Farming in the Fardale Section of Mahwah
By Charles Anderson, The Old Station Timetable, Fall 1987.
Originally, as in all parts of Mahwah, the Fardale area was made up of subsistence farms. Animals and crops were raised to feed and clothe families, and supplemental activities carried out to secure cash to buy the things that could not be produced at home, like coffee, utensils and dishes. This type of farming predominated well into the 1800’s. Large tracts of land were held by the Bartholf, Bogert, Winter, Van Gelder, Ackerman and Young families.
With the extension of the railroads, improvement of roads and growth of nearby markets in Paterson, Newark and New York City, the amount of land devoted to cash crops increased. By the 1900’s, a commercial pattern of farming was fully established. Strawberries and other fruit in season were delivered to the freight depot at Ramsey, or were delivered by the wagon load to nearby local markets.
The Bartholfs, on the south side of Fardale Avenue, cut oak trees for dock pilings on the Hudson River, as well as chestnut, hickory, ash and walnut trees for other uses. The extensive swamp lands on the north side of the road were owned by Hyland, who picked enough high bush blueberries each year to pay his annual taxes.
Three commercial poultry products operations were carried on by Myers on Campgaw Road, Van Brookhoven on Fardale Avenue and Dobrat on Bartholf Lane.
Truck farms (devoted to the production of vegetables for market) were the most common. The Bogert farm extended along both sides of Chapel Road and partway along Pulis Avenue. The old Bogert homestead was located on the eastern corner of Chapel Road and Pulis Avenue, but it has since burned. A neighborhood schoolhouse was located further west on Pulis Avenue towards Campgaw Road. When Spurglon Bogert died (1930), he divided his land among his three sons, William, Ike and Jim. They mismanaged their farms and were bailed out by an uncle, Luther Bogert, during the depression (1939). Part of the Bogert land (about 40 acres) was eventually sold to Peter Bartholf, who raised pigs, cows, chickens and vegetables. The Bartholf farm continued in operation until about 1965. The house and barn were torn down and the land is now occupied by the Chapel Greens condominium project.
The Myers family farmed on Campgaw Road, the Carloughs on land purchased from Ward (who acquired it at a sale of confiscated Tory land after the Revolutionary War–now the defunct “Campgaw Farms”) and the Young family on land north of Youngs Road. The DeBauns had orchards and raised poultry on a subdivided section of the Young farm in the latter half of the 1800’s; the farm, products and stock line of which were carried on into the mid-1960’s by Morris and Helen Plevan on their “Fardale Farm”. North of the Plevan farm, the MacDonalds had an extensive chicken-raising operating in the 1940s, the last coops surviving until the development of Glenmere Park in 1965.
The north end of Chapel Road was known as St. Moritz Avenue because of the San Moritz farm that extended from the Fardale Community Chapel to Youngs Road.
An example of how these formerly large farms were broken up time after time can be found in a typical deed to property on Fardale Avenue, which lists parts of land formerly held by Bartholf, Bogert, Holdrum and Hopper.
The era of agriculture in the Fardale area effectively ended in the mid-1970s with the death of George Orthman who operated his farm on Campgaw Road and rented land on Chapel Road.