Author Topic: Hackensack 1876: Pictures  (Read 8601 times)

Offline Editor

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Hackensack 1876: Pictures
« on: September 11, 2005, 11:44:23 PM »
Wow.  The captions on these two images provide the location although "Spring Valley Road" on the second one is vague. (Bergen Co. NY is obviously a misprint.)

I see what looks like a brook under Spring Valley.  I'm guessing this is Coles Brook and the image is looking east, into Hackensack from what is now Maywood.

I'm wondering if the 2nd Reformed Church is where the Carriage Factory stood.

I found them on on ebay here.

I'll have more 1876 images soon.




« Last Edit: September 11, 2005, 11:54:43 PM by Editor »



ericmartindale

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Re: Hackensack 1876: Pictures
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2005, 09:59:27 AM »
No, the second picture is not Spring Valley Avenue at the border of Hackensack and Maywood.  I do not believe that there was a Voorhis estate, or any estate, there at that time. 

Spring Valley Avenue between Summit Avenue and Coles Brook was the grounds of the Fairmount Hotel, which was probably constructed around that time, and burned a few years later. I've done considerable research on the Fairmount Hotel and wrote an article about it in the County Seat.

I offer no strong opinion as to the actual setting of the picture posted by the Editor. I have two guesses, and I'm leaning towards the first one.

(1) The photo is at the corner of Spring Valley Avenue and Main Street. There was a stream and pond there, and an estate in 1876. There were huge estates throughout the neighborhood at that time, and the residents of the estates used the train station at Temple Avenue. Two local streets, Voorhis Lane and Voorhis Place, exist now in the immediate vicinity, adding credibility to the notion that there was a Voorhis estate in the area in 1876.

(2) The picture may have been taken somewhere along Spring Valley ROAD, not Spring Valley Avenue, possibly in Paramus along Spring Valley Road somewhere between Route 4 and Forest Avenue. In fact, a brook crosses under Spring Valley Road not far south of Forest Avenue, and that could be the brook in the photo.  However, I strongly doubt that any part of what is now Paramus was so affluent in 1876. Most of the wealth of Bergen County was concentrated in Hackensack, Ridgewood, and Englewood at that time. Also, I don't think a judge would live so far from "civilization" in Hackensack, at a time when the only transport was horse & buggy, riverboats, and rail.  In 1876, that section of Spring Valley Road was the vicinity of an old village sometimes referred to as "Spring Valley", and at that time part of New Barbados Township.

This gets me thinking about the Cherry Hill tornado. I'm going to place a seperate post on the CHERRY HILL TORNADO of 1895, to which newspaper accounts reference the village of Spring Valley. That day, two tornados simultaneously struck parts of what is now the City of Hackensack.


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Re: Hackensack 1876: Pictures
« Reply #2 on: September 15, 2005, 02:12:29 AM »
Eric may be right, but I note in his article that the dates of the hotel's existence are vague: somewhere between 1870 and 1890. The image may predate the hotel's existence.   It's also possible the image is looking West into Maywood and that the image shows the edge of the Hotel property.  I do think this is Spring Valley Hackensack.  Note the change in fence styles which could indicate different properties.

Here are two map portions from the 1876 AH Walker Atlas of Bergen County New Jersey:

Fairmount Section

N. Fairmount/Cherry Hill Section

« Last Edit: September 15, 2005, 02:20:45 AM by Editor »

 

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