By Sandra McCleaster
Once one of the most familiar landmarks in the Town of Kearny, the New Jersey Home for Disabled Soldiers stood on Belgrove Drive between Afton Street and Bergen Avenue and extended west to the Passaic River.
Even before the end of the Civil War, the state of New Jersey recognized the need for a home to care for the many returning sick and wounded veterans. Construction began in 1887, and by the time it was completed, the Home comprised 17 buildings scattered around 18 acres. There were four dormitories, a hospital, a chapel, a library, a kitchen with a large dining hall, and a stable. The Home was originally intended for Civil War veterans, but soon veterans of the Spanish-American and the Great War were living there, as well.
Citizens, including children, would often stop to chat with the elderly soldiers who were sitting under the trees. They reveled in their tales of Bull Run or Gettysburg. The veteran residents were free to come and go as they were able, and the Home and its vets became an accepted part of the community. In her 1967 book Heritage and Legacy, author and researcher Emma May Vilardi wrote that on Memorial Day 1900, an unforgettable turn-of-the-century event took place as the children of Kearny, laden with flowers, helped the old soldiers decorate the graves of their comrades, laid to rest in Arlington Cemetery on Schuyler Avenue.
Of course, as the years went by, the old soldiers passed, and the dorms closed one by one. In 1911, the complex housed a high of 688 vets. By 1932, that number had shrunk to 46. In July of that year, flags were lowered, and without any fanfare, the remaining residents of the Old Soldiers’ Home boarded buses headed for their new home in Menlo Park.
The State of New Jersey gifted the Old Soldiers’ Home to the Town of Kearny. When the buildings were eventually razed, the property became known as Veterans’ Field and then colloquially, Bunny Hill, which many Kearny residents still remember as a prized place for winter sledding. The space where several of the buildings once stood, facing Passaic Avenue, now aptly houses three Veterans’ Associations, one of which actually shares its construction with part of the Old Soldiers’ Home’s original carriage house and stable.
On a quiet day, one can still hear the echoing sounds of old soldiers’ shuffling footsteps….
Editor’s note: Sandra McCleaster is the president of Kearny’s Historical Committee and the museum housed on the second floor of the Kearny Library. It is open on Wednesday, 5 — 6:30 P.M., and Saturday, 10 A.M. — 12:30 P.M.
