Before Dunellen was incorporated as a borough it was part of Piscataway Township and at one time the personal property of William Dockwra, secretary of the Board of proprietors of East Jersey. East Jersey had been sold to the proprietors by Sir George Carteret, who had received it as his share of a grant from the Duke of York, brother to King Charles of England. The land was all originally bought from the Indians — none of whom actually lived for any length of time in the vicinity of Dunellen. In the case of the Piscataway tract the Indians seem to have sold it three separate times.
The Proprietors held all of the territory, but parcels were apportioned among the individual proprietors as dividends. One of these areas lay along Green Brook, and the region of Dunellen fell into Dockwra’s hands. His thousand-acre tract is shown on the "Map of the Raritan River, Millstone River, South River, Green Brook, etc.," prepared by John Reid in 1683.
A map, somewhat later, shows 2,000 acres on Blew Hills and the adjoining 1,000 acres on Bound Brook as the property of James Alexander, surveyor-general.
The early history of Piscataway Township is a complicated one. Although the township books exist from 1685, making them a valuable set of historical documents, they do not always tell details. (Some early Piscataway records are microfilmed and available in Rutgers Library.) Piscataway was not made a township legally until 1789, although an agreement had been drawn up in contemplation 132 years earlier. Originally Piscataway comprised the entire area west of Woodbridge and Elizabethtown, as far as the boundary of West Jersey; and even after several portions had been severed from it, it included for some time Plainfield, Rahway, Middlesex Borough, South Plainfield and part of Edison Township as well as the embryonic Dunellen.
The Gilmans arrived in Piscataway in 1663, but the most outstanding of the early groups of settlers was Francis Drake, a Baptist clergyman, and his flock from Piscataqua, Maine, who came in 1667. Having already discovered that simply to dwell in the New World did not constitute a guarantee of religious freedom, these people had left their New England home in search of the right to worship as they pleased. They must have felt enough attachment to their original property to give its Indian name — Piscataqua, meaning "it is growing dark" — to the new tract.
Until the Revolution nine-tenths of the township’s settlers were members of the First Baptist Church of Piscataway, founded in 1689, or of the Seventh Day Baptist Church of New Market, founded in 1705.
By 1680 about forty families had settled in what is now Piscataway-Town, in Edison, and the section along the Raritan River increased rapidly in importance during the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Although there were still no settlers in what is now Dunellen, large estates had been set up on either side of its present boundaries: the Field Domain, a tract of 1,000 acres on the southwest; and the Vermeule plantation on the east, in what is now Plainfield. Both of these, worked by Negro slaves and indentured labor, were outstanding centers of early East Jersey life.
Among the first group of Piscataway settlers were the Dunns, the Fitz-Randolphs, the Bonhams, the Drakes, the Dunhams, the Runyons, the Boices and the Smalleys, all of whom were to remain for many years as prominent family groups in the township. But as nearly as may be ascertained those who first lived in the section that was to become Dunellen were David Coriell and Peter Runyon, both French Huguenots; and Peter and John Marselis, Dutch settlers who reached Piscataway after a residence in Bergen County. C.C. Vermeule, Jersey historian, believed that it was the Marselises who arrived first, prior to 1735; but there is in existence a deed dated March 7, 1737, in which Coriell’s property is listed as a boundary for land being transferred from Samuel York to Lawrence Reuth.
Reune Runyon was a town clerk and judge of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas from 1749 to 1755; Ephraim Runyon succeeded him and served until 1776. A David Coriell was surveyor of highways in 1750 and a Cornelius Boyse was commissioner of highways in 1752. Runyons, Coriells, Boices and Dunns at times monopolized township offices, and shouldered almost hat whole responsibility of caring for the poor, mending and building roads and planning for the protection of domestic animals. In 1773 David Coriell was paid five pound and twelve shillings for nursing "a poor woman that fell sick at his house." Overseers of the poor reaped a part of their funds from the 10 shillings forfeits exacted from any man or woman permitting a ram to run at large.
Piscataway township was a roistering district in the colonial period. Inns flourished and considerable wines and liquors were consumed; bullfighting, cock-fighting and masques amused the younger generation, and although there was a nine o’clock curfew there were frequent offenders questioned by the constable and locked up. The Landing, a mile above New Brunswick on the Raritan, was already a flourishing trading mart, where produce was loaded on barges to be shipped down the river.
When the Revolutionary War began, the section that was to become Dunellen played a part despite its meager population. A map of the "Militia Post in Blue Hills, 1776," by C.C. Vermeule, whose family’s plantation was utilized as a fort during the hostilities, shows the territory that is now Dunellen, occupied at that time by David Coriell, Peter Marselis and Zachariah Pound. There is a record of the Coriell home having been destroyed by the British.
Elisha and David Coriell and John and Peter Marselis were members of the Middlesex Militia. A legion of Dunns served under Lieutenant Colonel Micajah Dunn.
A number of skirmishes were fought near the present Dunellen; homes were burned and livestock and property stolen. When Cornwallis’ army was driven back from Bound Brook in April 1777, much damage was done. During the following month the American army was entrenched near Bound Brook, and when Washington sought a place to observe the movement of the enemy he was led, by Edward Fitz-Randolph of Piscataway, to the rock that now bears his name. From this high point of the Watchung hills the general maintained a watch on the surrounding country during May and June. On June 24 he was in New Market and four days later from Washington Rock witnessed the defeat of Lord Sterling by Cornwallis.
Since that time the rock has been considered a Revolutionary landmark, and the Legislature of 1913 appropriated money to develop a 97-acre park on the site.
In October, 1779, the Queen’s Rangers, under the command of Colonel John Graves Simcoe, swept through the Raritan Valley. Representing themselves as patriots to the people of Piscataway they managed to reach new Market before they were recognized. A messenger sent to New Brunswick brought the Middlesex Militia, and Simcoe was captured.
The Coriell, Marselis and Pound farms recovered after the war, and soon their sheep and cattle were grazing peacefully again, their spinning wheels were whirring and their looms busy. the homegrown flax was processed in the Samptown (south Plainfield) flax mill, and wheat and corn were grown at the Vermeule mill on Green Brook, near the present Rock Avenue.
As prosperity returned the beginnings of industrial growth were visible. John Giles’ carriage factory in New Market was among the first to be established and the extent to which that business might have grown will never be known, since in 1831 the Elizabethtown and Somerville Railroad acquired a charter for a line through Piscataway Township, paving the way for what the Baptists of the community called the "contrivance of the Devil." On January 1, 1839, the first train rumbled noisily over the single track iron-topped wooden rails that ran out of Elizabethtown as far as Plainfield, by 1834 they had been extended through Dunellen to Somerville. Farmers gathered to watch and to scoff, and it took some time to convince them of the railroad’s worth; not until 1855 was the second track laid, and the third was put down in 1869. In 1847 the New Jersey Central Railroad Company was chartered and it took over the road.
As railroad traffic gradually increased the region looked forward to a period of new riches, but the outbreak of the Civil War interfered with these optimistic plans. Whether it was irritation over this interruption, or religious scruples, township citizens responded slowly to Lincoln’s call for volunteers. The younger generation was in haste to be off, but many of the older men sought substitutes to take their places; the township hired a recruiting agent and sent a committee to the south to seek out substitutes for the reluctant recruits of its own district; offices were opened in Jersey City and in New Brunswick in an effort to fill the township quota, and more than $57,000 was paid out by Piscataway for bounties.
There were exceptions to this lack of ardor for the Union. The Titsworth family had four sons and two sons-in-law in the ranks of the volunteers. James Gaskill took loads of recruits to New Brunswick at his own expense.
Several veterans settled here following the war. Among the first to arrive were Charles Dickason, later to become the village letter-carrier; and F.H. Gise, who had joined his regiment in 1862 and was for many years considered the youngest veteran living in the State. John Moynihan, another veteran, later served 17 consecutive years on the borough council.
When Lincoln was assassinated at the close of the war the school children conducted a ceremony in the small triangular park that was situated where The Triangle Garage now stands. Mrs. George Day had the flag raised by them that day.
The Railroad Founds Dunellen
In the year 1868, during the wave of post-war prosperity, the village of Dunellen came into existence. The township at that time had approximately 3,000 inhabitants and the twenty families who lived in the region that was to become Dunellen considered themselves simply as residents of the township. new Market was their nearest center, but the railroad’s stop for New Market was within the present Dunellen boundaries, at the intersection of Grove Street and the tracks; erection of the station adjoining Charles Pope’s store relieved that establishment as a waiting room.
The Guide Book published by the Central in 1864 contained the following item: "New Market, 29 miles from New York, is a small station of little importance except that it is situated in the midst of country rich in agricultural products."
It was a real estate boom under the auspices of the railroad that created Dunellen. John Taylor Johnston, a prominent New York financier and then president of the Jersey Central, was its direct sponsor. It was his idea to transform the farm land along the railroad right-of-way between Elizabeth and Somerville into residential communities. Several of the towns in that area resulted from this scheme, and the locality of Dunellen was considered a particularly happy prospect.
In the spring of 1866 the railroad had begun to assemble properties on the site of the present borough. Abraham C. Coriell had conveyed to the company 80 acres for a price of $19,500; the same year George Smock deeded 87 acres, formerly the Captain Stephen Harris farm, for $22,000; and on the same day Stephen B. Todd received $6,000 for 20 acres that he had previously purchased from Samuel B. Merrell. On April 1 of the next year Elizah Coriell sold the railroad 37 acres for $6,476 and in 1868, the Central obtaining four acres from Peter Doyle for $2,000.
The railroad then laid out a village north of its own tracks consisting of 197 acres. Only 225 acres — the total cost of which to the Central had been $55,976 — were located in Middlesex County; the remainder lay partly in the township of Warren, Somerset County, and partly in the township of Plainfield, Union County. the new village consisted of Jefferson, Jackson, Washington, Lincoln and Madison Avenues, crossed at right angles by Front and George Streets and First to Seventh Streets. sixth and Seventh have been vacated. George Street became Dunellen Avenue and Fifth Street is Mountain View Terrace.
On April 9, 1867, an act of legislature had incorporated the Central New jersey Land Improvement Company, and on May 1, 1868, the newly purchased tract was deeded to it by the railroad for $149,000. At the same time a map of the Town of Dunellen was filed with the county clerk. The incorporators were John Taylor Johnston, president of the railroad; John C. Green, Moses Taylor, Benjamin Williamson, Adam Norrie, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, and William E. Dodge.
The first two sales recorded by the Improvement Company in the Middlesex County Clerk’s office are dated May 11, 1868. One was to John Runyon at Washington Avenue and Front Street for the amount of $500; the other to Augustus S. Runyon, for the lot at 226 Front Street at $400. David S. Runyon bought ten lots, eight on Front Street, for $1,343.
One sale was to Issac D. Titsworth, who in 1872 was to conduct a real estate development of his own on the Titsworth tract south of the railroad; he purchased frontage of 100 feet on North Avenue and the corner of Front Street and Lincoln Avenue. the North Avenue plot cost him $560, and at the peak of the local realty boom, some years later, the parcel was valued at $100,000.
At the time the town was laid out the old railroad station, which had borne the name of New Market, was abandoned; a new station, with living quarters for the station master on the second floor, was erected and given the name "Dunellen". The source of that name — there is no other Dunellen in the United States — has been the cause of wide speculation ever since.
The New Jersey Central land Improvement company did more than merely lay out the village and wait for it to develop. It presented land for churches and schools as they were needed, and early in the village’s history set aside the two-acre plot for Washington Park.
When the territory south of the railroad was within the limits of the Dunellen post office, it was not considered part of the early village. But many men active in the growth and formation of the borough had pretentious homes there and gradually the two sections of what was to be the borough grew closer together in outlook and purpose. In 1869 William Richardson built the home on the corner of Washington Avenue and Front Street that was to become Kerwin’s Dunellen Hotel. The business section, North Avenue, grew despite a serious fire in 1875.
In 1877, the close of its first decade as a village, Dunellen had become a thriving little community. The population had reached 800, there were two churches and a school. A lively weekly, THE ROCK, had been named for Washington Rock, already well-patronized as the region’s playground and reached by a broad carriage drive up which regular states full of pleasure-seekers made their way.
The gaiety was increased by the fact that Dunellen’s clear dry air, properly advertised, had gained for the village an enviable reputation as a health resort. Natural springs in the vicinity added to its standing as a watering place. Well-to-do metropolitans flocked to Dunellen in the summer, bringing with them their fashionable carriages and a general air of luxuriousness.
Real estate operators and builders played an important part in Dunellen’s development. C.S. Wolverton built 27 homes; Robert Lowrie, W.A. Stevens and S.B. Todd bought and sold land enthusiastically; and the Dunellen Building and Loan financed 75 structures. When Titsworth auctioned off the 112 villa lots he had laid out south of the railroad a special train brought buyers from New York for the gala day; a free luncheon was served to all prospects and Grafulla’s Regiment Band furnished music. The building boom brought laborers to the village; the Slovaks who began to arrive in 1880 came in increasing numbers for thirty years; Polish settlers began to arrive in 1910.
The last decade of the century saw macadamized paving on streets heretofore so full of water that wandering cattle drank from them in summer. Strict ordinances were passed relegating travel-minded kine to farm properties. Trolley cars startled horses on North Avenue and the DUNELLEN WEEKLY CALL arrived. It was an era of good feeling — of barn dances, bowling matches and bicycling clubs.
With the passing of the century many of the community’s pioneers dies; in 1892 Joseph Maier, proprietor of the Park Hotel; in 1894 Henry Van Middlesworth, carriage maker; in 1895 Abraham Coriell, whose ancestors had been among the first to settle in the region; in 1896 Charles Boice and in 1897 Issac D. Titsworth.
Two world-renowned figures made their homes in the community during its earlier years — one of them not remembered until later, when his name was famous; the other a continuous source of interest from the day of his arrival. The first was Sir Thomas Lipton, English tea merchant and yachtsman. "Tommy," as he was known, came to this country as a boy in the 1860's and worked for five months on the farm of Mrs. Mary Newhall, adjacent to the Episcopal Church on New Market Road; he returned to Scotland with $150 in his pocket which, invested in a provision shop, was to lay the foundation for his fortune. Those who knew him during his brief stay remember his charm and friendliness.
The second was the well-known pugilist, "Bob" Fitzsimmons, who arrived in 1906 to make his training quarters on the Edward White farm just beyond the borough limits. For several years he was a familiar figure on Dunellen streets, and local residents watched with fascination the course of his domestic troubles, the pranks of his pet lion, and the final financial catastrophe which ended in a sale by the sheriff.
The disapproval with which many viewed his colorful life was natural in a period which was witnessing a country-wide "reform" movement. Frank Wynkoop was Dunellen’s candidate for mayor on the Republican "Reform" ticket in 1907, in opposition to Harry Swackhamer, Swackhamer was elected, but the campaign was a hard-fought one. Metropolitan papers ran accounts of it; one of the New York GLOBE’S headlines was a follows:
DUNELLEN MUST REFORM B’GOSH THEM THERE PEANUT STANDS
AND THAT GROG SHOP MUST CLOSE UP SUNDAYS
As early as the end of the nineteenth century there were nearly 300 dwellings in Dunellen. The earlier residences had been influenced by French architecture and were topped with ornate mansard roofs; at a later period the Queen Anne style predominated, but gradually scroll work and filigree gave way to simpler designs. Planned as a village of homes, Dunellen was fulfilling its purpose. Proudly realtors referred to it as "The Emerald of the Plain."
Dunellen today is a full-fledged borough, operating under a borough council form of government. This status was reached by a series of gradual and confusing changes. Originally simply a portion of Piscataway Township, Dunellen was set up as a borough commission in 1886; this type of municipal government, now extinct in New Jersey, granted the community only limited powers and left it still largely under the jurisdiction of the township. These powers were slowly increased by means of legislative amendments to the act under which borough commissions were organized. In 1895 and 1986 a referendum by Dunellen residents together with several legislative acts — one of which was successfully lobbied by Dunellen citizens — resulted in the transformation of the borough commission into the standard form of borough government completely separate from the township. The confusion caused by the intricacy of that process was finally dispelled by an act of the legislature passed in 1914, which definitely confirmed Dunellen in its present status.
The first move toward an independent Dunellen was made in the spring of 1886, when a petition was presented to Lewis Dayton, chosen freeholder of Middlesex County, requesting that he call a special election in Dunellen on the question of incorporating the village into a borough commission. The signers of the petition were ten women and thirty men residents of Dunellen. Although women were not permitted to vote at that time they were, as property holders, permitted to append their names to such a petition.
As a borough commission Dunellen would have the dignity of an incorporated body, it would be empowered, according to the Act for the Formation of Borough Commissions passed in 1882, to maintain and oversee its own roads and sidewalks and keep them clear of cattle and litter, to appoint regular and special police, enforce law and order, prevent nuisances, retrain vagrants, license peddlers, and suppress "any riots, routs, disturbances, disorderly assemblages or breaches of the peace." It would not be separated from the township in general money matters, and its inhabitants would continue to comprise a voting district of the township.
On the first page of the borough minute books is the borough clerk’s own story of what went on in Dunellen in the spring of 1886:
"About the 17th of February 1886 the prominent citizens of this village received the following communication:
Dear Sir:
"You are respectfully requested to attend a meeting to be held at the School Hall Monday evening Next at 8 p.m. to discuss ways and means for the improvement of Dunellen.
Respectfully,
C. Schepflin, J.W. Handren and Others
"The evening in question found a large number of persons present at the appointed hour. Nathan Vars was called to the chair and C.D. Boice chosen secretary. The exact object of the meeting was made known by Mr. J.W. Handren who stated they had a number of copies of a Law, enacted in 1882 relative to the forming of Borough Commissions and proposed that the Secretary read the law for the benefit of the meeting. After considerable discussion it was voted to form ourselves into a Borough Commission and a committee consisting of Nathan Vars, C. Scheflin, J.Y. Wilson, Benj. Smith & P.W. Brakely, was appointed for the purpose of fixing the boundary limits of the said Borough. On the re-assembling of the meeting on March 2nd the Committee through Mr. Vars reported that they had agreed upon certain boundary limits which were read and after some slight alterations, were adopted, and the Committee discharged. Another Committee consisting of C. Schepflin, John m. Dayton and J.Y. Wilson was appointed to see Mr. Louis Dayton the Freeholder of Piscataway Township and have him perform the part allotted them."
There follows a paragraph on the approval of the election, and then an account of its occurrence in "the home of Joseph Maier":
"The election took place on the Twenty-Third day of March, Mr. John Runyon and Henry V. Dunham acting as inspectors and Eugene Runyon clerk, and much to the surprise and gratification of those interested was carried by a vote of One Hundred and Thirty-Two to Five."
The minutes book says nothing of having the election certified, and in truth it was not recorded with the County clerk until October 28, 1887. But it is for that reason that the Secretary of State, appealed to for the official birth day of Dunellen, gave the latter, although Dunellen’s founders considered themselves members of a borough commission and acted as such without interference from the date of their special election.
The minutes continue as follows:
"On the Fifteenth of March a number of Prominent Citizens through an invitation from Mr. John W. Handren assembled in the Billiard Parlor, to discuss in an informal way the best means of carrying out the provisions of the Law. After considerable friendly conversation, and some explanation from Mr. Willis who was present, the gentlemen consented to allow themselves and their names to be used in any way that would be most advantageous to the good of the borough."
The Borough having become an established fact, through the election, the Freeholders caused notices to be posted for another election to be held on the Sixth of April for Seven Commissioners to serve the Borough for one year, at the regular voting place.
It is interesting to note that the Act for the Formation of Borough Commissions required that these men e property holders — a rare requirement in later American law.
Nominees for the first board of commissioners were divided into Regulars and Independent, and the entire Regular ticket was elected: Christian Schepflin, Dr. P.W. Brakeley, John W. Handren, John Hunt, Robert Lowrie, Ruliff J. Swackhamer and John Runyon.
The first council was a representative group. Two of the six were employed by the Central Railroad — Swackhamer, later to become mayor, as a superintendent of bridges; and Hunt, an Irishman, as a section foreman. Runyon, member of the family so long prominent in Piscataway Township history, was a carpenter and undertaker; Lowrie, born in Scotland, was a realtor; Brakeley was the village doctor and owner of the first Dunellen drug store; Handren was a member of the firm of Handren and Robins, manufacturers of machinery; and Schepflin, a native of Germany whose Saturday afternoon bowling matches won him a high place in the hearts of his fellow townsmen and in the social life of the community, was engaged throughout his life in the clothing business. That two of the men were railroad employees was prophetic; officers of the borough were frequently Jersey Central men, to the pride of their road
On January 7, 1895, the regular meeting of the borough commissioners was adjourned early "to allow a large number of citizens to discuss the advisability of taking proper measure to separate our Borough from the township." The reason for such a discussion may be found in an item of the CALL’S Local Laconics column, appearing after the township school board election previous to that January meeting:
"Dunellen failed to secure a single member of the school board, although by all that was fair she was entitled to at least three, and if valuation of school property and number of pupils are taken into consideration she should have had four of the nine. The outcome of this elections is plain as the nose on a man’s face, and it doesn’t need such an awful big hole in the millstone for a blind man to see that next fall Dunellen will be set apart as a separate school district."
Dunellen’s lack of representation on the new school board was allegedly due to the difficulty of Dunellen’s large commuting population in getting to the polls, but the facts of the case made it no easier to bear. Discussion had waxed warm during the autumn that followed, and Dunellen citizens were lived to the possibility that a board lacking members from their own community might not vote sufficient money to maintain Dunellen’s schools in the manner to which they had become accustomed.
On February 7, 1895, Dunellen, by popular vote, decided to "separate itself from the township," in accordance with the provisions of an 1894 act granting borough commissions such a right. A bill permitting this was lobbied through the legislature largely on the initiative of Dunellen. Credit for the job was generally given to Brakeley and H. Bruwster Willis.
It might seem that this act of 1896 would have settled the status of the borough of Dunellen once and for all. however, after a lapse of eighteen years, the legislature saw fit on April 15, 1914, to pass an act to "ratify, confirm, and continue the incorporation of the borough of Dunellen in the County of Middlesex and fix the boundaries and corporate name thereof." Thus was ended a confusion over the legal status of Dunellen.
Borough Hall, $1,650
In 1896 Dunellen acquired its first borough hall, at a cost of $1,650. The site, leased and finally bought from the Central Railroad, was that of the present new building. The two-story frame structure first housed a council meeting on February 1, 1879. The hall also contained a two-cell jail, a court room and police headquarters.
Among the earlier improvements in this borough were electric light, water and gas. mains for the last were laid by the Public Service in 1905. Electric street lights were first used on August 25, 1891, and following that date there was a flow of letters to the editor of the CALL complaining about the untrustworthy service.
The hub of the jubilee celebration of 1937 was the new borough hall. It was planned to centralize all the various departments of the borough government. Work was started on August 1, 1936, and it was finished on October 28, 1937. Sixty different workers were employed on the job, and the total cost of the building was $34,755, of which $15,000 was supplied by the borough.
The following have headed Dunellen’s government since its incorporation: John Handren, president of commission and mayor; Ruliff J. Swackhamer, William Wyckoff, harry J. Swackhamer, W.A. Sanford, C.E. Richards, E.B. Lathan, H.D. Williams, A,C, Giddes, Walter Muller, Willard N. Apgar, Benjamin W. Dodwell, Adam T. Schellhorn, Joseph Morecraft Jr., Alvah Skinner, Albert J. Roff, Bernard Rodgers, Lawrence Anzovino, {UPDATED 1998: James R. Sheenan and currently Robert Seader.}
Commissioners and councilmen have included in addition, Christian Schepflin, Robert Lowrie, John Runyon, John Hunt, John W. Moynihan, John M. Dayton, John P. Apgar, F.J. Richter, Samuel W. Luckey, Percy M. Ising, Adam Dealaman, Henry C. Gaskill, Jacob Fisher, Sanford C. Staples, Fred K. Wilcox, Arthur S. Gaston, Frank R. Wynkoop, Lewis Schneider, Frank Humpston, J. Newton Apgar, Lewis T. Titsworth, J.F.G. Kinney, Joel C. Giddes, Albert N. Randolph, Wilson S. Frederick, Cornelius N. Ryno, Fowler W. Vail, William H. Kuhns, Theodore Apgar, Charles F. Starker, Lewis T. Churchill, John H. Van Middlesworth, Harry Bambauch, Firmen H. Gise, George Huff, Robert F. Bogardus, Augustus F. Todd, C.H. Berkheiser, John Schneidler, William Shively, J. Alfred Wilson, William A. Castner, Richard M. Ryan, Foreman G. Neighbour, Earle M. Jones, Robert S. Craig, Oscar Runyon, Charles G. Wrage, Elwood E. Wallter, Frank H. Fuller, F.M. Van Blaricom, Lorin W. Treichler, George J. Bache, Robert W. Wright, Walter M. Fowler, J. Milton Michael, LeRoy B. Woodhull, Wheaton M. Shearman, Daniel Sargeant, David Murray, Earle H. Westcott, Leslie B. Apps, Charles D. Nonemaker, Paul Carpenter, Adam T. Dealaman, Harold S. Seal, DeWitt W. Swackhamer, Daniel F. Tabler, Edward J. Hannon, Henry N. Hopcke, Richard G. Terry, Harry O. Lips, Edward Roeth, Kingman J. Waterhouse, G. Raymond Wyckoff, George B. Van Nortwick, Vernon D. Eckert, Alvah H. Skinner and Albert J. Roff.
Norman Gray, John A. Golday, Richard W. Eckman, Lawrence Anzovino, Joseph Cullinan, James N. Durham, Robert Johnson, Robert Massey, Edward Reitz, Frank Stransky, James O’Brien, Francis Bulat, Vincent Cihanowyz, John Oros, Victor Zambelli, Joseph McKenna, Richard Gray, Fred Henry, William Collins, Andrew Kreiss, Raymond Searles, Thomas Kelly, Robert Durham, Virginia Kramer, Herbert Case, George Evans, William McAuley, Geraldine O’Hehir, Fred Butler, Thomas DeNapoli, John Gibney, Raymond Yanotsky, Timothy Mack.
The first borough secretaries were Messrs. P.W. Brakely, P.M. Ising, A. Dealaman, J.W. Moynihan and H.C. Gaskill.
The title changed to Clerk with H.L. Terry who was followed by C.H. English, T.P. Cady, O.A. Douglas, J.D. DeGroff, A. Coriell, W.P. Deering, W. Frederick, George J. Bache, Kallen Hamrah, Frank Reilly, Henry Hodulik,Geraldine O’Hehir, (UPDATED 1998: Jack Cahill)..
One of the greatest improvements in Dunellen’s 100 years has been the long waited for grade crossing elimination completed with appropriate ceremony in 1956.
The new station facilities, the well-planned use of the depot area with attractive banks, a modern post-office and adequate parking convenient to important industries and stores have been the culmination of another decade of progress and purpose in the heart of Railroadtown.
The First School Was Established in Dunellen in the Year 1800
The first record of a school in the community is in 1800, when a 16-foot log cabin is said to have stood on the site of the present Whittier School at the intersection of Whittier Avenue — once Depot Avenue — and New Market Road. There pupils were taught the three R’s by an itinerant New England teacher named Ransom Downes. In 1838 Piscataway Township set up an official school system and the township minutes thereafter contained regular if meager accounts of funds, usually in the neighborhood of $200, set aside for the education of poor children. In the same year Dunellen’s log cabin gave way to its first "regularly equipped" school, erected on the same site.
This one-room building, furnished with benches and the simplest sanitary and health arrangements, was rebuilt three years later, and in 1871 a second room was added at the cost of $450.
In 1873 "feeling the necessity of better school facilities" — Messrs. C. Schepflin, I.D. Titsworth, Benjamin Smith, John Runyon, Charles Boice, S.D. Affleck and P.W. Brakeley applied to the legislature to be appointed commissioners for the purpose of building a new school house. Their plea was granted. In 1875 contractor J.Y. Wilson built the four-room Whittier School at a cost of $10,000.
The Whittier School building was so well constructed that when in 1919 — after two two-room additions had been made in 1901 and 1908 — it was decided to rebuild the school on the same site, the contractor refused to tear down the old walls and simply erected the new Whittier School around them. A portion of the original wall is still visible at the back of the present building. Whittier School opened for the fall term of 1920-21 in virtually its present condition, with a seating capacity of 500. it cost $90,000.
Lincoln School
In 1888, the rapidly increasing enrollment at Whittier had brought about the realization of the need for a new school on the north side of the railroad tracks. The matter seems to have been a contentious one, and there ensued forty or fifty meetings and several elections — some of which were declared invalid — before Lincoln School was finally build. The four-room school, originally erected at a cost of $6,000, was enlarged by a $25,000 addition in 1914.
St. John’s School
The third school erected within the limits of the borough was the parochial school constructed in 1923-24 by St. John’s Parish. On First Street, at the rear of St. John’s Catholic Church, it is two stories high and contains eleven classrooms, with accommodations for 488 pupils.
High School
The Roosevelt School was opened in 1930 on Lincoln Avenue and First Street, where several houses had been removed. A 1935 addition supplied a gymnasium, science laboratory plus five more classrooms and the building was renamed Dunellen High School. Another addition to the High School was made in 1960 giving it a capacity of 620 students. the high school facilities at one time were used by pupils from Middlesex, Piscataway, Manville, and Green Brook which in 1969 was the last to withdraw its students.
Faber School
The construction of Faber School in 1960 at High and Lehigh Streets concluded the development of the Dunellen school system. The school was named in honor of John P. Faber who served on the Board of Education for forty-three years including fifteen years as president. The building contains twelve classrooms, a library and an all-purpose room which at that time accommodated students from fourth grade through eighth grade. Since 1970, Faber School serves fourth through sixth grade students.
School Officials
The following have served the Board of Education:
As president — Mr. Tallman, R.J. Swackhamer, H.C. Gaskill, Rev. F. Fletcher, R.J. Swackhamer, L.T. Titsworth, W.J. Hamilton, W.S. Fredericks, A.F. Todd, Jr., M.R. Dayton, J.A. Wilson, C.D. Nonemaker, H.B. Frey, John P. Faber, Dean B. Kiefer, Edward G. Shurts, Robert D. Mitchell, Robert Miller, John C. Ryan, Virginia Kramer, Paul Romanoski, Evelyn Hamrah, Philip Heiney, (UPDATED 1999: John Fitzgerald)
As Superintendent — L.H. Roberts (principal), A.J. Whitney, S.H. Van Syckle, Lester Meseroll, G.H. Rentschler, M. Burr Mann, Glenn W. Harris, Ralph W. Crane, Walter A. Miller, jr., Wilbur F. Bolen, Dr. John Ingemi, Alfred Goldstein, Dr. Gerald Stefanski (UPDATED 1998: and Dr. Arthur Travlos.)