Essex County Country Club, established in 1887, is New Jersey’s oldest country club and is the sixth oldest in the country. Originally established as a hunt club in the Hutton Park section of West Orange NJ, ECCC introduced golf in 1898. The history of the golf course is a composite of the greatest names of the golden age of golf design. The club moved to the current site in 1917 and AW Tillinghast designed the “first course on the mountain.” The success of his effort at ECCC is widely noted as a springboard for his career. The course was redesigned in 1928 by Seth Raynor and Charles Banks. The new course retained 7 Tillinghast holes and boasts “the best back nine in the state of NJ.”
The club, and its forerunner, has a long and distinguished list of members. The club counts a former US Sect’y of State, a former US Sect’y of the Navy, two former US Senators and three former NJ State Governors as well as many luminaries of business and the arts. ECCC’s founding members include familiar names like Colgate, Merck, Chubb and Pfizer. ECCC’s most famous member was Thomas Edison who was a member of ECCC from 1889 until his death in 1931.
The club has had visits from three US Presidents (Wilson, T. Roosevelt and Taft), sports stars such as Babe Ruth, screen legends like Bob Hope and famous golfers such as Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead.
