Laker Pioneer

M O U N T A I N L A K E S

ML100 Centennial Newsletter*Briarcliff Edition 1

Laker Pioneers

IntroductionTo celebrate our community’s centennial, resident Patricia Reid Herold combed through hundreds of newspapers, interviewed scores of Laker residents and researched our town’s archive in order to complete the commemorative book Mountain Lakes, 1911-2011: One Hundred Years of Community. Using Herold’s fine work, we can learn about the hardships many Lakers faced during the first ten to fifteen years of the community’s existence.

This collection of documents places the reader in the shoes of pioneer Lakers who walked “along rough roads, past excavated stones and boulders, mud ruts and debris, material left

by workers and skeletons of unfinished houses” (Herold xiii).

This packet also tells the stories of pioneers who faced these issues head-on and created solutions to overcome them. These Lakers knew that they would have to work together and forge a community to tackle more than just problems like “inadequate electricity, murky tap water, and unreliable trolley service” (21). They also had to create an environment of shared interests, high culture and great friendships. This is their story, and we thank Mrs. Herold for bringing them to us.

Today, Mountain Lakes is one of the most desirable communities in New Jersey. Yet in 1911, the first Lakers moved into a town that was partially completed. What hardships did these early pioneers encounter and how did they overcome them?

Imagine Yourself as a Laker PioneerImagine yourself moving into Mountain Lakes in 1911. There are no other children on your block, but you plan to set out and find a friend by exploring this brand new community. What do you see as you head out into Herbert Hapgood’s Mountain Lakes experiment?

ML100 Centennial Newsletter Briarcliff Spring 2011

Classic image of Laker Pioneers celebrating 4th of July with a clambake.

M O U N T A I N L A K E S C E N T E N N I A L 1 9 1 1 - 2 0 1 1

2 ML100 Centennial Newsletter*Briarcliff Edition

In 1939, Halsey A. Frederick, Mayor of Mountain Lakes since 1932, and previously Councilman and Council President since 1929, wrote the following:

Mountain Lakes was incorporated as a Borough just fifteen years ago (in 1924). [Before then] our residential area was part of two townships -- Hanover and Boonton; our roads were bad; our water supply inadequate, with residents on water rations during dry seasons; our water mains too small for fire protection; our lake dams insecure; our only school a Hanover Township school in which we had little control; our children in the Boonton Township area not eligible to attend the school without special dispensation, and our pupils beyond the ninth grade obliged to commute to Morristown. Efforts to compel the Water

Company to increase its water were unavailing and practically nothing could be done to improve the roads, since township authorities repaired only the township roads, and the development company had all but collapsed. The whole situation was intolerable and incorporation as an independent municipality was the only solution. So we became a Borough.

In the fifteen years that have passed we have not only remedied the distressing conditions with which we previously were confronted but have added many desirable features for our convenience, comfort and safety. Perhaps most important of all we have, by agreements with the development company and by zoning, confirmed for the future the character of Mountain Lakes as a fine

residential park. Without these accomplishments and the improvements of these fifteen years there is grave doubt if we could have weathered the difficult nine years just passed and if our homes would have much value now. In retrospect, the stake which we have won seems large compared with its cost.

From the Mt Lakes Website http://www.mtnlakes.org/History/Reminices.htm

Document 1

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Document 3 (Herold, page 11)

On March 17th, 1911, when the (first residents) Mr. & Mrs. Luellen and their two children, Gerald, six, and Alice, three, moved into a brand new square house perched on a hill high above the railroad tracks, their address was Mountain Lakes, Boonton, New Jersey. But no mail was delivered (nor would it be until years later). No street signs or lights (other than kerosene lanterns on posts) guided their way along rough dirt roads. There was no school. No church. No store. No station to stop the trains that blew by between Boonton and Denville. No cars. And why would there be? There were practically no people. A little more than two months after the Luellens’ arrival, a head count came up with only twenty residents.

(The Luellens are pictured on the right.)

Document 4 John A. Garnaus recalls the first years of Mountain Lakes:

There were less than a half-dozen families in the community, no telephone, no gas or water supply, no educational, religious, or social facilities, and only about one mile of crude roadway. A path through the underbrush connected the Garnaus property…to the main roadway about one-half mile away. The family had to walk to a spring a quarter of a mile away to obtain water.

Document 5 Memorandum from Mountain Lakes developer Herbert J Hapgood (as it appears in Herold, 15)

From the Desk of HJH

8/20/19

Name: Holton

Order No.: 8974

I have written Major Kitchell as follows:

I am sorry your machine got stuck in the road. It was undoubtedly due to the wet weather and the road not getting settled. It usually takes several months for a road to get in shape. I have asked Mr. Holton to come and fix it up the best he can this week. The road is certainly made right, and when it finds itself, will be all right.

Document 2: 78 Ball Road



I was born in Mountain Lakes in my paternal grandparents’ home. A doctor came around to the house in those days. That was 89 Melrose Road. May 25, 1922. We later moved to 63 Laurel Hill Road (see above).

I remember Prospect being a dirt road and the elevation was also changed when it was paved, and I know it caused my Dad some problems, because it dropped it down about 10 feet and we had a big stone wall in front of the house which was undermined and he had to support that. And what is now North Briarcliff from Laurel Hill Road up to Lookout was an unimproved road. It

existed only on paper. There wasn’t any road there. It was called Vista Avenue but it was not a through road. You could walk it but not drive it. In wintertime we used to ski down it to Laurel Hill Road.

We used to sled on North Glen, starting at the intersection of North Briarcliff and Lookout, go down Lookout to North Glen, which was Addington Avenue at the time, all the way down to the Boulevard. The town used to put gravel or cinders on the road there to stop us from going out onto the Boulevard. On the other side of the Boulevard sledders primarily used Pollard Road. I

remember going down there once when it was icy and I had a young lady riding with me on my Flexible Flyer, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old at the time. I had on big gloves and the edges of the gloves scraped along the stonewall there.

David Higgins http://goo.gl/8ogCE

Document 6

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Document 7 Lila Houston (as told by Herold, p.22)

Our water supply had become unfit for use, and this was a condition which would allow of no delay. A little group of us made our way through the woods to the end of the big lake and there found a small pond from which our water supply came. It was covered with green scum and was full of mosquito larvae and frogs, and we came away really worried about the fate of our community…. As the weather grew warmer, the water coming through the pipes became so foul that we could not use it for bathing or washing dishes. We began to seek water for household water at springs, and we were fortunate if one was nearby. The spring in the yard of the house now occupied by Mr. Brown at 21 Larchdell Way furnished

us with water for cooking purposes for a time, until the frogs discovered it, too, and we discovered that the Dev. Co. used it as a water place for their houses. Baths were almost out of fashion that summer. We heard of a pure stream of water coming from a spring somewhere near the railroad tracks, and one morning before going to the trolley, Mr. Houston took two pails and with difficulty made his way over the hill and into the wild woods, and after a search found the spring and filled it with cool, pure water….

The summer was hot and the digging of the first artesian well was done under great difficulties. We heard with distress of broken pumps and men overcome with the heat, but the need was vital and the work went on. It is easy to imagine our rejoicing when a stream of pure, clear, wholesome water came from the faucets.

Document 8 Lila Houston (as told by Herold, p.22)Most early residents chose to occupy high ground rather than live near the water, apparently for good reason.

The lakes…made by the flooding in the low land, were of course full of decaying vegetation. An awful odor filled the air, driving many who would have otherwise bought lake front lots, back to the hills.



Document 9 (From http://goo.gl/UZsad )

It may come as a shock to the reader that there was a time in Mountain Lakes, as elsewhere, when roads were unpaved. Here, the paving frenzy peaked between 1926 and 1930, to accommodate everything from sleek Pierce Arrows to the Model-T Fords of the more fortunate, and less vulnerable. Model-T's, like their owners, were better mudders anyway. One day, before the asphalt avalanche, a young woman was thrown from her horse into a mud puddle which had been patiently waiting in front of our house for just such an occasion. After determining that nothing more than pride was damaged, and after securing her horse to a nearby tree, my father carried her into the house, depositing her on the couch for a brief recovery period, all of which was very exciting for this three-year old. Indeed, it was almost as exciting as the time the coal wagon, drawn by Dixon's best team, threw it's left-rear wheel on Valley Road. In this case, however, it was the Niagara of coal and the staccato epithets of the driver, (something about a cotter pin), that really caught my attention.

Document 10 Leslie H. & Ethel Backer (http://goo.gl/1tDxP)

The decision to send our few pieces of furniture to our new home by freight turned out to be very smart. With the help of the one and only George Esller from a nearby town who understood the roads and his horses, our furniture arrived safely from the freight station. Many of our new neighbors who moved into the development after we did, hired large motor vans which were soon up to their hubcaps in mud.

The day we moved was beautifully clear. We were seeing the countryside at its best. Of course, the two lakes were still in their embryo stage. The one nearest us was a swamp full of "peepers" and with the dam just being built, those "peepers" provided the first music we heard in our new home accompanied by the hum of the mosquitoes. Yes we had mosquitoes although we had been assured we were at too high an elevation for them to live. That first spring and summer they must have been flying higher than usual and they were the tiny kind that no ordinary wire netting could exclude, so we slept camper style under bed nets.

Of course, when we made an evening call (or visit), we carried a hand

lantern and left it on the front porch of the home we were visiting. I had very little fear when I walked the streets of our development at night to attend a community meeting or to visit a neighbor (something I could never do in the big city).

A grocer from a nearby town came through in the morning for orders to be delivered in the afternoon. Since only a few neighbors had installed telephones this was a very convenient way to be sure that you had ice at all times. We had to go to a nearby town on the trolley to buy our meat and our staples and it trained us to plan for a few days ahead before we made the trip.

The problems of establishing proper schooling for our children, a church and a community club for mutual fire and police protection kept us busy during the first fall.

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Document 10 Leslie H. & Ethel Backer (http://goo.gl/1tDxP) Continued

In the (advertisements) for our new development we were promised running city water. Well it ran through the pipes of our homes but as the pumping station was not completed, and the artesian well was being drilled, we doubted the purity of

the water. One of the neighbors was so doubtful that she even bought bottled spring water for her gold fish. Our drinking water was carried from nearby spring. Early every morning and after dinner in the evening the men of the community could be seen winding their way to the spring. Talk about a country store as a place to exchange gossip, we women knew that our spring could beat the

country store every time. Many a night my son drank warm, stale water so I could get him ready for bed while daddy was getting a fresh pail of water at the spring. Before the summer was over the well was drilled and the pumping station was completed so that we had good,fresh water in our homes and we still boast of the best drinking water in the state.

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S E Q U O I A C L U B


Document 11 Leslie H. & Ethel Backer ( http://goo.gl/1tDxP )That first winter passed quickly and with the arrival of our second spring many more lights could be seen as one new neighbor and then another moved into their new homes. The building of these new homes was a most interesting process to watch. Hand labor was plentiful and many rocks covered the area. The blasting of the larger rocks, however, was a terrifying thing with an anxious eye being kept on the plaster walls and ceilings. The laborers were a friendly lot, quick-speaking Italians, soft voiced Sallians and guttural Russians. The Russian "wood chopper" was a personage to inspire fear in you when you passed him on the road with his high boots, his Russian smock and his axe in his belt. However, a quiet, kindly man when you got to know him.

Document 12 Fran Fleming ( http://goo.gl/YfvNQ )

In May 1928, the Mountain Lakes Dramatic Guild was founded by Arthur Stringer and a small group of local people dedicated to the idea that good amateur theatre holds an important place in the life of a community. Arthur Stringer was a world-famous author and poet who had moved to town in 1921 and resided at 140 Laurel Hill Road. He was one of the many artists and celebrities who lived in Mountain Lakes in the 1920's that gave the town its early reputation as a cultural (and somewhat Bohemian) community.

A month after its founding, the Dramatic Guild held an organizational meeting at the home of Mrs. Jennie Robertson who lived at 171 Boulevard in Mountain Lakes. A charter was drafted setting out the Guild's purposes and Mr. Stringer was selected as its first President. Work was immediately begun to renovate an out-building on Mrs. Robertson's

property that had formerly been used to raise chickens to be used for their first theatrical production that same year.

The stage was a raised platform in a wooden enclosure, also now gone, attached on the right side of the building. The audience sat inside and looked through a wide opening in the side of the building onto the stage. Dressing rooms for the cast and costume & prop storage were on the second floor.

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Document 13 Ralph Wells (http://goo.gl/43qib )

My family and I came to Mountain Lakes in the Spring of 1921 and at that time there was very little public transportation. We had to rely on the trolley as Boonton was the only place we could shop. Living on Pollard Rd., we had to walk: Morris Ave. to Crane Rd., then Crane Rd. to the Boulevard. It was there that we boarded the trolley to Boonton. In those days we had to get our hair cuts in Boonton and go to the doctor and dentist. We also had to do some of our shopping. This all had to be done after school and coming home it was dark. I remember the motorman calling out the streets as we came home.

Document 14 (Herold, 20-21)

As for mail – the pioneers’ routine bordered on comical. Responsibility for picking up fell to the men – commuters. Arriving home form Manhattan at the Boonton Station in the evening, they’d ride a trolley car (if one actually met them on time) up Main Street to the Boonton Post Office, jump off, dash in and out, and then run to try to catch the trolley before it disappeared up the hill. Those who couldn’t manage this grab and dash either waited for the next streetcar or hoofed it home, either via Main Street and Boulevard or, depending on where they lived, down what they called the Cinder, the DL&W railroad track.

Document 15 Larry Lowenthal( http://goo.gl/43qib )

The last trolley ran in Morris County on February 4, 1928.

And so passed the era of the Boulevard trolley. It lasted only 17 years. No more moonlight excursions to Lake Hopatcong, no more placing firecrackers on the tracks on 4th of July or greasing the rails on Halloween, no more children pulling the trolley pole off the wires causing the trolley to come to a halt and the engineer having to come out angrily and replace it, no more electricity arcing across the wires on a snowy night. The Boulevard trolley became only a memory.

The Trolly in Mountain Lakes

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Document 16 Jack Lee( http://goo.gl/qn5pt )

I had my ninth birthday in Mountain Lakes. I think we went there in 1918-1919. I was in third grade I believe. One neighbor was Sidney Austin who lived across the street and up a block from where we did. His father was a naval officer... (who) died in the house fire about six or seven years after we moved there. Fires in those days in Mountain Lakes were pretty bad because there wasn't much fire protection.

The roads were all dirt except for the main boulevard and maybe several other streets like Briarcliff Road but they had rocks on the side. In the winter time the roads would freeze and if it melted in between there'd be ruts in the road. Riding a bike was a real horror story. Most people didn't have cars in those days. We walked to school; walked back again, even came home for lunch. It was a good mile or more walk to the old stone school house from where we lived.

Probably the commonest sport was to kick stones from along the sides of the dirt road and heave them. I got quite accurate throwing stones. I remember later on Oakley Dutton, a girl in my class, told me years later that she always liked me best because I was so good at throwing rocks.

Document 17 Elsa MueserWhile we were building, our building architect and our building contractor went bankrupt, and we were left with a skeleton, no stairs going up, and no heat, no electricity, no nothing. But finally, after living around in other people's homes for about three or four months, we moved into this skeleton. I had the new baby, and I slept in the garage with the new baby, and my husband and little girl went up the ladder to the second floor.

We had to get water from the lake, to build. I remember bathing the baby in the little breakfast room, because that was the sunniest place in the house. I had to wait for the sun. By that time we got electricity, we got everything but a staircase.

Document 18 Mountain Lakes News, July 6, 1917

Document 19 (Herold p19)Mountain Lakes was dependent on Boonton, which supplied virtually all its necessities: groceries, transportation, laborers, household help, entertainment, and socializing outside the small cluster of early settlers.

Document 20 (Herold p 20-21)Peter Kanouse…came from Boonton with our grocery order, and he and the Fred Gordon Company braved bad weather and bad roads to supply us daily with food. Peddlers also came to the door with ice, coal, kerosene, milk, and other wares. When it snowed, the Stickle family (some of whose descendants still live in Boonton Township) delivered milk by sleigh, occasionally pulling the sleds of a few lucky Mountain Lakes children behind them.

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Document 21 ( http://goo.gl/2Kber )

The Blizzard of 1914 was a killer storm. There were 50 mph gale winds. The town was virtually isolated for days. Four men nearly died attempting to walk home from the train station after work. They had taken the 5:00 train home from NY City and did not arrive at the Mountain Lakes train station until after 11:30 that night. Everyone walked home in those days. They tried to walk home in the wind and cold and nearly didn't make it.

Document 22 (Herold p29)The Great Blizzard of 1914, with its five to six foot snowdrifts would leave Hapgood’s development without lights for a month, or that first World War would sap him of manpower, construction materials, and coal, though he kept one hundred tons on reserve in case of emergency.

Document 23 (Herold p19)Accidents along the Boulevard were frequent, because at least four modes of transportation collided (often literally) there: the Morris County Traction Company trolley on the hill side; horses pulling wagons or buggies on the road; primitive automobile-mainly manned by hobbyists; and pedestrians. In June, a foreman, was killed in an accident with a horse; on July 27, 1917, the Mountain Lakes News announced the death of Lloyd Kayhart, “an architect

of Mountain Lakes, Inc., killed in a collision.” Mr. Kayhart, only twenty-one years old, was traveling on a motorcycle when he ran into a horse-drawn wagon, while swerving to avoid the trolley. (See below.)

Document 24 (Herold p24) Mountain Lakes Police Notice, July 23, 1920 (See on right)To PedestriansAlways walk on the right side of the road, allowing autos to pass on the left. If you are run down by an autoist while walking in the centre or on the wrong side of the road, it will affect your claim for damages.

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Document 25 (Herold p14)On May 26th, 1911 with Luellen acting as chair, men and women formed a residents’ club, to work “in perfect harmony with Mr. Hapgood and his worthy associates.” The minutes of their meeting, gave the name, The Mountain Lakes Association, and informed every resident of its immediate goal: “to have this section one of the most beautiful spots in this part of the country.” As they appointed themselves watchdogs, the club’s organizers paid Hapgood a compliment, saying he and his associates deserved “the highest praise for the marvelous work that they have thus far accomplished.”

Document 26 Mountain Lakes News Editorial, May 4, 1917

Communities have character just as individuals have character. There is such a thing as community habits just as there are personal habits…

Last summer, it must be admitted, the bathing suit was a little too prominent on the public thoroughfares at times. A visitor coming to Mountain Lakes on Sunday, to visit one of four neighbors, remarked with a special criticism upon the washing hanging out on clotheslines over Sunday. Some

of our vacant lots can be very much improved in appearance by keeping them clear of debris.

The News thinks that these limitations have been largely due to lack of close co-operation. We have not yet learned to work together…. All we want to do now is to remind ourselves that we are an infant community developing habits and character which will perpetuate themselves in the future.

Document 27 ML Association Committee on Road Improvement, June 1917On announcing an assessment of ten dollars per property owner for roads, plus an additional fee for “auto owners,” the committee said: “We believe this improvement of the roads will mean an average savings of ten dollars per family each year for shoes alone, not to mention skirts, and the comfort and convenience of good roads…”

Document 28 Mountain Lakes News Editorial, May 18, 1917: A Clean Up WeekThe natural beauty of Mountain Lakes has no counterpart within commuting distance of New York. The beauty of our surroundings can be marred however, by untidy habits. We realize the problem, especially on the part of Mountain Lakes, Incorporated. “The company” is under pressure to get its houses built, and we admit the difficulty of clearing up as they go along. Much would be gained however if sometime in the near future we could have a cleanup week movement, which ought to include the vacant lots. Each householder might agree to clean up the lots adjoining his territory.



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Document 30 (Herold p22-5)

On top of the muddy water, which was in short supply, residents complained of slow trolleys that missed the Boonton trains and impassable roads. All were rallying points for the new Association. Houston and Luellen led the others in pressuring Mountain Lakes, Inc. to remedy these problems. By the end of July, Hapgood had made some progress.

Mountain Lakes Association members also loved parties; so much so that the Boonton Paper accused its new neighbors of having a disease it called club-it is.

Document 31 (Herold, p 24)

In the year after the Luellen’s arrival, a vital settlement had been established ...and Mountain Lakes began to assert itself. The executives, business owners, musicians, and writers, who moved in with their families, created a way of life in their country outpost: fishing, canoeing, horseback riding, ice skating, coasting, soon automobiling for fun, creating and listening to music, staging dramatic productions, and above all, forming club after club.

Document 32 (Herold, p. 89)

In March 1923, the Association issued a pamphlet, Mountain Lakes Today and Tomorrow, scolding residents for shirking their civic duties and miscellaneous bad behaviors by noting: too few residents (only fifty-two) voted in the February school election; too many residents neglected to pay overdue snow removal bills; and some residents were taking in boarders, adding kitchens, renting flats, and failing to see the difference between keeping chickens and donkeys. (Poultry being the Association’s clear preference.)

Document 33 (Herold, p. 86)

R. E. Scholz, of 8 Barton Road, painted an almost chaotic picture, complaining of “dog running around loose without muzzle, destroying garden shrubs…. Chickens crowing and cackling all hours of the day and night kept in a dirty filthy coop with odor of same will sicken you on a hot, damp, and sultry day breeding rats and mice by the thousands.”



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Published: May 24, 1914

Copyright © The New York Times

DOCUMENT 35



Using this Document-Based QuestionThis activity is based on a series of collected primary and secondary sources that allow students to group documents to answer both parts of the DBQ task: What were some of the challenges that Laker pioneers faced and what solutions did they devise to overcome these problems? Possible document groupings are identified below:RoadsDocuments 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10 & 16.

Stripped landscapes & constant constructionDocuments 2,11 & 17.

TransportationDocuments 3, 9, 13-15 (Trolley), 23 & 24.

SnowDocuments 6, 21 & 22.

Lack of storesDocuments 3,10, 19 & 20.

Water & Mosquitos Documents 1, 4, 7, 8, 10, 17 & 18.

Solution: ML Association Document 26, 27, 30, 32 & 34.

Solution: ClubsDocuments 12, 30, 31 & 34.

Solution: Other ImprovementsDocument 1 & 28.

ML100 School LiaisonsKris Barlow — Chair of ML100 Education SubcommitteeFrank Sanchez — School District Liaison Missy Cidron — Wildwood Elementary Dennis Posner — Briarcliff Middle School Jennifer Peifly — Briarcliff Middle SchoolPatti McElduff — Mountain Lakes High School Carol Pinto — Mountain Lakes High School

Much thanks to the ML Board of Education, Dr. John Kazmark, Dr. Anne Mucci, ML100 Chair Stephanie Hoopes Halpin, ML archivist Pat Rusak, all of the ML100 Education Subcommittee members, Stickley Museum Education Director Vonda Givens, and all of the ML teachers who have incorporated the Centennial including Christopher Johnson, Jen Peifly, Dennis Posner, Linda Aldrich, Ken White, and Jerry Price. Also thank you to MLHS students who helped in putting this newsletter together including Sarah Bozzo and Nyna Mund.

Funded in part by the Mountain Lakes Ed FoundationThank you so much for your continued support of our educational program!

-Frank Sanchez

The ML100 Education ConnectionThe Mountain Lakes School District has always been a central element of our community. That is why the ML100 Education Subcommittee hoped that the schools would be a major part of this year’s centennial celebration. Under the leadership of Stephanie Hoopes Halpin and Kris Barlow, the committee sought assistance from Superintendent John Kazmark who also asked for teacher and student support.

Building principals were fortunate that many incredible educators volunteered to incorporate the centennial in the numerous projects they do each year. We have been

impressed with the Wildwood students who designed township flags and who created incredible “Real Books” Hapgoods. At Briarcliff, students interviewed Laker alumni about teen life from the 1950s and beyond. Sixth grade students are also exploring the history of the community’s water. There is also a PEP class in which students are interviewing Laker alumni. At Mountain Lakes High School, art students designed The Craftsman magazine covers inspired by Gustav Stickley. Technology classes updated the old ML history books used by the Wildwood students. Drafting & Design students analyzed original blueprints to create their own Hapgood model home.

Of course, we look forward to seeing even more spectacular projects (including Empty Bowls on April 27th) as 2011 comes to a close.