Snow had fallen in the night, and now the great house, standing at the head of the valley, seemed like a five-hundred-year old ship sailing in a white ocean… For the Cavendish family, Rutherford Park is much more than a place to call home. It is a way of life marked by rigid rules and lavish rewards, governed by unspoken desires… Lady of the house Octavia Cavendish lives like a bird in a gilded cage. With her family’s fortune, her husband, William, has made significant additions to the estate, but he too feels bound—by the obligations of his title as well as his vows. Their son, Harry, is expected to follow in his footsteps, but the boy has dreams of his own, like pursuing the new adventure of aerial flight. Meanwhile, below stairs, a housemaid named Emily holds a secret that could undo the Cavendish name. On Christmas Eve 1913, Octavia catches a glimpse of her husband in an intimate moment with his beautiful and scandalous distant cousin. She then spies the housemaid Emily out in the snow, walking toward the river, about to make her own secret known to the world. As the clouds of war gather on the horizon, an epic tale of longing and betrayal is about to unfold at Rutherford Park…

Rutherford traces its original settler and earliest history to a 17th-century Dutch family, one of the first to arrive in the nascent colony of New Netherland. Throughout the next 12 generations, this family joined thousands of others to create a quaint oasis just beyond New York City. In 1835, the sleepy farm village greeted the arrival of one of America's first railroads with wonder and anticipation. The long history of Rutherford is rich with pioneers in government, education, the arts, medicine, and commerce. In the 1880s, a local attorney sparked a revolution in municipal government just as a young boy, William Carlos Williams, began his journey to become a beloved world-class poet. Rutherford is home to the oldest real estate business in the country as well as the cradle of one of the world's premier medical supply companies and New Jersey's largest private university. Beyond its extraordinary advances, Rutherford schools, churches, civic buildings, historic downtown, and simple homes nurtured a citizenry who wove a colorful quilt of social history and hometown dreams.

Then & Now: Rutherford documents the changes that have occurred in Rutherford through the years by comparing and contrasting numerous vintage photographs with views of today. Rutherford is a lovely tree-lined town of many stately old homes. Today, the small-town atmosphere is still maintained while Rutherford's location provides its residents access to all of the convenience of the cosmopolitan, social, economic, and cultural advantages of nearby New York City.This volume reflects on a time when horse-drawn carriages traveled on dirt lanes and when children were educated in one-room schoolhouses. Rutherford today enjoys modern modes of travel and national blue-ribbon schools of excellence. These pages trace the emergence of a diversity of churches and schools, tour significant homes, and explore the transportation system that helped shape the entire region. Most importantly, this history reflects on the people of Rutherford, including the town's connection to poet William Carlos Williams. Then & Now: Rutherford is an enlightening journey back in time to discover the people, places, and events that shaped this Bergen County community.