Englewood’s Sesquicentennial
March 22, 2009 Filed in: History
The following was a presentation by Norman Davis
to Englewood Historical Society on March 4,
2009.
Many of you will recall that ten years ago, in 1999, a fair amount of attention was given to the 100th Anniversary of Englewood becoming a City. At the time I was doing research on our history and came across newspaper clippings showing that Englewood had forty years earlier, in 1959, celebrated another centennial with great fanfare, including an impressive parade with floats, a letter of congratulation from President Eisenhower, and special centennial sections in the local newspapers. What they were celebrating, of course, was the 100th anniversary of Englewood’s actual founding, and of its naming, in 1859. And this year, 2009, is the 150th anniversary, or sesquicentennial, of that actual founding.
In 1859, James Buchanan was President, the country was moving headlong toward our horrendous Civil War, and the great railroad building boom was in full flower. What is Englewood today was part of a large ill-defined farming area shown on the old maps as "English Neighborhood." Aside from a few farms, the old Liberty Pole Tavern near today’s Monument, and Van Brunt’s general store, there was little else. According to Woodford’s History of Bergen and Hudson Counties, it is difficult to realize ... the barrenness and lonesomeness of the site of Englewood in 1959." The Northern Railway, however, begun in Jersey City several years earlier, was extended north as far as Piermont in New York State in 1859. As elsewhere in the country, the original motivation for its construction was the increased convenience of transporting goods to market, but also, as elsewhere, settled communities sprang up along the railroad line. Englewood, indeed, quickly became settled, as land was sold for residential and commercial building sites.
In Images of America, the marvelous collection of old pictures of Englewood published some years ago, the coming of the railroad is described as follows: "The railroad roared up the valley like an uncaged lion. The advent of the railroad changed the sleepy bucolic northern valley forever. In 1859 a visitor saw well cultivated farms which sloped down the valley from the west, orchards of golden fruit, scattered dwellings of peaceful farmers, densely wooded Palisades, nature in all her glorious dress, love at first sight."
A prime mover, and arguably Englewood’s founder, was J. Wyman Jones, previously from Utica, New York, who moved here in 1858 and encouraged his friends to join him. Jones was a principal organizer of the railroad and a successful real estate investor. According to John Lattimer’s book, This Was Englewood, Jones "beautified the area around the proposed station to attract prospective real estate buyers. They would see an inviting area when the train stopped here, and would naturally choose it in preference to any of the less attractive stops along the line." The first train from the south entered Englewood on May 26, 1859.
According to the City’s website, in 1858, "The railroad’s chief engineer invited a friend, New York lawyer J Wyman Jones, to join him on an inspection trip over the new route. Impressed by the beauty of the country, Jones foresaw the likelihood of development when the railroad extension was completed and set about acquiring property rights. With friends he obtained control of six farms, laid out named streets, had a map drawn, and on August 15, 1859, registered Englewood ... in the County Seat of Hackensack."
According to The Book of Englewood by Adaline Sterling, Jones "was a fine-looking man in the middle thirties, courteous in manner but singularly uncommunicative concerning the purpose of his visit (to this area). ... (He) was a transplanted native of New Hampshire, a lawyer by profession, successful in practice, but now, in obedience to medical advice, seeking to combine, with outdoor life, an occupation which would call into play his energy, executive ability and knowledge of human nature. ... Fully impressed with the natural beauty and advantages of this part of the county, and equally convinced of the possibility of creating a village of homes out of farms and fields, Mr. Jones began at once to secure property rights from the original owners. By the fall of 1858, he had obtained control of nearly all the land comprising the original village of Englewood. The land thus acquired consisted of six farms, two on the south side of Palisade Avenue, then a rough (and often muddy) wood road, the other four to the north. These farms were long and narrow and stretched from the (Hackensack) valley to the Hudson River."
Jones graduated from Dartmouth in 1841 and subsequently practiced law in New York City and in Utica, New York. According to Woodford, "he continued to practice his profession until compelled, by aggravated and accumulating troubles of the throat, to abandon it and seek an active open-air life." The same source states that on August 15, 1859, "Englewood may be said to have been founded. On that day there was deposited and filed in the office of the clerk of Bergen County ... a ‘Map of Englewood.’ There has never been, nor can there ever be, any one to question the authorship of this map, or of the name given to the place, or the general plan upon which the town is laid out. They were...all the work of J. Wyman Jones." "For several years ... Jones gave undivided attention to the development of this place." Jones was an active Republican and later became President of the St. Joseph Lead Company in Missouri. He was married and had two sons both of whom practiced law and lived in Englewood.
Jones gave his name to Jones Road, and 150 years later his Victorian stone house, which he called "Erdenheim," still exists at 59 Walnut Court. According to "The Architecture of Bergen County" by T. Robins Brown, the J. Wyman Jones estate was "built in the High Victorian Gothic Style and is one of the most outstanding examples of mid-nineteenth century in the county." A gatehouse for what was his extensive property still exists on Lydecker Street. An associate of Jones and a major financier and landowner of the period was Edward S. Brayton, whose name is preserved in Brayton Street, the northern extension of Jones Road. Dana Place is named after William D. Dana, Jones’ brother-in-law. Dwight Place is named for Rev. James Harrison Dwight, the first minister of what became the First Presbyterian Church. Van Brunt Street is named for John Van Brunt, from one of the original Dutch families, and another major figure in the building of the railroad and the founding of the village.
There has been much interest in the derivation of the name Englewood, which was chosen by Jones and his associates for the new community. According to the Centennial edition of the Press-Journal, at a meeting in the Van Brunt-Walter Carpenter Shop at the railroad, in the rear of John Van Brunt’s store, and with Rev. Dwight presiding, a discussion took place. Paliscena, Brayton and Englewood were proposed. When some said Paliscena “reminded them of salts and senna," that name was discarded. Those who favored Brayton deferred to the name of Englewood, said by some to be a contraction of English Neighborhood, by others to mean "Angels Wood." According to historian Robert Griffin, “Once the word was coined it became an instant hit. Now there are towns named Englewood in Kansas, Colorado, Florida, Ohio, South Dakota and Tennessee, as well as towns in California and Nebraska spelled Inglewood.."
Starting in 1859, to quote again from Images of America, "farmlands were bought and sold. Land bought for $150 an acre sold the next week for $900. In the village area where there were no trees, no drainage and plenty of mosquitoes, trees were planted, roads macadamized, huge houses erected, schools and churches established, hotels opened to become meeting places, organizations founded and services increased." It should go without saying that it took a few years for all these things to happen.
You should understand that J. Wyman Jones’ Englewood was significantly larger than the Englewood of today. It included what are today Teaneck and Englewood Cliffs, each of which split off in the 1890's. In fact the secession of these neighboring towns was one reason Englewood incorporated as a city in 1899, so that no more areas would be lost. In the forty years between 1959 and 1899, much growth took place, and Englewood became a fashionable place to live. By 1899, many of the major features of today’s Englewood were in existence. Palisade Avenue, now paved, was the main east-west street, while Grand-Engle, Dean Street and Broad Avenue were the main north-south thoroughfares. The stone chapel at Brookside Cemetery, the First Presbyterian Church, St Paul’s Episcopal Church and Bethany Presbyterian Church were already in existence. Dwight Chapel, the home of Englewood’s first African-American congregation, moved to a location by today’s Monument in 1898. The new City’s leading public building was the Lyceum, with a performance hall and library as well as a bank. At the northeast corner of Engle Street and Palisade Avenue, you can still see a portion of its rounded corner tower. Dozens of private homes built between 1859 and 1899, and still in existence, preserve to this day some of the look and feel of Victorian Englewood.
By 1899, most transportation within Englewood was still by horse and buggy, or in winter by horse and sleigh, but links to the outside world were expanding. The trolley from Edgewater Ferry extended to Englewood and then Hackensack. The railroad had greatly expanded passenger service and there were five stations in Englewood: Nordhoff, a Palisade Avenue freight station, two near Depot Square facing east and west, and Highwood. Englewood’s population had reached about 6000, creating urban needs such sewers, fire and police protection, street lighting and the maintenance of public areas. Voluntary neighborhood associations which had previously provided these services were proving inadequate, demonstrating the need for more effective organization. Particularly disturbing was the 1887 destruction by fire of the Atheneum with its 800-seat opera house. The fire was attributed to the inadequacy of local fire-fighting equipment. In the mid 1890's the drive to incorporate as a city gained momentum. After a false start in 1895 due to legal confusion, the State legislature finally passed the bill which enabled Englewood to become a city on March 17, 1899.
Many of you will recall that ten years ago, in 1999, a fair amount of attention was given to the 100th Anniversary of Englewood becoming a City. At the time I was doing research on our history and came across newspaper clippings showing that Englewood had forty years earlier, in 1959, celebrated another centennial with great fanfare, including an impressive parade with floats, a letter of congratulation from President Eisenhower, and special centennial sections in the local newspapers. What they were celebrating, of course, was the 100th anniversary of Englewood’s actual founding, and of its naming, in 1859. And this year, 2009, is the 150th anniversary, or sesquicentennial, of that actual founding.
In 1859, James Buchanan was President, the country was moving headlong toward our horrendous Civil War, and the great railroad building boom was in full flower. What is Englewood today was part of a large ill-defined farming area shown on the old maps as "English Neighborhood." Aside from a few farms, the old Liberty Pole Tavern near today’s Monument, and Van Brunt’s general store, there was little else. According to Woodford’s History of Bergen and Hudson Counties, it is difficult to realize ... the barrenness and lonesomeness of the site of Englewood in 1959." The Northern Railway, however, begun in Jersey City several years earlier, was extended north as far as Piermont in New York State in 1859. As elsewhere in the country, the original motivation for its construction was the increased convenience of transporting goods to market, but also, as elsewhere, settled communities sprang up along the railroad line. Englewood, indeed, quickly became settled, as land was sold for residential and commercial building sites.
In Images of America, the marvelous collection of old pictures of Englewood published some years ago, the coming of the railroad is described as follows: "The railroad roared up the valley like an uncaged lion. The advent of the railroad changed the sleepy bucolic northern valley forever. In 1859 a visitor saw well cultivated farms which sloped down the valley from the west, orchards of golden fruit, scattered dwellings of peaceful farmers, densely wooded Palisades, nature in all her glorious dress, love at first sight."
A prime mover, and arguably Englewood’s founder, was J. Wyman Jones, previously from Utica, New York, who moved here in 1858 and encouraged his friends to join him. Jones was a principal organizer of the railroad and a successful real estate investor. According to John Lattimer’s book, This Was Englewood, Jones "beautified the area around the proposed station to attract prospective real estate buyers. They would see an inviting area when the train stopped here, and would naturally choose it in preference to any of the less attractive stops along the line." The first train from the south entered Englewood on May 26, 1859.
According to the City’s website, in 1858, "The railroad’s chief engineer invited a friend, New York lawyer J Wyman Jones, to join him on an inspection trip over the new route. Impressed by the beauty of the country, Jones foresaw the likelihood of development when the railroad extension was completed and set about acquiring property rights. With friends he obtained control of six farms, laid out named streets, had a map drawn, and on August 15, 1859, registered Englewood ... in the County Seat of Hackensack."
According to The Book of Englewood by Adaline Sterling, Jones "was a fine-looking man in the middle thirties, courteous in manner but singularly uncommunicative concerning the purpose of his visit (to this area). ... (He) was a transplanted native of New Hampshire, a lawyer by profession, successful in practice, but now, in obedience to medical advice, seeking to combine, with outdoor life, an occupation which would call into play his energy, executive ability and knowledge of human nature. ... Fully impressed with the natural beauty and advantages of this part of the county, and equally convinced of the possibility of creating a village of homes out of farms and fields, Mr. Jones began at once to secure property rights from the original owners. By the fall of 1858, he had obtained control of nearly all the land comprising the original village of Englewood. The land thus acquired consisted of six farms, two on the south side of Palisade Avenue, then a rough (and often muddy) wood road, the other four to the north. These farms were long and narrow and stretched from the (Hackensack) valley to the Hudson River."
Jones graduated from Dartmouth in 1841 and subsequently practiced law in New York City and in Utica, New York. According to Woodford, "he continued to practice his profession until compelled, by aggravated and accumulating troubles of the throat, to abandon it and seek an active open-air life." The same source states that on August 15, 1859, "Englewood may be said to have been founded. On that day there was deposited and filed in the office of the clerk of Bergen County ... a ‘Map of Englewood.’ There has never been, nor can there ever be, any one to question the authorship of this map, or of the name given to the place, or the general plan upon which the town is laid out. They were...all the work of J. Wyman Jones." "For several years ... Jones gave undivided attention to the development of this place." Jones was an active Republican and later became President of the St. Joseph Lead Company in Missouri. He was married and had two sons both of whom practiced law and lived in Englewood.
Jones gave his name to Jones Road, and 150 years later his Victorian stone house, which he called "Erdenheim," still exists at 59 Walnut Court. According to "The Architecture of Bergen County" by T. Robins Brown, the J. Wyman Jones estate was "built in the High Victorian Gothic Style and is one of the most outstanding examples of mid-nineteenth century in the county." A gatehouse for what was his extensive property still exists on Lydecker Street. An associate of Jones and a major financier and landowner of the period was Edward S. Brayton, whose name is preserved in Brayton Street, the northern extension of Jones Road. Dana Place is named after William D. Dana, Jones’ brother-in-law. Dwight Place is named for Rev. James Harrison Dwight, the first minister of what became the First Presbyterian Church. Van Brunt Street is named for John Van Brunt, from one of the original Dutch families, and another major figure in the building of the railroad and the founding of the village.
There has been much interest in the derivation of the name Englewood, which was chosen by Jones and his associates for the new community. According to the Centennial edition of the Press-Journal, at a meeting in the Van Brunt-Walter Carpenter Shop at the railroad, in the rear of John Van Brunt’s store, and with Rev. Dwight presiding, a discussion took place. Paliscena, Brayton and Englewood were proposed. When some said Paliscena “reminded them of salts and senna," that name was discarded. Those who favored Brayton deferred to the name of Englewood, said by some to be a contraction of English Neighborhood, by others to mean "Angels Wood." According to historian Robert Griffin, “Once the word was coined it became an instant hit. Now there are towns named Englewood in Kansas, Colorado, Florida, Ohio, South Dakota and Tennessee, as well as towns in California and Nebraska spelled Inglewood.."
Starting in 1859, to quote again from Images of America, "farmlands were bought and sold. Land bought for $150 an acre sold the next week for $900. In the village area where there were no trees, no drainage and plenty of mosquitoes, trees were planted, roads macadamized, huge houses erected, schools and churches established, hotels opened to become meeting places, organizations founded and services increased." It should go without saying that it took a few years for all these things to happen.
You should understand that J. Wyman Jones’ Englewood was significantly larger than the Englewood of today. It included what are today Teaneck and Englewood Cliffs, each of which split off in the 1890's. In fact the secession of these neighboring towns was one reason Englewood incorporated as a city in 1899, so that no more areas would be lost. In the forty years between 1959 and 1899, much growth took place, and Englewood became a fashionable place to live. By 1899, many of the major features of today’s Englewood were in existence. Palisade Avenue, now paved, was the main east-west street, while Grand-Engle, Dean Street and Broad Avenue were the main north-south thoroughfares. The stone chapel at Brookside Cemetery, the First Presbyterian Church, St Paul’s Episcopal Church and Bethany Presbyterian Church were already in existence. Dwight Chapel, the home of Englewood’s first African-American congregation, moved to a location by today’s Monument in 1898. The new City’s leading public building was the Lyceum, with a performance hall and library as well as a bank. At the northeast corner of Engle Street and Palisade Avenue, you can still see a portion of its rounded corner tower. Dozens of private homes built between 1859 and 1899, and still in existence, preserve to this day some of the look and feel of Victorian Englewood.
By 1899, most transportation within Englewood was still by horse and buggy, or in winter by horse and sleigh, but links to the outside world were expanding. The trolley from Edgewater Ferry extended to Englewood and then Hackensack. The railroad had greatly expanded passenger service and there were five stations in Englewood: Nordhoff, a Palisade Avenue freight station, two near Depot Square facing east and west, and Highwood. Englewood’s population had reached about 6000, creating urban needs such sewers, fire and police protection, street lighting and the maintenance of public areas. Voluntary neighborhood associations which had previously provided these services were proving inadequate, demonstrating the need for more effective organization. Particularly disturbing was the 1887 destruction by fire of the Atheneum with its 800-seat opera house. The fire was attributed to the inadequacy of local fire-fighting equipment. In the mid 1890's the drive to incorporate as a city gained momentum. After a false start in 1895 due to legal confusion, the State legislature finally passed the bill which enabled Englewood to become a city on March 17, 1899.
