law, and contested control of the Bergen County government through the formation of boroughs that would elect freeholders of their party. The energetic legislators finally reached school reform with Chapter CCCXXXV of the Public Laws of 1894. That act, passed on May 25, provided that "the several school districts in each township shall be consolidated into one school district". The legislature's intent was to equalize funding between wealthier districts and poorer ones. This had the effect of eliminating more than 1,000 school districts statewide. Had the legislature done no more, according to former New Jersey General Assembly Speaker Alan Karcher, "New Jersey might have had fewer than 500 municipalities today". However, the legislature further enacted in the bill, "that each city, borough, and incorporated town, shall be a school district, separate and distinct from the township school district". Thus, if a community seceded from its township to form a borough, it would keep control of its school. The new township school districts would be responsible for the debts of their predecessors, meaning that some communities faced the prospect of paying off, in part, the debts of others, and seeing some of their tax dollars going to fund others' schools. Under the law, by becoming an incorporated borough, they could avoid these things. The school legislation greatly fueled the borough craze in Bergen County. Wealthy communities that had had their own school districts now faced the prospect of sharing their school tax revenues with poorer areas, or of being divided up piecemeal in borough referendums. Allendale broke away, principally from Franklin Township, because of such fears. At 650 people, Allendale was one of the more populous boroughs formed in 1894. In commuter communities as Park Ridge, the new residents often led the borough drives against the opposition of the old inhabitants who feared the improvements would not benefit them and that the new borough would quickly incur debt through issuance of municipal bonds. Another new borough created by the residents to keep local school control was Woodcliff, which was formed around the settlement of Pascack from parts of Harrington Township and Orvil Township, and which in 1910 became Woodcliff Lake. Rural Upper Saddle River broke away from Orvil Township and Hohokus Township, taking one of Orvil Township's six schoolhousesthe press noted that the nascent borough would most likely go Democratic as only 16 Republicans could be found. Ridgewood, then a township,