TIMELINE:  Rutherford’s West End Historic Development, Respectfully submitted by Rod B. Leith, Rutherford Borough Historian

          The historic roots of the settlement commonly known as the West End were planted by events that began in the late 17th Century. In 1687, Walling Jacobs Van Winkle purchased a large tract of land on the eastern side of the Passaic River. Walling , for whom Wallington is named, built his farmhouse about 1707, on a small hill, just north of the present Union Avenue bridge, thus becoming the first European settler of what is now Rutherford.

           The road that marked the southern line of his farmstead – now called Union Avenue - stretched eastward from the river into the Meadowlands. It is recorded as the oldest road in Bergen County and was used as a land demarcation as early as 1672. Then referred to simply as the Indian Trail, and subsequently given the names Sandford’s Lane, Boiling Spring Lane , and Union Avenue, it was the path Indians traversed for centuries seeking refreshment at the Boiling Spring, now Station Square.

          If credit for its history were to be given, there are no individuals more responsible for events that unfolded and the institutions created then Henry G. Bell and his wife, Elizabeth, who arrived in Boiling Spring in 1865. Their mansion was situated where the present Rutherford Congregational Church now stands. Its construction in 1924 benefited from the generosity of the Bell Estate. Elizabeth Bell was a founder of Rutherford Public Library. At the home of Henry and Elizabeth Bell in 1891, came the founding of the Unitarian Society of Rutherford, the church of Rutherford’s native poet, William Carlos Williams. The building of Emmanuel Chapel in 1897 - first home of the Congregational Church - was financed with help of a steeply discounted mortgage from Bell’s Rutherford Heights Association.

          The West End’s modern history began to develop 118 years ago, when the New Jersey Legislature, acting on a petition from Bergen County, adopted a bill to permit the Borough of Rutherford to annex West Rutherford, expanding the borough’s boundary westward, from Montross Avenue to the Passaic River. What follows is a timeline identifying significant events in the section’s early development:

·         1890, September – The first West End organization was the West End Improvement Association, which established Engine Company #3, with a facility at 325-327 Union Avenue. Its one-story building was replaced by a two-story structure at the same site, occupied in 1894. By the mid-1890’s, its membership was twenty-five volunteers from throughout the community. It operated the Borough’s first chemical fire engine.

·         1892, October – The Borough’s third school, Union School, opened with a dedication ceremony on October 21. Touted as an impressive brick structure with attractive grounds on Springfield and Union Avenues, the building soon required expansion. The West End Club on Santiago Avenue was rented to provide temporary classroom space by 1899 to relieve student crowding in the fast growing West End.

·         1893, September – Responding to a concern for the spiritual growth of the children of the section, the West End Chapel was formed and would be supported with supply pastors from the First Presbyterian Church. Its first home was a vacant store near Union School. By 1895, its attendance having outgrown the storefront space, West End Chapel relocated to Charles Shedney’s West End Club at 150 Santiago Avenue. Frank Stedman, a future Borough Clerk, served as Sunday School Superintendent.

·         1894, December – A new commercial building was completed at the corner of Union and Springfield avenues by Charles Planer, the well known carpenter-builder, whose works included the First Presbyterian Church (1888) and the Unitarian Church of Our Father (1893). The two-story brick structure at 335 Union Avenue was purchased in 1885 by Horace J. Mier who ran a successful grocery business, a precursor to the popular White Front Market located there in the 1920’s.

·         1895, June – The span across the Passaic River – the first Union Avenue Bridge – was jointly authorized by the Freeholder boards of Passaic and Bergen Counties. The estimated cost was $26,000. When it was completed in early 1897, the Borough graded and macadamized Union Avenue to the bridge.

·         1896, August – The Emmanuel Chapel Society, established to support and maintain the construction of a Presbyterian chapel in the West End, was incorporated at a meeting at the West End Club on Santiago Avenue. Led by newspaper publisher James N. Bookstaver, its president, the founding Board of Trustees included John F. Collerd, secretary; Thomas J. Jewison, treasurer; and trustees J. Wesley Earl, Arthur F. Allen, and Frank A. Stedman.

·         1897, December – The cornerstone of Emmanuel Chapel was dedicated in a ceremony led by Rev. Edwin A. Bulkley of the First Presbyterian Church. Designed by native-born architect Herman Fritz, the simple chapel was built on land at 136 Belford Avenue, generously deeded by Henry G. Bell of the Rutherford Heights Association. The chapel was completed the following February.

·         1900, June – Joseph Alonzo.Hoage, son of former African-American slave Lafayette Hoage, became a West End resident when he built a home at 90 Montross Avenue, near Washington Avenue. Most blacks in Rutherford at the time were living in the section east of Montross, along Wood, Grove and Elm streets, near Mount Ararat Baptist Church. Joseph, who was married in the house the following year, took his middle name from a Civil War Union Army Captain, Alonzo Mabbett, whose life was saved by Lafayette Hoage following a cannon shell wound during the conflict at Port Hudson.

·         1901, April – One of the most spectacular fires in Rutherford’s early history occurred in the West End when the Old Santiago Hotel burned to the ground. Injuries were few due to the hotel being closed to business and the building, the former Holsman Mansion, left vacant that Sunday afternoon. Thousands of spectators gathered on the banks of the Passaic River, near the tracks of the former Carlton Hill railroad siding, to watch as Rutherford and Passaic firemen vainly fought to save the historic structure, believed to have been built in the 1850’s by Paterson mill owner Daniel Holsman.

·         1909, October – One of the most important church organization events in Rutherford history took place October 29 at the Emmanuel Chapel on Belford Avenue, when a delegation of Congregational clergy conferred and voted to extend a charter to established the Congregational Church of Rutherford. Breaking away from the New Jersey Presbytery, the Congregationalists built their own church the next year at Washington and Carmita, fully vesting the church’s stature as a West End-based institution.

·         1913, July – Lillian Russell, well known star of the New York and London stages in the late 19th Century, sought solitude in a quiet neighborhood of the West End, purchasing a modest house at 5 Courier Place. Later a special ambassador to Europe and still regarded for her outstanding beauty, Lillian Russell Moore paid her last taxes on the Rutherford house through May of 1922, shortly before her death while visiting Chicago with her fourth husband. The Carlton Hill-West End section stirred with excitement with her visits, which sometimes included the company of “Diamond Jim” Brady.

·         1917, Spring – Filming of the critically received anti-war spoof, “In Again, Out Again,” with direction and a starring role by Douglas Fairbanks, largely took place in a West End home at 171 Montross Avenue. At the time of filming, which included scenes on Park Avenue, the Montross Avenue home was owned by Phillip Ashler. Its original owner was former Borough Councilman William Slingerland. “In Again, Out Again,” a silent film, was one of the early products of Fairbanks’ Art Works Company, based in Fort Lee. Art Works was a precursor of MGM.

·         1921 – The family of military author Robert Hugh Leckie settled in the West End, buying a home at 146 Carmita Avenue, where John and Marion Leckie raised  their six children. “Lord, What a Family,” Leckie’s 1958 book, published by Random House, detailed much of his life in the house, at the corner of Union and Carmita avenues. 

West End/Union Avenue, A Photo Album

Union Avenue Bridge [Markers erected 2002 after the new bridge was completed] - When it comes to the development of Rutherford’s West End, there can be no more important event than the construction of the bridge that linked Rutherford with its neighbors across the Passaic River in Passaic County. Charles R. Soley, an engineer who was a Rutherford resident, was a leading advocate of the bridge when he was a member of the Bergen County Board of Chosen Freeholders in 1896. That year, Passaic County and Bergen County agreed to split the cost for constructing the bridge. 


Hunt’s Livery Stable [Building as it appears at 22 Union Avenue] at Union Avenue and Agnew Place operated at the far end of Union Avenue, near the downtown and a short distance from the Erie Railroad Depot. In the early 1900’s, George R. Hunt became the third generation of liverymen to operate a stable at this site, providing livery and horse-drawn ambulance service throughout the West End and around the Rutherford community. Hunt’s innovative approach of building a two-story stable in 1905 that would house his horses on the second floor introduced an unusual use of an Otis Elevator that carried the horses to the second story. Long since abandoned, a portion of the livery stable’s Otis elevator was moved last year to the Meadowlands Museum, where it has become a popular museum exhibit for Rutherford school children.  

 
Union Avenue Firehouse  [April 27, 1925 drawing by Edgar I. Williams and pictured as it currently appears] - The West End Improvement Association began in 1890 to provide fire fighting protection for the West End. The organization evolved into the Union Engine Company # 3. The original fire house was located at 325 Union Avenue, between Santiago and Springfield avenues. The current firehouse was built in 1925 by William Hassan, according to the design of Edgar I. Williams of the architectural firm of Williams & Barratt. Hassan, who lived at 47 Beech Street, was a Scottish-born mason whose family was active in the Congregational Church. Hassan was Chairman of the Building Committee when the first Congregational Church was built in 1909 at the corner of Washington and Carmita  avenues. In 1923, he assisted in planning and supervising construction of the present Congregational Church at Prospect Place and Union. Edgar Williams also has a strong history of involvement with the West End, particularly the Congregational Church. As a young architect, he expressed an interest in designing the present church in 1923, after a horrible fire destroyed the church at Washington and Carmita. Dudley Strickland van Antwerp, whose church and house architecture is well known in Montclair, was chosen instead and he successfully designed the church, the cornerstone of which was placed October 26, 1924. But Williams remained a true friend of the church and West End architecture. In 1952, the Board of Trustee expressed deep gratitude to the architect: “Mr. Williams has shown a sincere interest in our church planning problems as he has demonstrated in other community activities.”  A few years later, Williams’ workmanship was seen in the successful efforts in 1957 to save an early 19th century Dutch farmhouse that was moved from its original footprint in East Rutherford and re-assembled at its present location across Prospect Place from the Congregational Church. 

NOTE:  Photos and drawings from the collection Rod Leith, Borough Historian, and the Meadowlands Museum. Text is from the research and writings of Rod Leith, who has served as Borough Historian since 2002 and is a member of the Meadowlands Museum Board of Directors and the Rutherford Historic Preservation Commission.

Rod B. Leith
Rutherford Borough Historian