MONTVALE—This week 125 years ago, Montvale’s first lady faced down the town marshal. He threatened to take her church organ; she threatened to shoot him. Here is that story.
The former St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (the Old Stone Church) at the corner of Grand Avenue and Woodland Road in Montvale still stands as a relic of early days in the borough. When this story takes place, the church was only three years old.
The building of the church had coincided with the formation of Montvale itself. Before 1894, all of the towns that comprise the Pascack Valley were part of the Township of Washington. In 1894 they started breaking off to form smaller municipalities. Montvale, Park Ridge, Westwood and Woodcliff (“Lake” was added later) all incorporated that year.
Montvale, with fewer than 400 residents, became a borough on Aug. 31, 1894. That same day, Bishop Thomas A. Starkey, of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, received a request for the establishment of a new mission church there.
The church was designed by Samuel Burrage Reed, a resident of Woodcliff — and one of America’s leading architects of the era. Reed also designed the first schoolhouse in Woodcliff Lake, which was built in 1895 and still stands on Woodcliff Avenue, part of the borough’s middle school campus. The two buildings have many similarities.
Archdeacon Jenvy of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark visited the nascent Montvale church in May 1895 and had this to say:
“In Montvale a most picturesque chapel is in the process of erection. The walls are of stones taken from the adjoining fields. The roof and gables are of frame with rustic finish. It is a marvel of cheapness. The stone walls cost only $340. The total cost of all will be only $1,500. We held service in the building, the first ever held in it. Sixty-five were in the congregation.”
Those first years at St. Paul’s were rather rustic, but these were country families used to a rural lifestyle. Congregants arrived early in order to start up the wood-burning stove to heat the church, and baptismal water was carried in pails from nearby wells. It was humble beginnings, but the little stone church was a source of pride for the people nonetheless.
Perhaps that’s why, when the borough marshal came knocking on the door in late August 1897, Cora TerKuile, the mayor’s wife, so fervently stood her ground.
Dutch immigrant Jacob TerKuile was the first mayor of Montvale, serving 1894 to 1896. The couple, who lived on West Grand Avenue, had donated the land for the church and were instrumental in its organization.
The family, which included eight children, was relatively well-off; Jacob was an executive for a steamship line.
“Mrs. TerKuile is defending St. Paul’s Episcopal Church against an officer of the law,” The New York Times wrote on Aug. 23, 1897.
The borough marshal had come bearing a writ of attachment against the organ used in the church. The organ was to be seized to satisfy a sum of money, $57, that was still owed to the man who built the church, Milo Reddick, a carpenter from Park Ridge. That money would be equivalent to about $2,000 today. Reddick had obtained the writ and directed the marshal to serve it.
“Last evening the marshal went to the church to make the attachment. Mrs. TerKuile, who is one of the leading members of the church, refused to allow him to enter the building. She asserted that the organ belonged to her,” the newspaper continued. “The marshal then threatened to break into the building to get at the organ. Upon this, the woman said she would shoot the marshal if he did as he threatened.”
As far as we know, the marshal never did get that organ.
Mrs. TerKuile was a force. She was widowed in 1910 with all eight children still at home, ranging in age from 22 to 6. She was well-known locally for her work with numerous organizations and charities. In addition to helping found St. Paul’s and serving as its organist and choir director for years, she was a member of the Montvale Board of Education and served on the original PTA.
In 1917 Mrs. TerKuile organized the Red Cross in Bergen County and during World War I she made numerous speeches around the area in the Liberty Bond sale drives. She helped organize Bergen Pines County Hospital (now Bergen New Bridge Medical Center). She spent her later years in Florida, where she passed away in 1955.
In the 1960s the congregation of St. Paul’s constructed a larger church across the street on Woodland Road. The original church still stands, designated a historic landmark in 1998 by the Montvale Mayor and Council.
— Krisin Beuscher, a former editor of Pascack Press, is president of Pascack Historical Society in Park Ridge and edits its quarterly members’ newsletter, Relics.