'The Road': A Look at South Orange Avenue

South Orange Avenue has had many names in its long history.

Just as all roads in the old empire lead to Rome, colonial roads lead to water. South Orange Avenue, an important route in the early years of this nation, is no different. Market Street in Newark, which begins at the waterfront, forks into Springfield and South Orange avenues. South Orange Avenue charts a path over the mountain, all the way to Morristown, the military capital of the American Revolution. The avenue remains a main artery, connecting and bisecting Newark, South Orange, Short Hills and Livingston. In Florham Park, the street’s name changes to Columbia Turnpike, and in Morristown, it becomes Columbia Road. It’s also known, far less prosaically, as Route 510. 

What I’ve long wondered, though, is why this avenue that begins in Newark, ends in Morristown, and traverses a number of communities, is named for South Orange. The short answer to my question is this: it wasn’t always named South Orange Avenue. According to Charles T. McGrath, author of “Newark Mountain: Third Division of Land, Circa 1696 AD,” the earliest deeds refer to it simply as “the Highway” or “the Road leading from South Orange Avenue to Newark,” which was abbreviated to “the Road.” Legend suggests that South Orange Avenue was originally a Native American trail when settlers arrived in Newark after the 1664 “Concession,” or purchase, of the land from “the Indians.”

According to the “History of the First Presbyterian Church,” by James Hoyt, a group of settlers was met at the river by a “party of Hackensacks,” who disputed the purchase. The Puritans considered leaving, “asserting that the heathen, as part of the lineal descendants of Noah, had a rightful claim to their lands.” The dispute was resolved, and settlers made Newark—including what we now know as South Orange—their own.

The community grew and annexed a larger part of “Newark Mountain.” Late 17th-century deeds and maps refer to South Orange Road and Third Road as the same—intriguing, since the current South Orange Avenue parallels Third Street for several blocks near the center of town. During the Revolutionary War, according to “The Municipalities of Essex County, Volume II,” Coon Road, “at the top of the mountain,” was a watch tower. “From Vauxhall was to come the alarm if the British were making a move for Morristown, and from Baldwin’s station on Scotland Road, if the Tories were coming from that direction,” meaning South Orange Avenue, which still went by a number of names.

Indeed, an 1860 map of “South Orange and the Orange Valley,” which was published by Thomas Hughes, Lithographer, of Philadelphia, shows an unfamiliar town line and two names for our main street. Vailsburg, now a section of Newark that bounds South Orange, was first part of Newark, then part of Clinton (which became part of Maplewood), then part of the consolidated Orange township, then part of South Orange. In 1894, Vailsburg became an independent town, an effort that lasted only until it was absorbed by Newark in 1904. Vailsburg’s main artery is South Orange Avenue, which appears on the 1860 map as “Newark Avenue” from the town line until the train tracks, and as “Old Turnpike” from the tracks westward. At the time, South Orange Avenue intersected Jefferson and Freeman roads, both of which we now call Ridgewood, and there is a line on the map that shows the “proposed” route of Mountain Avenue, which traveled through the wide expanse we now call Newstead.

The 1860s were an era of rapid growth and shifting town lines; in this time, many local street names became standardized. A similar map dated a year later shows that our main street was labeled South Orange Avenue from Newark as far west as Morristown.

Into the late 19th century, the western suburbs were largely undeveloped. I imagine, based on the dozens of maps that I have studied, that leaving the center of Newark and South Orange and traveling west meant leaving homes, stores and evidence of settlement behind until reaching Morristown.

Enjoy your ride through history along "The Road."