Rutherford traces its original settler and earliest history to a 17th-century Dutch family, one of the first to arrive in the nascent colony of New Netherland. Throughout the next 12 generations, this family joined thousands of others to create a quaint oasis just beyond New York City. In 1835, the sleepy farm village greeted the arrival of one of America's first railroads with wonder and anticipation. The long history of Rutherford is rich with pioneers in government, education, the arts, medicine, and commerce. In the 1880s, a local attorney sparked a revolution in municipal government just as a young boy, William Carlos Williams, began his journey to become a beloved world-class poet. Rutherford is home to the oldest real estate business in the country as well as the cradle of one of the world's premier medical supply companies and New Jersey's largest private university. Beyond its extraordinary advances, Rutherford schools, churches, civic buildings, historic downtown, and simple homes nurtured a citizenry who wove a colorful quilt of social history and hometown dreams.