Mayor Wilbur Fredericks with retiring Road Department employees at their retirement party 60 years ago at Pine Village Grove in Oak Ridge. From left are Fredericks, Theodore Sisco, Thomas Cahill and Clarence Bossard. (File photos by Ann Genader)
Theodore Sisco and his wife, Laura (Smith) Sisco, at his retirement dinner in 1965.
Clarence Bossard, who started his job with the West Milford Road Department in 1936, remembered when he and his colleagues “plowed the roads with oxen” after deep piles of snow made travel impossible.
Bossard, who lived in Hewitt, mentioned this method of removing snow after the much heavier snowfalls long ago when he spoke at a retirement dinner party held for him and three other Road Department workers 60 years ago at Pine Village Grove in Oak Ridge.
Theodore Sisco, another retiree, began his career with the department in 1933 and remembered his pay being $4 a day at that time.
Thomas Cahill of Macopin, the third retiree in 1965, was the father of the late Magistrate (Judge) T. Harry Cahill, who was the last appointed magistrate left in New Jersey when a law requiring that judges have a law degree was adopted.
Harry Cahill’s appointment was grandfathered. After he retired, the judge on the West Milford bench had to be a lawyer.
The experience of these three longtime township employees totaled 99 years, said Township Attorney Louis Wallisch Jr., who was the master of ceremonies at most township events.
This was the first dinner to honor and acknowledge the Road Department and its workers.
Before more recent history, road department equipment - there wasn’t much of it in the beginning - was parked outside the West Milford Town Hall, which was in the building how housing the West Milford Museum. It originally was a Methodist Episcopal church.
There was no garage available. All township offices were in the building.
The Police Headquarters was in the balcony of the old church and court and town meetings were held in the main section, where people attending church had been seated.
For a long time, there was a baptismal fount in the rear. Those attending town meetings and court sessions sat on the old church benches.
Garrett Sugarbaker, president of Passaic County Civil Service Unit 3, was guest speaker at the 1965 retirement event.
Former Road Department Superintendent Harold Fredericks and Township Committee members William Dunnigan, W. Albert Moody and Mollie McFarland were also present.
Mayor Wilbur Fredericks praised the three men for their dedication to their jobs of caring for township roads and presented them with watches.
He commented on the “efficient way” snow plowing was handled. He saw the local Road Department as “one of the finest in the state.”
Walter Manning headed a committee of Road Department employees who planned the event. They were Harold Smith, James Finn, Pat Sehulster, Herbert Creamer and Steve Sadowski.
Wallisch enjoyed putting humor into his social life, especially at his gigs as emcee. At the Road Department dinner, he presented the retirees with toy trucks and miniature heavy equipment as a reminder of the equipment they worked with on the job for many years.
Every Christmas, Wallisch invited council and Board of Education members, along with other people, to visit his office in the family home on Lincoln Avenue.
Many may remember what a great time he had winding up his toy trucks and other vehicles and watching them travel across the floor.
Wallisch loved decorating for every holiday - especially the outside of the house and grounds. On flag day and other patriotic days, he had some friends put up an enormous flag over the front of the barn. The flag had been flown on a battleship flagpole.
He was heartbroken when the flag mysteriously disappeared. It was never found.
Back to oxen being used for plowing snow ... the farmers used their oxen to pull a specially designed plow through the snow in the same way they plowed the fields in the spring.
This method of clearing roads in winter ended when tractors became available. Oxen are neutered bulls and those used for road clearing were about 3 or 4 years old.
These animals were considered very powerful and not difficult to train. They had a tough pad on the roof of their mouth and no teeth in the upper front to bite, and they were not as excitable as horses. Usually dehorned when they were calves, oxen were considered safe to be around.
Summer population
West Milford was a very different place then than it is today. The entire township had 2,000 people before the 1950s, with that number mushrooming to 10,000 in summer.
The summer people were focused on vacationing and did not get involved in politics or affairs of the town government.
Things began to change after World War II ended in 1945. People started converting their lake development summer homes to year-round dwellings. By 1960, the population was 8,304, and the number of year-round residents had more than doubled.
The township’s population reached 22,750 in 1980, and by 2000, there were 26,410 people living full time in West Milford.
People who came from other towns had services and rules there that they missed and wanted in their new hometown. Some ran for seats on the governing board, were elected and initiated changes they saw as a benefit for all residents.
When the year-round population was small, West Milford was a rural place without much in the way of government restrictions. People usually did what they wanted to on their properties, which usually were quite a distance from each other.
People raised chickens, turkeys and any other animals they wanted to without getting permission from anyone. They built houses and other buildings without permits.
“Shade tree mechanics” jacked up their vehicles on their front lawns and repaired them there if they decided to do so.
Before Hillcrest School was built in the mid-1940s, public rural school graduations were held in church facilities.
Some Road Department workers took township trucks home overnight when a snowstorm was predicted so they could begin plowing roads at daybreak. Township trucks were used to plow parking lots of churches of all denominations in a time when attending every Sunday service in their church was a family routine.
Growing pains
By 1950, the end of the way things were done was coming. There would be many conflicts when changes were proposed.
Things changed greatly as West Milford continued to suffer growing pains. In 1959, the Planning Board saw a need to investigate having different standards for seasonal and year-round properties and that went nowhere.
The board members at the time also were looking into establishing industrial zones. It was generally agreed that the airport, which was being developed, could become a future transportation center to establish industry.
It was noted at the Planning Board meeting that the area was accessible by road to an existing regional network. The board members said they wanted to give primary consideration to the area as an industrial zone.
The strong winds of change in West Milford were unleashed.
Much natural beauty is abundant in West Milford now, thanks to protected land. If this weren’t the case, the township would resemble many overbuilt communities where profit over natural resources is the norm.
The town dodged a bullet in 1960s, when a proposed jetport was not built.
If you look, many buildings and historic places remain that make it easy to imagine when West Milford was undeveloped and wild.