PASCACK VALLEY—This week in local history: A chilly challenge. We go back 130 years to November 1892, when Republican Frederick Van Riper and Democrat Gilliam Ackerman made an election wager that would see the loser wading miles through the cold Pascack Brook.
The clipping on this page comes from the Passaic Daily News. “The loser is to wade through the Pascack Brook, from Park Ridge to Hillsdale, while the winner gets nothing but the privilege of seeing his opponent run the risk of catching a severe cold.”
That year brought a presidential election in which former Democratic President Grover Cleveland defeated incumbent Republican President Benjamin Harrison.
Van Riper, 60, was a wealthy farmer with considerable land holdings around Chestnut Ridge Road. Ackerman, 67, was the proprietor of the Park Ridge Hotel and treasurer of the Township Committee, back in this era when Washington Township included all eight towns of the Pascack Valley. Both men were well-known in their communities.
In a follow-up, the newspaper reported, “Ackerman will now have the pleasure of seeing his unfortunate Republican friend wade the Pascack Brook, from Park Ridge to Hillsdale, in payment for his bet.”
Van Riper seems to have made it through the ordeal all right. He lived another 10 years before he died, in 1902 — not due to illness, but rather following an accident on the farm.
DID YOU KNOW? Grover Cleveland holds two distinctions: He is the only president native to New Jersey, and he is the only president to have served two non-consecutive terms. He served as president from 1885–1889, then Harrison served a term before Cleveland made his return to the White House in 1893.
— Kristin Beuscher is president of the Pascack Historical Society