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ARTES
LIBRARY
1837
VERITAS
SCIENTIA
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN |
I PLURIBUS UNUM
TUEBUR
SQUAERIS PENINSULAM AMOENAMÚ,
CIRCUMSPICE
זון!
J

اسرية

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2:
29
4/23
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
AND THE
7
FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
WITH SOME NOTICES OF THE
SCHUYLER COPPER MINES AT SECOND RIVER, N. J.,
AND A
GENEALOGY OF THE HORNBLOWER FAMILY.
BY WILLIAM NELSON,
RECORDING SECRETARY OF THE NEW JERSEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
Read before the Society, at Newark, May 17, 1883.
NEWARK, N. J.:
DAILY ADVERTISER PRINTING HOUSE.
1883.
+
+
1
し
​1
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER.
་

JOSIAH HORNBLOWER
73896
AND THE
FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
WITH SOME NOTICES OF THE
SCHUYLER COPPER MINES AT SECOND RIVER, N. J.,
AND A
GENEALOGY OF THE HORNBLOWER FAMILY.
BY WILLIAM NELSON,
RECORDING SECRETARY OF THE NEW JERSEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
Read before the Society, at Newark, May 17, 1883.
NEWARK, N. J.:
DAILY ADVERTISER PRINTING HOUSE.
1883.
A full bɛ-9-6
L.
-
D
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA,
"Somewhat back from the village street," in the burying-
ground beside the venerable Reformed Church at Belleville,
New Jersey, stands a large brownstone slab, thus inscribed:
IN
MEMORY
OF
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER, ESQR
who departed this Life
ON THE 21ST OF JANY AD 1809
Aged 79 Years 10 Months
and 29 Days.
Josiah Hornblower was born in Staffordshire, England,
February 23, 1729, N. S. His father, Joseph Hornblower,
was even at this early day engaged in superintending the
construction of steam-engines, which were just coming into
general use in the coal mines of that part of England-now
known as the "Black Country "-and in the deep tin and
copper mines of Cornwall, for pumping the water from the
dismal depths to which the shafts had penetrated. These
engines, then known as "fire-engines," were designed by
Thomas Newcomen, and embodied the most practical appli-
cation of the power of steam that had vet been seen, being
indeed the first to cope successfully with the problem of how
to clear the deep mines from water. It is said that a patent
4
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
+
was granted in 1705* to Newcomen, in connection with John
Calley, his partner, and Thomas Savery, who had received a
patent himself in 1698 for a steam pumping-engine, and some
of whose ideas were incorporated in the new machine. It was
not until 1712 that Newcomen and his associates got one of
their engines into successful operation at a mine near Wolver-
hampton. It gave such excellent satisfaction that others
were built forthwith, and during the next year the engines
were introduced into Cornwall. Their practicability having
been demonstrated, especially as obvious improvements were
speedily added, within a very few years they came into gen-
eral use throughout the "Black Country" and in Cornwall,
particularly in the latter region, where the mines had been.
sunk so deep that they could no longer be worked to advan-
tage by hand and horse power. It is believed that Newcomen
made the acquaintance of Joseph Hornblower at the time he
was building his first successful engine, in 1712. He engaged
Mr. Hornblower to superintend the erection of other engines
subsequently, and brought him from Staffordshire about the
year 1725 to supervise the erection of the second engine in
Cornwall-at the Wheal Rose mine, a few miles north of Red-
ruth. He soon after erected another engine at Wheal Busy,
or Chacewater, and a third at Polgooth, also in Cornwall.‡
The engines were called after the inventor, or from the
country where they were best known, as the "Newcomen
"Cornish" engines.
oľ
Not only was the elder Hornblower an engineer, § but several
* This is a mistake, as no patent was ever taken out by Newcomen."-Lives of
Boulton and Watt, by Samuel Smiles, London, 1865, 63.
+ Desagulier's Experimental Philosophy, 1744, quoted in A History of the Growth
of the Steam Engine, by Prof. Robert H. Thurston, New York, 1878, pp. 33-68;
Ure's Dictionary of Arts, etc., New York, 1853, I, 490. Smiles says the first engine
in Cornwall was erected in 1720.—Lives of Boulton and Watt, 69.
+ Yesterday and To-day, by Cyrus Redding, London, 1863.
That the occupation of the first of the family was far from being so prosaic is
obvious from the signification of the name. "The berner was a special houndsman
who stood with fresh relays of dogs, ready to unleash them if the chase grew heated
and long. In the Parliamentary Rolls he is termed a ‘yeoman-berner.' Our 'Horn-
blows,' curtailed from 'Hornblower,' and simpler ‘Blowers,' would seem to be
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
5
10
of his sons were likewise, and for three-quarters of a century
or more the family was prominent in engine construc-
tion.* Jonathan Hornblower, the oldest son of Joseph, was
particularly eminent as an engineer, and in 1745 settled in
Cornwall to superintend the erection of "fire-engines," tak-
ing with him his younger brother Josiah, then but a lad.
Several of the sons of Jonathan followed the same business
for many years, among them Jabez Carter and Jonathan, Jr.
The former was employed to superintend the erection of
pumping engines in Holland and Sweden, and was a dis-
tinguished inventor in other departments of science and the
arts. Jonathan Hornblower, Jr., was one of the rarest in-
ventors of England. He it was who (in 1776) invented the
compound or double-cylinder engine, so essential for the
swift and successful navigation of the ocean to-day, by which
the steam is economized and utilized to an enormously greater
closely related to the last, for the horn figured as no mean addition by its jubilant
sounds to the excitement of the chase. He who used it held an office that required
all the attention he could bring to bear upon it. The dogs were not unleashed until
he had sounded the blast, and if at any time from his elevated station he caught
sight of the quarry, he was by the manner of winding his instrument to certify to
the huntsman the peculiar class to which it belonged. In the Hundred Rolls we
find him inscribed as 'Blowhorn,' a mere reversal of syllables."-English Surnames,
by George Wareing Bardsley, London, 1875, p. 233. See also Lower's Essay on
English Surnames, London, 1819, I, 105; Arthur's Etymological Dictionary of Fam-
ily and Christian Names, New York, 1857, p. 163. There is a somewhat vague
family tradition that an ancestor na ned Green was a bugler in the service of
Charles II (?), and that his dulcet strains sɔ captivated the ear of the "Merry Mon-
arch" that he one day exclaimed, "thou shalt be my horn-blower." Whence the
Horners."—
name.
The family were also locally and colloquially known as the
See Lives of Boulton and Watt, 298, 302.
* In the early days of engine building, there was as much difference between an
engineer and a manufacturer of engines, as there is to-day between an architect
and a house-builder. The Hornblowers were engineers; they examined into the
amount of work required to be done by the engine, estimated the necessary capa-
city and dimensions of the several parts, made all the drawings and superintended
its erection, until it was completed and satisfactorily in operation. Boulton & Watt
were perhaps the first to combine the two branches, of designing and constructing,
in their works at Soho, near Birmingham.
+ The imposition of a heavy duty on coal transported coastwise retarded for
many years the extension of the use of steam-engines in Cornwall, which had to
import its coal from Wales by water. The removal of this duty in whole or in part
gave an immense impetus to the use of steam-engines in the Cornish mines, and
this led to the removal thither of Jonathan Hornblower.
Family records, communicated to the writer by the Hon. Joseph P. Bradley,
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
6
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
extent than would be possible without it. At the same time
he invented several other valuable improvements in the steam-
engine, including an important modification of the walking-
beam, and tight-fitting collars about the cylinders and pistons,
to prevent waste of steam.* He did not apply for a patent
on these inventions until 1781, and meantime James Watt
had (in 1769) taken out a patent for his separate condenser,
which is the greatest improvement, perhaps, the steam-engine
has undergone from the time (about 1628) the Marquis of
Worcester conceived the idea of "an admirable and most
forcible way, to drive water by fire," to the present day.
Watt's patent of 1769 evidently included the mere germs of
inventions not yet fully perfected by him, but his vague
specifications were capable of a comprehensive application,
which his shrewd and wealthy partner, Matthew Boulton,
was not slow to urge, whenever his interest demanded it, with
all the ingenuity and influence he could exert by tongue, pen
or ample pecuniary resources. Other competitors were driven
from the field, and the Hornblowers especially, as the most
formidable, were prosecuted, nay, persecuted relentlessly, for
alleged infringements on Watt's inventions, particularly on
the principle of the separate condenser, until they were ruined,
although they pluckily kept up the fight for years. It is only
within the past few years that not only has the vast utility of
Hornblower's compound engine been demonstrated, but the
injustice done him by Boulton and Watt has been admitted
by those most competent to judge. §
It was surrounded by a family of mechanics and engineers
that Josiah Hornblower grew up to manhood, and became
proficient in all that pertained to mining and machinery, and
especially "fire-engines." His attention was not confined
* Encyclopedia Britannica, 3d ed., art. "Steam Engines.”
+“Century of Inventions," by the Marquis of Worcester, No. 68. See Thurston,
ut supra, pp. 19-23.
+ See the Specifications, quoted by Thurston, ut supra, 99.
§ For a fuller account of Hornblower's engine, and the controversy with Boulton
& Watt, see Appendix I, Note A.
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
7
4
solely to mechanics, for it is said that "without the aid of a
liberal education, but with a strong mind and studious habits,
at a very early period of life, he became acquainted with some
of the most intricate, and at the same time most noble
branches of science. Mathematics, magnetism, electricity,
optics, astronomy, and in short the whole system of natural
and moral philosophy, became his favorite studies."* While
he was engaged in the erection of an engine at Anglesea,† be-
ing at the time not twenty-four years of age, a call came to
him from London. He went thither, and was asked by the
agent of Col. John Schuyler, of New Jersey, to erect a steam-
engine at that gentleman's copper mine in America.
The story of the discovery of this mine has been often told:
how Arent Schuyler, a scion of the wealthy and distinguished
family of that name at Albany, having first settled at Pomp-
ton, about 1710|| removed to New Barbadoes Neck,** where
he owned a great tract of land on the castern bank of the
Passaic, nearly opposite what was then known as Second
River (now Belleville), which bade fair to impoverish him;
* A Collection of American Epitaphs and Inscriptions, by the Rev. Timothy
Alden, New York, 1814, No. 1063, Vol. V, 234-5. His father's tastes ran in the same
direction, which accounts for the son's bent of mind. In 1755 his father wrote to
him that he had been making successful experiments with an electrical machine of
his own contriving, by which he could apply the galvanic current to any part of
the human body, to relieve local pain. This is one of the earliest instances on
record of the use of electricity in disease.- Hornblower MSS.
+ Proceedings New Jersey Historical Society, May, 1851, p. 161.
The statement is made (on the authority of Alden's Epitaphs), in Barber &
Howe's Historical Collections of New Jersey," New York, 1815. p. 155, that
"Aarent Schuyler came to this country, from Holland, in early life, depending
upon his industry alone, under Providence, for a support; "that is, that he was
poor. In fact, he was born at Albany, in 1662, being the sixth child of Philip
Pieterse Schuyler, one of the two founders of the family in America, and who was
at this time a wealthy man, though still young.-History of New Netherland, by
Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan, New York, 1855, Vol. II, 177; History of the County of Hud-
son, New Jersey, by Charles H. Winfield, New York, 1874, 531–4; New York Gene·
alogical and Biographical Record, April, 1874, 60.
§ In 1635 he and Major Anthony Brockholst, both then of New York, bought 5,500
acres on both sides of the Pompton river; Schuyler lived where is the present vil·
lage of Pompton.-Historical Sketch of the County of Passaic, New Jersey, by
William Nelson, Paterson, N. J., 1877, 25.
# Winfield, ut supra, 533.
** The old name of the neck or peninsula lying between Newark bay and the Pas-
saic and Hackensack rivers, New Jersey.
8
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
how one day, about 1714-15,* an old slave found a heavy green-
ish stone and took it to his master, whose curiosity being
aroused he had it assayed, when it proved to be a rich speci-
men of copper ore; how-and here the story is enriched by
the addition of a legend which, with appropriate local color-
ing, has done duty for many ages and in many nations-the
delighted master offered to reward the slave by granting him
any three requests he might make, whereupon the old negro,
after ponderous deliberation, begged that he might be allowed
to remain all his days with his master, that he might have all
the tobacco he could smoke, and that he might have a dress-
* Gordon (Thomas F.), in his Gazetteer of New Jersey, Trenton, N. J., 1834.
p. 11, gives the date as "about 1719," and subsequent writers have followed him,
although he gives no authority for his statement. But Brigadier-General Robert
Hunter, Governor of New York and New Jersey, writing from New York, November
12, 1715, to the Lords of Trade, encourages them to believe a way has opened for
the supply of copper coinage, "There being a Copper mine here brought to perfec-
tion, as you may find by the Custom house books at Bristol, where there was im-
ported from this place about a Tonn in the month of July or August last, of which
copper farthings may be coined," etc.-New York Colonial Documents, V, 462.
This undoubtedly refers to the Schuyler mine, and appears to fix the date of its work-
ing as early as 1715. It is not unlikely that the actual discovery of the copper was
made at least a year before, as the first samples would have to be sent to England for
analysis, and a report received thence, ere the mine would be "brought to perfec-
tion," as the Governor somewhat exultantly announces. Writing again in 1720,
Governor Hunter reports "copper but rare," in New Jersey.—Ib., V, 556; and
even doubtingly writes: "Some Copper as 'tis Said but I never Saw any."-Docu-
ments Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey (New Jersey
Archives), edited by William A. Whitehead, Newark, 1832, Vol. IV, 450. In 1721 he
reports: "there is a great quantity of iron ore, and some copper
" in the province
of New Jersey.-Ib.. V, 22; New York Colonial Documents, V, 603. In April, 1721,
there were 110 casks of ore from this mine shipped from New York to Hollan 1,
and the Surveyor of the Port of New York wrote that "Copper Oare now rises very
rich and in great plenty in a New discover'd mine of one Mr. Schuyler in New Jer-
sey."-New Jersey Archives, V, 7. The shipment of the ore to Holland excited
the apprehensions of the Lords of Trade, who suggested that it should be pre-
vented by act of Parliament. At the request of the Duke of Newcastle, one of the
Lords Justices of the Treasury, Governor Montgomerie conferred with Col. Schuy-
ler, in relation to the matter, but could only secure from him. the promise that the
English Copper Company should have the first sight of his ore when his ships
arrived in England with it.—Ib., V, 7, 9, 267.' This was in 173). Curiously enough.
the New Jersey Legislature came to the relief of the English manufacturers in
1734, by imposing a duty of forty shillings per ton on all copper ore exported from
the province not directly to Great Britain; and still more strangely, the first com-
plaint against this measure came from Bristol, England, where were extensive
brass and copper factories. It was found in practice that the law was evaded by
shipping the ore to New York and thence to England or other countries; but the
Bristol traders feared the act would discourage mining operations in the province.
-Ib., V, 376, 406.
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
9
ing-gown like his master's, with big brass buttons, and being
urged to ask for something more commensurate with the im-
portance of the favor he had done his owner, thought he
would be satisfied with a little more tobacco.* Prof. Kalm,
the Swedish botanist, states that "some Dutchmen who lived
in Philadelphia," still (in 1748) "preserved the old account
among them" that "on digging in this mine, the people met
with holes worked in the mountain, out of which some cop-
per had been taken, and they found even some tools which
the Indians probably made use of, when they endeavored to
get the metal for their pipes." While this may possibly have
been the fact, it is to be borne in mind that Kalm was a
stranger in a strange land, who might readily misunderstand
local references like this, and his informants, living ninety
miles away, were not likely to be familiar with the facts. I
Authorities differ as to the character and value of the yield of
this mine. While it is possible, even probable, that lumps
and occasional pockets of nearly pure copper have been found
in and about the neighborhood, there does not appear to have
been a true vein of copper. Rather "it would seem as if a
certain stratum of the rock had been injected with the metal-
lic matter, not filling a cleft or fissure in it, but dispersing,
and as it were, dissipating itself through the substance of the
* Winfield's Hudson County, 533-4; Gordon's Gazetteer of New Jersey, 11.
+ Travels into North America, etc., by Peter Kalm, 2d ed., London, 1772, Vol. I.
300. This is probably the authority for the statement that hammers and other
tools were found in an opening which had been worked many years before that
date (1719) by Dutch settlers.”—History of New Jersey, Philadelphia, 1877, by
John O. Raum, Vol. II, 354. The authority for the statement in the same work that
this mine is located “in the town of Hanover, Morris County." is not given The
mine is in Union township, Bergen county.
As an amusing instance of the liability of travelers to get their notes “mixed,''
it may be mentioned that Isaac Weld, Jr., in his "Travels Through the States of
North America, during the years 1795-6-7," 4to ed., London, 1799, 151, relates a
mythical story of the finding of this mine by a person who. "passing by at three
o'clock in the morning, observed a body of flame arise out of the ground,” and
with prudent forethought drove a stake into the spot, and excavations being
subsequently made there, copper was discɔvered. Weld had confounded the
Schuyler mine with that near New Brunswick, which is said to have been brought
to light (about 1750) in this marvelous manner.-See View of the American United
States, by W. Winterbotham, London, 1795, II, 368.
UorM
10
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
sandstone," in the form of a "compact, dark-colored sulphu-
ret" and carbonate of copper.* Such is the general charac-
teristic of the outcroppings of copper in New Jersey. At one
place in Paterson the trap-rock looks as if at one time it had
been a mass of loose boulders, which had become partially
fused by the heat, and was then permeated with the sulphides
and carbonates of copper.t
It is strange that such exaggerated notions of the richness
of this Schuyler mine should have prevailed so long. They
were doubtless fostered by the owners from time to time.
Thus, in 1833, when a new company was forming to work the
mine, it was represented that the ore of the principal vein
yields from 60 to 70 per cent. of copper, and the vein will
produce, it is supposed, from 100 to 120 tons of ore annually,
which yields from four to seven ounces of silver to the hun-
dred pounds; and, like most copper ores, a small portion of
gold. When pure copper was sold in England at £75 sterling
the ton, the ore of this mine was shipped from New York for
that market at £70 the ton." These statements (from Gor-
don's Gazetteer, p. 12) have been often quoted since, by writ-
ers who overlook the fact that Gordon is careful to say that
they are given on the authority of "several respectable per-
sons, who have the skill and proper means to judge of them"
* Geological Survey of New Jersey, by Prof. Henry D. Rogers, 1836, pp. 167-8;
do., 1840, p. 160; Geology of New Jersey, by Prof. George H. Cook, 1868, p. 676;
Lecture on the Natural History of New Jersey, before the Newark Mechanics'
Association, June 3, 1828. by Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell, 19. Copper is said to have
been found at Neversink, in 1659.-Calendar of New York Historical MSS., Dutch,
edited by E. B. O'Callaghan, Albany, 1865, pp. 286-7.
+ In Marion street, between Totowa and Union avenues, Paterson, N.J. The grad-
ing of the streets in that vicinity has destroyed the vestiges which formerly existed
of a large shaft and two drifts into the side of the hill, one running under Union.
avenue, and the other nearly at right angles to and under and some´ distance
beyond Marion street. The writer penetrated the latter drift to a distance of
seventy feet or more, abɔut the year 1870. It formerly was still more extensive, he
was told. The shaft and drifts were made more than a century ago, so far as he
has been able to ascertain.
+ These figures seem incredible, even though the omission of the word "sterling "
after the £70, be intentional, and New York currency, or $175, is meant. In 1770
only 41 tons of copper ore were exported from America, being valued at £853 13s.
sterling, or less than £21 to the ton.-Statistical View of the Commerce of the
United States, by Timothy Pickering, Hartford, 1816, p. 21.
Maou
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
11
-being doubtless the persons interested in the new company.
Gordon himself, whose familiarity with the mineralogy and
geology of New Jersey is shown in the opening chapter of his
Gazetteer, is evidently incredulous, for he sarcastically re-
marks: "If the ores of the Schuyler mine give from four to seven
ounces of silver to the quintal, and are abundant, they must be
hetter working for the silver alone than most of the silver
mines of the world; and the copper product must add enor-
mously to their value."* However, the Old World people
were continually expecting to find mines of all the valuable
metals anywhere and everywhere in America, and when cop-
per was actually found, even of the quality and quantity of
that dug up near Second River, it was hailed as a great discov-
ery, and as the precursor of the development of untold riches
as the work should be pushed deeper. After nearly a century
of vain prospecting in all parts of New Netherland," this
was really the first mine of any value that had been dis-
covered. When first worked, near the surface, there is rea-
†
*Gordon's Gazetteer, 12.
+ This discovery stimulated renewed researches wherever there were surface
indications of metals, however slight, and the trap rock of the First and Second
Mountains of New Jersey was diligently probed within the next few years. Copper
mining was carried on to some extent on the Kingsland estates, next north of the
Schuyler property. In the New York Gazette, or The Weekly Post-Boy for
February 17, 1755, the ferry at Second River is offered for lease, with the stone
ferry-house, within a mile both of Messrs. Schuyler's and Lucas's copper mines,
which are both at work.' The traces of silver found with the copper encouraged
many to believe (as in 1833) that silver and perhaps gold could be found in New
Jersey. Governor Burnet wrote to Lord Carteret, December 12, 1722: "It is confi-
dently reported, that Silver & even Gold Mines are to be found in New Jersey. But
there must be a great Allowance made for the humour that now prevails to run a
Minehunting, & as I have yet nothing but very suspicious accounts of such Discov-
eries of Royal Mines. I cannot pretend to give any opinion yet about the truth of
them. But I am inform'd that several persons have positively declared, that if
they could be certain in whom the Title lay, & that they should have a reasonable
share of them, they would make the discovery, & never otherwise.”—New Jersey
Archives, V. 64. The question as to the title to "Royal Mines," that is, mines of
the precious metals, was referred to the Attorney General and the Solicitor Gene-
ral, who reported it (Nov. 30, 1723) to be their opinion that by the charter granted
to the Proprietors of New Jersey only the Base Mines within that Province passed
to the Grantees. and that the words of the Grant are not Sufficient to carry Royal
Mines, the property whereof Still Remains in the Crown."-lb., V, 74. Three years
later Governor Burnet, referring to this opinion, said he had not since heard from
the people who had declared they “had a prospect of silver mines, nor can I
give them any encouragement to make a discovery, unless Your Grace (the Duke
DorM
12
JOSIAH HORNnblower,
son to believe that the mine was highly profitable, although
the yield averaged only about 100 tons per annum, for up to
1731 but 1,386 tons of the ore had been shipped to the Bristol
Copper and Brass Works.* As England did not permit the
smelting and refining of ore in the colonies, the produce of
the mine was all transported across the ocean. Encouraged
by the returns from their workings, the sanguine owners
pushed operations with vigor, until in the course of thirty
years the mine had been carried down to such a depth that it
was scarcely profitable to sink the shafts lower, on account of
the difficulty in pumping out the water by hand and horse-
power.
The new "fire-engines," which had recently come into
general use in the manufacturing districts of England, seemed
to afford the opportunity to continue the advantageous opera-
tion of the mine for many years longer, and Col. John
Schuyler, who had the management of the property for his
brothers and himself, their father having died, † through his
agent in London ordered one of these wonderful machines.
This was probably in 1748 or 1749. In the latter year Benja-
min Franklin, ever interested in natural science, visited the
mine, and in February, 1750, N. S., writes to a friend:
“I know of but one valuable copper mine in this country, which is that
of Schuylers in the Jerseys. This yields good copper, and has turned out
vast wealth to the owners. I was at it last fall, but they were not then at
work. The water has grown too hard for them, and they waited for a
fire-engine from England to drain their pits. I suppose they will have
that at work next; it costs them one thousand pounds sterling."
of Newcastle) shall think fit to obtain His Maj'ty's instructions to me, what share
His Maj'ty will be pleased to empower me to offer to them in case of a discovery.”
-Ib.. V, 129. It were vain to conjecture the amount of silver and gold that would
have been produced from New Jersey mines had "His Majesty" adopted a liberal
course in this matter. If the opinion quoted is good law, the title to all gold and
silver mines in New Jersey is now vested in the State, as the successor of the
(rown.
* Gordon's Gazetteer, 11.
+ Arent Schuyler's will was proven July 6, 173?; the mine was left tɔ his three sons.
Letter of Franklin to Jared Eliot, from Philadelphia, February 13, 1749–50.–
Works of Franklin, edited by Jared Sparks, Boston, 1838, VI, 107.
Maou
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA
13
<!
It was four years or more after the engine was ordered ere
it was in readiness for transportation. Then Josiah Horn-
blower, who had doubtless had something to do with its con-
struction, was engaged to accompany it to America and super-
intend its erection and first working. We may easily believe
there was no small stir in the quiet home-circle when his de-
parture was determined upon, and there was, it may be im-
agined, a natural feeling of pride that one of their family,
and he so young, should have been selected for so important a
trust as the introduction of steam-power into the new conti-
nent. Moreover, though they all supposed, as he did him-
self, that he would return home as soon as his errand was
done, and he had seen his "fire-engine" running satisfac-
torily, great were the risks attending an ocean vogage in those
days, when it took weeks and sometimes months to traverse
the pathless waste of waters, and when none had as yet
dreamed of substituting steam as a motive power in ocean
navigation in lieu of the fickle winds. The event was so
noteworthy that his elder brother, Jonathan, made this entry
in his diary:
May 8, 1753.—Brother Josiah set out for Falmouth to go in a tin
ship to London, in order to sail to New York, North America.”*
Nothing is said of the object of his journey: that was too
well known to need explanation in a private diary.
When did Hornblower arrive in América, with his precious
freight? We can fix the date almost to a certainty. The New
York newspapers of the summer and fall of 1753 mention,
either in the news or the advertising columns, the arrivals of
vessels at that port. Among them all there is but one that
seems to meet the requirements of the case, and that is the
Snow Irene, whose arrival is chronicled in both the New
York Mercury and the New York Gazette, or The Weekly
*A granddaughter of this brother sent in 1844 to the late Chief-Justice Hornblower
the above extract from her grandfather's diary. It was communicated to the
writer by Mr. Justice Bradley.
14
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
Post-Boy, of Monday, September 10, 1753. The latter
says:
"Last Night arrived here the Snow Irene, Capt. Garrison, in about
twelve weeks from London.”
A perusal of the newspapers of the day would indicate to
the careful reader that the Irene was no common vessel,
and that Capt. Garrison was more than an ordinary seaman,
for there are numerous references to both. The ship had
been built at Staten Island five years before, for the trans-
portation of Moravians to their missions in the New World,
and had even made a voyage to Greenland on this errand.
Captain Nicholas Garrison, a native of Staten Island, had
been converted to the faith of the United Brethren in 1736,
by association with the saintly Bishop Spangenberg, and
thenceforward devoted his life to their cause, spending his
last years among them at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he
died in 1781.* The vessel was most appropriately named the
Irene, for she was indeed a messenger of peace. On this
voyage she bore to America the means of utilizing a power
which was destined to have a scarcely less potent influence
in civilizing the New World than the Gospel itself, which the
little ship had been built to carry to the heathen. This pass-
age was twice as long as usual for her, as she averaged but
six weeks between London and New York for several years,
making four trips annually.
Mr. Hornblower's experience was such that he ever after
had a dread of crossing the ocean. That there were passen-
* Some further account of the Irene and of Captain Garrison will be found in
Appendix I, Note B.
+ Other vessels crossing at the same time experienced great hardships. Says the
New York Gazette, in the same issue that announces the arrival of the Irene:
Last Week arrived at Sandy Hook, and has since gone up to Amboy, the Brig
('harming Sally, Captain Heysham, of this port, from Hamburgh, having had a
passage of sixteen Weeks from Land to Land, in which they were reduced to the
short Allowance of a Bisket a Day per man, for a great while, and in all Probabil-
ity some of them would have perished, had they not met with a Boston Vessel a
few Weeks ago, who help'd them to a small Supply. The last Piece of Meat they
had was dressed the Day they got into the Hook.”
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
15
gers of intelligence on the Irene on this occasion appears
from the statement in the New York Gazette: "By some
gentlemen, passengers in Captain Garrison, we are told, that
his Excellency Governor Osborne, was to embark for this
place some time in the month of September instant.”
Nothing is said of the extraordinary freight brought over
on the stout little craft. The young engineer was a prudent
man, and did not care to publish abroad the errand on which
he had come. The laws of England at that time strictly
prohibited the exportation, even to the colonies, of artisans
or machinery calculated to build up industries that might
rival those of the mother country.* Even though "fire-en-
gines" were not included within the prohibition, the an-
nouncement of the arrival of such a machine at New York
might have provoked a curiosity that would have been vex-
atious and caused delay. Aside from this, it is difficult to ex-
plain the silence of both the Gazette and the Mercury
-unenterprising as they were, compared with' modern stand-
ards-on a subject of such vast interest as the introduction of
steam-power into the field of American industries.
James
The New York Mercury of the same date says: "Last Week Captain Hey-
sham of this Port arrived here from Holland, but last from Dover, after a very
tedious Passage of 17 Weeks; 'tis said had their last piece of Meat in the Pot, when
they got into the Hook,"
In a letter to Mr. Hornblower from his youngest brother, Isaac, dated Nov. 6,
1804, is the following passage: "Mr. John Sadler was at our house soon after he
returned from America, and he told us we should not see you again in this country
(England), for he was very sure you would not attempt to cross the sea again if
you might have all England, on account of your having had so båd a voyage out;
therefore we gave up all thoughts of having the pleasure of seeing you any more
in this world, which gave us all much grief.”—Hornblower MSS.
The Irene's latest advices from the Old World were from Paris, May 28; Lon-
don, June 8; Edinburgh, June 14 (?), according to the New York Gazette, which
in September cheerfully published copious extracts from the London newspapers
of those remote dates, as 66 news.
* Blackstone, IV, cap. XII, 11.
+ That Col. John Schuyler had sufficient influence to secure the tacit assent of
the authorities in England to the exportation of his "fire-engine" appears proba -
ble from the favor in which he was held by the Royal Governors of New York and
New Jersey. He was recommended to Governor Cosby for a seat in the Council of
New Jersey, June 2, 1732, by Lewis Morris, subsequently Governor of New Jersey,
who described him as "of the Dutch Church he is a person of A good Estate son to
that Schuyler who own'd the copper mine and one of the three to whom the mine
was devised by the father.”—New Jersey Archives, V. 318. Governor Cosby
16
JÓSÍAH HORNBLOWER,
Parker, the editor of the Gazette, was moreover a Jersey-
man, who took special pains to give intelligence affecting his
native province.*
The next mention we find of the novel machine is in the
account-books of the Schuyler mine:
´´ 1753.
"Sept. 25.-To cash pd for 8 days, carting ye engine &
boards to ye mine at 6s.
'£28 0."
This corresponds with the previous dates. Josiah Horn-
blower left home May 8, 1753, for London, via Falmouth;
waited there two or three weeks for the Irene to sail, and
after a voyage of three months arrived in New York Septem-
"
recommended Schuyler for the vacancy caused by the death of Col. Peter Baird
(Bayard?), and in his letter of August 7, 1734, to the Lords of Trade, says of him:
"The Gent'n whom I offer for your Lordships recomendation is one of the great-
est riches in this Country being Owner of the great Copper Mine in New Jersey
from whence are sent yearly to the Bristoll Company considerably quantitys of
copper Ore and a gentm'n who not only in point of fortune but capacity and Incli-
nations to Serve his Maj'ty I Esteem as the most fitt person to Succeed Coll. Baird
in that Station. I therefore entreat the favour of your Lordships to recommend
this Gentm'n to his Ma'tie for his Ma'ties approbation and appointment."-New
Jersey Archives, V, 374, 402. On September 5, 1735, he again urged the appoint-
ment, which was soon after made.-New York Colonial Documents, VI, 36.
Governor Morris accepted the resignation of Colonel Schuyler with great reluc-
tance, December 1, 1739, saying in a letter to the Duke of Newcastle: This Schuy-
ler is part owner with his two brothers of ye famous Jersie copper mine, & is
Intrusted with the management of it; he had often earnestly press'd me to be dis-
charg'd, protesting he could not attend the Councill without the greatest prejudice
to his private affaires, w'ch indeed I believe was true; but I was loth to discharge
him because he was a man of good sence & great interest in his neighbourhood, &
withall firmly in the interest of the present government. However, his attendance
at the distance from his habitation at the places that I am to hold Councills and
Assemblyes in, being of so great hurt to his private affaires I at last consented to
dismiss him."-Papers of Lewis Morris, edited by W. A. Whitehead, New York,
1852, 119-20. And again, writing in 1745 to the Lords of Trade, he says:
"John
Schuyler is a man of Good sense and large substance being suppos'd not to be
worth less than 60 or 70,000 pound, and is very much in the interest of the Govern-
ment, but having the sole management of the copper mines w'ch are in that
family, could not be prevail'd on to attend the Councill nor cannot be prevail'd on
to attend it; being so prejudicial! to his own private affaires.”—Ib., 218. It is not
unlikely that Col. Schuyler was obliged to exert all the influence he could com-
mand to secure permission to export his "fire-engine," and perhaps this accounts
for the delay of four years or more which elapsed between the ordering and the
arrival of the engine.
* Parker was a native of Woodbridge, New Jersey, where he was born 1714, and
lived most of his life, although having printing presses not only there but at New
Haven and New York.- History of Printing in America, by Isaiah Thomas, Worces-
ter, 1810, II, 99, 121, 273, etc.; Contributions to the Early History of Perth Amboy,
etc., by W. A. Whitehead, New York, 1856, 375.
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
17
ber 9, 1753, and in the course of the next two weeks saw his
precious engine transported-doubtless by water to Second
River, and thence by land-to the mine.
The young engineer may well have been dismayed by the
prospect that confronted him when his engine was set down
in pieces near the mine. He had encountered untold dangers
in getting it there; but his task was just begun. The only
skilled help in the country upon which he could depend for
the erection of the machine was the few men he had brought
with him. There was, perhaps, scarcely another mechanic in
all America who had the slightest idea of the construction of
a steam-engine. So he had to lay out the whole work, even
to the minutest details; to locate the engine-house, fix its di-
mensions, furnish drawings of its various elevations; direct
the construction of the engine-bed, superintend the putting
together of the boiler, the engine and the connecting pump-
ing machinery, and in short to see to everything. All this
took time. Stone had to be quarried and hewn into shape;
clay had to be dug and burnt into brick; lime brought from
distant towns; "fire stone" carted from the mountain;
trees felled for the heavy timbers, and in some instances
brought long distances by "slays" over the snow to the
mine; and at last, when the house was in readiness, the
boiler and engine had to be set up in their new quarters. With
admirable forethought, Mr. Hornblower had brought with
him duplicate and even triplicate parts of the engine, to sup-
ply deficiencies in case of accident.* Otherwise it would have
been necessary to wait until they could be imported from
England, for it is safe to say there was not a shop in America
where the necessary castings could have been made. And
this was only a little more than a century ago! The entriest
* Proceedings New Jersey Historical Society, May, 1851, 162.
+ For these extracts the writer is indebted to Judge Bradley, who copied them
from the books in 1865. It is fortunate that he did so, for the books and other
family records of the Schuyler family were consumed by a fire which (November
15, 1870) destroyed the residence of Arent H. Schuyler, grandson of Colonel John
Schuyler.
2
18
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
in the mine books tell their own story so plainly that it is
worth reproducing them:
1753.
Oct. 25.
To carting 624 bushels lime to ye mine for ye en-
gine house..
£2 0 0
To carting 66 days, clay & stone & 300 boards to
ye mine 6s. pr day..
19 16 0
To 11 days carting 3000 shingles & 10 thousand
brick &c. to ye mine..
3 6 0
Dec. 28. To cash pd for 16 days carting timber to ye saw-
mill & mines for ye engine house at 6s.
4 16 0
1754.
Jan. 8.
To 6 days slaying timber for ye engine.
1
16
0
Feb. 24.
3
0
0
Mch. 1.
15
0
Apr. 2.
June13.
10
6
8 0
39 12 0
To 10 days slaying stone & timber for ye engine ..
To cash pd for carting timber for ye engine house.
To cash pd for sashes in the engine house.
To cash pd Josiah Ward for 1 days carting fire
stone for ye engine from the mountain….……….
132 days carting stone & timber for the engine
house at 6s. per day.
July 13. To pd Elizabeth Davis for a tree for ye engine
house
2 days carting.
Oct. 10. To pd Thos. Childs for 11½ days mason work at the
engine house.
2
Oct. 28. To pd Thos. Plummer & Thos. Barnes for putting
the boiler at ye engine house together...
1755.
Jan. 11. To pd Benj. Smith for work done on ye engine
10 0
12 0
90
35 1 6
525
house as per his acct & receipt
Mar.12. To 52 days carting stone & fire wood for ye engine 15 15
6
0
The last two items indicate that the engine was ready for
firing up some time between January 11 and March 12, 1755,
or nearly a year and a half after its appearance in the New
World. The day has at last arrived when the wonderful ma-
chine is to be set to work, and the young engineer is to see
the fruition of his long-deferred hopes, after eighteen months
of anxious toil. Let us accompany him on this eventful
morning. As we near the long-disused shaft of the mine we
see an odd-looking building, shingle-roofed, something like
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
19
twenty or thirty feet square, and as high as it is long, through
one wall of which projects the walking-beam, terminating
in an arc-resembling a huge arm with a sort of claw on
the end, clutching, as it were, the pump-rod, which descends
one hundred feet into the earth. Entering the engine-house,
we behold the strange machinery which is to move that
mighty arm we have just seen outside. At our feet is a small
door, into which wood is being thrust by the attendant, to
feed the hungry flames within. Above the furnace is a large
dome, the lower part of which is inclosed by brick-work, as
if to preserve the heat, while the upper part is seen to be
brightly-polished copper. This is the boiler, eight or ten feet
in diameter and about the same in height. On a stout frame
of beams, directly above the middle of the boiler, and con-
nected with it by a short pipe, towers the huge cylinder,
three feet in diameter and eight feet high, the upper rim
flangeing out two or three inches, to hold a wooden jacket.
From the top of the cast-iron cylinder rises again the piston-
rod, which is connected by links and bolts with an arc on the
inner end of the great walking-beam of heavy timbers, firmly
bolted together, which rests on sectors on the stout brick wall
on one side of the building, the outer end projecting several
feet beyond, to connect with the pump-rod, as we saw before
we entered the house. Between the engine and this wall
hangs a narrow board, with pins and holes in various places,
to engage the valve handles and move them at the proper
times and to the proper extent. This is connected also with
the walking-beam, so that the motion of the latter regulates
the former, and the engine once started works automatically.
From a small tank of water, supported on a frame several
feet higher than the cylinder, descends a pipe, from which
one branch runs over the top and another into the bottom of
the cylinder, the latter pipe projecting a few inches upward
on the inside. The fire has been raging fiercely for some
time. The heavy lid resting on an open valve, and constitut-'
ing the only safety-valve then known, which depends almost
20
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
entirely on the weight of the atmosphere to keep it down, has
begun to tremble slightly, indicating that there is an abun-
dance of steam. The young engineer opens one and then the
other of the two simple gauge-cocks projecting from the top
of the boiler, and they corroborate the testimony of the safety-
valve. Then, with an anxiety born of the importance of the
occasion, and a confidence which is the creature of his expe-
rience and his knowledge, he himself opens the steam-cock in
the narrow neck communicating between the top of the
boiler and the bottom of the cylinder.* The steam rushes into
the cylinder, filling it instantly. Another cock is opened,
and the water from the tank above is allowed to spurt up in-
to the bottom of the cylinder, through a "rose" on the end
of the pipe projecting upward, and a fine spray is thrown up
against the bottom of the piston, which has been resting at
the top of the cylinder. As the spray rises and then falls
again, it instantly condenses the steam, which drops to the
bottom of the cylinder in the form of water, and runs out by
the force of gravity through another pipe, and down into a
hot-well beside the furnace. What little air was left is driven
out also, and a vacuum remains, which, being abhorred by
nature, the powers of the air are exerted to fill it, which is
done by the pressure of the atmosphere forcing the piston
down to the bottom of the cylinder, the space above the pis-
ton being all open. This space is now filled by a stream of
water from the upper branch-pipe from the tank. The en-
gineer has so skillfully calculated the weight of the pump-rod
and the water to be lifted by it, at one end of the walking-
beam, and the pressure of the atmosphere on the piston-head at
the other, and has so accurately adjusted the respective arms of
the walking-beam, that the weight of the atmosphere on the pis-
•
* It required three hands to work Newcomen's first engines. I have heard it
said that when the engine was stopped, and again set to work, the words were
passed, Snift, Benjy!' 'Blow the fire, Pomery!' 'Work away, Joe! The last let in
the condensing water. Lifting the condensing clack was called snifting' because,
on opening the valve, the air rushing through it made a noise like a man snifting.
The fire was increased through artificial means by another hand. and all being
ready, the machine was set in motion by a third."-Yesterday and To-day, 1, 36.
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
21
ton-head is just a little more than sufficient to lift the water from
the required depth. The next problem is to reverse this opera-
tion, and that is done by again letting steam into the cylinder
from below, when the subtle force counterbalances the weight
of the atmosphere, the pump-rod descends by its own gravity
into the shaft once more, thus raising the piston-rod, while
the water above the piston-head runs off through a convenient
pipe, into the hot-well before mentioned. Thus the piston
rises and descends ten or twelve times a minute, with a stroke
of six or seven feet. The waste of steam is enormous, as the
cylinder is cooled each time by the spray, to condense the
steam beneath the piston, and by the "packing" of water
above it. Such was the Newcomen or Cornish "fire-engine"
of 1755, set up by Mr. Hornblower at the Schuyler copper
mine in that year." * As will be perceived from the descrip-
tion, it was extremely simple in its construction and in its
operation, and though wasteful of steam and fuel, was ex-
ceedingly effective, so much so that, with some modifications,
it is used to this day in some of the deepest mines of the
world, in preference to any other. The dimensions of the
engine given above indicate a capacity of about eight hogs-
heads per minute, lifted 100 feet, or 720,000 gallons per day.
But the pump cylinder was only about ten inches in diameter,
* For fuller details of engines of this date see Thurston, ut supra, 58-65. Half of
the cast-iron cylinder of the engine brought over by Mr. Hornblower is now in the
possession of S. J. Meeker, successor of D. M. Meeker & Son, and is at Mr. Meeker's
foundry, in Clay street, near Ogden street, Newark, N. J. Mr. Meeker says the
dimensions are as follows: Inside diameter, 31½ inches; thickness of casting, one
inch; length, 47½ inches; projection of flange, 2½ inches. This indicates that the
cylinder was nearly or quite eight feet in length. John Van Emburgh, who had
worked for Mr. Hornblower on the engine in 1793, informed Judge Bradley in 1865
that according to the best of his recollection the cylinder was about three feet in
diameter and seven feet long, with six-foot stroke. Mr. Meeker's measurements,
taken in May, 1883, confirm Mr. Van Emburgh's recollection to a singular degree.
This fragment of cylinder was exhibited at the Centennial Exposition, at Philadel-
phia, in 1876, with a printed letter from Judge Bradley, giving some account of its
history. Yet the official narrative of the Exposition is extremely inaccurate in its
references to the engine of which this cylinder was a part. Mr. Van Emburgh
described the boiler as a copper cylinder, "standing upright, eight or ten feet high,
and as much in diameter, with a flat bottom and a dome-shaped top."-Letter of
Judge Bradley to D. M. Meeker.
!
22
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
and the wooden pump-rod six inches square,* thus reducing
the sectional area of the column of water to 42.48 square
inches, and the discharge to about 134 gallons per minute, or
a trifle less than 200,000 gallons daily. A much larger pump
could easily have been driven by the engine, and the discharge
of water correspondingly increased.
The mine and the new engine were highly attractive to
travelers, who frequently went out of their way to see them.
The Rev. Andrew Burnaby, in July, 1760, speaks of having
gone to "Colonel John Schuyler's copper-mines, where there
is a very rich vein of ore, and a fire-engine erected upon com-
mon principles." There are like references in the writings
of several other later travelers, but no particulars of value are
given, and most of their statements are incorrect. Lieut.
Isaac Bangs, of the Massachusetts militia, evidently a verdant
young man, visiting the place on June 22, 1776, says with
simple wonder of the mines: "The Work which we could
perceive had been done in them was sufficient to astonish any
Man who had seen so little of the World as I had. * * *
The Engine (for throwing off the Water) * * cost about
3 Thousand Sterling and would cast out of the Earth 80
Hogsheads in a Minute. This was actuated by Fire, and from
fire it had its only Motion, and it was constructed upon the
same Principles and much in the same Form as that of N.
York for watering the City, but (from necessity) the Works
of Mr. Schuyler were greatly superior in Magnitude to those
of the City, of which I could judge by the incombustible Mat-
ter which was still remaining." The credulous lieutenant
*
*These were the dimensions of the pump and pump-rod in 1793, as given in 1865
to Mr. Justice Bradley by John Van Emburgh, then one hundred years old. The
discharge from the mine would doubtless be greater in 1755, when the water was
lifted from a less depth, unless this was offset by the improvements made in the
machinery in the course of forty years, which is also very probable.
+ Travels through the Middle Settlements in North America, in the Years 1759-60,
by the Rev. Andrew Burnaby, D.D., 3d ed., London, 1798, 76.
The reference is doubtless to the water-works erected in 1774 and completed in
the spring of 1776, by Christopher Colles, in Broadway, between Pearl and White
streets, New York.-See History of the City of New York, by Mary L. Booth. New
York. 1859.
§ “Extract from the Journal of Isaac Bangs.” Proceedings New Jersey Historical
Society, May 20, 1858, Vol. VIII, 121,
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
23
put too much faith in the "Old Man who accompanied us
(them) as a Pilot," or else the engine was extravagantly costly
and marvelously effective, doing nearly as much service as
the engines of either the Newark or the Jersey City Water-
works to-day!* The "80 hogsheads in a minute" clearly
should be eight hogsheads, as already shown.
The engine was at last set to work, and so far as his busi-
ness engagement was concerned the young Englishman was
now at liberty to return home, if he felt willing to encounter
once more the dangers of the tempestuous ocean. But he
had discovered such invaluable qualities as a practical en-
gineer, a man of business capacity, a mineralogist, † and withal
a congenial companion, that Col. Schuyler was loath to part
with him, and urged him to make his home in America, and
to undertake the superintendence of the mine and engine.
But more potent influences still were operating on the hand-
some young stranger. Through his association with the
Schuylers he had become intimate in the family of Colonel
William Kingsland, of New Barbadoes Neck, occupying the
plantation of three hundred acres next adjoining that of the
Schuylers. The bright eyes of the beautiful Mistress Eliza-
beth Kingsland, daughter of the aristocratic Colonel, had
long fascinated him, and it is possible had so dazzled him as
to cause something of the long delay in getting his "fire-en-
gine" in successful operation. Be that as it may, having
persuaded her to enter into an engagement with himself, he
was easily induced to accept Colonel Schuyler's offer, and
•
- *This statement of Lieut. Bangs has been accepted without question by subse-
quent writers, although a moment's reflection ought to convince any one of its in-
correctness. Eighty hogsheads in a minute" would be a prodigious discharge
for such a mine as that of the Schuylers; it would be at the rate of nearly 8,000,000
gallons daily. In 1882 the average daily quantity of water pumped at the Newark
Water-works near Belleville was 9,680,160 gallons daily, with the most approved
engines and pumps, costing $33.000 yearly to operate and maintain.
+ Alden's Epitaphs, ut supra, V, 234.
•
By will, dated July 29, 1741, proved July 26, 1742, Edmund Kingsland gave to
his son William three hundred acres next adjoining Schuyler; also one-third of the
meadow and one-third of the cedar swamp."--History of the Land Titles of Hud-
son County, N, J., by Charles H. Winfield, New York, 1872, 327.
24
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
decided to take up his residence at Second River, marrying
Miss Kingsland in that same year, 1755.* His wife, who was
five years his junior, from her mother inherited Huguenot
blood, and on that side was connected with some of the most
distinguished families of French and Dutch descent in New
York-the De Riemer, Coerten, Selyns, Drisius, Steenwyck,
Gravenraet, Gouverneur, and other families. On her father's
side she was allied to some men who had been prominent from
an early day in the history of New Jersey. Her father, in
addition to his military title, on which he prided himself, was
also a judge of the Bergen Common Pleas. Mrs. Horn-
blower was not only the daughter of a judge, but the great-
granddaughter of another-William Pinhorne, Second Judge
of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, in 1704; and great-niece
of another-Roger Mompesson, New Jersey's first Chief Jus-
tice, 1704.§ She was destined to be the wife of a judge, and
the mother of one of the most eminent of our Chief Justices-
the late Joseph C. Hornblower, the honored President of the
New Jersey Historical Society during the first twenty years
of its existence.
*His father wrote him, September 3, 1755, from "Near Birmingham,” England,
directing his letter to "Mr. Josiah Hornblower, Fire Engineer at a Copper Mine in
New Jersey in America,” and beginning thus: "DEAR SON-Nine or ten days since,
Mr. Finch of Dudley called here and told me he saw a gentleman in London that
lately arrived from America, and gave him a particular account of you, and a very
agreeable one, which rejoiced me very much; moreover says you are married; if
so, I heartily wish you and your spouse all the happiness a marriage state is capa-
ble of yielding." No record has been found of the marriage, but the terms of this
letter and other circumstances confirm the statement that it took place in 1755.
+ Margaretta Coerten, wife of Col. William Kingsland, was the daughter of Henry
or Henricus Coerten, merchant, of New York, and Elizabeth De Riemer, married
in New York May 23, 1701; Margaretta, their daughter, was baptized Dec. 13, 1704.
Henricus Coerten was baptized in New York Dec. 22, 1675, being the son of Barent
Coerten, of New York, and Christina Wessels, of Dordrecht, who were married in
New York May 30, 1675. Elizabeth De Riemer was the daughter of Huybert De
Riemer, who married Catharine at Meuse, France, where their two children,
Elizabeth and Isaac, were born.-See Appendix II for fuller genealogical notes.
+ Commissioned March 8, 1749.-Winfield's Hudson County, 545-6.
§ William Pinhorne's daughter Mary was married to Edmund Kingsland, mar-
riage license dated Nov. 8, 1703; their son, William, born in 1704, married Marga-
retta Coerten December 13, 1732.-See Appendix II. Pinhorne's daughter Martha
was married Feb. 23, 1706, to Chief Justice Roger Mompesson. Pinhorne was a son-
in-law of Lieut.-Governor Richard Ingoldsby, of New Jersey.—Provincial Courts of
New Jersey, by Richard S. Field, New York, 1849, 75; N. Y. Gen. & Biog. Record,
January, 1871, 28; Winfield's Hudson County, 126-7.
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
25
Mr. Hornblower managed the mine for something more
than five years after the engine was started, in the interest of
the Schuylers. Part of the time (from May 1, 1759) he em-
ployed John Sadler, at a salary of £50, or $125, per year, to
work the engine.
The French and Indian war meantime had broken out, and
the little settlement about the copper mine had been pro-
foundly stirred by the departure for Canada of the gallant
and chivalrous Colonel Peter Schuyler, a brother of Colonel
John Schuyler, the former having been assigned to the com-
mand of the battalion furnished by New Jersey for the occa-
sion. During the winter of 1755-6 the enemy became so bold
and menacing that great fears were entertained of an invasion
even across the Delaware. Pennsylvania erected forts on the
west side, and New Jersey appropriated money and caused
forts and block-houses to be erected along the chain of mount-
ains skirting the east bank of the Delaware river, and re-
called Colonel Schuyler and his battalion to man them.
Additional incentives were offered to encourage enlistments
for the campaign, which was to be pressed toward the Can-
adian frontier in the spring, and employers everywhere
through New Jersey became so uneasy at the desertion of
their serving-men that they importuned the Legislature to re-
strain the recruiting agents.* A more politic course was
pursued at the copper mine. The men were encouraged to
form a home battalion, in which they could exercise them-
selves in military tactics to their heart's content, and prepare
themselves for really effective service in the field if needed.
Of this company, Mr. Hornblower was commissioned captain,
January 26, 1756, a marked compliment to the young stran-
ger, and due in a measure, no doubt, not only to his influen-
tial connections, the Kingslands and the Schuylers, who
*History of New Jersey, by Thomas F. Gordon, Trenton, 1834, pp. 123-4; Sussex
Centenary, Newark, 1853, pp. 31 et seqq. Forts were erected about the same time at
points far inland from the Delaware; one of them was located about where the
village of Mountain View now is, on the banks of the Pompton river, as appears by
an old map in the New Jersey Historical Society's rooms.
26
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
would have weight with the royal governor, Belcher, but to
his own reputation as a man of scientific attainments and
unusual executive ability. On July 25, 1764, a new commis-
sion was issued to him, as "Captain of Cadets, including all
persons who are or shall be employed in the business of the
mines on New Barbadoes neck, and to take rank from the
date of your first Commission as Captain dated the 26 day of
January, Anno Dom. 1756."*
In all probability Mr.—or Captain-Hornblower took up his
residence on the west side of the Passaic river in 1758, hav-
ing purchased on May 19 of that year a tract of land just
north of the present bridge over the river. A year later we
find him associated with Col. John Schuyler, of Second River,
and others, in "Biles-Island Lottery, to raise £750 for the
Benefit of Trinity-Church, at Newark, and towards building
a new English Church at Second-River, consisting of 5,000
Tickets, at Two and a half Spanish Dollars each, 1062 of
which to be fortunate," etc.
one of $1,000, two of $500, three of $200, four of $100,
twenty of $50, thirty of $20, two hundred of $10, and several
hundred for smaller sums, aggregating $10,625 of prizes;
then there were to be 3,938 blanks,
66 fifteen per cent for the
Use of the Church, ($)1,875." This added to the prize-money
offered, $10,625, makes up the proceeds of the 5,000 tickets,
at Two and a half Spanish Dollars each." Lotteries were
prohibited in New Jersey at this time, but the good Church
people of the day thought it no harm to evade the spirit so
long as they complied with the letter of the law, and there-
fore many of the drawings of such lotteries were advertised
to take place on Biles Island, and other places, just beyond
the limits of the State. Accordingly, it was announced in
the case of this lottery that "the drawing (was) to commence
at Biles-Island, the first of August next." Col. Josiah
There were 1062 prizes offered:
**
* Original commission, in possession of Judge Bradley.
+ Contributions to the Early History of Perth Amboy, ut supra, 321-3.
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
29
books show that he took a leading part in the erection of a
new school-house at Second River, and that he was permitted
to pay a large share of the cost out of his own pocket. His
new dwelling was a plain but spacious and comfortable stone
building, which, altered somewhat, principally by encasing
the stout stone walls with weather-boards and the substitution
of a mansard roof for the ancient sloping eaves, has been for
many years occupied as a public house, its quondam promi-
nence and character being indicated by its name, "The Man-
sion House."
As already stated, Mr. Hornblower worked the copper mine
for the Schuylers for several years. On July 1, 1761, he and
one John Stearndall* took a lease of the mine from the
Schuylers for the term of fourteen years, agreeing to pay one-
seventh of the ore as rent, the lease being subsequently ex-
tended for ten years longer. March 25, 1765, Messrs. Stearn-
dall and Hornblower assigned half of their interest to Phila-
delphia parties-John Kid, William Parr, Judah Fouke and
William Dowell. After two or three years the Philadelphians
retired, and no work appears to have been done in 1768 and
1769. Then New York parties became interested, and the
mining was carried on until 1773, when the engine-house was
destroyed by fire, damaging the engine and so effectually
* Stearndall would seem to have been a capitalist desirous of investing in mining
property. He entered into an agreement, November 25, 1761, with New York parties
“relative to obtaining a grant for some mines, supposed to be in the provinces of
New York, Connecticut or New Jersey."-N. Y. Hist. MSS., English, 727.
L
+ One-third of the rental was paid to Col. John Schuyler, one-third to Col. Peter
Schuyler, and one-third to Adonijah Schuyler, the sons of Arent Schuyler, who had
left the mine to them.-Hornblower Account-books in possession of Judge Bradley.
‡ Gordon gives the date as 1765, and says that "a workman, who had been dis-
missed, having set fire to the engine-house, the works were discontinued.”—Gaz-
etteer, 11. Lieut. Bangs, ut supra, states that at the time of his visit, in June, 1776,
“nothing had been done in these Mines for 4 years, the Engine having been burnt
about that Time." The absence of any accounts with the mine after 1773 indicates
that the latter year is most probably the time when the fire took place. C'orrobo-
rative proof is found in the fact that the Legislature in 1772 passed a law sanctioning
a lottery to raise £1,050 proclamation money, to put gravel on the road built some
years previously by Col. John Schuyler at his own expense, for three miles through
the cedars and the meadows, between Second River and the main road to New
York; the money raised from the lottery was to be paid to Josiah Hornblower, to
30
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
Dur-
discouraging the lessees that all work, except some surface
digging by the men, was abandoned for twenty years.
ing the few years that the mine had been worked under the
lease, the operations do not appear to have been at all profit-
able, and indeed the books indicate that the expenses often ex-
ceeded the income. Mr. Hornblower's account-books show
the receipts from the mine to have been as follows, for the
years named: 1765, £670, 7s., 9d., New York money, or in
dollars, $1,676; in 1766, $4,357.87; 1770, $4,785: 1771,
$7,787; 1772, $1,237; 1773, $2,855. The ore realized from
eight to ten dollars per hundred-weight.
The troublous times preceding the Revolution were well
calculated to discourage an enterprise of this magnitude, and
this no doubt was one reason why no effort was made imme-
diately to rebuild the engine-house after the fire of 1773. So
for a time Mr. Hornblower devoted himself closely to mer-
cantile pursuits, and, his tastes being preferably for mechanics
and purely business concerns, he does not seem to have taken
any part in public affairs until after the war of the Revolution
had fairly begun. At the Newark town-meeting, March 12,
1776, he was appointed on a committee of twenty-one promi-
nent citizens of the town*-for what purpose is not stated,
but probably in relation to the pending war. In 1778 he was
chosen one of the commissioners of appeal in cases of taxa-
tion, and in March, 1779, was designated by the town-meet-
ing as one of a committee of five to present the interests and
views of the town to the Legislature. In this capacity he
represented the people so well that the great county of Essex
be by him issued to William Dow and Arent. J. Schuyler, the three to report to the
Legislature when the work was done. This act was passed Sept. 26, 1772, but did
not receive the royal assent until April 13, 1774.—Allinson's Laws, 385, and conteni-
porary minutes of the Legislature. (The law took effect, however, from the date
of its passage.) It is doubtful if this law would have been sought for had the copper
mine been idle at the time. Mr. Hornblower, in later years, told his son, the Chief
Justice, that he surveyed this road through the swamp about the year 1765, and that
the cedar thicket was so dense that a way had to be cut with axes, and lanterns
used in the day-time, in making the survey.
* Records of the Town of Newark, New Jersey, Newark, 1864, 158.
+ Ib., 158.
Ib., 159,
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
31
a few months later sent him as one of her three members to
the Assembly, or lower house of the Provincial Congress. It
seems surprising that a man with so little previous experience
in public life should have taken at once the leading part that
Mr. Hornblower did in the Legislature. It is convincing proof
of his superior ability and force of character. It would appear,
too, that, as the war progressed, it aroused in him a class of
emotions which had hitherto lain dormant for want of occa-
sion to develop them-drawing him from his absorbed inter-
est in the merely utilitarian, to enlist his whole heart and soul
in the cause of humanity. We saw many a like instance in
the late war of the Rebellion, when thousands of men who
had been intent only on money-getting, or in literary or
scientific pursuits, threw all aside at their country's call.
"Righteousness exalteth a nation,"* and so long as our
country preserves righteousness enough to merit it, she will
find an inexhaustible fund of patriotism upon which to draw
in time of need.
Taking his seat in the Legislature which met at Trenton
on October 26, 1779, three days later there was a heated de-
bate over a joint resolution of the Council, calling upon Isaac
Collins, the publisher of the New Jersey Gazette, to furnish
the name of the author of a communication signed "Cincin-
natus," published in No. 96,† which the supersensitive Coun-
* One of the mottoes of the East Jersey Proprietors, incorporated in the seal of
the New Jersey Historical Society.-East Jersey under the Proprietary Govern-
ments, by William A. Whitehead, 2d ed., Newark, 1875, 181; Proc. N. J. Hist. Soc.,
Nov., 1846, p. 3.
+ Minutes of the Legislature, passim. The article in question was printed in the
Gazette of Wednesday, October 27, 1779, four days before the annual election of
Governor by the Legislature, and was manifestly intended to affect the result
of the election. Pretending to give advice to that body in selecting a Chief
Magistrate, the writer indulged in a most caustic attack on the course of Governor
William Livingston, ridiculing his very promiscuous contributions to the newspa-
pers on all occasions, and even going so far as to intimate that at the outbreak of
the Revolution Livingston had hesitated before deciding to risk his fortune in the
patriot cause. The article was exceedingly severe, and to one who prided himself
as Livingston evidently did on his literary abilities, the criticisms on his writings
must have wounded his amour propre almost as much as the imputations on his
patriotism. While it is not certainly known who “ Cincinnatus was, the internal
evidences point very strongly toward Abraham Clark, an eager and ambitious pol-
32
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
cillors regarded as objectionable, although the printer insisted
that it "did not contain the most distant disrespectful allusion
to that honorable body."* The resolution was viewed by the
Assembly as a blow at the liberty of the press, and they re-
fused to concur in its adoption, Mr. Hornblower voting
against it. On November 3, when barely a week in the Leg-
islature, and layman as he was, he was appointed on a com-
mittee of three to draft a new general election law; and his
business capacity and sterling integrity were recognized the
week following by his selection as one of the committee to
settle the treasurer's accounts-a duty which was assigned to
him many times subsequently. His zeal in the prosecution
of the war was shown by his votes in favor of every measure
that would help the patriots and harass their enemies. When
the Assembly voted to raise $9,000,000 for war purposes
(Nov. 20, 1779), he favored $10,000,000. (This was paper
money, be it remembered.) Although his wife's brother,
itician of Elizabethtown, as the author or at least the inspirer of the communica-
tion. It was extremely gratifying to the Governor and his friends that on the Sat-
urday following this publication, when the Legislature met in joint meeting to
choose a Governor, Livingston received 29 votes, to only 9 against him (for Phile-
mon Dickinson). He exultingly commented on the fact in a letter to a friend: “My
enemies have been so much disappointed at the last election for governor, that with
all their groundless slanders, and the dirty libel they published against me, they
could only muster 9 negatives to 29 affirmatives."-Memoir of the Life of William
Livingston, by Theodore Sedgwick, Jun., New York, 1832, 339. Washington con-
doled with him: "I have not seen the piece to which you allude, but I should be
much surprised had you been suffered to escape without paying a tax so ancient
and customary.
* I believe with you that to persevere in one's duty, and be
silent, is the best answer to calumny.”—Ib., 343. Livingston was greatly offended
at Collins for having published the article, but subsequently became reconciled to
him, and again contributed freely to his paper.-Ib., 344-5, 248-9. It is very probable
that the action of the Council in seeking to ascertain the identity of "Cincinnatus"
was taken at the suggestion of the Governor. It shows the independence of Mr.
Hornblower's character, that while he voted for Livingston on this as on subsequent
occasions, he refused to punish the printer who had published the attack on the
executive.
* Selections from the Correspondence of the Executive of New Jersey, from 1776
to 1786, Newark, 1848, 199-200. Collins said in reply to the Council: "Were I to com-
ply with the requisition contained in this resolution, without the permission of the
author of the piece alluded to, I conceive I should betray the trust reposed in me,
and be far from acting as a faithful guardian of the liberty of the press. I may
further say that I am entirely at a loss to conjecture upon what ground this requi-
sition has been made; for it is evident that the piece in question does not contain
the most distant disrespectful allusion to your honorable body.“
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
33
Edmund William Kingsland, and the latter's wife and her
father (Capt. John Richards), sympathized with the British
to such an extent that they could not stay within the Ameri-
can lines,* Mr. Hornblower nevertheless acted as chairman
(Nov. 25 and Dec. 24, 1779) of a committee of the Assembly
to make more stringent and effective the "Act to prevent
subjects of this State from going into or coming out of the
enemy's lines," and he voted (Nov. 30) to disfranchise tories
or traitors; and so little sympathy had he with cowardice in
any form that he opposed omitting the administration of the
“iron-clad " oath to members of the Legislature who had re-
moved from their county to avoid the enemy. He believed
that all property should pay its share of the public burdens,
and opposed any exemptions from taxation. At the same
time he was averse to allowing merchants or farmers to take
advantage of the popular necessities to charge exorbitant
prices for their goods or products, and so he was always found
voting for acts of the Legislature to regulate prices, to pre-
vent extortion. Such laws have never been effective, in prac-
tice, but they were favored in those days by the patriots as a
part of the necessary war legislation of the time. Adam
Smith's essays on the laws of political economy were then
scarcely known on this side of the Atlantic. At the same
session (Feb. 26, 1780), he was one of the committee to draft
a bill for completing the quota of troops belonging to the
State, in the service of the United States," and a week later
(March 3, 1780), helped to pass the bill. Consistently with
his hatred of tories, and his sympathy with all patriots, he
voted in favor of permitting the zealous chaplain, the Rev.
James Caldwell, and his houseless congregation at Elizabeth-
town, whose church and parsonage had been destroyed by
the British, to use the dwelling of a citizen who was then
* Winfield's Hudson County, 546; Minutes of the Council of Safety of the State
of New Jersey in 1777, Jersey City, 1872, pp. 83-4, 108. See also the New Jersey Ga-
zette, July 28, 1779.
+ On the night of January 25, 1780.—New Jersey Journal, January 27, 1780.
3
34
JOSIAH ĦORNBLOWER,
with the enemy. Re-elected to the Assembly in 1780, Mr.
Hornblower was chosen Speaker of that body, which then in-
cluded some of the ablest men of the State. In this as in the
former session, his vote was invariably recorded in favor of
every measure calculated to promote an energetic and effective
prosecution of the war, the aid and comfort of the patriots,
and the harassing of the enemy and his sympathizers. The
proceedings of the Legislature of those days seem strangely
like the doings of that body twenty years ago. As might
have been expected, Mr. Hornblower's relentless vigor in
pressing the enemy, and now his prominence as Speaker of
the Assembly, made him a conspicuous figure, whom the
British and their tory allies would fain have captured or
killed. He was hated, persecuted and pursued almost to the
death by refugees, some of whom had been his neighbors and
friends in former times, and on several occasions he nearly
fell a victim to their vindictive thirst for vengeance. An in-
cident illustrating the dangers to which he was continually
subject, is thus related in the New Jersey Gazette of April
4, 1781:
Thursday last a party of the enemy from New York attempted to
carry off the Honourable Josiah Hornblower, Esq. Speaker of the Assem-
bly of this State.—They were in the habit of peasants, and personated
Jersey militia. In this manner they came to the ferry nearly opposite his
house in Essex county, and called for the boat, which was carried over to
them, the people not suspecting their villany. The ferryman, on his ar-
rival, observed G. R.† on their cartouche boxes, and therefore on his re-
turn, with some address, let the boat fall down the stream with the tide,
in order to give a hint to Mr. Hornblower's family that all was not right.
This had the desired effect: Mr. Hornblower escaped out of the back door
a few minutes prior to their coming in at the front. Two of the villains
pursued him and were taken. The others got off, after making Mr. Horn-
blower's son-in-law, Mr. Cape,‡ prisoner-who has since returned on
parole."
* March 29, 1781.
+ Georgius Rex.
†This was James H. Kip, who had married Mr. Hornblower's eldest daughter,
Margaretta. At this time he appears to have been managing the ferry for his
father-in-law.
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
35
The New Jersey Journal, published at Elizabethtown, of
the same date, has this account of the affair:
"Last Thursday morning about twenty refugees came to the ferry at
Second River, and hailed the boat to bring them over, saying they were
Hackensack militia; upon which Mr. James Kip, supposing it to be so,
carried the boat over, when they made him prisoner, and proceeded to this
shore, in order, as is supposed, to capture the Hon. Josiah Hornblower,
Esq.; but he fortunately, though very narrowly, made his escape. The
neighborhood assembling, the enemy thought it prudent to retire with pre-
cipitation; however, they paid for their temerity, two of the party being
made prisoners."
According to tradition, Mr. Kip threw his oars into the
water as he neared the shore, and shouted to Mr. Hornblower,
who was standing on his porch, ready to welcome the visitors,
"Father, the British!" whereupon Mr. H. escaped. It is
also said that the enemy made a thorough search of the house,
either for the owner or for valuables, and actually set fire to
the building, but were persuaded to desist by Mrs. Kip, and
left the house with apologies. She had had the presence of
mind to hide the family silver, and for this service it after-
ward went to her, some of it being yet in the possession of
her descendants. One large goblet, still in existence, had
belonged to Edmund Kingsland, Mrs. Hornblower's grand-
father.
After two years of service in the lower branch of the Legis-
lature, Mr. Hornblower was "called up higher," the people
of the county manifesting their approval of his course and
their confidence in his ability by electing him to represent
them in the Council, or upper branch of the Legislature. He
took his seat October 27, 1781, and two days later was deputed
to settle the treasurer's accounts. In this body, as in the
lower, work was often assigned to him that properly pertained
to the legal profession, indicating that he was thought to pos-
sess unusual knowledge, for a layman, of what the law ought
to be. For example, "an act for the relief of persons who
have lost their deeds and other instruments of writing, con- .
taining the title of their lands," after being read a second
36
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
time, was committed to Mr. Hornblower (Nov. 3, 1781), and
when he reported it, at the next session, with amendments,
they were all agreed to but one, by both houses (Sept. 26,
1782). It is true that many laymen believe they could draft
laws better than the members of the bar, but experience
seldom justifies that belief. In 1783 (June 11), he voted with
the majority against a proposed modification of the Articles
of Confederation (Art. VIII), relating to the raising of reve-
nue, until the ratifying act had been acceptably amended
(June 1). June 14 he voted with the Council to adopt the
remonstrance and protest of the Assembly against the con-
ditional cession by Virginia of the Northwest Territory, that
State offering to cede part of the territory in question if Con-
gress would guarantee its claim to the rest. The title to
these Western lands, which were not included within the
boundaries of any of the colonies, and were consequently re-
garded as Crown lands, had been a vexed question from the
beginning of the Revolution, and New Jersey had, indeed
(June 16, 1778), refused to ratify the Articles of Confedera-
tion because the ownership of these lands had not been se-
cured to the Congress of all the States,* and in December,
1780, sent another remonstrance to Congress on the subject. †
The resolutions of 1783 say: "We cannot be silent, while
viewing one State aggrandizing herself by the unjust Deten-
tion of that Property which has been procured by the common
Blood and Treasure of the Whole, and which, on every Prin-
ciple of Reason and Justice, is vested in Congress for the Use
and general Benefit of the Union they represent."‡ Virginia
ultimately ceded her claim to the lands unconditionally, thus
virtually acknowledging the justice of the position assumed by
New Jersey. On June 17, 1783, Mr. Hornblower and Mr.
Lawrence were named on a joint committee of the Legislature
* Civil and Political History of New Jersey, by Isaac S. Mulford, M. D., Camden
1848, 451-5.
+ Ib., 469.
Minutes of the Council, passim.
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
37
..
to urge upon Congress the propriety of locating the federal
capital in New Jersey, and on the second day thereafter Mr.
Hornblower" read the report of the committee in his place,"
recommending that the Legislature should give Congress such
jurisdiction over a district of twenty square miles as may
be required by Congress as necessary for the honor, dignity,
convenience and safety of that august body," and that the
State should give £30,000 in specie toward procuring lands
and erecting buildings thereon. This report was agreed to
unanimously. It was a high compliment that Mr. Horn-
blower should have been made chairman of a committee
charged with so important a mission. The subsequent action
of Congress showed that the committee's labors had not been
without effect, and for a time there seemed a strong proba-
bility that the national capital would be established in New
Jersey. The rivalries of Philadelphia and New York, how-
ever, and a compromise on the question of the assumption of
the State debts by the Nation, overrode all advantages offered
by New Jersey, and secured the location of the city of Wash-
ington on the banks of the Potomac.* At the following ses-
sion of the Legislature Mr. Hornblower was appointed (Dec.
16, 1783) with Abraham Clark and Adam Boyd to "make
further inquiry into the right of this State to the jurisdiction
of " Staten Island, "now in the possession of the State of
New York"-the first time that vexed question was raised
since the colonies had become sovereign States. It was half a
century later ere a settlement was effected. On August 10,
1784, he was appointed with Abraham Clark on a committee
to confer with an Assembly committee regarding the recom-
* History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States of America,
by George Bancroft, 3d ed., New York, 1883, Vol. I, 129, 130. Congress adopted, an
ordinance Dec. 23. 1781, to select a district not less than two nor more than three
miles square, on the banks of either side of the Delaware, not more than eight
miles above or below the lower falls of the Delaware, for the capital.—Journal of
the American Congress from 1774 to 1788, Washington, 1823, IV. 458. A full and in-
teresting summary of the efforts to locate the capital in New Jersey will be found
in the History of the Presbyterian Church in Trenton, N. J.." by John Hall, D.D.,
New York, 1859, 435-40.
..
38
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
mendation of Congress for raising troops and holding a treaty
with the Indians. Four days later he voted for the bill giving
to General the Baron Steuben the privilege of occupying for
life the confiscated farm of a Bergen county tory; and on the
25th of the same month he voted to appropriate £300 to
provide a house for the President and Congress at Trenton,
at their next session.
Summing up his six years of service in the Legislature-
1779-80 in the Assembly, and 1781-2-3-4 in the Council-the
minutes of both bodies show that he was extremely prompt
and attentive to his duties; that he brought to their discharge
a wide knowledge of public affairs, of the interests of the
community, of the popular wants, and of the necessities of
the young State; a quick comprehension of the most effective
means for accomplishing desired ends, and a dauntless cour-
age in acting according to his convictions. He was conserva-
tive, yet progressive. He voted to uphold the dignity of land
tenure, as in requiring a freehold qualification for voters; de-
fended the liberty of the press; favored a liberal compensa-
tion to public officers. He believed in the most energetic
prosecution of the war, in "making treason odious,” and in
keeping it so. His frequent appointment on conference com-
mittees indicates that he was a man in whose honesty of pur-
pose both houses had confidence, and that he had the ability
to impress his views upon others, and to conciliate opposition.
His record was so satisfactory to the people of the State
that on October 28, 1785, he was chosen by the Legislature
to represent New Jersey in the Congress of the Confedera-
tion, his associates being Lambert Cadwallader and John
Cleves Symmes, both men of wide reputation.* It is said
* Extract from minutes of the Joint Meeting:
"October 28, 1785: It was Resolved, That three Delegates be elected to represent
this State in Congress. Honourable Lambert Cadwallader, John Cleves Symmes
and Josiah Hornblower, Esquires, appeared to be duly elected. Resolved, That
the said Lambert Cadwallader, John Cleves Symmes and Josiah Hornblower, or
any two of them, be empowered to represent and vote on behalf of this State in the
Congress of the United States of North America, from the first Monday in Novem -
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE. IN AMERICA.
39
that he was elected without previous knowledge, and when
the committee called to apprise him of the unexpected honor,
they found him, in farmer's attire, in his fields, gathering
corn, and with all due ceremony proceeded to address him
then and there, and to deliver their message.*
On the first
day of his term. Monday, November 7, 1785, Mr. Hornblower
took his seat in Congress, which then met in the City Hall of
New York, in Wall street. "The Congress Office" was locat-
ed at No. 81 Broadway, corner of King (now Pine) street,
and the various departments were scattered about the town in
modest quarters, as became the impecunious and already tot-
tering young republic. There was little opportunity for a
man to distinguish himself in such a body as Congress was at
that time. Washington was in retirement at Mount Vernon,
gazing with dark forebodings into the future of his country;
Adams was far away, making friends for the nation at the
Court of St. James; Jefferson was at Paris, trying to preserve
the good will of the fickle French; Hamilton had withdrawn
in despair, after one year's service, from a Legislature which
ber next, until the seventh day of November, 1786, unless a new Appointment shall
sooner take place."
The Legislature had enacted, December 15, 1783: “The Council and Assembly in
Joint Meeting, at the first Sitting of the Legislature after the annual Election, and
at any other Time when the same may be necessary, shall elect and choose any
Number of Delegates not less than three, nor more than seven, to represent this
State in the Congress of the United States, and shall agree upon the Form of Cre-
dentials to be given them of their Appointment, which Credentials, signed by the
Chairman of the Joint Meeting, shall authorize the said Delegates to sit and vote on
the Part of this State, in the Congress of the United States, during the Year or
Time for which they were elected, unless in that Time superseded by a new
Appointment.”—Section 24, Election Law, Wilson's Laws, Trenton, 1784, p. 353.
The law contemplated the constant attendance of but two members on the sittings
of Congress, so that one of them could attend to his private business; as the voting
was by States, two could represent New Jersey as well as three. In Gordon's His-
tory of New Jersey it is stated (p. 324), that in 1784 William Churchill Houston, John
Beatty, Samuel Dick, Lambert Cadwallader, John Cleves Symmes and Josiah Horn-
blower were elected to Congress. This is an error as to Symmes and Hornblower:
Charles Stewart should have been included in the list instead. Another oversight of
Gordon's in the same connection might be noted here. In 1787 (October 31), William
Paterson was elected to Congress, as he states, but he neglects to mention that Mr.
Paterson declined, and on November 6, 1787, Jonathan Dayton was elected in his
place.—Minutes of Joint Meeting, passim.
* The late Chief-Justice Hornblower often related this incident.
+ New York Directory for 1786.
40
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
had no power but to recommend to other Legislatures.
John Hancock was broken down by ill health. Among
the half hundred members, Richard Henry Lee, Charles
Pinckney and David Ramsay were perhaps at that time
the most widely known.* So little interest was taken in the
deliberations of Congress that two weeks elapsed ere
enough States were represented to allow of the election of a
President, when John Hancock was chosen (November 23).†
It was a month later before any business could be transacted,
and almost the middle of January when Congress settled down
to work. So meagre did the attendance continue that on
January 30, 1786, a resolution was adopted to write to the
Governors stating the irconvenience arising from a want of a
sufficient number of States to proceed on the business of the
nation." Day after day, week in and week out, Mr. Horn-
blower was found in his seat at roll-call, waiting patiently for
a like punctuality on the part of the other members. Few of
them thought it worth while to be regular in their attendance.
Why should they? When they met it was only to realize
more and more their own impotence. The need of a better
government became more obvious daily. There was no cohe-
sion between the members of the Confederation. Each State
and each section was bent on having its own way, regardless
of what became of the Union. Said William Grayson in a
* The late Chief-Justice Hornblower often accompanied his father to New York
at this time, and was profoundly inpressed with the dignity and majesty of the
Congress; but he was only nine years old at the time.
+ The fact of Hancock's election to the Presidency at this time is overlooked in
most of the biographical compilations. He sent in his resignation June 5, 1786, on
account of continued ill health, being then confined to his bed, as his letter to Cou-
gress explains. Mr. Bancroft erroneously states (Hist. Const.. I, 253), that David
Ramsay was elected President. Congress chose him Chairman, in the absence of
President-elect Hancock.-Journals of Congress, IV, 606.
+ Journals of Congress, passim; Selections from the Correspondence of the N. J.
Executive, 361.
§ Bancroft's History of the Formation of the Constitution, I, 26-7, 486–7; Mul-
ford's History of New Jersey, 480-1; Journals of Congress, passim. Said Hamil-
ton: "Each State, yielding to the persuasive voice of immediate interest or con-
venience, has successively withdrawn its support, till the frail and tottering edifice
seems ready to fall upon our heads and crush us beneath its ruins."-The Fœderal-
ist, No. XV, Dawson's ed., Morrisania, 1864, 99. Washington sadly confessed: "In
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
- 41
letter to James Madison, May 28, 1786: "Till lately Congress
has been very inactive. It is a practice with many States in
the Union to come forward and be very assiduous till they
have carried some State job, and then decamp with precipita-
tion, leaving the public business to shift for itself.” * Already
there was a profound jealousy in various quarters lest the
Union should become more powerful than its parts. New
York insisted upon retaining the advantages of its commer-
cial supremacy, and reserved for its own use the revenue
derived from imports, which was very oppressive to New Jer-
sey. Virginia and the other Southern States demanded the
opening of the mouth of the Mississippi, even at the price of a
war with Spain. The very meagre record of the debates in Con-
gress during those times gives us less information than could
be desired as to the part Mr. Hornblower took in the delibera-
a word, the Confederation appears to me to be little more than a shadow without
the substance; and Congress a nugatory body, their ordinances being little attended
to." Governor Wm. Livingston declared: Without the utmost exertions of the
more patriotic part of the community, and the blessing of God upon their exertions,
I fear that we shall not be able, for ten years from the date of this letter [February
17, 1787] to support that independence which has cost us so much blood and treasure
to acquire."--Sedgwick's Livingston, ut supra, 403. John Adams, in his first inau-
gural speech to the United States Congress, March 4, 1797, thus summarized the
history and characteristics of the Congress of the Confederation: "Negligence of
its regulations, inattention to its recommendations, if not disobedience to its
authority, not only in individuals but in States, soon appeared, with their melan-
choly consequences; universal languor, jealousies, rivalries of States; decline of
navigation and commerce; discouragement of necessary manufactures; universal
fall in the value of lands and their produce; contempt of public and private faith;
loss of consideration and credit with foreign nations; and, at length, in discontents,
animosities, combinations, partial conventions, and insurrection; threatening some
great national calamity."-Works of John Adams, Boston, 1850-56, IX, 106. See
also “Life and Times of Alexander Hamilton," by J. C. Riethmüller, London, 1864,
173; “Life and Epoch of Alexander Hamilton," by George Shea, Boston, 1879, 72–4;
Alexander Hamilton," by Henry Cabot Lodge, Boston, 1882, 36-B. The tories and
refugees who had been compelled to flee to Nova Scotia beheld, with unconcealed
delight, the bickerings between the States, and did their best to encourage the dis-
content. Said a writer from St. Johns: "If we view the respective States in the
Union, we shall perceive anarchy rather than government, and the lowest order of
citizens in their Legislative councils." * * The Southern States, "perfectly
aware of the insidious conduct of New England, have constantly thwarted her
designs, and clearly perceive that their material interest is really incompatible with
the aggrandizement of the Northern States, whose ambition and numbers, in time,
bid fair to be very dangerous neighbors, to the middle as well as more Southern
Provinces.”—Political Magazine (London) for December, 1786, 403–4,
.
* Bancroft's Hist. Const., I, 505.
42
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
tions of that body, but his votes on various questions indicate
that he favored strengthening the Union at every point, as the
only means of preserving it. Thus we find him (February 7,
1786) voting to raise the largest sum proposed to pay the inter-
est on the public debt, though a majority of the States was not
of the same opinion just then. A commissioner of the Conti-
nental Loan Office in New York having failed to take the full
oath prescribed by Congress for its appointees, Mr. Horn-
blower voted (May 1) that the office be considered vacant.
While Congress was fixing the salaries of the Commissioners
of Accounts between the Nation and the States (May 17), he
opposed limiting their terms to one year, but favored extending
them-evidently to insure greater permanence in the federal
administration. May 19, we find him taking conservative
ground in behalf of the liberty of the private citizen, voting
against allowing witnesses, not belonging to the forces of the
United States, to be punished at the discretion of courts mar-
tial for refusing to testify before such courts. Congress,
however, decided to strike out the words "belonging to the
forces of the United States." Five days later he seconded
a motion "that the acceptance by the United States of
any cessions heretofore made, or which shall hereafter be
made, by any State, of the claims of such State to western
territory, ought not, nor shall be construed nor cited as con-
firming, or in any wise strengthening the claim of such State
to any such territory not ceded." On this question he was
in opposition to the extreme State Rights men of Virginia,
but he was always found taking this stand, which, indeed,
was only consistent with the views he had advocated in the
New Jersey Legislature. The Indian problem then, as for
nearly a century since, was a troublesome one, but was com-
plicated at that time by the claims of the States most con-
cerned-as those of the South-to exercise independent au-
thority over the aborigines within their limits a claim which
Mr. Hornblower opposed uniformly, insisting that the Nation
should exercise exclusive control over the red men (June 29,
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
43
*
July 20, July 24, August 7). The Northern States generally
took the same ground, and the Southern States as generally
wished to have the rights of the individual States recognized
in the premises. He approved the report of the Board of
Treasury (August 8) in favor of establishing the decimal sys-
tem of currency, and prohibiting separate State coinage--an
important step toward nationalizing the country. Again, he
cast his voice in favor of requiring the officers of the new
Northwest Territory to take an oath of fidelity to the United
States; the South generally voting in the negative, probably
out of deference to the old claims of Virginia to the territory,
and enough Northern members voted the same way to defeat
the proposition. He repeatedly voted to urge the reluctant
and delinquent States to comply with the requisitions of Con-
gress in regard to the imposts, to vest the sole power of col-
lecting them in Congress, as a source of revenue wherewith to
meet the national obligations. These votes indicate clearly
his general views on the desirability, not to say the absolute
necessity, of so increasing the powers of Congress that the
Nation might be able to assert and maintain its right to exist-
ence. Thus favoring, as he did, "a more perfect union "
between the States, he was placed in an extremely embarrass-
ing position at an early day of his Congressional experience,
by the alarming and revolutionary course taken by his own
State, in just the opposite direction. Abraham Clark intro-
duced (February 20, 1786) in the New Jersey Assembly a
series of resolutions, subsequently adopted by that body, in-
structing the State's delegates in Congress to "vote against
each and every ordinance, resolution or proceeding whatever,
which shall produce any expense to New Jersey, for the pro-
motion or security of the commerce of these States, or either
of them, from which neither the Union in general, nor this
State in particular, derives any advantage, until all the States
shall effectually and substantially adopt and carry into execu-
tion the impost" adopted by Congress April 18, 1783. It
* Journals of Congress, ut supra, IV, passim.
44
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
was also resolved not to "comply with the requisition of Con-
gress of September 27, 1785, or any other of similar nature,
requiring specie contributions, until all the States in the Union
shall comply with the requisition of April, 1783, or at least
until the several States, having the advantage of commerce
which they now enjoy, solely from the joint exertions of the
United States, shall forbear exacting duties upon merchandise
for the particular benefit of their respective States, thereby
drawing revenues from other States, whose local situation and
circumstances will not admit their enjoying similar advant-
ages from commerce."* This was a formal notice to New
York and to Congress that unless that State allowed her im-
port duties to go into the National Treasury, as the other
States had agreed, New Jersey would break up the Union.
The provocation was great, but this course was a rash one,
and threatened complete disaster to the Confederation.
Clark no doubt thought it would be a popular measure in
New Jersey, whose people had grumbled for years at the
unfair advantage inuring to New York by her absorption of
the duties collected at her great port of entry. In this he
was correct. He may have thought, also, that some such
decisive stroke was needed to force a speedy settlement of the
vexed question, and in fact it did indirectly have that result.
But for a time the Union was on the verge of dissolution, and
its friends everywhere deplored the action taken by New Jer-
sey. A conservative view of the matter is presented in the
following letter (hitherto unpublished) to Mr. Hornblower.
from John Beatty, who had been associated with him in the
Legislature, and had preceded him in Congress:†
Mr.
PRINCETON 6th March 1786.
DEAR SIR-Altho I am not an autifœderal Man, yet believe me, I have
had few fo leral Ideas, since I retired to domestic life-The late extraor-
dinary act of our Legislature, refusing a Compliance with the last requisi-
* Gordon's History of New Jersey, 327.
+ For notices of John Beatty see History of 1st Pres. Church, Trenton, 402; Prince-
ton College during the Eighteenth Century, by Samuel Davies Alexander, New York
(1872), 127; History of Medicine in New Jersey, etc., 140; Minutes of Legislature.
passim. He was elected to Congress in 1783 and in 1784.
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
45
tion of Congress, has however roused me from my Lethargy & I feel sensi-
bly mortified & alarmed for a Conduct, which in my View is extreamly
reprehensible, & tends to the disolving of an Union already too feebly
united-You have doubtless seen the resolution to which I refer as is con-
tained in the last Trenton Gazette, under the form of a Motion of Mr. A.
Clark-If State Policy had dictated a Measure of this kind, they ought not
to have added insult to the refusal, by declaring, they would not comply
with any future requisition of that Body, unless it was made conformable
to their Ideas; thereby denying the Constitutional Authority of Congress to
frame such an Act-The reasons urged in the preamble to this high and
mighty Act of Sovereignty in New-Jersey, are in part true & merit con-
sideration: but surely we ought first to complain, before we attempt to
redress ourselves, at the Expence of the Union at large-Were our Dele-
gates instructed to ask of Congress an abatement of our Quota on account
of our unfavourable local Situation in point of Trade; I persuade myself
it would not be unattended to; more especially as no Standard, whereby
to measure the contributions of the several States, has as yet, been perma-
nently fixed; or rather been made the rule of apportionment—In what light
Congress may view it, I know not: but surely our allies & friends, thro
whose pecuniary aid, we have rose to our present Independence; will view
it with Surprise and Jealesy, & as not tending to the Establishment of
that National System of Revenue, which the resolution pretends to have
for its object; and however modest, tho firm, their Demands of Retribu-
tion may have hitherto been; they will no longer speak the Language of
Justice & Moderation, but I fear will become clamorous & persisting—
* * * How do you like your Situation & what are you doing in Con-
gress—Our Indian affairs wear but a gloomy Aspect-This will prove to
be the Case, untill we have possession of the western parts-What accounts
are there from Mr. Adams & what Expectations have we of their* shortly
evacuating them—
* * * If my letter is not too troublesome, I shall hope for an answer.
If I have been too inquisitive; you will please to correct me—
Yours with much regard
The Honble Josiah Hornblower Esqr.
JNO. BEATTY
Congress took prompt measures to avert the impending
disaster, and (March 7) appointed a committee to proceed to
Trenton and represent to the Legislature "in the strongest
terms, the fatal consequences that must inevitably result to
the said State, as well as to the rest of the Union, from their
refusal to comply with the requisition of Congress of Septem-
* The British.
46
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
ber, 1785."* Mr. Pinckney, of South Carolina, the chairman
of the committee, addressed the Legislature at length, point-
ing out the evils of this first attempt at nullification (which
his own State was destined to imitate half a century later),
and in the course of his argument ingeniously intimated that
New Jersey could more easily have brought New York to
terms by opening a free port on the west shore of the Hud-
son t-a hint which led to an abortive move in that direc-
tion. More pertinently, Mr. Pinckney threw out the sug-
gestion of a "general convention of the States for the purpose
of increasing the powers of the federal government, and mak-
ing it more adequate for the ends for which it was instituted."§
New Jersey did reconsider her hasty action, though neglect-
ing to honor the requisition of Congress, and voted to send
commissioners to a general convention of the States, vesting
them with power to consider the whole subject of the relations
of the States. Ours was the first State to take this broad
step, and thereby paved the way for the convening of that
immortal body, which a year later framed the Constitution of
the United States of America.
Another subject that engrossed the attention of this Con-
gress was the navigation of the Mississippi. Spain held the
mouth of that mighty river, and hindered its free navigation
from the north, which was felt to be an injury to the South-
ern and Western States. On the other hand, there was a
feeling in the Northern States that if the Western Territory
secured a free outlet by the Mississippi, that section of the
country would drift away from the influence of the old States;
and that in any event the country, enfeebled by a long and
exhausting struggle, and lacking cohesive power, was in no
condition to provoke another war, with Spain, for what was
* Journals of Congress, IV, 622.
+ Bancroft's Hist. Const., I, 486.
+ Gordon's History of N. J., 328; Minutes of Assembly, passim.
§ Bancroft's Hist. Const., I, 257.
Ib.
AND THE FİRST STEAM-ENGİNE İN AMERİCA.
47
after all but a doubtful advantage, to a territory mainly a vast
wilderness.* On this question the States divided on Mason
and Dixon's line, the South voting solidly against any treaty
with Spain that did not concede the navigation of the great
river, while the North voted as solidly in favor of a treaty
without such condition. Mr. Hornblower voted with the
North uniformly on this question. One of his colleagues,
Mr. Symmes, was almost the only Northern member who•
favored the Southern and Western view of this subject, pos-
sibly because he already contemplated his subsequent vast
purchases of lands in the future State of Ohio. James Mon-
roe was at this time a member of Congress from Virginia. He
was very young-but twenty-eight-and his letters of the time
teem with the spirit of an extreme and narrow-minded parti-
san, who deemed those who did not think alike with him on
public affairs to be deadly enemies of the country. He took
this matter of the Spanish treaty greatly to heart, and de-
clared his belief that Mr. John Jay, the Foreign Secretary,
was in league with the Northern and Eastern members to dis-
solve the Union. This much is perhaps necessary to explain
the animus of the following extract of a letter written by him
(Sept. 12, 1786), to James Madison:
It will depend much on the opinion of Jersey and Pennsylvania as to
the movements of Mr. Jay; and that of Jersey much on that of Mr. Clark,
now with you at Annapolis. He put Hornblower in Congress, and may
turn him out again, for he has no positive weight of his own. Clark has
always been anxious for taking the Western lands from us. I should sup-
pose him inclined to turn it to the best account. I conclude, therefore,
that if he knows the delegation, especially his part of it, pursue a system
of policy so contrary to his own and to what is in effect the interest of his
country, he would dismiss Mr. Hornblower. Perhaps you may be able to
hint to Clark that Jersey, except Symmes, was with the Eastern States
upon this occasion."S
* Bancroft's Hist. Const., II, 389-91.
+ Secret Journals of the Acts and Proceedings of Congress, 1775-88, Boston, 1821,
IV, 45-57, 108-9, 611.
+ Life and Public Services of John Cleves Symmes, by Charles H. Winfield, Proc.
N. J. Hist. Soc., January, 1877.
§ Bancroft's Hist. Const., II, 388-9, 394.
48
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
Mr. Hornblower's votes in Congress clearly show that there,
as in the New Jersey Legislature, he was a man of independ-
ent convictions, who hesitated not to differ from the great
body of members, if his judgment led him that way, though
he was by no means always in the minority. We can there-
fore smile at the petty ebullition of Mr. Monroe in character-
izing this large-minded man, of such varied attainments and
such wide experience, and who had been so repeatedly and
signally honored in his own State, as having "no positive
weight of his own." But the continuous wrangling between
the States, the indifference of members to their duties, and
the contempt into which Congress had sunk in the popular
estimation, by reason of its want of power, must all have been
extremely distasteful to a man of Josiah Hornblower's ener-
getic, straightforward temperament, especially after his active
and influential service in the Legislature of his State. More-
over, the entire system of organization was well calculated to
crush out the individuality of members. It is not strange,
then, that Mr. Hornblower retired permanently from such an
unsatisfactory body at the end of his first term of one year,
and cheerfully left others to enjoy the honor which had come
to him unsought.*
* The Legislature, on November 7, 1786, re-elected Mr. Cadwallader, and sent
Abraham Clark and James Schuurman in place of Mr. Hornblower and Mr. Symmes.
The election of Mr. Clark at this time might appear to have been the outcome of
the suggestion of Monroe to Madison, in the letter given above. In reality, how-
ever, it was no doubt because of his attitude in the preceding Legislature in favor
of another flood of legal tender paper "money," with which the State was already
deluged. The best men of the State were against it, as a dishonest measure, but
the popular demand for "cheap money" would not be stayed, and even in Eliza-
bethtown, his home, the honest and patriotic Governor Livingston was burned in
effigy because he opposed the bill in the Council. Clark on this, as on other occa-
sions, sided with the masses, and sought to take advantage of the clamor against
the Governor to step himself into the executive chair; but he could muster only
eight votes, as against thirty-eight for the gallant and honored Livingston. It is
quite likely that his election to Congress a week later was brought about partly hy
the friends of the Governor, with a view to console him for his defeat in the guber-
natorial canvass. From the character and disposition of Mr. Hornblower, we may
be sure such a plan would meet with no opposition from him.-Minutes of Joint
Meeting, 1786; Bancroft's Hist. Const., I., 491, 497; Gordon's Hist. N. J., 329. Gov.
Livingston said, anent the proposed emission of paper: “I would see all such
popularity as must be acquired at the horrid expense of sacrificing one's con
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
49
We can now picture him retired from public life, enjoying
in his charming, hospitable home on the peaceful banks of the
Passaic, the well-earned otium cum dignitate so befitting a
long and useful career, such as he had led. The dangers and
struggles of the war were at an end. He had withdrawn from
the turmoils of political life, and in the care of his large
landed property, and the supervision of the education of his
numerous family he found ample occupation.* He made
companions of his sons and daughters. He discoursed with
them upon the affairs of life, and upon mechanics and
scientific themes generally. He was a profound believer in
the infinite capacities of steam, and predicted that his chil-
dren would live to see it in general use as a motive power on
land as well as on water. †
In 1793, the New Jersey Copper Mine Association was
formed by some sanguine capitalists-among them Jacob
Mark, Philip A. Schuyler and Nicholas I. Roosevelt-at whose
science, and the National honour, and the public faith, and our federal obligations,
and the ultimate and real interest of this State to-the devil."-Sedgwick's Living-
ston, 398. In the letter from John Beatty to Mr. Hornblower, already given for the
most part, he thus expresses his opinion of the project: "The State seems at
present in a considerable convulsion, with regard to the Emission of a Paper Cur-
rency or Loan-perhaps no subject has interested all ranks of the people so much,
since the revolution-The House of Assembly are no less divided-on the last
division, 19 votes appeared for & 18 against the Bill-it is thought the Speaker will
give it existance: tho it is extreamly doubtfull whether it will pass the Councill-
The more thinking & prudent part of the State are against the Measure."
* In a letter to a niece in England, December, 1788, he said: "Before the com-
mencement of the late war I was in business, and we were in what is called good
worldly circumstances; but since that period have cultivated a farm which I fortun-
ately purchased about twenty years ago. I have indeed lately been in some
honorary employments, such as Speaker of the (State) House of Representatives.
three years a member of the Legislative Council of the State, and one year a Mem-
ber-of Congress of the United States; but to these stations very small emoluments
are annexed."—Hornblower MSS., communicated by Mr. Justice Bradley.
+ Proc. N. J. Hist. Soc., May, 1851, 162.
On February 4, 1793, Arent J. Schuyler, son of Col. John Schuyler, then deceased.
leased to Philip A. Schuyler, of Bergen County, and Jacob Mark, of New York City,
merchant, the mine property, for a term of twenty-one years, with the privilege of
renewal for twenty-one years more, at a rental of one-tenth of the ore for the first
term, and one-seventh of the ore for the second term; the lessees to "erect and re-
build a sufficient steam Engine within eighteen months." and to "keep at least
eight men at work for not less than eight months in the year." The next day the
lessees entered into an agreement for the better carrying into execution their
intentions of extending the Copper Works by Erecting Furnaces & Battering &
4
50
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
earnest solicitation Mr. Hornblower took charge of the works,
at a salary of $60 per month, and the promise of a one-sixteenth
interest in the concern. He now set about rebuilding his old
66
fire-engine," which had lain idle for twenty years. John
Van Emburgh worked on the engine for him at this time.
Seventy years later he recalled the circumstance, remarking:
"The engine was repaired and the works put in order under the
supervision of Mr. Josiah Hornblower, who was a man of great
skill. He did not talk much, but when he spoke no one could
say he did not understand him, he was so clear and plain in
what he said. He knew perfectly everything that was to be
done. He had the engine under such perfect control that by
a single hair he could stop it."* The management of the
Association proved so unsatisfactory to Mr. Hornblower that
in July or August, 1794, he retired from the superintendency,
and thus his connection with the mines and the steam-engine
ceased finally. The company then introduced German miners,
because they could get them for low wages, but the work
proving unprofitable was soon abandoned. The old engine
again stood idle for several years, until the early part of the
present century, when it was taken to pieces, and the copper
boiler was broken up and carried to Philadelphia. The only
Rolling Mills Do declare that the works shall be carried on under the name & firm
of the New Jersey Copper Mine Association." The property was to be represented
by 640 shares, divided among those interested; three directors were to be elected
annually: "The first Election for chusing directors shall be on the first Monday in
January after the first steam Engine is Erected untill which time the whole manage-
ment of the Company's concerns shall remain with the Lessees." The directors
were authorized to reserve not more than $8,000 annually until $20,000 should be
accumulated, which should be invested as capital, to be used as necessity might
require for the betterment of the property. Within a short time after this organiza-
tion Nicholas I. Roosevelt, a New York merchant, but then of Bergen county,
became interested in the company.—Bergen County Deeds, G, folios 194, 187; Essex
Deeds, D, folio 127. Mark subsequently occupied a farm on the Passaic river bank,
near the mine, known as "Laurel Hill," which had been sold by Mr. Hornblower.-
Bergen Deeds.
* Conversation with Mr. Justice Bradley, in 1865. Judge Bradley writes: “I had
asked Van Emburgh if he knew about the old engine in Schuyler's mine, without
mentioning Mr. Hornblower's name, and I think I have given nearly his exact
words forming a part of his reply. As the words of a plain man they tell a great
deal."
+ For these particulars of the working of the mine at this period the writer s
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
51
part of the engine known to exist now is the half-cylinder,
already described.
Mr. Hornblower lived to see realized many of his own
prophecies regarding the general use of steam. He lived to
see the new and improved engines built by his relatives and
by Boulton & Watt, who, located in the heart of the greatest
coal and iron district in the world, were incessantly stimulated
by fierce competition to make new improvements in the
design and construction of machinery. He lived to see built,
at his very door, the first steam-engine manufactured in
America. Messrs. Roosevelt, Mark and Schuyler, Directors
of the New Jersey Copper Mine Association, bought from Mr.
Hornblower, August 29, 1794, six acres of land on the brook
known as the Second River, with the privilege of erecting a
dam and coal-house.* This was the beginning, probably, of
manufacturing in Belleville. Here they established a foundry
and machine-shop, and here smelting works were erected. Not
far away was the ship-yard of Cornelius Jerolaman, who had
the reputation of turning out the swiftest sloops that navi-
gated the waters near New York. Roosevelt was sanguine and
ambitious, and when Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, of New
York, conceived an idea of a steamboat, Roosevelt, who was the
chief, and perhaps at this time, the sole owner of the Belle-
ville works, offered to build a steam-engine, rather than have
the order go to England. He employed one Smallwood, then
in charge of the smelting works, to construct it. Smallwood
had come out with the first engine for the Philadelphia
indebted to Mr. Justice Bradley, who has Mr. Hornblower's account-books in his
possession. Mr. Van Emburgh told Judge Bradley that the mine was not much
more than 100 feet deep. Isaac Weld, Jr., in 1795-6-7, says of the mine: "Repeated
attempts have been made to work it; but whether the price of labor be too great
for such an undertaking, or the proprietors have not proceeded with judgment,
certain it is, that they have miscarried, and sustained very considerable losses
thereby."-Travels, 150. Efforts to work the mine have been made frequently
since. The projected operations in 1833 have been referred to. An English traveler
who visited the mine in 1833 says: "The mines are now reopened, a steam-engine
erected to drain them, and the works are proceeding with spirit. It is the only
copper mine worked in the United States."-Travels through the United States of
America and Canada, by I. Finch, London, 1833, 277.
* Essex County Deeds, D, 127.
52
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
Water-works, sent by Boulton & Watt from Soho, England,
and having erected it, settled at Belleville, instead of return-
ing to England-as Mr. Hornblower had done before him.
In the primitive state of American industries at that time, it
was difficult to find skilled mechanics anywhere in the country,
but fortunately at this juncture there arrived another voung
Englishman, in the person of John Hewitt, a pattern-maker
by trade, whose skill was utilized in that direction. A German
named Rohde was found to make the castings, and the three
men set to work. Naturally, Mr. Hornblower took a great
interest in the undertaking, and the men named boarded at
his house while the work was going on. On October 21, 1798,
the Polacca a little craft, 60 feet long, with a 20-inch cylin-
der and 2-foot stroke-started out on her trial trip, the suc-
cess of which is disputed. This might have been expected
from Mr. Livingston's plan, which was to force a stream of
water out of the stern by means of a powerful centrifugal
pump. It is said that the same parties subsequently built an
engine for John Stevens' steamboat in 1804, which was the
first screw-propeller ever seen.* Roosevelt was undoubtedly
a man of considerable ingenuity, and soon made for the little
Belleville shops quite a reputation, though they never quite
equaled in magnitude the great establishment after which he
named them-Soho.
* Thurston's Hist. Steam-engine, 250, 264; History of the City of New York, by
Mrs. Martha J. Lamb, 1880, II, 428-9; Proc. N. J. Hist. Soc., May, 1851, 162, and May,
1862, 117-34; Report of U. S. Centennial Exhibition, 1876, VI, 11. For the particulars
concerning the employment of Hewitt and Smallwood, and their intercourse with
Mr. Hornblower, the writer is indebted to the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, the son of
John Hewitt. He adds: "Rohde came to New York, and established what were
subsequently the Allaire Works in this city. Allaire. whom I knew very well, was
one of the first apprentices in the establishment. My father subsequently engaged
in other business, and died at Trenton, in 1856, where steam-engines surrounded
him on all sides. His life covered the era of its development and universal intro-
duction. It is a singular coincidence that Mrs. Hewitt is the daughter of Peter
Cooper, who built the first locomotive engine, while I am the son of the man
who made the patterns of the first steam-engine that was built in America. Our
children ought certainly to have plenty of 'go' in them!" The first successful
locomotive in America was built by Peter Cooper for the Baltimore and Ohio Rail-
road, and run by himself, în August, 1829. It might be noted that Fulton's first
successful steamboat was not run until August, 1807, nine years after the experi-
ments at Belleville,
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA,
53
Mr. Hornblower was again in public life, having been ap-
pointed in 1790* Judge of the Essex Common Pleas, to which
he was reappointed in 1795,† holding the position until com-
pelled by ill health to retire, and "sitting on the bench,"
we are told, "with dignity, uprightness and solidity of judg-
ment." As the leading man in the neighborhood, he was
frequently called upon to preside at public meetings when
affairs of moment were to be considered.§
As the years after the war passed away, with them passed,
also, most of the asperities of those days of bitterness. His
family and his dignities increasing, a new and larger house
seemed needed, and he built a spacious, elegant residence of
stone, a short distance below his former dwelling. But when
it was finished, neither he nor his wife could bear to leave
the old home. There they had lived most of their wedded
life; there most of their children had been born, and there
they preferred to die. And there they did die.
The same reasons that led to the erection of the new mansion,
perhaps induced Mr. Hornblower to set up a family coach,
after the approved fashion of the day. It was a gorgeous and
ponderous affair, drawn by four horses, and caused the owner
to be greatly reviled as an aristocrat. He was anything but
that, being indeed a man of the people himself, simple and
unostentatious in his tastes, and would never ride in his own
magnificent coach, preferring instead to go afoot or on horse-
back.**
In person, he was tall and of commanding presence, and
* Minutes of Joint Meeting, and original commission, in possession of Mr. Justice
Bradley.
+ Ib.
+ Alden's Epitaphs, V. 235.
§ See Appendix I, Note C.
Letter to the writer from the Rev. Dr. Wm. H. Hornblower, March 21, 1877.
The new house was occupied by Mr. Hornblower's son, James, and afterward by
the latter's son-in-law, William Stephens, and family. It was torn down about 1856.
Subsequently the plot was sold by Mr. Stephens to William M. Ackerman, of Belle-
ville, who built the present dwelling, and later sold it to Mrs. Elizabeth Liscomb, of
New York city, its present owner. So the writer is informed by Mr. William H.
Stephens, of Belleville.
** Letter from the Rev. Dr. Hornblower.
54.
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
courtly in his bearing. The Rev. Dr. Samuel Miller, of
Princeton Theological Seminary, and Mrs. Finley, wife of the
Rev. Dr. Robert Finley, of Baskingridge, and daughter of the
Rev. James Caldwell, of Revolutionary fame, used to say that
he was a man of more elegant manners, a more finished gen-
tleman, than any one they had ever met.* And they were
persons of culture, accustomed to the best society in the land.
He came of a Baptist family, and marrying an Episcopa-
lian, they "compromised" by attending the ancient Reformed
Dutch Church at Belleville. In his latter years he appears
to have been a member of the Episcopalian congregation, his
death and that of one of his sons (John) being recorded in
the books of Trinity (Episcopal) Church, Newark.
Mrs. Hornblower is described as a very beautiful woman,
of the most elegant ladies of the day. Adorning her per-
son with silks and satins and velvets and diamonds, as became
her position in society, she believed in adorning the Lord's
house, too, and a crimson damask robe she gave for the pulpit
of the modest little Dutch Church was long remembered with
gratitude by the congregation, while it was an occasion of
offence to her High-Church of England sisters. During the
stormy times of the Revolution, she sided loyally with her
* Letter from the Rev. Dr. Hornblower.
·
+ Ib. In the letter to his niece, December, 1788, before quoted from, he says: "I
rejoice with you that true vital religion, which was in some measure planted, or at
least cherished, by the example and labors of your dear father (Jonathan Horn-
blower, Sen.), increases amongst you. In this country the religion of Jesus spreads
more and more daily; here are no distinctions of pre-eminence given to any Chris-
tian Church; and most of the professors, though of different denominations, live
together in great harmony and brotherly love. It is not uncommon for the young
people here, although members of different churches, to meet together on the
evening of the Sabbath for social worship." Dr. Hornblower, in the letter referred
to above, says his grandfather communed in the Baptist Church in New York, but
no record of the fact has been found. Chief-Justice Hornblower, when he settled
in Newark, connected himself with Trinity Church, and had his first two children
baptized in that church, May 10, 1806, as appears by the records in the custody of
Daniel Dodd, Esq. About 1808 he united with the Presbyterian Church. The Rev.
Joseph Willard, Rector of Trinity Church, Newark, and the Rev. Peter Stryker,
Pastor of the Reformed ('hurch, at Belleville, joined in preparing a biographical
sketch of Mr. Hornblower, which was published in the newspapers directly after
his death; in the American Register, Philadelphia, 1809, V, 269, and in Alden's
Epitaphs.
+ Ib.
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
55
English husband in defence of American Independence,
although so many of her American kinsmen were ranged on
the side of the British. On July 4, 1780, she was designated
with Mrs. (Governor) Livingston, Mrs. Elisha Boudinot and
Mrs. (Dr.) William Burnet, as a Committee of Essex County
ladies, with others equally prominent throughout the State,
to receive subscriptions for the succor of the country's
defenders in the field.* After the war she dispensed a lavish
and elegant hospitality, her house being fitted up with all the
appliances that wealth and taste could supply for entertain-
ing in a manner befitting her means and station.
Mrs. Hornblower died April 24, 1808,† and nine months
later the spouse of her youth was laid beside her. A local
newspaper of the day (the Newark Centinel of Freedom, Tues-
day, January 24, 1809) says his death occurred "after a long
and painful illness," and concludes a brief obituary with the
remark that "through life, he was a useful, benevolent citi-
zen."
Another writer states that "in his last illness, the
exercise of every Christian grace shone with peculiar lustre."‡
In the quiet "God's acre" about the old Reformed Church
at Belleville, lie the mortal remains of this loving pair who
through more than half a century of wedded life, and through
dangers manifold, clung to each other so devotedly. Within
sight of the spot where rests this pioneer of steam-enginery
in America, the forces of steam are at work in a hundred
forms, converting the simple hamlet of yore into a busy cen-
tre of industry. Almost within a stone's throw of his resting
place, long trains of cars dash by with the speed of the wind,
propelled by the same mighty power, bringing over the narrow
track the wealth of the remotest parts of the globe. But,
curiously enough, the most important use of the subtle power
in that neighborhood, is the same for which his rude "fire-
* New Jersey Journal, July 5, 1780.
†The notice of her death, in the Newark Centinel, of April 26, 1808, reads: “Died
at Belleville on Sunday morning last, a few minutes before ten o'clock, Mrs. Eliza-
beth Hornblower, wife of Josiah Hornblower, Esq., in the 75th year of her age.”
+ Alden's Epitaphs, V, 235.
56
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER.
engine" was brought over, one hundred and thirty years ago
—namely, to pump water; only, instead of lifting "80 hogs-
heads per minute," to pour it into the river, these modern,
mighty engines, embodying all the latest improvements in
science, are ceaselessly, noiselessly hoisting twice that quantity
out of the river, to pour it in refreshing, life-giving streams
through the two chief cities of New Jersey-cities of whose
future greatness even the far-seeing young engineer could
scarcely have dreamed-cities which would not, could not
have existed to-day, were it not for the wonderful power
which he first harnessed to the car of progress and civiliza-
tion in America.
APPENDIX I.
NOTE A, PAGE 6.— Hornblower's Compound Engine, and
his Controversy with Boulton and Watt.
The aim of the double-cylinder or compound engine of Jonathan Horn-
blower, Jr., the nephew of Josiah Hornblower, was to utilize the expansive
power of steam, whereby the same steam could be used twice or more.
The engine had two cylinders, one double the size of the other. The steam
was let into both, beneath the pistons, and was then cut off; from the
smaller cylinder it had free vent by a pipe into the larger, above the pis-
ton-head; as it escaped from the smaller cylinder it left a vacuum behind,
causing the piston to descend, and the expanded steam in the second cylin-
der pressed down upon the larger piston-head, giving an additional impetus
to its descent, while the steam beneath it was discharged through a pipe
running under the first cylinder (thus helping to keep it warm), into an
outside vessel, where it was condensed. It was claimed that the power of
this engine was to Watt's single-cylinder engine as 3 is to 2; in other
words, that a gain of 50 per cent. was effected.* Watt was greatly
troubled by the first rumors that came to him concerning this invention,
fearing that some entirely new power had been discovered, instead of a
new application of a power already known. He then claimed that he had
conceived the idea of using the expansive power of steam as early as 1767,†
but he had not been able to make a successful application of it, and
there is really no reason to doubt that Mr. Hornblower's was an independ-
ent discovery, and that he was the first to put the idea into practical form.
When it is remembered that he was not only the son of an engineer, but
that his grandfather had erected a steam-engine at least ten years before
James Watt saw the light at Greenock, it is only reasonable to suppose
that he was quite as capable of arriving at original results in his special
field, as was the humble watch and instrument maker. It is claimed for
Jonathan that he took up the subject of his engine early in 1776, if not
before, and continued it until he made a large working model whose cylin-
* Historical Review of Improvements in the Steam-Engine in the XVIIIth Century.
by Jabez Carter Hornblower, printed in the first and second editions of O. Gregory's
Mechanics, Vol. II, 358-390, and reprinted for Mr. Justice Bradley, Washington, 1880,
32-5; Lives of Boulton and Watt, 304; Thurston's History of the Steam Engine, 135-7.
+ Lives of Boulton and Watt, 304.
By Jabez Carter Hornblower, ut supra, p. 36 of reprint.
58
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
ders were 11 and 14 inches in diameter," and then sent a description with
drawings to the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica, who promised that
the account should appear with the "marks of peculiar approbation" of
Dr. Robison, who was preparing the article on the steam-engine for the
next edition of the work. But Dr. Robison was a warm friend of Watt,
and indeed was the first to direct the attention of the young inventor to
the subject of steam-in 1759,* forty years after Joseph Hornblower had
set up his first engine. The Doctor not unnaturally saw everything relat-
ing to engines as a partisan of Watt, and in his notice of Hornblower's
compound engine directed attention chiefly to various minor improvements
made by Mr. Hornblower, quite overlooking the real importance of his
application of the expansive power of steam, and declared that the engine
was inferior to that of his friend, Watt. This provoked Mr. Hornblower
to a severe rejoinder, which lost him any chance thereafter of getting jus-
tice at the hands of Dr. Robison or the Encyclopedia for which he wrote.†
Here is a new illustration of the power of the press to make or mar an in-
ventor's fortunes! Although Watt had taken out the patent for his
improved engine in 1769 and another in 1774, he was still (in 1781) in the
experimental stages of his invention, largely owing to the mechanical diffi-
culties to be overcome, and the lack of skilled workmen,‡ which also
proved a stumbling-block in the way of the speedy success of Hornblower's
engine. From the date of Newcomen's first practical application of the
power of steam, the English engineers had been trying to remedy the
obvious defects of that machine, so that it was not strange that several
persons should come close upon the same idea at the same time. Thus,
Watt's claim to the invention of the separate condenser has been disputed
in behalf of two or three persons, the fact doubtless being that many
besides himself had had their thoughts inclined in the same direction. But
he was the first to solve the problem, and undoubtedly is entitled to the
credit of the invention. As he himself said in one of his despondent
moods, and they were many while he feared the success of the Hornblower
engine: "It looks as if Nature had taken an aversion to monopolies, and
put the same thing into several people's heads at once, to prevent them."S
When the real character of the new invention became known, Watt evi-
dently did not grasp its true significance at once, and hardly knew upon
what grounds to attack it. He was greatly worried and mortified to find,
too, that the mine-owners favored the Hornblowers, not so much because
of friendship, as in the hope of breaking up the monopoly of the powerful
Soho firm. "The Horners continue bragging of what they are to do," he
writes peevishly, "and I hear the country in general takes part with
* Lives of Boulton and Watt, 118.
+ Encyclopedia Britannica, 3d ed., Art. Steam-Engines, No. 70; Jabez Carter
Hornblower, ut supra, reprint, 36–7.
+ Lives of Boulton and Watt, 311-13.
§ Ib., 300.
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE ÎN AMERICA.
59
them."*
And again: "All the bells in Cornwall would be rung at our
overthrow." Boulton and Watt first claimed that the Hornblower patent
infringed on that of Watt in respect to the use of steam to press down the
piston of the second cylinder. "As to the scheme of the Hornblowers,
they shall sooner press me down into the earth than they shall press down
a piston with steam," wrote Boulton defiantly to his partner.‡ In the
fourth specification of his patent of 1769 Watt set out this claim: “I
intend in many cases to employ the expansive force of steam to press on
the pistons, or whatever may be used instead of them, in the same manner
as the pressure of the atmosphere is now employed in the common fire-
engine."§ It was fifteen years later, or three years after the Hornblower
patent was taken out, ere Watt perfected his double-acting engine, in
which the steam acted on the upper as well as the lower side of the piston-
head, in a single cylinder. But the specification quoted hardly indicates
any such engine as Mr. Hornblower designed. In "An Address to the
Lords, Adventurers, and Others, concern'd in the Mines of Cornwall,
issued from Penryn (Cornwall), May 1, 1788, by Jonathan Hornblower,
Jr., and John Winwood (a wealthy capitalist who was backing up the
former), they say:
"The fourth Article of Mr. Watt's Specification relating to Steam on
the Piston, seems to be the principal Matter of Dispute; for which Reason
it is what we wish most to consider: And without dwelling on the vague
and uncertain Manner in which it is worded, we pass on to observe, that
so far from this Invention being new, it was made public at least fifty
Years since, and in order to prove this, a Description of it, illustrated
with a Copper-Plate, may be seen at This day, where the expansive Power
of Steam is employed to impel the Piston, on a Vacuum which is made in
the upper Part of the Cylinder; and where the Piston is connected to an
Iron Rod that moves thro' the Cylinder-Lid. Which plainly demonstrates,
that the Power of Steam employed to force into a Vacuum, intercepted by
a Piston, is of ancient Date. * * * That we did not even take the
Hint of our Improvement from Messrs. Boulton and Watt, we have Evi-
dence sufficient, who saw our Model at Work in 1776, which was long
before we heard of those Gentlemen or their Patent."
•
The Soho firm ultimately made their fight mainly or altogether on the
principle of the separate condenser, claiming that Hornblower's device for
discharging the steam from the larger cylinder was an infringement on
Watt's great patent. Mr. Hornblower admitted the value of this idea,
but denied having adopted it, saying, in the "Address" quoted from above:
"The Application of this Improvement to our Engine would be useless;
nor have we adopted it, for we do admit the condensing Water into the
* Lives of Boulton and Watt, 299, 303.
+ Ib., 303, 320.
+ Ib., 301.
§ Thurston's Hist. Steam-Engine, 100.
60
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER,
Cylinder. Which is sufficient of itself to evince, that the Principles of the
two Machines must be, and are very different." However, from the
descriptions and views of the engine extant, there evidently was attached
some sort of a condensing apparatus outside of the cylinders,* and
although it was by no means an essential feature of the engine, it gave
Boulton and Watt an advantage in attacking Hornblower's design. The
counsel for Hornblower and his associates boldly questioned the legality
and the sufficiency of Watt's patent, but in this they failed. On the other
hand, it does not appear that Mr. Hornblower's claim to the invention
of the double-cylinder engine was successfully disputed in the courts.
But
Boulton and Watt commanded a larger capital, supplied means for oper-
ating many mines and other manufacturing enterprises, enjoyed the vast
prestige of court favor, † and in various ways managed to intrench them-
selves so firmly that when Mr. Hornblower's patent expired, in 1795, it
was out of the question for him to seek a renewal of it; and when Watt's
second patent (extended by Parliament in 1775 for twenty-five years from
its date of issue, 1774, against the strenuous opposition of the mine-owners,
whose cause was warmly espoused by Edmund Burke ‡) ran out, in 1799,
the Hornblowers were no longer in a position to compete in the manu-
facture of engines with their great and wealthy rivals. As already stated,
the principle of the Hornblower engine is to-day most effectively applied,
to enable steamships to make swift and extended ocean voyages, which
they could not accomplish without it.
Mr. Justice Bradley, who has given the subject much attention for
many years, says in a letter to the writer: "I have long been of the opin-
ion that injustice was done to the Hornblowers on the merits of the con-
troversy. I am so satisfied on the subject in reading the Hornblowers'
letters, and in many other ways, that I have a moral certainty of it." He
gives these references to the reports of the litigation: Boulton & Watt vs.
Bull, 2 H. Blackstone, 463; Hornblower & Maberly vs. Boulton & Watt.
8 Term Reports, 95: Boulton vs. Bull, 3 Ves., 140; remarks by counsel,
arguendo, in the argument on Neilson's Patent, in Webster's Patent Cases.
NOTE B, PAGE 14.-The Snow Irene, and Captain Garrison.
Nicholas Garrison was born on Staten Island in 1701, went to sea in his
thirteenth year, and at the age of twenty-one took command of a New
York vessel in the West India trade.
Spangenbergh, in October, 1736, who
When nearing port, a severe storm
While thus engaged he met Bishop
sailed in his vessel for New York.
arose, and fear seized all the crew
* Illustrations of the engine are given in the article by Jabez Carter Hornblower,
ut supra, reprint; and in Thurston's Hist. Steam-Engine, 136.
+ Lives of Boulton and Watt. 3.
+ Ib., 219.
AND THE FIRST STEAM-ENGINE IN AMERICA.
61
except the pious Moravian, who remained calm and engaged in fervent
prayer. He cheered the dismayed sailors, having confidence that the Lord
would save them. In a few hours they safely entered the desired harbor.”*
This incident produced a marked effect on Garrison, and ultimately led
to his joining the "United Brethren." In 1738 he met Count Zinzendorf
at St. Thomas, and entertained him at his home on Staten Island in 1743.
He was several times taken prisoner by Spanish or French cruisers, suffer-
ing much hardship. Returning to Staten Island in 1748, on September 8
of that year he sailed in command of the Snow Irene, on her first voyage,
she having been built by the Brethren "for the more easy conveyance of
their colonists to the American settlements."+"In 1749 she carried a large
colony from London, and conveyed some Greenlanders back to their own
country. From that time on she performed four voyages almost every
year between London and New York, being a good sailor and easily
freighted." "In 1753 she sailed with forty, and in 1754 twice with
upward of ninety Brethren and Sisters for the colonies and missions in
America."Ş She met with a strangely tragic fate for a vessel employed
on so peaceful a mission. "In November, 1757, on a voyage from New
York to London, she was taken by a French privateer, and sent for Cape
Breton; but, on the 12th of January, 1758, she was cast away. The crew
took to their boat, but were overset by the waves. However, they all
escaped to shore, though with the utmost hazard of their lives. Being
thrown upon a desert coast, they were obliged to work their way, with
great toil and peril, through snow and ice, for seventy miles, till they came
to Louisburgh. The prisoners, among whom were some Brethren, were
carried to Brest. Having endured much hardship and distress, both at
sea and on land, among a number of other prisoners, they at last were
exchanged." Captain Garrison had left the Irene in 1755, in favor of
his mate, Christian Jacobson, and had gone to Germany in the interest of
the Brethren, in whose behalf he subsequently visited Holland, and Dutch
Guiana, whence he returned to Germany, settling at Neisse, in Prussian
Silesia. In 1763 he came back to America, making his home thencefor-
ward at Bethlehem, Penn., where he died in 1781.**
It might be added that the nautical dictionaries define a snow to be
a “brig-rigged vessel, with a driver (or try-sail) bent on rings to a supple-
mentary mast just abaft the main-mast." It resembles a bark.
* The Earliest Churches of New York and its Vicinity, by Gabriel P. Disosway.
A. M., New York, 1865, 207.
+ The Ancient and Modern History of the Brethren, by David Cranz, translated
by Benjamin La Trobe, London, 1780, 390.
+ Ib., 478.
§ Ib.. 416.
Ib., 478.
** Ib. 473, 485: Anuals of Staten Island, by J. J. Clute, New York, 1877, 301-6,
62
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER.
NOTE C, PAGE 53.-The name "Belleville" adopted.
The following document, found among the papers of Josiah Hornblower,
indicates his prominence in the little community, and is of some local
interest besides:
66
At a general meeting of the inhabitants of Second River and its vicinity on Sat-
urday the 24th June inst., at the house of John Ryerson, (agreeably to advertise-
ment, for the purpose of giving a name to the said place,
"JOSIAH HORNBLOWER in the chair-
"It was Resolved, That the name Second River is improper and inconsistent, as
it originally applied to the brook and not to the village, and therefore that some
name more applicable be now chosen.
"2. Resolved, That the whole district commonly known and called by the name
of Second River, which generally includes the villages of Povershon, Newtown,
&c., be hereafter known only by the name of Washington.
"By order of the meeting.
JOSEPH HORNBLOWER, Clerk.”
On the other side of the same sheet is the following:
"We, the subscribers, inhabitants and freeholders living near the bridge at the
village commonly called Second River, but now called Washington, comprehending
the district of Newtown, Povershon, &c., apprehending that many inconveniencies
would arise from the want of a name to distinguish the said village, when particu-
larly alluded to, do therefore
Resolve, To distinguish the said village (when alluded to separately from the
district comprehending Washington) by the name of Belleville.
"Monday, June 26, 1797." (Signed by Josiah Hornblower and 38 others, including
William, James and Jonathan Hornblower.)
APPENDIX II.
GENEALOGY OF THE HORNBLOWER FAMILY.*
JOSEPH HORNBLOWER, b. 1696; d. 1762; m. Rebecca
Some mention has been made of this early engineer, in the preceding
pages. Additional particulars of his career may be found in "Yesterday
and To-day," by his talented great-grandson, Cyrus Redding. Mr. Horn-
blower's seal was a representation of the queer, high, peak-roofed engine-
house of his day, with one arm of the engine's walking-beam projecting
from one end. He is said to have had twelve children. The following is
a list so far as ascertained:
I. Jonathan, b. 1717; d. Dec. 7, 1780. An eminent engineer, who
established himself in Cornwall about 1745.
II. Josiah, d. in infancy.
III. Joseph, d. 1781. He was also an engineer. Issue: six children.
Iv. Josiah, b. Feb. 23, 1729; d. Jan. 21, 1809, at Belleville.
v. Joanna, d. 1757.
Mr. Hornblower married a second time. Children:
VI. Joshua, d. unm.
VII. Jabez, who had three children; all died young.
VIII. James, d. unm.
IX. Isaac, b. 1744; d. 1818.
Jonathan m. Ann, dau. of Thomas Carter, a lawyer of some emi-
nence, of Brosely in Shropshire, England, and had the following children,
to whom he gave names, as his father had done, beginning with J:
1. Jabez Carter, b. May 21, 1744; d. July, 1814. An eminent en-
gineer, of whom a sketch is given by Judge Bradley, intro-
ductory to the reprint of his article on steam-engines, referred
to above.
II. Jethro, b. July 16, 1746; d. Jan. 1, 1820.
III. Joanna, b. Nov. 24, 1747; d. Aug., 1813; m. he Rev. Robert
Redding (who d. 1807), and was the mother of Cyrus Red-
ding, editor (with Thomas Campbell) of the New Monthly
Magazine, and author of various works.
Iv. Jesse, b. July 3, 1749; d. Dec. 29, 1822.
v. Jemima, b. Jan., 1751; d. 1754.
VI. Jonathan, Jr., b. July 5, 1753; d. Feb., 1815. The eminent
engineer whose work is noticed in the preceding pages.
* For the following lists of the children of Joseph, of Jonathan and of Josiah
Hɔrnblower, the writer is indebted to Mr. Justice Bradley. The data as to the sub-
sequent generations have been obtained from various sources.
64
HORNBLOWER GENEALOGY.
VII. Joseph, b. Feb. 17, 1755; d.
VIII. Jemima, b. March 5, 1757; d. Feb., 1790; m.
Trestrail.
IX. Julia, b. Dec. 26, 1758; d. Aug., 1800. She m. the Rev. John
Moyle, and had a dau. Julianna, who m. her cousin, Cyrus
Redding, mentioned above.
x. Jecholia, b. Oct. 2, 1760; d. Nov., 1843.
XI. Jedida, b. Oct. 4, 1764; d. Sept., 1812; m. James Milford.
XII. Jerusha, b. 1767; d. May, 1823.
XIII. Josiah, b. 1769; d. Sept., 1795.
Descendants of Josiah Hornblower.
JOSIAH HORNBLOWER, b. Feb. 23, 1729; d. Jan. 21, 1809; m. 1755,
Elizabeth, dau. of Col. William Kingsland and Margaretta Coerten,* of
New Barbadoes Neck, Bergen County, N. J. Children:
I. Joseph, b. 1756; studied medicine in New Brunswick, N. J., with
Dr. Lewis Dunham; d. 1777, without issue.
II. Margaretta, b. 1758; d. Dec. 29, 1825; m. James H. Kip, merchant,
of New York. Children:
1. Henry, d. æt. two days.
2. Eliza, b. March, 1781; d. Nov. 17, 1805; m. 1800, John Arent
Schuyler, of New Barbadoes Neck, b. April 12, 1779, son of
Arent J., son of Col. John Schuyler. He m. 2d, Catharine,
* Some account has been given above of the maternal ancestry of Mrs. Josiah
Hornblower. Her grandmother, Elizabeth De Riemer, was the daughter of Huybert
De Riemer, who was the third child of Isaac De Riemer and Elizabeth Grevenraet.
whose children were:
i. Margaret, m. Cornelis Steenwyck, Mayor of New York, 1682-3, and one of
the wealthiest and most influential merchants of the city. He died in
1684. She m. 2d, Dominie Henricus Selyns, pastor of the N. Y. Dutch
Church. She survived both husbands, dying in 1711, leaving a large estate
to her nephews and nieces, and making Henricus Coerten, who m. her
niece, Elizabeth De Riemer, one of her executors.
ii. Pieter. b. 1643; had a son. Isaac. Mayor of New York in 1700. and Sheriff in
1701-2.
iii. Huybert, joined the Dutch Church, N. Y., 1671; d. at Meuse, France; was a
naval surgeon; m. Catharine
Issue: 1. Isaac: 2. Elizabeth.
iv. Machtelt, joined the Dutch Church, N. Y.. 1682; m. Nicholas Gouverneur, of
France, a prominent merchant of New York, though spending most of
his time in France or Holland; he was the founder of the Gouverneur
family of New York. Issue: 1. Abraham; 2. Isaac. Abraham m. Mary
Milborne, wid. of Jacob Milborne, and dau. of Jacob Leisler, the two
unfortunate leaders of Leisler's usurpation in New York in 1689. Isaac
was the father of the Gouverneurs of Newark, N. J.-Nicholas, Samuel
and Isaac.
Elizabeth (Lysbeth) Grevenraet was one of the most notable women of her time in
New York. She m. 2d, Elbert Elbertszen; and 3d. 1659. Dominie Samuel Drisius,
pastor of the Dutch Church; she d. 1687.-Notes of Judge Bradley; N. Y. Gen. &
Biog. Rec.. April, 1876, 60-3; do., January, 1878, 38; Valentine's N. Y. Manual, 1855,
538; do.. 1862, 770; do., 1864, 579,
HORNBLOWER GENEALOGY.
65
dau. of Robert Van Rennselaer, and d. Oct. 12, 1817. Chil-
dren of John A. Schuyler and Eliza Kip:
i. Arent Henry, b. Nov. 25, 1801; d. May 19, 1878; m.
April 24, 1828, Mary Caroline Kingsland, dau. of
Henry W. Kingsland, b. June 21, 1804; she is still
living. Their children were: I. Henry Kingsland,
b. March 5, 1829; II. John Arent, b. Feb. 19, 1831;
d. June 15, 1870; III. Smith Anderson, b. Nov. 18,
1832;
d. July 26, 1870; IV. Edwin Nesbitt, b. June
15, 1834; d. Sept. 13, 1835; V. Harriet Anderson,
b. Aug. 29, 1836; d. Feb. 17, 1882; VI. Sarah
Jauncey, b. June 22, 1838; VII. Arent Henry, b.
Aug. 8, 1840; d. Sept. 20, 1863; VIII. Richards
Kingsland, b. June 24, 1842; IX. Mary Caroline,
b. Feb. 16, 1845; d. Aug. 9, 1845; X. Catherine
Gertrude, b. Aug. 17, 1846; d. Sept. 16, 1866.
ii. Harriet Ann, b. Jan. 31, 1803; is still living; m. Dec.
19, 1822, Smith W. Anderson, New York, b. Oct. 24,
1794; d. Nov. 15, 1851. Children: I. John Schuyler,
b. Sept. 21, 1823; II. James, b. Dec. 8, 1825; III
Helen Margaretta, b. Oct. 11, 1827; IV. Harriet
Schuyler, b. Nov. 8, 1829; d. Nov. 19, 1873; V.
Hannah Matilda, b. Jan. 15, 1832; VI. Catharine
Schuyler, b. Feb. 12, 1834; VII. Smith Weeks, b.
May 30, 1838; VIII. Angelina Schuyler, b. May 5,
1840. There are thirteen grandchildren living, of
Harriet Ann and Smith W. Anderson.
3. Caroline, d. young.
4. Henry, d. without issue.
5. Josiah, d. without issue.
6. Harriet Jones, b. Jan. 1,1788; d. Aug. 28, 1866; m. May 12,
1809, Benjamin Ludlow Day, of Chatham, son of Col. Israel
Day and Elizabeth, dau. of Col. Cornelius Ludlow, of Long
Hill, Morris County, N. J.; he was b. March 22, 1787; d.
March 13, 1822. Children:
i. Margaretta, b. April 16, 1810; d. Sept. 24, 1863; m.
William Henry Field.
ii. Israel Ludlow, b. April 14, 1814; d. Nov. 22, 1836.
iii. Eliza Schuyler, b. Sept. 18, 1816; d. June 22, 1858;
m. Jan. 10, 1839, Geo. W. Campbell, of Millburn,
N. J., b. Jan. 10, 1814. Children: I. Euphemia
b. Oct. 29, 1839; m. (by the Rev. Mr. Williams, of
Orange, N. J.) Sept. 24, 1861, to Samuel G. Borrowe,
of N. Y. (Issue: 1. Effie Beekman, b. Jan. 27,
1863; 2. Hallet Alsop, b. April 1, 1864; 3. Jeannie
Campbell, b. July 2, 1867; 4. Beekman Kip, b.
10
5
66
HORNBLOWER GENEALOGY.
Sept. 26, 1869.) II. Catharine, b. May 20, 1841; III.
Samuel, b. Jan. 8, 1843; m. Frances Mott, grand-
dau. of Dr. Valentine Mott, of N. Y. city. (Issue:
1. Samuel Alexander; 2. Eliza Day; 3. Fannie
Mott; 4. George W.) IV. Harriet Kip, b. Sept. 10,
1845; V. Ludlow Day, b. Nov. 15, 1846; d. Oct.,
1876; VI. George W., b. March 6, 1848; m. Anna,
dau. of Gen. William N. Grier, of the U. S. Army.
(Issue: 1. Eliza Schuyler, b. Sept. 12, 1873; 2.
Grier, b. Aug. 31, 1875; 3. Duyckinck, b. Nov. 27,
1877; 4. George Wright, b. Jan. 25, 1881.) VII.
Moses T., b. March 26, 1849: VIII. Eliza Schuy-
ier, b. Dec. 1, 1851; IX. Helen, b. Feb. 3, 1857.
(George W. Campbell, Sr., m. 2d, Oct. 30, 1860,
Virginia Watson, and had issue: X. Jane Allen, b.
June 25, 1862; XI. Allen Watson, b. Jan. 11, 1867.)
iv. Helen Kip, b. Oct. 10, 1818; d. Feb. 11, 1850.
7. Charles, d. without issue.
8. Helen, b. June 15, 1798; d. Aug., 1826; m. 1820, Abel T.
Anderson, a lawyer of New York. Children:
i. James Kip, b. June 18, 1823; dec.; a civil engineer,
of New York; m. Harriet B., dau. of Col. Dall, of
Maryland.
ii. Eliza, b. 1821; m. Bishop Kerfoot, of Pittsburgh, Pa.,
whom she survives.
9. William, d. without issue.
10. James, d. without issue.
III. William, b. 1759; d. 1765, of malignant sore throat or scarlet fever.
IV. James, b. 1761; d. March 31, 1843; m. April 5, 1796, Hannah Crane,
who d. Feb. 7, 1823. Children:
1. William, b. July 13, 1797; d. Sept. 13, 1801.
2. Eliza Christiana, b. Sept. 25, 1799; d. Oct. 17, 1859; m. July
27, 1820, William Stephens, of Belleville, who d. Dec. 27,
1872. Children:
i. Hannah Elizabeth, b. June 9, 1821; d. Jan. 9, 1835.
ii. William Hornblower, b. July 14, 1823; now post-
master at Belleville. He m. Sept. 29, 1853, Mary
Ann, dau of John Walsh, of Belleville; she was b.
Aug. 27, 1830. Issue: I. Robert Law, b. July 9,
1854; d. Nov. 28, 1855; II. William Alfred, b. Oct.
24, 1855; III. Albert Henry, b. Jan. 28, 1858; IV.
Joseph Hornblower, b. Jan. 12, 1861.
iii. Rebecca Williamson, b. May 7, 1828; d. Nov. 27, 1836.
iv. Maria Louisa, b. July 12, 1839; d. Aug. 16, 1839.
v. Sarah Ann, b. July 26, 1842; d. Aug. 9, 1843.
HORNBLOWER GENEALOGY.
67
V. Rebecca, b. 1762.
VI. Elizabeth, b. 1764.
Both died of malignant sore throat or scarlet
fever, with their brother William (III), in
1765.
VII. William, b. 1765; d. 1799, without issue; m. his cousin, Margaret
Kingsland, b. March 26, 1773, dau. of Edmund William Kings-
land; she m. 2d, Charles Trinder.
VIII. Josiah, b. May 23, 1767; d. May 6, 1848. "He studied medicine
with Dr. Thomas Steele, of Belleville, and began practice at Ber-
gen in 1789, his field of practice extending over all of what is now
Hudson County, old Hackensack Township in Bergen County,
and frequently crossing the Kill van Kull to the northerly end of
Staten Island; from 1789 to 1807 he was one of but two or three
physicians resident within that district; in the war of 1812, he
was appointed a surgeon, and assigned to duty at the old Arsenal
on the Heights. He continued in active service till 1844."-His-
tory of Medicine in New Jersey, and of its Medical Men, by
Stephen Wickes, A. M., M.D., Newark, 1879, 286-7. Dr. Horn-
blower m. Dec. 4, 1791, Annetje (Anna) Merselis (dau. of Merselis
Merselis and Elisabet Vliereboom), who was b. Nov. 25, 1773;
d. Dec. 21, 1832; m. by the Rev. Mr. Lynn, of N. Y. Children:
1. Josiah, b. Aug. 7, 1792; d. Jan. 23, 1824; was a physician
at Bergen; m. Oct. 15, 1812 (by the Rev. John Corneli-
son), Hannah Town, b. Nov. 22, 1791; she survived him
and m. 2d, Benjamin Stagg, b. Feb. 11, 1787, son of John
Stagg, b. in New York, 1732.-N. Y. Gen. and Biog.
Rec., April, 1878. Children of Josiah (3d) and Hannah
Town:
│
i. Anna Elizabeth, b. Aug. 21, 1813; m. Dr. Edwin
Webb, of Hempstead, L. I.
ii. Caroline Town, b. March 18, 1815; m. John Stagg,
son of Benjamin Stagg (her mother's 2d husband).
iii. Josiah Henry, b. Jan. 3, 1817; d. March 29, 1879;
m. June 23, 1846, Maria, dau. of Eli Morgan, of
Bethel, Conn.; she was b. Sept. 2, 1819. Issue:
I. Anna Stagg, b. Jan. 3, 1848; m. Nov. 30, 1871,
George B. Benjamin, Jr., of Danbury, Conn., and
had two children: 1. Anna, b. April 10, 1874; 2.
George, b. Sept. 7, 1875; both dec.
iv. John Town, b. Oct. 10, 1819; d. Nov. 5, 1833.
2. Elizabeth, b. Dec. 28, 1793; d. May 28, 1844; m. Oct. 15,
1816, Dr. Thomas Brown Gautier, of Bergen, b. July 25,
1797; d. at Jersey City, April 11, 1850. Children:
i. Mary Brown, b. July 26, 1817; d. April 5, 1850; m.
April, 1839, David Betts Wakeman, and had issue :
I. Elizabeth Gautier; II. Edmund D. Barry; III.
Anna; IV. Jabez J.; V. Sarah; VI. Mary Caro-
line.
68
HORNBLOWER GENEALOGY.
ii. Josiah Hornblower, b. Nov. 12, 1818; practiced
medicine for some years in Jersey City, but sub-
sequently engaged in manufacturing; m. Dec. 10,
1844, Mary Louisa, dau. of Dudley S. Gregory,
and had issue: I. Dudley Gregory; II. Thomas
Brown; III. Maria Louisa; IV. Josiah Horn-
blower; V. Anna Elizabeth; VI. Charles Edward;
VII. Clara Sutton.
iii. Thomas, b. July 16, 1820; m. May 16, 1855, Anna
Robinson, and had issue; I. Thomas.
iv. Anna Elizabeth, b. March 17, 1822; unm.
v. Francis Pantar, b. April 18, 1824; m. Dec. 20, 1860,
Eliza Newkirk. Issue: I. Mary Elizabeth; II.
Annie Louisa; III. Alice Maud; IV. Frank
Henry.
vi. William Henry, b. Jan. 1, 1826.
vii. Eugene, b. March, 1828; d. Dec. 10, 1848.
viii. James Robert, b. Nov. 25, 1830.
3. Christiana, b. Nov. 10, 1795; d. Sept. 2, 1876; m. Nov. 13,
1819, Dr. Gasherie De Witt, of Bergen.
Issue:
Anna Maria, b. Aug. 29, 1820; d. 1878; m. Cyrus
W. Hartwick. Issue: I. Gasherie De Witt.
ii. Gasherie, b. June 10, 1822; d. Nov. 19, 1874, at
Geneva, Switzerland. He was a public-spirited
citizen of Belleville, was a member of the Legisla-
ture, and in 1873 was an Honorary U. S. Com-
missioner to the International Exposition at
Vienna. He occupied at Belleville a part of the
old Hornblower estate, calling his place "Truro,”
after a town in Cornwall where Joseph Hornblower
lived at one time. He m. Oct. 15, 1849, Jennie
I., eldest dau. of the Rev. John Dowling, D.D.,
of N. Y. city; she was b. June 5, 1830. Issue:
I. Ida Christiana, now Instructor in Vassar Col-
lege; II. Helen Maria, who graduated from the
Woman's Medical College of N. Y., May 22, 1879;
m. May 22, 1880, Dr. J. G. Justin, Professor in
Syracuse University. (Children: 1. Joel De Witt;
2. Jennie Elizabeth.) III. Lilia Dowling, artist;
IV. Jennie Josephine; V. Gasherie, merchant;
VI. Alice Cornelia; VII. Julia Dyer; VIII. John
Dowling; IX. Elizabeth Sleeper.
iii. Josiah Hornblower; lives at Orange, N. J.
iv. Jane Zabriskie, unm., living at Jersey City.
v. Joseph Coerten Hornblower, d. unm.
vi. Elizabeth Gasherie, d. unm.
HORNBLOWER GENEALOGY.
69
vii. William Hornblower, d. unm.
viii. Helen Kingsland, d. unm.
ix. Louis Andries, d. unm.
x. Mary Gasherie, d. unm.
xi. James Henry, d. unm.
Most of the above died in infancy, or very young.
4. Henry Merselis, b. Nov. 3, 1797; d. Aug. 8, 1814, without
issue.
5. James Kip, b. Sept. 11, 1806; d. June 21, 1828, without
issue.
6. William J. V. H., b. Oct. 22, 1809; d. April 3, 1881;
studied medicine, and was graduated from College Physi-
cians and Surgeons, N. Y. City, 1831; m. Oct. 14, 1835,
Sarah, youngest dau. of the Rev. James V. C. Romeyn,
of Hackensack, N. J.; she was b. Feb. 22, 1814; d. May
8, 1874. Dr. Hornblower dropped the middle initials of
his name and called himself William, simply. Children:
i. Josiah, b. Sept, 15, 1836; graduated from Univer-
sity Medical College, N. Y. City, 1860; a practic-
ing physician in Jersey City; m. Oct. 14, 1860,
Ninetta, eldest dau. of Captain William Penning-
ton, of Mays Landing, N. J., the Rev. J. O.
Winner performing the ceremony. Issue: I. Liz-
zie, b. 1861; II. Josiah, b. 1864; studying medi-
cine; III. Ninetta, b. 1870; IV. Francis Gautier,
b. 1874; V. William, b. 1876.
ii. Elizabeth Gautier, b. April 1, 1838; m. June 20,
1879, E. T. Rogers.
iii. Harriet Stafford, b. Feb. 23, 1842; d. March 1, 1850.
iv. Theodore Romeyn, b. June 9, 1845; graduated from
College Physicians and Surgeons, N. Y. City,
1869; m. Nov. 11, 1870, Emma T. Sherwood,
who d. 1871. Issue: I. William, who d. aged two
years. He m. 2d, Nov. 8, 1874, Julia A. Nixon.
v. William Ballard, b. Jan. 24, 1847; d. Oct. 19, 1873.
vi. John W., b. Aug. 22, 1849; m. June 18, 1882, Mary
Griffin.
vii. Gasherie De Witt, b. March 31, 1852; d. Dec. 9, 1864.
7. Jane, b. Oct. 2, 1811; d. May 29, 1843; m. Dr. Philip
Zabriskie, of Bergen.
IX. Jonathan, b. July 26, 1769; d. Oct. 23, 1809, without issue. He
lived for some years with his uncle, James H. Kip, in New York,
doubtless being employed in his mercantile business; as early as
1793 he was engaged with his brother William in carrying on the
store at Second River, the firm being William & J. Hornblower.
About this time he, for some reason not now understood, changed
70
HORNBLOWER GENEALOGY.
his name to John, and was thereafter known by that name, al-
though occasionally called Jonathan. In his father's will he is
called John.
X. Henry Coerten, b. 1771; d. Sept. 8, 1795, at Troy, N. Y., of yellow
fever, contracted at New York; he was a sailor.
XI. Christiana, b. 1775; d. Nov., 1794, from the effects of a contusion
on her head, received in raising herself suddenly against a mantel-
piece. She is said to have been a most lovely and amiable girl.
XII. Joseph Coerten,* b. May 6, 1777; d. June 11, 1864; studied law in
1798 with David B. Ogden, of Newark, and succeeded to his
business when Mr. Ogden removed to New York in 1800, although
Mr. Hornblower was not admitted to the Bar until 1803. He m.
April 9, 1803, Mary Burnet, dau. of Dr. William Burnet, Jun.,
of Belleville; she d. Dec. 18, 1836; he m. 2d, March 9, 1840, Mary
Ann, dau. of Major John Kinney, of Newark, N. J. Was Chief-
Justice of New Jersey 1832-46. See "Address on the Life and
Character of the Hon. Joseph C. Hornblower, LL.D.," by the
Hon. Richard S. Field, before the New Jersey Historical Society,
Jan. 16, 1865, Proc. Soc., X, 27. His children, all by his first
wife, were:
1. Joanna Margaretta, b. Dec. 29, 1804; d. April 29, 1874;
m. June 27, 1827, Thomas Bell, of Philadelphia, merchant,
who d. Aug. 29, 1867. Issue:
i. Mary, b. April, 1828; d. 1835.
ii. Joseph Coerten, b. Nov., 1829; d. April 14, 1863,
unm.; he settled in Texas before the war, and
either enlisted in or was impressed into a Texas
regiment in the rebel army, and was killed in the
service.
iii. Bertha, b. Aug. 14, 1831; m. 1852, John Chapron, a
lawyer of Philadelphia, who d. Nov. 22, 1866.
Issue: I. Bertha, b. Jan. 15, 1854; II. John
Marie, b. Aug. 15, 1856; III. Francis Stephen, b.
May 3, 1861.
iv. Edward Gray, b. June 17, 1833; d. Dec. 8, 1878.
unm.; was 1st Lieut. in 5th N. Y. Vols.. Dur-
yea's Zouaves, in the War of the Rebellion.
v. Robert Chalmers, b. 1835; d. 1837.
2. Eliza Schuyler, b. Feb. 6, 1806; d. Aug. 7, 1862; m. the
Rev. Mortimer Talbot, Chaplain U. S. Navy (now dec.).
Issue:
i. Joanna, m. Dr. Charles Eversfield, Surgeon U. S.
Navy (now dec.).
* Joseph does not seem to have adopted the name ** Coerten" until after his
brother Henry's death. It will be noticed that as clerk of the Belleville meeting, in
1797, he did not use any middle name. (See Appendix I, Note C, ante.)
HORNBLOWER GENEALOGY.
71
3. Emily, b. Jan. 6, 1808; d. June 21, 1874; m. April 11, 1826,
Col. Alexander McWhorter Cumming, of Newark, after-
ward of Princeton, N. J.; Major First New Jersey Cavalry
in the War of the Rebellion; he d. July 16, 1879. Issue:
i. Mary, b. June, 1828; unm.
ii. Sarah, b. 1829; d. Dec., 1876, unm.
iii. Richard Stockton, b. 1833; m. Aug., 1865, Emily,
dau. of Rev. Heman Blodgett. Issue: I. Katha-
rine, b. 1867; II. Alexander M., b. 1872; III.
Richard Stockton, b. 1873.
iv. Emily, b. 1835; m. July 15, 1858, Rev. Augustus
Brodhead, D.D., formerly missionary to India,
now pastor 1st Pres. Church, Bridgeton, N. J.
Issue: I. Claude, b. Jan., 1861; graduated from
Princeton College, 1883; II. Wilfred, b. Aug. 1864.
v. Alexander McWhorter, b. 1837; m. 1869, Harriette,
dau. of Dr. Moses Woodruff, of Elizabeth, N. J.
vi. Rosalie, b. June 25, 1841; in. April 11, 1866, Leavitt
Howe, of Princeton, N. J. Issue: I. Emily, b.
May 1868; II. Leavitt, b. Dec., 1869; III. Fisher,
b. Nov., 1871; IV. Helen, b. Dec., 1875.
vii. John Noble, b. 1848; m. April, 1883, Mary C., dau.
of Wm. Annin, lawyer, who m. Miss Edwards, a
descendant of Jonathan Edwards.
4. Harriette Burnet, b. Sept. 2, 1810; d. April 5, 1868; m.
Nov. 4, 1835, the Hon. Lewis B. Woodruff, b. June 19,
1809; d. Sept. 10, 1875. He was Judge Court of Common
Pleas, N. Y., 1850-55; Judge Superior Court, N. Y. City,
1856-61; Judge Court of Appeals, N. Y. State, 1868-9;
and U. S. Circuit Judge for the Second Judicial Circuit,
comprising New York, Conn. and Vt., 1870-75. Issue:
i. Charles Hornblower, b. Oct. 1, 1836; grad. Yale
Coll., 1858; a lawyer of New York; m. June 30,
1863, Katharine G. L., eldest dau. of Wm. E.
Sanford, of New Haven, Conn. Issue: I. infant
son, b. March 7, 1866; d. same day; II. Lewis
Bartholomew, b. Jan. 1, 1868; III. Frederick
Sanford, b. Oct. 21, 1869; 1V. Charles Horn-
blower, b. April 13, 1872; V. Edward Seymour,
b. Dec. 23, 1876.
ii. Morris, b. July 30, 1838; a inerchant of New York;
m. Oct. 3, 1863, Juliette A., dau. of George W.
Lane, a New York merchant (now President of N.
Y. Chamber of Commerce, and member of Aque-
duct Commission). Issue: I. Harriette Burnet,
b. July 23, 1864; II. Nellie Lane. b. Nov. 5, 1867;
72
HORNBLOWER GENEALOGY.
III. Morris, b. May 23, 1870; IV. George Wil-
liam Lane, b. May 12, 1874.
iii. Mary Burnet, b. June 27, 1842; m. Feb. 21, 1871,
Courtlandt G. Babcock, of New York, now of
Stonington, Conn. (Brev. Lieut. Col. U. S. Vols.,
in War of Rebellion). Issue: I. Lewis Woodruff,
b. Dec., 1871; d. July, 1872; II. Harriette Bur-
net; III. Harry Woodruff; IV. Courtlandt Wood-
ruff, b. Aug. 30, 1882.
5. Charles Williamson, b. Oct. 14, 1812; m. Arabella Smith, of
Salem, N. J. Children:
i. Thomas Jones.
ii. Joseph Coerten.
iii. Mary Burnet, m. Samuel Allen.
iv. Samuel Clement.
v. Augustus Smith.
vi. Martha Smith.
6. Caroline Burnet, b. Aug. 14, 1814; unm.
7. Mary, b. July 28, 1816; m. Oct. 23, 1844, the Hon. Joseph
P. Bradley, of Newark, now of Washington, D. C., Jus-
tice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Children:
i. Mary, m. Henry V. Butler, paper manufacturer, of
Paterson, N. J. Issue: I. Mary, b. March 9,
1874; II. Julia; III. Henry V.
ii. Caroline, unm.
iii. Joseph H., d. 1854, æt. 5 years.
iv. Harriette, d. 1856, æt. 5 years.
v. William Hornblower, a lawyer of Newark, N. J.; m.
Eliza M., eldest dau. of the Hon. Donald Cameron,
U. S. Senator from Pennsylvania. Issue: I.
Joseph Gardiner.
vi. Charles, m. April 12, 1882, Julie E., dau. of Robert
F. Ballantine, of Newark, N. J. Issue: I. Charles
Burnet, b. April 15, 1883.
vii. Joseph Richard, d. young.
8. William Henry, b. March 21, 1820; d. July 16, 1883; grad-
uated from Princeton College, 1838, and from Princeton
Theological Seminary, 1843; ordained to the ministry
and installed pastor of First Pres. Church, Paterson, Jan.
30, 1844; resigned in Oct., 1871, to accept Professor-
ship of Sacred Rhetoric, Pastoral Theology and Church
Government in the Western Theological Seminary, Alle-
gheny City, Pa., which he filled until his death. He
m. June 17, 1846, Matilda Butler, of Paterson, dau. of
Asa Butler, paper manufacturer, of Suffield, Conn.
Children:
HORNBLOWER GENEALOGY.
73
&
i. Joseph Coerten, b. March 3, 1848; graduated from
Sheffield Scientific School, Yale College, 1869; an
architect in Washington, D. C.; unm.
ii. William Butler, b. May 13, 1851; graduated from
Princeton College, 1871; a lawyer in New York
city; m. April 26, 1882, Susan, youngest dau. of
Wm. E. Sanford, of New York, formerly of New
Haven, Conn. Issue: I. Lewis Woodruff, b.
April 15, 1883.
iii. Helen, b. Feb. 26, 1857; unm.
INDEX.
(Names of authorities cited, in italics.)
Ackerman, William M., 53.
Acquackanonk Church Records, MS., 27.
Acquackanonk patentee, a, 28.
Adams, John, 39, 41, 45; Works of, 41.
Albany, 7.
Alden, Rev. Timothy, 7, 23, 27, 53-4-5.
Alexander, Samuel Davies, 44.
Allaire
52; Allaire Works, 52.
Allegheny City, Pa., 72.
Allen, Samuel, 72.
Allinson's (Samuel) Laws of New Jersey,
30.
Alofsen, S., 27; MSS. of, 27.
American Register," 54.
Anderson, Abel T.-family of, 66; J.
Schuyler, 28, 65; Smith W.-family
of, 65.
Anglesea, 7.
Annapolis, 47.
Annin, Mary C.-family of, 71; Wm., 71.
Arthur, William, 5.
Articles of Confederation, 36, 45.
Babcock, Courtlandt G.-family of, 72.
Baird, Col. Peter, 16.
Ballantine, Julie E.-family of, 72; Rob-
ert F., 72.
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 52.
Bancroft, George, 39, 40, 41, 46-7-8.
Bangs, Lieut. Isaac, Journal of, 22-3, 29.
Barber and Howe's Historical Collec-
tions of New Jersey, 7.
Bardsley, George Wareing, 5.
Barnes, Thomas, 18.
Basking ridge, New Jersey, 51.
Bayard, Peter, 28; Petrus, 28; Rachel, 28.
Bayards, Capt., 27.
Beatty, John, 39; letter from, 44, 49.
Belcher, Gov. Jonathan, 26.
Bell, Bertha-family of, 70; Thomas
do., 70.
Belleville, 3, 7, 23, 52-3-4-5, 63, 66-7-8, 70;
manufacturing at, 51-2, 55; name
adopted, 62: water-works near, 23,
56. See Second River.”
66
Benjamin, George B., Jr.-family of, 67.
Bergen, 67, 69; county, 67.
Bergen County Deeds, 50.
Bethel, Conn., 67.
Bethlehem, Pa., 14, 61.
Biles-Island lottery, 26.
Birmingham, 5, 24.
"Black Country." 3, 4.
Blackstone's Commentaries, 15.
Blodgett, Rev. Heman-family of, 71,
Booth, Mary L., 22.
Borrowe, Samuel G.-family of, 65.
Boudinot, Mrs. Elisha, 55.
Boulton, Matthew, 5, 6, 51-2, 57, 59, 60.
Boyd, Adam, 37.
Bradley, Charles-family of, 72.
Bradley, Hon. Joseph P., 5, 13, 17, 21-2,
26, 28-9, 49, 50, 51, 53, 57, 60, 63-4;-
family of, 72.
Bradley, William Hornblower - family
of, 72.
Brest, 61.
Bridgeton, New Jersey, 71.
Bristol, 8; brass and copper-works, 8, 12,
16; manufacturers and traders, 8.
British, the, 33, 45, 55.
Brockholst, Major Anthony, 7.
Brodhead, Rev. Dr. Augustus-family
of, 71.
Brosely in Shropshire, 63.
Burke, Edmund, 60.
Burnaby, Rev. Andrew, 22.
Burnet, Mary-family of, 70: Gov. Wil-
liam, 11; Mrs. (Dr.) William, 55; Dr.
William, Jr., 70.
Butler, Asa, 72; Henry V.-family of, 72;
Matilda-family of, 72-3.
Cadwallader, Lambert, 38-9, 48.
Caldwell, Rev. James, 33, 54.
Calley, John, 4.
Cameron, Hon. Donald, 72; Eliza M.-
family of, 72.
Campbell, Catharine-family of, 65; Eu-
phemia-do., 66; George W.-do.. 65-
6; George W., Jr.-do., 66; Thomas
(the poet), 63.
Canada, 25.
Cape Breton, 61.
Caiteret, Lord, 11.
Cedars, road through the, 29.
Centennial Exposition, 21; Report of, 52.
Chacewater, 4.
Chapron, John-family of, 70.
Charles II., 5.
"Charming Sally," Brig, 14.
Chatham, 65.
Childs, Thomas, 18.
Church, English (Episcopalian), at Belle-
ville or Second River, 26-7; Reformed
(Dutch), at do., 3, 27, 54-5; do., at New
York, 28, 64; Baptist, at do., 54; Pres-
byterian, at Eridgeton, N. J., 1; do.
at Newark, N. J., 54; do. at Pater-
son, N. J., 72; Trinity, Newark, 26-7, 54.
76
INDEX.
"Cincinnatus," 31-2.
Clark, Abraham, 31-2, 37, 43-4-5, 48.
Clute, J. J., 61.
Coal, Welsh, duty on, 5.
Duryea's Zouaves, 70.
Dutch Guiana, 61.
Coerten, Barent, 24; Henry, 24, 64; Huy- East Jersey Proprietors, motto of, 31.
bert, 24; Margaretta, 24, 64.
Colles, Christopher, 22.
Collins, Isaac, 31-2.
Common Prayer-Book, reported Dutch
and English impression of, 27.
Compound engine of Jonathan Horn-
blower, Jr., 5, 6, 18, 23; description
of, and controversy over, 57-60. See
Steam-engine."
66
Congress, 39, 40, 41, 45.
Connecticut, 29.
Cook, Prof. George H., 10.
Cooper, Peter, 52.
Copper in New Jersey, 8, 9, 10, 11; at Pat-
erson, 10.
Copper mine at Second River, 7; discov:
ery of, 7, 8; character and value of
ore, 9, 10, 11, 30; first worked, 8, 9;
exportation of ore from, 8, 12, 16;
yield of, 12, 30; visited by Franklin,
12; account books of, 16, 17, 18; man-
agement of, 12, 16, 25, 29, 49, 50, 51;
capacity of engine and pump at, 21-3;
mentioned by travelers, 22-3, 51; em-
ployees at, organized into a military
company, 25-6; leased to Josiah Horn-
blower and others, 29; abandoned, 30;
leased to "New Jersey Copper Mine
Association," 49, 50; subsequent op-
erations at, 51; depth of, 51.
Cornelison, Rev. John, 67.
Cornwall, 3, 4, 5, 59, 63, 68.
Cosby, Gov., 15.
Crane, Hannah-family of, 66.
Cranz, David, 61.
Crown lands, 36, 47.
Cumming, Col. Alexander McWhorter-
family of, 71; Emily-do., 71; Richard
Stockton-do., 71; Rosalie-do., 71.
Dall, Col., of Md., 66; Harriet B.-family
of, 66.
Danbury, Conn., 67.
Davis, Elizabeth, 18.
Day, Benjamin Ludlow-family of, 65-6;
Elizabeth, 65; Eliza Schuyler-family
of, 65; Col. Israel, 65.
Dayton, Jonathan, 39.
Dawson, Henry B., 40.
Decimal currency recommended, 41.
De Riemer, Catharine, 24, 64; Elizabeth,
24, 64; Huybert, 24, 64; Isaac, 24, 64;
Machtelt, 61; Margaret, 61; Pieter, 64.
Desagulier. 4.
Edinburgh, 15.
Edwards, Jonathan, 71.
Electricity in disease, 7.
Elbertszen, Elbert, 64.
Elizabethtown, 32-3, 35, 48, 71.
Eliot, Jared, 12.
Encyclopedia Britannica, 6, 58.
Engineer, early use of the word, 5.
Engines.-See “Steam-engines.”
English Copper Company, 8.
English restrictions on American manu-
factures, 12, 15.
Essex Common Pleas, 53.
Essex County Deeds, 28, 50, 51.
Eversfield, Dr. Charles, 70.
Essex county ladies' committee, 55.
Falmouth, 13, 16.
Federal capital, contest over location of,
37.
Ferry at Second River, 11, 28, 34-5.
Field, Richard S., 24, 70.
Field, William Henry, 65.
Finch, I., 51.
Finch, Mr., of Dudley, 24.
"Fire-engines."-See "Steam-engine."
Finley, Rev. Dr. Robert, the wife of, 54.
First Mountain, N. J., 11.
Fœderalist, the, 40.
Ford, Col., 27.
Forts to resist Indian invasion, 25.
Fouke, Juda, 29.

France, 64.
Franklin, Benjamin, 12.
French and Indian war, 25.
Fulton's (Robert) first successful steam-
boat, 52.
Garrison, Capt. Nicholas, 14, 15, 60, 61.
Gautier, Francis Pantar-family of, 68;
Josiah Hornblower-do., 68; Mary
Brown-do., 67; Thomas-do., 68; Dr.
Thomas-do., 67.
Geneva, Switzerland, 68.
Germans at the Schuyler mines, 50.
Germany, 61.
Gold mines in New Jersey, reported dis-
covery of, 11; title to, 11, 12.
Gordon, Thomas F., 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 25, 29,
39, 44, 46, 48.
Gouverneur, Abraham, Isaac, Nicholas
and Samuel, 64.
Grayson, Wm., 40.
Greenland, 14.
De Witt, Anna Maria-family of, 68; Dr.
Gasherie-do., 68; Gasherie, of Belle-Greenock, 57.
ville-do., 68; Helen Maria-do., 68.
Dick, Samuel, 39.
Dickinson, Philemon, 32.
Disosway, Gabriel P., 61.
Dodd, Daniel, 27, 54.
Dordrecht, 24.
Dover, 15.
Dow, Wm., 30.
Dowell, Wm., 29.
Dowling, Jennie L.-family of, 68; Rev.
Dr. John, 68.
Drisius, Dom. Samuel, 24, 64.
Dunham, Dr. Lewis, 64,
Gregory, Dudley S., 68; Mary Louisa-
family of, 68.
Grevenraet, 24; Elizabeth-family of, 64.
Grier, Anna-family of, 66; Gen. Wm. N.,
66.
Griffin, Mary, 69.
Hackensack, 69;
township, 67.
militia," 35; river, 7:
Haghoort, Dom. Gerard, 27.
Hall, Rev. Dr. John, 37, 44.
Hamburgh, 14.
INDEX.
Hamilton, Alex., 39, 40.
Hancock, John, 40.
Hanover, Morris county, 9.
Hartwick, Cyrus W.-family of, 68.
Hempstead, L. I., 67.
Henderson, Rev. Matthew H., 27.
Hewitt, Hon. Abram S., 52; John, 52.
Heysham, Capt., 14, 15.
Holland, 5, 7, 8, 15, 61, 64.
Hornblower account books, 28-9-30; MSS.,
7, 15, 28, 49.
Hornblower genealogy, 63-73.
Hornblower, origin of name, 4, 5.
Hornblower, Charles Williamson-family
.
of, 72; Christiana (De Witt)-do., 68;
Christiana, 70; Elizabeth-family of,
67; Eliza Christiana-do., 66; Eliza
Schuyler-do., 70; Emily, 71; Harri-
ette Burnet-family of, 71-2; Henry
Coerten, 70; Henry Merselis, 69:
Isaac, 15, 63; Jabez, 63; Jabez Carter,
5, 63; James, 53, 62;-family of, 66;
James Kip, 69; Jecholia,64; Jedida,64;
Jemima, 63-4; Jerusha, 64; Jesse, 63;
Jethro, 63; Joanna, 63; Joanna Mar-
garet-family of, 70; John, 54, 70;
Jonathan, 5, 13, 54, 62-3, 69, 70; Jona-
than, Jr., account of, 5, 6, 63; his con-
troversy with Boulton and Watt,57-60;
Joseph, account of, 3, 4, 7, 24, 63, 68;
family of, 63-4; Joseph Coerten (Chief
Justice), 13, 24, 30, 39, 40, 54, 61;-fami-
ly of, 70-3; Joseph Coerten (archi-
tect), 73; Joshua, 63, 64; Josiah, 63,
64; Dr. Josiah (2d)-family of, 67; Dr.
Josiah (3d)-do., 67; Dr. Josiah (son
of Dr. William)-do., 69: Josiah Hen-
ry--do., 67; Julia, 61; Juliana, 64;
Margaretta, 34-5;-family of, 64; Mary
-do., 72; Rebecca, 63, 67; Theodore
Romeyn-family of, 69; William, 62,
66-7, 69; William Butler-family of,
73; Rev. Dr. William Henry-do., 69;
Dr. William J. V. H.-do., 69.
Hornblower, Jabez Carter, 57-8.
Hornblower, Jonathan, Jr., 59.
HORNBLOWER, JOSIAH inscription on
tombstone of, 3; birth and parentage,
3; taken by his brother to Cornwall,
5; early education, 6, 7; called to take
a steam-engine to America, 7, 13;
leaves home, 13; arrives in New York,
14; stormy passage, 14, 15; gets his
engine to the Schuyler copper mine,
16; difficulties in erecting it, 17; starts
up the engine, 13-20; engaged to
superintend engine and mines, 23;
marries Elizabeth Kingsland, 21, 64;
letter from his father, 24; manages
the works, 25; commissioned Captain,
25-6; takes up his residence west of
the Passaic liver, 26; manager of a
church lottery, 26-7; a Baptist, 27;
buys his future homestead, opens a
store and operates the ferry at Sec-
ond river, 28; helps build a school-
house, 29; leases the mine property,
29; trustee of a road lottery, 29; sur-
veys a road through the cedars, 30;
takes part in public affairs, 30; elect-
ed to the Assembly, 31; his patriotic
course in that body, 31-8; sustains
the liberty of the press, 32; votes for
Gov. Livingston, 32; re-elected, and
chosen Speaker, 31: attempts of to-
ries and refugees to capture him, 34;
elected to the Council, 35; his legal
knowledge, 35; seeks to get the Fed-
eral capital located in New Jersey,
37; elected to Congress, 38; how he
was notified of his, election, 39; his
course in Congress, 40-8; favors
strengthening the Union, 42; National
regulation of Indian affairs, 42; the
decimal currency, 43; is embarrassed
by New Jersey's action, 43-4; criti-
cised by James Monroe, 47; his gen-
eral attitude in Congress, 48; in his
home circle, 49; letter to his niece,
49; takes charge of the mine property
once more, and rebuilds the steam-
engine, 50; retires from the superin-
tendency,50; sees built the first steam-
engine made in America, 52; appoint-
ed Judge, 53; his new house, and his
family coach, 53; his personal appear-
ance, 53-4; church affiliations, 54; let-
ter on social religious life in America,
54; his death, 55; his descendants,
64-73.
Hornblower, Mrs. Josiah, her personal
appearance, 54; church relations, 54
a patriot during the Revolution, 55;
her death, 55; her ancestry, 64; her
descendants, 64-73. See "Kingsland,
Elizabeth.


י
Hornblower, Rev. Dr. William H., 53-4.
Houston. Wm. Churchill, 39.
Howe, Leavitt-family of, 71.
Hudson county, 67.
Hudson river, a free port on the New
Jersey shore of, suggested, 46.
Hunter, Gov. Robert, 8.
Indian affairs, 45.
Indians, supposed to have worked the
Schuyler copper mine, 9; threatened
invasion by, 25; Federal versus State
control of, 38, 42.
Ingoldsby, Lieut. Gov. Richard, 24.
"Irene," the Snow, 13, 14, 15, 16, 60, 61.
Jacobson, Christian, 61.
Jay, John, 47.
Jefferson, Thomas, 39.
Jerolaman, Cornelius, 51.
Jersey City, 27, 67-8-9; water-works of,
23, 56.
Journals of Congress, 37, 40, 43, 46;
Secret do., 47.
Justin, Prof. Dr. J. G.-family of, 68.
Kalm, Prof. Peter. 9.
Kerfoot, Bishop, 66.
Kid, John, 29.
Kill' van Kull, 67.
Kingsland estates, 11, 23.
Kingsland, Elmund, 234. 35; Edmund
William, 33, 67; Elizabeth, 23-1, 64;-
family of, 61-73; Henry W., 65; Mar-
garet, 67; Mary Caroline, 65; Col.
William, 23-4, 27, 64.
Kinney, Major John, 70; Mary Ann, 70.
Kip, Eliza-family of, 64-5; Harriet Jones
-family of, 65; Helen-family of,
66; James H., 34-5, 69;-family of,
64-6; Margaretta Hornblower, 34-5;—
family of, 64-6.

་
*
78
INDEX.
Lamb, Mrs. Martha J., 52.
Lane, George W., 71; Juliette A-family
of, 71.
"Laurel Hill" estate, 50.
Lawrence, Mr., 36.
Lee, Richard Henry, 40.
Leisler, Jacob, 64.
Liscomb, Mrs. Elizabeth, 53.
Livingston, Chancellor Robert R., 51-2;
Gov. Wm., 31-2, 41, 48; Mrs., 55.
Locomotive, first successful American-
built, 52.
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 41.
London, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 24, 27, 61.
Long Hill, Morris county, 65.
Longworth, Isaac, 27.
Lords of Trade, 8, 16.
Lottery for "purely the Honor of God,
and the Good of Mankind," 27; for
Trinity church, Newark, 26; for Eng-
lish church at Second River, 26-7; for
road through the cedars, 29.
Louisburgh, 61.
Lower, Mark Antony, 5.
Lucas's copper mine, 11, 28.
Ludlow, Col. Cornelius, 65.
Lynn, Rev. Mr., 67.
Macurdy, Rev. D. H., 27.
Madison, James, 41, 47-8.
"Mansion House," 29.
Manufactures in America, English re-
strictions on, 12, 15.
Manuscripts. See
66
Acquackanonk,"
Alofsen, "Hornblower."
Mark, Jacob, 49, 50, 51.
Mason and Dixon's line, 47.
May's Landing, N. J., 69.
fore, 10; Town Records, 30: water-
works, 23, 56.
Newark Centinel of Freedom, 55.
New Barbadoes Neck, 7, 23, 26, 64.
New Brunswick, N. J., 9, 64.
Newcastle, Duke of, 8, 12, 16.
Newcomen, Thomas, 3, 4, 20.
New England, 41.
New Haven, 16, 71, 73.
New Jersey on the Articles of Confedera-
tion, 36; attempts nullification, 43, 45.
New Jersey Archives, 8, 11, 12, 15, 16.
New Jersey Copper Mine Association,
49, 50.
New Jersey Gazette, 31-2-3-4, 45.
New Jersey Historical Society, 31, 70
Proceedings of, 7, 17, 22, 31, 47, 49, 52,
70; old map in rooms of, 25; motto
of, 31.
New Jersey Journal, 33, 35, 55.
New Jersey Revolutionary Correspond-
ence of Executive, 32, 40.
Newkirk, Eliza-family of, 68.
"New Monthly Magazine," 63.
New Netherland, 11.

Newtown, 62.
New York, 8, 13, 14, 16, 17, 28-9, 34, 37, 39,
40, 41, 44-5, 49, 51-2-3, 60, 61, 64-5-6-7-8-9,
70, 71-2-3; Baptist church, 54; Dutch
church, 28, 64; "fire engine" at water-
works of, 22.
New York Colonial Documents, 8, 16.
New York Directory for 1786, 39.
New York Gazette, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 27-8.
New York Genealogical and Biograph-
ical Record, 7, 24, 28, 64, 67.
New York Mercury, 13, 15.
Nixon, Julia A., 69.
Northern States, 41, 43, 46-7.
Meeker, D. M., D. M. & Son, and S. J., 21. Northwest Territory, 36, 42-3, 46-7.
Merselis, Merselis, 67.
Milborne, Jacob, 61; Mary, 64.
Meuse, France, 24, 64.
Milford, James, 64.
Millburn, 65.
Miller, Rev. Dr. Samuel, 54.
Mine-hunting in N. J., 11, 29. See "Cop-
per," "Gold" and "Silver.
Mines, Morris county and Ringwood, 28.
Minutes of New Jersey Council, 36; do.
of Council of Safety, 33; do. of Joint
Meeting, 38-9, 48, 53; do. of Legisla-
ture, 44.
Mississippi, the navigation of, 41, 46.
Mitchill, Dr Samuel L., 10.
Mompesson, Roger, 24.
Monroe. James, 47-8.
Montgomerie. Gov., 8.
Morgan, Eli. 67.
Moravians, 14, 61.
Morris county mines, route to, 28.
Morris, Lewis, 15, 16.
Mott, Frances-family of, 66; Dr. Valen-
tine. 66.
Mountain View, fort near,
Mt. Vernon, 39.
Moyle, Rev. John, 64.
25.
Mulford, Dr. Isaac S., 36, 40.
Neisse, 61.
Nelson, William, 7.
Neversink, 10.
Newark, 21, 26-7, 54, 64, 70, 71-2; bay, 7;
Mechanics' Association, lecture be-
Nova Scotia, 41.
O'Callaghan, Dr. E. B.. 7, 10, 29.
Ogden, David B., 70; Gabriel, 27; Col.
Josiah, 27.
Ohio, 47.
Orange, 65, 68.
Osborne, Gov., 15.
Oxford, N. Y., 27.
Paper money in New Jersey, 48-9.
Paris, 15, 39.
Parker, James, 16.
Parr, Wm., 29.
Passaic river, 7, 28, 50.
Paterson, 72; copper mine at, 10.
Paterson, William, 39.
Pennington, Ninetta--family of, 69; Capt.
Wm., 69.
Pennsylvania, 47, 72.
Penryn, 59.
Perth Amboy, 14.
Philadelphia, 9, 29, 36-7, 50, 51, 70; water-
works at, 51-2.
Pickering, Timothy,
Pierson, Daniel, 27.

10.
Pinckney, Charles, 40, 46.
Pinhorne, Martha, Mary and William, 24.
Pittsburgh, Pa., 66.
Plummer, Thomas, 18.
"Polacca," the first New Jersey steam-
boat, 52.
Polgooth, 4.
INDEX.
Political Magazine, 41.
Pompton, 7; river, 7, 25.
Povershon, 62.
Princeton, 44, 71.
Prussian Silesia, 61.
Ramsay, David, 40.
Raum, John O., 9.
val of first engine in America, 14; de-
scription of, 18-21; its cost, 12, 22; its
capacity, 21-3; dimensions of half-
cylinder of, 21, 51; damaged by fire,
29; rebuilt, 49-50; broken up, 50. The
first built in America, 51-2. See
Compound engine."
Redding, Cyrus, 4, 20, 63-4; Rev. Robert, Stearndall, John, 29.
63.
Redruth, 4.
Richards, John, 27; Capt. John, 33.
Riethmüller, J. C., 41.
Ringwood mines, route to, 28.
Robison, Dr., 58.
Rogers, E. T., 69.
Rogers, Prof. Henry D., 10.
Rohde,
52.
Romeyn, Rev. James V. C., 69; Sarah-
family of, 69.
Roosevelt, Nicholas I., 49, 50, 51-2.
"Royal mines" in N. J., title to, 11, 12.
Ryerson, John, 62.
Sadler, John, 15, 25.
Salem, N. J., 72.
Sandy Hook, 14, 15.
Steele, Dr. Thomas, 67.
Steenwyck, Cornelis, 24, 64.
St. John (New Brunswick), 41.
Stephens, William, 53;-family of, 66;
Wm. Hornblower, 53;-family of, 66.
Steuben, Gen, the Baron, 38.
Stewart, Charles, 39.
Stonington, Conn., 72.
Stryker, Rev. Peter, 54.
St. Thomas (West Indies), 61.
Suffield, Conn., 72.
Sussex Centenary, 25.
Sweden, 5.
Symmes, John Cleves, 38-9, 47-8.
Talbot, Rev. Mortimer-family of, 70.
Taylor, Rev. Dr. Benj. C., 27.
Texas, 70.
Sanford, Katharine G. L.-family of, 71; Thomas, Isaiah, 16.
Susan-do., 73; Wm. E., 71, 73.
Savery, Thomas, 4.
Schüller, Johan Hendrick, 27.
Schuurman, James, 48.
Schuyler, Adonijah, 29; Arent, 7, 12, 28-9;
Arent H., 17;-family of, 65; Arent
J., 30, 49, 64; Eva, 28; Harriet Ann-
family of, 65; John Arent, 64-5; Col.
John, 7, 8, 12, 15, 16, 17, 22-3, 25-6-7-8-9,
49, 64; Col. Peter, 25, 29; Philip A.,
49, 51; Philip Pieterse, 7.
Schuyler manor-house, 28.
Schuyler copper mines.
mine."
66
Thurston, Robert H., 4, 6, 21, 52, 57, 59,
60.
Town, Hannah-family of, 67.
Trenton, 31, 37-8-9, 45, 52.
Trestrail, Mr., 64.
Trinder, Charles, 67.
Trinity Church, Newark, 26-7, 54, 70.
Troy, N. Y., 70.
Truro, 68.
See Copper Union township, Bergen county, 9.
United Brethren, 14, 61.
Ure, Andrew, 4.
Second Mountain, 11.
Second River, 7, 11, 17, 24, 26-7-8-9, 51, 69;
ferry at, 11, 28, 34-5; English churchí
at, 26-7; manufacturing at, 51-2; Re-
formed church at, 3, 27; school-house
at, 29; name changed, 62.
Sedgwick, Theodore, Jun., 32, 41, 49.
Selyns, Dom. Herricus, 64.
Shea, George, 41.
Sherwood, Emma T.-family of, 69.
Silver mines in New Jersey, 10, 11; title
to, 11, 12.
Smallwood,
51-2.
"
Smiles, Samuel, 4, 5, 57-8-9, 60.
Smith, Adam, 33.
Smith, Arabella-family of, 72; Benja-
min, 18.
Snow, definition of word, 61.
Snow" Irene," 13, 14, 15, 16, 61.
Valentine's New York Manual, 64.
Van Baal, Rachel, 28.
Van Courtlandt, John, 28; Stephen, 28.
Van Emburgh, John, 21-2, 50, 51.
Van Rennselaer, Catharine, 63; Robert,
64.
Vienna, Exposition at, 68.
Virginia, 36, 41-3, 47.
Vliereboom, Elisabet. 67.

Wakeman, David Betts-family of, 67.
Wales, coal from, 5.
Ward, Josiah, 18.
Soho, in England, 5, 52; at Belleville, 51-2. Washington city, 72-3; contest over loca -
South Carolina, 46.
Southern States, 41, 43, 46-7.
Spain, proposed treaty with, 41, 46-7.
Spangenbergh, Bishop, 14, 60, 61.
Sparks, Jared, 12.
Spier, Hans, 28; John Hendrick, 28.
Staffordshire, 3, 4.
Stagg, Benjamin, 67; John, 67.
Staten Island, 14, 60, 61, 67; title to, 37.
Steam-boat, first in New Jersey, 51-2;
John Stevens's, 52.
Steam-engines, early character and im-
provements of, 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 20; arri-
tion of, 37.
Washington, George, on calumny, 32; at
Mt. Vernon, 39; on the Confedera-
tion, 41.
Washington, name proposed for Second
River and vicinity, 62.
Watson, Virginia-family of, 66.
Watt, James, 5, 6, 51-2, 57-8-9, 60.
Weld, Isaac, Jr., 9, 51.
Wessels, Christina, 24.
Wheal Busy mine, 4.
Wheal Rose mine, 4.
Whitehead, Wm. A., 8, 16, 26, 31.
VorM
80
INDEX.

Wickes, Dr. Stephen A., A.M., 44, 67.
Willard, Rev. Joseph, 54.
Williams, Rev. Mr., 65.
Wilson's (Peter) Laws of New Jersey, 39.
Winfield, Charles H., 7, 9, 23-4, 28, 33, 47.
Winner, Rev. J. O., 69.
Winterbotham, W., 9.
Winwood, John, 59.
Wolverhampton, 4.
Woodbridge, 16.
Woodruff, Charles Hornblower-family
of, 71; Judge Lewis B.-do., 71 ;Mary
Burnet-do., 72; Morris-do., 71; Dr.
Moses, 71.
Worcester, Marquis of, 6.
Zabriskie, Dr. Philip, 69.
Zinzendorf, Count, 61.
Moll

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