ICE1 West Milford farmers who worked at the Echo Lake ice business are, first row from left, Martin Decker, Edward Decker, Walter Whritenour, Norman Fredericks, superintendent Arthur Kane, Henry Fredericks, Issac Morse, M. Sisco and Charles White. In back row, from left, are Charles Vreeland, Frank O’Dell, Daniel Morse, Ernest Fredericks, Raymond Fredericks, John Kimble, Lewis Sisco, Frank Price, Ernest Zabriskie, Robert Babcock, Thomas Cahill and M. Fredericks. (Photo courtesy of Ann Genader)
ICE2 Primary grade teacher Alice Greenwood with her class in the Oak Ridge two-room school in the 1945-46 school year. (Photo courtesy of Ann Genader)
Along with the large-scale winter ice businesses at Greenwood Lake and Lake Hopatcong, smaller operations existed at some smaller lakes, including Echo Lake and Greenwood Pond.
A railway spur took ice from Echo Lake to the main train line connection at the intersection of Echo Lake Road and Route 23 at Charlottesburg.
Another spur connected the area between Greenwood Pond and the main line at Oak Ridge Road.
Ice customers in the greater Paterson area were served by these two businesses.
Before the City of Newark Watershed acquired Echo Lake Reservoir, the lake and its mountain, known as Windmill Hill, were a popular summer recreation area. Hotels there included Wickham’s Hotel.
A steamboat took vacationers for cruises on the lake. In the winter, the ice business was operated.
Arthur Kane was superintendent at the Echo Lake Ice Co. at the far end of the lake. Names of workers at this facility are some of the township’s earliest European settlers: Fredericks, Kimble, Whritenour, Decker, Sisco, Cahill and more.
Mostly, these men farmed in the summer and worked in the ice business in the winter.
Some residents had very small icehouse buildings on their property where they sold small amounts of ice to nearby neighbors.
For example, Eugene Mathews, son of local farmer/landowner John F. Mathews, was one of many men who had small one-man businesses delivering ice to local families.
His tiny icehouse (the size of a walk-in closet) was on Mathews Road near his father’s two barns.
The Mathews property started at the intersection of Macopin and Weaver roads. Mathews Road was the original name of Weaver Road, as shown on early township maps.
The Weaver family lived in the middle and opposite end of the road where it connects to Otterhole Road.
Nellie Weaver, a teacher at Apshawa and Hillcrest schools, operated Happy Hollow Park, a day trip swim/picnic destination, on Weaver Road.
Many years ago, Macopin Road began at the current Echo Lake Road intersection with a left turn north being the beginning of Macopin. Echo Lake Road, after a right turn south at the intersection, continued to the Bloomingdale boundary and went down the mountain through the Mariontown community to the intersection with Hamburg Turnpike.
Silk City Ice Co.
The Greenwood family has been an important part of the Oak Ridge community since E.R. Greenwood, who already had a coal and lumber company in Paterson, created Silk City Ice Co.
First, he imported ice from the Pocono Mountains for his Paterson business. He bought a small body of water in Oak Ridge about 1899 that became known as Greenwood Pond. He enlarged the pond by building a large dam.
When the ice business was in operation, the connecting road to it was known as Ice House Road. Today, the road is officially identified as Bonter Road, named after the Bonter family who lived there many years.
The late Harry Bonter, a journalist of sorts, wrote a popular - and sometimes not so popular - gossip column that was published weekly in the Butler Argus.
His mode of travel was hitchhiking. He stood at the side of the road and raised his hand to drivers, hoping to get a ride into Butler from the Oak Ridge area and he usually did.
The title of his column was “Up and Down the Line.”
Bonter gathered news from the drivers who gave him a ride and he conversed with other occupants of the vehicle if there were any.
Usually, the information he collected on his rides appeared in his column the next week - with his strong opinions on subjects often included.
Not everyone was happy with some of the information that was printed, but Harry wasn’t bothered. He just kept reporting what he heard from people while traveling to and from town.
His reports apparently interested readers, and Bonter and his editor obviously felt he was doing his job well as the column continued for quite a while.
Through his Silk City Ice business, Greenwood sold ice to large hotels and businesses. Initially, he also had eight local ice delivery routes in Paterson and Totowa. The driver for each route had his own horse and wagon and sold ice to people in private homes and small stores.
The icehouse Greenwood built was abandoned in the 1930s after the invention of electric refrigeration. The abandoned building became dilapidated and eventually collapsed.
All that is visible of the once lucrative business on Bonter Road is some of the foundation of the building and a little hardware.
A Paterson Morning Call article reported about a theater party and banquet that Greenwood gave for his employees and their wives. He wanted to show workers his appreciation for their dedicated work.
There was supper at a local restaurant with chocolate candy gifts for the women and fine cigars for the men. The guests also were treated to a show at a Paterson theater.
In the 1920s, a time when families had money worries because of extremely high living costs, Greenwood provided independent businesses for his employees with each driver given the wagon the employee was driving as a gift.
Meanwhile, the ice harvesting continued in Oak Ridge.
Greenwood family
Edward Rae “E.R.” Greenwood married Alice Schwaeble. Their son Richard was born in 1924.
Richard married Bernice Thomas in 1954. The couple lived in Paterson first, then moved to Oak Ridge.
A World War II hero who served in the U.S. Air Force from 1943 to 1945, Richard was a top turret gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress plane.
He died at age 95 on Nov. 9, 2019.
Richard and Bernice’s children are Dale Dunn and Glen Greenwood, who died Jan. 18 at age 62. The family tree now includes Richard and Bernice’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
After Edward Rae and Alice moved to Oak Ridge, Alice became a schoolteacher.
Initially, Anna Dunham taught all eight grades in the one-room Oak Ridge school, said Bob Nicholson, who had Dunham as his only teacher throughout all his elementary school years before he was off to Butler High School.
When a second classroom was added to the little white schoolhouse on Oak Ridge Road, Alice was hired by the West Milford Board of Education as the teacher in the new primary grade room. She worked many years with Dunham, who continued to teach the upper grades when the second classroom was added to the original building.
The Oak Ridge school was torn down when Hillcrest School was built for all township elementary school children to attend.
Alice Greenwood also taught private piano lessons at her home. Shirley Tice Rhinesmith Mazalewski and the late John Fredericks remembered when they were young children and Greenwood was their piano teacher.