THE HISTORY

Chapter One

The Seed Planted By the Wayside

(1896 -1914)

Chapter Two

One Church or Two

(1914 - 1929)

Chapter Three

The Open Door

(1929 - 1939)

Chapter Four

The Crown of Glory

(1939 - 1968)

Chapter Five

The Troubled Waters

(1968 - 1989)

- FOREWARD - 

       This history depends primarily upon prior histories and the Vestry minutes account for the depth and breadth of this Parish's life. Nor does this history name all of those who through the years have rendered time and valuable services to Christ by their presence and participation in this Church. Those who are named, will, I trust, be viewed by the reader as representative of the many who are not named. Recall that in the Divine Economy those that are unknown will one day be well known and those that are last will be first.

       I wish to especially thank Yvonne Ristich for her labors at the word processor that produced this document.

 The Reverend Daniel W. Kreller

- THE SEED PLANTED BY THE WAYSIDE -

       St. John suggests in his Apocalypse that every church have its own angel. We might think of such an angel as the prevailing spirit of a particular congregation, which abides over generations and through the changes of times and seasons. If this were so, I would like to believe that the Angel of St. Bartholomew's is an angel of charity, mercy, and good works, for it was charity which gave rise to the congregation of worshippers which eventually became this church. In the earliest days, around the turn of the century, this charity was embodied in two women, Hope Winans and Amanda Hawes. At the turn of the century Ho-Ho-Kus was a very different place from what it is today. Some would call it idyllic, with its rich well-watered and beautiful meadowlands. There were farms still in operation and the racetrack built in 1879 was the site of fairs sponsored by the Bergen County Agricultural Association. It is said that Mrs. Herman De Vore, grandmother of Marge McKenzie, Lavinia Kingsland and Katherine Weyble, who had been active members in recent years, used to always take first prize for darning at these fairs. Well to do city dwellers were also attracted to the pastoral tranquillity of Ho-Ho-Kus and a few built fine summer homes in and around the town. They could enjoy the best of both worlds since the Erie railroad established its passenger service in the 1870's and it provided an easy commute to the Hoboken ferries.

       But there was another side to Ho-Ho-Kus. It was also a mill town. Dams had been built along the Ho-Ho-Kus brook even before the nineteenth century and the waterpower thus harnessed supplied more than enough energy for a half dozen mills. Remnants of the largest dam, built by John Jake Zabriskie, can still be seen opposite the present post office. It created a lake, which was fifty feet deep in places and extended up into Waldwick. The Rosencrantz family was the first to establish a mill to produce cotton goods, which were sold in Philadelphia. Other mills produced silk goods, paper, paints, lacquers, film and, of course, there were several saw and gristmills. The only mill buildings which survive to this day are known as the bleachery and are located at the end of Hollywood Avenue. Those who lived in the area prior to 1950 can remember the brook to be less than charming. It was polluted by many industrial wastes and gave off an odor, which few found compelling.

       The mills brought prosperity to a few local families. Three grand homes, the Hermitage, the Rosencrantz house, and the Mansion House (now the Ho-Ho-Kus Inn) testify to the wealth of the mill owners. The mill workers, however, did not fare as well. They lived in small crowded tenant houses provided for them by the mill owners. How many mill workers actually lived in Ho-Ho-Kus is difficult to say. At one time, before the turn of the century, the Rosencrantz and Zabriskie mills employed one hundred hands. In 1900 the population of Ho-Ho-Kus was a mere two hundred persons. Thus, it is probably safe to assume that, along with the farmers, the mill owners, and the summer residents from the city, the mill workers were a significant portion of the inhabitants of the town. It is because of these mill workers that our church now exists.

       Episcopalians had been well serviced for many years at Christ Church, Ridgewood, which had been established in 1864. In fact Elijah Rosencrantz was instrumental in its founding, some say because he objected to the Dutch Reformed Church's stance on slavery. Something prompted him to defect from the Old Paramus Church where his family had been members. That church opposed slavery, whereas the Episcopal Church did not. Whatever the reason, in the midst of the Civil War, Christ Church was founded. For years Episcopalians from Ho-Ho-Kus, Saddle River, and surrounding towns traveled to Ridgewood for services. Occasionally, some Pastoral Office would be conducted in Ho-Ho-Kus, perhaps because the Rector of Christ Church lived in the Mansion House from 1885 until 1901. The house was rented to the Christ Church after the owner, John Zabriskie, drowned in the very lake created by his dam. For example, the first recorded Confirmation dates to 1897 when Bishop Leighton Coleman of Delaware confirmed Lavinia and Bessie Rosencrantz. Presumably, this took place at the Hermitage or at the Mansion House where the Reverend Edward Horace Cleveland resided. The earliest funeral dates to 1895 when Mr. Cleveland buried Bertha Victor, daughter of a prominent Ho-Ho-Kus resident, Orville Victor. The earliest recorded baptism dates to 1894 and the earliest recorded marriage took place in 1898. But apart from such pastoral functions no worship services were held in Ho-Ho-Kus under the direction of the clergy until 1900 or thereabouts.

       Much activity was taking place, however. In 1900 Amanda Hawes established a sewing school for young girls in her home at 222 Franklin Turnpike. Pictures of the mill workers, which survive, make plain that most were women and young girls. Education for women, even in the public schools, was hardly a priority at the time Mrs. Hawes's sewing class was, apparently, a combination of sewing instruction and rudimentary schooling, with some moral and religious teaching mixed in. Her pupils were drawn from the families of the mill workers. Six years before, Hope Winans had begun a similar work among the same families. She was a nurse, however, and was first drawn to these families by their poor state of health. Wages for the workers were typically low and most could not afford either proper food or clothing. The workday was long and the conditions of work arduous. Much sickness among the workers and their families was the result. At first, Miss Winans devoted herself to the care of these families by nursing them and collecting food and clothing for them. But soon she enlarged her work to include a Sunday School for, as she observed, "there was much that needed correction as regards morals." In this work she enlisted the aid of Florence Victor, who played the piano. Since Hope and Florence were Episcopalians, the services were conducted from the Prayer Book (1892 version) and held in the afternoon, as was the common practice. At the first service only two boys attended, but by the next Sunday ten children attended, along with several mothers. This Sunday School continued to prosper.

       As the Sunday School prospered, the small hall, which had been secured for this purpose, proved inadequate. Thus, the search for more suitable facilities began. The search was happily and quickly concluded when Florence Victor spoke to her father Orville. He had been maintaining, at his own expense, the schoolhouse he and others had constructed when the Ho-Ho-Kus Valley Educational Association was formed in 1871. Orville Victor was a man of some distinction, so much so that the township was named after him in those days. Trained as a lawyer he became an author and editor. His History of the Southern Rebellion brought him great national prominence. He was also the editor of Beadle's Dime Novels. His wife, Victoria, had achieved acclaim of her own as the writer of Peck's Bad Boy. No doubt, this literate man, and others like him, viewed the local public school, which then met in the present Borough Hall, as lacking the quality necessary for the education of their children. Thus, he along with Elijah Rosencrantz, Joe Jefferson, the famous actor, Richard Hawes, husband to the aforementioned Amanda Hawes, and other notable citizens from the area, started a private school capable of preparing its students for college. Florence Victor's brother attended this school and then went on to graduate with high honors from Lafayette College. At some later date the school ceased to function. In 1901 Orville Victor bought the building at a tax sale for sixteen dollars and ninety-one cents for a term of thirty years. On the document of this sale the building's use was described as a clubhouse, perhaps for the golf association which in 1897 had laid out nine holes on the slopes between Franklin Turnpike and Sheridan Avenue. In 1901 this association abandoned the Ho-Ho-Kus course and leased land in Ridgewood on the site of the present Ridgewood Country Club. Thus, in 1901 the schoolhouse was not in use. This was probably about the time that Hope Winans and Florence Victor were looking for more suitable quarters. Orville Victor consented to their request and the Valley Schoolhouse became the new home of their Sunday School.

       It is not quite clear when these good and charitable works, conducted under the direction of Amanda Hawes and Hope Winans, began to converge and coalesce into what was to become the Ho-Ho-Kus Mission Association. Perhaps as early as 1899 the Reverend Edward Cleveland had been invited to conduct services once a month and then twice a month in conjunction with the Sunday School. Such services ministered not only to the children of the mill workers but also to the adult Episcopalians living in the area. Then, in 1903 Amanda Hawes discontinued her sewing school, no doubt because her daughter, Lucy, married Arthur Patton that year. Lucy had helped her mother with the school. After the wedding, which was held at the Hawes house and presided over by Mr. Cleveland, the couple moved into the Tolles house, a noteworthy old Dutch farmhouse that used to stand on Franklin Turnpike. It was in this house on the evening of February 20, 1904 that Mr. Cleveland met with Hope Winans, Amanda Hawes, Arthur Patton and his new bride Lucy Hawes, Martha Hawes, Mrs. Horace Enos, Mrs. J. D. Staples, Mrs. Van Sant, David Cox, and Fred Woodruff to formalize the relationship between Christ Church and the "work in Ho-Ho-Kus." The Ho-Ho-Kus Mission Association was born. Dr. Horace Enos was chosen as the President of the Association and Arthur Patton for Secretary and Treasurer. With about one hundred dollars on hand it was thought that three hundred dollars would be sufficient for the yearly expenses. Solicitation of interested parties was begun and various fundraisers were planned including a fair and a musical. The Association requested that the clergy of Christ Church conduct morning services on the third Sunday of the month as well as the two afternoon services on the second and fourth Sundays. Paid lay readers were also used to conduct services either in addition to or in the absence of the Christ Church clergy. So things continued for the next ten years.

       At least one of our current parishioners can recall those Mission days. Mildred Freund lived in Waldwick in 1911 and, as a girl of four, used to walk down the Turnpike to Sunday School with her older sister. Marge McKenzie, who only this past year moved to North Carolina with her daughter, was baptized in the Mission Chapel on November 18, 1906 along with her three brothers. She was six years old at the time. Her parents, John and Blanche De Vore, had become active members. Blanche, in particular, carried on the charitable works of the congregation and was the treasurer of an aid association whose object was to help anyone in need in this vicinity. Donations received were expended on such items as food, clothing, shoes and shoe repairing, medicine, milk, coal, and loans.

       The congregation in those days must have been a diverse lot. It is hard to imagine the ill educated or uneducated mill and railroad workers (from Waldwick), of little social standing or economic means, worshipping together with well educated and well to do mill owners, brokers, and assorted professionals, some of whom had high social standing and reputation. Had the Kingdom of God arrived in Ho-Ho-Kus? One wonders. One wonders if there were not also some tensions due to this diversity which would be played out in the decade to come when a mission congregation of St. Bartholomew's was established in Upper Ridgewood and given the name of St. Elizabeth's. Albeit, Florence Victor reflected happily upon these early days of St. Bartholomew's and in a history she wrote declared: "The beautiful little church was opening its doors to the needs of the heart for the many and stands as a symbol of the seed planted by the wayside which took root and grew."