Talkin' Pompton Lakes

Pompton Lakes vs. Cooper Union

2011-10-08T00:44:00.000-04:00

The 1870's. The Pompton Lakes area was surging with industry. Just down the turnpike, Paterson was making history with it's volume of silk, firearms and railroad car manufacturing. The time was just after the Civil War, and steel was taking over iron in the manufacturing world. Steel manufacturing requires lots of water. Pompton Township had lots of that, along with a history or iron and steel production, by then.

There was iron and coal coming out of Western New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The Morris Canal was moving the ore eastward to the cities. Steel mills on our rivers had easy access to the Morris Canal. They could get the ore cheaper, and get their product to the cities thanks to the canal.

At that time, there was also a plan to connect the coal fields of Scranton, Pennsylvania with the energy hungry cities. This goal was feebly approached by a small group of financially weak railroad companies in a time when railroads were coming and going in that increasingly popular trend of transportation. Remember, there are still gunslingers out West in these days . . .

To make a long story short, the Township of Pompton (much larger than today) got an extension of the Montclair Railroad to go through town. These days, that railroad crosses the Paterson-Hamburg Turnpike in Riverdale and continues North, up to Ringwood.

In theory, this extension would connect the coal bearing railroad project at a junction in Greenwood Lake. Pompton Township issued bonds for the construction, along with many other townships (note the word). Cooper Union Academy for the Arts and Sciences (4th Ave. & E. 7th St.) bought $100,000 worth. Everyone was happy. Notes from the U.S. Supreme Court proceedings (that's right) indicate that Pompton was making interest payments as agreed.

All this was going on around the time of State legislation that was creating boroughs out of townships. Borough fever or "Boroughitis" was a favorite topic in the press of the day. To Cooper Union, there was something disquieting about new and innovative changes in governments that owed them bond investments. They wanted their money back.

There are conflicts in the sources, and how long Pompton Township was tied up in court is difficult to determine. As previously mentioned, the case eventually made it's way to the United States Supreme Court. An 1890 Supreme court report relates:

"By the first section of the act of 1874, the office of commissioners of Pompton Township was abolished, and their duties were devolved upon the township committee".

1874 to 1890; that's a presumed 16 years of litigation. Sounds about right. In the end, Cooper Union's argument that their bonds were no longer backed by a legitimate government were struck down. Pompton won and the terms of the bonds were upheld.

Oh by the way, it looks like the Montclair Greenwood Lake railroad was a huge failure. For moving coal, the Erie Canal worked better. Pompton Township had a less than profitable railroad, for which they had to repay the bond holders.

Pompton Lakes and its environs were soon to become a recreation destination because of the rivers and lakes. An 1895 New York Times story reports on the forming of Pompton Lakes as Passaic County's first of the newly fashionable boroughs.

In the article, I found the following anecdote to be interesting. Notice the plug for the tourists:

"The territory includes all the elegant Summer residences erected recently, and embraces one-third of the township taxes."

The article goes on to comment:

"Pompton Township will be improvished by the erection of this new borough. It carries a heavy debt, incurred by issuing bonds for the construction of the Greenwood Lake Railroad, and great difficulty will now be encountered in the payment of interest."

There is a 23 year gap between the creation of Pompton Lakes and the incorporation of the remaining villages of the old Pompton Township, with bonds to pay. I'd bet there's a story there . . .

What Is A Borough, Anyway?

2011-10-07T17:52:00.005-04:00

We live in a town, don't we?
No, we live in a Borough.
What in the world is a borough (no donkey jokes)?

A borough is a form of government that rose out of the late industrial era in New Jersey. I presume this new form of government was instituted to roll with the times, increasing populations, and who gets the taxes.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, this part of New Jersey was mostly wide open farmland in the valleys, and large tracts of mining property in the northern hills. Population density was low, and because of the amount of property involved with farming and mining, towns and townships were much larger than they are today.

Pompton Township was one such example. The township included Riverdale, Bloomingdale, Haskell, Wanaque, Midvale, Ringwood and part of West Milford (as Bloomingdale).

Being a crossroads for rail and road, it was also a junction for the rivers which provided access to the Morris Canal, a bit downstream. Mills began quickly springing up on the flat river banks in the Pompton-Butler area. It might have been natural for our immediate area to develop as the hub of the relatively gigantic township.

The New Jersey Borough Act of 1878 allowed for any township with a land area of no more than four square miles and a population not exceeding 5,000 to establish itself as an independent borough. Boroughs would be governed by a mayor serving for one year and six council members in staggered three year terms.

An 1895 New York Times article announced that Pompton Lakes, was to become Passaic County's first borough in what was being called "borough fever" at that time. Why we became a borough is a bit mysterious, and I'll get to that in another article.

The year before, in 1894, it had become law that a borough had to have its own school system. Butler High School was the only high school in the area at that time. There must have been some kind of school in the new Pompton Lakes.

What eludes this writer is that the remaining towns of Bloomingdale, Ringwood and Wanaque put the date of their incorporations at 1918. Riverdale was part of Pompton Lakes until 1923 (as the architecture of the elementary school shows). I can't account for the govenmental standing of those villages for that 13 year gap since parting with Pompton.

But I was supposed to tell you what a borough is, not where it came from. Remembering that a borough is a form of government and not map jargon, it goes like this:

The power is in the borough council. Six of them. They have staggered terms of three years. You can elect only two of them at a time. They are members of committees that involve most every day processes of municipal services. Council members are also liaisons to external town agencies, like the Board of Education, for example.

They are presided over by a mayor with no vote at council meetings, except in a tie.

Remembering The Snake Dance

2011-10-05T15:56:00.004-04:00

Thanksgiving time was a special time for Pompton Lakes High School in the 60's. Along with being a holiday for family gathering, Thanksgiving Day was the day of a time-honored football tradition: Pompton Lakes High vs Butler High. Pompton Lakes and Butler used to have a long standing rivalry. It was like the Yankees and the Red Sox. But the night before was the night of The Snake Dance!

First, there was the Pep Rally. Wednesday, before Thanksgiving Day, students of the High School would retire from classes early and pour into the gymnasium bleachers to stir up the school spirit, that we thought was crucial, to advance our team on to victory.
The football team would be there and sometimes the team members were even announced, player-by-player. The cheerleading squad would face the bleachers and lead the student body in screaming chants and cadences toward victory.

Pep rallies were not uncommon back then. But there were rallies for pivotal games that few students missed. Occasionally, even the marching band would be in the bleachers, playing the school songs, which everyone sang to, with the cheerleaders waving their pom-poms around.

The "Burn Butler" pep rally was such an event. Even the dress-code rebels and junior hippies came out for the Thanksgiving game rally. There was enough excitement to attract even the most disaffected. The rally would end in a frenzy of school spirit, and everyone went home for homework and dinner. That night would be the time of THE SNAKE DANCE.

Around 7pm, that evening, students would gather in the rear field of the high school for The Snake Dance. There was a lot of excitement in the air. While gathering and waiting for the start, boys and girls would be bantering, flirting and generally sharing the excitement. The Snake Dance was a kind of a tribal ceremony of town pride and team spirit. Not only was it fun. It was important.

The Snake Dance would begin at the school fence on Ramapo Ave. The cheerleading squad would all hold hands and begin a human chain of hand holding that somehow organized its own self throughout the assembly of several hundred students. The cheerleaders would then "pull" the chain of hand holders down Ramapo Ave.

Led by a crawling police cruiser, the "snake" of noisy teenagers would crawl down Ramapo Ave., while zigzagging back and forth across the street. The "curves" in this snake would provide for some quick foot work, as the momentum of the zigzagging would make it an effort to keep up; let alone hold onto the hands of your neighbors. It was sometimes difficult to even stay on your feet.

The night was resonant with the sounds of celebration and occasional screams and shouts in the labor of just hanging on to wherever the snake went. The cheerleaders chanted school-spirited cadences from the front of the chain. If you were in the middle of the snake, there would just be a lot of talking, shouting and screeching. It was difficult to hang on, and you sometimes had to concentrate.

This was back when citizens could merely rake their leaves out into the street (and even burn them there). Piles of leaves at the curbside were an added novelty for the snake dancers. Fun to kick the leaves around. Good place to fall, which happened. For the next hour, or so, the snake wound its way down to Hershfield Park, where the football field was, and still is.

At Hershfield Park, near the location of what is now the parking lot, there waited a thirty or forty foot high stack of lumber and tree cuttings. This was Butler's funeral pyre. On top of the wood pile was a Halloween-style dummy of a football player in a Butler High School Football team uniform and helmet. The Pompton Lakes Volunteer Fire Department was on hand to set and control the fire.

The bond fires were huge. The cheerleaders would get as close to the pile, as safety allowed. They would face the crowd and lead everyone in more chants and cadences. I seem to remember Apple cider being served.

With Butler being properly dispatched to ashes, everyone went home to get ready for the holiday, the parade and the big game. A day when all seemed right in the world to a young teenager, in a beautiful town, in a beautiful time.

Thanksgiving Day Game 1966