The Lost Village of Old Boonton: Its history and disappearance beneath the waters of the Rockaway River

By Jeffrey V. Moy, North Jersey History and Genealogy Center

One of Morris County’s oldest communities — and the onetime site of colonial-era homes, industrial-era factories, and vast fields of farmland — now rests 60 feet beneath the surface of the Jersey City Reservoir.

Among the structures that stood upon this site was Samuel Ogden’s 4,000-acre estate that once welcomed American generals during the Revolutionary War.

For thousands of years, native Lenape residents lived along the hills and mountains of northern New Jersey. When the Proprietors of West Jersey completed its first land survey of the region in 1715, only a few European settlers were recorded along the Rockaway River downhill from what is now Boonton.

Over the following decades, more settlers arrived from Newark and points east, and they slowly built the facilities to exploit the natural resources abundant to the region.

Founded in 1747, the village of Old Boonton was situated 1.5 miles downstream of modern-day Boonton on a rocky but mostly level plain that, by the 1800s, supported a series of small and medium-sized farms, private residences, and a healthy iron refining and nail making industry.

The settlement acquired the name Boone-Town in 1761 when Newark lawyer David Ogdon purchased the ironworks and named the area in honor of the Colony’s new Royal Governor, Thomas Boone.

The Ogdon family ran the ironworks for generations. In 1765, David Ogden appointed his 20-year old son Samuel as the company’s manager, and the younger Ogden secretly imported an illegal rolling and slitting mill in violation of English Parliamentary Law that forbade colonists from manufacturing certain goods.

Throughout the 19^th century, industrialists harnessed the Rockaway River to run grist mills for making flour, to operate the bellows that created the intense heat needed to forge iron, as well as power the trip hammers and rolling mills that shaped iron into useful products.

Raw ore arrived daily from iron mines in Rockaway and Hibernia, while workers extracted lumber from nearby forests to manufacture the charcoal that fueled forges around the clock. Others mined the limestone used to refine ore into purified iron.

During the Revolutionary War, Boonton iron was manufactured into axes, horseshoes, flints, cups, kettles, and other implements for the Continental Army. Later, the iron was made into products for markets in Newark and New York City.

When the Loyalist Ogdens moved to New York in 1783, John Jacob Faesch of Mount Hope took ownership of their Old Boonton property, moving into Samuel Ogden’s manor home in 1788 and continuing to operate the ironworks until his death in 1799.

During John Faesch’s tenure, the ironworks grew to include a rolling and saw mill, nail cutting mill, grist mill and black smith shops, as well as a church that held services in Dutch and English. Faesch’s two sons purchased the 2,500-acre plot in 1805, and following their deaths in 1820, Israel Crane and William Scott acquired the property.

The Morris Canal: engineering marvel and commercial transportation system

Fuel shortages during the 1820s threatened iron production when massive deforestation in the area depleted the source of wood needed to manufacture charcoal. Boonton’s iron industry may have died then if not for Morristown businessman and Scottish immigrant George P. Macculloch, who conceived the idea for a massive canal system to deliver Pennsylvanian coal to the industrial markets of Newark and New York City.

During a trip to Lake Hopatcong in 1822, Macculloch realized the body of water could support a canal system stretching from Pennsylvania to New York. After convincing a group of fellow businessmen to back the idea, George obtained approval from the New Jersey Legislature to pursue the project on Nov. 15, 1822.

Months of study resulted in a route beginning in Phillipsburg towards Lake Hopatcong, and then proceeding through Dover, Rockaway, Boonton, Little Falls, and finally terminating at Upper Newark Bay.

The Morris Canal reached its peak of 914 feet at Hopatcong and had a total length of 107 miles, through which canal boats navigated changes in elevation thanks to an ingenious combination of locks and inclined planes. The inclined plane method involved positioning boats into a cradle that lay atop a set of tracks; a nearby water wheel then pulled the cradle up (or lowered them down) steep hills with the capacity of up to 125 tons per trip.

This method was both faster and more efficient than relying solely on traditional lock mechanisms; instead of 300 locks, the Morris Canal provided 1,672 feet of vertical movement utilizing only 23 locks and 23 inclined planes.

Operational since 1831, the canal route traveled through Morris County along the Rockaway, Pompton and Passaic rivers. The small town of Boonton Falls (current day Boonton) thrived during the 1830s after William Scott negotiated the water rights to the Rockaway River to power a new iron works in town. It was during this period that the village downriver became known as “Old Boonton.”

As America’s industrial revolution exploded and fed demand for building materials within growing cities, Boonton’s ironworks thrived. Eager to retain the highly skilled workers whose expertise drove productivity and generated wealth, facility owners invested in free public education to help the town’s children attain successful fulfilling lives.

 

The New Jersey Iron Company constructed Boonton’s first school, a one-room building on company property, in 1831, across the from the ironworks (and Bethel AME church). The company also hired the school’s first teacher, Miss Dean.

This was 50 years before the state of New Jersey passed legislation making all public schools free for attending students, rather than towns charging tuition to the parents of primary- and secondary students.

In 1852, the town constructed the School Street School to succeed the older facility and its first classes were held July 19, 1852.

The ironworks served as the backbone of the town’s economy through much of the 19^th century, but larger economic trends spelled trouble for the industry in the late 1800s. An overemphasis on speculative investments in railroads and changing monetary policies sparked the Panic of 1873 – a worldwide economic depression that lasted through 1877 and made life difficult for many Americans, including Boonton’s industrial leaders.

While the ironworks was destroyed by a devastating fire in 1873, it quickly rebuilt and resumed operations. But the depression eventually caught up with local residents in 1876, when the ironworks closed amidst falling demand.

Seeking to reverse the town’s fortunes, James Sansfield built and operated the silk mill from 1876 until 1878 when the Paterson firm of Pelgram and Meyar took over production. The mill eventually employed 150 workers, who produced 12,000 yards of silk goods per week.

Anti-Slavery movement and the Civil War

Despite the state’s large number of Quaker and Abolitionist residents in the antebellum era, many other New Jerseyans either held pro-slavery beliefs or had strong economic ties to Southern states. At best, they were unsympathetic to abolitionist activity.

However, passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was widely unpopular and openly ignored in New Jersey, where more than 40,000 escaped slaves passed on the underground railroad in their bid for freedom.

The Fugitive Slave Act not only empowered private citizens to pursue escaped slaves across state lines to collect large monetary bounties — it also compelled local law enforcement and judicial officers to assist in the return of the enslaved who were denied any legal recourse in Northern courts.

In this environment, bounty hunters prided themselves on their duty to uphold the law — while incidentally collecting upwards of $800 for each escapee (approximately $25,000 in 2020 dollars).

Dr. John Grimes helped organize underground railroad activities from his Boonton home. As groups, or “trains” of the enslaved moved through the state overnight on their way to Canada, they found shelter in the woods, as well as the barns, cellars, and kitchens of sympathizers.

Politically, New Jersey chose to remain neutral in the slavery debate, due in large part to the great sums of money made by its largest cities selling machinery and finished goods to Southern states. However, once the Civil War broke out the state quickly aligned itself with the Union cause.

Boonton’s iron industry thrived under the war and the 1860s marked its most active period of operation. For the first time in their lives, many mill workers could now afford to buy property, and newly constructed homes began to dot the hills overlooking the mill.

The high demand for finished goods and raw materials meant transportation was prized, too: 1863 became the Morris Canal’s most profitable year to date with more than $300,000 in revenue (or about $6.4 million in 2020).

The Approaching Reservoir

The search for clean water would forever change Old Boonton’s landscape. By 1890, Jersey City’s water supply had become so polluted that 100 of every 100,000 residents contracted typhoid, a bacterial infection resulting in high fever, weakness, headache, and abdominal pain lasting weeks or months, sometimes ending in death.

Properties in the path of the proposed reservoir included the 31-acre Daniel T. Peer estate, 28 acres owned by William G. Lathrop, 11 acres owned by Henry Banta, 20 acres from Daniel Mann, and seven acres owned by Tannis Peer. The Water Company also had to negotiate the purchase of more than 30 smaller tracts owned by farmers and residents.

Once the Water Company had secured rights to the land it began the eight-year process of razing all structures and leveling the future reservoir basin. Private homes, churches, factories, were all either moved or destroyed.

The work of clearing and preparing the site was slow and backbreaking; typically it was done by hand with the assistance of horses and small steam engines for hauling debris.

Once the land was cleared, workers cut the reservoir dam’s foundation into the shale bedrock and slowly built up the structure with rocks and Portland cement. The wall eventually extended 75 feet high, and according to Chief Engineer Thaddeus Merriman, this dam was the largest single structure ever constructed of cement in America at the time.

Displaced building included forgotten county facilities

Situated two miles southeast of downtown Boonton, the County poorhouse was demolished in preparation for the Reservoir construction. Before the poorhouse was built in 1838, residents who fell on hard times were “farmed out” by the County to the lowest bidder and forced to work in exchange for food and clothing.

By the early 1800s, poorhouses were seen as a more humane alternative to indentured servitude. In 1838, the County Board of Freeholders purchased 185 acres of land upon which to build the two-story frame structure that could care for up to 200 people.

Several stewards, beginning with Frederick Childs, oversaw the men, women, and children who lived in the Poor House and worked the adjacent farmland. The Water Supply Company paid the County $30,000 for the land occupied by the facility, and the sale provided a 15-month grace period to relocate the residents to a newly constructed poorhouse on the grounds of Morris Plains’ new asylum.

Dangerous and Deadly Work

Recent immigrants provided much of the manual labor in the reservoir’s construction, and news stories recounted several accidents. Among these incidents was the February 1903 death of 31-one-year old Italian worker Anaspasio Dettorse, who was thrown from a piece of earth-moving equipment.

In a separate May 1903 accident, Herbert Joseph, a 20-year old Armenian worker, died when an out-of-control derrick struck him in the head and broke his neck. In yet another incident two years before Joseph’s death, he lost one of his legs while working on the dam.

One of the most disturbing accidents involved the tragic death of diver William Hoar in April 1904. Engineers had installed a series of gate valves into the base of the dam to help regulate water flow. Placing the valves into service required installing temporary wooden stoppers that kept the water from flowing from the reservoir into the gate during construction.

On the morning of April 11, 1904, William Hoar traveled from his home in New York with diving partner John Dobson. They stopped for lunch at the Mansion House before heading to the dam, where the Water Company had hired him to work on the gate valve. The tall, 240-pound red-haired Swedish diver took his final breath of fresh air before attaching his dive helmet and descending beneath the rising waters of the Jersey City Reservoir.

As Hoar dove towards the drainage pipe it was clear that the temporary stopper was not a perfect fit, so he attempted to maneuver some sandbags into the gap, at which point the diver’s foot was drawn into the suction and became trapped.

Hoar’s bellows operator, Dobson, dutifully kept pumping fresh air to his trapped partner 70 feet below as workers tried to free him throughout the night, before finally calling in an additional team of divers.

The rescue divers first tried to pry the stopper loose by hand, and then resorted to attaching a makeshift harness so that horses could pull the obstruction free. However, this attempt also failed and resulted in Hoar becoming further wedged into the pipe.

By Tuesday morning, hoards of Boonton residents had flocked to the site, eager for news of William Hoar’s fate. Fellow diver Leopold Hansen stated his incredulity that Hoar had survived this long, noting that anyone diving to this depth typically had to resurface within four hours. And, given the limitations of the equipment at the time, after eight hours one usually faced permanent injuries. That he had remained alive and conscious after 24 hours was miraculous.

Nevertheless, by noon Hoar ceased communicating with the surface and died below 70 feet of water. Draining the lake in order to retrieve William’s body was vetoed by the water authority as too costly, since it could take another year to refill, further delaying operations.

To retrieve the remains, another diver descended to repair the gate, which then could be closed, relieving the suction that had trapped the victim. Repairing the gate took another seven days.

As Hoar’s body was brought to the surface, workers observed that his foot had been stripped of its flesh by the suction of the drainpipe. As they removed the victim’s helmet, his skin appeared flush with blood from being exposed to such intense pressure.

Doctors determined that Hoar died of drowning, but only after fatigue set in and he was no longer able to keep his head above his legs. At that point, the water that had entered the torn dive suit made its way into his helmet.

Diver John M. Rice worked to extricate Hoar and later reported, “When I found him, he was lying on his right side. Both legs were in the pipe up to the hips. Hoar had been sucked in between the pipe and the big [stopper] ball so tightly it was impossible for me to move him until the horses had pulled the ball away. I dragged poor Bill’s body out, and after clearing his fouled life line, I went up and told the men they could pull Bill up for the last time, for he was dead.”

Hoar’s body was recovered on April 21^st, 10 days after his fateful dive, and he was laid to rest the following Sunday in a funeral organized by his sister, who lived in Astoria Queens. A large crowd gathered for the funeral service at the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, with the honor or serving as pall bearers falling to fellow divers Peter Gilligan, John Rice, Frank Paul, and Robert Russell. Water service to Jersey City commenced on May 26, 1904.

Myths and Urban Legends

Local historian Arline Dempsey worked to preserve Boonton’s history, while attempting to dispel many popular myths. A persistent “urban legend” frequently told to newer residents claims that the entire village of Old Boonton lay undisturbed beneath the waters of the Jersey City Reservoir, waiting to re-emerge, like the Lost City of Atlantis, during periods of extended drought.

Contrary to persistent anecdotes, it is not possible to spy the bell towers of abandoned churches if too much time has elapsed between storms, since every structure was either moved or systematically bulldozed, with the exception of some old boundary walls and building foundations.

According to Dempsey, ample photographic evidence documents that Old Boonton was systematically razed during the 1890s, noting that the structures “were either burned, taken apart for reconstruction at other locations or rolled on greased timbers to their new place of rest.”

Property lost during construction of the Reservoir included family farms, a church, school, post office, boarding house, paper and grist mills, blacksmith’s shop, the old ironworks, and the county poorhouse. Residents of the village cemetery, which included many Revolutionary War heroes, were meticulously re-interred elsewhere, Dempsey said.

Wait, is it Boonton, Boone-Town, or Bonetown?

A point of contention among some residents is how Boonton acquired its name. One of the more colorful stories was told by self-styled historian Isaac Lyon, who claimed that during a particularly severe winter, a shortage of flour led the town’s ironworkers to subsist on an all-meat diet for months.

After cleaning their plates, the workers tossed the remaining animal bones outside their log cabins until they formed a pile that a traveler one day stumbled over. When he angrily screamed, “What’s the name of this miserable place?,” he was told it did not have one, leading the man to exclaim, “Blast my eyes, if I don’t name it BONE-TOWN!”

Like all bad jokes, this one has defied all attempts at suppression. And so the origin myth of “Bone Town” remains with us today.

The Town of Boonton Rises on the Village’s Foundation

While the village of Old Boonton was defined by its expansive farmland, rumbling factories and ironworks, Boonton Falls featured neighborhoods of fine homes, a growing number of retail and commercial storefronts, houses of worship, and other establishments along Main Street. By the end of the Civil War its population had surpassed that of the village and in 1867 the Town of Boonton was incorporated.

Boonton’s successful 19^th and 20^th century businesses contributed to the town’s prosperity and attracted artists, musicians, and entertainers, as well as tourists and other travelers.

The Lyceum Theater hosted performances by a multitude of entertainers including Sarah Bernhardt, Lillian Russell, Lillian Gish, Chauncy Olcott, Jim Corbett, and James Jeffries. Popular entertainers such as George Burns and Gracie Allen continued to perform at the Lyceum through the 20^th century.

Small hotels served the needs of visitors from at least the mid-19^th century, and one such establishment was the Mansion House at 811 Main Street. With guest rooms for 25 and a dining room that seated 200, the hotel also featured a tavern that served out of town travelers as well as those who rented apartments at the hotel.

The building continues to serve the needs of weary travelers and residents alike. Recent proprietors have included a Thai restaurant, marketing business, and laundromat.

Chemical and electronics companies found a welcome home in Boonton during the early 1900s. Boonton Molding Company, the creator of Boontonware, operated here, as did electronics manufacturer Ballantine Laboratories, and Radio Frequency Laboratories.

Upon opening its Boonton facility in 1917, the Drew Chemical Company became a prominent business presence in town, manufacturing food-grade oil, vitamins, dry cleaning compounds, detergent, and car polish, among other consumer goods.

The Boston company thrived in North Jersey, and by 1967 it boasted a 25-acre campus in town with 80 buildings, and plans for a new laboratory on another 80-acre site.

Recreation and Residential Life

The earliest residential neighborhoods in the Flats consist of two-story homes that date from 1850-1935. Architecturally, they included Queen Anne style homes as well as Second Empire and some larger Victorian structures, Craftsmen bungalows, and Foursquares. A few examples of Colonial Revival and Dutch Colonial exist in addition to Italianate models.

With more New Jerseyans choosing to work and live in Morris County throughout the 20^th century, the demand for new housing arose and Boonton’s neighborhoods quickly grew to meet the need. Developers built additional single-family homes in both the Flats as well as the Hill, located in the neighborhood above Main Street.

By the early 21^st century, northern New Jersey’s population density made creating new recreational facilities a challenge. But the area’s historic sites and landmarks provided opportunity for new ideas. In December 2019, Morris County gained approval from the Jersey City Council to construct a 7.7-mile recreation trail around the Reservoir that would serve as a new park for local residents.

With a planned groundbreaking of spring 2022, the design includes interpretive signage noting historic points of interest along the trail, as well as other improvements. Despite its centuries of industrial growth and development, Old Boonton has regained some of its original tranquility while continuing to supply the needs of the state’s residents.

Sources:

• “Morris County Historic Site Survey”, Morris County Heritage Commission, 1986
• Arline Fowler Dempsey, “Old Boonton and the Jersey City Reservoir,” 1982
• A.D. Fowler, Old Boonton, Boonton, NJ; 1967
• Maudie Fischer, ed., The Boonton Years: 1867-1967, Boonton, NJ; Compiled for the Boonton Centennial Committee by the Citizen of Morris County, 1967
• Peter C. Wendt, Jr., Boonton Was an Iron Town, Boonton, NJ; Boonton Historical Society; 1975
• Collections of the Boonton Historical Society
• NJHGC historic newspaper collection
• NJHGC vertical file collection
• NJHGC photograph collection
• NJHGC historic postcard collections

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