Home Care In Erskine Lakes, NJ

In 1922, comedienne Fanny Brice was singing "My Man," Prohibition was 2 years old and Franklin Lakes was "born" on March 11.

One hundred years later, the borough is celebrating its centennial year with a series of events under the slogan “Pride in Our Past, Faith in Our Future.”

Mayor Frank Bivona acknowledged "contributions from dozens of resident volunteers and support from our local sponsors" in putting together a year's worth of celebratory events.

“Franklin Lakes’ centennial anniversary year is going to be an exciting time highlighted by many special events," Bivona said. "We are proud of our history and the town we have become, and we look forward with excitement towars our future.”

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Events

Community Director Dina Robinson is heading up the centennial celebration team, which has its own website, franklinlakescentennial.com, to keep residents informed of upcoming events, including:

Arcadia Publishing is scheduled to publish “Franklin Lakes, Images of America” in May. The book will be available for purchase online through the borough’s centennial website and in local stores.

The Franklin Lakes Historical Society will host a series of guided tours and lectures with the Franklin Lakes Public Library.

History

The borough is named for William Franklin, son of Founding Father Benjamin Franklin. He was the last Colonial governor of New Jersey, from 1763 to 1776, but never lived in what is now Franklin Lakes.

Unlike his father, William Franklin remained a Loyalist throughout the American Revolutionary War. He was held under house arrest from 1776 to 1778 and remained a leader of the British cause until he exiled himself to London in 1782.

The former Franklin Township has a tangled history. It included all of northwest Bergen County west of the Saddle River when it was created in 1772. In 1849, the northern half of Franklin Township was broken off to create Ho-Ho-Kus Township (later Mahwah, Ramsey and parts of Allendale and Upper Saddle River).

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This left Franklin Township with what are now Oakland, Franklin Lakes, Wyckoff, and parts of Allendale, Waldwick, Midland Park and Ridgewood.

Midland Park created a separate borough in 1894, Oakland in 1902. Franklin Lakes created its borough on March 11, 1922, with William Pulis as its first mayor.

What was left of Franklin Township was renamed Wyckoff in 1926.

Franklin Township began as a Dutch farming community in the 1700s. The borough retains remnants of at least nine pre-1800 homes, possibly the oldest being the 1710 Van Koert-Winters House at 615 Franklin Ave.

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Franklin Avenue itself originated as an Indian trail across land they referred to as "Campgaw." The road was surveyed by George Washington's mapmaker Robert Erskine during the Revolutionary War.

The borough also derived its name from its many lakes and ponds, most notably Franklin Lake, known to the area's Lenape Indians as Michanagrape. The lake changed names several times — Christian Pool, Great Pond, Big Pond and Crystal Pool — before it became Franklin Lake in the late 1800s.

What is now the 147-acre Franklin Lakes Nature Preserve originated in 1919 when the Molly Ann Brook was dammed to create the Haledon Reservoir. It provided drinking water to North Haledon, Haledon and Prospect Park. The reservoir fell into disuse, and it was purchased by Franklin Lakes with Green Acres funding in 2006, the largest land acquisition in the borough's history. It opened for public passive recreational use in 2011.

The waterways also powered a variety of mills, the first believed to be Daniel Youman's grist mill at 840 Franklin Lake Road.

Franklin Lakes was sending its students in grades nine to 12 to Ramsey High School until the district announced that it would not accept non-district students after its 1957-58 school year. Franklin Lakes, Oakland and Wyckoff approved creation of a regional high school district in 1954. Ramapo High School opened in Franklin Lakes in 1957, followed by Indian Hills High School in Oakland in 1960.

Marsha Stoltz is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: stoltz@northjersey.com

RINGWOOD - Munitions testing at Picatinny Arsenal reverberated in the upper reaches of Passaic County on Wednesday.

While "extremely rare," the blast waves reported as far as Ringwood, did originate from the military facility more than 20 miles southwest, Frank Misurelli of the Picatinny Arsenal Public Affairs Office confirmed Wednesday evening.

Atmospheric conditions are being blamed for the impact of blasting in Rockaway on residents in Ringwood. Winter conditions can occasionally cause air close to the ground to be colder than the layer or air above. This can cause sound waves to refract and travel back towards the surface instead of up into the atmosphere.

EPA says Ringwood cleanup won't worsen sinkholes

Police: Explosion sounds came from Picatinny Arsenal

"Someone described it as a dump truck being dropped," said resident Susan Rochlitz. "To me, it was a loud boom and my house in Erskine Lake (22 miles from Picatinny Arsenal) vibrated a bit, like it might during a thunderstorm."

Misurelli said the Arsenal tries to mitigate reverberations "as best we can."

"Unfortunately today the weather did not cooperate with us," he added. "We test everyday and clearly we don't hear from the good people of Ringwood everyday."

One week prior, similar reverberations were reported in towns including Kinnelon, Randolph, Rockaway, Mountain Lakes, Parsippany and Boonton. Ringwood residents also complained, though Saddle Mountain Quarry was initially pinned as the likely culprit.

Ringwood Borough officials, however, soon identified Picatinny Arsenal. Wednesday, the suspicions were confirmed.

Ringwood Borough coordinated with Picatinny Arsenal to scheduled a test blast for 11:30 a.m. that was felt in municipal hall. Misurelli said the Arsenal executed another test at 1:50 p.m. While that blast was not felt in municipal hall, residents subsequently called the Arsenal to register complaints that were later validated, he said. Reports of feeling blasts also came from neighboring Wanaque.

Rochlitz said she was pleased at the way Ringwood officials and everyone else involved responded to get to the bottom of the disturbance.

On Facebook, Ringwood Borough thanked the residents to "always keeping their eyes and ears open."

Staff Writer Matt Fagan contributed to this report.

Email: zimmer@northjersey.com

These school administrators make between $150K and $300K per year. See which leaders in your local school district made the list.

|Updated Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 2:23 pm ET

NEW JERSEY — More than 2,500 educational administrators in the state made salaries of $150,000 or more during the past school year, according to data from the New Jersey Department of Education. Three were paid double, while 22 earned at least $250,000.

Patch pulled salary data that includes superintendents, principals and other employees in administrative positions — down to assistant principals — within New Jersey schools. Out of roughly 8,400 people who fit the description, 2,556 of them made $150,000 or more.

It's becoming increasingly common for school administrators in New Jersey to make that much. In 2011, then-Gov. Chris Christie implemented a $175,000 cap for superintendents. The Christie administration raised their maximum base pay to $191,584 in 2017.

But Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law in 2019 that eliminates the cap for superintendent salaries but set guidelines for school-executive contracts to limit or standardize bonuses and other perks.

Some of the state's highest-paid superintendents — especially those in more affluent districts — received generous pay increases in the past year, according to analysis from NJ Advance Media. For instance, the salary for the superintendent of the 700-student Demarest district increased almost 50 percent, from $153,967 to $228,477. Millburn's superintendent went from a salary of $167,500 to $228,477, according to NJ Advance Media's report.

Find out what's happening in Across New Jerseywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

School-executive pay has long been a controversial subject in both local school district budgeting and state policy. While administrative salaries are often a flashpoint for criticism in school policy, many districts struggled to maintain experienced superintendents when the position's pay was capped, according to a 2019 analysis from NJ Spotlight.

Superintendents, principals and other school leaders throughout the nation have faced intense scrutiny for COVID-19 management and from politically charged movements to overhaul or eliminate certain subjects and topics from the curriculum. But those obstacles have also fallen to teachers and other rank-and-file school employees. And New Jersey has faced a shortage of teaching candidates that preceded the pandemic. Read more: Who Will Teach NJ's Kids After Mass Exodus From Education?

Here are New Jersey's highest-paid school administrators, along with their school, their district, their years of service and their salaries:

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More from Across New Jersey

Greenwood Lake, recognized by vacationers for nearly 150 years for its cool, pristine water and refreshing mountain breezes, continues to offer people recreation opportunities today. Gone are the trains that brought people to the lake and gone are the luxurious hotels where they stayed while on holiday. However, the natural beauty that first enchanted the visitors remains and continues to bring people to the lake. Nine miles long, it is partly in the Township of West Milford in Passaic County and partly in Greenwood Lake Village in Orange County NY.

People now travel to Greenwood Lake in modern vehicles that were unimaginable in the olden days. They can quickly journey back home after a day trip to the lake and mountains – and easily return the next day if they so choose. Everything changes – nothing remains the same – and the next 150 years will no doubt bring changes unimaginable to us who are here today.

The Lenni Lenape Delaware Indian people were farmers and hunters who lived at Long Pond (Greenwood Lake) and the surrounding areas up to about the mid -1700s. There are still people living in the greater West Milford/Ringwood/Mahwah/and Suffern NY areas who are their descendants.

The Montclair and Greenwood Lake Railroad - came into being in 1875 and in 1878 became known as the New York and Greenwood Lake Railroad. Abraham S. Hewitt, Cyrus Field and John B. Dumont owned it. Hewitt and Edward S. Cooper at the time were operating their ironworks business at Long Pond along with the Mountain Ice Company at Sterling Forest on Greenwood Lake.

After Cooper was unsuccessful in his attempt to convince the Morris Canal Company to enlarge their canal from Hewitt to the cities below, he saw the need to establish rail transportation for the fast shipping of ice and iron.

Completion of the railroad to Sterling Forest not only served the initial purpose of transporting the two products but brought the birth of the vacation resort business at the lake. Hewitt had many well-to-do friends ready to invest money to build hotels – and build them they did.

The line used the railroad terminal in Jersey City. It was improved with laying of new tracks in 1879. A dock was built at Greenwood Lake so that steamboats could stop at the railroad station to pick up and discharge passengers and freight and deliver them to points around the lake.

In 1892 the railroad had 17 passenger cars, seven baggage cars, 32 flat cars and one caboose. If more equipment was needed they hired from five to seven engines from the N.Y.L.E. and W.R.R. at $9.07 each per day. In 1896 the line was leased to the Erie Railroad for 90 years. Six miles of the line was relocated from Erskine to Greenwood Lake with construction of the Wanaque reservoir underway.

The Golden Days of the train ride to Greenwood Lake with a stay at a plush hotel ended for many around 1935 when the line was abandoned and the track was removed. With refrigeration there was no longer a need for the ice business and the iron business was done too. Roads were being built and people who still came to the lake did so in motor vehicles. Rooms at the hotels were not as much in demand and need for the steamboats decreased.

The hotels

There were at least 15 or so memorable hotels and inns in the Victorian era of Greenwood Lake tourism.

DeGraw’s Willow Point Hotel had a capacity of 200 people with a building next door where guests ate, drank and socialized. These types of extra buildings on hotel premises for dining and dancing were known as casinos. Inventor Thomas Edison was one of the famous guests who stayed at Willow Point Hotel.

The Ferncliff that could accommodate 185 people was purchased from an original owner by the Pitt family. William Wright’s Windemere Hotel, with 75 rooms for visitors, featured steam heat with heated rooms, sanitary improvements and electric lights.

United States President Chester A. Arthur during his term of office (1881-1885) was a guest at the Brandon House.

There were many other places also with ambiance with available accommodations including Maplewood Inn, Waterstone College, Grand View Hotel, Ten Eyck’s Valley House, Frank Trostle’s Linden House, Harry Sackett’s White Horse Inn, G. Relyea’s Greenwood Lake Hotel, Cooper’s Hotel, George Clark’s Lakeside Hotel and Batz’s Mount Peter House, to name only a few.

The New Continental Hotel and Restaurant, continues to be operated by a fourth generation of the Stoeberl family as a popular vacation destination today. It provides a glimpse of what the lake architecture was like many years ago. The structure was built around 1880 according to Lillian Smith, granddaughter of the original owners. With 18 rooms it originally was the summer house of her grandparents Mr. and Mrs. George Evans.

Rudolph Lellbach bought the house and property in the early 1920s and turned it into a hotel. His slogan was “Not a Country Hotel – a Hotel in the Country.” It became a vacation place for the rich and the famous.

Among those who signed the guest register at The New Continental in days gone by included the Honorable James Walker in 1929, Greta Garbo in 1932, Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Tibbett in 1934, Gypsy Rose Lee in 1935, Evelyn Nesbitt in 1938 and Pat Rooney in 1941.

Max Koerfer, who had restaurants in New York City, was often a guest and eventually joined Rudy in operating the hotel. In 1923 an addition was added. Rudy and Max had Rudy’s nephew, Rolph, and Leo Stoeberl help in operate the business. After Rudy’s death in 1951 Leo operated it until his death and his widow (now deceased) continued operation with their children taking over as they grew into adults.

The steamboats

Before the steamboats were at work on Greenwood Lake there were two sailboats – the “Stlph” and the “Pioneer.” Greenwood Lake historian Wilbur E. Christman reported 1873 as the date that steamboats started to be used to transport people and materials from one end of the lake to the other – and places in-between.

Christman in his book “Tales of Greenwood Lake” said he read an article about a steamboat – the “Peter Gilsey” – that reported about a group of men who hiked to the lower end of the lake from Bloomfield on July 17, 1875 and paid $1.50 to use the boat.

Christman remembered the small steamer “Anita” owned by Jacob Ryerson, used to transport people and merchandise around the lake.

He said Coe Ten Eyck, owner of the Valley House, had a steam launch – the “Carrie T.” that Ten Eyck named for his daughter and that William DeGraw named one he had “Wilhelmina” in honor of his daughter.

The “Montclair” – known as the “Queen of the Lake” – was originally a tug boat in New York Harbor. Christman said it was loaded on two train flat cars and brought to Sterling Forest, where it was launched and taken to the Brandon House beach where local carpenters completed a first deck and added a second one.

It had a capacity of 200 people – but the historian recalled seeing photos showing where there must have been as many as 300 aboard the Eric Railroad owned vessel.

The Erie Railroad also owned the “Milford” and the “Arlington,” both steamboats each able to carry 100 people. Christman said local people had jobs on the steamboats as firemen, captain and deck hands. He recalled some of these workers being Bill Utter, Jesse Donald, Harold Bell and Spike Detro.

His older brother Fred Christman remembered being a passenger on the “Montclair” but Wilbur Christman said although he also was on board, he was just three years old and does not remember the ride. He did recall riding on the two other Erie Railroad steamboats.

Christman said sadly none of the steamboats were preserved. During a harsh winter abound 1920 water took over the “Montclair” and – tied up at DeGraw’s Landing – it sunk. He said the pilot house was removed and taken to Harry Sackett’s yard in Greenwood Lake Village and then fashioned into a summer cottage, remaining until around 1990 when it was torn down.

He reported the “Arlington” later owned by Ed Forbes, sunk at the site of the Waterstone Bridge. When the bridge was built, the contractors with Forbe’s permission used a steam shovel to dismantle it. The wood from the ship was given to anyone who wanted it.

Marinas at the lake today are the summer home for hundreds of the boats moored there for the season.

The Greenwood Lake Commission – a group represented by both New York and New Jersey representatives continue to work on projects to improve the lake quality. The Highlands Economic and Tourism Corporation (HEAT) focuses on tourism projects in the area. Chaired by West Milford Councilman Tim Wagner events brought thousands of visitors to the Greenwood Lake Air Show and the Circus this summer. The annual boat races were also held.

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

RINGWOOD, N.J.—Back when the Indians roamed this valley in the foothills of the Ramapos, they called the region Wyanockie, which meant “sassafras place.” Later, with the coming of the settlers and their big country homes and small summer bungalows, the place was renamed Lakeland, after all the rivers, streams, ponds and lakes that dot these rolling hills of northern New Jersey.

Special to The New York Times

But for all the lacustrine beauty of this rural land, there is trouble about water in Lakeland. Part of the town gets water from wells; the rest on short rations..

For two weeks in early May, the faucets went dry in about a dozen homes.

Since the Memorial Day Weekend, 1,400 owners of log cabins and shingled or clapboard homes around Cupsaw Lake and Lake Erskine have been under strict municipal edict not to water their lawns or gardens or wash their cars. The rationing was imposed to insure sufficient water supplies for drinking, cooking and bathing.

Most of the residents are complaining that, by summer's end, their lakefront greenery will be parched. There is growing bitterness in the colonies around the two lakes that town residents on Skyline Lakes a bit to the south can water their land to their heart's content.

Reservoir Nearby

And they find nothing funny in the fact that a mile west of their hillside lakes lies the 6.6?mile Wanaque Reservoir with its 29.6 million gallons of water. But that water is strictly reserved by law for the residents of Newark, Paterson, Montclair and five other New Jersey towns far to the south.

“We're not exactly in the middle of the Sahara,” said Elaine Wyckoff, a resident of Cupsaw Lake who is growing angrier about the rationing. She worries about the flowers in her rock gardens and is now wondering whether the state should disenfranchise the Windbeam Water Company, a small, financially troubled, private concern that since winter has had trouble getting water from its six underground wells to all of its 1,400 lakeside customers in the hills.

And there seems little inclination among the town officials to change the three different water supply and distribution systems here that predate the rapid development of the community after World War II.

Back then, about 300 families lived here all year. But after the war, Route 208 and Skyline Drive were cut over the mountain, providing easy access to this 27.3?square?mile borough for residents Bergen County and other heavily populated areas of north Jersey. Summer cottage develoment burgeoned. Soon many of the homes were winterized, putting the stress of year?round demand on Windbeam's aging pipeline system.

Another summer colony near Skyline Lakes had its own pipelines while in the Stonetown section of Ringwood—across the 48?year?old Wanaque Reservoir, which is off limits to Ringwood—permanent settlers were left on their own and forced to dig wells.

Those wells remain bountiful, as do the three wells of the old Skyline Lakes Water Company, the system that the borough bought in the late 1960's. It undertook a $1 million expansion to facilitate the flaw of water down to the company's 800 customers around Skyline Lakes.

Area of Greatest Growth

They are required to hook into the improved system to ensure the borough sufficient water taxes pay bonded debt for the expansion. But despite this obligation, everyone there seems far happier than the residents of the hills and valleys around Cupsaw and Erskine Lakes.

Growth has been greatest there, and the two lake areas now contain 40 percent of the borough's population of 13,000. Their own company's two storage tanks have a capacity less than half the municipality's single tank. Water pressure is a chronic problem. And Windbeam, their supplier, is beset by money and manpower problems.

The company's president is John J. Bado, the 31?year?old nephew of the first president, who works full time as a claims manager for an insurance company and tries to manage the company on evenings and weekends. His wife, Gail, is the bookkeeper, secretary and phone answerer. She works in a little office with the company's name penciled in on a piece of cardboard attached to the front door. The only other employee of the company reads meters, repairs pipes and supervises excavations.

Bank credit for Windbeam has dried up; the company's 25 stockholders have not received a dividend for four years; Ringwood sued for nonpayment of franchising gross receipt taxes last year, and $4,474 in those levies for 1977 are now due.

“The people who complain have legitimate gripes,” said Mr. Bado, the president, insisting that fewer than 10 percent of the 1,400 customers had problems. “Overall,” he said, “we think we give pretty good service.”

Meanwhile, on Cupsaw and Erskine Lakes, residents are left to their ingenuity or to the nearby lakes for water for flowers and gardens. Mary Moraysik, for instance, nourishes her young tomato and broccoli plants with bucketfulls of her children's bath water. She and her husband, Robert, have no qualms about one day eating any soapy residue.

“Children are not known for their usage of soapy water anyway,” Mr. Moraysik said. “All they do is bring in the dirt on them, and we're just throwing it back out.”

The New York Times/Edward Hausner

Mary Moraysik of Ringwood, N.J., watering vegetables with cups of saved bath water