BY KRISTIN BEUSCHER
OF NORTHERN VALLEY PRESS
CLOSTER, N.J. —— When grocer Joseph Herron posed for the above photo outside his store back in 1900, Closter was a community in the midst of a grand transformation. The once sparsely populated, fully rural community had become a suburb seemingly overnight after the arrival of the railroad in 1859. By 1900 Closter’s population had increased to over 1,000 people and the “downtown,” with its unpaved roads and horse-drawn wagons, was home to numerous stores and tradesmen. There had been a major shift in lifestyle, too: nearly two-thirds of the men in Closter used the railroad to commute to New York City every day.
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One of the businesses on Main Street (now Closter Dock Road) was the Joseph Herron & Son grocery store. In the photo at left Herron is posing with his horse and delivery wagon between 217 Closter Dock Road (his store, now Celebrity Salons) and 219 Closter Dock Road. This empty space between the buildings still exists today.
Joseph Herron, born in Ireland in 1859, came to America as a child. Educated in Troy, N.Y., he began working as a clerk at age 15 and continued in that occupation for 10 years. He then went to New York City, where over the next 20 years he became a prominent exporting merchant in the foreign fruit trade. Later he moved to Closter, where he ran a grocery with his only son, George. Herron’s was more than a store; it was also a place where local townsmen would gather and “talk shop” about local affairs.
The American Telephone and Telegraph Company’s 1895 National Telephone Directory lists only one telephone subscriber in Closter: the J. Herron & Son General Store. The store’s telephone is mentioned in the advertisement below, which dates to 1900.