Who Were They? – A.J. Cafiero Memorial Highway

“Who was that masked man?” That question was part of the mystique of “The Lone Ranger,” a 1950s TV western that had viewers pondering the answer. The Herald begins an occasional series, “Who Were They?” It will enlighten readers on namesakes of local buildings and grounds, bridges and roads whose names are commonplace, but about whom many know little, if anything. It is a tribute to the Cape May County residents who laid the groundwork for the place many today call home.
Anthony J. Cafiero was a Superior Court judge and State Senator. He died Sept. 28, 1982 at age 82.
Route 147, that connects Middle Township and North Wildwood, is named in his memory. After attending law school in Newark in 1931, Cafiero became Cape May County’s first clerk of the Board of Chosen Freeholders of Italian-American descent. He was county prosecutor, from 1944-46, a county judge from 1946-48, and was elected as a Republican to the state Senate from 1948-54. He was one of two who represented the region in the constitutional convention, when the state changed to its present Constitution, according to “Cape May County New Jersey the Making of an American Resort Community” by Jeffery M. Dorwart.
The New York Times, in Cafiero’s Oct. 2, 1982 obituary, reported, “Mr. Cafiero retired from the Superior Court in 1970 after 16 years on the state bench.” It further reported in 1950, he was a member of the State Commission on the Habitual Sex Offender, “which provided guidelines for revisions of New Jersey’s sex-offender laws.”