Van Saun Park

[ramaporunner]

Hey Everyone,
I'm a student from Ramapo College and I'm doing a project on Van Saun Park in Paramus. I need the history of the park and how it basically changed from just being a parcel of woods to currently having a zoo and huge playgrounds and such. If anyone could help me out with the history of it I would really appreciate it! Thanks!

[Stanley Kober]

Call the park at 201-262-3771 and they should be able to help out or at least give you the names of the county folks that might have that information.  I believe it's now called the Bergen County Zoological Park in Paramus.  Here is the url if you need it---http://www.co.bergen.nj.us/parks/
I prefer the old name of Van Saun Park since that's what I grew up with... but why get in the way of progress...too many other more important historical battles to wage.
You also might want to try the Bergen County Historical Society's Research Room in the library at Felician College (after all this is the BCHS MB    ).  They are open on Wednesdays from about 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., I believe.  The guy Steve Wiegl in the library is very knowledgable and helpful.

Stan

[just watching]

This is also a subject matter that I am interested in.  I've heard all sorts of rumors over the years, but cannot validate them.  One was that the original idea was to build this park in Hackensack in the 1930's, but it didn't materialize.  I think the big push came in the 1950's, and most of the land was a farm property owned by the Van Saun family.

After it was decided that the park would be in River Edge and Paramus, I was told that the plan was for the main entrance to be on Route 4.  But the land between Route 4 and Howland Ave was never purchased for parkland.  If this rumor is true, we are left with a smaller Van Saun than originally envisioned.

Another rumor that I heard several times (which makes it more likely to be true) was that the preservation of a place called "Pompodore" was the main impetus behind the purchase of lands in River Edge and Paramus that was to become Van Saun.   But in the end, Pompodore was not purchased.  Pompodore was located along Van Saun Creek just south of the park, near Brown Circle.  There was a small dam with a pond that was once used as a swimming hole. 

Yes, this dam and pond is still there today, although it is so silted in that it is not so deep any more. It is nestled between houses on Brown Circle and a synagogue in River Edge. This pond may have something to do with a Reservoir on the hill in River Edge that was an early water source for the Hackensack Water Company.  The Reservoir site on the hill is now criss-crossed with streets and houses, but it's on old maps. Old records state that water was pumped from the Hackensack River up the hill to the reservoir, but I simply don't believe it. I don't believe they used tidal water for drinking, or that the pipe crossed Kinderkamack Road.  I think that the Pompodore pond along Van Saun Creek was the water source.  And there are the rusted ruins of water works which remain there today at what is left of Pompodore, as further evidence.

Before the creation of Route 4, trails led south from Pompodore to the northwest corner of Hackensack.  Many youth from Hackensack and Maywood made the trek, not much more than half a mile, to this swimming hole. Supposedly it was a very popular destination in the hot months.  This seems inconceivable to us now in 2008, but for youth to walk 1/2 mile or a mile through woods and rural terrain to reach a destination is no big deal at all.  I heard this story directly from one of the swimmers of Pompodore around 1990.  She was an old lady who lived her entire life in the same house on Elm Street in Maywood.  She talked about crossing Coles Brook behind her house, as a child, to what is know the vicinity of Byrne Street in Hackensack. She then walking north generally along a trail east of Coles Brook paralleling the brook all the way north to what is now Staib Park.  Part of this trail still exists as the main trail in the Borg's Woods Nature Preserve, she said, and that it is an Indian trail hundreds of years old. And then the trail crossed Coles Brook through or near what is now the abandoned 10-plex theatre in Paramus, then directly north through woods to Pompodore. Again, that was before Route 4 and all the commercial development.  She truly lamented all the development that has occured, and she talked in a very nostalgic manner about Pompodore.  Hackensack historian George Scudder also talked of  Pompodore as an almost idyllic place, and of his treks on dirt trails to reach it.

I know that the facilities and roadways in Van Saun Park were completed in phases.  The main entrance off Forest Ave quickly reaches a "Y" intersection. The left side of the "Y" was created before the right side. The right (south) side leads to the large pond that was created in the park, reportedly to substitute for the fact that Pompodore was not purchased.  I would care not to reveal why I know this particular detail, because it is a very personal matter. When the right side was finally opened, there were large mounds of dirt all along the roadway, and there was considerable intrigue and anticipation by kids and adults of what park facilities would be created there.  I would be very interested to know when the left (north) and right (south) sides of the "Y" intersection were opened to traffic.

[Albert]

There are other references to "Pompador", Van Saun, and "Washington Spring" in George Scudder's recollections of the area called "Fairmount 1915" available here:

http://www.hackensacknow.com/Fairmount2_1915.pdf

Scroll to page 44 in the acrobat file, section 4. Don't go by the page numbers in the margins.  Unfortunately, the text is not searchable.  Worth a look, especially if you are interested in Hackensack history. 

Another work by Scudder called "Historic Facts about Hackensack" is also available here: http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php?topic=882.0

[Steenrapie]

     Howland Avenue divided the farms of miller Cornelius Van Saun to the south and Christian Dederer to the north. Hendrick Banta lived west of Mill Creek. The Continental Army moved into Bergen County in August 1780 to forage for food and to await the French army and fleet for a campaign to drive the British from New York City. From September 4th to the 20th, 1780, about 14,000 American troops encamped on Kinderkamack ridge. Hendrick Banta sold them cider from his mill. His ten-year-old son Cornelius saw Washington three times on his horse. His presence here gave rise to the name of the Washington Spring.

      Cherry Hill in River Edge rises 113 feet above sea level and overlooks lowlands to the east, south and west. Beyond the shallow swale where Van Saun Park is now found, yet another ridge rises. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, this was “the hill commonly called the Cacel Rugh at the road [now Howland Avenue] which leads from the New Bridge to Sluckup.” Kachgel Ruygte derives from Kachgel (meaning stove) and ruygte (meaning a thicket, bramble-bushes or shavings of wood) and translates as Stove-Kindling. Several living springs feed brooks that descend the narrow vale between ridges, concentrating in Van Saun Mill-Pond before contributing their commingled waters to Cole’s Brook and the Hackensack. This hollow between the hills was anciently known as Sluckup, but changed to the more poetic Spring Valley in 1832. Sluckup has resisted interpretation— it was even humorously suggested (more than a century ago) that the place earned its name when a cow “slucked up” a farmer’s linen coat from a fence. But the Bantas, one of the earliest families to farm this valley of springs, hailed from Friesland on the North Sea. The Frisian language is Scandinavian in origin, more closely resembling Old English than Dutch. Old Norse had a word, slakki (slack, in English) to describe a small valley or boggy hollow. Long ago, beasts of the forest drew near to drink the cool stream; they in turn attracted predators. A wolf-pit reportedly was located east of Spring Valley Road, near the confluence of the upper branches of the Mill Brook, and within the present confines of Van Saun Park.
     Exactly when one of the Van Sauns built a stone dam in the hollow below the conjunction of several spring brooks and erected a gristmill is unrecorded but on May 1, 1750, neighbor Jan Banta, devised “all the rest of my land lying on the west side of a run of water called the Muelekel [Mill Creek]” to his son Cornelius Banta. By the time of the Revolution, the road to Sluckup (now Howland Avenue) ran upon the division line between Jacob Van Saun’s farm to the south and son-in-law Christian Dederer’s farm to the north, heading west from Kinderkamack Road over the crest of Brower’s Hill, then descending into the dell where it crossed Van Saun Mill-Pond on a crude wooden bridge over the mill dam.
Tax Ratables for New Barbadoes Precinct identify Cornelius Van Saun as owner of a gristmill from September 1779 through at least 1797. He is not listed as owner in September 1802, having died in that year; a deed then referred to “the mill lot belonging to Luke Van Saun.” It was sold to Nicholas Romine before 1815.
     During September 1780, Continental soldiers encamped in the fields along Kinderkamack road from New Bridge northward to Westwood. Hendrick Banta owned a cider mill at Steenraupie (River Edge) and sold a barrel of cider to the troops “every other day.” Cornelius’ grandfather, then fourteen years old, “saugh Washington three times on his hors.” The Commander-in-Chief’s presence hereabout gave rise to the name of the Washington Spring in Van Saun Park.
      On May 5, 1834, David I. Christie and John W. Banta, the executors of David W. Banta, deceased, conveyed two lots of land to Jacob I. Terhune for $1,350. The second lot included in this sale comprised seven acres of woodland, “commonly called Wolf Hole,” which was situated between the upper branches of the Van Saun Millbrook, extending from the west side of the brook flowing through Van Saun Park (which forms the boundary between River Edge and Paramus), westward across Forest Avenue to Spring Lane.

In 1815, the Sluckup road (now Howland Avenue) crossed Van Saun Pond on a “bridge across the dam of Nicholas Romine.” A tax list for 1820 indentifies Nicholas Romine as owner of a grist and saw mill at this location.
Nicholas Romine died in October 1821, leaving his wife Sally with “full and quiet possession” of his real and personal estate for so long as she remained his widow, after which it was to be divided equally among his three sons: Jacob, Nicholas and Abraham. In May 1827, Nicholas’ executors sold “his homestead farm at Sluckup with house, Barn, Grist Mill, saw mill and improvements,” situated on the south side of the road from Stone Arabia (Steenrapie) to Sluckup, to William I. Ackerman for $3,000. William Ackerman and his wife Rachel sold the same property (62 acres) to Peter C. Debaun and Albert C. Debaun of Harrington Township in October 1831. Peter Debaun immediately sold his half-interest to his brother Albert for $600. Albert C. Debaun died in August 1853, devising his farm and personal property to his wife and after her demise or remarriage, to his daughter Marie, wife of John M. Terhune. Neither his will nor an inventory made of his possessions makes any reference to a grist or saw mill, so it it possible that he disposed of the same, either by lease or sale, before his death. In any event, at some time shortly before or after Albert Debaun’s death, the mill property came into the possession of Jacob Henry Van Saun. The Corey map of 1860 shows “J. H. Van Saun” living next to the grist and saw mill. The old mill closed down during the Civil War and by 1876 the machinery had been mostly removed. By 1902, Jacob H. Van Saun’s ice house stood at the outlet of the pond. According to report in The Bergen County Democrat, J. H. Van Saun & Company gathered a nine-inch cut of ice from Spring Lake at Spring Valley on February 15, 1906. The commercial ice industry declined with advances in the manufacture of artificial ice and the spread of home refrigerators. This millpond, later used for the ice harvest, became known as Pompadour Pond, apparently from the resemblance of wet hair, combed back, to the popular 1950s men's hairstyle. It was supposedly a favorite swimming hole for skinny dipping (males only!).