Theodore Havemeyer

Theodore Havemeyer was born to Frederick Christian and Sarah Louise Havemeyer in 1839. He would eventually partner with his younger brother H.O. Havemeyer and they would take over the sugar refinery from their father, becoming very wealthy in a few years. Theodore is the Havemeyer most directly connected to the town of Mahwah and its development early on. Theodore Havemeyer was the first Havemeyer to purchase property in Mahwah and became very involved in the community. It is interesting that he would choose Mahwah of all places to move into, but, he decided to purchase property in Mahwah for several reasons. There was much natural beauty in the area and he wanted a place for his family to get away to outside of the city. This was just like many other millionaires, several of which owned sugar refineries,  who would move into the area from New York City as a retreat . However, Theodore also was interested in farming Jersey Cattle, a business that his father had been involved in unsuccessfully. Mahwah was the perfect choice because of the large amounts of land for sale at a relatively low price, its proximity to the city, its natural beauty, and the many other wealthy business people moving in. Theodore first purchased the DeCastro farm in 1878. Later he bought the Bockee farm in 1880 just south of his first purchase, giving him a massive property of 500 acres. Theodore created built the Mountainside Farm on the property and decided to spare no expense on it. He hired the architect Dudley Newton to build an immense barn for the cattle. Mountainside Farm was largely a cattle farm with several cows winning prizes and the yearly milk yield being 6,450 pounds on average. However, the farm also had several hundred sheep, chickens, hogs, and horses. He later built the Havemeyer Mansion on the property for his family to live in.

            Theodore's impact on the town of Mahwah was great. He was the first Havemeyer in the area, and after him would follow other Havemeyers, and later the Mayer and Birch families. The Mountainside farm he built brought much reknown to Mahwah winning many awards for its prized cattle, and attracting a fair number of guests. Theodore invited many leaders to his farm, including the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, and oftentimes the farm had sizeable crowds watching. The farm increased the property value in Mahwah by making it more well known, and bringing new people and jobs into the area. For the town Theodore Havemeyer built and improved roads in the area, and helped to build the Darlington Schoolhouse to educate the larger number of children now in the area. The Darlington School in particular was important in Mahwah's early history as there were very few schools of this size in the area and it gave many more children the opportunity for education. Theodore even spent approximately $50,000 on a macadamized road from the Darlington school house to the island church, which he considered the best stretch of macadamized road in the country. Mrs. Havemeyer also was very involved, inviting the workers children and the Sunday school to her home every Christmas for a party. Theodore was a very busy man not only being manager of the farm, but also manager of the sugar refinery, first president of the U.S. Golf Association, co-founder of the Newport Country Club which would host the U.S. Open, and even found time to have nine kids with his wife Emilie Havemeyer. To ease the burden on himself he decided to hire a man named John Mayer to manage the Mountainside Farm.