History of the city of Paterson and the County of Passaic, New Jersey, Part 1

Author: Nelson, William, 1847-1914
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Paterson : Press Printing and Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 466


USA > New Jersey > Passaic County > Paterson > History of the city of Paterson and the County of Passaic, New Jersey > Part 1


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113


F


F


مصر


.


U


£


Nº 44702.16


PUBLIC LIBRARY


OMNIVM -


OF THE CITY OF


852 1873


Hyde Fund


بدجم


Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013


http://archive.org/details/historyofcityofp00nels


-


HISTORY


OF THE


CITY OF PATERSON


AND THE


COUNTY OF PASSAIC


NEW JERSEY.


By WILLIAM NELSON.


PATERSON, N. J .: THE PRESS PRINTING AND PUBLISHING CO., 269 MAIN STREET.


1901.


UBLIC


11777


1917


11


COPYRIGHT


1900


BY WILLIAM NELSON, A. M.


Corresponding Secretary New Jersey Historical Society; Chair- man of the Public Records Commission of the State of New Jersey; Editor of the New Jersey Archives; Member Congrès Internationale des Américanistes; American Association for the Advancement of Science; American Historical Associa- tion; American Folk-Lore Society; Americau Numismatic aud Archæological Society; New York Historical Society; Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Genealogical Society of Peunsylvania; Princeton Historical Association: Correspond- ing Member of the New England Historic Genealogical Soci- ety, of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. of the Alabama Historical Society; Member Medico-Legal So- ciety, etc., etc.


Author of History of Bridges in Passaic County, 1873; compiler and editor of Abstract of Minutes of the Board of Chosen Free- holders of the County of Passaic, 1837-1870, 1875; author of His- tory of Roads in Passaic County, with Official Returns of Roads, to 1837, 1876; History and Description of Cedar Lawn Cemetery, 1876; Historical Sketch of Passaic County, 1877: History of Schools in Patersou, 1877; author (in part) of His- tory of Bergen and Passaic Counties, 1882; Josiah Hornblower, and the First Steam Engine in America, with Some Notices of the Schuyler Copper Mines at Second River, and a Genealogy of the Hornblower Family, 1883; Geological History of the Pas- saic Falls, 1893; compiler and editor of the Records of the First Presbyterian Society in Paterson, 1893; Records of the Pater- son Fire Association, 1893; Records of the Township of Pater- son, 1894; author of "The Indians of New Jersey," 1894; Gene- alogy of the Doremus Family in America, 1897; Alexander Hamilton in New Jersey, 1897. Etc., etc.


Hybe Found June 10, 1915 L


3HT


CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.


CHAPTER I. GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE PASSAIC FALLS.


"At His word, the formless mass, This world's material mould, came to a heap; Confusion heard His voice, and wild uproar Stood ruled, stood vast infinitude confined; Till, at his second bidding, darkness fled, Light shone, and order from disorder sprung."-Milton.


" This world speaks plain for who has ears to hear."-Goethe.


History of the geological formation of Northern New Jersey, particularly the region in and about Pat- erson .- The Red Sandstone .- Eruption of the Trap Rock by volcanic action .- Description of the Trap Rock formation .- Causes of the extraordinary conformation at the Passaic Falls .-- Origin and History of the formation of the Passaic River .- Effect of glacial action upon this region .- A Pre- historic "Lake Passaic."-Origin of Colt's Hill and Sandy Hill .- The Artesian well at the Pas- saic Rolling Mill .- Minerals found in and about Paterson .- List of Elevations at forty places in Passaic County .- Analyses of Trap Rock. Pages 1-12


CHAPTER II. THE ABORIGINES. "The doomed Indian leaves behind no trace, To save his own or serve another race; With his frail breath his power has passed away, His deeds, his thoughts, are buried with his clay. His heraldry is but a broken bow, His history but a tale of wrong and woe, His very name must be a blank."-Sprague.


Palæolithic Man of New Jersey .- Origin of American Development .- The Lenni Lenape of New Jer- sey .- Whence came they? When did they arrive in New Jersey ?- Their Manners and Customs : Hospitality, food, drink, dress, implements and weapons, pottery, canoes, ornaments. Wampum : Its manufacture, its varied uses, value as currency .- Wampum Belts .- Domestic Relations : Mar- riage Customs, Training of Children .- Punishment for Offenses .- Division of time .- Treatment of Diseases : Medicine Men, Priest-Physicians, Big Snake Doctors, Indian Surgery .- Natural Death not understood .- Burial Customs .- Languages of the American Indians : Description and Specimens of the Language of the Lenni Lenape .- Indian Religion : Ideas of the Creation ; the Indian and his Manito ; Religious sacrifices and festivals .- Indian Clairvoyants .- Indian System of Government : Tribes and sub-tribes; Method of choosing Sachems .- Early Sachems of the Lenni Lenape .- History of the Hackensack and other Indian tribes of Passaic County .- The Indian Ti- tle to the Soil, and how it was extinguished in New Jersey .- Indian Place Names and their Defini- tions .- Migrations of the New Jersey Indians. Pages 13-59


iv


CONTENTS.


CHAPTER III.


THE SETTLEMENT OF ACQUACKANONK.


Ghy arme, die niet wel kond aen u noodruft raken: Gy rijke, die't geluck in't voor-hoofd soecken wild: Verkiest Nieuw-neder-land, ('t sal niemand billik laken) Eer gy u tijd en macht, hier vruchteloos verspild. Hier moet gy and'ren omu dienstb'ren arbeyd troonen, Daer komt een gulle grond, u werck met woecker loonen.


Ye poor, who know not how your living to obtain; You affluent, who seek in mind to be content; Choose you New Netherland (which no one shall disdain), Before your time and strength here fruitlessly are spent. There have you other ends, your labor to incite; Your work, will gen'rous soils, with usury, requite. - Jacob Steendam, 1662.


First conveyance of land in Passaic County .- Indian Deed for Acquackanonk .- Description of Ac- quackanonk, and the Passaic Falls, in 1679 .- The Acquackanonk Patent, 1685 .- Subdivision of the Patent .- Map of Paterson in 1745, showing the twenty-eight farms south of the Passaic Riv- er .- History of the Titles to those Farms down to 1800 or later .- Various ancient deeds, sur- Pages 60-80


veys, etc., 1707-1727.


CHAPTER IV.


THE FIRST FAMILIES OF PATERSON.


When our children turn the page,


To ask what triumphs mark'd our age- What we achieved to challenge praise, Through the long line of future days -- This let them read, and hence instruction draw: "Here were the many bless'd, Ilere found the virtues rest,


Faith link'd with Love, and Liberty with Law; Here industry to comfort led;


Her book of light here learning spread;


Here the warm heart of youth


Was woo'd to temperance and to truth; Here hoary age was found,


By wisdom and by reverence crown'd. - Charles Sprague.


Biographical Sketches of the First Patentees and Earliest Settlers, with Full Genealogies of the First Families, Copies of Wills, Early Deeds and other Records.


GENEALOGIES OF THE FOLLOWING FAMILIES :


Pages.


Pages.


Pages.


Brinkerhoff, - So-81


Post,


135-153


Pier, -


- 188-189


Didericks, - SI-82


Van Riper,


153-182


Stagg, - 191-196


Garrison, - 82-89


Speer, -


182-208


Westervelt, - 208-212


Van Wagoner,


82-89


Sandford,


113-115


Van Blarcom, - 212-225


Van Winkle, -


89-106


Bradbury, 158-159


Lubbers, - 208-225


Vreeland,


105-135


Simmons,


- 177-178


Bookey, Bokee, - 225-226


2


-


CONTENTS.


CHAPTER V.


THE SETTLEMENT OF TOTOWA.


Thou hast histories that stir the heart


With deeper feeling; while I look on thee They rise before me. I behold the scene


Hoary again with forests; I behold The Indian warrior, whom a hand unseen


Has smitten with his death-wound in the woods


I look again-a hunter's lodge is built


And loud the Indian maidens laugh That gather, from the rustling heaps of leaves,


The hickory's white nuts, and the dark fruit That falls from the grey butternut's long boughs.


So centuries passed by, and still the woods


Blossomed in spring, and reddened when the year


Grew chill, and glistened in the frozen rains Of winter, till the white man swung the axe Beside thee-signal of a mighty change .- Bryant.


The Totowa Patent, 1696 .- History of the Subdivisions of the Totowa Patent, to 1820 or later .- Map of the Tract between Haledon Avenue and Marion Street, 1769 .- Various Ancient Deeds and other Documents. - Pages 226-233


CHAPTER VI.


THE SETTLERS OF TOTOWA.


How many are there of us, in this


Discordant social wilderness,


Whose thriftiest scions the power gain,


Thro' meet conditions of sun and rain,


To yield on the fairest blossoming shoot,


A mellow harvest of perfect fruit ?--


How should his life grow full and ripe,


There in the passionless haunts of Peace,


Thro' trade, and tillage, and wealth's increase? -"Alice of Monmouth," by E. C. Stedman.


GENEALOGIES.


Pages.


Pages.


Pages.


Van Houten, - - 233-264


Hopson,


-


271


Munn, - - 281-282


Breese,


255


Cool, -


-


272-3


Van Saun,


-


288-297


Stanley, -


258


Godwin, - 272-283 -


Blauvelt, - 291-296


Van Giesen, -


- 264-272


Bensen, - - 283-288


vi


CONTENTS.


CHAPTER VIII. WAGARAW AND THE GOFFLE .- THE SETTLEMENT AND THE SETTLERS.


Where are the graves where dead men slept, A hundred years ago? Who, when they were living, wept A hundred years ago ? By other men That knew not them, Their lands are tilled, Their graves are filled. L'et nature then was just as gay, And bright the sun shone as to-day, A hundred years ago.


The Wagaraw Patent, 1696 .- Indian Deed for Wagaraw, 1709 .- History of Land Titles.


Pages 297-300


GENEALOGIES.


- 300-326 Pages.


Pages.


Pages.


Wessels, - 302-303 De Gray, : 326-330 Ryerson, -


CHAPTER IX.


THE GARRET MOUNTAIN PURCHASE.


Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild


Mingled in harmony on Nature's face,


Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot


Fail not with weariness, for on their tops The beauty and majesty of earth, Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget The steep and toilsome way .- Bryant.


The Garret Mountain Deed, 1711 .- Origin of the Name "Garret" Mountain .- The Settlement and the Settlers.


Pages 330-332


GENEALOGIES.


Pages.


Pages.


Doremus,


- 332-382


Hopper, - - 344-350


Ackerman,


- 333-339


Neafie, Nevius, - 360-362


CHAPTER X. LIFE IN OLD ACQUACKANONK.


We level that lift, to pass and continue beyond- Ages, precedeuts, poems, have long been accumulating undirected materials, America brings builders, and brings its own styles. " Leaves of Grass."-Walt Whitman.


Reminiscences of the "White House," on the River Bank, near East Side Park, 1700 .- Wild animals and game at Sandy Hill, Wesel, on the site of the Passaic Rolling Mill, etc .- Lonely lives of the Women .- The Whites and the Indians .- First Dwellings .- Interior Arrangements .- Inventories of furniture .- Festal Days : Christmas, New Year's, Paas, Pinkster .- Fish, Flesh and Fowl .- The


vii


CONTENTS.


Country Store .- The Storekeeper as the Country Banker .- "Store orders" in lieu of money and Wages .- Some Home Industries : Weaving cloth; the Itinerant Shoemaker; Candle Making ; Every Man his own Carpenter; Saw-Mills and Grist-Mills; Home Brewing and Distilling .- First Foreign Settlers among the Dutch .- Early Mining Operations .- Local Superstitions : Cir- cumventing a Witch ; Shooting her with a Silver Bullet ; Effect of Changes of the Moon ; Trouble in "fetching Butter"; Locating hidden Watercourses ; Ghost Stories .- Boundary Disputes with Newark.


Pages 382-394


CHAPTER XI. FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE.


They that creep and they that fly,


Shall end where they began. Alike the Busy and the Gay But flutter thro' life's little day, In fortune's colours drest: Brush'd by the hand of rough mischance, Or chill'd by age, their airy dance They leave, in dust to rest. "On the Spring."-Gray.


Something about Dutch Babies : How they were received, baptized, dressed and brought up .- "Trip a trap o' troontjes !"-"De Radjes ! De Radjes !"-Training of Children and their Frolics .- Court- ship, and herein of " Bundling."-Wedding Days : Did people marry younger formerly than now? Curious statistics on the subject ; How Weddings were celebrated; Some Wedding Costumes in the Olden Times .- Funeral Customs : Cost of Funerals in 1752, 1789, 1816, etc. Pages 395-399


CHAPTER XII. THE EARLIEST ROADS AND BRIDGES. I know each lane, and every alley green, Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood, And every bosky bourn from side to side, My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood. - Milton.


Indian Paths at Dundee, in 1678; at Singack, in 1696 .- First Public Roads, 1693 .- Road from Ac- quackanonk to Pompton, in 1707 .- First Roads in Paterson : Willis street (Park avenue), Vree- land avenue, Broadway, etc .- Fords and Bridges .- A Dutch Bill for the First Bridge across the Passaic River, at Paterson, in 1762 .- History of this Bridge .- Great Floods in the River .- First Bridge at Acquackanonk. Pages 399-403


CHAPTER XIII.


HUMAN SLAVERY IN OLD ACQUACKANONK.


God . hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth .- Acts xvii, 26.


Through departing from the Truth as it is in Jesus, through introducing Ways of Life attended with unnecessary Ex- pences, many Wants have arisen, the Minds of People have been employ'd in studying to get Wealth, and in this Pursuit some departing from Equity have retain'd a profession of Religion, others have look'd at their Example, and thereby been strengthen'd to proceed further in the same Way: Thus many have encourag'd the Trade of taking Men from Africa, and selling them as slaves .- John Woolman, 1754.


Laws regulating Negro Slavery in New Jersey .- Punishment of Slaves for Crimes : Whipping, Brand- ing, Hanging, Burning at the Stake .- The Whipping Post, for Blacks and Whites .- Treatment of Slaves generally humane .- Original Bills of Sales of Slaves in Passaic County, ISO1-1823.


Pages 403-40S


viii


CONTENTS.


CHAPTER XIV.


PASSAIC COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTION.


We hold these truths to be self-evident : That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness .- Declaration of Independence.


'Tis done ! and Britain for her madness sighs- Take warning, tyrants, and henceforth be wise, If o'er mankind man gives you regal sway, Take not the rights of human kind away. When God from chaos gave this world to be, Man then he form'd, and form'd him to be free .- Freneau.


Agitation in the present Passaic County in 1774 .- Acquackanonk and Preakness join hands .- Sketch- es of some Revolutionary Leaders, 1774-1775 .- Washington's Retreat through Acquackanonk in 1776 .- The British Pursuit; Depredations of the Hessians; List of the Inhabitants De- spoiled, and Inventories of their Losses .- A Second Hessian Invasion, November and December, 1776 .- Gen. Charles Lee's March through Ringwood and Pompton, December, 1776 .- Acquack- anonk in December, 1776 .- Some Military Movements in 1777, at Pompton, Ringwood, Totowa, Passaic Falls, Acquackanonk, etc. ; Another British Raid, with Some Account of the Sufferers and their Losses .- Military Movements in Passaic County in 1778: Washington marches from the Bat- tle of Monmouth northerly through Acquackanonk ; Skirmish at Acquackanonk; Encampments at Wesel ; Lord Stirling and Gen. Winds at Acquackanonk .- Operations in 1779 : A British Raid through Paterson and Acquackanonk .- Washington marches through Pompton and Ringwood .- Washington's Headquarters at Preakness in 1780 ; Location of the several Army Corps, from Wag- araw to Little Falls ; Description of the Headquarters, and Incidents of the Encampment at Toto- wa .- The Line of Battle at Totowa .- Visit of the Marquis de Chastellux to the Headquarters at Preakness, and his Account of his Reception by Washington .- Camp-Life at Totowa and Preak- ness .- Extracts from Order Books, Journals, Diaries, etc .- American Farmers plundered by Friend and Foe .- Court Martial of Joshua Hett Smith (for suspected complicity with Benedict Arnold's Treason) at Mrs. Godwin's Tavern at Totowa Bridge (the Passaic Hotel) .- Some Plans matured by Washington at Totowa that failed : Lee's Scheme to capture Arnold ; Projected Attack on Staten Island ; Attempt on New York City .- Fac Simile of letter written by Washington from Totowa, 1780 .- Revolt of the Jersey Brigade at Pompton, 1781 .- The Army marches through Passaic County on the way to Yorktown .- The French Army marches through Pompton .- Clos- ing Days of the War, 1782-1783 .- Washington's "Headquarters" at Pompton .- Sundry Incidents of the Revolution. Pages 408-445


CHAPTER XV.


PATRIOTS AND TORIES.


What heroes from the woodland sprung, When, through the fresh-awakened land, The thrilling cry of freedom rung, And to the work of warfare strung The yeoman's iron hand !- Bryant.


First Revolutionary Officers from Passaic County, 1775-1776 .- Sketch of Captain Daniel Neil, of Ac- quackanonk, killed at the Battle of Princeton, 1777 .- Abraham Godwin and David Godwin .- Robert Erskine, of Ringwood, and his great service to Washington as Chief Topographical Engin- eer of the Army .- William Colfax, Captain of Washington's Life Guard .- Col. Theunis Dey, of Preakness .- Major Robert Drummond, of Acquackanonk, and his service in the British cause .- List of Men who served in the American Army .- List of Passaic County Loyalists, or Tories.


Pages 445-456


History of Paterson.


CHAPTER I.


GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE PASSAIC FALLS.


"At His word, the formless mass, This world's material mould, came to a heap : Confusion heard His voice, and wild uproar Stood ruled, stood vast infinitude confined ; Till, at his second bidding, darkness fled, Light shone, and order from disorder sprung."-Milton.


" This world speaks plain for who has ears to hear."-Goethe.


"IN THE BEGINNING GOD created the heaven and the earth."


A huge molten globe at a white heat, flashing out light in all directions like a great sun, and whirling through space with an inconceivable velocity, but still held in place by a mysterious law which at the same time re- pelled it from and yet held it by unbreakable bonds within the attraction of gravity to the greater sun, of whose system it still formed a part, although no longer a portion of its in- tegral substance. And so through countless ages cours- ing on in its fixed path, its white heat creating an atmo- sphere of its own which gradually absorbed more and more of its fierce fires, until millions and hundreds of millions of years as we count time had elapsed, ere that white heat - gneiss, schist, mica and granite. 2


had subsided to a fiery red, and that to a dull glow, and at last a blackened mass appeared instead of that flaming ball, as the surface particles subsided into comparative quiet, and the original fires shrank further and further into the recesses of the planet that we call the Earth.1 Five hundred mil- lion times had this fiery ball circled about the central sun of its system ere it parted with enough of its heat to permit its surface to cool and become hardened into the earth's crust. Millions of times more it sped on in its orbit,


while its outer surface, through the alternate contraction and expansion of heat, rose here and fell there.1 The con- densing vapors sank into the depressions and formed oceans, and the more considerable elevations rose above the surrounding waters and formed lonely islands in the vast waste, islands destined to become lofty peaks in the mountain chains that were to rise above the continents yet unformed. The atmosphere, which through many millions of years had been absorbing the substance of the molten planet lying nearest the surface, and hence was heav- ily charged with all the component parts of the earth, as it became changed into water retained the elements of the minerals which had once been fused into one liquid mass, and the seventy or eighty materials of which all rocks are formed. The water was still at a boiling heat, and as these materials were dropped on the shores of the vast oceans, especially at the bases of the solitary islands, the deposits were fused into crystalline rocks. The islands grew larger and larger, as the cooling of the earth's surface went on, and there was more contraction and elevation, and these peaks, with their accretions of ocean-made rocks, became elevated into the incipient Appalachian and Rocky Mountain chains. Through a tract thirty miles wide in Northern New Jersey, and very abundantly in the northern part of Passaic coun- ty, may be seen rocks deposited in those Archæan times-


While the work of constructing the continent was going on a work of destruction had already begun, and the mighty waves of boiling water dashing again and again against the obtrusive rocks which had dared to lift their heads above the dreary wastes, crumbled and broke these rocks into many fragments, pulverized them into sand, and car-


1 See Herbert Spencer's Essay on the Nebular Hypothesis of Laplace, in Illustrations of Universal Progress, New York, 1865, p. 239. (A new and revised edition was published in 1892.) Herbert Spencer's First Principles (second edition), New York, 1871, pp. 203-8, 382-6. Hum- boldt's Cosmos, New York, 1873, IV., 20-21. A poetic conception of the Nebular Hypothesis, with some startling conclusions, is presented in Eureka : a Prose Poem, by Edgar A. Poe, New York, 1848. [The wri- ter's copy has numerous manuscript corrections and interlineations, in Poe's handwriting.] "The Chemical History of the Six Days of Crea- tion," by John Phin, C. E., New York, 1870, presents in very compact form the operation of chemical forces in the earth's creation.


1 " Professor Helmholtz has calculated from the rate of cooling of lava, that the earth, in passing from 2,000° C. to 200° C., must have taken three hundred and fifty millions of years. But the temperature when the Archæan period ended was probably not over 38º C. (100° Fah.), to reach which many scores of millions of years must have been passed. The era was long."-Dana's Geology, third edition (1880), p. 149, note.


2 Investigations under the direction of the New Jersey State Geolog- ical Survey in the Summer and Fall of 1891, indicated that the granite which appears in the limestone region of Sussex county, near the northern boundary of Passaic county, is of eruptive origin, having forced its way from lower strata, and that the heat communicated from its molten state has transformed the blue limestone prevailing in that re- gion into white limestone, and sometimes into marble. See Report of the State Geologist for 1891.


2


HISTORY OF PATERSON.


ried the particles to other places to form new portions of the future continent, until, in the course of countless ages, this debris was piled up in many places to a depth of from thirty to forty or fifty thousand feet, all in level beds, stratum upon stratum, to form the layers of granite, gneiss, mica, quartz, syenite and schist that in general compose the Archæan rocks.1 With the alternations of the earth's sur- face from time to time these level beds were upturned, bent, broken and displaced. The ocean was still at work rock- making, in which it was aided by the vast amount of car- bonic acid gas in the atmosphere. The old sedimentary beds of limestone became crystallized into granite, gneiss, syenite, etc., while the layers of clay accompanying iron ore were transformed into schist and quartz. Now sandstone was deposited and consolidated-deposited in the form of loose sand, and became consolidated into rocks, and North America slowly emerged from the waste of waters with something of its present outlines. The ocean pressed from the east and southeast against the new-formed land and crumbled the emerged rocks, and casting out from its own depths the accumulation therein deposited formed beaches along the shores of the primeval continent.


An awful silence brooded over the virgin earth. There were no sounds. Had there been, there was no living thing to hear them. But in time the ocean began to teem with minute creatures whose shell homes were gathered up by the waters and deposited to form more limestone. The Highlands of New Jersey were islands or reefs in the sea, and checked the flow of the ocean over the interior contin- ent, still largely covered by waters.


Another period of uplifting and upturning began. New rocks were formed and piled up by the action of sea and air to a thickness of twelve thousand feet, and the earth gradual- ly subsided to that depth under these vast accumulations of new material. Along the Hudson river, and perhaps in Northern New Jersey at the same time, a new deposit of limestone was made, to a thickness of four hundred feet, formed by the ocean grinding up the accumulation of shells within its limits. The continent still rose and fell as the bosom of Mother Earth heaved with the pulsations of the new life, and again the strata of the rocks were bent into arches and bold flexures, particularly in the regions north of New Jersey.


"And God said, Let the earth put forth grass, herb yield- ing seed, and fruit tree bearing fruit after its kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth: and it was so."2 The


1 Many attempts have heen made to classify these Archæan rocks. In the Report of the State Geologist of New Jersey for 1886 (p. 77) it was proposed to arrange them in three groups: I. Massive Group; II. Iron ( Magnetite) Bearing Group; III. Gneissic and Schistose Group. But in the Annual Report for 1889 (pp. 29-32) this classification was abandoned, and it was proposed to arrange them in four types, according to the character of the rocks, naming them, provisionally, from the locality in which the rock prominently occur's-Mount Hope, Oxford, Franklin and Montville. The Archæan series of New Jersey corresponds generally in the character of the rocks with the Laurentian system of Canada. These rocks cover 900 square miles in Northern New Jersey; the helt is from ten to twenty miles wide, and crosses the State in the general direction of N. 500. E; the strike of the rock (the direction of the upturned and exposed edges of the strata ) is ahout N. 530 E .- Annual Report, 1873, pp. 11-15.




Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.