♦«{( ^o <£ *s2»3' 'MA 9 • • • / ^> 4 > ^Vc %>_ ,_ *<* jOO A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK BY FRANK J. URQUHART ii NEWARK, N. J. BAKER PRINTING COMPANY 1908 LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two Copies Received DEC 12 19G3 Oepyri* r>t intrv |fi NO. Copyright, 190S BY Baker Printing Company PREFACE This work originally appeared in three small pamphlets, written at the request of the Newark Free Public Library, and published by it. The Library desired the work because there was in print no brief history of the city which it could purchase and hand to the many people — both old and young — who were constantly asking for some- thing of the kind. It has now been completely recast and enlarged. More space is given in it to the early history of Newark than to the last half century. It is far easier for the average citizen to familiarize himself with the growth and development of his city during the times close to his own than it is to learn of its early days, when there were few newspapers and periodicals and when people did not write down their observations, experiences and ideas with any- thing like the frequency that they do now. If one would clearly understand how the Newark of to-day grew to be what it now is, he must learn of its beginnings and of the forces that formed it during its first century and a half. As one grows more familiar with the early days viii A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. of Newark, the more he appreciates the dignity and value of a good and honorable name, whether it be that of a man and his family or that of a city, county, state or country. Considerable attention is paid to the Puritan colonization movement in New England previous to the founding of Newark, and especially to one of the foremost figures among our founders after his return to Connecticut. This has been done to make clearer the influences that moved the settlers in coming here, and the character of the settlers themselves. History has found much to criticise in the Puritans, and also much to admire. Some of their more admirable traits were strongly accented in the early history of this city, where the last attempt was made to found a Puritan theocracy. Their social theory time showed to be wrong. Their kingdom of God on earth could not endure. It failed as had all similar efforts in New England, and for the same reasons. It crumbled gradually, but out of its ruins grew a better town and one more nearly answering the needs of the people. Still, the founders of Newark left behind them a high ideal for all succeeding generations to strive to perpetuate. Their honesty in all their dealings, their uprightness of purpose in everything they, under- PREFACE. lx took and their fearlessness in standing for the right, as they saw the right, at whatever cost, are charac- teristics which have been many times reproduced in succeeding generations. There is very little biography in this book, as it seemed desirable in so short a history to deal chiefly with events and not with persons. The town's relation to the government of the province is not touched upon, as knowledge of this relation does not seem essential to a good under- standing of the growth of the town, and to treat of it would have added considerably to the size of the volume. Few dates are given ; for these and for a list of places of historic interest in and near Newark, the reader is referred to the appendices. The illustrations were, with the exception of the maps, the work of Edwin S. Fancher and Otto Bechtolf. Frank J. Urquhart. Newark, N. J., August i, 1908. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter I. The Story of its Early Days. . . . i-6o i A Roadless Wilderness 4 2 Earliest Settlements 4 3 Puritan Movement 4 The Purpose of the Puritans I0 5 Their Reasons for Settling in New Jersey n 6 Like the Children of Israel J 5 7 A Bargain in Land 8 ,Wealth of Settlers I9 9 The Four Texts 22 io Newark the Last Theocracy of Puritans 23 11 The New Jersey Indians 2 5 12 The First Church a Fortress 26 13 The Church a Precious Thing 28 14 The Church as a Meeting House 29 15 Drums Were very Useful 2 9 16 Filling in the Meadows 32 17 The Newark Settlers' Thanksgiving Hymn 33 18 The Settlers Good Workmen 34 19 Newark Ten Years Old 3° 20 The First Schoolmaster 37 21 Forming New Settlements 39 22 Roads Began as Footpaths •••• 39 23 The First Industry 4 ° 24 Treat Returns to Connecticut 4* 25 Treat in Battle 42 26 Treat as Governor • 43 27 Settlers were Able Men 45 28 Newark, Yale and Princeton 45 29 Military Park 49 30 Newark in 1774 31 In the War for Independence 52 32 Washington in Newark 54 xii A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. Page 33 British Outrages 55 34 The Heritage of Other Days 58 35 Before 1776 63 Chapter II. The Story of its Awakening. 61-86 36 Newark's Long Sleep 64 37 Newark the Village in 1800 65 38 The Old Tavern and Southern Trade 68 39 The Stage Coach 69 40 Broad Street in 1800 70 41 High Street and Beyond in 1800 72 42 A Farm in Mulberry Street in 1815 73 43 Quiet Sundays in Old Newark 74 44 Newark Begins to Make Things 75 45 Making Boots and Shoes 76 46 An Early Free School .' 76 47 Newark a Village of Shoemakers 77 48 The Stone Quarries 78 49 Flour Mills and Saw Mills ' 79 50 Iron Foundries ; Tool Making 79 51 Seth Boyden, Inventor 80 52 Boyden a Many Sided Genius 81 53 Coaches, Coach Lace, Saddlery 82 54 Hats, Jewelry, Beer 82 55 Power from Water and from Animals 83 56 Ships, Whaling ; the Canal 83 57 Eminent Men in Newark 84 58 Newark Awake 85 59 Keeping Awake 86 Chapter III. The Story of its Prosperity. 87-129 60 Newark Becomes a City; 1836 90 61 The First Railroad 91 62 The Young City Thrives 93 63 Hard Times of 1837 96 64 A Time of Prosperity ; 1849 97 65 How They Fought Fires 97 TABLE OF CONTENTS. xiii Page 66 The Old Hand Engines 98 67 The Great Fire of 1836 99 68 The First Steam Fire Engines 100 69 One of the First Schools 100 70 More Schools 102 71 The Board of Education 103 72 Overcoming an Old Idea 103 72, When the Passaic was Beautiful 104 74 Cockloft Hall 105 75 On the Eve of Civil War 108 76 A Great Public Meeting in 77 Newark's Southern Trade 112 78 Going to the Front 113 79 Camp Frelinghuysen 114 80 War's Serious Side 115 81 General Kearny 115 82 The First Horse Car Line 117 83 Newark's Drinking Water 118 84 Old Wells and Reservoirs 118 85 The Present Supply of Water 119 86 Street Lighting 120 87 The First Gas Light 121 88 Edison in Newark 121 89 Edward Weston 123 90 Making Electric Lighting Possible 123 91 Newark's Proud Record 124 92 The City of the Future 124 93 The Era of the Subway 126 94 Meadow Improvement 127 95 A Cleaner and Prettier City 128 96 The Greater Newark 128 Some of the Leading Events in the History of Newark 131-138 Historic Spots in Newark i39 -I 5 I Index i53- T 58 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE. Statue of Puritan in Fairmount Cemetery 2 Henry Hudson exploring Newark Bay, 1609. ... 5 Map showing principal settlements from Maine to the Delaware at time of Newark's settlement, 1666 9 Map made by the Settlers to show distribution of Home Lots 17 Going to church in the infant settlement 27 A "Burning Day'' in the settlement 31 Gathering of Patriots at County Court House 1774 5i Trinity Church a Soldiers' Hospital — 1776 53 The Outrage upon Joseph Hedden — January, 1780 57 A Skirmish at the "Four Corners ;" with a modern background 59 Seth Boy den, 1798- 1870. From, a bust in the Library 62 Looking East from Mulberry street — 1800 67 In Stage Coach Days at Market and Broad streets 71 Newark from the Passaic by Night. An im- pression 88 Broad street looking South from Market — 1845. • I01 "Lower Green" or "Military Common," now known as Military Park — 1845 io 7 THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS STATUE OF PURITAN IN FAIRMOUNT CEMETERY CHAPTER I. THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS Newark is over two hundred and forty years old. In 19 1 6 it will celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its birth. The people who founded it came from four different towns in Connecticut. They were English born or of English parentage. Their leader was Robert Treat. He should have a monument erected to his memory, for he was a remarkable man, a resourceful organizer, and the guiding force of the little colony during its earliest years. Treat came to Elizabethtown in 1665, a few months after it was founded. There he saw Governor Carteret, who had come from England to take charge of all the upper half of New Jersey. The Governor was anxious to get settlers. Except for a few small settlements on the Jersey shores of the Delaware and Hudson rivers, what we now know as New Jersey was then a wilderness, inhabited only by a few hundred Indians and by wild animals and birds. On the Delaware the towns were little more than forts, for the white people sometimes fought each other there, and fierce and 4 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. warlike Indians lived but a short distance away in what is now Pennsylvania. i. A Roadless Wilderness. From the Hudson to the Delaware there were no roads for white men; nothing except narrow Indian paths from the hills to the big rivers and the salt water, and the trails of deer, bear and wolves leading to the springs where animals came to drink. Some of the Indian paths were well worn and quite easy to follow. They ran from the sea shore or from the Hudson, Passaic or Raritan rivers over the Orange mountains and there joined other paths that led on across the country to points high up on the Delaware. The Indians had use for these paths because many lived near the Delaware in winter and in the summer camped by the sea. When Newark's first settlers came they found huge piles of oyster, clam and other shells along the shore, which showed very plainly that one of the reasons why Indians traveled so far across the country was to get fish to eat after living all winter chiefly on game and Indian corn. 2. Earliest Settlements. The Dutch, until a year before Newark was founded, had owned for about forty years much of the land on both sides of the lower Hudson. There $ 6 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. was a tiny village at Bergen Point; and there were a few farms here and there where Jersey City, Hoboken and Hackensack now are. A few Dutch- men and their families had also made small farms in the upper Passaic valley, all the way up to what are now Paterson and Little Falls, and even further on. A few more were scattered along the lower Hackensack. The Indians came to these farm houses to sell the skins of animals they killed. The skins were then taken to New York City, which was called by the red men Manhattan, and by the Dutchmen New Amsterdam. There the skins were sold by the farmers and traders to the Dutch West India Company, who packed them in great bundles, put them in the holds of clumsy little ships and carried them to Holland. It was the Dutch West India Company that induced people to come from the old world and live in New York and New Jersey, to gather skins from the Indians, and make farms. The Dutch thought that all the land along the Hudson was very valuable, and to-day we understand readily enough how far-seeing they were. Thirty-four years before Newark was founded the West India Company bought all of Staten Island, and what is now Jersey City and Hoboken THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. for $10,400. They thought this a great deal of money then, little as it seems to us now when we recall that Staten Island alone is to-day worth many, many millions. The Dutchmen who sold Hoboken, Jersey City and Staten Island to the West India Company bought it from the Indians for a few coats, hats, guns and groceries. The English had for some time wished to hold all this fine country, and lawyers and others in London said that this ground belonged to them. At last, soldiers came from England and took Manhattan by force, and when they captured the city, the entire country which lay between Connecti- cut 'and New Jersey, including all of New Jersey, became theirs. This happened in 1664, and put an end to Dutch rule here. Many of the Dutch farmers and traders, however, stayed on their farms in spite of the change of government. The descendants of some of them are living to this day in Jersey cities and towns on the very land where their forefathers settled over two centuries ago. Elizabethtown had only four or five houses when Robert Treat, the man sent out from Connecticut to find a settling place for the Newark colony, saw it in 1 665. Philadelphia was an Indian village ; Trenton was not founded until sixteen years after; New 8 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. York was not as large as Belleville is to-day; and children who were born among the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, Massachusetts, soon after their coming in 1620 — those who had survived the hardships of the early days — were just in the prime of life. Robert Treat had two other men with him when he came from Connecticut to look for a place for a settlement. The three were sent out by people living in the four towns of Milford, Branford, New Haven and Guilford. They first went in boats to the Delaware river, examined the country along its banks and came near choosing for their new settle- ment the ground on which Burlington, New Jersey, now stands. But they made up their minds that it was too far from the old home in Connecticut and from New York, then the only strong English settlement for hundreds of miles along the coast. On the Delaware, also, they would have had Indians all around them and few white people near. They would have been almost alone in a great wilderness. 3. The Puritan Movement. It is not easy for us to-day to understand how important the church was to the people then. The Newark settlers were Puritans like most of the people in New England at that time. Their towns were meant to be Kingdoms of God on earth. In jY/l/NEr To THE DELAWARE' AT Tfl£ Tf/7£r °/* NEWARK^* io A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. England the Puritans saw much wickedness and much of what we call graft among men in high places, and they spoke out against it all. They would not remain silent, for they believed God wanted them to try to put down all evil. They were sent to prison for saying what they thought, and were sometimes forbidden to hold their own religious services. Their houses were quite often destroyed and now and then they were beaten and driven from their homes. Reformers of to-day believe that the country can be made better if people will go to the polls and vote for good men for office and for better law. In the time of the Puritans in England, there was little voting, for kings and the nobility did about as they chose. So the Puritans, who were the reformers of their time, looked to religion and their church as the guides that would lead their country into a better and truer way of living. When they were not allowed to have their own churches and to worship and preach and talk reforms in their own way in England, they made up their minds to go to some country where they could do as they thought right. Some of them went to Holland. 4. The Purpose of the Puritans. But this was not all that the Puritans wished for. THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. n They longed for a country of their own, where they could govern themselves in all things by the teach- ings of their church. So some of them sailed away for America and settled in Plymouth. Other ships followed and other towns grew up near Plymouth, each with its church as its centre, as the fountain from which all the town's life flowed. As time went on, some of the people in these earliest settle- ments found that they did not agree with the rest about the town's government or its religion. When they could not have their way, they went off by themselves and started a town of their own. There was plenty of unoccupied land; they could buy all they wished from the Indians for very little money, and they soon had a new town established. Nearly every new town that the Puritans founded was a little further south and west than any of those built before it, so that by the time the little body of Puritans who were to make Newark, got into their boats at New Haven and started down Long Island Sound there was a fringe of little settlements along the seashore all the way from Boston and Plymouth to the Connecticut river. 5. Their Reasons for Settling in New Jersey. The Newark men went much further away from the other Puritans than any other town builders 12 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. had gone before. There were at least two reasons for this : First, they wished to keep near the sea- shore; they did not dare settle in the interior for fear of Indians; and they could find no place that suited them on the New England coast that was not taken already or was not too near other settle- ments or too near large tribes of Indians. Second, as they went down the coast to find what they wanted, they had to go beyond what is now New York State because almost the only white people in it were Dutch with whom they had been very nearly at war two or three years before. There was perhaps still a third reason for their coming to New Jersey. When the first Puritans came over in the Mayflower they did not intend to land on the bleak New England coast. They planned to make their homes on the banks of the Delaware. But as the Mayflower drew near the shores of this continent the winds drove her far up the coast. When the Puritans found themselves in Massachusetts Bay they were much disappointed and turned southward again, once more trying to reach the Delaware. But the winds were still against them. They never saw the "promised land" on the Delaware of which they had dreamed, and of which extravagant praise had been written by men THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 13 who sought to get rich Englishmen to buy it from the Indians. The Mayflower was again beaten back around Cape Cod, and the Puritans, at last feeling that God meant them to stay where they were, went ashore and founded Plymouth. It may have been that the Newark settlers, remembering that forty years before, the first Puritan immigrants had wished to set up their new home on the Delaware, thought they would themselves carry out the old plan. For over twenty years before Newark was founded English adventurers had often visited the shores of what is now New Jersey, and had sent or taken home enthusiastic accounts of what they had seen. Their accounts were often highly colored. They tried to make these new lands as attractive as possible to induce settlers to come out from the mother country. One of these accounts is about the Jersey side of the Delaware. It was written by Master Evelyn in a letter to an English nobleman, was printed and, it is believed, quite widely circu- lated. It may have been seen by some of the men who were to found Newark, and its glowing narra- tive might readily have induced them to explore the Delaware river region. It is easy to see that the writer was more anxious to bring settlers to the i 4 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. country that he describes than he was to give a faithful description. Part of the letter is as follows : "I saw there an infinite quantity of bustards, swans, geese and fowl, covering the shoares as within the like of a multitude of pigeons, and store of turkies, of which I tried one to weigh forty and sixe pounds. There is much variety and plenty of delicate fresh and sea-fish, and shell-fish, and whales or grampus; elks, deere that bring three young at a time, and the woods bestrewed many months with chestnuts, wallnuts and mast of several sorts to feed them and the hogs that would increase exceedingly. There the barren grounds have four kinds of grapes and many mulberries with ash, elms and the tallest and greatest pines and pitch trees that I have seen. There are cedars, and cypresse and sassafras, with wilde fruits, pears, wilde berries, pine apples and the dainty parsemenas [persimmons]. And there is no question but what almonds and other fruits of Spain will prosper, as in Virginia; And (which is a good comfort) in four and twenty hours you may send or goe by sea to New England or Virginia, with a faire winde. You may have cattle, and from the Indians two thousand bushels of corn at twelve pence a bushel, so as victuals are there cheaper and better than can be transported. THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 15 "If my lord will bring with him three hundred men or more, there is no doubt but that he may doe very well and grow rich, for it is a most pure health- full air, and such pure, wholesome springs, rivers and waters, as delightfull as can be seen, with so many varities of severall flowers, trees and forests for swine, so many fair risings and prospects, all green and verdant, and Maryland a good friend and neighbour, in four and twenty hours, ready to com- fort and supply." 6. Like the Children of Israel. No doubt the Newark pioneers thought a long time, and read their Bibles, and prayed for advice from Heaven, before they made up their minds just where they would settle. The Puritans never took any important step without asking Divine aid. They did not try to establish their church where they thought God did not wish it to be. They felt that in coming to this wild country of America they were doing very much as the children of Israel had done, as described in the Old Testament, and were finding a new home, their Land of Canaan, under God's guidance. They felt that they were being watched over and cared for in very much the same way as were the Hebrews in their long and weary journey from Egypt. 16 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 7. A Bargain in Land. After a conference with Governor Carteret at Elizabethtown, Treat and his companions returned to Connecticut, and in the following spring the settlers came. The land they chose included a large part of what is now Essex County, and for it they gave goods which were worth about $750. The purchase of the land from the Indians was arranged by Samuel Edsall, an English trader who spoke the Indian dialects. A year or so before, Edsall had started a little settlement at Constable Hook. The people there were nearly all Dutch. Just think what this purchase means! To-day you would find it hard to buy a piece of ground anywhere in the city, twenty-five feet front and extending back fifty or one hundred feet, for twice the sum the settlers paid the Indians for the whole town. In the centre of the city you would have to pay very much more for such a lot. Early in 1904 a lot was sold on one of the corners of Broad street not far from Market, thirty-eight feet wide on Broad street and about one hundred feet deep on Bank street, for $400,000. Write these figures down above those representing what the Indians got for the whole town and you may begin to realize how wonderfully Newark has grown. Other Broad 18 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. street lots have sold for even higher prices during the last four years. The settlers did not pay for the land in money, but in goods. Here is a list of the articles which the Indian Perro and his family, who claimed to own the land, received for it : "Fifty double hands of powder, one hundred bars of lead, twenty axes, twenty coats, ten guns, twenty pistols, ten kettles, ten swords, four blankets, four barrels of beer, ten pairs of breeches, fifty knives, twenty hoes, eight hundred and fifty fathoms of wampum, two ankers of liquors and three trooper's coats." This payment was not made until after the settlers had been here over a year, as many of the families that had agreed to come did not arrive from Connecticut until about that time. When the first settlers landed, a bill of sale, including the price to be given, was agreed on, but apparently nothing was paid to the Indians then. There seems to have been an understanding on the part of the settlers that Governor Carteret was to pay the Indians for the land Newark was to be built on; but he does not appear to have done so. All they got, probably, was the strange collection of things mentioned above. Later, additional tracts were purchased. One extended' from the western boundary of the THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 19 first tract to the foot of the Watchung mountains, as the Orange mountains were then called. This was owned by two Indians named Winnocksop and Shenoctos, and they were content to part with it for "two guns, three coats and thirteen kans of Rum," to quote the bill of sale. It should be a source of honest pride to every resident of this city and of all New Jersey, that every foot of ground within the limits of the State was purchased from the Indians, and not taken by force or stolen. The Newark founders were among the first to establish this enviable record and their example was scrupulously followed by all who after- ward made settlements in New Jersey. Few of the original States can lay claim to a like record of just and honorable dealing with the red men. 8. Wealth of Settlers. In all the company there were money and goods to the value of about $64,000, an average for each of the thirty families of about $2,000. They profited by the sad experiences of the Plymouth pioneers of over forty years before, who suffered much because they settled in a new country with too little money, food and clothing. The Newark settlers made sure that there was to be no "starving time" in their New Jersey town. 20 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. Many small waterways ran hither and thither about the little village of Newark. A streamlet splashed its way down what is now Market street from a pond near the southeast corner of Market and Halsey streets. This stream fed a second and smaller pond below, just back of the southwest corner of Market and Broad streets. Traces of these old ponds were found only a few years ago when excavations were made for some of the taller buildings on the south side of Market street between Broad and Halsey. The stream wound its way clown into the marshes a little below where the Market street station of the Pennsylvania railroad is located at the present time. It is probable that this Market street waterway was once much more than a streamlet. In the summer of 1908, while workmen were digging deep into the soil near the corner of Market and Beaver streets, they struck into an area of the finest of sand of such a character as to indicate that at some period, very long ago, the ground there had been a part of the stream's bed. Other little streams came down the hillside west of the village. One of them ran a little north of the present line of Clay street. This came to be called Mill Brook, for on it the settlers' corn was THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 21 ground for many years. Others found their way to the marshes south of Market street. One ran through Lincoln park, then little better than a marsh, and one right where the new City Hall now stands. Out of the marshes near where the Pennsylvania railroad now is, rose a long bluff which faced the river and followed its curves all the Avay up to what is now Belleville. Most of this bluff was leveled away as streets were extended and buildings rose; but traces of it are still to be seen, at Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, for instance. Below the bluff and between it and the river was a stretch of marsh. The woods about the village abounded in chestnut, hickory, elm, birch, black and white ash, tulip, sycamore, oak and the bitter and sweet gum. The oak the settlers used largely for the frames of their houses, when the day of log huts was over. Many trees were split for fence-rails ; many were cut down and burned to clear the land for planting, and many more for firewood. The bitter gum was used for floors. There was a dense cedar forest to the north- east of Newark on the Hackensack Meadows, and there were thick woods in other places near by; but the earlier Newark historians say that the little town was not by any means closely shut in by forests. As the country was quite open the labor of 22 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. making farms was much less than it would have been had the ground been covered with trees. The centre of the settlement was at what is now the junction of Market and Broad streets. It must have been a pretty village, after the first year or two, when vines and creepers grew over the log houses and the roughness of the clearing began to disappear. 9. The Four Texts. When they decided to come to Newark the founders fixed upon four verses from the Old Testament by means of which they planned to frame the whole upbuilding of their town. They were the following : And their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them. Jeremiah, xxx, 21. Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee; thou may est not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother. Deuteronomy, xvii, 15. Take you wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you. Deuteronomy, i, 13. Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 23 covetonsness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. Exodus, xviii, 21. They wished the town to be a little Kingdom of God on Earth. If they had followed out the texts they chose they would have had a king and would have paid attention to no other government except their own. All this was very much as the other Puritans in New England had planned to do. 10. Newark the Last Theocracy of Puritans. One of the most important things to be remem- bered about this story of the early days of Newark is that the men who made it were the last of the Puritans to try to build up a Kingdom of God on this continent, and that the town of Newark was the final effort of the Puritans in that direction. For a little while after Newark was started it was governed by Robert Treat, by the pastor, the Rev. Abraham Pierson, and by two or three other leading men. But it was not long before all the men in the town, save the servants, were called together to consider the town's business. This gathering was a town meeting, and for more than a century and a half from that time the place was governed through town meetings. At first all grown men in the town save servants could go to these meetings and vote 24 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. on everything that was to be done. Soon it was decided that only those who owned land in the town should be allowed to vote. While the pastor and the others referred to in the last paragraph, directed the affairs of the settlement in the beginning, there were also a captain, two lieutenants and two or more sergeants whose duty it was to carry out their orders as well as to stand ready to direct the settlers if it should be necessary for the latter to defend themselves against the attack of Indians or hostile white men. These military officers formed the only police the early English colonists had and they were very useful in many ways other than in those that fall to the lot of guardians of the peace to-day. Gradually, with the lessening fear of Indian attacks, and with the perfection of town organization, the need of the military officers disappeared. Robert Treat was the first captain. In less than a year after settlement the town meet- ing began to choose officers to attend to the business of the town. One of the first chosen was a collector of taxes. Next they chose a treasurer, then survey- ors. Two magistrates were soon chosen, and one of them was Captain Treat. Every year they chose new men for these places or elected the old ones THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 25 again, and at nearly every town meeting they found that new kinds of officers were needed. Three years after the settlement five selectmen were chosen to have general charge of town affairs. 11. The New Jersey Indians. None of the New Jersey Indians ever made serious trouble for the settlers. These Indians were of the Lenni Lenape tribe, who long before the white men came are believed to have been beaten in battle by the fiercer and more powerful tribes from what are now Pennsylvania and New York. The Lenni Lenape seem never to have made war after that early conflict with their neighbors. The New Jersey Indians called what is now this State, "Scheyichbi." One of their largest villages was at what is now Hackensack, and their greatest chief at the time the Newark founders arrived was a very old man, called Oraton. His name has been preserved here by the street named after him. Oraton seems to have been a wise and just Indian, and seems to have resembled the kindly and broad- minded Massasoit with whom the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth had such pleasant dealings. Some time before the War for Independence the surviving Indians were gathered together from all parts of what is now the State, and placed upon a 26 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. reservation of one thousand acres in Burlington county. There they became known as the "Edge Pillocks." In 1 80 1 they joined the survivors of the Mohicans on the latter's reservation in New York State. Later both the Lenni Lenape and the Mohicans removed to Michigan. In 1832 there were but forty of the Lenni Lenape living. It seems that one Indian and his squaw refused to leave this State when the others went to join the Mohicans. Their daughter, known as "Indian Ann," lived to a great age. She died in 1894 near Mount Holly, and was known as the "Last of the Lenni Lenape." 12. The First Church a Fortress. While they were busy with their own houses the people were also planning their church, and built it as soon as possible. It stood on Broad street about where Branford place now begins, nearly opposite the present First Presbyterian Church. They put on it a cupola. In this two men stood with loaded guns, during the religious services, to watch for hostile Indians. There were also flankers at two of the diagonally opposite corners. These flankers were little towers, and a man on watch in one of them could look along two sides of the building, so that from the two flankers all four sides could be watched. Every Sunday a fourth of all the men «®M .- 28 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. carried guns to church, and from these were chosen, each week, one to watch from the church cupola and two others to "ward," as they called it, standing in the flankers. 13. The Church a Precious Thing. To the settlers of our city the church was the most precious thing they had. All the people went to it. In fact for a few years they did not let people come to live among them unless they were not only willing to go to church, but liked to go, and to the kind of church the settlers believed in. This, of course, meant that the minister was one of the lead- ing men. He was not the ruler of the village, for it had no rulers, although the people often gave a few men great power. Still, the ministers of the church had much to do with making the town. The first minister is believed to have named it, calling it Newark after Newark on the river Trent in England where he was ordained to preach. The First Church of Newark, as it was called for many years, is the oldest fully organized church congregation in all of what is now New Jersey. There were a few Swedish churches on the Dela- ware which were started before that in Newark, but they were all on the Pennsylvania side of the river. There were also a few Dutch churches, but they had THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 29 a short existence. The First Dutch Church of Bergen, which was started several years before Newark was founded, had no regular minister, and it w r as not completely organized until many years after 1666. Newark's first church, that is the church organiza- tion, is really older than the town itself by about twenty years, for it was founded in Branford, Connecticut, and when the Branford people removed to Newark they brought with them their entire church organization, leaving very few 7 of the church members behind. The church organization there- fore is now more than two hundred and fifty years old from its foundation to the present. 14. The Church as a Meeting House. The first Newark church was used on Sundays, just as w r e use ours, for religious purposes; but on week days it was a gathering place for all public assemblies. They did not call it a church but a "meeting house," just as many people in New England speak of their churches to this day. All their meetings were religious. They never gathered together without praying to God to guide them in whatsoever they had to do. 15. Drums were very Useful. During the first few years, when the settlers were 30 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. not quite sure of the Indians, the town meeting was called together by the beating of drums ; the lieuten- ants doing the drumming. Whenever Indians seemed to be plotting trouble, drums were sounded and the people hurried to the church. On certain days the able bodied men of the town had to give up their time to work for the common good, building roadways, clearing the countryside of brush and trees, laying drains and doing all the other things that must be done to make a new town in a wilderness attractive and comfortable. The underbrush was often cleared by burning. A certain tract was set off for the purpose; the men gathered at the roll of drums and went to this tract. There they applied the torch if the winds were favorable, and watched to see that the fire did not shift and that sparks were not carried to their houses. On the days when the men assembled to do the town's work, one lieutenant took up his position at the lower end of the town, on what is now Broad street, near Hill and Green streets, while the other started from the neighborhood of Bridge street, or a little below. The lieutenants, beating their drums, proceeded toward the centre of the town, until they met where the little church stood, and the men came out of their homes and followed after. 2,2 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. At times when the settlers feared attacks by the Indians, strict watch was kept every night. Three men, chosen by one of the sergeants, gathered at some house, one standing watch outside while the others slept inside. They relieved each other through the night and a little before daybreak all three went out and walked about the town to see that all was well. Half an hour after daybreak they beat drums to let the village know that another night had passed safely. Their drum beat also told the settlers it was time to get up. It was not long after the village was founded before one of the first comers died, and was laid to rest behind the little church. Thus was started the Old Burying Ground, used for over 200 years. The bones of the early settlers were removed from it less than twenty years ago and placed in a large vault in Fairmount Cemetery. Over the vault rises a monument on which are inscriptions telling of the men and women whose remains lie beneath. The small cut at the beginning of this chapter is from the statue of a Puritan pioneer which forms a part of this monument. 16. Filling in the Meadows. In the laying of drains some of the men provided pipe sections made from gum trees and others laid THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 33 them down. Thus many a little plot was trans- formed into dry ground from a marsh or quagmire. The towns in Connecticut from which the settlers came had marshes in them or near them, so, being used to swamps in their former homes the many square miles of Newark meadows did not deter them from coming here. The filling in of the marshes of Newark has thus been going on for nearly two hundred and fifty years. It must go on for many years more if all are to be filled. It was a tremen- dous task the settlers had before them. Surely they did not dream the time would ever come when the many thousand acres of solid earth we now see would be made out of the swamps. The settlers seem never to have regretted coming here. There was much hard work to be done, but they seem to have rejoiced in it. Like the Puritans of Plymouth, they held their days of Thanksgiving. The writer has tried to express in the following hymn something of the spirit with which they were animated on such occasions : 17. The Newark Settlers' Thanksgiving Hymn. Here in a pleasant wilderness, Thy children, Lord, abide, And turn to Thee with thankfulness in this November-tide. Almighty God, Thy goodness grows More seemly, as Thou dost expose Thy purpose to our wondering eyes, Led hitherward by Thee. 34 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. Here by Passaak's gentle flow our humble homes we rear; Unchafed by want, unsought by woe, we have no cause for fear. The painted savage peaceful prowls, The lurking wolf unheeded growls; With steadfastness we hold our way, Uplifted, Lord, by Thee. With pious zeal our task we took, and soon the virgin soil By coppice edge, by whimpering brook, hath blest our sober toil. Our log-built homes are filled with store From fruitful field, from wood and shore; Our hearts are filled with tuneful joy, With thankful hymns to Thee. 18. The Settlers Good Workmen. The settlers were good workmen and they trimmed the logs for their first houses very straight with their axes. They hewed them into square timbers, with surfaces so even and smooth that in some cases it was hard to be sure that they were not sawed. We learn this from men who many years ago saw the ruins of these old houses. In the centre of the spot on which a house was to stand, they dug a hole large enough to hold the winter store of food. This was the cellar and was reached through a trap door in the floor. Each house had a ground floor and an attic, with a roof which came down so low at the eaves that a tall man could reach up and take hold of it. The first THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 35 floor was usually made into one big room — kitchen, dining room, living room and parlor, all in one, with a tireplace large enough to take in a backlog eight feet long. The logs were often hauled into the house by a horse, the horse being driven in at one door and out at another. The furniture was very simple and strong, and there was not much of it. The table at which the family ate its meals was sometimes so made that when a meal was over it could be converted into a large seat and pushed back against the wall or forward close to the fire- place. A dye pot in which to make a dye out of roots to color their cloth, was found in almost every house. The pot was cut out of a gum tree log. The gum tree decays at the centre and it is easy to cut out the decayed part and put a wooden plug in one end for a bottom. A piece of wood was fitted into the top to serve as a cover and then the whole thing formed a seat which stood at one corner of the fireplace. It took six months or longer to make a suit of clothes, for threads had to be spun from flax or wool, and then woven into cloth, then dyed. The settlers grew their own flax, and the wool came from sheep which soon dotted the hillside, where 36 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. High street now is, all the way from William street to St. Michael's Hospital. For much more than a hundred years these settlers, no matter how well off they were, had little but homespun to wear. Boots and shoes were made by a traveling cobbler. He passed through town once every year or two, stopping with each family until he made boots and shoes for all in the household, from master to servants. The family got ready for him by tanning the skins of the cattle they killed for food. 19. Newark Ten Years Old. Ten years after the settlers landed they had a complete little town with a substantial church, an inn or tavern, a good grist mill, and a staunch boat which carried their produce to Elizabethtown and New York and brought back their purchases. Broad street was fairly well laid out as far down as Clinton avenue and as far up as Orange street. A few more families had come from Connecticut and the town was prosperous in a humble way. It had passed through the early period of struggle without great hardship. The settlers loved their town, for it was peaceful and they were contented in it. They kept it neat and clean and travelers often spoke of it as a very pretty village. Nearly every house had a row of beehives THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 37 at the rear. In the summer there were great masses of roses, from which the bees gathered honey, grow- ing up the sides of the houses and sometimes on to the roof. It was several years before the settlers had a store. Now and then a settler filled a boat with the produce of his farm and sailed with it to New York, where he bartered his fruit, vegetables, grain, beef, chickens and ham, for such articles as he needed. He took in exchange for his goods, sugar, tea, coffee, nails, hinges, hammers, axes and other articles which he and his fellow settlers could not grow or make. When a settler made a trip of this kind he usually took also the goods of some of his neighbors to exchange. Sometimes a settler would bring home from New York more things than he and his family needed, and these he would dispose of to the people living near him. Gradually a few of the settlers got into the way of keeping in their houses small quantities of nails, knives, saws, and other useful tools, together with groceries, which they sold or exchanged for other things they wanted. Thus, the community's first stores were started. 20. The First Schoolmaster. The town was ten years old before the settlers were ready to establish a school, and during those 38 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. first ten years children learned their letters at their mothers' knees, or did not learn them at all. John Catlin was the first schoolmaster, and only those children whose parents were able to pay for their schooling could attend his school. Free public schools as we know them did not come for nearly a century and a half. In very early days a market place was set up at the foot of what is now Washington Park. The stream already described as flowing down Market street, ran down the hillside where the County Court House now stands, and a watering place was agreed on at the point where Springfield avenue and Market street now meet. The first tannery was also started near here, on Market street, near the begin- ning of Springfield avenue. There was very little social life in those first years. The church was the chief thing in all men's minds, and when the people were not listening to sermons and prayers in the meeting house or gathered there to talk with each other about the making of their town, they were hard at work in field and forest, or in their beds. If anybody entertained young folks at his house after nine o'clock at night he was liable to a fine, except on special occasions, when permission must be had from one of the town THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 39 officers. Boys and girls loved fun then as always, and they gave their grave parents and grandparents so much trouble that the town actually had to appoint a man to look after them and see that they behaved properly during the church service. This meant that this man must not only see to it that they sat quietly during the two-hour sermon, but must also be sure they were all in church and not sailing toy boats on the river, fishing in the brooks, or engaged in some other pastime. 21. Forming New Settlements. When the town was started every settler who came had a right to two pieces of land, one in the centre of the settlement and the other on the out- skirts. The first piece was called the settler's town lot and the other the farm, or pasture, or wood-lot. As the boys and girls grew up and became men and women and got married, they often went away to the farm lots of their fathers or to other outlying tracts that the town voted to give or sell them. In this way houses soon sprang up in what are now called the Oranges, in Irvington, ■ Belleville and Bloomfield, and in other places. 22. Roads Began as Foot-paths. The people who went into the countryside to live constantly traveled back and forth to the parent 4 o A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. town. Newark was for many years the only place where there were stores. Many came also on Sundays to the church, sometimes two or three on one horse. In this way were opened the roads we call avenues, along which now whiz trolley cars and automobiles. The planter whose home was furthest away from Newark would naturally pass as close to his nearest neighbor's house as he could in coming here, so that the neighbor's family might join him on his journey, or that he might see them and learn of any news they might have to give. They might wish him to do errands for them in the town. Then he would go by the next neighbor's home and so on down into the town. It did not take much of this kind of travel, always at first on foot or horseback, to wear a path, which after a time grew broad and smooth enough to permit a wagon to pass along. As the wagon path became better known new planters came and built their homes near it. Thus some of the great roads leading into Newark were opened almost before there were any houses near them. Later they were straightened and changed from time to time. Many of the old roads began thus, in winding foot or bridle-paths. 23. The First Industry. In the early days of the town the planters found THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 41 apples growing wild in the higher lands toward the Orange Mountains. The apples were small, very much like what we now call crab-apples; but the settlers cultivated them and grafted them with slips which they got in Connecticut, until they had splendid crops of fine fruit every year. Some of the finest apples grown in this part of the country then came from the neighborhood of Newark. They were so plentiful that the planters soon began to make cider of them and made it so well that Newark became known throughout the English colonies in America for the excellence of its cider. 24. Treat Returns to Connecticut. When the town was in good running order Robert Treat went back to his old home in Connecticut. He had done splendid work here as an organizer and as a leader of men, a work for which history has never given him the credit he deserved. Once back in Connecticut he found much to do there, and few men in any of the English settlements were as useful to the people as he. He was a brave man and a born soldier, ready always to do his duty. When all the New England colonies had to raise a little army to fight the Indians, Robert Treat was chosen to lead the Connecticut soldiers. This was in King Philip's war, in 1675, nine years after Treat 42 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. and his companions had founded Newark. His soldiers joined with those of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies on a bitter cold day and marched many miles into the forest until they came to a swamp with a low hill in its centre. On this hill was an Indian fort, and within its walls were several thousand Indians — men, women and children. Many of the Indian warriors had guns which they had bought or stolen from the white men and with which they could shoot well. 25. Treat in Battle. There seemed but one way to reach the fort, along the trunk of a tree that made a rude bridge over a ditch. This ditch ran all around the fort and the tree trunk crossed it just in front of the gate. When the soldiers saw the little bridge they ran bravely toward it through the swamp. As they tried to cross it the Indians fired at them through little slits in the walls of the fort and killed many. Still other soldiers charged for the tree trunk. Again came flashes of flame from the walls, and the ditch began to fill up with dead and dying white men. The colonists showed great courage at this terrible moment. Their descendants were never more reso- lute or fearless of death a hundred years later when the War for Independence came. But here some- THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 43 thing more than bravery was needed. At this instant the Connecticut men, who had been kept as a rear guard, arrived on the field. Major Treat sent part of them into the fight at the tree trunk ; the rest he led around to the rear looking for a place where they might break through and attack the red men from the back. The weak spot was found, and quicker than it can be told the Connecticut men were emptying their guns at the Indians, who did not dream that an enemy could possibly get at them from behind until they heard the roar of muskets and caught the sound of the Connecticut men's cheers. Many hundreds of the Indians were killed at the fort and the village that stood inside of it was destroyed by fire. Major Treat was the last man to leave this awful scene of bloodshed. This stroke of the Connecticut men saved the New England soldiers from frightful slaughter and from possible loss of the battle. The victory broke the power of King Philip, and the Indians were never again so troublesome in New England. 26. Treat as Governor. When Major Treat returned at the head of his victorious but badly shattered force, the people of Connecticut hailed him as a hero, and soon made him Deputy Governor. Later he became Governor, 44 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. and it was while he was in office that the tyrant, Andros, sent over by the English King to enforce harsh laws on the colonists and to take their charters away, came to Connecticut. The charter was an agreement in writing, signed by the King, giving the colonies certain rights. Governor Treat received the King's officer in the assembly hall in the after- noon of a warm day and made a speech of welcome. It grew dark while the conference was still going on, and candles had to be brought. The candles were placed on the table on which lay the precious charter of Connecticut. Suddenly some one tossed a coat through an open window on to the table, and thus put out the candles. When the candles were lighted again the charter had vanished and no one seemed to know where it had gone. Andros was in a fury over its disappearance; but could do nothing. The colonists hid it in a tree which is now famous in history as Connecticut's "Charter Oak." Just how much Robert Treat had to do with this plan for keeping the charter from the king's officer and thus retaining the people's rights, we shall never know; but that he was deep in the plan to help preserve the colonists against greater tyrannies, we may be sure. He lived to be eighty-six, and when he died the whole Connecticut colony felt his loss keenly. THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 45 27. Settlers were Able Men. These incidents show what kind of men they were who made Newark. It happened that no warlike Indians lived in New Jersey when the Newark settlers came, for they had been subdued many years before by fierce tribes in Pennsylvania and upper New York. If the Jersey Indians had been hostile; if they had skulked about the settlement watching for a chance to burn the houses and kill the women and children, or to drive their flint- tipped arrows into the hearts of the men as they worked in the fields, they would have found the Newark settlers just as brave as were their rela- tives and friends in Connecticut. The prepara- tions of the first Newarkers to face an Indian uprising, already described, show their fearlessness. Robert Treat took up arms when he went back to his old home, because the colonies were in danger of destruction. The future of New England and of the English speaking race from the Delaware to Maine, hung for a little time almost in the balance. Had not the Indians been wholly subdued the settlers might all have been driven away. 28. Newark, Yale and Princeton. There were other men here, quite as good and as strong as the fighting men, who showed their skill 46 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. and bravery in a different way. The Rev. Abraham Pierson, the pastor of the church that we now know as the First Presbyterian, was as fearless and as stalwart a Puritan as the men of arms. He was a deep and earnest thinker, and the whole town loved him and looked up to him as the chosen head of that church for which they and their parents and grand- parents had suffered so much in England and New England. The son of Pastor Pierson, who bore the same name as his father, was not a soldier, but a scholar like his father. He went back to Connecticut, and in later years, when Yale College was started, became its first president. You may see his statue to-day in the college yard at New Haven. Newark came very near being the birthplace of what is now Princeton University. The College of New Jersey, which was founded at Elizabethtown in May, 1747, was removed to Newark a few months later, in the same year, when its head, the Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, died. Here it grew and prospered for about nine years, under the charge of the Rev. Aaron Burr, pastor of the First Church, and father of the vice-president of the United States of that name. Some, and probably most, of the college exercises, were held in the building adjoin- ing the church on Broad street near Branford place, THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 47 known as the Court House. The college was founded by the Presbyterian Synod of New York, which included a part of New Jersey. One reason for the establishment of the institution was that the authorities of Yale College did not relish the kindly treatment given by the clergymen of this section to David Brainer'd, whom the Yale faculty called one of their "disorderly pupils." Brainerd had been appointed a missionary to the Indians in this neighborhood and in what is now New York State, after he had been expelled from Yale. Brainerd's offense was one that we of to-day would call very trivial, and it is hard for us to understand why a college faculty should take it so seriously. It was charged against him that he had said one of the college instructors had no more spiritual grace than a chair, and that he had attended a religious meet- ing of a sect of which the college authorities did not approve. The Rev. Dr. Burr, the first president of the New Jersey College, is said to have remarked: "If it had not been for the treatment received by Mr. Brainerd at Yale College, New Jersey College never would have been erected." The clergymen in New Jersey were inclined to believe that the students they sent to Yale were made to feel the faculty's displeasure because of the Brainerd incident. 48 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. The college might have remained here to this day had the people living in Newark and hereabouts given it more liberal support. The officers of the college decided that new buildings and other equip- ment were needed and they asked the people to give money and land for this object. They gave very little and very slowly, and when land was offered at Princeton, with other inducements, it was decided to remove the college thither. So Newark lost an opportunity to become the permanent home of one of the greatest colleges in the country. While the college was in Newark it had about ninety students. Brainerd, the missionary, who, as already explained was indirectly one of the causes for the founding of the college, died in the same year the institution was founded. He contracted consumption while laboring among the Indians. Fifteen years or so before the starting of the College of New Jersey, the First Presbyterian church became involved in a controversy which finally disrupted it. Colonel Josiah Ogden, a leading member of the church, went into his fields with his servants one Sunday and gathered in his wheat which was in danger of destruction from long con- tinued rains. He was disciplined for this by the church authorities. He resented this treatment, THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 49 apparently contending that Sunday was made for man and not man for Sunday. There was a long discussion, and in the end Colonel Ogden and many who sympathized with him left the church and founded Trinity Episcopal Church congregation. This was about 1732 or '33. There had been occasional services of the Episcopal church in Newark for several years previous to this. The first Trinity Church was built in 1743-' 44, and the base of the spire of the present edifice was in the original structure. Wounded Continental soldiers were cared for in the old church after the disastrous battle of Long Island, in 1776. 29. Military Park. Military Park was first called the Training Place. It was there the able-bodied men gathered once or twice a year to drill and practice shooting their muskets. This was done that they might be ready at any time in case the Indians became troublesome. When King Philip's war was raging in New England the Newark settlers became very anxious for fear the Indians of New Jersey might take up the hatchet. In the year of the King Philip War we find the following in the ancient record of Newark's town meetings : — "John Ward is chosen to procure a barrel of 50 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. powder and lead answerable to it, as reasonable as he can; provided that the town pay him within this week in corn, fowls and eggs, or any way to satisfy him." This was the way they got their ammunition. 30. Newark in 1774. But another century was to flow quietly by before Newark had any real cause to become troubled over war's alarms. When the clouds of the coming War for Independence began to gather, the sturdy descen- dants of the early settlers showed that they possessed the splendid spirit of their fathers. In Newark was held one of the first meetings in the entire province of New Jersey to protest against the tyranny of King George the Third. It assembled in the little hall in what was then called the Court House, on Broad street, about where Branford place is now cut through. All the patriots of Essex County gathered at that meeting. They voiced their protest against the refusal of Governor Franklin, a son of Benjamin Franklin, to call a session of the Colonial Legislature for the purpose of choosing delegates to the first Congress at Philadelphia. But the meeting did more than protest. It drew up a circular letter which was sent out to all the counties of the province, calling upon the people to send delegates to a con- vention to be held in New Brunswick on July 21 of a s w H a 52 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. that same year, 1774. It was at the convention in New Brunswick that representatives to the first Continental Congress were chosen. Resolutions were also passed at the Newark meeting condemning the reigning monarch and the home government of England for its oppression of the colonies. 31. In the War for Independence. Newark and the whole county suffered for its patriotism later on, when war was raging. British soldiers often descended upon the little town and took away provisions, cattle and sheep worth many hundred dollars ; sometimes burned houses, and two or three times took away furniture and abused men and women. The brave pastor of the First Church, the Rev. Alexander Macwhorter, a true successor to the old Puritan pastor, Pierson, spoke out with fervor and fearlessness from his pulpit, and for his boldness was forced to leave the town. Two or three times, British officers and soldiers came from New York or Staten Island to arrest him; but he was always told of their coming in time to escape. In November, 1776, when Washington and his army left Newark in their flight through the State, Pastor Macwhorter traveled with the Commander-in-chief, and counselled with him upon the movement which ended in the capture of Trenton, on Christmas Eve. Trinity Church a Soldiers' Hospital— 1776. 54 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 32. Washington in Newark. After the defeat and retirement from Long Island, Washington and his army were in Newark for five or six days. They had fled across the Hudson, over the upper Hackensack Meadows and down the west bank of the Passaic. It was a very trying time for Washington. He lost hundreds of his soldiers while in Newark because their terms of service had run out and they wished to go to their homes. British agents were active in town and country, and offered inducements to the people to sign papers agreeing not to oppose the king's soldiers and not to give aid to the patriot army. Many signed these papers. In fact, at that time and for a number of years after- ward, nearly half the people of this town and county were either active Tories or in secret sympathizers with the British government. One of Washington's greatest trials was the failure of General Charles Lee, second in command to Washington, to come to Newark with his army of several thousand men. Had he joined the Commander-in-chief, as the latter urged him to do in letters he sent every day while the army was in Newark, Washington could have made a stand and fought a battle here. Some historians think that he wished to do this. But the cunning Lee would not THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 55 come. He hoped that Washington would meet with disaster, and that then he could get Congress to make him commander of the armies of the colonists. Later, both Congress and Washington came to understand Lee's treachery; but not until the latter had made a great deal of trouble and done much harm to the patriot cause. When Washington left Newark, going toward New Brunswick, people said they could trace the army route by bloody foot-prints of the ragged soldiers. But a great victory was at hand, and soon Newark and all the country rang with cheers over the capture of the Hessians at Trenton. Then came Washington's brilliant strategy at the battle of Princeton, at which in later years the great military students of Europe marveled. After the Princeton battle Washington went into winter quarters at Morristown. He and the army passed two winters there and on more than one occasion the Commander-in-chief made trips to Newark. 33. British Outrages. On one of their forays, the British burned the Academy at the foot of Washington Park, and, going across the street to a house that stood on the corner of what is now Broad and Lombardy, seized a brave patriot named Joseph Hedden. They made 56 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. him walk all the way to Paulus Hook, now Jersey City, through the bitter cold, clad only in his night- gown and a blanket which a neighbor gave him as he and his captors passed. These were stirring days for Newark, and the spirit of the old settlers seemed born anew in descendants whose devotion to their country no hard- ship could shake. Newark and the county had minute-men, and often when the British and Hessians, or bands of Tories made their trips here- abouts looking for food and plunder, these minute- men rallied and fought the foe "from behind each fence and farmyard wall." They seriously harassed these foraging parties as the latter made their way back through the country toward New York or Staten Island. The battle of Springfield was so near the town of Newark that the people here heard the thunder of its cannon. Newark minute-men doubt- less fought in that combat, as did many other Newarkers who were in the companies that enlisted here and in neighboring towns. One of the illustrations in this book shows a party of the king's soldiers engaged in a lively skirmish at the corner of Market and Broad streets. The British were returning to Bergen hill after a search for food among: the farms in and near 58 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. Newark. For several miles they had been sorely harassed by minute-men. As they crossed Broad street the minute-men's fire from adjacent houses became so severe that the commander of the detach- ment ordered the men to halt and fire. In the house on the northwest corner were several men. One of them was very old, too old to shoot, so he sat beside the fire and loaded the guns for the others to fire. The British finally charged the house, burst down the door and drove the minute-men out of it and through the apple and peach orchard to the west. Some of the British soldiers, finding the old man sitting by the fire, were about to kill him, but the leader, far more humane than many of his brother officers, gave the order to spare him, because of his great age and feebleness. It is a constant regret to historians that the old Newarkers did not write down more of the records of these times. But they were a people of deeds, not of words. We have records enough to be well assured that Newark's people came out of the awful trial of the War of Independence with great honor, and upheld the cause of patriotism even in the very darkest hours of the struggle. 34. The Heritage of Other Days. It took a long time to make this city of Newark. 6o A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. The grim old settlers put their best energies into its beginnings, and their descendants worked quite as hard to make it better still. All down the long line of Newark people, since 1666, there has been steady and willing toil year by year, generation after generation, to build Newark up, stronger, better and fairer. Now it is in our hands; those who have gone have left the city to us. Shall we not, as the others have done before us, take the best care of it we can ? Shall we not try to make it each year a more agreeable place to live in, more beautiful to look at, a source of pride to all who grow up in it and share the good things— the fine streets, the parks, the trees, the schools, the public buildings, the beautiful homes— which men and women during nearly two hundred and fifty years have worked hard to give to it? THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING SETH BOYDEN 179S-1870 FKOM A BUST IN THE PUBLIC LIBRARY CHAPTER II. THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING When the War for Independence closed Newark was 117 years old; that is, not much older than the United States is to-day. Nearly half the life of the city as it is reckoned at present writing had then been lived. We often think that little of import- ance was going on here until after the colonies separated from England, and forget that in Newark as in all other parts of the country our forefathers were making a brave fight with nature in changing a wild country to a fruitful and homelike one. 35. Before 1776. Newark grew very slowly in all the first 117 years; very slowly indeed. Towns sprang up all over what is now New Jersey and some of them became busy places; but Newark jogged soberly along in very much the same way for more than a century. Settlers looking for places in this neighborhood in which to live did not altogether like Newark. The marshes still covered many acres of what is now a densely populated city. Some who visited the town with the idea of making their home 64 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. in it were deterred by their fear of malaria and fever which they thought they might get from the marshes. The first settlers, however, had little fear of the marshes. They had learned that people may live near such places and still be healthy. Besides, they never dreamed that the town would grow to be as large as it has in the last half-century. Then too, as we have already seen, the men who governed the town were severe judges of all who wished to come and live among them. It had been so from the very earliest days of the settlement. The generation that controlled Newark about the time of the War for Independence, inherited the views of their ancestors on this subject, and a century and more had modified very little this wish to have all who lived in the community of the same faith and the same customs. They inherited the belief that it was wisest to keep out all who did not think as they did about almost everything, and especially on the subject of religious faith. 36. Newark's Long Sleep. When the nineteenth century opened there were living in Newark hardly twelve hundred persons, men, women and children. In a hundred years the population had scarcely doubled. Many more people now pass the corner of Market and Broad streets in THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. 65 a few minutes during the busy hours of morning or evening than lived in all Newark in 1800. In the last hundred years Newark has increased in population more than two hundred and fifty times. In fact it has done nearly all its growing in the last seventy years. It drowsed and dreamed in peace and quiet, content to stay as it was, for nearly a century and a half, from 1666 to 1820. Its people do not seem to have cared to be rich nor did they wish to see their town made big. They were born, grew up, married, lived their span of years in uneventfulness and moderate labor, died and were buried in the Old Burying Ground, or in the church- yard back of the First Church. 37. Newark the Village in 1800. In 1800 the town of Newark was not huddled closely together as the city is- to-day. There was plenty of land around nearly every building. Even with all this open space its boundaries were narrow, and were practically these : On the north, Bridge street, opposite where the Public Library now stands; on the south, South or Lincoln Park; on the west, Washington street; and on the east, Mulberry street. There were very few houses beyond these limits. Newark was then a charming little village. 66 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. The town shepherd herded his flocks in Military Park, which had a post and rail fence around part of it. Where Centre Market now stands was a one- story frame building, used for many years as a post office. On the east side of the Park there were but three houses and along the northern boundary but two. The Trinity Church of that day was much smaller than the present building. The main entrance faced the park, in the middle of the long side. In Washington Park the boys and girls played at hide-and-seek among the low crumbling walls of the old stone Academy building, which stood at the lower end of the Park nearly opposite the end of Halsey street. It had been burned by the British in 1780, when troops were sent out from New York to harass the patriots, Down Broad street from Military Park toward Market street were a few low buildings. The largest building in the town, except the church, was the Academy, which was built after the War for Independence and took the place of the one destroyed by the British. It stood where the Post Office now is. If one chanced to meet, about 1830, an old resident, he could tell how the British soldiers came into the town in the daytime, and terrorized the patriots, ransacked their houses, broke Looking East from Mulberry Street — 1800. 68 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. and burned their furniture, and filled the street with the fragments of household goods which they destroyed in their search for valuables, all in the hope that they would thus break the spirit of the people who were so bravely fighting for their independence. At the corner of Market and Broad streets, in 1800, were only two-story or story-and-a-half build- ings. There were orchards and gardens behind these buildings and sometimes between them. The centre of the space where the two streets meet, and where the car tracks now cross, was ten or fifteen feet lower than the corners, and here was a town pump, surrounded with mud in summer and with ice and slush during most of the winter. 38. The Old Tavern and Southern Trade. On the northeast corner was Archer Gi fiord's tavern with its wonderful sign which every boy in town no doubt thought a great work of art. The name of the tavern was "The Hunters and the Hounds." These words were on the sign, with a painting showing a pack of hounds and several hunters on horseback, one of the hunters holding aloft a fox by the hind legs while the hounds jumped about him. The sport of that day for gentlemen, especially in the South, was fox hunting. Planters THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. 69 coming from the South stopped at the tavern frequently, and the pretty town of Newark became well known through the stories of good fare and pleasant times which the planters told when they returned home. In this way trade with the South sprang up when Newark began to make things to sell. Southerners bought Newark goods liberally, and trade with the South grew as Newark grew. Much of the life of the town, in 1800, centered around the tavern. It was there that one went to get the news of the day. It was opened shortly after the War for Independence, and soon became a favorite resort for all persons passing up or down the country. Travelers from over the hills, from Morristown and beyond, stopped there on their way to New York, and usually stayed over night to refresh themselves before going on. Those who came from Philadelphia and beyond, also stayed there, unless they stopped at Elizabethtown and there took a boat to New York. 39. The Stage Coach. Six years or so before the last century opened, a stage line between Newark and New York was started. The stage went to New York in the morning and returned at night, and though it made only one trip each way every day except Sunday ;o A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. and carried only six passengers, it was spoken of at the time as "a great convenience." It started from the Gifford tavern in the morning and returned in the afternoon, always with a grand flourish of horns. For many years this means of communication with New York, and that by boats, filled all needs. In 1840, however, there were eight or ten coaches running to and from New York every day, each carrying fourteen or fifteen passengers, some sitting outside and others traveling inside. 40. Broad Street in 1800. In 1800 the jail stood a little north of where Branford place now is and where the first church of the settlers had once stood. Across the street and a little further south was the First Church, just as we see it to-day, except that it was quite new then and the people thought it a splendid edifice. It was the most pretentious building in all the town, as the people believed it should be. It was built some years after the War for Independence. The man who had most to do with getting it built was Pastor Macwhorter, already mentioned as a brave patriot and fearless preacher during the war. Here and there along Broad street below Market were stores. On the south corner of Broad and William streets, a little back from the road, was the First Church I .,,/j /, W | jMh 72 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. parsonage. Here was born Aaron Burr, son of one of the pastors of the church, and vice-president of the United States in 1801. He was a good soldier during the War for Independence, but later failed to maintain high standards of honor and citizenship. From this point on the houses were fewer and further apart, and the southern limit of the town was reached at what is now the junction of Clinton avenue and Broad street. Clinton avenue was a cart path, and Broad street here ended in a swamp. 41. High Street and Beyond in 1800. Along all the length of High street there were but two or three houses and the street itself was little more than a lane. Beyond it, to the west, there were a few inviting paths, lovers' walks in fact, where the young men and women of Newark strolled on quiet Sunday afternoons, looking down on the little village nestling among the trees below, with the blue bay beyond. On week days sheep and cattle pastured in the fields and meadows beyond High street; and except for an occasional planter travelling back and forth from town to his home on the Orange Mountains or near by, one might stroll for hours over what is now West Newark and Rose- ville and hear no sounds save those of nature. It is hard to realize that in 1800 everybody living in THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. 73 the town knew everybody else. This was a fact, however. Even forty years later old gentlemen sometimes wrote to the newspapers that they no longer knew even by sight all whom they met on the street, so great had the town grown ! 42. A Farm in Mulberry Street in 1815. In the year 181 5 a prominent Newark man wished to go to Europe, and to pay his expenses he decided to sell some of his land. So he advertised for sale his house, and his farm of about ten acres, extending along Mulberry street about eight hundred feet, and running all the way to the Passaic River where it had a frontage of about eight hundred feet. There was a board fence nine feet high all around this farm, and in the advertisement the owner stated that : "Last season, besides cutting fifty-six tons of hay, there were kept in the pasture twenty-five Merino sheep, three cows in the best order, and a flock of eighty or one hundred sheep may be amply supplied with grass on the premises." The tract just described is now one of the most densly built-up sections of the entire city and the ground alone is worth several million dollars. Yet it was of farms such as this that Newark was very largely made up at that time. Just think of ten acres with only one house on it, in the heart of the Newark of to-day. 74 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 43. Quiet Sundays in Old Newark. Many of the solemn old citizens of Newark did not like to see their town awakening from its long sleep, and it hurt them most of all to see the calm of their Sundays disturbed. Evidently they felt that a change was coming; they saw that the young generation was growing uneasy under the restraints put upon it during the day of rest, for, a little before 1800, a large number of them formed an association to preserve the old Puritan Sabbath. They agreed neither to ride out nor to travel on Sunday except in cases of necessity, nor let their children or appren- tices do so, but to keep them indoors all day long. They also agreed to try to get everyone else in the town to live in the same sober way. They would let no wagons of any sort be driven about or through the town on Sunday. They even stopped a coach bearing the United States mail, and had to be told that they would be handcuffed and taken to Wash- ington as prisoners if they did not let the mail carriers alone. Once they halted a carriage in which a young army officer was driving on his way to New York. The officer threatened to shoot them as he would robbers. Then they let him go. It is believed that this young officer was Winfield Scott, after- wards famous as the hero of the Mexican War, and THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. 75 the head of the army at the time of the outbreak of the Rebellion. On still another occasion a gentle- man travelling from the South was not permitted to continue his journey on the Sabbath. He stayed at the Gifford tavern and on Monday, when the land- lord asked for his pay, he told his host to collect the money from the stern and puritanical citizens who had made him stay over Sunday against his will. But little by little this spirit of intolerance, a relic of the old puritanism of which we find many traces in the history of the beginnings of Newark, died out, and new and broader life began. 44. Newark Begins to Make Things. The greatest incentive to the growth of Newark was the discovery by the people that they could make things that other people would pay money for. They found that they were handy with tools. Other towns had sprung up about them and bought the things Newark people made. In the country north and west of the town, were still a few Indians, and also bear, elk, deer, wolves and other wild animals. Farmers were raising good crops on the fertile soil. They brought their products to market in Newark, and the Newark people began to give the things they made to the farmers in exchange for food, wool, lumber and other products. 76 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 45. Making Boots and Shoes. Long before the War for Independence the settlers tanned and curried leather; but they seem to have done it only for home use until about 1790. Then a man named Moses Combs opened a little factory and made boots and shoes to sell. He may be called the first manufacturer of Newark; and as he was a remarkable man it is well to know a little more about him than simply that he made shoes. 46. An Early Free School. He started one of the very first free schools in the United States. This was about 1800. He opened this school for his apprentices, and built a large building on Market street near Plane, part of it for a school and the rest for a church. Mr. Combs was not pleased with the preaching in the First Presby- terian Church, although he had long been a promi- nent member of it and had given liberally to help erect the present First Presbyterian Church building. So he started a church of his own; but it did not last long. This shoemaker was also a strong believer in freedom for all men, and, though he lived over half a century before the War of the Rebellion which set the slaves free, he talked in favor of their freedom wherever he went. He did more; he gave freedom to a black man whom he owned as a slave. THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. 77 In this case kindness was poorly rewarded, for the negro was an evil-doer and was hanged for murder in what is now Military Park, in 1805. This pioneer of Newark's manufacturers was a far-seeing man in many ways. In his idea of a free school he sought to supply education, not only because it was a good thing for the boys and girls, but also because he wished to make out of them better workmen for his factory. This was really the beginning of the industrial and trade and manual training school idea of which we of to-day are only just now beginning to appreciate the great need. Mr. Combs, the far-seeing, discerned this need a hundred years ago. Mr. Combs was probably the first Newark manu- facturer to send any of his goods to the South. He sent two hundred pairs of sealskin shoes to Georgia. This shipment brought more orders, for Mr. Combs made his shoes very well and the Southerners liked them. Later Mr. Combs received as much as $9,000 for one shipment of shoes to the South. 47. Newark a Village of Shoemakers. His neighbors saw him making money, and some of them also began to make shoes to sell. Soon Newark was sending shoes by the wagon-load far and wide. So busy were the people making shoes, 78 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. in 1806, that when a map of the town was made in that year, the map maker drew on its margin a picture of a shoemaker busy at his last; and this map is known as the "Shoemaker map" to this day. A few years later nineteen-twentieths of the Newark men, women and children who worked for other people were employed in manufactures in which leather was used. At one time a third of all the people worked at shoemaking. Newark manufactur- ers had to hire men and boys from other towns to work in their shops, for there were not enough here. Workmen came from far and near, and the town grew very rapidly. In 1810 there were 6,000 people in the city; in 1826, 8,000, and in 1830, 11,000. In 1833 tne population was estimated at 15,000, with 1,712 dwelling houses. After the first 117 years — from 1666 to 1783 when the War for Independence closed — the village was a village still. But in the next 50 years it grew to be a town of 15,000. 48. The Stone Quarries. Shoemaking seems to have aroused the people to make other things to sell. The quarries of brown- stone in the neighborhood of what are now Bloom- field and Clifton avenues, from which building- stone had been taken in small quantities even before the War for Independence, now became very busy THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. 79 places. Many tons of the stone were taken out and used for buildings in and near Newark, and much of it was sent to New York. Clifton avenue, from Bloomfield avenue, north, is built for half a block over one of the most famous of the old quarries. The going and coming of the stone sleds and wagons made that section of the town a bustling neighbor- hood in the early years of the last century. 49. Flour Mills and Saw Mills. Two mills in which grain was ground into flour stood on Mill Brook, which ran down the hillside, and crossed Broad street at the point where Belle- ville avenue now begins. One of them was built by the first settlers and they looked on it as almost as great an undertaking as the building of their church. They appointed a special committee to go about the woods and fields to find stones that would do for mill stones. There were also two saw mills on the brook, a little east of Broad street. Near by a store was started, and thus, early in the last century the upper section of the town became its busiest and most enterprising section. 50. Iron Foundries; Tool Making. As the shops and mills grew in number, the call for tools to use in them increased. Iron was needed. 8o A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. and it was not long before the first iron foundry in the town was started, on the spot where the Second Presbyterian Church stands at the corner of Wash- ington and James streets, opposite Washington Park. A short distance away, in the middle of the park, is the statue of Seth Boyden, and if a statue can ever be said to stand on a spot where it feels at home, this one certainly may. 51. Seth Boyden, Inventor. Moses Combs taught the people of Newark that they could make things to sell, and Seth Boyden made them tools with which to work and helped them in many other ways, discovering new methods of doing things, methods that took less time and cost less money. The foundry mentioned above, at the corner of James and Washington streets, was not his; but shortly after he came to Newark, in 181 5, he started a foundry of his own, a few hundred yards from where his statue now is, on Orange street, a little way from Broad street and to the east of it. The glare of the furnaces at these two foundries lighted up the town at night for many years. From them came the tools and machines with which the Newark workers were able to make some of the best articles that were sold anywhere in the country. THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. 81 Newark needed very much a man like Seth Boy den, the inventor, just when he came. The effect of his inventions upon the town was wonder- ful. He was the first to make patent leather in this country. On July 4, 1826, when all the townspeople were flocking to Military Park to witness the cele- bration, the greatest that had ever been held in Newark, of the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Seth Boyden, toil- ing in his foundry on Orange street, discovered how to make malleable iron, a discovery which has since been of almost priceless value to the world. 52. Boyden a Many-sided Genius. Boyden was a deep thinker, and he used his brain to benefit mankind. Benjamin Franklin discovered by means of his kite that electricity came from the clouds to the earth; and many years afterward our Newark inventor, found, without any kite and simply by means of a copper wire which he stuck in the ground in Irvington, that electricity went from the earth to the clouds. Nobody before Boyden knew that this was so. He found our strawberries small and, though pleasant to the taste, not half so sweet as they now are. He studied the strawberry and by careful cultivation produced the large and luscious fruit as we now know it. Many & A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. of the things he did would have made him a rich man had he lived to-day; but he seemed never to think of riches ; he worked so hard and so earnestly, we are told by those who knew him, that he scarcely knew the difference between day and night. 53. Coaches, Coach-lace, Saddlery. The making of coaches began soon after the shoe- makers got to work. These first Newark coaches would seem clumsy affairs to us, but being well adapted to the needs of the time, they met with favor and were sold and sent to different parts of the country. Close on the heels of the coachmakers came the workers in coach-lace. Saddlery hardware also was needed and Newark began to make it. 54. Hats, Jewelry, Beer. Then came hat making. In 1830 there were nine hat shops in Newark. Soon the manufacture of jewelry was begun. In 1836 • there were four jewelry shops here and thirteen tanneries. Trunk making was also carried on early in the last century, but on a small scale. The brewing of beer was begun early, too, and in 1830 there were two breweries here. From that time on the number and kinds of shops, factories and mills increased rapidly. In 1908 they numbered over 4,000 with promise of many more in the near future. THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. 83 55. Power from Water and from Animals. At first water power was used to drive machinery in factories, though horses and oxen sometimes fur- nished the power by treadmills. In the treadmills animals were made to try to walk on a place almost as steep as the roof of a house, on slats of wood which moved downward as fast as they were stepped on. The slats were fastened closely together so that the animals' hoofs would not go between them. As the slats moved, wheels beneath were turned. These wheels turned other wheels in the shop. Of course the poor animals never got to the top of the steep place. In fact, they never got much higher than they were when they started. If they grew tired the wheels went slower and slower, and the shop did not have enough power. Boys and men made the animals go faster and, sad to say, often used whips. About the year 1810, in a foundry on Market street, a blower was used, and an ox walked a treadmill to make the blower go. The first printing presses used in Newark were turned by hand. Steam for power in shops and factories did not come into use in Newark until about 1825. 56. Ships, Whaling; the Canal. Not all the new business life in Newark was on land. About 1839 the Passaic river became a 84 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. very busy place. A hundred vessels of all sorts were owned here and plied between Newark and other ports. A little later, as many as 300 vessels passed in and out of Newark bay in one day. Two or three large whaling ships were fitted out here, and one of them, after a cruise of over two years, sailed proudly up the Passaic with a full cargo of 3,000 barrels of whale oil and 15,000 pounds of whalebone. In 1832 the Morris canal was com- pleted, and this brought a great deal of business to the now thriving community. For years Newark got nearly all of its coal, much of its wood for fuel, and other commodities by the canal. 57. Eminent Men in Newark. Early in the last century Newark was known far and wide as a pleasant place to linger in and many prominent men lived here for a time or made visits here. The great French wit, statesman, diplomat and man of letters, Talleyrand, made his home here for about three years, from 1792 to 1795. He had fled from France and later from England. Blenner- hassett, a famous English immigrant whose latter years were made stormy and melancholy largely through his dealings with Aaron Burr, also lived here for a time. Probably Burr, who was a native of Newark, had something to do with Blenner- THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. 85 hassett's coming here. Peter Van Berckel, minister from the States of Holland to the United States late in the eighteenth century, made his home in Newark, and died here. The noble Lafayette, who had so much to do with the successful termination of the War for Indepen- dence, paid Newark a visit in 1824, and was given a great reception in Military Park. He was enter- tained before the reception in a house a little south of where the American Insurance Company building now stands. Henry Clay was in Newark in 1833. In 1852, Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, was received by the people of Newark with great cere- mony. Abraham Lincoln, while on his way to Washington just before his inauguration in 1861, made a short stop in this city, on the eve of Wash- ington's birthday. General Grant and others of the country's great men have also enjoyed Newark's hospitality during the last century. 58. Newark Awake. This is the story of Newark's Awakening. If read thoughtfully it seems quite as wonderful as many a tale of fancy you will find. A hundred years ago Newark was like a little hive of drones; now it is a great hive of busy bees. Once it was like an idle boy, lying dozing in the sun; now it is 86 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. like a huge giant, awake and active, with great muscles knotted on arms and legs and vast wealth piled up around him. The best stories are the true ones, and this is the true story of the awakening of a great city. One might almost say that Newark was discovered a second time; that . is, that the people living here decided, about three quarters of a century ago, that Newark should not stay a village forever, but must awake, grow, expand. 59. Keeping Awake. To-day, the people of our great city know that, if they would keep the prosperity they now enjoy they must look constantly for new methods and new inventions and unite always the spirit of industry with the spirit of progress. In fact, to be successful in each new period the city must be on the alert to discover new possibilities within itself. Newark must never slumber again as it did for nearly a hundred and twenty-five years. It should always grow in activity and beauty, and all of us must do our part to aid its growth. THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY NEWARK FROM THE PASSAIC BY NIGHT. AN IMPRESSION. CHAPTER III. THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY Newark was a city in size as early as 1830, yet still conducted itself as if it were a village. Town business was done very much as it had been ever since the settlers came, with town meetings twice a year, and oftener if they seemed necessary. There were few officials to attend to the many kinds of public business. All who were entitled to vote joined in discussions at town meetings over every little thing that had to be done, and even the smallest things were often very slow of accomplishment. Slowly, very slowly, the cautious leaders of Newark's prosperity found they needed a better way of running their town, and in 1833 the first step was taken in this direction. Permission was obtained from the State legislature to divide Newark into four wards. For 160 years the community had been content to be what is called a township. With its division into four wards it became a town. It is worth noting that this step in Newark's advancement had in it something that reminds one of the founding of the town — the number four. The go A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. settlers came from four towns in Connecticut, New Haven, Milford, Branford, and Guilford; they started their town at the four corners of what are now Market and Broad streets, each community taking a corner for itself. When the four wards were formed in 1833 the four historic corners were used again. The wards were made to start from the corners and were called, North, South, East and West. It is interesting also, to note, that in founding the town, the settlers selected four texts from the Old Testament for their guidance. 60. Newark Becomes a City: 1836. The town form of government, so long in coming, lasted only three years, and then the real city began its life with much the same form of government that we have to-day, the first mayor being William Halsey. The number of town officers was increased, there being more than ever for the city to do in taking care of itself. For many years after the War for Independence, Newark had but two constables to preserve the peace. As the factories and their workers increased in number the town found it must have more men to see that order was kept, and about the time the city was formed there were twelve constables, who were the policemen of their day. They had big rattles THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 91 which they sounded by whirling them around and around in the hand; these they sprung when there was trouble and they needed help. They had to call for assistance quite often, for the boys and young men who worked in the shops liked to have fun at night. Sometimes the boys took the gates from in front of the houses facing on Military Park and burned them in the park in big bonfires. The constables had all they could do to stop such pranks. The whole country around was waking up. People in all the neighboring cities and towns were finding out what an immense country this is, and that there was a large number of people to be fed and clothed and housed and transported from place to place. Newark's brightest men were coming to understand that if the town was to become powerful and helpful among its neighbors the people must work with a more united effort to make it so. New and quicker and better ways must be found for doing all the things that now had to be done to keep the city prosperous and to make it the equal of all its sister cities in the matters of neatness, comfort, intelligence and general progressiveness. 61. The First Railroad. Just when the stage coach seemed to be flourish- ing most, railroads came. The first one was put 92 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. in operation early in December, 1833. It ran from Jersey City to the corner of Broad and William streets, where the old City Hall stood until the winter of io,07-'o8. This City Hall in the early railroad days was the City Hotel. Trains going to Jersey City stopped first at Chandler's Hotel on Broad street, about opposite Mechanic street; next at Market street near where the Pennsylvania station now is ; and then at the foot of Centre street, just before crossing the river. In those days it was not thought safe to run locomotives over some parts of the soft and spongy marshes, so at intervals along the way the cars were drawn by horses for short distances. This railroad was conducted by the New Jersey Railroad and Transportation Company. It shook one up to ride on it almost as much as did the stage coach, the roadbed was so rough and the machinery so crude. The next year prominent men from different parts of northern New Jersey met in a Newark tavern to take the first steps for the building of the Morris and Essex Railroad. Newark, as well as other places in this part of the State, was really suffering for means to carry away the great quantities of goods it was making and selling, and to bring back from other places the things it was buying. THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 93 The growth of the railroads, which soon gave up horses for locomotives, slowly but surely put an end to the day of stage coaches, and the big, clumsy vehicles with their four or six horses which came clattering up to the Newark hotels from Jersey City, New York, Morristown, Elizabeth and other places, became fewer and fewer. Change and progress were in the air. Newark was reaching out and getting into closer touch with the rest of the world by means of railroads, the canal and shipping on river and bay. Next, the call became loud for better motive power for shops and mills than that to be had from a water-fall or from a slow-moving horse or ox, and steam was introduced, as was told in the last chapter. In 1836 there were one hundred and thirty-six factories in Newark and new ones were being opened every month. As it became easier to get to and from other places, the shops and factories found it easier to sell more goods, and more men and boys were constantly needed to work in the shops to make the increasing quantity of goods. 62. The Young City Thrives. And so more people came to the town. They came from all the small places in this part of New Jersey, strong young men and boys who were tired 94 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. of the quiet life of their native villages and weary of working on farms. Soon the town was filled to overflowing, and many a staid old mansion was turned into a boarding house to make room for the little army of workers that was now streaming in. Not all the workers were found in this State. Foreigners were pouring into this country by way of New York and some of them upon landing heard of the busy little town on the Passaic and came here. Among the first were the Irish. No one knows just when the first Irish immigrants reached Newark, but there were probably about thirty families of them here in 1828, the men and boys working in the foundries and in the coach factories and hat shops. The Germans, too, soon learned that work was to be had here, and as early as 1833 there were at least seventy-five from the Fatherland in Newark. These must have written letters home to tell others what a good place this was to live in, for only two years later there were three hundred Germans in Newark. For a time comparatively few people from other countries were to be found in Newark. All who came soon found work, and every now and then a sturdy workman who had come to this country with little in the world that he could call his own besides THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 95 the clothes on his back, began to lay the foundations of a fortune. Among them were some of the men who have helped make Newark the great and power- ful city it is to-day. These were not only willing to work but they were quick to discover new ways for making things. The Irish who first came to Newark did for the most part the work that Italians, Poles and Hun- garians now do here; and the Germans when they arrived in great numbers in the forties and fifties of the last century, shared with the Irish in doing the hard manual labor. In 1848 and 1849 an d in the next few years the Germans came in great numbers. There was a revolution in Germany, and brave men and women who had sought for liberty and could not find it in the old country hoped to find it here. In Harper's Magazine for October, 1876, we find an interesting picture of German life in this city. It says : "A wondrous tide of Germans has flooded Newark, dropping into all the vacant lots [and there were very many of them then], and spreading itself over the flats to the east and the hills to the south and west, until it numbers one-third of the voting population. The German quarter on the hills is one of the interesting features of the city. A section nearly two miles square is a snug, compact, well- 96 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. paved city within a city, giving evidence of neither poverty nor riches. The Germans who dwell here are chiefly employed in the factories and nearly all own their own houses. They live economically and save money. German habits and German customs appear on every side. The women carry heavy bundles, great baskets and sometimes barrels on their heads. Wherever there is room the Germans have gardens and raise vegetables for Newark market. At early morning the women may be seen driving their one-horse wagons into town." 63. Hard Times of 1837. In 1837 Newark was stricken by the hard times which swept over the entire country. Some of the city's industries suffered severely and have not fully recovered to this day. Before the manufacturers of certain lines of goods could recover from the misfortunes other cities and towns had begun to make the same goods and had taken the markets that had formerly been supplied by Newark factories. In 1837 the population of the city was 20,000, and the next year was but 16,000. Business was poor, shops were closed and many people went to other cities and towns looking for work. Not until about 1843 did the city regain its former vigor. Since that date it has gained steadily with one or two short THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 97 periods of depression. In i860 there were 73,000 people here. The next year there were but 70,000, for many Newark men had shouldered muskets and marched off to the defense of the Union in the Civil War. In 1863 more men went to the war, and the number of inhabitants dropped to 68,000. In 1864 it had risen again to 70,000, and at the end of the year 1865, the war being over, and the soldiers returned home, it was estimated at 87,428. 64. A Time of Prosperity: 1849. The town was teeming with life in 1849. A shrewd observer wrote: "People appear to be flocking from every direction to share with us in the luxury of living in so pleasant and beautiful a city as Newark, where any one who is willing to work can earn enough to make ends meet and have something over at the end of the year, if economy is exercised." This writer calls those times "years of plenty." In 1845 there were over 3,800 dwellings in the city. In 1908 there were more than ten times that number, and still increasing steadily. 65. How they Fought Fires. Newark in the early days did not have many fires, so it did not pay much heed to the talk of the wise men who often said a fire department was needed. During the War for Independence the British 9 8 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. soldiers now and then burned buildings in the town ; but after the war was over few thought there would be any more serious danger from flames, until a handsome home fronting on Military Park burned down. Soon after this a little hand-engine was bought and a fire company formed. Long hose was not used in those days. The little engine was taken as close to the fire as possible and short iron or wooden pipe used to throw the water on the flames. Horses were not thought of for hauling the engine to the fires. The men of the fire com- pany enjoyed hauling the engine themselves, pulling it by a long rope. 66. The Old Hand Engines. During the war of 1812 there were several fires in the city, which many thought were started by some one who sympathized with the British. Soon after this war a second engine was bought, and a second fire company formed. Both companies wanted the fine new engine and there was a great wrangle about it. Finally, to settle the dispute it was decided to toss up a coin and cry "heads" or "tails." The first and oldest company won the toss and got the new engine. In 181 9 a third engine was bought. This was made in Newark and the people were very proud of it for that reason. THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 99 67. The Great Fire of 1836. In 1836 there were half a dozen hand engines and as many companies. It was in that year that Newark had to fight its first big fire. On the south side of Market street, a little east of Broad, were a number of boarding houses and in one of these, a small, two-story frame structure, a boarding place for Germans, the fire began. The flames spread rapidly. Fire companies came from New York, Rahway, Elizabeth and Belleville. At one time it looked as if the entire eastern part of the city would be consumed. The firemen fought bravely for five hours. Two naval officers who came from Eliza- beth tried to stop the flames by blowing up buildings in their path, but this did no more good than it did in the great San Francisco fire following the earth- quake of 1906. Nearly all the buildings on the block bounded by Broad, Mulberry, Market and Mechanic streets were destroyed, as well as the buildings on the south side of Mechanic street. The State Bank building on the corner of Broad and Mechanic streets, and the First Presbyterian Church were saved only after a most desperate battle. The town was exhausted after the fearful fight, and business was at a standstill for a few days. It was years before the burned district was rebuilt. ioo A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. In 1845 the city had another great alarm. Five houses were destroyed on Broad street opposite Trinity Church and the church was on fire seven times from sparks. Highly colored pictures were made of this fire and no doubt were eagerly bought, for colored pictures were something quite new at that time and naturally popular. 68. The First Steam Fire-Engines. The firemen were all volunteers, and some of the companies were composed of the most prominent men in the city. Nearly every house had its fire buckets, made of leather, and you usually found them hanging from a peg in the front hall. They were as familiar objects in homes as hat racks are in the homes of the present generation. The first steam fire engine was bought in i860. The volunteer firemen were not pleased to see it come, and Newark was slower than some other cities in taking up with this invention. After the first one came another soon followed; then the old com- panies began slowly to disappear ; and gradually the paid fire department which we know to-day, one of the best in all the country, was built up. 69. One of the First Schools. One of the first schools in Newark, a pay school, stood on the south side of Market street a little east ^\-^S=£\ J II MJl I m -r CO 102 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. of Halsey. About 1817 the floor of the town's only church was taken up and a new one laid. The old floor was put down in the school house, which before this very probably had no floor at all save the solid earth. A little later the town decided to expend $500 every year for the schooling of poor children. When the town was made a city in 1836, four free schools were started, one in each ward. These schools were not at first in buildings by themselves, but were opened wherever rooms could be conven- iently rented. Children of the poor went to these four schools, which for a time did not grow very rapidly, as parents did not like to send their children to them ; it seemed like accepting a charity from the city, and people with any feeling of independence did not like to have everybody know they were too poor to pay for schooling. This feeling in time passed away; for parents gradually realized that every family had a right to send its children to the public schools, since the head of every family paid taxes for their maintenance. 70. More Schools. There were so many people in Newark in the thirties of the last century that the question of schooling became a more and more important one. Workmen who came here from other cities and THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 103 towns complained that there were no good schools for their children. The free schools were not very well managed, and the city authorities began to realize that they must pay more attention to educa- tional matters. When Newark became a city a school committee was provided. 71. The Board of Education. In 1850 this school committee determined that still better schools must be had, so the Legislature was asked to make a law permitting Newark to spend more money for this purpose. The next year the Board of Education was established and then the city began to build school houses. It has never stopped building them since, and it probably never will. There are many more children in Newark's schools to-day than there were men, women and children in all the city in 1850. In 1908 over 60,000 children were on the public school rolls. Early in the fifties the High School was established at the corner of Linden and Washington streets. It was the second high school in the United States. Newark's summer schools were among the first to be opened in the country. 72. Overcoming an Old Idea. But, as already said, it took a long time after this to get most of the people of the city to send their 104 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. children to the public schools. The old idea that it was something of a disgrace to go to a public or "common" school, as they were once called, had taken very firm root, and did not die for many years. It is a very good thing that such ideas as this are gone forever. The city, the state and the whole country have been much better off since the public schools came. In 1848 the Newark Library Association opened its doors. Since then it has been possible for Newark people to get books to read without buying them. The Library Association was a private concern, not owned by the city. Unless you were a member of the Association you had to pay some- thing for every book you took out. This went on for forty years when, under a new law, the Free Public Library was started. Since then, if Newark people do not have books to read it is because they do not go to the library and ask for them. 73. When the Passaic Was Beautiful. It is hard to-day to realize the rich and sylvan beauty of the Passaic river in the days when Newark was a small but busy city in the two decades before the Civil War. The banks were charming with their stretches of soft green, dotted here and there with groves and unrestrained undergrowth. Most THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 105 of the dwellings were the homes of prominent families. They were to be met with all the way from where Kearny Castle now is, on the east bank of the river, to the stretches opposite Belleville and beyond; while on the Newark side they were scattered along the hillside north from the neighbor- hood of Bridge street. The river was as clear as crystal. Many of the families living near the stream had their own little docks and boathouses and paid their visits to each other back and forth across the Passaic by means of boats. There was good fishing in the waters and good hunting in the woods along the banks. Fishermen made good catches of shad with nets. It was a charming, peaceful neighbor- hood, and it is no wonder people were attracted from New York City to build their houses on the banks of the Passaic, in Newark and further up. 74. Cockloft Hall. A hundred years ago Gouverneur Kemble owned a stately mansion on the Newark side of the river. It stood at a commanding point on the river's bank, near what is now the northeast corner of Gouverneur street and Mt. Pleasant avenue. It stands there still, although it is much changed. Hither came one of the most famous American writers of his time, Washington Irving, and with 106 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. him John Paulding and others. Kemble used to entertain them in a pretty little summer house which stood on the edge of the hillside and over- looked the river. The young men — for Irving and his companions were young then — used to delight to look out upon the beautiful scene and enjoy them- selves together. Irving was writing his Salmagundi papers at this time, and in them he calls the Gouver- neur street house "Cockloft Hall," and the Kembles "the Cocklofts." Forty years afterwards people living along the river formed a reading circle, influenced perhaps by the literary spirit which Irving's stay in the neigh- borhood had given the locality. They used to gather from far up and down stream for meetings of this circle. In those days the river neighborhood from Cockloft Hall northward was considered out of town, for houses were few and far apart. Traces of the good old riverside days may be found by the observant stroller to-day. A little of the old order of things invests what is still known as the Gully road, which runs along the northern edge of Mount Pleasant Cemetery. It was here that Henry William Herbert lived. He was known fifty years ago the country over as a writer, under the name of Frank Forrester. 108 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. There were many other people in the city in those days who loved good books, good pictures and good music but they were split up into little companies like that along the river. They enjoyed those things among their own circles, while the city, as a whole, was too busy in its shops and factories to think much of the finer things or to spend time on books and pictures and music. Newark, from early in the last century, was little more than a great workshop until near the close of the nineteenth century. It was so busy with its shops and mills that it did not pay much attention to making itself neat and attractive. Nowadays we know that we must do something besides work; we must make our city something more than a huge factory. We can be better men and women and children, and happier, too, if our city is more beautiful to live in. And we are trying to make it so. 75. On the Eve of Civil War. The people of Newark, in common with most others living in this country, began, as early as i860, to realize that a crisis in the affairs of the nation was at hand. There had been many signs, for several years, that a very grave problem would soon have to be settled, but the people had contin- ued to hope that in some way the difficulties between THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 109 North and South might be adjusted without blood- shed. By the time of Abraham Lincoln's election to the Presidency, in the fall of i860, thinking men and women wore solemn faces, and they often asked each other if this man whom the country had chosen to fill its highest office, were great enough to carry it through the dark days that were at hand. Newark was privileged to see this man a few weeks before he took the oath of office as President. While on his way to Washington Mr. Lincoln left his train at Market street station and attended a reception given him by the officers of the city government and the leading citizens. This was on February 21, 1861. Mr. Lincoln was driven through the principal streets of the city during a heavy snow storm in a coach drawn by four white horses. One of those in the carriage with him was the illustrious Colonel Ellsworth of the New York Zouaves, who was soon to be shot down while in the act of removing a Confederate flag from the staff of a hotel, in Alexandria. The president-elect was greeted with great enthusiasm. The occasion was described by a New York newspaper of the day, in the following language: "The scene in Broad street while the procession was passing, was magnificent; although the crowd no A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. was great the width of the street prevented any confusion, and this noble street, of which the people of Newark are justly proud, must have made a favorable impression upon the mind of Mr. Lincoln. There were not less than twenty-five thousand people in the streets. * * * Altogether, the Newark reception reflected credit upon the city, and was, we predict, as agreeable an ovation as Mr. Lincoln has received since he commenced his pilgrimage to the White House." At the reception the Mayor of the city made an address of welcome to the distinguished visitor. Mr. Lincoln spoke a few words in reply. They were good words and were no doubt remembered by those who heard them, when the times of greatest stress and trial, which were then so near, actually arrived. They were as follows : "Mr. Mayor, I thank you for this reception you have given me in your city. The only response I can make is that I will bring a heart similarly devoted to the Union. With my own ability I can not hope to succeed ; I hope to be sustained by Divine Providence in the work I have been called upon to perform for this great, free, happy and intelligent people. Without this I can not succeed. I thank you again for this kind reception." THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. in From that day the majority of the Newark people never lost faith in "Old Abe." They did not forget what he had said about needing help. They responded splendidly to his call for soldiers and did all they could to help hold up his hands in the terrible days that were to come. 76. A Great Public Meeting. In the stormy days just before the War for Independence meetings of patriots were held in the Court House which was then a plain old building on Broad street nearly opposite the First Presbyterian Church. There fiery speeches were made, and there were adopted the first resolutions passed in all New Jersey supporting Congress in its efforts to win independence. Ninety years afterwards the people of Newark were again summoned to give their aid in carrying on a great war, and once more patriots gathered at the Court House. This time the gathering was far larger than any of those held just before the War for Independence, too large to get into the Court House; so it assembled outside in the triangular space at the junction of Market street and Springfield avenue. Nearly all of Newark's leading men were there, and many of them made patriotic addresses. Men said it was one of the most noteworthy gatherings they ever knew. ii2 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. Newark was more united against the common foe than it had been during the War for Indepen- dence, for in Newark in 1776 there were many Tories. In mid-April, 1861, while the people were not unanimous in their support of the Union, the great majority were ready to make every sacrifice to support the constitution, and people of every race and religious creed and of every walk in life gathered at the great court house meeting. The day after the great meeting Major Anderson, the gallant defender of Fort Sumter, came to Newark. He had intended to be present at the meeting, but had misunderstood the date. He was enthusiastically received, nearly the whole city turning out to greet and honor him. 77. Newark's Southern Trade. Ever since Southern planters early in the last century in journeying through Newark on their way to New York, had noticed the fine shoes made here and had ordered some to be sent to them in their Southern homes, Newark had been sending its manufactures into Dixie. For more than a half century it had been supplying the South with a large part of its shoes, for blacks and for whites, and had also been sending great quantities of carriages, harnesses and saddlery hardware to the same region. THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 113 Many Newark manufacturers feared their business would be swept away by a war between North and South, and did not see where they were going to get other business. They opposed the war before it came and it was some time after it began before they were reconciled to it. But once the war was well begun business came to Newark in the way of contracts for materials needed for the soldiers. Newark was a very busy place during the Civil War, for its factories were kept humming getting out vast quantities of leather belts, buckles, harnesses, saddles, shirts, and cartridge boxes for the army; and boys and girls were set at work in the shops while their older sisters, mothers, aunts and the old folks took work home with them. 78. Going to the Front. The city became terribly in earnest over the war. It did not rest with simply making things, but sent many of its youths and men to the front to fight, not a few of whom never came back. Boys scarcely out of school and some who had not completed their studies in the public schools, joined a regiment and put on the uniform. For four long years Newark streets resounded to the tread of marching feet. Regiment after regi- ment was either recruited here or passed through ii4 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. this city on its way southward. Part of the time tents were standing in Military Park and scores of young men went there to enlist. The park had been a training ground for the settlers nearly two hundred years before, when the men were required to assemble there and drill that they might be ready to fight the Indians should the savages become quarrelsome. Over its turf patriot soldiers and hostile redcoats marched during the War for Inde- pendence; and now, after nearly a century, it was again the place for warlike preparations. 79. Camp Frelinghuysen. Many of the regiments formed in the northern part of the State were prepared for service at Camp Frelinghuysen. This camp was near the western edge of Newark, close to the Canal, near the lower half of Branch Brook Park. Newark was then a very lively place. As the war went on the people came to know that the departure of a regiment was a very serious thing. At first they had looked upon the marching away of troops as a time for some- thing like picnicking. Soon, however, as the accounts of battles came in and the long list of dead and wounded bore the names of many who had marched out of Newark, the faces that looked on departing troops were often stained with tears. THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 115 80. War's Serious Side. War had become a very serious and terrible thing. Mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, who stood on the streets to wave good-by to their dear ones, often went home to pray for their safety. One Sunday morning a regiment about to go to war marched from Camp Frelinghuysen to Washington Park, where it rested as the people of the Second Presbyterian Church came out and bade it farewell. Before another Sunday came around that regiment had fought in a dreadful battle, Antietam, and many of its brave men had given their lives for their country on that bloody field. The city could not separate itself from the great struggle even if it would have done so. For a long period there was a hospital in a large factory build- ing near the river, not far from the foot of Centre street and another just near the Market street bridge over the river. Wounded soldiers were always to be seen about the streets, as the doctors made them seek light and air as soon as they were well enough to leave their cots, 81. General Kearny. Quite early in the war one of the most dashing- heroes who went out of all the North into the fray, General Philip Kearny, was killed and his body n6 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. brought here, to his home in what is now Kearny. Kearny Castle as we see it to-day looks very much as it did when the body of the hero was brought back to it and later taken from it for burial. General Kearny was born on lower Broadway, New York, where there are now nothing but skyscrapers. Much of his childhood and boyhood he passed in the Kearny house in this city, which stands on Belleville avenue nearly opposite Kearny street. The grounds behind the house extended to the river's edge. When Kearny, a grown man, came back from his campaigns with the French in Algiers, his spirited horses were for a time kept in stables back of the Kearny house on Belleville avenue. Old men, most of them now dead, used to tell of seeing those mettlesome steeds galloping and curvetting over the hillside where are now houses packed closely together. The general built what is now called Kearny Castle a little while before the war and lived there part of the time. There were few houses on either side of the river, and as the general looked westward across the river from the castle he saw a delightful stretch of open country with here and there a comfortable farm house. It was a beautiful place for a mansion, crowning the lower end of the long ridge on which Kearny THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 117 and Arlington are now perched, and it is no wonder the general loved the neighborhood. A little further up the ridge was the home of his aristocratic neigh- bors, the Rutherfords. The Rutherford home is now the main building of the Soldiers' Home. In that Home to-day are some of the brave men who fought in Kearny's brigade and who grew to love him for the brilliant and fearless leader that he was. On the day that Kearny's body was taken from the castle, to be buried in New York, from Trinity Church, it was borne on a gun carriage, and his war horse, with saddle empty, was led behind. The cemeteries of Newark are thickly studded with the graves of brave soldiers and sailors who fought in that fearful four years' war. 82. The First Horse Car Line. Newark's first horse car line ran from the Market street depot of the Pennsylvania Railroad, up Market street to Broad, along Broad to Orange street and thence to Roseville and Orange. The company that built it was known as the Orange and Newark Horse Car Company. The first and trial trip over the line was made on May 28, 1862. On June 6 of the same year the cars began to run for the accommodation of the public, and the jingle of the car bells has been heard in Newark streets, n8 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. with ever-increasing volume, ever since. The town was much upset for a time after the cars began to run, for many persons did not approve of their being run on Sundays. This prejudice died out, as many, many others had disappeared before it. 83. Newark's Drinking Water. There are few cities in all the United States that have better drinking water than Newark. People from all parts of the country when they visit Newark speak of the excellence of the water, and often tell how inferior is the water they have to drink at home. It is a great thing to have good water and an abundance of it; a city cannot keep well if it does not have it; sickness is sure to come often if the water contains disease germs. 84. Old Wells and Reservoirs. In the old days the settlers dug wells, and there are traces of some of these wells to be found around the city to this day. But the wells have not been used for drinking purposes for many a year. As long ago as 1800 Newark built an aqueduct and the water was led from it to houses and other buildings through wooden water pipes laid in the streets. Now and then workmen digging in the streets find traces of these clumsy old pipes. The first reservoir was on the north side of THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 119 Orange street a few blocks above High street. Later the city built one on the heights of Belleville, pumping water to it from wells that were driven close to the Passaic river. You can still see the pumping station on the river's edge in Belleville. Fully thirty years ago the people began to be troubled over their water supply. They could see that the sewage which was being poured into the river by all the cities and towns along the banks above Newark must sooner or later make the river water very foul and unfit to drink. 85. The Present Supply of Water. After a very long time a new supply was found, in the beautiful country at the northern end of the State known as the Pequannock Valley. Our water is now brought from that valley nearly thirty miles through two big steel pipes, one of them four feet in diameter and the other about three and a half, either of them big enough for a small boy or girl to stand up in without bumping the head. The water rights, the pipes and all the other things necessary to bring the water to this city and take it through pipes into peoples' houses, are worth ten million dollars. There is also a fine reservoir at Great Notch, north of Montclair, where water for Newark is brought from the Pequannock Valley 120 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. and stored. And the people are thankful that even if it did cost a large sum, their drinking water is pure and good and abundant and brings no sick- ness to those who drink it. The purity of the water that Newark now enjoys was made a matter of record over a hundred years ago, when Alexander Hamilton sought to learn where the purest and softest water in all the States then established was to be had. Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury at the time and deeply interested in promoting manufactures. Pure and soft water was said to be essential to the manu- facture of the best leather, and Hamilton hoped to encourage leather making in this country by show- ing manufacturers where the streams best adapted for their purposes were located. So, under his direction, the government employed a number of American and English chemists to go about over the entire area of the States, examining the streams. In the report made by the chemists it was found that the waters of the Pequannock watershed in this State were declared to be the purest. 86. Street Lighting. Until after Newark became a city, in 1836, it had no street lights, and people out and about the town after nightfall had to pick their steps very carefully. THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 121 They often carried clumsy lanterns, made of tin or some other light metal, the light coming through holes punched in the tin. Tallow candles were chiefly used for lighting. Broad and Market streets and the space about Military Park must have looked strange with the people lighting their way along with lanterns, which glowed like so many fireflies. 87. The First Gas Light. It was not until 1847 that anything like syste- matic street lighting was tried. In that year four miles of gas mains were laid in the principal streets and gas was burned here for the first time. People did not believe it was possible to make gas, send it through pipes in the earth to stores and houses, and then burn it. They thought the idea a foolish dream. When they saw the lights burning, how- ever, they began slowly to realize that it was not the inventors, but they, who had been foolish in opposing so useful an invention. Of course, once it was shown that gas would burn and give what was then considered a great and glorious light, there was an urgent demand for more pipes in the streets and the mains were rapidly extended. 88. Edison in Newark. "Almost everything is made in Newark that is made by man," wrote a visitor in the seventies. 122 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. "Take a tour among the workshops and you will no longer wonder why Newark's banks never fail. There are prodigious manufactories of hats, silks, iron works, soap, tin, brushes, steam engines and so forth. The records of the Patent Office at Wash- ington show that Newark has contributed more useful inventions to industrial progress than any other American city. In one year, 1873, upward of one hundred patents were issued to Newarkers alone." "The making of telegraph instruments has been attended with important inventions," the visitor went on to say; "Thomas A. Edison, who origi- nated the gold stock indicator used in Wall street, made thirty-six hundred of them in Newark in three years, many of them being exported to Europe." Edison did much of his experimenting upon electric lighting in Newark in a shop in Mechanic street. He invented the speaking part of the tele- phone in Newark and also the quadruplex telegraph. By this last device four messages may be sent over one wire at the same moment without interfering with each other. The first incandescent light was made in Menlo Park shortly after Mr. Edison removed to Newark. THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 123 89. Edward Weston. The whole United States and in fact all the world, owes much to Newark for the development of the electric light. Mr. Edison, as has just been stated, made many of his experiments upon electric lighting in his Newark shop, and there was another genius working busily here on somewhat the same lines at about the same time. This was Edward Weston, whose great factories at Waverly are now familiar to railroad travelers passing eastward and westward in and out of the city. In the late seventies of the last century he came to Newark and soon had a workshop on Washington street very near to Market. There he and a few other men opened the first factory in all the country devoted to the making of dynamo-electric machines and similar apparatus. The business grew rapidly. 90. Making Electric Lighting Possible. His machines took the place of all the older and far more costly apparatus. Then he improved electric lamps themselves, both arc and incandescent. He invented ways of making them that were much less costly than any that had been employed before. It is not too much to say that Mr. Weston was one of the very first in all the world so to harness electricity as to make the light produced by it really 124 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. of practical daily use at a moderate cost. 91. Newark's Proud Record. But to tell in a little history like this, of all the achievements of Newark inventors and manufactur- ers would be impossible. The list would be a very long one, and it would make a very interesting story by itself. Articles made by Newark men are now sent all over the world wherever civilization has found its way. Newark has had for nearly a hundred years a fine reputation for its ability to make things. If it is to keep in the future its proud place among America's great manufacturing cities it will have to teach the boys and girls of to- day who are later to work in the shops how to do things with great skill. The city needs the best of training schools. Industrial schools are one of Newark's greatest needs to-day. 92. The City of the Future. With a population of between 325,000 and 350,- 000 in 1908, Newark stands sixteenth among the cities of the country in population, and in its industrial life stands even higher. It is eleventh in the value of manufactured product. The city is growing far more rapidly than most of its residents realize, and it is estimated that there are fifty thou- sand more people living here than there were in THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 125 1900. The city has outgrown the transportation facilities for both freight and passengers, and one of the great problems of the immediate future is the providing of greater facilities for the move- ment of the people and goods, not only to and from the city and its neighborhood, but within the city and its suburbs. The city has also outgrown the system of local government, and a new charter is one of the necessities which will soon be supplied. Newark in 1908 had over 180 miles of paved streets, 103 miles of trolley tracks, and 21 trolley lines. During the year of 1907 its post office handled 118,283,450 pieces of mail matter. Within the city limits are nearly 600 acres of parks. In 1908 it was estimated that Newark had 4,017 manufacturing plants. But great as Newark is to-day, far greater will it surely become before the boys and girls now in the primary and grammar schools are grown to be men and women. New York needs more room. Its ground is very precious and not many more new shops and factories and other business buildings can be erected there without tearing down other good buildings. It is very expensive to do this. The railroads need more room to handle their trains, for the West is pouring its goods and its people into 126 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. New York in ever-increasing quantities. Soon New York will be so crowded with people and goods as to make it very hard to do business there; in fact it is now quite difficult to keep all kinds of activity in the metropolis moving smoothly. 93. The Era of the Subway. Men are burrowing tunnels under the North or Hudson River. The first two of six North River tunnels were opened on February 25, 1908, with impressive ceremonies. Every one rejoiced, for all knew that this was the beginning of a new epoch in New Jersey's history. For Newark it means far more than its people probably realize. From the crowded city on Manhattan Island will soon come thousands to make their homes in and near this city. There will be great depots to arrange for the movement of these trains under the river and into New York, and these depots must be put back of Jersey City in some open place where there is room. Where is that room to be found? Nowhere but near Newark and the towns and cities close by it. The great stretches of meadows which you see as you look out of the car windows going to New York, are some day to disappear. They will not vanish all at once, for there are between forty and fifty square miles of these marshes. It will take a THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 127 very long time still, to fill them; but the work is swiftly going on, and part of the space will soon be taken with the yards and shops and stations that will be needed when the tunnels are done. Then other shops and buildings will be put up near these stations, and thus the meadows will be peopled with human life. Thus out of the marshes will rise a mighty stretch of buildings and yards with mazes of railways and great docks. 94. Meadow Improvement. The United States Government is helping in this gigantic work. It is now deepening the channel of the Passaic and the Hackensack rivers so that big ocean-going ships may come around from New York bay to the docks that will be built along the meadow's edges. There is no more room for docks in New York, or in Jersey City or Hoboken, or in Brooklyn. Docks may be built cheaper on the Newark meadows, and so they will come. Newark itself may some day build great docks on the meadows to help on the new era of progress and prosperity. A ship canal by means of which ocean- going vessels may come close up to the railroads and unload their cargoes and receive new ones has long been a dream of many public spirited Newark- ers. The mud and sand taken out to provide for 128 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. the canal could be used to fill up the meadows and make them solid earth. In fact, the dredgings from the channel in the Bay and the lower Passaic were being transferred to the marshes in 1907 and 1908 by a hydraulic process, and hundreds of acres of good ground have been made in this way. 95. A Cleaner and Prettier City. All this growth will help to make Newark itself a much bigger and more prosperous city, and little by little the city should grow more attractive to look at and to live in. We should all try from this very time to have our city made more pleasing to the eye, so that strangers will say of it that it is indeed beautiful, just as strangers did when they came into Newark the little village a hundred and fifty and even two hundred years ago. 96. The Greater Newark. And now in these late days of Newark's history, many signs point to the possibility of the return, sooner or later, of the communities which long years ago, left the mother town and started out for them- selves, like enterprising children. Newark may truly be called the mother of towns. Once her boundaries took in all of what is now Essex County. Little by little companies of Newark people went out into the broad lands of Bloomfield, the Oranges, THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 129 Irvington, Montclair, and other neighborhoods and founded independent towns and cities. Indeed, Newark even sent colonies as far off as Morristown. For over a century after these small places sprang up, the people in them came to Newark often, to do their shopping and to go to church. Gradually they cut loose from the mother town more and more, and when the noisy locomotives came trundling over their roads of iron, finding their way into the peaceful country districts beyond Newark, these communities forgot their mother, for they needed her no longer. In these days, however, many are beginning to think that the smaller cities are best managed when they merge themselves with the larger city in their immediate neighborhood. It is claimed that by joining hands in one great city they will get better streets, better railroads and better street car service, better lighting, more parks and, in short, will be better off in many ways. All men and women do not believe this to be so, and it may be a very long time indeed before all the towns founded by men from Newark return to the present city. If Newark wishes them to come back, she must struggle to make herself so well governed and so attractive in every way that they will be glad to come. SOME OF THE LEADING EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF NEWARK SOME OF THE LEADING EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF NEWARK 1664, March. Philip Carteret commissioned in England the Governor of New Jersey, which was part of the grant made by Charles of England to James, Duke of York and Albany. 1666, May. Settlers landed at Newark. 1668, May 20. Meeting of commissioners of Newark and of Elizabethtown at "Divident Hill" to fix the boundary between settlements. 1676. First schoolmaster appointed — John Catlin — "to do his faithful, honest and true endeavor to teach * * * the reading and writing of English and also Arethmetick if they desire it; as much as they are capable to learn and he capable to teach them." 1680, June 30. Proceedings of the town meet- ing: "Agreed, that the town is willing Samuel Whitehead should come and inhabit among us, provided he will supply the town with shoes." 1698, April 18. "Tan yard" established by Azariah Crane. 134 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 1733. Col. Ogden saved his wheat on Sunday, was publicly censured by the Presbyterian church, and as a result Trinity Episcopal church was founded. 1747. College of New Jersey, afterwards Prince- ton, started at Elizabethtown. but removed to Newark the same year. It remained here about nine years when it was removed to Princeton. 1765. Direct land route to Xew York estab- lished. Known as Plank Road. 1774. Essex County holds first meeting in all Xew Jersey to protest against tyrannies of Crown and to arrange for selection of delegates to first Congress. 1775. March 10. Newark Academy founded. At a regular meeting of the Committee of the Academy. December. 1794, it was "Resolved, that Rev. Mr. Ogden be empowered to sell the negro man James, given by Mr. Watts as a donation to the Academy for as much money as he will sell for." 1776. Nov. 2S. Washington departed from Newark, Cornwallis moved in. remained until December 1, and then followed Washington, leaving a guard in Newark. 1780. June 23. Battle of Springfield. In those LEADING EVENTS. 135 days Springfield had not been set off from Newark and Elizabethtown. 1792. Talleyrand, Charles Maurice, Prince de Talleyrand-Perigord, and Bishop of Autun, when driven from Europe, spent some time in Newark. 1795. "Moral epidemic." "Voluntary Associa- tion of the people of Newark to observe the Sabbath" formed. 1796. "Centinel of Freedom" established. It denounced slavery, New Jersey being a slave state. 1 801. Jewelry was manufactured by Epaphras Hinsdale. 1804. Earliest manufacture of carriages in Newark — Stephen Wheeler, Cyrus Beach, Caleb Carter, Robert B. Campfield. 1804, May 4. Newark Banking and Insurance Co., established. "The parent bank of Newark." First president, Judge Elisha Boudinot. 1 810. Hatting trade established by William Rankin. 1814. First Sunday School in State opened in First Presbyterian Church. 1824. St. John's, the parent Catholic church in Newark, erected. 136 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 1825. Chair making was quite extensively carried on by David Ailing. 1826. Seth Boyden discovers process of making malleable iron. 1832, Morris Canal completed. 1833, Nov. 30. Henry Clay in Newark. 1834, Sept. 15. New Jersey Railroad and Trans- portation Company opens first railroad between Newark and Jersey City. 1836, April. Newark becomes a city. 1836. Streets lighted with oil lamps. 1836. Present school system established. 1843. First public schoolhouse erected. 1845, May. Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Co. organized in Newark. 1846. Newark Library Association incorporated. 1846, Dec. 26. Newark Gas Light Co. commenced the manufacture of gas, and the city streets were lighted with it. 1848-9. Many German political fugitives, fol- lowing the collapse of the Revolution of the Grand Duchy of Baden, found homes in Newark. 1852. Louis Kossuth, Hungarian patriot, in Newark. LEADING EVENTS. 137 1 86 1, Feb. 21. Abraham Lincoln in Newark. 1 861, May 3. First Brigade leaves for Washing- ton. 1866, May 17. Two hundredth anniversary of founding of Newark celebrated. 1868, March 17. Newark Board of Trade founded. 1 87 1. Woodside annexed to Newark. 1872. Newark Industrial Exhibition. 1875. Prudential Insurance Company estab- lished. 1882. First public arc lamps introduced. 1882. Free Drawing School established. 1885. Newark Technical School established. 1885. County Park system established. 1886. Old Burying Ground given over for public purposes, and bones of settlers removed to Fairmount Cemetery, in this and years immediately following. 1888. Free Public Library incorporated. 1889. Dedication of Newark Aqueduct property for public park at Branch Brook. 1892. First of new Prudential buildings erected. 138 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 1896. Movement for purification of Passaic River espoused by Newark Board of Trade. 1898, May 2. First Regiment, New Jersey Volunteers for Spanish American War leave Newark for Sea Girt. Return home Sept. 26. 1905. Vailsburg annexed to Newark. 1907. New City Hall and new Court House both completed. 1907. First City Playgrounds. 1907. Small Board of Education established. 1908. New Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company building completed. HISTORIC SPOTS IN NEWARK HISTORIC SPOTS IN NEWARK Academy, Newark; Sites of. First building- erected prior to 1775, at the southern end of Wash- ington Park, nearly opposite the end of Halsey street. Destroyed by the British soldiers on the night of January 25, 1780. Never rebuilt. Next Academy building erected on the north corner of Broad and Academy streets, in 1792. Property sold to the United States Government in 1855 for Post Office. Property at corner of High and William streets purchased for Academy purposes in 1857. Ailing house; Site of. Residence of David Ailing built by him about 1790, on Broad street opposite William, on the site of the present Kremlin building. Chateaubriand and Talleyrand lived there for a time, about 1795. Talleyrand worked upon his "Genius of Christianity" while there. Bank, first in Newark ; Site of. National Newark Banking Company, one of the two pioneer banking institutions in the State, chartered in 1804, located i 4 2 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. on the north corner of Bank and Broad streets a year later. Boudinot house. On Park place about a hundred yards south of East Park street. The remodeled building was still standing in 1908. Lafayette was entertained there in September, 1824, a room having been especially furnished for his entertainment, although he remained here but a few hours, coming from Jersey City and passing the night in Elizabeth. Immediately west of the Boudinot house, in Military Park, a pavilion had been erected where Lafayette received the people, who had come from all parts of the State to do him honor. Boyden, Seth; Site of his foundry and workshop. It was in the rear of 30 Orange street, on the east side of Broad. Here he discovered the process by which malleable iron is made, on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declara- tion of Independence. Bridge, first across Passaic; Site of. It stood about where the present Bridge street bridge now is. It was built before the War for Independence. Camp homestead; Site of. Residence of Capt. Nathaniel Camp before and during War for Inde- pendence. Stood at the corner of Broad and Camp HISTORIC SPOTS. 143 streets. Washington was entertained there several times when he visited Newark during the encamp- ments at Morristown. "Cedars," The; Site of. The hermit-like home of Henry William Herbert, an author. His home was located in the woods on the bank of the Passaic, close to what is still called the Gully Road, and within the confines of what is now known as Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. Herbert was known in litera- ture as "Frank Forester," and was the first writer of importance in this country on sports and out-door subjects. He also wrote on French and English history and made some excellent translations from the works of the elder Dumas and Eugene Sue. He died in 1858, and was buried in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. Centre street; Foot of. Here, on the river front, was located one of the two hospitals for soldiers during the Civil War. There was another soldiers' hospital further down the river bank, not far from the Market street bridge. The first railroad running from Newark to Jersey City crossed the Passaic river at Centre street. City Hotel ; Site of. Structure occupied for many years as the City Hall, on the north corner of Broad and William streets, was previously the City, or 144 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. Thompson's Hotel. Once you could take a rail- road train from its doors, and ride up Broad, down Market and thus on to Jersey City. Cockloft Hall. On the northeast corner of Gouverneur street and Mt. Pleasant avenue. Part of the structure was standing during the War for Independence and tradition has it that Washington was entertained there when he was just beginning his "Flight through the Jerseys" in the late fall of 1776. Quite early in the last century the house, then owned by Gouverneur Kemble, was a frequent rendezvous of the famous American author, Washington Irving, and John Paulding and other young literary men of New York, who came "out to the country" to find quiet and change, and found them there. College of New Jersey, now Princeton, founded in Elizabethtown in 1757 and removed to Newark the same year. It is believed that most of the college exercises were held in what was then the Court House, and which stood on the eastern edge of the Old Burying Ground, perhaps a little south of Branford place. This was the same building in which the patriots of Essex County met in 1774 to protest against the King's tyranny and to call on Governor Franklin to select delegates to the first HISTORIC SPOTS. 145 Continental Congress, that was soon to meet. Court House and Jail ; Site of. The first jail stood on Broad street on the eastern edge of the Old Bury- ing Ground not far from the first Court House. In 1 810 a new Court House and jail, a three story stone structure with cells in the cellar, was built at the corner of Walnut and Broad streets, where Grace Episcopal Church now stands. It was burned down in 1835. Eagle Tavern; Site of. On Broad street, west side, about a hundred yards north of William. It is common belief that Washington made his head- quarters there during the five days that he was in Newark in November 1776. There is no proof of this, however. Early settlers; Monument to. In Fairmount Cemetery. Beneath it the bones of many of the first settlers, which were removed from the Old Burying Ground in the late eighties of the last century, now rest. Early in the present century more bones of the town's forefathers were uncovered during excavation for cellars and foundations of new build- ings ; but they were treated with scant ceremony and were not always given decent interment. First Church ; Site of. Original meeting house of settlers stood on eastern edge of Old Burying 146 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. Ground fronting on what is now Broad street, a little north of Branford place. Its present successor, the First Presbyterian Church, was begun in 1787 and finished in 1791. "Four Corners." The founders started their village at the point where Market and Broad streets now cross. The settlers came from four towns in Connecticut and those from each town took a corner from which to start laying out their home lots. Frog pond; Site of. A small body of water located at the southwest corner of Market and Broad streets, when the settlers came. It was not entirely obliterated for upwards of a century. Iron foundry; Site of. First iron foundry in Newark was on the site of the Second Presbyterian Church, on the north corner of James and Wash- ington streets. Kearny homestead. House where Major General Philip Kearny spent most of his babyhood and early years. Stands on east side of Belleville avenue, opposite Kearny street. When young Kearny lived in it early in the last century the estate ex- tended all the way to the river and for a considerable distance up and down the banks. Library Hall ; Site of. Stood on north side of HISTORIC SPOTS. 147 Market street. Bamberger's store occupies part of the site. Many prominent actors, musicians and lecturers appeared there during the sixties, seventies and eighties of the last century. Machinery Hall. On corner of Marshall and Washington streets. Was built for Newark's great industrial exhibition which was held in 1872. General Grant attended it. Market place; Site of. What is now Washington Park was set aside as a market place by the settlers in 1676. Market street. That part of it which lies between the Court House and the Pennsylvania railroad was probably an Indian footpath, following quite closely a bank of the stream that ran down the hill- side into the marshes. Mill, first grist ; Site of. It stood on the bank of a stream, known as "Mill Brook," near the north corner of High and Clay streets. Military Hall. At 199, 201 Market street, three upper floors. Here recruits were sometimes drilled during the Civil War, and according to one tradition, during the Mexican war also. Old Burying Ground; Site of. Was located immediately back of the first church, extended to 148 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. what is now Halsey street, nearly to what is now William street on the south, and to the ponds which were close to Market street on the north. Other historic burying grounds are that of the present First Presbyterian Church, situated at the south side and on the rear; and that of Trinity Church in Rector street. Park House; Site of. On the east side of Park place opposite southern end of Military Park. Many eminent persons stopped there during the last century. Henry Clay made an address from the steps, November 20, 1833. Parsonage; Site of. Home of several ministers of the First Church in the eighteenth century. Located at corner of Broad and William streets, a little south of William street and setting back perhaps fifty feet from Broad. Aaron Burr, third vice-president of the United States, and son of the Rev. Aaron Burr, second president of the College of New Jersey, was born there in 1756. During War for Independence guards were sometimes posted near the door to warn the pastor, Rev. Dr. Macwhorter, of approach of British who sought to capture him. Quarries ; Site of. The stone quarries of Newark which were worked for nearly, if not quite, two hundred years, were principally located along and HISTORIC SPOTS. 149 near the line of Clifton avenue; and up and down Bloomfield avenue in the neighborhood of Clifton avenue. School, first town (pay) ; Site of. Stood on the south side of Market street, about fifty yards east of Halsey street. School, first free school for apprentices, and one of the first attempts in the entire country to establish what are now known as trade schools, was started by Moses Combs, shoe manufacturer, on Market street, south side, near Plane street. Stone bridge. Bridge over "Mill Brook," a little south of where Broad street and Belleville avenue join. Tablet, laid on July 4, 1826, in commemoration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence at lower end of Military Park. Recently restored and now protected with a railing. It was proposed at the time of its dedication to raise a monument on this stone, to be called the "Semi-Centennial Monu- ment." It would have cost a large sum of money had it been erected as planned. No funds were ever raised. Tannery; Site of first. On the south side of Market street, a hundred yards or so below what is now the Court House plaza. The water used there ISO A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. came from the stream that fed the Watering Place. Tavern, Rising Sun; Site of. On bluff over- looking river, near where Public Service Corpora- tion power house now stands, a little above Market street bridge. St. John's Lodge of Free Masons held some of its meetings there as early as 1761. Town pump; Site of. Stood for over a century and a half in the centre of the open space at the four corners of Market and Broad streets. Training ground ; Site of. Military Park was set aside by the settlers as a training ground for all the able-bodied men of the town, who on appointed days assembled there to go through military drills, to have their weapons inspected, and to improve their marksmanship, so as to be prepared for any attack of the Indians. Trinity Church. The second church congrega- tion to be established in Newark. Present edifice stands on site of original building erected in 1743- 44. In the first building many of the patriots wounded in the battle of Long Island in 1776, were cared for, the edifice being converted into a hospital. The picture illustrating this episode, given in this book, shows the original church as it is depicted in an old drawing. Washington, Lord Stirling and other patriot leaders attended service in the original HISTORIC SPOTS. 151 edifice, and the base of the present church spire is part of the first structure. The corner stone for the present church was laid in May, 1809. Watering place; Site of. The founders set aside a small plot of land at the point where Springfield avenue and Market street now come together, as a place to water cattle and horses. INDEX Academy, burned, 55 ; founded, 132; sites, 66, 139; negro donated 132 Ailing, David 134, 139 Anderson, Major, in Newark 112 Antietam, Newark troops at.. 115 Aqueducts 118,119,135 Arc lamps 123,135 Banks, 133, 139; first bank of Newark 133, *39 Beach, Cyrus, carriage maker 133 Belleville pumping station... 119 Berckel, Peter Van, in New- ark 85 Bergen, First Dutch Church 29 Bergen Point, Dutch village 6 Blennerhassett in Newark... 84 Board of Education, estab- lished, 103; small board established 136 Board of Trade, founded.... 135 Boots and shoes 36, 76, 77, 78, 131 Boudinot, Elisha, 133, 140; entertained Lafayette 140 Boyden, Seth, illustration, 62; life of, 80, 81, 82; malleable iron, 134; statue, 80; site of foundry and workshop. 140 Brainerd, David. Missionary to Indians 47, 48 Branford, Connecticut. Home of early settlers 8 Breweries 82 Bridge across Passaic 140 Bridge across Mill Brook.... 147 British raid on Newark 66 Broad Street, 1845. Illus- tration 10 1 Broad and Market Streets; see Four Corners. Brooks and streams 20, 21 Burlington, N. J., 26; Indian reservation, 26; settlers' choice 8 "Burning Day." Illustration 31 Burr, Rev. Aaron and Prince- ton College, 46, 47; resi- dence 146 Burr, Colonel Aaron, birth- place, 72; Blennerhassett, 84, 85 ; residence 146 Burying ground, see Old Burying ground. Burying grounds 145, 146 See also Mt. Pleasant Cem- etery, Fairmount Cemetery, Old Burying Ground. Business, 36, 37, 75-84, 93, 96, 97, 112, 113, 120, 122, 124, 125. See also Indus- tries and Manufactures. Camp, Nathaniel; residence.. 140 Camp Frelinghuysen. . . . 114, 115 Campfield, Robert B., carriage maker 133 Canals, see Morris Canal and Ship Canal. Candles used for lighting. . . 121 Carriage manufacture.... 82, 133 Cars, Horse cars 117 Carter, Caleb, carriage maker. 133 Carteret, Philip, Governor of N. J., 131; payment to In- dians, 18; terms with set- tlers 3, 16 Catlin, John, first school- master 38, 131 "Cedars," The; site of 141 Centre Street, foot of. Site for hospitals in Civil War 141 Chair making 134 Chandler's hotel, first stop of railroad . 92 Charter revision necessary... 125 Chateaubriand in Newark... 139 Children in the colony 39 Church going, illustration.... 27 Churches, 26, 28, 29, 48, 49, 53, 66, 70, 72, 76, 133 Cider making 41 City beautiful 128 City Hall, old, 92, 141; new 136 City hotel, old city hall.. 92, 141 Civil war 108-117 Clay, Henry, in Newark, 85, 134, 146 Clothing made by settlers... 35 Coach making, see Carriage manufacture. Cockloft Hall 105, 106, 142 "Cocklofts," The 106 154 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. College of New Jersey, see Princeton University. Combs, Moses. First manu- facturer, 76, 77; freeing of slave, 77; southern trad- er, 77, 80; trade school.. 147 Connecticut charter 44 Constable Hook settlement.. 16 Constables, see Police. Convention in New Bruns- wick 50, 52 Cornwallis in Newark 132 County Park system, see Parks. Court House, old, 50, 111, 112, 142, 143; illustration, 5i; new 136 Crane, Azariah 131 Delaware settlements 3 Delegates to First Congress, 132, 142 Dickinson, Rev. Jonathan and the College of New Jersey 46 "Divident Hill." Boundary line 131 Docks on meadows 127 Drawing School, see Free Drawing School. Dutch Church of Bergen.... 29 Dutch rule in New Jersey.. 7 Dutch settlements 4, 6 Dutch West India Company 6 Dye making by settlers 35 Dynamo-electric machines first made in Newark 123 Eagle Tavern, site of 143 Edge Pillocks, Indians 26 Edison in Newark 122 Edsall, Samuel. English trader 16 Education, see Schools, Schoolmaster, John Catlin. Education, Board of, see Board of Education. Electric lamps, made by Edison and Weston 123 Electric lighting in New- ark 122, 123 Electricity. Experiments by Franklin and Seth Boyden, 81; first electric works. 122, 123. See also Weston, Edward and Edison in Newark. Elizabethtown 3, 7, 16 Ellsworth, Colonel, in New- ark 109 Essex County. Price paid to Indians, 16; protest against tyranny 132 Essex County Parks, see Parks in 1907. Evelyn's letter about New Jersey... i 3 , 14, 15 Exchange of commodities in early days 37 Factories in 1836 93 Farm in Mulberry Street, 1815 73 Fire department, History. .97-100 Fire engines, see Fire de- partment. Fires of 1836 and 1845.. 99, 100 First Brigade leaves for Washington 135 "First Church," see First Presbyterian Church. First Dutch church of Bergen 29 First New Jersey Volunteers in Spanish-American War. 136 First Presbyterian Church, 26, 28, 70, 72, 76, 133, 143, 144; burying ground, 146; parsonage 146 Flour mills 79 Forester, Frank, see Herbert, Henry William. Founders of Newark 3 "Four Corners." Illustration, 59; in 1800, 68; site of 144 "Four texts" 22, 90 Franklin, Benjamin. The kite and electricity 81 Franklin, Governor, refusal to call session of legislature So Free drawing school estab- lished 135 Free Public Library estab- lished 104, 135 Frelinghuysen, Camp, see Camp Frelinghuysen. Frog pond 144 Gas lighting in 1847 121 Genius of Christianity, writ- ten by Talleyrand in New- ark 139 German immigration 94, 95, 96, 134 Gifford, Archer, tavern; lo- cation, 68; travelers from South, 69; stage coach starting place, 70; guest held over Sunday 75 Gouverneur Street, residence of Gouverneur Kemble.... 105 Grant, U. S. In Newark 85, 14s Grant of New Jersey made by King Charles... 131 Great Notch, Montclair, res- ervoir 119 Greater Newark 128, 129 Guilford, Conn., home of settlers 8 Gully Road 106 INDEX. 155 Hackensack farms, 6; In- dian village 25 Hackensack river, farms, 6; deepening river 127 Halsey, William. First mayor 90 Hamilton, Alexander. Test of Pequannock water 120 Hard times of 1837 96, 97 Hat making 82, 133 Hedden, Joseph, 55-58; illus- tration 57 Herbert, Henry William, "Frank Forester." Resi- dence 106, 141 Hessians in the Revolution 55, 56 High school, established.... 103 High Street in 1800 72 Hinsdale, Epaphras estab- lished jewelry trade 133 Hoboken. Farms, 6; price paid to Indians 7 Home lots. Map, 17; site of 144 Horse cars, see Cars. Hospitals in war time, 115, 141, 142, 148 Houses. Built by settlers, 34, 35; in 1845 and 1907.. 97 Hudson, Henry, in Newark Bay. Illustration 5 "Hunters and the Hounds." Tavern 68, 69, 70, 75 Incandescent light made in Newark 122, 123 "Indian Ann" 26 Indian paths 4, 145 Indians. First inhabitants, 3, 4; barter with settlers, 6; Lenni Lenape, 25, 26; King Philip's War, 41-45, 49; sales of land to settlers, 16, 18, 19 Industrial exhibition.... 135, 145 Industries, 75-84, 93. 112, 113, 120, 124, 125. See also Business and Manufac- tures. Irish immigrants 94, 95 Iron foundries 79, 140, 144 Iron industry 79, 80, 140 Iron, malleable; discovered by Seth Boyden 134, 140 Irving, Washington; at "Cockloft Hall".. 105, 106, 142 Jail, 143; in 1800 70 Jersey City. Farms, 6; price paid to Indians 7 Jewelry manufacture 82, 133 Kearny, General Philip, in Civil War, 115; home, 105, 116, 117, 144 Kearny Castle 105, 116, 117 Kearny homestead on Belle- ville Avenue, Newark 116, 144 Kemble, Gouverneur. Owner of "Cockloft Hall" 105, 106, 142 King Fhilip's War, 41, 42, 43, 49 Kossuth, Louis, in Newark... 85 Lafayette in Newark, 85; at Boudinot house 140 Land values in 1666, and in 1904 16, 18 Lanterns in old days 121 Leather industry. . 76, 78, 82, 120 Lee, General Charles; ordered to Newark by Washington, T ,• 54. 55 Lenni Lenape Indians.... 25, 26 Library, see Free Public Li- brary. Library Association, see New- ark Library Association. Library Hall; site of... 144, 145 Lighting, 120, 121, 122, 134; electric 122, 123 Lincoln, President Abraham, in Newark.... 109-111, 85, 135 Little Falls. Farms 6 "Lower Green," see Military Park. Machinery Hall 145 Macwhorter, Rev. Alexander, pastor of the First Church, 52, 70, 146 Mail Coach stopped on Sunday in 1800 74 Malleable iron, see Iron, malleable. Manhattan, Indian name 6; English capture 7 Manufactures, 120, 124, 125. See also Industries. Market, established 38, 145 Market Street 145 Marshes, drainage 33 Mayflower, attempt to reach Delaware 12, 13 Meadow improvement, 32, 33, 126, 127, 128 Milford, Connecticut. Home of early settlers 8 "Military Common," see Mili- tary Park. Military Hall, site of 145 Military officers of the colon- ists . . . 24 Military Park, 49; illustration, 107; training ground,' 114, 148 Mill Brook 20, 79, 145 Mills along Mill Brook 79, 145 Minute men 56, 58 56 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. Monument in Fairmount Cem- etery 32, 143 "Moral epidemic," and Sun- day observance 133 Morris and Essex Railroad, meeting to organize the road 92 Morris Canal completed. .84, 134 Morristown in the Revolution 55 Mount Pleasant Cemetery, 106, 117 Mulberry Street in 1815.... 73 Mutual Benefit Life Insur- ance Co 134, 136 New Amsterdam, Dutch name for New York 6 New Brunswick, Convention, 50, 52 New Haven, Connecticut. Home of early settlers.... 8 New Jersey, English owner- ship, 7; Dutch rule, 7; a slave state 133 New Jersey Railroad and Transportation Company, see Railroads. New York City and Indian trade 6 Newark Academy, see Acad- emy. Newark and the Civil War, ic8, 111-115; regiments.... 113 Newark as a city, 90, 134; as a town 89, 90 Newark Banking and Insur- ance Co., established. . 133, 139 Newark Bay. Illustration... 5 Newark, boundaries in 1800, 65, 66 Newark from the Passaic, il- lustration 88 Newark _ Gas Light Company, established 134 Newark, government, 23, 24, 25, 89, 90, 124, 125 Newark home lots, map 17 Newark in 1800, map 67 Newark^ Library Association, established ■ 104, 134 Newark, origin of name 28 Newark, payment for land... 18 Newark settlement in 1666.. 3 Newark streets in 1800 72 Newark, 200th anniversary.. 135 Number Four in connection with Newark 89, 90 Ogden, Colonel Josiah; works on Sunday 48, 49, 132 Old Burying ground started, 32; bones removed, 135, 143; site of 145. 146 Orange and Newark Horse Car Company, built first horse car line 117 Orange Mountains, boundary of tract bought from In- dians 19 Oraton, Indian chief at Hack- ensack 25 Park House, site of 146 Parks in 1907 125 Parsonage, site of 146 Passaic river, 83, 84, 104, 105; deepening, 127; puri- fication 136 Passaic valley, Farms 6 Patents issued to Newarkers 122 Paterson, Farms 6 Paulding, John; visitor at "Cockloft Hall" 106, 142 Paulus Hook, old name for Jersey City 56 Pequannock Valley, 119; water supply 119, 120 Perro, Indian owner of land bought by settlers 18 Philadelphia, a village in 1665 7 Philip, King. War. .41, 42, 43, 49 Pierson, Abraham. First President of Yale 46 Pierson, Rev. Abraham, pas- tor of the First Church, 23, 46 Plank road, direct land route to New York 132 Flaygrou.nds in modern New- ark 136 Plymouth, Mass. settlements.. 11 Police, military officers, 24; establishment of the force 90 Ponds of Newark 20 Population in 1800, 64; in past 100 years, 65, 78; in 1837, 96; from i860 to 1865, 97; in 1908 124 Post Office in 1800, 66; in 1855, 139; in 1907 125 Power plants, development... 80 Price paid for land by set- tlers 18 Princeton, Battle of 55 Princeton University, 46, 47, 48, 132, 142 Printing presses, first 83 Frudential Insurance Co.... 135 Public Library, see Free Pub- lic Library. Pump at Broad and Market Streets 6? Puritan statue in Fairmount Cemetery. Illustration. ... 2 Puritans, 8, 15, 23; map of settlements, 9; landing. .. 10-13 INDEX. 157 Quarries of brownstone, 78, 79, 146 Railroads, History, 91, 92, 93, 104, 141, 142 Rankin, William, hatting trade 133 Recruits drilled in Military- Hall 145 Reservoirs 118, 119 Resolutions supporting Con- gress ii* Revolutionary War 50-58 Rising Sun Tavern 148 Roads in and out of Newark, 39,40 Rutherford's homestead, lo- cation 117 Sabbath observance, see Sun- day observance. Saddlery manufacture 82 St. John's Catholic Church, erected 1 33 St. John's Lodge of Free- masons 148 Salmagundi Papers written by Irving at "Cockloft Hall" 106 Saw mills in early Newark. . 79 Scheyichbi, Indian name of New Jersey 25 Schoolhouse, first one erected, 134, 147 Schoolmaster, John Catlin... 131 Schools, 37, 100, 102, 103, 104, 134, 147; in 1800, 76; industrial training 77, 124 Scott, Winfield, carriage stopped on Sunday 74 Semi-Centennial monument.. 147 Sentinel of Freedom estab- lished 133 Settlement boundaries 131 Settlement of Newark, 1666, 3, 8 Settlements from Maine to the Delaware, 1666, map... 9 Settlers landed in Newark, 131; bones removed from old burying ground 143 Shenoctos, Indian Chief.... iq Ship canal 127, 128 Ships and shipping. .83, 127, 128 Shoe making.. 36, 76, 77, 78, 131 "Shoemaker map" 78 Small Board of Education, see Board of Education. Social life in early Newark 38 Soldiers' Home in Kearny.. 117 Southern trade 69, 112, 113 Spanish-American war 136 Spinning and weaving in old times 35 Springfield, battle of 56,132 Stage line between Newark and New York, 69, 93; il- lustration 7 1 Staten Island, bought by "West India Company," 6; price paid to Indians.... 7 Steam power, introduction... 83 Stirling; Lord 148 Stock indicator invented by Edison 122 Stone bridge over Mill Brook 147 Stores, early days, 37; in 1800, 70; first one in up- per section 79 Strawberry growing 81 Street lighting. . 120, 121, 122, 134 Street paving 125 Subways projected 126 Suffrage in olden days, 23, 24; in 1830 89 Summer schools, first ones in country 103 Sunday observance in olden days 74, 75, *33 Sunday School; first in state 133 Tablet in commemoration of signing of Declaration of Independence M7 Talleyrand in Newark, 84, 133, 139 Tan yard, see Tanneries. Tanneries, 38, 76, 78, 82, 131, 147 Tavern of Archer Gifford, see Gifford, Archer. Tavern, Rising Sun; site of.. 148 Technical School, established. 135 Telegraph instruments made in Newark 122 Telephone invented by Edi- son in Newark 122, 123 Thanksgiving in olden times, 33; hymn ...33, 34 Thompson's hotel, see City hotel 141 Tool making 80 Town business 89, 90 Town lots 39 Town meetings 23, 24, 25, 89 Town officers in olden times, 23, 24, 2^ Town pump, site of 148 Trade School, One of the first in the country 147 Trade with the South, see Southern trade. Training ground, Site of.... 148 Transportation 125 Travelers through Newark ... 69 158 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK Treat, Robert, 3, 7, 8, 16, 23, 24, 41, 42, 43, 44 Trees found here by the set- tlers 21 Trenton, Battle of, 55; found- ing of city 7 Trinity Episcopal Church, 48, 49, 132, 148; illustration, 53; in 1800, 66; burying ground, 146; hospital dur- ing war 148 Trolley lines 125 Trunk making 82 Tunnels, North or Hudson River 126 Vailsburg annexed 136 Voting in olden days, 23, 24; in 1830 89 War of the Revolution, see Revolutionary War. Ward, John, procured _ am- munition for King Philip's War 49, 50 Wards of the city 89, 90 Washington in Newark, 52, 54, 55. 132, 141, 142, 143, 148; "Flight through the Jerseys" 142 Washington Park in 1800 66 Watchung mountains, old name for Orange Moun- tains i 9 Water power in olden times 83 Water supply 118, 119, 120 Watering places, Site of 149 Waterways 20 Wealth of settlers 19 Wells used in old days 118 Weston, Edward, and electric light 123 Whaling ships fitted out 84 Wheeler, Stephen, carriage maker 133 Whitehead, Samuel, shoe- maker for settlers 131 Winnocksop, Indian chief... 19 Woodside annexed 135 ^ .^*. V ^ .£^._ "°o ,^,^> ,0' --^|5f^ ^ ^ I": W O V . **