Life here in the hills started with trappers, By Millie Guerrero WEST MILFORD Standing on the crossroads of Union Valley Rd. and Marshall Hill today, it’s hard to imagine when it was dirt roads heavily laden with snow during the winter months. Life in West Milford began with the trappers who came for mink, muskrat, beaver and fox as early as the 1600s. Then farmers moved in to cultivate the land, and the area was named Long Pond. They grew corn and potatoes, which were introduced to them by the indigenous Lenapi Indians, and turnips popular with German farmers. To this day, there is an ongoing debate as to the meaning of the word Macopin’ to the Lenapis. Some think it means land of wild potatoes’ while other believe it means Long Pond,’ according to Jim Van Hooker, the local historian. During the winter months, men went to work for icehouses, where they would score ice blocks from Echo Lake, Greenwood Lake and Sterling. By the 1850s, 441 families had migrated to Long Pond and built 186 farms. Along with the farms, they built boarding houses, where migrant workers and travelers stayed. It became a thriving alternate source of income for residents. The residents tried to change the name to New Milford in 1834 but found another town had already registered the name with the post office, so decided they on West Milford because it was further west. Families traveled in horse carriages for local trips, and it took an entire day to get as far as Paterson. They used ovens or pot belly stoves to warm their homes, and some would take smoldering ashes and lay them in a pan under their bed to give them heat during the brutal snowy winters, which were common. Hardwood trees, limestone, and charcoal, all available in the area, became profitable because companies used these items to remove carbon from iron. Once the carbon was removed, they could melt the ore into pigs’ or oblong blocks of iron. The blocks could be used for anything that required steel, such as building cannons. The women cooked, washed and tended to their children. They cooked over metal stoves that required a constant fire, and pumped water from their wells. Two to three eight-quart pails were pumped per day for an average family. Van Hooker said there might have been a nurse or two who worked for local doctors, and possibly teachers, but the majority of teachers at that time were men. During the 1870s, families would watch the railroad construction as a source of entertainment. Once the line was finished to Greenwood Lake in 1872, farming and distributing ice became a major factor part of economic growth. According to records, nearly 20,000 tons of ice went out by train annually. It wasn’t an easy task. Heavy, cumbersome tools were needed to score and cut out the large blocks of ice. Hypothermia was an ever-present danger to the workers, as was thin ice on the lakes. By the early 1900s, West Milford became a tourist destination during the summer months. People from the cities would come to enjoy the lake beaches and natural scenery. Log cabins were erected throughout the lakeside communities and served as summer homes. Electricity was introduced in the 1920s and soon cars replaced the horse and carriage buggies. As travel became easier for people to commute and technology progressed, so did the population of West Milford to where it is today. Not a metropolis, but a town without the large expansive farms and the old Victorian homes that once dotted the community.