(erielack) Re: NJ place names > EL lines

[David Goessling <dgoessling_@_lucent.com>]

Peter Heimbach wrote:

If you travel up the P & D branch from Summit to Gladstone there are a 
few interesting names.

New Providence-because of the accident in a church, formerly Turkey Town.
Murray Hill
Berkeley Heights
Gillette -    not for razor blades
Sterling      For Lord Sterling of the Revolutionary War 
Millington
Lyons
Basking Ridge     First settlers found the deer sun bathing on a ridge.
Bernardsville
Mine Brook
Far Hills
Peapack
Gladstone   I doubt if it is for happy rocks.

 Any ideas on the rest?

Sure!

According to "Passaic Township - A Short History in Connection with The New Jersey Tercentennial 1664-1964":

Millington - "It is believed that Millington was named for the mills, [gristmill, sawmill and forge built by Solomon Boyle in the vicinity of 47 Old Mill Road in the middle 1700s] but no one knows by whom or in what year. Old maps reveal it must have received its name sometime between 1778 and 1833."

Gillette - [The owner of much of the property in this area in the 1850s was the Cornish family.] In 1870-71, George Howell was the engineer who surveyed for the construction of the West Line Railroad from Summit to Bernardsville. The railroad passed through the Cornish farm, and it was given a right of way for the tracks and the station. Mr. Howell decided to name this town "Gillette" to honor the Cornish family. He had married Rachel Gillette Cornish, and he chose his wife's middle name for this part of the Township." 

Stirling - actually spelled with two i-s

Murray Hill - some say this was originally called Murray's Hill, after the name of the owner. Others say it comes from the Manhattan Murray Hill, where AT&T/Bell had a big office, and AT&T (now Lucent) used that name when they bought the property to build Bell Labs. I know there's a book in the Bell Labs library (where I work) that explains this... I'll track it down.


Peapack - In one of John T. Cunningham's (grand old man of NJ history writers) books he gives Peapack as a bastardized Lene Lenape Indian word, but doesn't say much else.


I'll have to look carefully in some of the Charlton Beck books. He wrote a column for the Newark Evening News for many years on NJ history and legends, and in particular place names. Most have been collected in a number of books published by the Rutgers U. Press: The Roads of Home, Tales and Towns of Northern NJ, More 
Tales and Towns of Northern NJ, The Jersey Midlands, etc. I have most of them. 

Sadly, he seems to have done most of his traveling around in CNJ, LV and PRR country and didn't spend much time in Erie or Lackawanna land! He has a whole chapter about Glen Gardner (on the CNJ main) and how it was originally called Sodom because the residents were such sinners! But, nothing about Towaco. ;-)

Perhaps this lack of coverage had to do with the circulation of the paper? :-) Anyway, I'll take a look.

I also have a pamphlet someplace on Lene Lenape words. I'll check up on that as well.

dmg




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