Tag: Gilbert Y. Hopler


This Week in Chester History…

The case of Gilbert Y. Hopler’s murder remained a mystery. In 1938, the Mendham-Chester Tribune reported that in the week following Hopler’s brutal killing, the Board of Chosen Freeholders offered a reward of $500 for the capture of the murders.


This Week in Chester History…

…marks the 80th anniversary of Gilbert Y. Hopler’s interment in Pleasant Hill Cemetery. The 59-year-old Hopler was shot by two robbers in his general store. Hopler had lived in Chester for 28 years in his home across the street from the Chester House.


This Week in Chester History…

In 1938, Ira F. French, 21, and Henry Winters, 25, of Hoboken, confessed to the February 26 murder of Gilbert Y. Hopler, 59, in his Chester store. French and Winters shot Hopler during an attempted robbery. Source: Mendham-Chester Tribune.


This Week in Chester History

In 1938, the two young killers of Chester storekeeper Gilbert Y. Hopler received life imprisonment at hard labor in the state penitentiary. The trial was described in vivid and dramatic fashion on the front and back covers of The Mendham-Chester Tribune.