Howland Avenue divided the farms of miller Cornelius Van Saun to the south and Christian Dederer to the north. Hendrick Banta lived west of Mill Creek. The Continental Army moved into Bergen County in August 1780 to forage for food and to await the French army and fleet for a campaign to drive the British from New York City. From September 4th to the 20th, 1780, about 14,000 American troops encamped on Kinderkamack ridge. Hendrick Banta sold them cider from his mill. His ten-year-old son Cornelius saw Washington three times on his horse. His presence here gave rise to the name of the Washington Spring.
Cherry Hill in River Edge rises 113 feet above sea level and overlooks lowlands to the east, south and west. Beyond the shallow swale where Van Saun Park is now found, yet another ridge rises. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, this was “the hill commonly called the Cacel Rugh at the road [now Howland Avenue] which leads from the New Bridge to Sluckup.” Kachgel Ruygte derives from Kachgel (meaning stove) and ruygte (meaning a thicket, bramble-bushes or shavings of wood) and translates as Stove-Kindling. Several living springs feed brooks that descend the narrow vale between ridges, concentrating in Van Saun Mill-Pond before contributing their commingled waters to Cole’s Brook and the Hackensack. This hollow between the hills was anciently known as Sluckup, but changed to the more poetic Spring Valley in 1832. Sluckup has resisted interpretation— it was even humorously suggested (more than a century ago) that the place earned its name when a cow “slucked up” a farmer’s linen coat from a fence. But the Bantas, one of the earliest families to farm this valley of springs, hailed from Friesland on the North Sea. The Frisian language is Scandinavian in origin, more closely resembling Old English than Dutch. Old Norse had a word, slakki (slack, in English) to describe a small valley or boggy hollow. Long ago, beasts of the forest drew near to drink the cool stream; they in turn attracted predators. A wolf-pit reportedly was located east of Spring Valley Road, near the confluence of the upper branches of the Mill Brook, and within the present confines of Van Saun Park.
Exactly when one of the Van Sauns built a stone dam in the hollow below the conjunction of several spring brooks and erected a gristmill is unrecorded but on May 1, 1750, neighbor Jan Banta, devised “all the rest of my land lying on the west side of a run of water called the Muelekel [Mill Creek]” to his son Cornelius Banta. By the time of the Revolution, the road to Sluckup (now Howland Avenue) ran upon the division line between Jacob Van Saun’s farm to the south and son-in-law Christian Dederer’s farm to the north, heading west from Kinderkamack Road over the crest of Brower’s Hill, then descending into the dell where it crossed Van Saun Mill-Pond on a crude wooden bridge over the mill dam.
Tax Ratables for New Barbadoes Precinct identify Cornelius Van Saun as owner of a gristmill from September 1779 through at least 1797. He is not listed as owner in September 1802, having died in that year; a deed then referred to “the mill lot belonging to Luke Van Saun.” It was sold to Nicholas Romine before 1815.
During September 1780, Continental soldiers encamped in the fields along Kinderkamack road from New Bridge northward to Westwood. Hendrick Banta owned a cider mill at Steenraupie (River Edge) and sold a barrel of cider to the troops “every other day.” Cornelius’ grandfather, then fourteen years old, “saugh Washington three times on his hors.” The Commander-in-Chief’s presence hereabout gave rise to the name of the Washington Spring in Van Saun Park.
On May 5, 1834, David I. Christie and John W. Banta, the executors of David W. Banta, deceased, conveyed two lots of land to Jacob I. Terhune for $1,350. The second lot included in this sale comprised seven acres of woodland, “commonly called Wolf Hole,” which was situated between the upper branches of the Van Saun Millbrook, extending from the west side of the brook flowing through Van Saun Park (which forms the boundary between River Edge and Paramus), westward across Forest Avenue to Spring Lane.
In 1815, the Sluckup road (now Howland Avenue) crossed Van Saun Pond on a “bridge across the dam of Nicholas Romine.” A tax list for 1820 indentifies Nicholas Romine as owner of a grist and saw mill at this location.
Nicholas Romine died in October 1821, leaving his wife Sally with “full and quiet possession” of his real and personal estate for so long as she remained his widow, after which it was to be divided equally among his three sons: Jacob, Nicholas and Abraham. In May 1827, Nicholas’ executors sold “his homestead farm at Sluckup with house, Barn, Grist Mill, saw mill and improvements,” situated on the south side of the road from Stone Arabia (Steenrapie) to Sluckup, to William I. Ackerman for $3,000. William Ackerman and his wife Rachel sold the same property (62 acres) to Peter C. Debaun and Albert C. Debaun of Harrington Township in October 1831. Peter Debaun immediately sold his half-interest to his brother Albert for $600. Albert C. Debaun died in August 1853, devising his farm and personal property to his wife and after her demise or remarriage, to his daughter Marie, wife of John M. Terhune. Neither his will nor an inventory made of his possessions makes any reference to a grist or saw mill, so it it possible that he disposed of the same, either by lease or sale, before his death. In any event, at some time shortly before or after Albert Debaun’s death, the mill property came into the possession of Jacob Henry Van Saun. The Corey map of 1860 shows “J. H. Van Saun” living next to the grist and saw mill. The old mill closed down during the Civil War and by 1876 the machinery had been mostly removed. By 1902, Jacob H. Van Saun’s ice house stood at the outlet of the pond. According to report in The Bergen County Democrat, J. H. Van Saun & Company gathered a nine-inch cut of ice from Spring Lake at Spring Valley on February 15, 1906. The commercial ice industry declined with advances in the manufacture of artificial ice and the spread of home refrigerators. This millpond, later used for the ice harvest, became known as Pompadour Pond, apparently from the resemblance of wet hair, combed back, to the popular 1950s men's hairstyle. It was supposedly a favorite swimming hole for skinny dipping (males only!).
