MISTORIC NEWARK Book/fe JzJt^ CopglitN". COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 2 ^. E K .S.S I O 3 te tj c u o . OJ O -t ^ t^ o c3 to t^ HISTORIC ACollection of the Facts (S" Traditions a/^oi/t the Most Interesting Sites Streets and Buildings of the City Illustrated by Reproductions of Rare Prints ^ old Photographs Printed For The FIDELITY. TRUST COMPANY i^etoarfe. §.3, 1916 ,A/6 r^^' Copyright, 19 i6 BY THE FIDELITY TRUST COMPANY Newark, NJ. The vignette on the title-page is from a photo- graph of the Bruen tea-kettle, said to be the first used in Newark. The ornaments on either side of the Foreword are reproductions of the door of the old Court House which long stood at the head of Market Street and was noted for its Egyptian style of architecture. The headpiece on page one was drawn from a photograph of the General Philip Kearny homestead, and the tailpiece is a reproduction of the summer house of Cockloft Hall Compiled, Written and Printed BY direction of THE Walton Advertising 13 Printing Company Boston, Mass. / JUN -7 1916 ©CI.A431394 FOREWORD THE FIDELITY TRUST COMPANY takes pleasure in presenting to its patrons and friends, in commemoration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of the city, this brief account of some of the historic phases through which Newark has passed. As one might wander with an antiquarian along the historic streets of Boston or Philadelphia, stop- ping here and there to learn the story of some old building or interest- ing site, so this book will take the reader to the interesting places of Newark, and relate the facts and romantic traditions which time has wreathed about the old buildings and the older streets of "Ye Towne on ye Pesayak." Lack of space compels the omission of some details which can be found in fuller histories, but the compiler hopes that this small book contains the most interesting facts of Revolutionary and Colonial times, and that it is as accurate as varying authorities and the memories of those who have related the traditions allow. Every effort has been made to verify the facts and traditions herein, wherever it has been possible. Old books that throw light on inter- esting points have been freely consulted, many colonial and early American newspapers have been scanned, and a number of surviving members of the representative families, who knew of facts or tradi- tions passed down from ancestors who played leading roles in Newark's most stirring days, have been interviewed. And so this book has come into being, — an epitome which deals largely with the early days of the city, because the early days are those which are the most inter- esting and about which the least is known. The Fidelity Trust Company, which publishes this volume, hopes that it will be interesting to all residents and former residents of the city, that the picture of the past here presented may incite to higher civic endeavor the Newarkers of to-day, and that thus the city may attain to higher civic things. It is fitting that those who have assisted by suggestion or information should here have their courtesy and their service acknowledged. It is with gratitude, therefore, that we ac- knowledge our indebtedness to the following: Dr. William S. Disbrow, Edward Rankin, Mrs. Sydney N. Ogden, Miss Maud E. Johnson, Miss A. M. G. Crane, John A. Gilford, William H. Broadwell, Miss Sarah F. Condict, the Rev. G. Mercer Johnston, Madison Ailing, Miss Mary Camp, Miss L. G. van Roden, Wilson Farrand, William Pierson Field, Robert M. Lawrence, C. G. Hine, Mrs. Neilson Abeel, Miss Mary C. Johnson, Thomas A. Barrett of the Orange Judd Company, Miss Frances A. Depue, Thomas V. Johnson, Albert Matthews, H. G. Lemassena, John D. Neefus, Clarence Willis Ailing, Charles Freeman, Clarence F. Brigham, New York Times, Charles L. Stasse, John Deevy, Frank John Urquhart, Edward H. Daly, the New Jersey Historical FOREWORD Society, the Newark Free Public Library, the Boston PubHc Library, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Boston Athenaeum, the New England Historic Genealogical Society, the American Historic Society (Worcester, Mass.), and the New York Public Library. The books and newspapers consulted were as follows: "Historical Collections of the State of New Jersey," John W. Barber; "New Jersey as the Colony and as the State," Francis Bazley Lee; "The History of New Jersey," W. H. Carpenter; "History of Newark," Joseph Atkinson; "History of Newark," Frank J. Urquhart; "First Church in Newark," Jonathan F. Stearns; Collections, Archives, and Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society; "History and Genealogical Record of the Alling-Allens of New Haven," com- piled by George P. Allen; "Newark," Martha Lamb, in Harper^ s Magazine, Vol. 53; "Woodside," C. G. Hine; "Historic Houses of New Jersey," W. Jay A4ills; "Essex County, New Jersey," Peter J. Leary; "Life and \^^ritings of Frank Forester," David W.Judd; "Rec- ords of the Towne of Newark"; Salmagundi, Washington Irving; "Patriotic Poems of New Jersey," William C. Armstrong; "General History of the Burr Family," Charles Burr Todd; "Literary Rambles at Home and Abroad," Theodore F. Wolfe; Centifiel of Freedom; Newark Daily Advertiser; "The Spirit of '76"; Northern Monthly Magazine; Newark Evening Nezvs; and the Sunday Call. In concluding this foreword, the Fidelity Trust Company of Newark, New Jersey, desires to call attention to its origin and growth and to the facilities that it offers to those who require banking or general fiduciary relations. Organized twenty-nine years ago the Fidelity Trust Company is now the largest institution of its kind in the entire state. It is also one of the strongest banks in the country. Starting with a capital of $200,000, it now has a capital, surplus and undivided profits of more than $6,000,000, resources of nearly $30,000,000, and deposits aggregating more than $20,000,000. Its extraordinary growth has been due largely to public confidence. That confidence is founded on the unquestioned integrity and ability of the company's directors and officers and, more particularly, upon the institution's admittedly excellent service and its conservatively progressive management. Its directors are well-known, distinguished men who are prominently identified with large enterprises; its officers are highly regarded, experienced financiers, and its department heads are specialists who supervise the work of the company's clerical force, which numbers nearly two hundred men and women. Occupying the entire ground floor, the ninth and eighth floors and part of the third floor of the main Prudential Building, the company, in addition to a Commercial Banking Department in which two per cent, interest is paid on check accounts of $1,000 or more, has a Savings Department which pays four per cent, interest on balances between $5 and $1,000, and three and one-half per cent, interest on all sums over that amount. It also conducts a well-equipped Bond Department for the purchase and sale of Public Service Corporation stock and bonds and other securities, and a Mortgage Department FOREWORD which loans money to home-builders and home-buyers in Essex and Union Counties and in parts of Hudson and Bergen Counties. This department also sells desirable real estate mortgages. The company's widely known Title Department insures titles to real estate any- where in New Jersey, and its Safe Deposit Department has the largest and best equipped vaults in New Jersey. Its Trust Depart- ment draws wills and acts as executor, administrator and trustee. It also serves as registrar of securities and under its charter acts in many other fiduciary capacities. It takes entire charge of real estate and personal property. It serves as guardian of minors and acts as assignee or receiver under personal or court appointment. The experience of its directors and officers in the business world guarantees to its customers sound advice and efficient and economical service, not only in matters pertaining to banking, but in a wide variety of other business affairs. If, to the reader of this book, the institution can in any way be of the slightest service consistent with good banking, it asks that it be given an opportunity to demonstrate its usefulness. Its present directors are: Aaron Adams, Frank T. Allen, Henry M. Doremius, Frederick W. Egner, John C. Eisele, Louis Hood, Henry M. Keasbey, John L. Kuser, Thomas N. McCarter, Uzal H. AlcCarter, Edward A. Pruden, P. Sanford Ross, William Scheerer, Jerome Taylor, Edgar B. Ward, William J. Wilson, Theodore M. Woodland, Archibald M. Woodruff, and C. Edwin Young. The officers of the company are: Uzal H. McCarter, President; Frederick W. Egner, \'ice-President; Jerome Taylor, Vice-President; Edward A. Pruden, Vice-President & Trust Officer; Frank T. Allen, Vice President & Publicity Manager; Louis Hood, General Counsel; Paul C. Downing, Treasurer; James H. Shackleton, Secretary; Henry Schneider, Assistant Secretary-Treasurer; Edward W. Camp- bell, Assistant Secretary-Treasurer; Clarence G. Appleton, Comp- troller; Charles G. Titsworth, Title Officer; Simon P. Northrup, Assistant Title Officer; Francis Lafferty, Solicitor; Theodore Hamp- son. Assistant Trust Officer; Herbert R. Jacobus, Assistant Trust Officer; Edward E. Felsberg, Superintendent of \'aults. y/ From an old lithograph owned by the New Jersey Historical Society Explanation oj figures I Mulberry Street. 2 Market Street. 3 Jas. Nutman. 4 Capt. Wheeler. 5 Stephen Sayre. 6 Tenement, Stewart. 7 John Poinier. 8 Thomas Bruen. 9 Ashton House. ID Benjn Munn. II John Poinier. 12 John Bruen. 13 Durand Coe & C. 14 Ichd Carman. 15 Passaic River. 16 Commercial Dock. 17 Tenements, Store Houses. 18 Babcock House. 19 Isaac Nutman. 20 Gabriel Bruen. 21 Thomas Richards. 22 McDonald. 23 — ■ — — . 24 James Tichenor. 25 James Tichenor. 26 Tenements. 27 Tenements. 28 David D. Crane. 29 Abby Crane. 30 Aaron Harrison. 31 Baldwin House. 32 Nixon House. 33 Sally Crane. 34 John Morris. 35 Longworth, Jabez Rogers. 36 Jabez Cook. 37 Old Road to Paules Hook. 38 Tenement House. YE TOWNE ON YE PESAYAK FTER long days on rough waters thirty Connecticut families sailed up "ye Pesayak river" in the month of May, 1666. Like many other settlers in other colonies, they sought civil and religious liberty. This, they knew, would be theirs when they had reared their homes in the wilderness which they approached, where then wolves and bears ranged and where Indian trails were the only highways. Captain Robert Treat may have stood that May day in the bow of his fragile craft and scanned the Jersey shores for a favorable landing-place. Josiah Ward may have drawn nearer to the side of Elizabeth Swaine, his affianced bride, and whispered of the house he would build in the Jersey wilderness. Beautiful Elizabeth Swaine of nineteen summers, as she listened, may have gazed into the clear waters of the rip- pling "Pesayak," and afterward raised her eyes to the swaying tree-tops bending over the land where her new wild home was to be. There is a story, told and retold so many times it has become tra- ditional, that this Elizabeth Swaine was the first of the party to set foot on Jersey soil, — that she was gallantly assisted to shore by her betrothed. The little band, directed by Robert Treat, gathered that May day with every intention and favorable prospect of setting at once to work in the laying out of land which had been granted them by Philip Carteret. Whatever progress, however, they may have made was peremptorily stopped by the appearance of Hackensack Indians, who virtually said: — - "You trespass on our land. These shores belong to us. From the Pesayak to Watchung they are ours. In the forests are our game; in the streams, our fish. Our feet for untold moons have trod yonder trails that you behold. No one shall sell this land, the domain of the Hackensacks." Negotiations were opened with the Indians, and a title purchased from them July 11, 1667. Territory extending from the summit of Watchung Alountain, now Orange Mountain, "about seven or eight miles from Pesayak Towne," was purchased for "fifty double hands of powder, one hundred barrs of lead, twenty Axes, twenty Coates, ten Guns, twenty pistolls, ten kettles, ten Swords, four blankets, four barrells of beere, ten paire of breeches, fifty knives, twenty bowes, eight hundred HISTORIC NEWARK and fifty fathem of wampem, two Ankors of Licquers, or something equiv- alent and three troopers Coates." Tradition says that an illuminated miniature of an English queen played an important part in the pur- chase. This miniature was sent by the daughter of Micah Tompkins, one of the first settlers, to the squaw of an Indian chief, and it influ- enced Perro, the Indian, to transfer his land, so rich in game, to the settlers. Other tracts were later bought by the settlers from the Indians. One of these, owned by Winnocksop and Shenoctos, ran west to the foot of the Watchung Mountain. The Indian sold this for "two guns, three coats, and thirteen kans of rum." Wapamuk, Harish, Captamin, Mamustome, Peter, ""V.x^^ J^is marke. WamesaNE, 'T*^ his marke. ^'V.. his marke. Wekaprokikan, ^^ his marke. his marke. Cacanakrue, f J^ his marke. Sessom, M^ his marke. Perawae, Sc^ ^'^ marke. SIGNATURES OF INDIAN GRANTORS OF NEWARK >his marke. ^*0 his marke. In the centre of the town two main streets. Broad and Market, crossing each other at right angles, were laid out. It will probably never be known why the early settlers of Newark laid out their "towne" on four corners, but it is evident that this arrangement was carefully planned. Broad Street was probably an old Indian trail, and Alarket Street may have been convenient because a merry little brook, it is said, dashed over pebbles in its very centre. The land was distributed, each man taking by lot six acres as a homestead. First, however, the settlers "freely gave way that Captain Robert Treat should choose his lots" before the others had theirs. Eight acres were given him, on a part of which now stands the First Presby- terian Church on Broad Street. A military ground was set aside, a market-place, a watering-place for cattle, and the burying-ground, at the gates of which, years later, when the weather was fine, the town-meetings were held. "Meeting House Lots" or "Captain Treat's Recompense" was at the southwest corner of Broad and Market Streets. It was occupied by and still belongs to the First Presbyterian Church. An ancient leasehold requirement is to the effect "that all shades must be drawn on the Sabbath." During the Revolution the Ailing house at the northwest side of the "Four Corners" was well known, while early in the nineteenth century, when fox-hunts were followed throughout Newark, Archer Gifi^ord's Tavern at the northeast side of the "Four Corners" was famed throughout the States. As soon as the settlers arrived, log huts were built, the first church was erected, and the Rev. Abraham Pierson chosen for minister. It was at first proposed to name the town Milford, after the town in Connecticut from which some of the settlers came; but finally it TOWN LOTS OF THE FIRST RESIDENTS Explanation. Northeast Section: A, Deacon Lawrence Ward; B, John Catlin (i); C, Samuel Kitchell; D, Josiah Ward; E, Tohn y^ Rogers ; F, Robert Kitchell; G, Jeremiah Pecke; //, Obadiah Bruen; /, The Seaman's Lot (2); /, Thomas Richards; K, John Harrison; L, Aaron Blatchly; A/, Stephen Davis; N, Samuel Plum; 0, John Crane; P, The Boatman's Lot (3); Q, Robert Lymon; R, John Davis. Northwest Section: y/, Lieutenant Samuel Swaine; 5, Sergeant Richard Harrison; C, Edward Ball; D, John Morris, in 1688; E, John Ward, Sr.; F, Matthew Camfield; G, Abraham Pierson, Jr.; H, Jasper Crane; /, Thomas Pierson, Sr.; /, Benjamin Baldwin; K, Thomas Huntington; L, Alexander Munrow; M, The Elder's Lot (4); N, John Ward, Jr., the turner; 0, Deacon Richard Laurence; P, Delivered Crane; Q, Hans Albers; R, Samuel Rose; S, The Miller's Lot (5); 7", Samuel Dod; U, Daniel Dod; V, The Corn Mill. Southeast Section: y/, Captain Robert Treat (6); B, Abraham Pierson, Sr. ; C, Robert Denison; D, Thomas Johnson; E, George Dav; F, Na- thaniel Wheeler; G, Joseph Riggs; H, William Camp; /, Martin Tichenor; /, Stephen Freeman; K, John Curtis (7); L, John Baldwin, Sr.; A/, Thomas Staples; N, John Baldwin, Jr.; 0, Deacon Michael Tompkins; P, Jonathan Tomkins; 0, Ephraim Pennington; R, Seth Tomkins; S, The Tailor's Lot (8); T, Thomas Pierson, Jr.; U, Samuel Harrison; V, John Browne, Jr.; JV, Edward Riggs; A', Hugh Roberts. Southwest Section: A, The Meeting-house (9); B, Captain Treat's extra (10); C, John Johnson; /), The Parsonage Home Lot (11); £, John Browne, Sr.; F, Stephen Bond; G, Zachariah Burwell; H, Ephraim Burwcll; /, Thomas Ludington; /, John Brooks; K, Thomas Lyon; L, Joseph Johnson; ^1/, John Treat; N, John Gregory (12); 0, Henry Lyon; P, Joseph Walters; Q, Samuel Camfield; R, Robert Dalglish (or Douglas); S, Francis Linle (or Lindsley); T, Matthew Williams (13); U, Walter's second division. The map was made by Samuel II. Conger. HISTORIC NEWARK was called Newark after Newark in England, where Mr. Pierson preached before he came to America. Wolves and bears prowled along the roads by night, and often by day. Soon after the settle- ment there was a premium offered for killing them. A grown wolf brought from fifteen to twenty shillings; and a bear cub, five shillings. It is said that Sergeant Riggs was mortally afraid of wolves and bears, and that his possessions included a "wolf-pit." The growth of the community was rapid. Other settlers came. The courage of these early Newarkers was great, and has inspired chapters of Jersey history. Little incidents crept in, enlivening the daily labor of the pioneers; for everybody in the settlement had a common public work to do. No drones were in the hive of the town on the Pesayak. No admonition, however, of Captain Treat has ever been recorded, — that those who "wouldn't work shouldn't eat." Among these incidents, tucked away in a traditional pigeonhole, is one concerning Robert Treat, of distinctly John Alden flavor. He loved Jane Tapp, daughter of one of the "seven pillars" of the church at Milford, Connecticut. Treat was a bashful wooer, though he seems to have summoned sufficient courage to take the lady on his knee, where he danced her merrily. Still, he didn't propose marriage; and it is related that the fair Jane brought him promptly then and there to the point by expostulating, "Robert, bestill that: I had rather be Treatted than trotted!" Though a bashful wooer. Captain Treat was a brave leader, and the activity of the colony increased still more when the first inn was opened. Henry Lyon was keeper, and he was cautioned against entertaining strangers indiscriminately. A cattle-pound was opened when the colony was three years young. In 1675 the church was prepared as a place of refuge and fortified, lest the Hackensacks, continuing the terror other Indian tribes were causing through New England, should fall upon Newark. Captain Swaine, who knew well what an attack from the redmen meant, as he had seen his own sister carried off^ by a Pequot chief in Connecticut some years before, was appointed to aid in arrangements for fortifying the town. The meeting-house was guarded by sentinels, the church-goers carried arms, and every precaution was taken in case the Hackensacks should surprise the town. They never came. In all the history of Newark no trouble occurred between the whites and the Indians. After the excellent cider of Newark had been tasted by Governor Carteret and pronounced good, after the first shoe-shop had been established, the first saw-mill and the first tannery. Colonel Josiah Ogden, pillar of the First Church, man of will, wealth, and wisdom, broke the Sabbath by harvesting his wheat. The dissension which arose in the First Church was long and bitter, and resulted, as we shall learn, in the establishment of Trinity Church. Later came Newark's war against rents, the preaching of White- field to crowds that came from far and near, and the first public hang- ing. About half a century later the Revolutionary War broke out. The shot that was heard around the world echoed in Newark, and enthusiastic Patriots answered its call. Streets resounded with the b ,urt..,^ST.ISDUTril LOOKING SOUTH FROM MARKET STREET IN 1854 NORTH ON BROAD STREET FROM THE CORNER OF MARKET STREET IN 1854 From prints by Smith, Fern & Co. Owned by the New Jersey I^istorical Society MArlKLT STRELi A VIEW FROM BROAD STREET LOOKING WEST IN 1854 MARKET STREET^ EAST) JJEV/Afj:, K.J. LOOKING EAST FROM BROAD STREET IN 1854 From prints published by Smith, Fern & Co. in the possession of the New Jersey Historical Society HISTORIC NEWARK r -rr n '^i{W 3 ^^^ "^ ^ -^ ^^^ 3 O v\r 9 V ^ \\jll"' >■//('•" /;/'/ ' :,1."' „/„//,.:/.. I .■',./ ;■;/ //u'l'' n'u r.J liil/i ,1 /iiymriuiilf .1;"/ '/y.v ///,///... I., ...:>. :U.:.;„i;,rlmo/ <:,-r,!s.Fwinliit. X: i:.;-l' /.; u. ,',/,;/ /: . - /;:,,.., Im,/ /;,:,.! r.n. or .\l.;,,> r,m„/ /:.„l.- I„r ,-l' /irim iy,„n„- -.ill ,.,.■>,■> . ///(/ ' ( ■li'iix-'tiA Si''' /'i'/ikii;iii v/- .('■ i ;'i/i//v,v/,'.\- ,l//;/;V7/iJV? l.V'"/"'/V/// Announcement of the opening of the steam passenger and freight service between Newark and New York. Established in 1849 by Thomas V. Johnson & Co. tread of Jersey Blues. Red-coated Hessians stalked like wolves from homestead to homestead. General Washington came. When the war ended, Newark resumed the busy tenor of its life. Then came the famous days of Archer Gilford's Tavern, — days of picturesque coaches, fair ladies, and lively fox-hunts over the hills. Lafayette, twenty years later, rode through garlanded streets, and dined with Elias Boudinot. Newark, a dozen years after the noble Frenchman visited the town in 1824, became a city, with William Halsey first mayor. Since this new epoch in her history she has attracted within her borders industry after industry until she stands eleventh in value of products annually produced, with over 3,000 industrial concerns using steam or electric power, each employing ten or more hands. There is an equal number of smaller manufacturing plants not using steam power. These industries represent over 250 distinct lines. The value of the output for 191 5 it is estimated will not fall below $275,000,000. As Newark has advanced in size and in industrial and social impor- tance, the Fidelity Trust Company, ably, wisely and progressively managed, has kept pace with it. Often, in fact, it is conceded to have not only paved the way for progress, but to have been the actual leader in the march toward bigger and better things, and to-day it is admittedly the largest institution of its kind in the State of New Jersey. HISTORIC NEWARK MIDWINTER SCENE ON THE PASSAIC ABOUT 1852 Building on the left was the original sawmill of David Ayres, destroyed by fire in 1865. Road beside the hill in the centre of the picture was Jackson's Lane, now Oriental Street. The beach at its foot was a favorite bathing place. North of the hill was Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Little building out in the water on the right was known in 1858 as Bloomfield's boathouse. Picture from a painting made by Otto Sommer about 1852 for Andrew Lemassena. A local Statistician says: "The largest thing manufactured in Newark is a 100-foot steel structural beam, while the smallest is a screw, used in the manufacture of watches, which is 1/64 of an inch in length and .015 of an inch in diameter. 'Made in Newark' is more impressive when one learns that Newark is sending French kid to Paris, fireworks to China, and shears to Sheffield, England." The first industry of Newark was the manufacture of leather, which was begun in 1698. There was one tannery at that time in the town, and Azariah Crane established it. Since the establishment of this tannery, which marks the beginning of shoemaking in Newark, the city's industrial gates have swung wide; for, during the more than two hundred years that have passed, a great variety of business enterprises have sprung up around the site of that first plant on the south side of Market Street. To other things, also, Newark's gates have been opened. She has flung them wide to many leaders in the literary world, among them Washington Irving. To the Civil War she consecrated some of her noblest sons, among these "Fighting Phil Kearny," and she has housed master inventors, among them Seth Boyden and Thomas Edison. Other treasures innumerable she has given to, but never flaunted before, the world. She has been left, as has been said of New Jersey, "like a cider-barrel, tapped at both ends," between larger fields, adding, nevertheless, to her power with lightning rapidity, leav- ing behind, as she has grown, old landmarks and associations rich in historic fact and tradition. These facts and traditions about the people who have helped to build Newark, about the homes that have sheltered them, about the streets they have traversed, this little book has gathered together. HISTORIC NEWARK "THE BIBLE, THE BAYONET, AND THE INDIANS" Everybody went to church in the early days of Newark, and during a part of those first decades the good folk were summoned to worship by the monotonous call of a drum that little Joseph Johnson beat for eight shillings a year. One of the first things the settlers did, after build- ing houses on their home lots, was to ask Captain Robert Treat, Deacon Crane, and the Rev. Abraham Pierson, first pastor, to select a site on which to build a meeting-house. This First Church of New- ark stood on the west side of Broad Street, nearly opposite the site of the present First Presbyterian edifice; and the Rev. Jonathan F. Stearns, formerly a pastor of the church, asserted that undoubtedly it was the first church to be fully organized in the State of New Jersey. In a town-meeting of September lo, 1668, it was voted to build a meeting- house as soon as possible; and, though it was eighteen months before this modest little place of worship was completed, nevertheless the colony became a church as soon as it became a town, and for many years civil and religious life went hand in hand. For the first forty years after Newark's birth the meeting-house was the place not only for worship, but also for town-meetings and military proceedings. The whole town helped in the building of that first church. Bit by bit they fashioned its modest thirty-six feet of length, twenty-six feet of breadth, with thirteen feet between the joists. To it, after its completion, the drum, sending forth stately beats, called families to peaceful worship, until news reached the community that a fearful war was being waged by King Philip in New England, — news that alarmed the town lest similar atrocities should take place in Newark. It was then — in 1675 — that the settlers fitted up their meeting-house as a possible place of refuge. They fortified it strongly. They lathed the walls and filled in the spaces with mortar as a protection against bullets and arrows. Flankers were built to shelter the men-at-arms. Every fourth man of the congregation was required to go to church armed, and a guard in each of the flankers, throughout the church service, watched the surrounding country for possible attacks from the enemy. But the Hackensacks did not come: no Indians came; and throughout the history of the settlement none other than friendly relations existed between the whites and the aborigines. Here is a word picture, by the Rev. Jonathan F. Stearns, of a peaceful Sabbath morning at church time: "All up and down the street stand on either side, at regular intervals, the quiet homes of the planters, and everywhere through the open windows may be heard the voice of prayer and psalm-singing at the domestic altar, or the low hum of youthful voices studying or reciting the much-prized catechism. The hour of public worship now approaches, and the deep tones of the vil- lage drum, beaten along the broad grassy street, . . . give the signal to make ready. It beats again, and now the doors are opening, out come in every direction grave fathers and mothers, . . . sturdy sons and comely daughters, . . . down through the cross-streets, and some on horseback from the distant mountain. They pass along in pleasant family groups, and meet a united community at the house of prayer." 10 III: '^il'-vi^^fe^^ FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ERECTED 1790, NEWARK, NJ. Drawn by F. Schlegel and printed by Nagel & Weingartner about 1850. Owned by New Jersey Historical Society HISTORIC NEWARK Behind the church, Dr. Macwhorter has said, was the old training- ground. This was between the swamp and the brow of the hill. The burying-place was beyond this swamp, "on a rising knoll or tongue of land which divided this from a greater swamp or pond, westward of which the land rose into another hill, then presently sunk into a flat or brook, called ' the watering-place.' This last hill was the original burying-ground." "DIVIDENT HILL DIVIDES NEWARK FROM ELIZABETH" On a hill which now stands in the northernmost section of Wee- quahic Park, a little east of Elizabeth Avenue and on a line with Lyons Avenue, commissioners from Elizabethtown and Newark met May 20, 1668, to determine a boundary line between the towns. Ever since the knoll upon which they met has been known as Divident Hill. They agreed on a line which ran from "the top of the little round hill named Divident Hill; and from thence to run upon a North- west line into the country," until it reached Watchung Mountain. The occasion was most solemn, both Captain Treat and Mr. John Ogden praying among the people and rendering thanks for the loving agreement that had been made between the representatives of the two towns. Captain Treat said that, if the Newark people differed with the Elizabethtown people concerning the line, he believed that they would never prosper. "If any spot in this vicinity deserves a monument," wrote Jonathan F. Stearns, once pastor of the First Church, "it is the 'little round hill called Divident Hill.' . . . The pagans of classic days would have been sure to erect there a splendid temple of Concord." Mrs. Elizabeth Clementine Kinney of Newark, mother of Edmund Clarence Stedman, the poet, herself a poet and a friend of the Brownings, has well described the event in her poem entitled "Divident Hill." Divident Hill was the dividing-point between Newark town and Elizabethtown from May 20, 1668, until the organization of Clinton township in 1834. THE CAMP HOUSE, GENERAL WASHINGTON'S HAM AND EGGS, AND OLD NAT Captain Nathaniel Camp was turning up neat furrows in the field one sunny June day when a distinguished officer tied his horse securely to one of the buttonwood-trees for which the Camp place was famous. The captain's wife answered a resounding knock at her front door, and at once recognizing General Washington, a little flur- riedly maybe, invited him in. Of course, it may be imagined, she insisted that he occupy the best chair in her parlor. Of course she parted the shades that shielded that chair and just five others like it from destructive floods of sunshine, and let in the light; and, hurry- ing to the back door, she blew on the ready horn a long blast that brought her husband from the fields. Raids of the British upon Newark had harassed the town for some months past. These Hessian ravages had become more and more 12 HI STORI C NEWARK CAPTAIN NAiHAMEL CAMP'S HOMESTEAD Where General Washington had ham and eggs. It stood at the corner of Broad and Camp Streets and was surrounded by the lands of the Camp farm. It was destroyed in 1856 From a drawing in the possession of Miss Mary Camp frequent and violent, leaving in their wake a tremendous loss of life and property. General Washington, with a plan in mind for checking these onslaughts, sought Captain Camp, who then com- manded a company of Essex County militia. The two men spent some time before satisfactory plans could be formed for successfully checking the enemy, and General Washington concluded the confer- ence by saying, " I will send you a gun to-morrow to complete the equipment of your company for this service, but you must guard it from capture in case the enemy attack in force." While these plans were being discussed, Mrs. Camp probably was anxiously searching the larder for some more aristocratic luxury than the ham and eggs which, she knew, she must serve to the general, should he have dinner in her house. Captain Camp, untouched by these household matters, still talked on. It pleased him to relate, years after- ward, how keenly General Washington enjoyed his ham and eggs. The promised "gun" arrived. It proved to be very much of a cannon, and they called it "Old Nat." The cannon survived in- numerable fights. It remained for a long time in Newark, where on special occasions it was used in firing salutes. In 1879 it was taken to Washington's headquarters at Morristown, where it has remained ever since. Valiantly did it and its gallant captain fulfil 13 HISTORIC NEWARK HOUSE OF PRAYER AND PARISH HOUSE Where Mistress Ann van Wagenen Plume locked a Hessian in her ice-house and where the Rev. Hannibal Goodwin invented the celluloid film for cameras their offices as guards of Newark. It is a well-known fact that on the night of January 25, 1780, the British, taking advantage of an unusually bitter night, made another raid, five hundred strong, upon the town. So few in numbers were the Patriots that defence was practically impossible. Landmarks are pointed out to this day where British torches lighted destructive fires on that memorable night of the New Year. After a party of the enemy had burned the academy, which stood on Washington Park, they entered the house of Joseph 14 HISTORIC NEWARK Hedden, Jr., then on Broad Street, dragged him, half-clothed, from a sick-bed, compelled him to accompany their party, and eventually imprisoned him in the Old Sugar House in New York. From the exposure to which he was subjected on that winter night Joseph Hedden shortly afterward died. William Camp, a Patriot merchant and a brother of Captain Nathaniel Camp, in the fall of 1776 was seized by a party of British marauders and taken to the Old Sugar House, where in January, 1777, he died. General Washington gave Captain Camp a flag of truce, under which he went to New York, brought home the body of his brother, and had it interred in the Old Burying-ground. The old homestead itself was built by Captain Camp's father, and it occupied the site given to his great-grandfather, William Camp, when the land in Newark was distributed among the early settlers in 1667. The mansion, conspicuous for its beauty and attractive sur- roundings, stood on what is now the corner of Broad and Camp Streets, and was destroyed in 1856. Since then there has been erected on the site the magnificent brownstone residence which is owned and occupied by Mr. Uzal H. McCarter. A short distance from the spot where stood the old house is a modern home, occupied by Miss Mary Camp, a descendant of the gallant Revolutionary captain about whom cluster so many interesting stories. In Miss Camp's living-room is a drawing, done in India ink, of the old Camp place. Time has softened the lines of the picture, and in all its singular beauty the house stands amid its broad lawns, shadowed by the three immense buttonwood-trees. HOW MISTRESS ANN VAN WAGENEN PLUME LOCKED A HESSIAN IN THE PLUME ICE-HOUSE The Plume homestead was for years the home of the Plume family, and time has gathered about it interesting Revolutionary anecdotes. In the days when the shots fired at Lexington and Concord stirred to patriotism the hearts of the men of Newark, this old house stood on the outskirts of the town, — an easy prey for redcoats when they came in from Hackensack, as it was the first house they reached. Hessians then prowled through Newark, established themselves uninvited in homes, and destroyed property. Mistress Ann van Wagenen Plume, whose dairy stood then where the House of Prayer now stands on Broad Street, was a good Patriot. So, also, was her husband, and the troops of King George were not welcome. However, the Plumes had to make the best of them, only sometimes things did go badly, — so badly that IVIistress Plume showed high temper. There was an instance of this when, on hearing an unusual thumping one day downstairs, she descended to find Hessians chopping in her back parlor wood which they were about to put on the open fireplace. "Stop that!" said Mistress Plume. "If you speak another crooked word, I'll blow your head off!'* retorted the officer. "Ram's horn, if I die for it!" exclaimed the thoroughly angry lady, looking the officer straight in the eye. IS HISTORIC NEWARK Tradition says that the officer and soldiers kept their pistols in their belts, and beat a retreat from Ann van Wagenen Plume's back parlor. Now the lady of the Plume household was resourceful and shrewd. When, a few days later, she found a Hessian soldier taking an inventory of her ice-house, she said nothing, but shut the door and put the key in her pocket. It was cold in the ice-house, and the soldier howled for help; but the walls were thick, and nobody heard him. A short time afterward word flew that the Continentals were coming, and the red- coats, in great disarray, hastened off. They did not miss their impris- oned comrade. He was in the ice-house, shivering; and even the coveted provisions that surrounded him were of little comfort. The Continentals came. Mistress Plume led them directly to her ice-house, and unlocked the door. "Come out!" she said to her prisoner. He came out, wearing the customary Hessian hat, decorated with heavy brass trimmings. This the Continentals unceremoniously re- moved from his head, and presented to Mistress Plume as a reward for the capture. It is said that she took off these brass adornments, and that for years they served as a knocker on the front door. A tradition exists that General Washington stayed at this house in the winter of his eventful retreat through New Jersey. There are interesting events, also, that prove the Revolutionary record of the homestead to be but a part of its history. The Plume family records show that Nancy Visher Plume was the builder, that she lived in the house for years, that she wrote a will of something like twenty pages, and that there was much land adjoining the house, the precise boun- daries of which are not known. It was in 1849 that little groups of Newark men and women began to hold religious services in the old homestead, and the following year the property was purchased by these people and a church organized. The House of Prayer was built on the site of the dairy. The home- stead itself is used as the rectory, and is now the home of the Rev. John S. Miller. Some time prior to Mr. Miller's coming as rector to the House of Prayer, it was occupied by the Rev. Hannibal Goodwin, who in- vented there the celluloid film for cameras which has revolutionized photographic art. Mr. Goodwin's aim in inventing this film was to give his parishioners entertainment, and it was but a few years before his death that his success as an inventor became known. The fortune that the remarkable invention realized was never reaped by Mr. Goodwin, and scarcely enjoyed by his aged wife, whose death occurred shortly after that of her husband. The wealth that she left was somewhat scattered, as there were no near relatives. The inventor's workroom was the attic of the rectory at the House of Prayer, and it is said that the walls there still bear the marks of the acids used by Mr. Goodwin in his experiments. They say that this famous house is one of the oldest buildings in Essex County. Little changed, it stands in the heart of the city, at the corner of Broad and State Streets. There traffic and trolley cars, a busy railroad, and hurrying pedestrians whirl by its very doors. 16 HISTORIC NEWARK It remains, however, its quaint, dignified self in spite of all these modern things, and, standing in the shadow of the House of Prayer, it wears a peaceful look, as though its domain included as many green acres as of old. COLONEL JOSIAH OGDEN HARVESTS HIS WHEAT ON SUNDAY AND TOM MOORE'S SONNET TO A MISS OGDEN Two storms swept Newark town about 1732 or 1733. One was a rain-storm that hung on for several days, to the detriment of Josiah Ogden's wheat-field. This drizzly rain possibly stopped long enough for Colonel Ogden, faithful member of the First Church, to hitch up his horse, sally forth into his wheat-field on a Sunday, and with dex- trous wieldings of a pitchfork load his grain and haul it into the barn. Of course somebody saw him, and of course the news went round in less time than Puck's forty minutes. They "disciplined" Colonel Josiah for Sabbath-breaking, and he was not the sort of man that stood harsh criticism and punishment. He was his mother's own son, the son of Elizabeth Swaine, whose first husband died shortly after Newark was settled; and, because he inherited a mind of his own, out of the continued, drizzly rain that almost spoiled his wheat grew a controversy, long and bitter, that was prolonged for many more years than the summer rain lasted days. It is not so recorded, but it may safely be inferred that, after Colonel Ogden had withdrawn from the First Church, he declared, "I'll have a church to attend, if I have to build one." Conditions were favorable for such a move, as the Episcopal mis- sionaries had been working in Jersey, and Colonel Ogden turned his interest toward the establishment of an Episcopal church in Newark. He gathered his friends and sympathizers who had withdrawn with him from the First Church, and later, after much correspondence, took the matter up with the Synod at Philadelphia in 1734. While he was doing all these things, bitter controversies had arisen between the religious factions of the town. "The separation," says Dr. Macwhorter, "was the origin of the greatest animosity and alienation between friends and townsmen. Christians, neighbors, and relatives, that this town ever beheld. The storm of religious separation and rage wrought tumultuously. The openly declared Episcopalians were few, in comparison of the Presbyterians, yet there were two leaders, one on each side, who were pretty well poised in respect of point of abilities, wealth, connection, and ambition. This religious brand kindled a flame which was not extinguished till the conclusion of the late war." Colonel Ogden is referred to by Dr. Macwhorter as the leader of one faction, the Rev. Joseph Webb, the sixth pastor of the First Church, as the other leader, and the war to which the writer refers was the war of the Revolution. The Rev. Joseph Webb is pictured by his biographer as "a ground, condemned, and hated man, neglected by his own people, and hated and condemned by the new party." He was a man of peace, having neither oratorical powers nor gifts of controversy. It is pleasant to think that the war may 17 HISTORIC NEWARK have drawn the contending parties closer together. Both churches were then used as hospitals, and possibly the community, while en- gaged in larger interests, may have buried their local hatchet. How- ever, before these things happened. Pastor Webb was dismissed from his pulpit, though it was conceded that he was a faithful and pains- taking leader of his flock. Not long afterward, when visiting friends in Connecticut, he and his son were both drowned in crossing Say- brook Ferry on the Connecticut River. The first charter of the church was granted February 4, 1746; and, though this charter was suspended a year later, a new one was granted under which the present Trinity Church still carries on its work. In the name of George II was this charter granted "on the humble petition of our Loving subjects Edward Vaughan, late rector of Trinity Church at Newark, John Schuyler and Josiah Ogden, late church Wardens, and George Lurtling, David Ogden, John Ludlow, David Ogden, jr., William Kingsland, William Turner, George Vrelandt, Daniel Pierson, Roger Kingsland, and Emanuel Cocker, late vestry- men of said Church." It is said that the first edifice, erected in 1733-34, was of hewn stone, 63 feet long by 45 feet broad, and 27 feet high, with a steeple 95 feet high and 20 feet square. A part of the original steeple is still standing. At the time of the Revolutionary War the head of the Ogden family was Judge David Ogden, son of the founder of Trinity Church. He was a Yale University graduate, talented, of high social position, a veritable country gentleman, generally respected in the town. As chief magistrate of the highest Provincial bench, he was chosen to succeed Chief Justice Smyth. He was a stanch espouser and follower of King George. "What happened after the outbreak of hostilities," says Joseph Atkinson, "is described by the Judge, in a document of rare interest, which was printed in London from the Judge's manuscript, in 1784, and is entitled 'The Claim of David Ogden Esq., 1784.'" In this document he asked Parliament for reimbursement, and narrated that he was forced to leave his property in New Jersey and seek the protection of the British troops in New York City; that he was deprived of his salary, his house plundered, and his property con- fiscated by the New Jersey authorities. In the estimate of his losses David Ogden lists his mansion house, out-houses, garden, coach-house, barns, granaries, stables, and about three acres of land, at Newark, in the main street, between the church and Presbyterian meeting-house, also several other lots of land. In January, 1777, accompanied by the Rev. Isaac Browne, pastor of Trinity Church, David Ogden fled to New York, and, after having amassed debts amounting to seven hundred pounds, before his allowance from the government came, he sailed for England. In their hasty flight from Newark the rector and his invalid wife left all their household goods behind them. Being stanch Royalists, they were anxious to reach a Royalist stronghold, then New York. After this flight the Rev. Mr. Browne wrote of Trinity Church being "used by the rebels as a hospital for the sick." He added also that "they broke up and destroyed the seats and erected a large stack of chimneys in the middle of it." HISTORIC N E WARK NEWARK, N.J., IN 1851-1858 Overlooking the city from the residence of T. V. Johnson, Esq., which stood on Wallace Place and Bank Street. From a print by Smith, Fern & Co., 218 Fulton Street, New York Owned by the New Jersey Historical Society Colonel Josiah Ogden died before the Revolutionary War, and was buried somewhere in the Old Burying-ground. Now a slab lies over his remains, which have found a final resting-place at the entrance of Trinity Church. The inscription states that Colonel Josiah Ogden died May 17, 1763, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. "I give," he said in his will, "to the rector, church wardens, and vestry of Trinity Church, in Newark, my silver cup and porringer with two handles to the same, for and to the only use of said Church." Tom Aioore, the Irish poet, when he visited the United States in 1804, tradition says, was a guest of the Ogdens, by whom he was en- tertained at their mansion on Belleville Avenue and Broad Street. It has also come down that the poet was hospitably received by the Lawrence family, who lived near the Ogdens, and that he sang some of his lyrics to the Lawrence sisters, who were called "The Three Graces." Moore was accompanied upon "the first piano ever owned in the place." His love lyric, "Come o'er the Sea," is said to have been written with an Ogden miss in mind. AARON BURR AND PRINCETON UNIVERSITY'S INFANCY IN NEWARK The Rev. Aaron Burr, grave scholar, pastor of the First Church, and president of Princeton College, wooed Esther Edwards three days, and brought her home to "The Parsonage" on June 29, 1752, — a timid, lovely girl of twenty-one. There was wondering and surmis- ing in the town the day she came and for the proverbial seven days afterward. Innumerable pictures of Esther Burr, daughter of Jona- than Edwards, of New England fame, were painted over teacups, 19 HISTORIC NEWARK and every pretext was employed by young and old to catch a glimpse of the bride who had come to brighten the parsonage. A young student of the college appears to have been intensely interested in the president's wife, for he wrote to friends that "in the month of May Mr. Burr journeyed into New England, and remained three days the guest of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards." During this time he must have been a most ardent suitor, for no sooner had he returned to Newark than he despatched a guide into New England to bring Miss Edwards and her mother to Jersey. "They say that she is a very valuable lady," continues the writer, and from later letters there is ample evidence that Esther Edwards Burr lived up to the young collegian's expectations. His son, Aaron Burr, Vice-President of the United States, whose life fills so many pages of United States history, was born in the par- sonage at the corner of Broad and William Streets, February 6, 1756. In the fall of that year new college buildings were finished at Princeton, and President Burr, having the year previous severed his connection as pastor of the First Church, removed to Princeton with his family. The story of Princeton's infancy spent in Newark yields much of interest. Its earliest record includes a glimpse of the Rev. Aaron Burr's first years in Newark. The church needed a pastor, and, having heard of the merits of the young preacher, then in Con- necticut, despatched a committee to invite Mr. Burr as a candidate. The result of the negotiations was that Aaron Burr was installed pastor of the First Church. He seems to have taken his task seri- ously, and later he added to his responsibilities by joining on October 22, 1746, Jonathan Dickinson, John Pierson, and Ebenezer Pemberton in organizing the college at Elizabethtown, called "The College of New Jersey." The charter was received on the above date, and the college organized May, 1747. The following October, on the death of President Dickinson, the eight students were removed to Newark, and Mr. Burr assumed the care of them. A new charter was granted by Governor Belcher, and on the 9th of November, 1748, Aaron Burr was chosen president, receiving no salary for the first three years he held that office. On the same day "a class of seven young men — Enos Ayres, Benjamin Chestnut, Hugo Henry, Israel Reed, Richard Stockton and Daniel Thane — who had completed their studies and had been examined and approved as qualified," received their first degree. All but Stockton afterward became ministers of the gospel, and Richard Stockton became one of New Jersey's most distinguished jurists. This Commencement Day in Newark began in the forenoon with a prayer by the president, followed by reading the charter in the meeting-house. In the evening the president delivered a "handsome and elegant Latin oration," and the students who had performed their parts in the "customary scholastic disputations" received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Governor Belcher was given the degree of Master of Arts. After a salutatory oration pronounced by Mr. Thane the Commencement concluded with a prayer by the president. The trustees spent the evening in adopting a code of laws for the college and making arrangements for its future. HISTORIC NE WAR K So that in Newark was Princeton University auspiciously and suc- cessfully started on its brilliant way. The college remained in Newark after its organization about eight years. The students lived in private families, and the public academical exercises took place in the County Court-house. Not only did Air. Burr with his limited means contribute freely to the support of the college, but through his agency subscriptions were obtained in Boston, one of which was one hundred pounds from a Colonel Alvord, who was characterized by Joseph Shippen from Philadelphia, a student at the time, as "one of the greatest benefactors the College is blessed with." The same student also wrote, upon hearing the college had won two hundred pounds in a lottery, "It hath given the president, who hath been sick (these four or five days), such a pleasure that his spirits are greatly refreshed, which were before very low." About ninety students took their first degree at the College of New Jersey while it was in Newark, among whom was Samuel Davies, a well-known pulpit orator, who, it is said, inspired the eloquence of Patrick Henry. Aaron Burr, Sr., has been described as a man of small stature and of slender frame. "To encounter fatigue," says Governor Livingston, "he has a heart of steel, and for the dispatch of business the most amazing talents." Stearns has said that he was "modest, easy, courteous, obliging," and it has been declared that he was a perfect master of pleasing in company, and that in the pulpit he verily shone as a star of the first magnitude. Mr. Burr did not live to preside at a Commencement of Princeton College in its new home. One of the last charges he made was that there should be no unnecessary display at his funeral, but that the money for this be spent for the poor. A short year after the death of her husband Mrs. Burr died, leaving a daughter, Sarah, and the son, Aaron. The parsonage was occupied for a time by Pastor Macwhorter of the First Church, and it was a place of refuge for the jolly Scotchman's flock when news flew abroad that the redcoats were in town. The building was destroyed in 1835. THE BOUDINOT HOUSE IN WHICH LAFAYETTE WAS A GUEST WHEN HE VISITED NEWARK Welcome! Freedom's favorite son! Welcome! Friend of Washington; For, though his sun's in glory set, His spirit welcomes Lafayette. Welcome! Friend in adverse hours! Welcome! to fair Freedom's bowers; Thy deeds her sons will ne'er forget, Ten millions welcome Lafayette! So?ig sung the day Lafayette came to Newark; from "Centinel of Freedom.^' Lafayette revisited Newark, September 23, 1824. He was met at Jersey City by Essex troops, and gallantly escorted over the 21 HISTORIC NEWARK THE BOUDINOT MANSION ON PARK PLACE WHERE LAFAYETTE AND WASHINGTON WERE GUESTS As it looked before alteration. The site is now occupied by the Public Service Building From a print owned by Miss Mary Camp turnpike to Newark. At noon, when he was within a short distance of the town, cannon boomed, announcing to the people his approach. Crowds cheered him as he passed. Flags waved, and cannon roared still louder as he rode into Broad Street. Military Park had been converted into a mass of tents. Regiments were drawn up in line, with three hundred infantry and five hundred horse. Lafayette was conducted to the house of Judge Elias E. Boudinot on Park Place, where a suite of rooms had been specially prepared for him. At the Boudinot mansion he met a representation of judges from the District and Superior Courts, also a few prominent men of Newark. Early in the afternoon a great display awaited General Lafayette at Mili- tary Park, when he passed through lines of soldiers and townspeople to a huge dome, forty feet in height, constructed of green vines and masses of flowers, and approached through thirteen arches, rep- resenting the Thirteen States for which the brave Frenchman had fought. There was a platform supported by four arches, and on each arch an inscription in praise of Lafayette. The inscriptions were: on the north, "His laurels shall never fade"; on the east, "We shall ne'er look upon his like again"; on the south, "For him whom a nation delights to honor"; on the west, "Now I am going to serve you." While songs were sung by male and female choruses, Lafayette passed to the flower-decked portico, which bore in white blossoms his name, and was seated there while Theodore Frelinghuysen, Attorney- General of the State, delivered the address of welcome. Afterward the HISTORIC NEWARK troops were reviewed, and Lafayette was accompanied to the Boudinot mansion, where a great feast was spread, " moistened with a choice glass of wine," furnished by Morton of the Newark Hotel. Colonel Ward proposed this toast: — "Our distinguished guest. General Lafayette. — We thank France for her son. May America not forget and Europe long feel to good purpose the influence of his bright example." General Lafayette responded: "The town of Newark. — And may her population, prosperity, and industry increase in the same wonder- ful proportion I have been delighted to witness." Three years ago the famous mansion in which Lafayette received entertainment was demolished, and in its place stands the new $5,000,000 home and trolley terminal of the Public Service Corpora- tion. So passed the house built by Judge Elisha Boudinot, Elias's father, near the year 1799; and though there had been slight changes, in the way of a gable and a veranda added, also an iron fence placed around the front lawn, for years the mansion maintained its quaint simplicity and dignified grandeur. Few knew just how it did look when Elisha Boudinot built it. Fortunately, a few months ago. Miss Mary Camp found among her papers a circular of the "school she used to attend," which was easily identified as the Boudinot house, for about five years converted into a school for young ladies before it passed into the possession of the Condict family. The Misses Bucknall conducted this institute, and on the circular they made, in brief, the following announcement, — probably circulated about the year 1850, after they moved to the Boudinot house: "The building occupied by the Institute is unsur- passed by any establishment of the kind in the State. It is in front of the Parks and in the center of the city. It is supplied with a furnace, baths, gas, and all modern appliances for domestic comfort. The school rooms are furnished with desks after the models of the most tasteful schools in the city of New York. The dormitories and parlors are fitted up for comfort." Judge Elisha Boudinot was well known in his time, both as a Revo- lutionary Patriot on the Committee of Safety for Essex County and as a host. In the discharge of his duties in the Revolution he was brought in close touch with Washington, who was frequently enter- tained at the mansion in Park Place. Both Judge and Mrs. Boudinot were fond of flowers. Their garden and orchard extended far to the' rear of their home, in fact to Mulberry Street. Their dining-room, overlooking the garden, occupied the entire width of the house. Here Alexander Hamilton held conferences with the master of the home, and it is also asserted that here Washington attended the wed- ding of a fair daughter of the Boudinot family. After the ceremony the bride's father led his son-in-law to another room, and gravely gave him this admonition: — "My son, lay down the reins with the wedding slippers, if you would be happy." The bride and groom went on their honeymoon, during which the bride's uncle called his nephew-in-law aside, and gravely gave him this admonition: — 23 HISTORIC NEWARK COCKLOFT HALL, WHERE WASHINGTON IRVING WROTE "SALMAGUNDI PAPERS" Still standing at the corner of Gouverneur Street and Mount Pleasant Avenue "My son, take up the reins with the wedding sHppers, if you would be happy." For many years afterward the lady was jestingly reminded of these contrary bits of advice given her husband. On January 31, 1803, was organized at the Boudinot house the Female Charitable Society of Newark, with Mrs. Elisha Boudinot first director. This organization is said to be the fifth oldest chari- table society conducted by women in the United States. Early in the last century an auxiliary to the Female Charitable Society was formed, and still continues its work under the name first chosen, "The Crazy Jane." The Condict family of Newark bought the Boudinot mansion in 1855, and continued to occupy it until a few years ago. When the first Boudinot house burned, so well liked was the judge that his neighbors all rallied, asserting, as they cleared the cellar, that the judge should not go without a roof if they could help it. Judge Elisha, whose second mansion is the one where he royally entertained, was born in 1749 and died in 1819. For years, in the beautiful garden at the rear of the house, stood two towering elms, named by Judge and Mrs. Boudinot, in honor of their distinguished guests, Washington and Lafayette. 24 HISTORIC NEWARK WASHINGTON IRVING, COCKLOFT HALL, AND "SALMA- GUNDI" PAPKRS "It is pleasantly situated on the banks of a sweet pastoral stream; not so near town as to invite an inundation of idle acquaintance, who come to lounge away an afternoon, nor so distant as to render it an absolute deed of charity or friendship to perform the journey. It is one of the oldest habi- tations in the country, and was built by my cousin Christopher's grandfather, who was mine by the mother's side, in his latter days, to form, as the old gentleman expressed himself, 'a snug retreat where he meant to sit himself down in his old days and be comfortable for the rest of his life.' " — Washington Irving. Cockloft Hall still stands — changed, for a city has grown up around it — on the banks of the Passaic. Pindar Cockloft might wander to-day over the place and not recognize a single landmark, for the house has been remodelled to meet present-day needs; and no summer- house of Salmagundi fame remains, no fish-pond nor cherry-tree, no winding road, over which in the old days was wont to lumber the an- cient chariot, "drawn by old horses indubitably foaled in Noah's ark." Cockloft Hall was a hundred years old when Washington Irving and the "Lads of Kilkenny" made the place ring with their merriment, and caused it to become immortal by giving to the world Salmagundi papers. To these stories — which, when published, created a great furor in the town of Newark — W ashington Irving, William Irving, and James Kirke Paulding contributed. Irving was wont to call the merry group that gathered in Gouverneur Kemble's house (Cockloft Hall), on the banks of the Passaic, the "Lads of Kilkenny," and they were also known as "the Nine W^orthies." Henry Ogden and Henry Bre- voort, Jr., were well-known members of the group. The Gouverneur house itself had been inherited by Gouverneur Kemble, a friend of Irving. It is said that the house was left to the care of a negro and his wife, and was opened only when the "Lads of Kilkenny" came from New York for the refreshment that Cockloft Hall must have given. Fact and fiction are closely interwoven in the Salmagundi tales. In the first place, it is interesting to know that Irving visited Gouver- neur Kemble at his Mount Pleasant Avenue home early in 1800. The house passed out of the hands of the Kemble family about 1824. The famous "Hall" still stands on extensive grounds at the corner of Alount Pleasant Avenue and Gouverneur Street. Stand down near the Passaic in a leisure hour, — with your back to it, if you please, for the purity of the stream is no more, — and gaze intently at ancient Cockloft Hall. Shake your finger, if you will, at old-time and fantastic fiction, and say to yourself: "They lived there, — every one of them, — the Cockloft family. There was Pindar Cock- loft, dabbling his quill hither and yon over epigrams and elegies which he composed. In yonder window — the one to the left — was a chair in the bottom of which he concealed the self-same epigrams and ele- gies; or did he hide them way up in the tiptop part of the attic, in an old chest poked away under the eaves .^" Declare that you see Aunt 25 HISTORIC N E WARK Charity, as she peers anxiously from her windows to see if the threat- ened French boarding-house is being built opposite Cockloft Hall. Fancy Cousin Christopher — unfortunate soul! — inheriting all the "whimwhams" of his ancestors, rummaging in the library for musty volumes that are so precious to him. Survey at your leisure, in fancy, the famous cherry-tree and fish-pond, and catch a glimpse of Csesar — trusty Caesar — gathering a group about him to hear ghost stories. Once more gaze long at the old house "which groaned whenever the wind blew," and remember it was Washington Irving who gave a matchless gift to Newark in creating Cockloft Hall. It was the elder Cockloft who conceived the notion of blowing up a bed of rocks for the purpose of having a fish-pond, although the river ran about one hundred yards' distance from the house, and was well stocked with fish; but there was nothing, he said, like having things to one's self. As he proceeded, his views enlarged: he would have a summer-house built on the margin of the fish-pond; he would have it surrounded with elms and willows; and he would have a cellar dug under it, for some incomprehensible purpose, which remains secret to this day. A new street, opened at about the time of the Civil War, was the cause of the destruction of this summer-house. It is described as being peculiar in shape and arrangement. The door faced the river, and the windows three points of the compass. Cockloft (referring, of course, to Isaac Gouverneur, an ancestor of Gouverneur Kemble) was "determined to have all of his views on his own land and be beholden to no man for a prospect. So he placed, you see, the door of the summer-house on the side toward the water, while the windows all looked inland." A commentator has expressed the opinion that it takes no "Will Wizard" to solve the problem of the cellar, which was planned for bottles which would be handy when needed. When the opening of a new street did away with the summer-house, one John P. Wakeman purchased the dissected fragments, and endeav- ored to secure co-operation in putting together the materials and setting them up, restored, in another place. Finding it impossible to carry through his plan, he utilized the remnants of the famous resort of Cockloft for a carriage-house, afterward used for a residence on Ogden Street. Irving's room at Cockloft Hall he describes with his usual humor: "My allotted chamber in the Hall is the same that was occupied in the days of yore by my honored uncle John. The room exhibits many memorials which recall to my remembrance the solid excellence and amiable eccentricities of that gallant old lad. Over the mantel-piece hangs the portrait of a young lady dressed in a flaring, long-waisted, blue silk gown; be-flowered, and be-furbelowed, and be-cuffed, in a most abundant manner; she holds in one hand a book, which she very complaisantly neglects, to turn and smile on the spectator; in the other a flower, which I hope, for the honor of Dame Nature, was the sole production of the painter's imagination; and a little behind her is something tied to a blue ribbon, but whether a little dog, a monkey, or a pigeon, must be left to the judgment of future commentators. 26 HISTORIC NEWARK This little damsel, tradition says, was my uncle John's third flame; and he would infallibly have run away with her, could he have per- suaded her into the measure; but at that time ladies were not quite so easily run away with as Columbine; and my uncle, failing in the point, took a lucky thought, and with great gallantry ran off with her picture, which he conveyed in triumph to Cockloft Hall, and hung up in his bed-chamber as a monument of his enterprising spirit." Thus, in merry mood, and sometimes grave, the Gouverneur family — changed but little, it is said, save in name — live through the pages of Salmagu7idi, where their names are indelibly written for generations to come. Of Newark itself Irving writes but little, though in later years he wrote, "With Newark are associated in my mind many pleasant recollections of early days, and of social meetings at an old mansion on the banks of the Passaic." OLD DEACON SAMUEL ALLING'S MISTAKE WHEN HE FACED A COMPANY OF BRITISH There was an Ailing in the Revolutionary War who was a lieutenant of the local militia and a grandson of the respected Deacon Samuel Ailing of the First Church who came from New Haven about 1701. The young lieutenant's name was John, and on a bitter winter day he espied a company of redcoats filing down the street toward the northwest corner of Broad and IMarket where the Ailing place then stood, now occupied by a drug store. The temper of these soldiers was none of the best. There had been Patriot "snipers" all along the march, and their mettle was pretty well tried by the time they halted in front of the Ailing house. "The British are here, Abigail! Run to the cellar with the chil- dren!" called Lieutenant John to his wife. The old deacon, nearing the century mark, hearing an unusual commotion both within and without the house, raised the window of his room in an upper story, and, desiring to urge popping off as many redcoats as possible, called out: "Give it to 'em, John! Give it to 'em!" There he peered — in true Barbara Frietchie attitude — right" into the faces of a company of British. "Shall I shoot the old devil .^" called a soldier to his officer. "No," responded the officer, "he's too old to harm us." As a matter of fact, the deacon might have been picked off on the spot instead of living many a day to relate and laugh at the incident and the saving of his "old gray head," had it not been for the fact that "John" with his trusty flint-lock was making things warm for the enemy. Since it was intensely cold, he loaded and unloaded his gun at the kitchen fire. The British, finding many of their number were being picked off like sparrows, sent a contingent around to the back door of the house. When they broke in one door. Lieutenant John went out another, sought refuge in his orchard at the back of the house, dodged shot from behind apple-trees, and escaped with a slight wound in his leg. The Ailing family had two houses in Newark, — a town-house on 27 HISTORIC NEWARK DAVID ALLING'S HOUSE Which stood on Broad Street near Fair. Also known as Frenchman's Place, where Talleyrand and Chateaubriand stayed. From an oil painting in the possession of Clarence Willis Ailing the northwest corner of Broad and Market, back of which stretched an orchard, and a farm-house once located at 388 High Street. "This was my great-grandfather's summer home," says a descendant of the Revolutionary lieutenant. It is not known when this house was built, but it was torn down some time ago, and the site is now occupied by a manufacturing plant. The property where the Ailing farm-house stood was occupied for some years by the Crane family, who were among the first settlers of Newark. One of the Cranes married a daughter of the Ailing family. The farm property extended at one time over many acres in that section of the town. The dining-room of the house had in it a great fireplace, and there is a tradition that Henry Clay once dined in the room. WHERE TALLEYRAND, EXILED FROM CHATEAUBRIAND LIVED AND WROTE FRANCE, AND Monsieur Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, who became the subtle, shrewd, and unprincipled Minister of Foreign Affairs at the Court of Napoleon, like the monarch he afterward served, was once exiled from France. When in America, he spent about six months in Newark, where he occupied the house of David Ailing, maker of most excellent chairs. This house then stood on Broad near Lafayette Street, and was long known as the Frenchman's house because of the Frenchmen who had frequented it. It seems not a little incongru- ous that this brilliant statesman, Talleyrand, who has come down in 28 HISTORIC NEWARK history as a teacher of his own French school in Newark, should have had a stable stocked with good horses, and should have worn a diamond of more than ordinary size and brilliancy in his shirt-front. Possibly the townspeople of the early nineteenth century, as they watched the coming and going of Talleyrand and his countrymen, may have gathered up whatever newspapers they possessed recording foreign affairs, and read of the part that the famous Frenchman had played in the history of France. It will be remembered that, when a dissolute woman of Versailles forged the name of Marie Antoinette and purchased a magnificent pearl necklace, so great was the wrath of the populace against the queen that even the Court of Louis XVI was convinced that the ragged, starving mob that muttered through the streets was speaking truth. Talleyrand must have believed in the guilt of the queen, for he prophetically remarked: — "Alind that miserable alfair of the necklace. I should be nowise surprised if it should overturn the French monarchy." The "miserable affair of the necklace" may have been part of the series of events which finally drove Talleyrand to New York City, where he remained for some time in "mercantile business," which he eventually abandoned. He then went to Philadelphia, where he was lavishly entertained in French circles. "I hear," wrote George Washington to the Marquis of Lansdowne, "that the general reception he met with [in Philadelphia] is such to compensate him, as far as the state of our society will permit, for what he has abandoned on quitting Europe." It is stated that Talleyrand meddled somewhat ostentatiously in affairs of state in this country, and that he especially asserted himself in Philadelphia. He came to Newark late in 1794, ^^^ there are no records that tell of his joining the then famous fox-hunts, no accounts of his mingling socially in the town, no stories of his ever rambling with any fair belle of Newark through the paradise for courtship, then called Lovers' Walk. It has been suggested that he helped make chairs in David Alling's shop, but that is no more compatible with the large diamond and good horses than is the French school over which he is said to have presided. A^Ionsieur Talleyrand wrote, it is claimed, in the Ailing house his essay, "Une Memoire sur les Relations Commerciales des Etats-Unis vers 1797," afterward published in France; and it is further claimed that the Viscount de Chateaubriand, French Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1823, visited Talleyrand and planned, while in Newark, the outline of "Le Genie du Christianisme," which he afterward completed in a London garret and published in Paris. The Frenchman's house was built by David Ailing a century ago, and, being double, the house was for many years one of the show places of the town. It was spacious, and had an extensive court-yard at the back. In the chair-shop were made the "beautiful sofa and most elegant sideboard of an entirely new pattern" which Judge Elias E. Boudinot ordered for the suite which was furnished for Lafayette when he visited this country in 1824. David Alling's first wife was Nancy Ball, descendant of Stephen Ball, the Revolutionary Patriot 29 HISTORIC NEWARK murdered by the Tories. On a part of the Ailing estate now stands a business building, and it is interesting to know that Stephen B. Ailing, the son of David, went personally to Vermont, where he selected the marble used in the office building. JERSEY APPLEJACK ROUTS THE HESSIANS A tradition of the Bruen family claims that the tea-kettle now stand- ing in a glass case at the New Jersey Historical Society on West Park Street was the first — and for some time the only — tea-kettle owned in Newark. It belonged to Obadiah Bruen, former member of the Plymouth Colony and early settler in Jersey. If tradition may be relied on, this symbol of home comfort made many a visit to Obadiah Bruen's neighbors; for, even though tea was both scarce and expensive in those days, still there arose special occasions at which the ladies of the little town on the Passaic gossiped over their cups when "com- pany" came to supper. Substantial tea-kettle that it was, there is a possibility that the neighbors who borrowed it were not so careful as the family themselves or vice versa, for its sides bear evidences of a number of severe bumps and of a long and continued usage. Equally interesting is a Bruen tradition concerning a party of Hes- sians that during the Revolutionary War, on a bitter winter day, stopped their horses in front of the Bruen house and rapped with their whipstocks on the front door. The head of the house, like many a good Patriot neighbor in Newark, with real diplomacy withheld all indication of "what side he was on." "Welcome, gentlemen, welcome!" he may have said, as cold gusts swept his hall; for he certainly invited his visitors in, according to Bruen traditions. The winter wind chilled him, and he thought of a little, hungry company of half-clothed Patriots not far away. It was through his foresight, keen appreciation of the situation, and expedi- ency of action that this forlorn band of his countrymen was saved. "A bitter day it is abroad, but ' rest you merry,' " he probably remarked still more jovially, as the Hessians stamped in with much puffing and clanging of weapons. "I have that in my cellar which will warm you and send you on your way again, — new men and better able to with- stand the elements." Excellent applejack was stored in the Bruen cellar, and servants were summoned to tap a good keg, which they brought to their master. Generously he dispensed the amber beverage to his guests, careful all the while not to serve himself. Again and again he urged that glasses be drained. The soldiers lingered until, warm and drowsy, they went out into the cold of the winter day. Some of them slug- gishly mounted, while others cut across the meadow behind the house in which they had quaffed the excellent applejack. Almost to a man, tradition says, they went to sleep on the meadow, and nearly all perished from the cold. The few who survived were captured by American troops. On the northwest corner of Hill and Broad Streets, where once stood the old Bruen house of Revolutionary fame, was built in its 30 HISTORIC NEWARK place, and in its turn torn down years ago, another Bruen mansion, surrounded by spacious gardens and luxuriant orchards. It has been described as having the appearance of a beautiful Southern manor, with its stables and corn-fields, arbors, hedges, and broad walks. Without there was an abundance of red and white rose-bushes; within, frescoed ceilings and rosewood doorways. In the centre of the roof was built a massive dome. The first double wedding reception in Newark was celebrated at the close of the Civil War in this mansion. Miss Julia Bruen and Mortimer S. Ward, and General Theodore Runyon, afterward am- bassador to Germany, and Miss Clementine Bruen, were married on January 20, 1864, in the Central Methodist Church, the double recep- tion afterward being held at the Bruen house. Some of the descend- ants of Julia Bruen and Mortimer S. Ward believe that somewhere on the old Bruen place is buried a chest of silver that was concealed for safety during the war of the Revolution. THE CAPTURE OF JOSEPH HEDDEN, JR. The winter of 1780 was an unusually bitter one, and in January of that year the British, taking advantage of the intense cold, sent two raiding expeditions into Jersey. Colonel Abraham van Buskirk led his force of four hundred men across the ice from Staten Island into Elizabethtown, where during the night he burned the town-hall, "Parson" Caldwell's church, and captured nearly half a hundred of the post-guard. In the mean time Major Lumm, in command of the other expedition, marched five hundred strong into Newark. They burned the academy that stood in what is now Washington Park. They next raided the house of Joseph Hedden, Jr., and dragged him from a sick-bed. Eliza Roberts, a sister of Mr. Hedden, who then lived in her colonial house, was aroused, and told that the redcoats were dragging her brother away from his home, opposite, on Broad Street. Across the park, lighted by the flames of the burning academy, Mrs. Roberts hastened to her brother's house, and found his wife in her night-clothes, cut and bleeding, endeavoring to save her husband. The son had jumped from a window, and escaped up the river on the ice. On that bitter night Mr. Hedden was marched all the way to New York, where he was imprisoned in the Old Sugar House prison, and, after being kept there for some months, he was brought back to his Broad Street home, where he soon died. It is thought that the fact of Mr. Hedden's being a commissioner "for the seizing and inventory of the estates and effects of persons gone over to the enemy" made him a person hated by the British. A "HARVEY BIRCH" MEEKER OUTWITS THE BRITISH Within a short distance of historic Divident Hill, where the Eliza- bethan and Newark settlers met to fix a boundary line, in what is now the Lyons Farms part of the city, stood the old Meeker place, which had gathered a hundred years of history before the war of the 31 HISTORIC NEWARK Revolution gave young Josiah Meeker his opportunity. An aged mother, it is said, prevented young Josiah from joining the ranks of the regular army. So he played his part nearer home, and was a familiar figure, dashing over the country on a swift horse, sometimes in the uniform of an officer, at others in the garb of a countryman. Thus disguised, he carried messages from one part of the American army to another, ran great risks, and was often within the enemy's lines. During the war the Meeker house was the gathering-place for Continental soldiers. Often, too, the British came, asking boldly for refreshment. A score or so of redcoats once came to the Meeker house, where they were welcomed by young Josiah, who summoned an old colored mammy and told her to place before them an abun- dance of everything from the larder. The best dinner and the finest cider— for which Newark was then famous — were brought. After offering every courtesy to his guests, young Meeker may have said: "I want you to excuse me. When you came, I was just starting for my grandmother's death-bed. I must go now." So gracious was he that no suspicion was aroused in the minds of the enemy. He went to the stable, brought out his favorite horse, and started at great speed to collect from the country-side, for three or four miles around, a party with which to assail the British feasting in his house. What might have happened, had the British continued to make merry over their most excellent cider, may be imagined. But fortune intervened in the person of one Phyllis, colored, a neighbor, violently pro-British. Phyllis had seen the soldiers enter the Meeker house, had observed that they remained a long time, and she had seen young Josiah Meeker ride away in haste. Phyllis knew his habits, and was not long in making up her mind that it was time for her to take a hand in things. The redcoats were having a jovial party when she appeared in the doorway. She angrily told them that Josiah Meeker was gathering the Con- tinentals, and, if the troopers didn't wish to be butchered on the spot, they'd better scamper, which they certainly did. In doing so, they left pistols, hats, swords, and belts. They ran for their horses in the Meeker barn, and barely escaped; for, as they dashed off wildly toward Elizabethtown, Meeker and his party surrounded the house. These are but fragments of the interesting events connected with the old homestead. Until its sale a few years ago, the place was in the uninterrupted possession of one family for two centuries and a quarter. At the time the land on which it stood was sold for building lots, it was the oldest house in the State of New Jersey. During all the years the Meeker family had been a brave one that had helped make Newark history from the first Meeker settler, who was given the land on which the homestead stood after playing the constable in defiance of Car- teret and pulling down some houses and fences of which he and the "Associates" didn't approve. Thereby hangs a tale, for the begin- nings of which one has to turn back Jersey pages to the 28th of Octo- ber, 1664. There was then a tract of land lying west of Staten Island which some hardy colonists from Long Island and New Haven pur- chased and occupied. They were known as the "Associates," and 32 HISTORIC NEWARK THE MEEKER HOUSE, HOiME OF A BRAVE COLONIAL SPY Built in 1676. Stood on Prospect Avenue (now Chancellor Avenue) a block west of Elizabeth Avenue, in the Lyons Farms section of Newark. At the time of demolition a few years ago considered to be the oldest house standing in New Jersey among their number was this first Meeker of all, whom history dubs Goodman Meeker. Somebody has said that he was Jersey's first constable; for, in defiance of Carteret, who with his followers were named the "Proprietors," he pulled down a house or two that he and the "Associates" claimed, according to previous agreements between themselves and Carteret, should not have been erected. Goodman Meeker was proclaimed a mutineer, an enemy to the government, and his property was confiscated. His old neighbors, grateful to him for his eflPorts on their behalf, gave him the land on which this old Meeker house was erected in approximately the year 1676. The house was built by his son, Benjamin Meeker, who came with him from the New Haven Colony, where he was born. "One hundred years later," writes a descendant of the first Meeker, "this house was used as an underground station for the Continental soldiers who escaped from the Prison Ships at the Wallabout." The old house had a solid stone foundation. Above this were eigh- teen-inch brick walls, covered with boards, shingled on the outside and plastered within. With the exception of reshingling the roof and rebuilding the chimneys, no changes were made in the old place. At the Meeker homestead during the Revolution Elihu Fish, a Continental officer, who escaped from the prison and afterward became a lay judge of a Connecticut court, as well as a hotel pro- prietor, found shelter after having vainly sought it from place to place. When he arrived at Meeker's, he was hungry, penniless, and sick. 33 HISTORIC NEWARK The good women of the house and young Josiah nursed him back to health, and during the days of his convalescence he remained at home with the aged mother, while Josiah Meeker scoured the country in the interests of the Continental Army. In 1824, when Lafayette was in Newark, there came to the old homestead a distinguished gentleman, who proved to be the once penniless young officer, Elihu Fish, whom the Meekers had befriended in the days of the Revolution. He did not tarry long; but, after he went away, he sent back a set of spoons that are now cherished by descendants of daring Josiah Meeker. The house was torn down about two years ago. THE SCHUYLER MANSION A fortunate accident, early in the eighteenth century, gave a new turn to the family fortunes of the Schuylers. While one of their negro servants was ploughing in a field on their estate, near the banks of the Passaic, he turned up a heavy green stone, which he carried to his master. This stone was sent to England for an examination, the result being anxiously awaited. The assay probably far exceeded Arent Schuyler's expectations, for the analyst declared the bit of rock to contain no less than eighty per cent, of clear copper. The vein was opened, and found to contain large quantities of copper. Capital for the development of the newly discovered mine was easily procured. As the coffers of Arent Schuyler filled, he thought of his slave, and, tradition says, wished to reward him. The negro was summoned to the house, and told that in addition to his freedom he would be granted any three wishes within reason that he might make. His refusal of freedom was definite and instantaneous, as his first wish was that he should always be allowed to work for his master. The wish being granted, he pondered for a while. At last, with evident satisfaction at having solved so difficult a problem, he announced his two other desires: — "I wants, marse, all the tobacco that I can smoke as long as I lives and" — this with a rush — "a dressing-gown with brass buttons the same as yours." "But," protested the amused Mr. Schuyler, "wish for something valuable." Thoughtfully scratching his head, after a serious pause the slave voiced the "valuable" wish: — • "Well, marse, I think I'd like a little more tobacco." The mining enterprise led the owner to import from England one of the Watt and Boulton steam-engines, which, brought over in 1753, was said to be the first erected in this country. Expert geological talent was also procured from Europe, the most distinguished being Josiah Hornblower, who assumed for a time the superintendence of the mine, which was rapidly yielding a fortune to the owner. The Schuyler mines were for many years worked with success, the only interruption coming at the outbreak of the war for independence, in the fight for which the Hornblowers and Schuylers were ardent Patriots. Work was resumed in 1792, but early in the nineteenth century either 34 HISTORIC NEWARK SCHUYLER MANSION, BELLEVILLE The home of Arent Schuyler a derangement in the machinery or fault in the cyhnder through which the water was taken from the mine put an end to operations. Josiah Hornblower, who came over with the engine and expected to return to England as soon as it was in running order, determined to remain in this country, the reason being his marriage to a Miss Kingsland, whose father's plantation adjoined that of the Schuylers. As he was but twenty-five years of age and very handsome, as the record runs, it may be concluded that the arrangement was a satis- factory one. The Schuyler family was among the earliest settlers of Bergen County, and the neighbors long pointed with pride to the mansion on the gentle slopes of the Passaic as the most palatial in America. Wide lawns and dense, well-cared-for shrubbery surrounded the house, while along the driveways the mighty elms, which had been brought as young trees from England, towered over the plantation. Although opinions vary, the date when the Schuyler mansion was erected is generally accepted as 1735, though one authority declares it was in 18 10, and that the bricks were brought from Holland. In the back- ground of the estate were the out-buildings, including a boat-house, greenhouse, and stables. Still farther back were to be found the house of the overseer and quarters for the slaves. The extensive park was stocked with deer and game. The hospitality of the Schuylers was well known throughout the country-side. Their mansion, much changed, still stands on the banks of the Passaic in what was once Newark, but is now Arlington. The commercial possibilities of the old mine were exhausted years ago; and many a resident of Newark, now a middle-aged man, remembers his "daring" exploring trips, when a youth, to the levels of the abandoned mine. 35 HISTORIC NEWARK JOSEPH HAYES HOMESTEAD ON LAND GRANTED BY QUEEN ANNE On the corner of Avon Avenue and Somerset Street. From a photograph taken about 1900 THE HAYES HOMESTEAD Joseph Hayes and his sons built the old Hayes homestead in 1768, leaving as an adornment to their front yard the old well that good Queen Anne a century before had specified should be built when she made the grant of one hundred and sixty-two acres that originally comprised the Hayes estate. The Hayes boys went to the war. The Hayes girls worked the farm and took care of their mother. Hessians devastated portions of the town, entered houses and destroyed the furniture, appropriated provisions, and looted family valuables. Warning came to the Hayes place one day that the redcoats were coming. With singular coolness and forethought the girls concealed the family treasures, locked up the provisions, and then gathered their cattle from the pasture and drove them over the mountains. Awhile later, on returning to their home, which they expected to find in ruins, they found broken furniture and the disorder of the rooms the only evidences of the soldiers' invasion. Three members of the Hayes family are particularly mentioned in the old histories, the first being Thomas Hayes, who came to Newark in 1692, There is also a Thomas Hayes, said to be a namesake of his forefather, who is recorded as one of a "committee of seven for preserving of the 'neck' and cattle pound." He was one of a com- mittee of four to consider the advisability of allowing Azariah Crane to have land for a tan-yard at the front of John Plum's "home Lott out on the Common." Of the men who served their country. Major Samuel Hayes is a worthy representative, being described as "a whig, vigilant and active in the time that tried men's souls." He was an officer in the Second Regiment of the Continental Army. 36 HISTORIC NEWARK THE FIRST MILL ERECTED IN 1671 Stood about at the corner of Broad Street and Belleville Avenue. It was where Newark's first industry began The Hayes homestead that sheltered the famous family for so many generations was destroyed about fifteen years ago. In the old days it was situated near Clinton Avenue. The opening of a new street, however, placed it at the corner of Somerset Street and Avon Avenue. The site on which it stood is now occupied by an automo- bile store and a moving-picture house. NEWARK'S FIRST INDUSTRY, WHERE A BUSTLING, CHEERFUL MILLER GROUND THE CORN OF THE FIRST SETTLERS Below Broad Street and Belleville Avenue was once "the Little Brook Called Mill Brook." It came down from the western hills of Newark, turned the wheels of the first mill, and ran into the Passaic River. When the early settlers came to Newark, they first built their homes, then tilled the soil. With the harvesting of their crops there naturally arose the need of a mill, and the records of the fifth town- meeting, held March 9, 1668/69, contain an item to this efltect: — • "The Town saw Cause for the incouragement of any amongst them that would Build and Ivlaintain a Good Mill, for the supply of the Town with Good Grinding, To offer and Tender freely the Timber Prepared for that use. Twenty Pounds Current Pay, and the Accom- modations Formerly Granted Belonging to the mill, viz.; 18 acres of upland and 6 of meadow, with the only Liberty and privilege of Build- ing a Mill on ye Brook; which motion was left to the Consideration of the Town Betwixt this and the 12th of this Mo. Current at Even, and the Meeting is adjourned to that Time: And in case any desire 37 HISTORIC NEWARK sooner, or in the mean Time to have any further Treaty or Discourse about his or their Undertaking of the Mill, they may repair to Mr. Treat, Deacon Ward and Lieutenant Swain, to prepare any Agreement between the Town and them." There was much discussion concerning the proposed mill, but no one seems to have visited Robert Treat at his home on the " Four Corners" and volunteered to undertake the task of putting the proposal of the town into execution. The records of the town-meeting of March 12, 1668/69, show that, as no one accepted the town's encouragement to build and maintain a mill, it was determined to hire Lieutenant Swaine for twenty shillings a week, "and three pounds over for his skill," to run the mill. Another harvest, however, passed, and there was still no mill to grind the corn. Finally, the town engaged Robert Treat to direct the building of "a sufficient corn mill ... set upon the little brook called Mill Brook." It was agreed that the second day of the week and the sixth day of the same week be the grinding days, upon which days the miller would attend to the grinding, and the town was to bring its grain to be ground. Thus Mill Brook and the old mill began their work, and the first industry was established in Newark. For many years the ponderous water-wheel was turned by the little stream called Mill Brook. Modern homes now stand on the waterway which fed the mill. When the old mill was torn down some years ago. Dr. William S. Disbrow secured one of the millstones, which he had conveyed to the New Jersey Historical Society on West Park Street, the grounds of which it still adorns. WHEN THE BRITISH RAIDED NEWARK News spread like wildfire through Newark in November, 1776, that the British were coming to attack the town, and something like a proclamation was added, to the effect that all good Tories who remained quietly in their homes would not be molested. A notorious Tory, one Captain Nutman, was so enthusiastic over the anticipated attack of the British that he jubilantly met them in the street. He was robbed of the very shoes he stood in, his house plundered, and violent threats of hanging him were made by the party with which he had sympathized. On the day that Captain Nutman greeted the enemy with such an ovation, houses far and near were plundered and lives threatened. More than one citizen of Newark received ill-treatment, among them aged Benjamin Coe and his wife. Benjamin Coe was both a farmer and a tailor, a highly respected citizen of Newark, and an ardent Patriot. When the Revolutionary War broke out, he was too old to join the ranks in the field, but, wish- ing to be represented there, he sent as a substitute his negro slave, Cudjo. The negro returned at the close of the war, was rewarded by Mr. Coe with freedom, and given for life the use of an acre of land. The same day that Captain Nutman fared ill at the hands of the British, Benjamin Coe and his wife, sitting quietly at home, were surprised by the enemy, were compelled to witness the destruction of 38 HISTORIC NEWARK THE OLD COE HOMESTEAD Built in 1782 at the corner of Court and Washington Streets their household furniture, and were so brutally treated that they fled for their lives. Mr. Coe, as he hastened away, concealed a bag of gold in a patch of weeds at the back of his house. The British set fire to his house and burned it to the ground. Mr. Coe's loss was estimated at £337 14J". 4^. After this raid he went to Hanover in New Jersey, but returned to Newark at the close of the war. His son, Benjamin Coe, Jr., a thrifty farmer, in the year 1782 or 1786 built the Coe house at the corner of Washington and Court Streets. It occupied the lot where formerly was the house which the British burned. As business swept toward the corner, the Coe place was torn down, and on the land now stand buildings devoted to commer- cial interests. Benjamin Coe, Jr., gave one hundred pounds toward building the First Presbyterian Church. ANTHONY WAYNE'S CAMP-GROUND Anthony Wayne, with a detachment of the American army con- sisting of about two thousand men, according to tradition encamped in the north end of Newark during the intensely cold winter of 1779. His camp is said to have been in the vicinity of what is now Woodside Avenue. The Old Powder Magazine, erected in 181 2 for the storage of powder of the Decatur Works, stood on the site of this Revolution- ary camp-ground. Thirty years ago, because no record of this en- campment had been made, a Newark writer went over the site, and personally talked with many of the old residents of the north end, including the grandson of the woman who owned the woods where the encampment is said to have been. By careful investigation he gleaned 39 HISTORIC NEWARK THE OLD POWDER MAGAZINE On Heller Parkway and Woodside Avenue. This stood on ground where Anthony Wayne is said to have encamped in 1779 much that was interesting, and said that "traces of this encampment are found in the excavations which the soldiers made for their huts. ... In one of these excavations the stones which mark the temporary fireplace still remain." Grape-shot and a sword were also found on the camp-ground. "About a mile northwest," continued the writer of this account, "the old barn, in which were slaughtered the cattle for the use of the army, still stands." Mr. Nathaniel Crane, whose family owned this barn, was inter- viewed, and declared he had heard his father talk of the encampment. Jasper Crane, whose father was a soldier in Wayne's army, attended roll-call, and he remembered seeing the soldiers remove their caps and stand on them to protect their bare feet from snow and ice. Crane also said that, when the troops started for Morristown, where they went because of fear of being flanked by the British who followed hard at their heels, a heavy snow was falling, and the bleeding feet of the soldiers left a red trail as they marched. "Their way," continued the narrator, "was along the old Bloomfield road. . . . From Bloomfield the march was through Caldwell, where the snow became so deep that the artillery was left behind, imbedded in drifts, on a road near where the penitentiary now stands, until spring. At Bloomfield a picket was posted to guard the rear. One of the men climbed on to the fence to see if the British were pursuing. In the act his gun was discharged, killing him instantly." Jasper Crane's story is confirmed by the fact that a snow-storm did begin on February 3, 1779, and lasted three days, leaving 40 HISTORIC NEWARK OLD SCHOOL-HOUSE AT LYONS FARMS At one time the oldest school-house in use in the United States, and standing on land purchased from the Indians for a quarter of a pound of powder. Built in 1784 on the site of the original school-house which was burned by the British the snow eight feet deep on the Bloomfield road. Further proof also is offered in the fact that, when Wayne made his attack, July, 1779, on Stony Point, he was without artillery. The "Magazine House" was a stone building erected in 1812 and used by the Decatur Powder Works. For some years it occupied this ground on which, tradition claims, Wayne's Camp was located. Before its destruction several years ago, when modern dwellings crept up to it, the powder house was located at Heller Parkway and the newly opened Woodside Avenue, back of the Summerfield Methodist Church. NEWARK'S OLD SCHOOL-HOUSE In the southern part of the city, on the corner of Elizabeth and Chancellor Avenues, there is a little old building of Jersey brownstone, — Newark's oldest school-house, said also to be the oldest school-house in use in the United States. From the days when the land was pur- chased from the Hackensacks for a quarter of a pound of powder, it has been devoted to educational purposes. A wooden school-house was built here before the present one of stone. This first building was erected in 1728, and many a lad from Newark, Elizabethtown, and surrounding boroughs learned to read and cipher on its crude wooden benches. The old wooden school-house was on the highway, and in its yard 41 HISTORIC NEWARK and the adjoining fields thousands of Jersey soldiers were mustered to fight in the war of the Revolution. One day its children became excited as the news flew that General Washington was passing on his way to winter headquarters in Morristown. He rode at the head of his men, and the children, wide-eyed and eager, flocked out of the door and gathered about the teacher as the troops came up. And the little old school-house, indeed, may have been proud when the tall general reined his horse and spoke to the children. Whether he looked at the little old house is not recorded. Whether he spoke of it, no- body knows. But he passed it, and it is so recorded. It had moth- ered State troops — five thousand of them^ — and had seen Washington before the eventful day when redcoats passed it on their way to raid Elizabethtown, and burned it. Not an unblackened stick was left, but the coals were scarcely cold when the men and women of Lyons Farms gathered to find means of erecting another building in its place; and in 1784 there was completed the school-house that stands to-day. As the old one was far too small for the children who attended it from the Lyons Farms district, some years ago a new school-house was built; and it is probable that the newest and the oldest school buildings in the State stood for some time almost side by side. Trolley cars now pass the school-house, and the surge of modern dwellings rapidly is sweeping up to its doorway. JOHNSON'S MILL An interesting tradition is told concerning Newark's second mill and its miller at the time of the Revolution. This mill, which was erected about 1680 on Bound Creek near Two Mile Brook, was the second one in the town. The records show that, when Thomas John- son, one of the first settlers of Newark, was appointed constable, his son Joseph was made town drummer. His chief duty was to beat the drum on Sunday morning to summon the good folk to church. This first town constable's great-grandson, John, ran the old second mill, which at the time of the Revolutionary War and for some time thereafter was known as Johnson's Mill. John wanted to fight with the Patriot army, but there is evidence that his services were required nearer home; for, since flour was the staff of the community's life, he could better play the part of miller, and fill the sacks of the village folk and those of the soldiers when they passed his way. So he re- mained at the second mill. He was wont, when the British ravages were too hot, to beat a retreat to a convenient hollow tree in the neighborhood, where he concealed himself until the threatened danger had passed. A party of Continental soldiers filled their sacks at his mill in November, 1776, and left, telling him that the British were following close at their heels. Everything of value that Johnson, the miller, and his family could hastily gather together, was deposited in an arm-chair in the kitchen of the house. Mrs. Johnson called her children, seated herself at the window, — the valuables carefully placed under a cushion of the chair in which she sat, — and watched the 42 HISTORIC N E WARK .^«a%»^**»«'***^ JOHNSON'S MILL AND FARM-HOUSE The two stood opposite the Poorhouse, and here corn was ground for the Revolutionary Army approach of the British up the road. In the mean time her husband had loaded a wagon with grain and driven at high speed to the hollow tree in the woods near Irvington. Mrs. Johnson never moved an inch out of her chair, and the children must have discreetly held their tongues; for, after rummaging noisily over the house, the soldiers returned to Mrs. Johnson and demanded whatever valuables she might possess. The good woman was such a born diplomat, and her children so unusually demure and wide-eyed, that no valuables were disclosed. A British officer finally offered somewhat abruptly to place a guard over the house if Mrs. Johnson would give his men bread and cheese, — evidently, a more mundane substitute for the much- desired valuables. Having obtained from the miller's wife the "open sesame" to the pantry, and having found there evidently sufficient food, the soldiers took themselves off. John Johnson afterward converted his mill into a place for the manufacture of wool, and he was one of the earliest to pursue this work in Newark. By way of proving this point, an item appears in the New Jersey Jourfial of 1790, as follows: — "The Subscriber informs the public, and his friends in particular, that his Fulling Mill is in complete order, and that he has supplied himself with the best of workmen from Europe, so that they may depend upon having their work done with care and expedition. He intends dressing all kinds of cloth and will dye them any color they may choose, except scarlet, after the first of October next." 43 HISTORIC NEWARK THE BALDWIN HOUSE At the comer of Mulberry and Lafayette Streets until about 1902. It stood on the home lot of "John Bauldwin, Jr.," one of Newark's first settlers THE BALDWIN HOMESTEAD The old Baldwin house stood on the corner of Mulberry and La- fayette Streets. On the spot where the house stood was the "home- lott" of one of the first Newark settlers, "John Bauldwin, Jr." An early map shows his place on Mulberry Street. Next to it was the lot of Micah Tompkins. Both places were near what was then Camp's Lane in the southern part of the town. For generations the estate remained in the family, and a path, well trodden by the Baldwin cows, extended over what is now Lafayette Street. The pasture where the herd was driven has been located, extending down to the salt meadows, and the farm buildings were at a distance from the house itself. There is a story, frequently recalled, of the apprehension that the Baldwins felt during the War of 1812, when they heard there was danger of the British coming across to Newark from Long Island. Mr. Ezra Baldwin, fearing lest his two hundred head of excellent cattle might be appropriated by the enemy, gathered them together and drove them across the Orange Mountains. The tradition does not include information as to whether the appre- hensions of this expected raid were ever realized, or how soon afterward Mr. Baldwin drove his herd back to his farm. There were formerly many acres in the Baldwin estate. At the back of the house was a great well, and some distance from this was a large stone basin where the slaves which the Baldwin family kept were accustomed to wash. A story is told of Uncle Cuff, whom 44 HISTORIC NEWARK THE PARK HOUSE, OXCE THE HOME OF GEN. FREDERICK IRELLNGHUYSEN It stood near the corner of Canal Street and Park Place until about 1898. Now the site of a theatre everybody in Newark seemed to know and like. The close of the Civil War left him homeless; and, to add to this, he was fast losing his sight. It is said that his former master saw to it that he was made in every way comfortable, and that all his life he was well cared for. He lived at the farm-house, and the young folk of the neighborhood used to gather to hear him whistle, and the little folk went to him often to be measured. Uncle Cuff's cane was full of notches where he had measured the children. A story is also told of Mr. Baldwin's great flock of carrier-pigeons, and how one of them — "Always Ready" — was taken west, beyond Indianapolis, and came straight home again. The Baldwins were among the founders of the First Presbyterian Church, and one of the family planted the elm-trees standing in front of the present edifice. THE FRELINGHUYSEN HOUSE When Theodore Frelinghuysen was a youth just out of college, he wooed and won beautiful Charlotte Mercer, whose father gave her as a marriage dowry the Park House, where the young couple made their home until they moved to a larger home at 33 Washington Park. Here Charlotte Frelinghuysen watched over her extensive garden, entertained friends of the family, and served tea bounteously. The young couple were happy, and the husband was rapidly advanc- ing in affairs of state. His father before him had been a public- spirited citizen. He was General Frederick Frelinghuysen, and at the time he joined the Continental forces he was only a lad, but brave 45 HISTORIC NEWARK as any man; and they say he fired the bullet that disabled the com- mander at Trenton, Colonel Rahl, when General Washington came upon them unexpectedly at Christmas time. General Frelinghuysen fought in both the battle of Monmouth and the battle of Springfield. He represented New Jersey at the Continental Congress in 1778, and after the war he was a senator. Theodore Frelinghuysen, the son, is spoken of as follows: "His unostentatious piety, his powers as an orator, his excellent judgment, had made him a conspicuous figure in State life. Serving as an attorney-general of New Jersey and as United States senator, he had later become chancellor of the University of New York, and had been relied upon to sustain the Whig cause in the East, particularly as the Democratic administration had become unpopular." An- other historian says that he was "one of the best and the purest of American statesmen." Park House, facing Military Park, where the Frelinghuysens spent the early part of their married life, was torn down some time ago, and on its site is Proctor's Theatre. About 1820 the Frelinghuysens moved away from Park House, which was converted into a hotel a dozen years later. An advertisement in a local paper gives some information concerning the house: — Park House — B. Day, formerly keeper of the Mansion House, informs the public that he has taken the former residence of the Honourable T. Fre- linghuysen on Broad Street — Park Place^directly east of the flagstaff, at the foot of the Common, and adjoining the Morris Canal. The house has just undergone extensive repairs, and is now ready for travellers and for those desiring permanent board. When Henry Clay visited Newark in 1833, he was a guest at the Park House, where he was greeted by the citizens of the town. "Well, gentlemen," said Mr. Clay when they pressed him for a speech, "I did not come to make a speech. I came to shake hands with you and become better acquainted with you, and, if you please, to take a chew of tobacco with you." OLD NEWARK ACADEMY In Newark two well-known academies have been built, and, though authorities claim that they were distinct organizations, nevertheless the first was, at least, the inspiration which led to the building of the second. The first academy was built in 1774 on an acre and a half of land, granted by the town, in what is now the southern part of Washington Park. The grant was "to a body of citizens as trus- tees for an academy to be carried on for the English and Classical education," and the building which they erected was "a sightly and commodious stone edifice." There were living-rooms for the boarders as well as for the teachers. The school work was summarily arrested by the Revolution, and the building turned into a barracks and hospital for the American troops, finally being burned to the ground the night of January 25, 1780, by a party of British troops, who crossed from New York on 46 HISTORIC NEWARK NEWARK ACADEMY, WHICH WAS ON THE SITE OF THE POST-OFFICE It stood at the northeast corner of Broad and Academy Streets from 1792 to 1857. From a painting by John B. Lee, 1857. Picture owned by the New Jersey Historical Society the ice and raided New Jersey. No steps were taken to replace the old academy until the year 1789, when the efforts of the Rev. Alexander Macwhorter, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, also a trustee of the first academy, and a number of other trustees, bore fruit. They formed an association to found a new academy, of which association Isaac Gouverneur was chosen president. Many expedients were employed to raise money to build. Judge Elisha Boudinot and Abram Ogden were appointed a committee to petition for a lottery to obtain funds to build, and the request was granted with the stipulation that the amount to be raised in this way should not exceed eight hundred pounds. There is no record of just how much money was realized by the lottery, but there is a note that the Rev. Uzal Ogden sold for forty pounds a slave named James, that had been given him for the fund by a man named Watts. The min- ister was something of a farmer, for there was a saying that "the negroes raised the corn, hogs ate the corn, and the negroes ate the hogs," leaving it incumbent upon the Rev. Uzal Ogden to raise money to support the negroes. The funds for building the academy would probably have been short, had not St. John's Lodge of Free Masons agreed to pay one-third of the expense, provided the lodge could have the third story set aside for its use. The energy of the Rev. Mr. Macwhorter had much to do with the successful starting of the academy, for even before the 47 HISTORIC NEWARK close of the Revolution, in 1782, he had announced he would set up in Newark "a philosophical academy," provided he was able to obtain a sufficient number of students. He was chosen president of the first board of trustees, and the corner-stone of the new academy was laid June 22, 1792, at the corner of Broad and Academy Streets, where the post-office now stands, "amid the acclaim of a large num- ber of the inhabitants of the town and neighborhood." The building was of brick, sixty-six by thirty-four feet, and three stories high, with a seven-foot stone basement. It was divided into a number of apart- ments, finished in plain style, and for the use of young gentlemen only. The ordinary English branches were taught, as well as Latin and Greek and some of the modern languages. A female department was added in 1802, and the Rev. William Woodbridge was placed in charge of the institution. A commodious brick house for the accom- modation of the young ladies with the principal's family was soon afterward erected on the lot adjoining the academy. In 1809, as Mr. Woodbridge had determined to give up, the school trustees separated the male and female departments, and placed each under a different corps of teachers. The academy building on the site of the post-office was sold in 1855 to the United States Government for $50,000, and in 1857 the trustees purchased the building known as the Wesleyan Institute on the premises bounded by High, William, and Shipman Streets. The Rev. F. A. Adams was first principal, and held office until 1859, when he was succeeded by Dr. Samuel A. Farrand. Since Mr. Farrand's death in 1908 the academy has been in charge of his son, Wilson Farrand, who was long associated with his father as head-master. A new site has been purchased in the Roseville section, overlooking the Park, and, as soon as sufficient money has been obtained, a new building will be erected there. MINE HOST, ARCHER GIFFORD, HIS TAVERN AT THE "FOUR CORNERS," AND WHALING DAYS IN NEWARK "Newark — noted for its fine breed of fat mosquitoes — sting through the thickest boots — story about galleynippers — Archy Gifford and his inan Caliban — jolly fat fellows — A knowing traveller always judges of everything by the inn-keepers and waiters — set down Newark people all fat as butter — learned dissertation on Archy Gifford's green coat, with philosophical reasons why the Newarkites wear red worsted nightcaps, and turn their noses to the South, when the wind blows. Newark Academy full of windows — sunshine excellent to make little boys grow — Elizabethtown — fine girls — vile mosqui- toes." — Memorandum of a Tour to be entitled " The Stranger in New Jersey" in "Salmagundi,'" Washington Irving. Archer Gifford, jolly "Archie" Gifford, tavern-keeper at the "Four Corners" in the days of the stage-coaches and fox-hunts, has been called the finest man in Jersey. His tavern, bearing the sign of the Hunter and Hounds, was known throughout the length and breadth of the States, and twice a day, with merry din, stage-coaches, as regular as clock-work, drove up to the door of the inn. Those days in the early thirties were some of the most picturesque the "Four 48 HISTORIC NEWARK iff "7 •'•w. ^E^^UiU^ AN OLD WHALING CERTIFICATE ISSUED BY THE NEWARK WHALING, SEALING, & MANUFACTURING CO. In July, 1837, the whaling schooners ]ohn Wells and Columbus left the Centre Street Wharf, Newark, commanded respectively by Capt. John Russell and Capt. Ephraim Black. They sailed together down the coast, leaving much of this paper money behind them on the way. The Columbus was wrecked, but the John Wells returned to Newark with 3,000 barrels of oil and a great quantity of whalebone. This three shilling note was the property of John Neefus of Nursery Street, Newark, who found sticking to it a little one-cent bill of Davis & Son, of Providence, R.I. The whaling script is as big as a $10,000 United States note. Corners" have ever known. To-day past that very northeast end of Broad and Market Streets surge the thousands of a great city, but the breadth and sweep of the place — as free as the crack of a whip in Gifford's day — have passed and given place to towering business structures. Southern folk were often guests at Gifford's Tavern. Did not the tavern-keeper himself extol to Colonel John Rutherford the particular excellences of the products of Mr. Combs's shoe-shop on the south side of Market Street? Colonel Rutherford was interested. He vis- ited the local manufacturer of footwear, and left a munificent order for no less than two hundred pairs of sealskin shoes to be sent to him in the South. In this way did Archer Gifford start the export trade of Newark's shoes. In 1834, shortly after President Jackson made Newark a port of entry, Archer Gifford was appointed collector of the port. There was considerable whaling trade, as well as coastwise trade, carried on with Philadelphia, New York, and many Southern ports. Im- ports in 1835 amounted to nearly $2,500,000, and the exports were approximately $8,000,000. Two whaling schooners, John Wells and Columbus, first-rate whalers, having a crew of thirty men and boys, sailed out of Newark. On their way to Cape Horn they stopped at various ports, and went thence north to the Behring Sea. The Columbus was wrecked on an ice floe. The Wells took aboard oil and crew. The log stated that the Wells returned to Newark with three thousand barrels of whale oil and a quantity of whalebone. The following statement was made by Archer Gifi'ord after his second term as collector of the port: "There are eighty-two vessels of all classes, and 245 marines, cleared from the port of Newark during the past year, six brigs and three ships for foreign countries, with foreign and domestic goods amounting to $36,988.20." The good 49 HISTORIC NEWARK THE OLD MORTON BREWERY On High Street near Orange, where one of Newark's greatest industries began. 1899 to make room for manufacturing buildings Removed in tavern-keeper and port collector's name appears on the committee that furthered the plan of incorporating Newark into a city in 1836. When the hills about Newark resounded with the bay of fox-hounds and the reverberating horn, it was to mine host at Gifford's Tavern that the followers of the chase returned for refreshment. A tradition exists that in the house of John Decatur, facing Military Park, hung the brushes of two hundred foxes. Though no similar tradition clusters around Gifford's Tavern, there may have been as many there, brought by gra- cious guests as a tribute to their merry host. " I fell in with a fox-chase," says Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt in his Travels, "in my short journey on this road. It is a common diversion with the gentlemen of Jersey, at least in these parts, and here, as in England, every one joins in the chase, who either has a horse of his own or can borrow one." OLD MORTON BREWERY Prior to the early thirties several short-lived attempts had been made to start a definite brewing business in Newark. Ever since Caleb Johnson in 1795 advertised that he was brewing "ale, porter and table beer," for a number of decades the business of being a brewer was a somewhat popular, but not an altogether successful one, until Thomas Morton came to Belleville from New York, and thence to Newark in 183 1, and definitely established, in the big stone building on High Street near Orange, the Morton Brewery. To Thomas Morton, therefore, is due the credit of starting this great business in the town that not long afterward became a city. SO HISTORIC NEWARK THE CEDARS, HOME OF FRANK FORESTER It stood on the banks of the Passaic on ground that is now a part of Mount Pleasant Cemetery From the " Life and Writings of Frank Forester" by David W. Judd The building on High Street was for years used by the Morton family for brewing purposes. After the suspension of brewing in the eighties the old place was rented for a pickle factory, and was from that time on used for various industries. Gradually it fell into decay, and more than a dozen years ago was torn down to make room for factories that were built on its site. FRANK FORESTER'S SOMBRE LIFE AT "THE CEDARS" "I have a home where the soft shadows fall From the dim pine-tree, and the river's sigh Like voices of the dead wails ever nigh." Henry William Herbert. Henry William Herbert, one of the greatest sporting authorities America has produced, whose books are now eagerly sought by collect- ors, was known to the literary world as "Frank Forester." He shook off the dust of New York City the middle of the last century, and came to Newark, where in the north end at a bend in the Passaic River, near Cockloft Hall, he purchased three-quarters of an acre of land and built "The Cedars." His father, William Herbert, dean of Manchester, and son of the Earl of Carnarvon, paid two hundred and fifty pounds for the house and the land. New York and the brilliant coterie of huntsmen and men of letters, in which Herbert was an equally brilliant figure, lost their charm after the death of his wife, beautiful Susan Barker Herbert. He hid him- self in the desolations of the forest near the Passaic. At first he spent his time planting myriads of cedars about the place. Then he built a simple, rustic cottage of sweet-smelling cedars, and, though within SI HISTORIC NEWARK and without it was crude, it met the author's simple needs. Vines and creeping plants were trained across the piazza. Sailor, a mas- sive Newfoundland dog, mounted guard in the doorway, the sole ornament of which was a deer's head with spreading antlers. On each side of the winding path that led to the house, dog-kennels were placed; and a merry din they made when any one ventured toward the place. Few interrupted the life of the solitary man, who shut himself off from the world to write his books. In the study of "The Cedars" were completed twenty-three of the one hundred vol- umes that came from Frank Forester's pen. On stormy nights when the cedars without were wind-tossed, and the lonely occupant of the cottage that bore their name was within, fighting his gloomy thoughts and fancies, he would bring out a small mahogany basket, containing fragments of things belonging to his wedding day, — a shred of her bridal veil, her satin slipper, bits of white ribbon, and a wreath of yellowed and dusty orange blossoms, — • and, holding these relics, fraught with memories of his wife, against his cheek, wash away their dust with his tears. Stories were whispered among the neighbors of all-night carousals at "The Cedars." On one of these occasions Herbert suddenly stopped drinking, went to a closet, and brought forth swords. Throw- ing one of them on the table, he ordered a member of the company to defend himself. Some one had the presence of mind to overturn the table, thus upsetting the lamp and leaving the room in darkness. The company broke up, and groped their way out of doors. After their escape they were madly pursued by Herbert, who went after them down the Gully Road, and he is said to have kept up the chase until he was obliged, by losing sight and sound of his prey, to give up pursuit. But a short distance from "The Cedars" was a hill at the head of a cross-lane. Here Herbert and Valentine, the mad lawyer, fought a duel, in which Herbert escaped with a bruised foot from Valen- tine's pistol-ball. One day during the winter of 1858, when there were labor troubles in New York, a mob of agitators assaulted a young lady in the streets, and Herbert came to her rescue. A short time afterward she married him, and came to "The Cedars," where she remained three months, and then departed, apparently to visit her mother; but she really left him to sue for divorce on the ground of cruelty. Herbert invited a group of old friends to dine with him. Details concerning this feast of May 16, 1858, which was to have been his wedding feast, delayed because of lack of money, are not known. Toward two o'clock in the morning Herbert arose from the table and went to another room, where he placed himself in front of a full-length mirror, and, taking aim from his reflection, shot himself through the heart. "I told you I'd do it," he said, as he staggered into the room where his guests were gathered about the table. "I loved her unutterably. I was immeas- urably happy. All is lost, — home, hope, sunshine: she — let life go like- wise," Herbert wrote before his death. "The Cedars" was sold and renovated, but before entirely completed was burned. 52 HISTORIC NEWARK FISHERMEN, FISHING, AND FISH-POLES ON THE PASSAIC AND GAME ABOUT NEWARK Up and down the Passaic, more than half a century ago, fishing- boats passed, gathering shad and smelts, for which the river was famous. Closely connected with the record of these days is the Old Point House, which stood on the western bank of the river near "Green Island," long vanished, which lay off the northern end of Alount Pleasant Cemetery. The old house passed from one owner to another, and was the scene of many interesting incidents. Though it is not exactly known when the Point House was erected, it was old in the middle twenties, and had lost none of its prestige in Frank Forester's time, — thirty years later. Forester knew the river well, and he frequented the Point House. In an article written by him, called "Memoir of the Smelt of the Passaic River," published in Grahanis American Monthly Magazine, 1854, he speaks of the Ameri- can smelt and the superior qualities of fish of the Passaic. OLD POINT HOUSE From "Woodside," by C. G. Hine The Old Point House, the history of which is so closely woven with the fishing industry on the Passaic, after changing hands many times, became the resort of fishermen, who, though pursuing their vocation within sight of their own kitchen windows, nevertheless cooked chowders and spun yarns at the old house. Later, when there were many rowing matches on the river, the Point House was converted into a sort of half-way place for refreshments, and parties loitered in picturesque groups beneath the willows. Drivers who travelled over the river road between Belleville and Newark spoke of the landmark as the "half-way house," while oarsmen counted it the half-way point over the mile and a half rowing course. S3 HISTORIC NEWARK Charles F. Murphy, a veteran angler and hunter of Newark, who made in 1865 the first split bamboo fishing-rod, gave the New York Times, December 11, 1881, an interview in which he describes the hunting and fishing about Newark from 1830 to 1850. "Snipe, wood- cock, and rabbits were as thick as hops right here in Newark," said he, "and I've seen flocks of wild ducks and geese cover the ground back of the City Hall." The City Hall then stood at the corner of William and Broad Streets, and back of it were a pond and marsh made by a small brook. "I've caught trout and perch and shot game where St. Patrick's Cathedral and the finest residences now stand. School-boys used to scoop up hatfuls of fish during dinner hour, and the sky was darkened every day by the flocks of wild pigeons that flew to the trees on the Commons, now Military Park." He said further that he had seen in the Passaic River sturgeon four feet long spring out of the water and fall back again with a splash, like a man diving. Smelts were then so thick that people wouldn't take them home, and shad could be had for a song. He described the river as so clear that one could see "thousands of bass, perch, pickerel, sunfish, catfish, suckers, salmon, and smelts on the bottom." Where the Market Street Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the surrounding factories now stand was, about 1830, according to Mr. Murphy, a swamp known as Burt's Pond, where game gathered in large quantities. An old hunter named Seal Harris, while snipe-shoot- ing among the alder and high grass on the pond, "disappeared one day, and was later found buried ten feet deep in the quagmire." There are no traces of the swamp now, and hundreds of railroad trains run over it every day. THE DAY WOMEN VOTED AT THE OLD COURT-HOUSE Elizabethtown and the town of Newark had a bitter argument at the beginning of the nineteenth century as to which one of them should possess the Essex County Court-house. Elizabethtown was then in Essex County, and she wanted the new court-house for which Newark, the county seat at that time, had petitioned the Board of Freeholders. Since the First Church moved to its present quarters in 1791, the court-house had been located in the old meeting-house in what is now Branford Place. Both it and the jail which adjoined it were inadequate in every way. The building was not only too small, but it rapidly became dilapidated and unsuited to the growing needs of the county seat. When application was made to the Board of Freeholders of the county either to repair the buildings or build new ones, seven towns in the State — among them Elizabethtown and New- ark — asked that they might be the seat of county government. The contest gradually simmered down to Newark and Elizabethtown, the former fighting to retain what she had and the latter eagerly aggressive to snatch away the prized possession. As the eventful day ap- proached, when the citizens were to vote for the town of their choice, their demonstrations became more and more violent, until it was finally 55 HISTORIC NEWARK taken for granted by the men of each village that the best way to keep bones whole was to stay at home and declare, by casting their ballot, just where they did want the court-house. Seth Woodruff and William Halsey did not stay at home, however, but harnessed up a mare in an attractive gig, and jauntily trotted over to Elizabethtown, where an irate citizen treated them to a shower from a bucket of tar, specially reserved for Newarkers, whose business he thought it was to stay at home until the court-house question was settled. It was asserted that the voting in Elizabethtown was dishonest. If that is true, it is fair to say that Newark surpassed her rival, for when election day, February lo, 1807, arrived, there was a rush for the polls. Women then voted in Jersey. On this particular day they availed themselves many times of the privilege, concealing their identity on each trip to the polls by appearing in various cos- tumes. "Every person," wrote an old Newark author who personally remembered the day, "voted at every poll, married women voted as well as single women. Three sisters, the youngest fifteen years, changed their dresses and their names and voted six times each. Men and boys changed clothes in order to duplicate their votes, and married and single women did the same. Never was there a more reckless election. Newark won the court-house, and in the evening illuminated herself even to the tops of her steeples. Cannon thundered and bellowed, and all the tar and apple barrels which could be gathered in from miles around were consumed by fire." Newark got the court-house, but of course there was scandal. Ground was broken for the new building in 1 8 10 on a lot at the north- ern corner of Broad and Walnut Streets where Grace Church now stands. This land was given by Governor William S. Pennington. Much of the stone of the old meeting-house and jail in Branford Place was used in the new building of three stories. Cells were located in the cellar, and there was a debtors' prison on the top floor. This court-house was burned, August 15, 1835. A new one, after the style of Egyptian architecture, was built in 1837 on the site of the present court-house at Market Street and Springfield Avenue. This eventually gave way to the present court-house, erected in 1907.