A History of the Early Schools of New Bridge and Cherry Hill: Part One

By Kevin Wright ©May 1998

The rolling plateau that extends from River Edge into Emerson was anciently known as Kendocamack, from the Algonquian word, Linhakamike, or Wendachamack, meaning “upland.” With a commanding view of the valley of the Hackensack and its tributary streams, Cherry Hill in the southern part of River Edge rises 113 feet above the tidal marshes at its feet. Breached by the meandering Coles Brook, which forms the boundary between River Edge and the City of Hackensack, the ground rises again in the Fairmount section of Hackensack and continues southward along Summit Avenue and Boulevard through Hasbrouck Heights and Woodridge, before reaching the Passaic River. This red sandstone ridge (especially where it passes through the Fairmount section of Hackensack) was once known as “Red Hill”—a name that railroad speculators  “gussied up” to create the more suburban “Cherry Hill.”

Cherry Hill was first called Brower’s Hill, after a family of that surname who lived along Main Street where the Huffman-Koos store stood until recently. According to a tombstone inscription in the burial-ground at the Dutch Reformed Church on the Green in Hackensack, Abraham J. Brower “naturalized June 21. 1767, belonged to the Continental army of 1776, and died March 21, 1837.” He came from Long Island and took up residence here, lending his name to the local topography.

Old Bridge, Steenraupie and New Bridge are other old names in this neighborhood. The first bridge across the Hackensack River was built on present-day River Edge Avenue before 1717. It only became known as “Old Bridge” after a “New Bridge” was erected in 1745 at the narrows of the Hackensack River, two miles downstream. Actually, the name New Bridge didn’t come into general use until the Paulus Hook Ferry opened in July 1764, making the overland route via New Bridge of considerable use to travelers going to and from Manhattan Island. At this time, New Bridge was the nearest span over the Hackensack River to Newark Bay and the stagecoach inn on the east side of the river was popularly designated “New Bridge.”

River Edge and Cherry Hill are names that came to town with the railroad. Old Bridge became River Edge without comment or nostalgic opposition, but the citizens of New Bridge decried the loss of their historic name, complaining that Cherry Hill (the name chosen by three local landowners who contributed to building the first railroad station in the southern end of town) was an absurd, inappropriate replacement. In turn, the name Cherry Hill was blown out of town by a tornado that wrought considerable damage in July 1895—feeling that real estate values had never fully recovered from that well-publicized natural disaster, citizens succeeded in getting postal authorities and the railroad to rechristen the place North Hackensack in 1906. The name of New Bridge Landing was restored to the train stop in southern River Edge several years ago. Today, the church and school on Bogert Road perpetuate the name of Cherry Hill.

Memories of the first school on Cherry Hill faded long ago with the last of the generation who had attended it. Its existence might have been entirely lost to history, except for my discovery of its mention in a deed of sale. In 1794, John Brower sold a house on eight acres of land at New Bridge, to William Williams. This property was located northwest of the intersection of Main Street and Kinderkamack Road. The sale was subject “to a certain lease heretofore made by John Brower of a certain part of the aforesaid premises for the purpose of erecting a School House thereon for the use of the inhabitants of the neighborhood.” This schoolhouse remained in use until 1840, when a new school was built on the east side of the river, nearly opposite the New Bridge Inn, south of Old New Bridge Road in what is now Clarence Brett Park in Teaneck.

The only other reference to the first Cherry Hill school comes in a letter that Cornelius H. Banta addressed to Frank Koehler, a local historian and longest serving President of the Bergen County Historical Society, on March 16, 1903. Mr. Banta had been born March 13, 1819, the son of Henry Banta and his wife Sally Timpson. In his correspondence, he recalled stories of the American Revolution at New Bridge, that he heard from his grandfather, who also was named Cornelius Banta, and who had lived along Howland Avenue, just west of the Van Saun Mill Brook. He died in August 1854.

In 1903, Cornelius mentioned playing as a school boy in an earthwork fort, built by the British army in 1778 near the present intersection of Bogert Road and Reservoir Avenue, writing, “...Washington’s fort or earth works [was located at] the very spot where the reservoir [that is, the original reservoir of the Hackensack Water Company] now is. I have seen it for the banks was about three feet high 70 years ago. I went to School Right across the road from old Mrs. Lozear’s house. We boys went up there often to have A Romp.” By his description, the old school house stood on the north side of Kinderkamack Road, somewhere between Oxford Terrace and Reservoir Avenue. Cornelius H. Banta died November 18, 1904.

Cornelius Banta was attending the school on Browers Hill in September 1829, for he mentions that the teacher allowed students to attend the funeral of Captain Uzal Meeker, a Revolutionary War veteran, who lived in a house where the pocket park now stands at the intersection of Main Street and Kinderkamack Road. A decade later, the school was abandoned for a new location on the east side of the river at New Bridge. On April 15, 1840, Tunis Cole conveyed a small plot of ground, 30 feet by 88 feet, to Richard Doremus, Abraham Ely, and John J. Demarest, Trustees of School District #3[2] at New Bridge. This property was located on the south side of Old New Bridge Road, opposite the house of Abraham Devoe. Mr. De Voe resided in the old New Bridge Inn, which burned in 1964. The inn has been rebuilt twice.