department arranges to have the Camden and Amboy Railroad carry mail to towns along its route. This allowed mail to come to Hightstown daily.

1847: The first stamps are issued. Before this, the postmaster would write the postage amount on the envelope.

1902: Free rural delivery starts due to an increase in residents in East Windsor. William Hutchinson was the first letter carrier. He delivered the mail in a horse and carriage.

1919: Free home delivery in Hightstown starts. There were two letter carriers, Calvin Perrine and William Bardell. They delivered twice daily and once on Saturday.

1953: New York Airways delivers mail to Air Service Field on Airport Road by helicopter. There were two flights a day, 6:53 am and 7:33 pm. Air Service Field was chosen for its lights which made night landing possible. Like the South Main Street Post Office, this event had an opening day ceremony as well. Helicopter service ended in the early 1970s.

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