DeHart Farm Market opens in new location

WEST DEPTFORD In its new home, and with bountiful produce, DeHart's Farm Market on Tuesday held a ceremonial grand opening.

The small roadside market, which has been on Jessup Road since 1968, was required recently to make way for new infrastructure by Public Service Electric & Gas Co. near the utility's township substation - one of a slew of South Jersey upgrades. PSE&G acquired an easement to the property in 1959, before William DeHart's father, Charles, opened the stand.

But PSE&G officials hatched a plan to relocate, rather than displace, the DeHarts: Build a new stand across the road.

"We're doing real good," William DeHart, 63, said Tuesday. "Better than we did across the street."

DeHart's wife, Mary Ellen, designed the new stand, and the market set up shop last month. It neighbors the substation and a solar farm.

Mayor Ray Chintall, who said he met with all parties after PSE&G determined the mainstay community business needed to move, applauded the effort.

"We appreciate what you did for the DeHarts - and for West Deptford," he told PSE&G representatives.

PSE&G presented the DeHarts with a framed watercolor painting of their new home - a work of Jesse Barton, an art teacher at LEAP Academy University Charter School in Camden. Barton is also a summer public outreach intern with PSE&G.

- Angelo Fichera