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In
1669, lord proprietors Sir George Carteret and Lord John Berkeley
awarded a land grant to Capt. John Berry. The territory extended
approximately from
Hackensack
to
Newark
between the
Hackensack
,
Passaic
, and
Saddle
Rivers
. At the time, the Lenni Lenape Indians inhabited the area. The
tract was gradually divided into farms, and by the early 1700s, the
area that is now Wood-Ridge began to appear in county records. An
old Indian trail extending from the northern part of
Bergen
County
to points south was laid out by Berry
as a roadway c. 1707. Named
Polifly Road, it is now known in Wood-Ridge as
Hackensack Street
.
The
land became part of the
township
of
New Barbadoes
. In 1825, when
Lodi
Township
was formed, it split off from New Barbadoes. Wood-Ridge and its
surrounding areas became a part of
Lodi
Township
. Wood-Ridge was an area used as a hunting ground by the Indians.
Artifacts found in the vicinity lead historians to believe that the
Indians inhabited land closer to the surrounding rivers.
By
1890, shops began to appear up the hill. A bakery was established on
the southeast end of
Hackensack
and Center Streets, followed by a butcher shop, and a small grocery
store. Industry began in Wood-Ridge as early as 1880, when the
Standard Oil Company of New Jersey built a large pumping station on
the west side of town where the Curtiss-Wright Company would later
stand. Standard Oil had established a pipeline extending from the
oil fields of
Pennsylvania
to the refineries in
New Jersey, providing pumping stations about every 20 miles and ending in
Bayonne
. The Wood-Ridge plant was the last on its line.
In
1889, Anton Molinari built a house and factory for the manufacture
of surgical instruments on the site where
Assumption
School
now stands. Other industries followed, but Wood-Ridge remained
predominantly a residential town, as it still is today. Around this
time the people began to consider forming a separate town, and in
1894, the borough of Wood-Ridge was incorporated.
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