They immigrated to Ellis Island from Castiglione Messer Raimondo in Abruzzi, Italy in 1905. Guiseppe or Joseph (Serandolini) Sorantino immigrated from Castiglione Messer Raimondo in Abbruzzi Italy in 1905. He arrived at Ellis Island and was soon joined by his wife Angeline. They lived in South Philadelphia until 1913 when they began farming in Centre Grove, NJ with his brother Dominick and his wif
e Carmella who had immigrated several years earlier. The Sorantino children attended the one room frame schoolhouse located nearby.In 1922 Joseph and Angeline purchased a 67 acre farm in Cedarville NJ and named it Cedarbrook Farms. His brother Dominick purchased the Level Acre Farm farm near Fairton NJ in 1944. Angeline's sister Mary Romano and her brother-in law Anthony also farmed nearby on the Maple Run Farms.The Sorantinos grew a variety of produce including tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, green snap beans, peas, lima beans,peppers, squash, eggplant, strawberries.They also had chickens, hogs, cows, goats, horses and mules on their farms. Their prime location next to the Cedarville Auction Block, which was established in 1928, three canhouses and the Central RR of NJ Station was an advantage for the Sorantinos when selling and shipping their produce.The Sorantinos continued to acquire additional adjacent farmland and eventually farmed nearly 1,200 acres. During Prohibition the rumrunners unloaded cases of their alcohol along the Cedar Creek and stashed the bottles in crates of Boston lettuce for the trip by truck to Camden and Philly. In 1952 the Sorantinos constructed a packing house in order to process their onion crop. After the onion season the Sorantinos would have a pig roast with homemade wild cherry and dandelion wine made with a wooden wine press. The wild cherries were harvested near the red barn on Jones Island. In 1956 John Sorantino started the Poplar Brand Farms near Fairton NJ. For eighty- five years, a total of five generations of Sorantinos farmed the fertile ground of Lawrence Township including the fields on Jones Island along the meadows of the Cedar Creek until the conclusion of the 1998 growing season.
