DIVISION ROAD.
Division road, or Boot Leg lane, was merely a cross road, connecting the River and Back roads. This followed the present lines of Grafton avenue and Halleck street with that bit of Washington avenue which lies between, the jog being accounted for by a hill, which it was necessary to circumvent.
The first house built on the lane was that of James Campbell, a silk printer by trade, who worked in the factory of his brother, Peter, in Belleville. This was situated at the foot of the hill in what is now the northeast corner of Washington and Grafton avenues. It was later occupied by Mr. Kennedy, the florist. The next house was built by Mr. William Stimis (who gives me these facts) about opposite the above on Washington avenue.
The third house erected was that of Mr. William Tobey (Halleck street), an Englishman who was employed in the Bird factory. Mr. Tobey is described as a stocky man, genial, full of story and pleasant wit, and he appears to be remembered as something of a character. The place was added to by Morrison and Briggs, and here Charles Morrison is said to have lived for a time. Then came Mr. Stent, the architect, who designed the present entrance to Mount Pleasant Cemetery. The house is at present used for beer bottling purposes. Halleck street was at one time known as “Tobey’s” lane.
The fourth house was that of Gilbert Stimis, on the south side of Halleck street, and the fifth and last until we come to modern times was the Edgecombe house, erected about 1858. The family consisted of the mother and three daughters. They are said to have come here from Paramus.
BACK ROAD.
Mrs. Charles Holt, who is 71 years of age, recalls the time when the Phillips farmhouse was the only house on the lower Back road, between the cemetery and Elwood avenue, and when this stretch was known as “Phillips’s lane”.
As Mr. James S. Taylor remembers it, the only houses along the old Back road, as far back perhaps as 1850, were, beginning at the south:—
First, the John C. Bennett house, built in 1852, at the S. E. corner of Chester avenue; then, almost opposite, the Miles I’Anson house, which now stands on a knoll along the northern border of Chester avenue. Next the Phillips homestead, on the west, just below Delavan avenue, which has since been moved back to Summer avenue. Above this there was no house until the bend, now known as Elwood place, was passed. Some distance beyond here stood a small stone house on the right occupied by an Irishman. This was probably Pat Brady, who in the fifties built just below the present Bryant street. Pat had the reputation of being a child of fortune. It is remembered that, while very poor, he suddenly became well-to-do, and this was only accounted for by the fact that he might have “found a purse”. About opposite the Brady house stood the “Magazine” house back in the field.