4 TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON HISTORY (see below)

New Jersey was divided into four counties—Bergen, Essex, Middlesex, and Monmouth—in 1682. 
All land from the Hudson River to the Hackensack River was in Bergen County.  Lands to the west of the Hackensack River were part of Essex County.  The original townships in the northern part of these counties were Hackensack in Bergen and New Barbadoes in Essex.  In 1710, the northern part of Essex County, west to the Pequannock and Passaic Rivers, was ceded to Bergen County.  In 1775, the northern part of the two townships, from the Hudson River to the Saddle River, became Harington Township (spelling changed to Harrington in the 1800s).

Streams and rivers formed natural boundaries for land subdivisions in early America.  From 1775 to 1840, the Township of Harrington encompassed lands between the Hudson River and the Saddle River.  In 1840, when the new Township of Washington was set off from the Township of Harrington, its thirty square miles were bounded by the Hackensack River and the Saddle River.

On March 6, 1839, the state of New Jersey introduced “an act to set off from the Township of Harrington in the County of Bergen, a new township to be called the Township of Washington.”  It would be one of many localities named in honor of the hero of the Revolutionary War.  The proposed new township would include all land between the Hackensack River and the Saddle River.  The act was passed and took effect in April 1840, when the Township of Washington was born.  The Township of Washington originally comprised a much larger area than it does today.  It lay on the northern rim of the county and formed a portion of the boundary between New Jersey and New York.  It consisted of 19,525 acres (approximately thirty square miles) and included all of the towns now found in the Pascack Valley.

The early settlers in this part of Bergen County came primarily from Holland.  The Dutch people were hardy, frugal, industrious, and deeply religious.  They cultivated the apple trees and fields in which they grew pumpkins, squash, and grain.  The Dutch language was still understood and was being spoken by the older inhabitants of the Township into the late 1800s.  Population and trade grew with the completion of the New Jersey and New York Railway through the Pascack Valley in the decade following the Civil War.  Many villages in the Township of Washington were established along the route of the railroad, with churches, schools, and homes.  The geographic shrinking of the Township began when the state legislature amended the local public schools law in 1894.

As parents sought to keep control of their local school districts, settlements within the Township of Washington broke away to become independent municipalities. This map shows the boundaries of the Township before and after the fallout of Borough Fever as well as the incorporation dates of the breakaway communities. The Township was reduced from its original area of 30 square miles to a mere 3 1/4 square miles.

The School Act of 1894 was responsible for a wave of borough incorporations between 1894 and 1897, as parents sought to keep control of their local schools and taxpayers sought to avoid being saddled with the debts of other school districts.  As a result, townships almost disappeared as a form of municipal government in Bergen County.  In the ensuing years (1894-1906), settlements within the Township of Washington became the municipalities of Montvale, Park Ridge, Woodcliff Lake, Westwood, Hillsdale, River Vale, and Emerson.  When the boundaries of the new municipalities were finally drawn, the Township of Washington narrowly escaped being completely wiped off the map as its area dwindled to a mere 3 1/4 square miles.

Seven Chimneys, the oldest house in the Township of Washington, is an impressive example of eighteenth-century, regional, domestic architecture and is an important remnant of the community's early settlement period.  The house is listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places and is included in the Bergen County Stone House Survey.  On November 3, 1968, the Bergen County Historical Society placed a historic-site marker on the property.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Township was still largely farmland and swamp. There was no railroad or trolley line and this lack of transportation contributed to the long-enduring rural quality of the area.  Ridgewood and Pascack Roads were country lanes with a narrow strip of asphalt in the center.  The end of World War II in 1945 brought enormous change to the Township of Washington.  Farms were sold and subdivided and the sound of hammers was heard throughout the area as new homes were rapidly being built.

When the 1950 census was taken, there were 1,208 residents in the Township of Washington.  Ten years later, the number of residents had grown to 6,654, making it the fastest growing community in New Jersey at that time.

CENSUS FIGURES OF THE TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON

The years have dramatically transformed a farming settlement of a handful of families into a
flourishing suburban community.

A more complete history of the Township of Washington is available in book form at the library.

4 TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON OFFICIAL WEBSITE

4 WESTWOOD REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

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