Source: "The Other People" from The History of Teaneck by Mildred Taylor, p. 55
Frederic Andreas
............The Andreas family, wealthy New Yorkers, came to Teaneck in 1890 looking for a summer home. They bought a farm on River Road that had been advertised. The original part of the farmhouse had been built in 1790. A wing was added in 1840 and the Andreas family made further additions. At first the Andreas family came to Teaneck each summer with their sons Frederic and Wendel. They later made it their permanent home. When Frederic married Miss Mabel Moore in 1911 his mother moved to a smaller house in the family hay field on the east side of River Road. Frederic occupied the big house and his brother later built a large house at what is today Wendel Place. This later became Roosevelt Military Academy, which Wendel headed until he sold it in 1920 to Russell R. Whitman. It has since been torn down.
Frederic Andreas recalled as a young man riding horseback from his home on River Road to the Dyckman Street Ferry without going off Phelps property. He went into the wholesale coal business in New York, but took a keen interest in Teaneck's civic affairs. He served on the Township Council for three years and was chairman in 1924 when the grade crossing over the West Shore tracks at Cedar Lane was eliminated by a bridge. The expense was shared by the railroad, the county, and the township. A serious accident had hastened elimination of the grade crossing. Andreas also worked to build up the police force and to protect taxpayers from exploitation by real estate developers during the twenties.
In 1945, at the age of seventy-five, he offered to give the town the three and a half acres on which his homestead stood for the creation of a park to be named for his mother, Maria W. Andreas. He stipulated that he be allowed to live in the house tax-free until his death and that the house then be torn down. The tax exemption was protested by Mrs. Edythe Whipple, who was upheld by the courts several times. In 1951 Mr. and Mrs. Andreas vacated the property and Andreas Park, not far from the old Lutheran burying ground, was established. The house was razed and only the big Dutch barn was left standing. ............
