Alcohol Treatment Center in Haledon, NJ.

Haledon developed along the northern side of the industrial city of Paterson. It was settled by farmers with colonial Dutch heritage including the Van Riper, Berdan, Banta, Post and Zabriskie families. Prior to the Civil War they were joined by the Roe, Leonhard and Stansfield families, who helped establish St. Mary’s Episcopal Church and leading businesses including a general store and the Leonhard Wax Company.

The area became a streetcar suburb of Paterson in the years following the Civil War, with the central area known as Haledon, while the area surrounding the large pond along High Mountain Road was called Oldham. The Paterson and Haledon Horse Rail Road Company, formed in 1871, laid trolley tracks from Paterson along the current-day Belmont Avenue, which were electrified by 1888. Many of the trolley company’s owners were among the founders of the Cedar Cliff Land Company, which bought up large portions of the area, and the street names in the borough reflect these industrialists and businessmen: Morrissee, Hoxey, Van Dyke, John Ryle and Barbour. The flat, lower part of the community was laid out in city-sized lots of 25′ by 100′ while the hillsides were plated as sites for larger Victorian “villas” for such individuals as Vice President Garret A. Hobart (now the location of William Paterson University) and the Barbour family of linen flax manufacturers. Haledon’s villa development was always rather limited and throughout much of the 20th century Haledon was a typical blue-collar community set by the small property sizes planned by the Cedar Cliff Land Company. A never-constructed grand hotel was planned for the highest point of the community above the intersection of the current day Central and West Haledon Avenues. The Cedar Cliff Land Company ran newspaper advertisements targeted at upwardly mobile immigrants who worked in Paterson’s silk industry, offering the city-sized lots for sale at auctions (with free lunches and brass bands) held at St. Mary’s Parish Hall, and also opened the Cedar Cliff Silk Mill, which became one of several silk mills in the community. The residential appeal of Haledon was to escape the crowded industrial city and still have access to the textile mills by using the trolley. As a result of the land sales of Cedar Cliff Land Company and also of independent landowner William Bushmann, the town was settled by immigrants who came as skilled workers from textile centers in Europe.

Haledon was incorporated in 1908, having been the Oldham district of the former Passaic County municipality of Manchester Township.