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Where We Were Born Eight miles west of New York City lies the suburban community of Rutherford, N.J. On the porch of a Rutherford home one evening in 1933, Peter Sammartino, concerned about the lack of education options in New Jersey and inspired by his teaching experiences at Columbia University in New York City, gazed at the old Castle a half-block away and thought it would be a great “adventure” to start a college there. The college was officially established nine years later, and the site chosen was indeed special. The Castle was built in 1888 by David Ivison and modeled on the French chateau of Chaumont. The Ivison family used “Iviswold” as a summer home until 1903. Sammartino later acquired the property for the new college, and the Castle became the centerpiece of the original campus. From modest beginnings as a junior college, Fairleigh Dickinson grew into one of the largest private universities in New Jersey, with campuses in New Jersey, England and Israel. Rutherford proved to be an ideal community in which to build a university. First settled by the Dutch, the region was made up mostly of quiet farmlands until 1830, when construction began on a railroad from Paterson to Hoboken. Led by New York City tourists, people discovered new lands for homes, and hotels were built for summer vacationers. The population reached 1,000 in 1881, when Rutherford officially became an independent borough. While Rutherford has since grown to nearly 20,000 residents and features modern amenities and a renowned performing arts center (the William Carlos Williams Center for the Performing Arts), tree-lined streets and small parks echo back to earlier times.
In 1993, Fairleigh Dickinson decided to merge its operations at the Rutherford Campus with those of the Teaneck-Hackensack and Florham-Madison campuses, a move that enabled FDU to enhance its facilities and programs. The Rutherford Campus was later sold to Felician College. When it left Rutherford in 1994, FDU became the fifth New Jersey college to move from its place of origin; the others were Kean College (Newark to Union), Rider College (Trenton to Lawrenceville), Seton Hall University (Florham Park to South Orange) and Upsala College (Brooklyn, N.Y., to East Orange). And this is not just a New Jersey phenomenon. Among the major universities in the nation that have moved from their original sites are Brown University (founded in Warren, R.I., and moved to Providence), Duke University (founded in Randolph County, N.C., and moved to Durham) and Columbia University (founded in New York City in the Wall Street area, moved to 49th Street and then to its present location on the Upper West Side). Today, FDU has Rutherford Rooms on both New Jersey campuses to honor the founding site of the University. Rutherford always will be a special part of the Fairleigh Dickinson community. |
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