​1890-1975 Madison Borough

In putting this limited important date list in Madison history, we believe it is correct to the best of our knowledge.  Sometimes we found conflicting information between historians and source materials.  

1900 

When the estate of Hamilton McKay Twombly and Florence Vanderbilt Twombly was opened, ice cream and cake were served to the entire population of Madison.  The main house, which was named Florham (for Florence and Hamilton), is a replica of Henry VIII’s Hampton Court in England. The main part of the estate is now a campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University.  Madison High School occupies a small part of the former estate.

1902

The organization of the second Black church, the First Baptist Church of Madison was begun by a group of twenty-nine men and women who started a Baptist Mission in 1896.  The congregation moved into its present church on Cook Avenue in 1902 on land they purchased from B. Warren Burnet.

A torrential downpour in August of 1902 caused the Spring Garden Brook to overflow, having enough momentum to break up the drainage ditches. The flash flood ran through Hillside Cemetery and washed out 59 graves. The bodies were found along the course of the brook the next morning, much to the horror of the waking neighbors.

Before daybreak, Edward Dehart discovered bodies floating into his yard on Cross Street. To spare others the mortifying scene, he enlisted helpers who waded through the water to collect the corpses that had broken away from their coffins. The bodies were gathered and placed back in the coffins, but only 30 of the corpses were identifiable. (Weird NJ: https://weirdnj.com/stories/hillside-cemetery-spill-madison/).

1910 

Central Avenue School was designed by noted architect H. King Conklin and built by contractors Corbet & Clark and housed the high school and elementary school. It pioneered the construction of a completely fireproof school building. A novel construction technique invented by Thomas Edison, using steel and reinforced Portland cement concrete “poured in place,” was its distinguishing feature. The American Concrete-Steel Construction Company of Newark did all the concrete work. The spade that was used to break ground for this school was the same one used 20 years earlier in breaking ground for Madison's electric light and water plant. An exact replica was also designed by H. King Conklin, in Nutley, NJ. Additions have been added to the building in succeeding years.

1912 

The Morris and Essex Traction Company started a trolley line that ran from Elizabeth to Lake Hopatcong along Main Street.  It ran until 1928.  In the photo  the conductor (in the back) was Raymond Lyon.  The motorman (in the front) was Walter Raymond.

​1914 

A railroad cut was made through Union Hill and the railroad tracks in Madison were elevated.  Madison Borough Council appropriated funds to help build the new collegiate gothic style railroad station which was dedicated in 1916.  The Station is still being used and is located on Kings Road.

1916 

The former Gibbons property was developed as the Fairwoods section.

1916

The Daniel Willis James property was bought by Marcellus and Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge, the daughter of William Rockefeller.  She married in 1907, Marcellus Hartley Dodge, heir to the Phelps-Dodge industrial empire.  They expanded the property by buying the adjoining Wilder, Harkness and Ballantine estates.  They named the property “Giralda Farms”.  She founded an animal shelter, St. Hubert’s Giralda, to serve the animals she loved.  St. Hubert’s was endowed in her will and so continues as a shelter and conducts programs concerning pets.  She generously supported many local organizations and gave to the Borough: Dodge Field, land for commuter parking lots and the ambulance corps, and the Hartley Dodge Memorial Building and the land it sits on.  Her will established the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation which is providing support for several Madison organizations and Borough projects.

1922 

The Madison Historical Society was founded by a group of citizens committed to saving the Bottle Hill Tavern that stood on the corner of Main Street and Waverly Place, where the Chase Bank now stands.  The First National Bank purchased the site in 1922 for a new building and intended to tear down the old tavern.  Led by Mrs. Calvin Anderson, Mrs. Anderson Case, Mrs. Fitshugh C. Speer, Lloyd W. Smith and Arthur W. Buttenheim, a successful fundraising  effort was completed to pay for the cost of moving the Tavern to a location farther down Main Street.  After the move took place in 1923, it became the home for the Historical Society until the late 1940s.

1924 

The Thursday Morning Club, a Federated Woman’s Club in Madison, built the Madison Settlement (Community) House, which it still owns and operates on Cook Avenue.

1925 

Madison High School on Main Street was dedicated.  The building now houses the Madison Junior School.

1930 

Lucy D. Anthony School, named in honor of a devoted Madison teacher, was built.  A decreasing school enrollment in recent years led to the closing of this school.  It is now the F. M. Kirby Children’s Center of the Madison Area YMCA.

1935 

The Hartley Dodge Memorial Building (Borough Hall) was dedicated.  The building was given to the borough by Mrs. Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge as a memorial to her son, Marcellus Hartley Dodge, Jr., who tragically died in a car accident in France.  This impressive marble and granite building provides space for borough government and until 2009, the police and fire departments.  The doors are polished bronze and the interior rotunda is of marble.  A sweeping staircase leads to the second floor council chambers which house a Lincoln collection that includes a desk similar to what Lincoln used in the U.S. House of Representatives.  The furnishings including the art work and a $300,000 trust fund to provide income to maintain the building was also given to the borough by Mrs. Dodge.

1936 

The Dellwood area was developed on the former Slaughter Estate.  The name comes from the many dells on the property, and the original gate house still stands as a private home on the corner of Dellwood Drive and Woodland Road.

1937 

The Cross Gates area was developed behind the wall of part of the George Pomeroy lands.

The United States Post Office on Lincoln Place was the first federally funded building built in Madison.

1940 

The Knollwood area was opened for development on the former Toothe Estate.

1948

In the fall, Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in major league baseball, spoke in the Madison High School auditorium.  At the time he predicted that Madison born Don Newcombe, a Black pitcher, would be in the majors.  The following year, Don Newcombe, a Brooklyn Dodger, spoke in the same auditorium.  Don Newcombe was born in Madison and lived on Morris Place.

1949 

Kings Road School and Green Village Road School were dedicated.  The latter school closed due to declining enrollment.

Bayley Ellard High School, a Catholic high school, was dedicated on land that once belonged to the estate of Mrs. H. Mercer Walker.  It is closed due to declining enrollment, but is now home to St. Paul Inside the Walls.

1950

Admired by all, Samuel Coursen lived at 114 Loantaka Way in Madison. In the early months of the Korean Conflict, on October 12, 1950, 24-year old Army 1st Lt. Samuel S. Coursen of the 5th Cavalry Regiment, C Company, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, lead a platoon of men in the vital battle for Hill 174. In the fog, one of his men entered a concealed enemy emplacement, was shot and trapped. The 1st Lt. immediately jumped into the emplacement, viciously fought the enemy in hand-to-hand combat, and killed seven of them. The trapped soldier was saved, but tragically 1st Lt. Samuel S. Coursen died in the violent struggle. For his exceptional bravery, “…gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty,” he became the only Madison resident ever to receive the Medal of Honor. Lt. Coursen received many awards and citations during his brief military career. In a posthumous ceremony at the Pentagon in June 1951, General Omar Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, handed Lt. Samuel Coursen’s greatest award, the Medal of Honor, to his 14-month old Sam Coursen, Jr.

1953 

Memorial Park was created through the purchase of adjoining Florham Park land.  It was dedicated to the men and women of Madison who served in our nation’s struggles for independence and peace in the world.  Over the years the park has become home to the Madison Community Pool, a number of athletic fields, and more recently the Madison Dog Park.

1954 

The Madison Volunteer Ambulance Corps was founded.  The Corps acquired its own headquarters building on Prospect Street in 1963.  Ninety-five percent of the manpower for the construction of this building was by volunteers.

1957 

The Harwood area was developed where the Laura Augusta Home for daughters of professionals in the Episcopal Church once stood. This property had formerly been the Haughwout and Evans Estates.

1958 

Fairleigh Dickinson University established a third campus on the former Twombly Estate in Madison and Florham Park.

Madison High School moved into a new building on Ridgedale Avenue.  The land where it was built was donated by Shirley and William A. M. Burden, heirs to the Twombly Estate.

1959

In 1959, Rebecca Lassiter was honored by Madison Rotary Club as recipient of their Annual Citizen Award, being only the second woman to be so acknowledged. (Mrs. Dodge received this award in 1953.) Madison produced this African American woman with remarkable leadership qualities. She was born Rebecca Prout on a small farm in Vineland, Cumberland County, on August 31, 1884. Her mother died while she was still a child, and she lived with a foster family. Still, Rebecca felt she had a happy childhood. She first came to Madison in 1920 to conduct an evangelistic service. During this visit, a 13-year-old boy was quite impressed by her. One of his questions to her was startling: "Why don't you come to my house and be my mother?" As fate would have it, Rebecca did subsequently marry the boy's father, James Lassiter, Sr., a widower.

Once settled in Madison, Mrs. Lassiter made her presence felt by teaching music to young children at the Settlement House. In the early 1950s Mrs. Lassiter was ordained as the first woman minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and in 1953 became acting pastor of Bethel A.M.E. Church. Four years later she was ordained deacon of the church. Mrs. Lassiter was a member of the local Ministerial Association, United Church Women, the Fair Housing Committee, Senior Citizens, League of Women Voters and served as chaplain of the Madison Business and Professional Women. Somehow Rebecca Lassiter also found time to raise a family of four children. 

1963

The YMCA merged with the Chatham YMCA and moved to its new building on Keep Street.

1964

On February 5th, Dr. Martin Luther King spoke to an audience of 5,000 people in the Baldwin Gymnasium on the Drew University campus.  Not everyone could fit in the gym, so they listened through loudspeakers placed in other rooms and outside on the lawn.

1965

Mabel Jackson Robinson was selected New Jersey's Mother of the Year, chosen for her years of religious and civic activities, for traits highly regarded in mothers and for the achievements of her children: a Washington lawyer now a Federal judge, District of Columbia; a veterinarian; an aircraft firm manager; and a teacher. She was a charter member of the local NAACP chapter, member of the National Council of Negro Women, Morris County Urban League and Madison-Florham Park Human Relations Council. In 1979 she wrote, "There are too many weaknesses in our structure, causing our foundations to crumble in some areas." She took years to change others, and she regarded as her mission the eradication of racial segregation in all areas of education, employment and housing throughout Morris County. She died in 1991 at the age of 92.

1968

The Madison Public Library moved to its new location on Keep Street.  The Madison Historical Society has a room in the building as well. 

The Madison Community Pool in Memorial Park was opened for membership to all borough residents.

1970

The Torey J. Sabatini School, an elementary school, was dedicated.  It was named after a valued member of the Board of Education.

1971

The Borough, through the Conservation Commission (now the Environmental Commission) applied and received matching “Green Acres” funds for a twenty-six acre park on land between Central and Ridgedale Avenues.  Named Summerhill Park in 1987, it is maintained as a passive park. 

1973 

The Kluxen Winery, on Fairview Avenue, a family business for over one hundred years, ceased to operate.