Until the middle 1880's, Bergen County was divided into sprawling townships as described in the previous articles in this series.   In 1886, the townships were:
 

.	Lodi, 1825	Ridgefield, 1871
New Barbadoes, 1710	Washington, 1840	Palisades, 1871
Franklin, 1771	Hohokus, 1849	Englewood, 1871
Harrington, 1775	Union, 1852	Ridgewood, 1876
Saddle River, 1716	Midland, 1871	Orvil, 1885

Today, Bergen County is comprised of 70 municipalities - of these, there are 56 boroughs, 3 cities, 2 villages, and 9 townships, as listed below:
 

What brought this about was -------

Early in 1894, the New Jersey legislature passed a school act which wiped out the former subsidiary school districts and made each township a separate school district.  Taxpayers were obliged to pay, pro rata, existing debts of the old districts in addition to all future debts of the township for school purposes.  Exempted from this provision were "boroughs, towns, villages, and cities".

A rush was then made to form boroughs, and 26 boroughs were carved from those early townships between January 23 and December 18, 1894.  The rush to form boroughs was slowed down (but not stopped) when the legislature quickly passed an amendment to the school act that stated that no borough could maintain a school separate from the township unless there were 400 children within its limits.

Before 1893, a  number of laws had been passed by the New Jersey Legislature which enabled boroughs to be formed. The first was in 1878 when the Legislature provided for formation of a borough in a township or part of a township, not to exceed four square miles and a population of 5,000.  As we saw in the last issue, only  Rutherford and Ridgefield boroughs were formed as a result of that law.  Subsequently, in 1891, an act was passed providing for formation of villages whose population was greater than 300 people per square mile and then Ridgefield Park village was formed.

Then, in 1893, an act was passed which brought about the sometimes bizarre borough boundaries that were eventually formed.  That act provided that a borough could only have a chosen freeholder if the borough contained a portion of two or more townships.  As a result, most of the boroughs that were formed contained small parts of different townships within their boundaries.

The break up of the townships continued after 1894.  In addition to the school issue, discontent increased as regions with factories saw their heavy tax assessments being used to support large townships.  These split-ups of the townships continued until 1924, when the number of municipalities reached 70.  (However, municipal name changes and a few boundary changes still occurred through 1973.)

You can refer to the map of Bergen County that was included in Part 3 of this series to see the boundaries of the 70 present municipalities overlaid on the townships that existed in 1893.

The following "Family Tree of Bergen County's 70 Municipalities" summarize the evolution of Bergen County from its founding in 1682 through the formation of the 56 boroughs, 3 cities, 2 villages, and 9 townships that exist today.   Note that the heavier shaded lines in this tree relate to this evolution up to 1894 (which was described in the first three parts of this series).  The further evolution dating after 1894 is shown by the "finer" lines.

This concludes the four-part series; Bergen County’s Townships and Municipalities.

Notes: The original Family Tree of Bergen County’s 70 Municipalities was prepared in the early 1900's and was subsequently published in the Sunday Record Call and then in the Record.  The family tree appearing in this issue of The Archivist has been completely redrawn to correct and add information omitted from those earlier trees.

A number of references were used in compiling this series of articles.   However, most of the boundary information was extracted from: “The Story of New Jersey’s Civil Boundaries, 1606-1968" by John P. Snyder.

Click Here to go to Part 1.