photos courtesy of PW
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The Smith family in 1920 photo at West Saddle River road house. Florence standing in the middle would later move on and get married to August Schedler.
BUT DOES IT HAVE A JAPANESE KOI POND? https://theridgewoodblog.net/but-does-it-have-a-japanese-koi-pond/
Oh I guess that makes it historic.
To be honest, nothing makes it historic other than Susan’s determined effort to make it so. We had many truly historic houses in Ridgewood that have been allowed to either deteriorate or added onto. Susan was given an article that said “A” battle had occurred there–just a plain old battle, one of many during the war, and the paper she quoted actually said “On the hill overlooking the river”–but, of course, the Schedler land would obviously also have been fought over. The house was completely rebuilt using newly manufactured “authentic materials”.. I watched them destroy totally usable shutters..and only the inner four rooms were there during the war. They were completely enclosed by the later additions. So what you seen is a creative interpretation of what a house of that period “Might have looked like”, though the original one looked nothing like the new version.
Now, after adding all the soil–much probably contaminated by auto dealers and gas stations–from under all the new construction downtown, they suggest “looking for artifacts”. We had actually found an “artifact”–an old boot that could be worn on either foot which was typical of revolutionary boots–on our property on Queens Court but, regretfully, didn’t think to save it. We also found a very old dime, again misplaced somewhere. Such might be found on the untouched part of the property but one won’t find anything by going in with a backhoe and tearing up the remaining trees and soil for the massive field they wish to construct. The house alone consumed massive amounts of partially unacknowledged expenditures (?) and now it will be “in the way” of any athletic construction. Let’s hope equally massive amounts of money won’t be spent in trying to change what was agreed upon before. After 61 years in Ridgewood for me and a lifetime for my husband. I almost hate to say that: “The way Ridgewood is going, I may actually be glad to be leaving it.”
you forgot that George Washington’s army camped out there after the battles of Trenton and Princeton while a court marshal was going on at the Paramus reformed church