Spring 2005 Edition

The History of Fair Lawn's Street Names   By Jane Lyle Diepeveen, Borough Historian   How did Fair Lawn’s streets get their names? Today the Borough Council has the power to dedicate land for streets and also the power to name them. In the early history of the area, the County government had this power. But where did the names come from?      The oldest roads acquired their names informally from local usage. Roads were named for geographic features or landmarks. River Road (originally an Indian trail) was called Slooterdam Road at the time of the earliest colonists, after the Dutch name for the fish trap in the Passaic River. Saddle River Road was known as Swamp Road in Revolutionary times. Dunkerhook Road retains its original Dutch name (Donckerhoek) meaning “dark corner”. Wagaraw Road took its name from the Lenni Lenape natives’ name for the area at the “great bend” of the Passaic River. Garretson Lane, now Broadway, led from the hamlet of Red Mills at Paramus Road to Peter Garretson’s farmhouse on River Road. All of these roads are shown on maps made during the Revolutionary War.  Another early road, Small Lots Road (now Fair Lawn Avenue) was established to serve the so-called “small lots” north of the road. These nine lots, extending almost to the present Glen Rock line, had been delineated early in the State’s history by the East Jersey Proprietors who controlled the land. South of the road were much larger lots reaching from the Passaic to the Saddle River; the northernmost one of these, the Sloterdam Patent, extended into Fair Lawn.  A few new streets were added to these original roads during the 1800s. Old maps and atlases give us some information. Cherry Lane, now Lincoln Avenue, was cut through in 1825 to connect Paterson with Ridgewood. Prospect Avenue, (for “broad view”) connected the high point of Small Lots Road to Swamp Road. These roads appear on an 1861 Bergen County atlas.  Berdan Avenue appears on the Walker Atlas of 1876 which shows every building and its owner’s name. This street was established to serve several Berdan family farmsteads, but part of it was still a dirt road in the mid-1930s. Midland Avenue, which extended south from Broadway, ran midway between the Passaic and Saddle Rivers. Maple Avenue was a later addition. It ran from River Street in Paterson to Ridgewood and was shown on an 1896 map as the Paterson & Ridgewood Road. Part of Morlot Avenue was shown on 1861 and 1872 maps as part of an ambitious but unrealized development east of River Road, called Rochedale. The name came from George Morlot who built his mansion near the Passaic River but the road does not appear on later maps until 1909. (See Morlot’s story) By the end of the nineteenth century, the Fair Lawn area was starting its change from a strictly farm community to a suburb. Developers laid out streets and subdivided the land for homes for the workers in Paterson silk mills and Fair Lawn dye and bleach works. At this time the developers chose the names for the new streets.  One of the earliest subdivisions built was that of the Fairlawn Land Improvement Association, starting in 1896, west of River Road. This is the first appearance of Hopper Avenue. The name may be from previous owners, J. A. Hopper and his descendants, although one source says the street was named in honor of Andrew Hopper, general of the Bergen militia during the Revolutionary War. The cross streets were 1st through 6th, but in reverse order as today!  In 1903, the first house in the Grunauer Warren Point development was sold at what is today 3-09 Grunauer Pl. This home is now slated for demolition. Other early developments were along Heights Avenue, named for its location somewhat uphill from Lincoln Avenue, and along Morlot Avenue, with a few houses on Bellair Avenue (from Morlot’s estate called “Bellaire”) and on Ellis Avenue, named for Ida Van Riper Ellis who had founded the Union Sunday School built nearby.  Part II of ”History and Fair Lawn Street Names“ will appear in the next edition of Fair Lawn News. Authors Note: I have a copy of a detailed 1913 map showing buildings, owners and most street names. It shows more development than the 1918 map from Rutgers Special Collection. The 1918 map is almost identical to the 1909 map in this collection and both show some streets not on the 1913 map. These were streets on subdivisions filed with the County but not yet developed.   See Jane Lyle Diepeveen's Previous Articles: How Fair Lawn Got Its Name (Winter 2005) Ackerman-Naugle Family and Their Houses (Fall 2004) Mysterious Disappearance of George Morlot. (Summer 2004)