History of Ogdensburg
Sussex County, New Jersey

Hamlets of Ogdensburg and vicinity:

Ogdensburg
Main Street
Sterling Hill
Sodom
Summerville
Cuckoo Flats

1609  -- Henry Hudson discovers the Hudson River. 

The Dutch discovered copper and iron ore along the Delaware River and settled there. 

after 1664  -- the English took over from the Dutch.

1761  --  the lands were claimed for Lord Stirling (William Alexander). 

1778  --  Robert Ogden from Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth) was the first known permanent settler in the area.  He built a home on the hill between Wilson Drive and the Ogdensburg-Sparta Road. 

1779  --  an advance unit of Washington's army moving from Newburg to Morristown camped on the Ogden farm.

1787  --  death of Robert Ogden.  His family continued to operate the iron ore mine atop Sparta Mountain.  Ogdensburg was a mining town.

1820  --  farmer John Lanterman purchased land from the Ogden Family; the land was behind the present school site. He would later build a store in town.

1848-1986  --  operation of the Sterling Zinc Mine at Sterling Hill. "It and the Midland Railroad (later the New York, Susquehanna & Western) were the primary contributors to the growth and development of Ogdensburg. 

1853  --  the post office was established. 

1853-1880  --  John George was superintendent of the Sterling Hill Mine. 

1868  --  opening of the Ogden Mine Railroad.  The Midland Railroad ran down Beaver Lake Mountain and through Ogdensburg.  Around this time Nobadiah Wade built the Ogdensburg House. 

1872  -- the railroad came to Franklin.

1873  --  the Adam House, a hotel and restaurant, opened.  (It was later known as Sweeny's  and the Lyon House.) John Sweney left Dolan's Ogdensburg Hotel and came over to manage the Lyon House.

1875  --  Thomas Lawrence and Mr. Chambers started a lumber company.

1879  -- Sterling Hill Mine superintendent John George gave land for the construction of the Presbyterian church (dedicated the following year). 

1881  --  St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church built. 

by c. 1890  --  the Edison mining operations built and housed some 1,000 people in the new town of Summerville. Edison himself often stayed at the Lyon House.  The Edison mining and refining operations were located above Ogdensburg at the top of the mountain in what was then the town of Summerville in Sparta Township.  

1890s and early 1900s  -- the streets of Ogdensburg were laid out.  Among the buildings that came to be were the Patrick Madden Store (purchased from John Langerman), the Madden opera house, a movie theater over Dolan's Garage, Dolan's Ogdensburg Hotel, John Sweney's Lyon House, and  Huss's south end bakery and butcher shop.

c. 1900 to 1986  --  Sterling Hill operation consolidated into the New Jersey Zinc Company.

early 1900s  --  Ogdensburg residents called one section, at the foot of Railroad (now Kennedy) Avenue near the Wallkill River, Sodom which later seceded from Sparta. 

1912  --  the St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church burned and was rebuilt. 

1930  --  the old school house was torn down to make way for the new school.  One of the additions to the old school house was moved and used as a firehouse until 1988.

1950s  -- the Ogden house torn down. 

1986  -- the Sterling Hill Mine closed. 

1988  --  the old firehouse (originally an addition to the old school) became the home of the Ogdensburg Historical Society and Firehouse Museum. 

2003  --  closing of the Bigelow and Swain Limestone (a.k.a., Farber and Cemex) company. 

Source: 

William R. Truran.  2004.  Images of America: Franklin, Hamburg, Ogdensburg, and Hardyston. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Press.