ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J.—Has anyone ever made a bicycle look more tough? Englewood Cliffs Police Marshal William “Big Bill” Markham is next to his official mode of transportation in this photo dated to the 1910s.
Markham had already been serving as a special marshal when his predecessor resigned and he was promoted to chief marshal in 1910. His salary was $3 a day, and the only equipment the borough provided was a night stick, a revolver, a pair of handcuffs and a badge.
As the borough history book “The Story of Englewood Cliffs” recalls, “There were so many robberies and murders in those days, a strong marshal was needed; so William Markham was chosen. Markham jokingly tells how ‘Crimes seem to have ended as soon as I became marshal, as if I was responsible for them in the first place.’”
Markham patrolled Englewood Cliffs first on foot, and then on a bicycle, as shown in the photograph at left. There was no police headquarters in those days—Markham operated out of his own home on Sixth Street.
At the time when “The Story of Englewood Cliffs” was published in 1964, Markham, at 89 years old, was the oldest living resident in the borough. He had spent nearly his entire life in Englewood Cliffs, having been born on Bayview Avenue back in 1875. His mother, Jane, who had come from Wales, worked as a domestic in an Englewood Cliffs mansion. She met Fred Markham when he was working in the mansion as a painter, and the pair eventually married.
“And so Englewood Cliffs’ first citizen—William Markham—came into existence,” the book relates.
Markham went from patrolling by bicycle to motorcycle, and eventually to a patrol car in 1926. Borough records show that in 1928 Englewood Cliffs was paying Markham $10 a month to use his own garage to house the police car. He worked for the police department for over 40 years, retiring as chief in 1951.
