That station was put in service in 1837 by the Elizabethtown and Somerville Railroad which had completed the line from Elizabethport to Plainfield by that time.

The original line had to skirt the hill at Fanwood because wood-burning locomotives of the time could not climb the steep grade.

Besides a new station, the land was developed by the railroad into suburban housing lots laid out on a network of curved streets and called Fanwood Park.

[10] The Central New Jersey Land Improvement Company, a subsidiary of the railroad, built and sold houses in Fanwood Park for the next forty years.

[7][11] The station was part of a new line from Westfield to Plainfield and named Fanwood after Miss Fanny Wood, the daughter of a railroad official.

[7] These include Matawan on the North Jersey Coast line (though it lost its gingerbread trim) and Red Bank (restored), and the now demolished/replaced/completely remodeled stations Branchport, Bound Brook, Perth Amboy, Sewaren and Asbury Park.