Fall Festival in the Park – Join us!

The Van Riper Restoration Trust will have a table along with other civic organizations at Nutley’s Fall Festival in the Park on Sunday, September 29.

This provides an opportunity for us to get our message to many local people that we aim to save and make thrive the historic Van Riper house.

We’re asking for members to volunteer to help staff the booth for an hour or two and help promote our restoration efforts and goals.

Van Riper trust has so many great new members who want to get involved and help, so here’s a chance to dip your toe into the water, help us tell our story and chat with friends and strangers at the festival.

The festival is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and we won’t shoo you away if you show up a tad early to help set up or stay a tad late to help us clean up.

Watch our Facebook page for sign up information.

Nutley Rotary invites Van Riper history

Nutley Rotary invited Dante Intindola, president, and John Demmer, vice president of the Van Riper Restoration Trust to come speak to us about their goal of preserving, restoring and maintaining the Van Riper House, in order to make it a valuable asset to the Nutley community.

The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m., Oct. 10, in the Stockton Room at the Nutley Public Library, 93 Booth Drive, Nutley, N.J.

Van Riper members and friends are welcome to attend. Food, soft drinks, coffee and tea are included in $15 registration fee, to be paid at door.

Register online and save time 

Van Riper Clean-up Day, Sept. 22, 2019

All Van Riper House Trust members and ALL their friends are invited to the last major Van Riper House Clean-up of the season from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 22 at 491 River Road, Nutley, N.J. Please wear heavy shoes and definitely bring at least one good pair of work gloves.

The trustees are asking anyone interested donate whatever time you can spare, preferably a three-hour shift that day, but you are welcome chip in longer if you like.

Follow our Facebook page for updates!

Van Riper reorganizes

(JUNE 11, 2019) — The Van Riper House, Inc. held a special meeting tonight to elect new officers in order to increase its ability to achieve its goal of preserving, restoring and maintaining the Van Riper House, in order to make it a valuable asset to the Nutley community.

Regular meetings will be held every 2nd Thursday of the month. Our next meetings will be held on July 11, 2019, August 8, 2019, etc., at the Nutley Museum, 65 Church Street, Nutley. All are welcome to attend! We are very much looking forward to the future of one of Nutley’s historic treasures.

Our new officers are:

Dante Intindola, President
John Demmer, Vice President
Marion Butler, Secretary
Barbara Davide, Treasurer

Directors:
Jack Casale
Susan Casale
Dennis Dries
Betty Dries
Maryann Lauber
John Simko
Patti Williams

Janice Fraser
(1 vacant)

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Go West! To Nutley from Jersey City

(June 14, 2019) — After Juriaen Thomassen from Ripen settled down with his wife Reyckje in the growing village of Bergen (now Jersey City), he was party to a contract that would significantly shape the future of what we know know as Clifton, New Jersey.

On March 28, 1679, a group of Dutch settlers purchased what was known as “Acquackanonk” (ah-QUACK-ah-nonk) from the Lenni Lenape Indians, located around what is now the Main Avenue Bridge in Passaic.

However, the transfer of Native land rights did not count under English law. This was relevant because the English had granted some rights to English settlers in the same area, and that conflicted with the Dutch settlers’ goals.

So, Juriaen Tomassen and 13 other heads of Dutch households negotiated and purchased from the Proprietors of East Jersey the land encompassed by a line drawn from where the Third River enters the Passaic to what is now the location of Montclair State University (“the first mountain”), then following the Passaic back to the beginning. This was memorialized in the Acquackanonk Patent, granted on March 15, 1684. The Dutch then began splitting up the tract into various lots shown on the maps below.

That area became Acquackanonk Township in 1693. After land was parceled out into Paterson, Little Falls, and Passaic, Acquackanonk became the City of Clifton on April 26, 1917.

– Dante Intindola

Sources & further reading:
Lambert Castle
Passaic County
Gerrit Gerritszen van Wagenen
Acquackanonk Township, New Jersey
New York Public Library Digital Archives
THE STORY OF NEW JERSEY’S CIVIL BOUNDARIES

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Thank you for your interest in Van Riper

(JUNE 19, 2019) — There is incredible excitement about the Van Riper House and I am not just speaking about the group and its new leadership. There has been an outpouring of concern from some major groups in town and I am being asked “what can we do to help” from private citizens and organizations.

We will be having our first meeting (as the newly formed group) on July 11th and it is open to all. We have a lot of work to do primarily getting all the paperwork and books in order and we will be organizing events soon too.

The number one goal is to stabilize and protect the building then get the right people in to come up with a viable plan for fund raising and building use. Based on all the willingness from so many, I believe we have the best chance ever to get this one done in a realistic and sensible time frame. We hope to be able to speak with some of you at the next meeting!

-JD

(map is Nutley area in 1860)

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Who was Bradbury?

(June 26, 2019) — Many people don’t know this, but the Van Riper House wasn’t originally built by the Van Ripers. As far as we know, a house was built on the current site by the Bradbury family in 1708.

John Bradbury, from England, built the first mill on the Third River in 1698 or earlier. It was located almost exactly where Route 3 crosses River Road (big yellow circle below).

Sometime around 1708 or earlier, he used his accumulated wealth from the gristmill to build a stone house on a knoll along the newly-constructed River Road. As an aside, River Road is Nutley’s oldest road, laid out officially on March 26, 1707.

See below for a copy of that “road return” mentioning John “Broadbury” being annoyed that Essex County road men were going to mess with the nice hedges he had planted when they worked on the road.

To be continued…

Sources & Further Reading
History of Passaic and its Environs, by William W. Scott, 1922 (pp 637-638)

Essex County Road Books A&B (1698-1804)

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