The Village of Ridgewood wasn't organized as a separate municipality until 1876. By then, the settlement we call Ridgewood was almost two centuries old. The land that Ridgewood occupies was originally a hunting and fishing ground of the Lenni Lenape Indians that became a part of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam founded in 1624. Forty years later, the British captured New Amsterdam and renamed it New York.

After New Amsterdam became British, King Charles 2nd gave New Jersey to Sir Carteret and Lord Berkeley, two of his most loyal supporters. In 1674, Lord Berkeley needed money to finish his mansion in London, and sold his half of the colony to two Quakers. New Jersey was then divided into the Province of East Jersey owned by Sir Carteret and the Quaker Province of West Jersey. In 1687, the East Jersey Proprietors granted several hundred acres in Bergen County to Isaac Kingsland. Johannes Van Emburgh bought some of this land in 1698. The area was then known as Hoachas (now Ho Ho Kus) and as Paramus by 1725.

After the Revolution, the settlement had grown to about 20 families and was known as Godwinville, after a war hero. However, Godwinville was never a separate municipality. The entire northwest corner of Bergen County was a large municipality known as Franklin Township formed in 1771 from a section of Saddle River Township. Within Franklin Township, there were numerous unincorporated settlements such as Godwinville.

In 1848, the Patterson and Ramapo Railroad was completed providing Godwinville with easy access to New York City. In 1853, Samuel Dayton bought the Van Emburgh estate and with the idea of establishing a suburb. Cornelia Dayton renamed Godwinville "Ridgewood" to attract buyers from the city. The population exploded from several hundred in 1850 to over 1,200 by the time of the centennial. Ridgewood built its own school but was still a part of Franklin Township. The population doubled again by the turn of the century.

On March 30, 1876, Ridgewood finally became a separate Township. Actually, Ridgewood was fifteen years ahead of the rest of the state. It wasn't until the early 1890s that New Jersey adopted legislation requiring each municipality to establish a Board of Education and fund all public schools with a municipal-wide property tax. In just a few months in 1894, numerous settlements with schools incorporated as separate municipalities. Twenty-eight municipalities were incorporated in Bergen County alone. Part of Ridgewood Township went to the new Borough of Midland Park and another part went to the new Borough of Glen Rock. At the same time, Ridgewood changed its municipal form of government from a Township to a Village. However, to this day the school system is still officially known as the "Ridgewood Township Board of Education".