Ramsey Station (NJ Transit)
History
Construction of the Paterson and Ramapo Railroad in 1848 cut through owned by Peter J. Ramsey, a local landowner in Franklin Township. Ramsey donated the land for the first railroad station in the area, known as Ramsey's. The first train arrived at Ramsey's on October 19, 1848. The construction of the railroad also led to the establishment of a post office in the area. After Ramsey's death in 1854, the land was sold to William Pullis, who turned 22 of the 60 acres (24 ha) to John Dater, a local entrepreneur. Dater worked on opening a store and new structures in the area around Ramsey's station. A local hotel was constructed by David Valentine.
The construction of the Paterson and Ramapo Railroad helped influence the local strawberry industry in Bergen County during the 1840s. The railroad shipped strawberries for local farmers to New York City via Piermont. In 1847, the railroad offered strawberry special trains to help with the delivery of the fruit with nine strawberry cargo cars and two cars for those who wanted to sell their fruit in New York City. Locals in Paterson and Newark requested their own shipments of strawberries and the supply soon met the demand. By the 1850s, Ramsey and nearby Allendale had become the location of most strawberry patches, taking over from Hackensack.
As part of the high demand for strawberries after the American Civil War, the Erie Railroad, now operating the Paterson and Ramapo Railroad, built wooden boxcars that were painted white for the purpose of transporting strawberries. The Erie placed the special boxcars at the Allendale and Ramsey stations. However, the railroads strained the market in Bergen County, noting that the Erie advertised other places to start having their own strawberry farms. They also were delivering people who wanted to move to the area that bought the patches for housing. By the 1870s, the main strawberry crops were coming out of Maplewood and Irvington.
Station layout
This station has two tracks, each with a low-level side platform, and a small parking lot on the south side of Main Street (County Route 2). The station is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
See also
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Bergen County, New Jersey
- List of the oldest buildings in New Jersey
Bibliography
- Clayton, W. Woodford (1882). History of Bergen and Passaic Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Everts & Peck.
References
- ^ "List of Station Names and Numbers". Jersey City, New Jersey: Erie Railroad. May 1, 1916. Retrieved November 23, 2010.
- ^ "Main and Bergen County Line Timetables" (PDF). Newark, New Jersey: New Jersey Transit Rail Operations. November 7, 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 24, 2002. Retrieved November 27, 2010.
- ^ "Synopsis of Erie History". The Herald-News. Passaic, New Jersey. April 2, 1963. pp. 1, 6. Retrieved February 28, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Cheslow, Jerry (September 7, 2003). "If You're Thinking of Living In/Ramsey, N.J.; Small-Town Life Survives the Pressures". The New York Times. Retrieved April 12, 2018.
- ^ Pangburn, John (April 30, 1979). "Ramsey's Durable Station". The Bergen Record. Hackensack, New Jersey. p. 25. Retrieved March 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Kiefer, Eric (February 21, 2018). "Here Are New Jersey Transit's Most, Least-Used Train Stations". patch.com. Retrieved September 13, 2022.
- ^ Clayton 1882, p. 336.
- ^ Cunningham, John T. (June 13, 1963). "Erie RR Boomed 'Bergen Berry' Market-Then Killed It". The Daily Home News. New Brunswick, New Jersey. p. 16. Retrieved October 2, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
External links
- Media related to Ramsey (NJT station) at Wikimedia Commons
- Turn of the century postcard of the train station
- Station from Main Street from Google Maps Street View
- Noble, Tom (March 5, 2015). "Federal agency ranks Ramsey train crossing among most dangerous in state". www.northjersey.com. Retrieved March 10, 2015.