Waterloo Village
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Waterloo Village is a restored 19th Century canal town in Sussex County in northwestern New Jersey and was approximately the half-way point in the roughly 102-mile (165 km) trip along the Morris Canal, which ran from Jersey City (across the Hudson River from New York City) to Phillipsburg, New Jersey (across the Delaware River from Easton, Pennsylvania).
Waterloo possessed all the accommodations necessary to service the needs of a canal operation, including an inn, a general store, a church, a blacksmith shop (to service the mules on the canal) and a watermill. Although opened in 1831, the the Morris Canal's traffic volume, which was primarily anthracite coal from Pennsylvania, peaked during the late 1860s, shortly after end of the American Civil War.
Up until that time, the local railroads — the Lackawanna Railroad's Sussex Branch and Morris & Essex Railroad — had only supplemented the canal's operation, rather than actually competing with it. Both the Sussex Branch and the Morris & Essex Railroad ran within a stone's throw of the village. After the War, however, the canal's traffic began to quickly shift over to the much faster and more reliable railroad. It was expected that during most winters the canal would be frozen solid from December through March, and thus impassable during the time when its chief commodity was in greatest demand.
As a result, the canal underwent a steady decline that caused a concomitant decline for Waterloo Village. And although the canal was not officially abandoned until 1924, rarely had more than one canal boat a year (to fulfill the conditions of the canal's charter) was run after 1900. By the time the Great Depression hit, Waterloo Village had been abandoned by its original owners.
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[edit] Unheralded saviors - the hobos
This might have been the end of the story for Waterloo, particularly if the hamlet had really been abandoned, as local vandals might have burned the town to the ground if it had become unoccupied. But the village's location, within a short distance of the Lackawanna Railroad (which had to overcome a steep grade right near Waterloo, slowing freight trains to a crawl as they labored up the hill to Netcong), made it easy for hobos to jump on and off boxcars.
The hobos, as it turned out, had "discovered" Waterloo and had adopted it as a stopping off point in their cross-country journey towards New York. Ironically, this new purpose for the village wasn't all that different from its original purpose a century earlier. The greatest irony of all, perhaps, is that the hobos protected Waterloo Village by occupying it throughout the 1930s and '40s, and in doing so discouraged vandals from damaging or even destroying it.
[edit] Rebirth
If there's one person who deserves credit for saving Waterloo Village in the modern era, it's Percival Leach. Percy Leach, as he is known, with his friend Lou Gualandi, spearheaded an effort to preserve the village, starting during the 1960s. Over time, and with volunteer help, the village was slowly restored. (The village would eventually become part of New Jersey's Allamuchy Mountain State Park.)
The Waterloo Foundation for the Arts, a not-for-profit corporation, was established and enabled Leach and Gualandi to raise the funds necessary to not only restore the village, but also to expand its operation to include classical and pop concerts that brought in additional revenue.
By the mid 1980s, Waterloo had become a regular stop for performing artists and was envisioned as the New Jersey equivalent of Tanglewood, with a proposal that a amphitheater would open and would become the summer home of New York's Metropolitan Opera.
[edit] Controversy, downfall and possible closure
With the untimely death of Lou Gualandi in 1988, Percy Leach lost his most trusted advisor, one who had been the voice of moderation in their relationship. Following Gualandi's death, Leach became involved in several controversial projects that brought greater scrutiny upon the Waterloo Foundation for the Arts. The most controversial was the so-called "land swap" that allowed BASF corporation to build a large corporate headquarters on land that had been part of Allamuchy Mountain State Park. The swap, which was expedited by then Governor Thomas Kean, a Leach family friend who had worked as a volunteer at Waterloo during the nascent stages of the village's rebirth in the 1960s, was to pave the way for the aforementioned amphitheater complex, a project that never got past the initial planning stages.
The BASF issue, which had aroused considerable opposition, ushered in a period of uncertainty for Waterloo Village and to some degree contributed to Leach's eventual ouster from his key position with the foundation. The Waterloo board of directors subsequently brought in a new management team and throughout the mid- to late-1990s tried to rebuild trust in the running of the village.
Over this time, the foundation slowly downsized the concerts that were held in association with the village, as some of the earlier rock concerts had drawn nearly 20,000 spectators and had completely overwhelmed the limited access roads and had caused considerable friction with the surrounding towns.
In the period from 2003-2006, the Waterloo Foundation for the Arts had received $900,000 from the state for general expenses, along with more than $300,000 since 2000 to cover repairs. $250,000 the group expected was cut from the 2007 state budget, which was to be used toward the $2 million operating budget for the site, as the state showed its increasing displeasure with the operation of the village. Waterloo Village was shut down in December 2006, except for the privately-owned Waterloo United Methodist Church, which continues to operate as it has for 150 years. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection plans to reopen the site under new management, but may not be able to do so for the spring 2007 season.[1]
[edit] Trivia
- The original Waterloo railroad station was moved from the station site during the 1940s and is presently is a private residence on U.S. Route 206 in Mount Olive, New Jersey.
[edit] References
- ^ HISTORY; Mothballed 19th-Century Village Waits for Revival, The New York Times, by Jennifer V. Hughes, February 18, 2007
