Delicious Orchards Founder Carroll ‘Skip’ Barclay Jr. Dead At 94

COLTS NECK, NJ - Carroll “Skip” W. Barclay Jr., a Monmouth County farmer and innovator behind Colts Neck’s Delicious Orchards, died Monday. He was 94.

According to the New Jersey local’s obituary from Freeman Funeral of Freehold, Barclay was born on May 3, 1926 on his family farm and inherited the apple orchard from his grandfather in 1959. He graduated from Red Bank High School in 1944 and attended one semester of pre-med school at Syracuse University, but ultimately dropped out to help his mother with the farm in 1945.

The local entrepreneur soon after added 70 acres of land to the property in 1948, eventually opening up the titular retail farm market to sell apples, peaches, cider and donuts in 1959.

“Skip had the vision of giving customers high quality products at an attractive price,” his obituary reads. “They grew the business of almost 30 years and moved it to its present location at Route 34 in Colts Neck.”

In 1977, Barclay and his wife Janet bought land in Arkansas for a pick-your-own apples and peaches venture. Following Janet’s death in 1993, Barclay returned to his native New Jersey.

He also served as a Deacon and Elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Red Bank. He also served on the Colt Neck Zoning Board and Board of Education. He served on Rutgers University’s Cook College Board of Managers and was a director of The First Merchants Bank.

Barclay’s family remembered the founder in a social media post, fondly recalling memories with “Grandpa Skip”:

We were talking one day about how he came up with the idea to open up Delicious Orchards as a retail market. He said, “Oftentimes, everyone is trying to look out of the same window. And they are so busy competing with each other, they never stop to look up and notice there’s another window on the other side of the room, and the view is 10 times better.

“We’ll miss you Grandpa Skip,” the post concluded. “Heaven just got its apple cider donut game upped in a big way.”