This article was excerpted from Images of America: Allendale.
Five public schools and one regional high school have been built in Allendale since 1826. While 19th-century historians have implied the existence of earlier buildings used for education, no specifics can be found. Located at the northwest corner of Chestnut Street and Franklin Turnpike, the first documented schoolhouse serving Allendale, built in 1826, was known as the “little red schoolhouse.” It was one story, 16 feet by 24 feet, and students sat from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on long backless benches. The first board of trustees included John G. Ackerman, John G. Ackerson, and Albert A. Garrison, who employed Isaac Demurest as the earliest teacher.
School No. 2 was built in 1862 on property provided by Peter G. Powell on Franklin Turnpike near the corner of East Orchard Street. This building, 25 feet by 35 feet and adorned with a belfry and blinds, was valued at about $2,000. There was a provision in the deed that the property would revert to the Powell Estate if the property was no longer used for a school. The earlier 1826 schoolhouse was moved to John Wilson’s farm, where it was used to store grain. By the 1880s, with J. Alfred Ackerman teaching, the schoolhouse was already too small.
In 1896, a new two-story school was built behind the 1862 schoolhouse on Franklin Turnpike. Dedicated on December 18, 1896, this school was built by Stephen Van Blarcom for $5,500. It contained eight classrooms, teaching grades one through eight. It had separate entrances for boys and girls, perhaps befitting the morality of the times. School No. 2, sold by auction to H.J. Appert for $65, was soon moved to his Allendale Produce Gardens on Franklin Turnpike, where it was destroyed by fire in 1938. In January 1928, residents voted two to one to purchase the Anthony property for $165,000 for a new school located near the corner of West Crescent and Brookside Avenues. This public school was dedicated on September 6, 1929. The school’s first class of 1930 had 225 students with Willard Alling as its principal. While the name “Brookside School” was used as early as 1942, the 1968 graduation booklet displayed the name for the first time.
The aftermath of World War II brought new population growth, resulting in dividing the public school into two separate schools, with fourth to eighth grades remaining at Brookside School and kindergarten to third grades moving to the newest public school, Hillside Elementary School. With Aileen Wilson appointed as its first principal effective September 1967, the new Hillside School opened with 595 students. It was dedicated on October 15, 1967. Before 1964, high school students from Allendale attended Ramsey High School, then Mahwah High School. Voters from Allendale and Upper Saddle River approved a referendum on May 24, 1963, to build a new regional high school on Hillside Avenue in Allendale. Ground-breaking ceremonies for a new regional high school took place on May 15, 1964, on Hillside Avenue, on property owned by Peter G. Koole. The new Northern Highlands Regional High School, serving Allendale and the surrounding communities, officially opened its doors to students on Monday, September 20, 1965, and held its dedication on Sunday, March 20, 1966.