Alfred E. Driscoll

Driscoll was born on October 25, 1902, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He grew up in Haddonfield, New Jersey, and graduated from Haddonfield Memorial High School in 1921.^[1] He attended Williams College, where he graduated in 1925. In 1928, he was awarded an LL.B. degree from Harvard University.^[2]

He served as Governor of New Jersey from 1947 to 1954 where he was a proponent for the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway.^[1] From the time of their construction, these two major transportation links would transform the agrarian "Garden State" into the most densely populated state in the union. The Driscoll Bridge on the Garden State Parkway across the Raritan River was named in his honor, and a failed planned extension of the New Jersey Turnpike, similar in nature to the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Northeast Extension, would have also borne his name. Driscoll served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention from New Jersey in 1948 and 1952, and he was considered for the vice presidential nomination at the 1952 convention.^[3]

Driscoll, a Republican, gave William J. Brennan Jr., a Democrat, his first judicial appointment in 1949, when he appointed him to a seat on the New Jersey Superior Court. In 1951, Driscoll promoted Brennan to the Supreme Court of New Jersey, where he served until appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956.^[4]

Driscoll died on March 9, 1975, at his home in Haddonfield, New Jersey.^[1] Although he was a Presbyterian, Driscoll was buried at the Haddonfield Baptist Churchyard.^[2]

• List of governors of New Jersey

• Biography of Alfred E. Driscoll (PDF), New Jersey State Library