USA > New Jersey > Hudson County > Hudson County to-day; its history, people, trades, commerce, institutions and industries > Part 1
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F 142 .H8 S85
Hudson County To-Day
Industries
1800
Class F142 H8885 Book
Hudson Onunty On-Day
1
HUDSON COUNTY, NEW JERSEY
Jis History, People, Trades, Commerrr Institutions and Industries
COMPILED BY ROBERT R. STINSON
EDITED BY ROBERT RIESER
PUBLISHED BY HUDSON DISPATCH TOWN DF UNIDN NEW JERSEY
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Introductory
ORE than fifteen miles of waterfront humming with industry and com- merce and inset with manufacturing plants, railroad terminals, and the stables of the giant ocean steeds,-this is the prophetic and impressive face which Hudson County turns toward the great Metropolis on the cast bank of the Hudson. The touch of prophesy lies in the acknowledged pos- sibility that were the thirteen municipalities of Hudson County to combine. the unified result would some day give New York City a close race for the premiership among the industrial cities of the world.
Alexander Hamilton, the man of keen forevision realized this possibility when he predicted that the greatest city of the world would some day be located on the west bank of the Hudson. In this he had the history of city building to back his prophesy, for with few exceptions almost all big cities have grown up on the west bank of the river.
Hudson County with is thriving municipalities all adjoining each other. already has 600,000 residents who are wealthier per capita than any other county in the state, which in the last analysis means that the county is one of the richest in the country and concentrates probably as much wealth as any territory of its size in the world. In this territory is located with two exceptions, the terminals of every great railroad running trains west, north and south. There are the Pennsylvania, the Erie, the Jersey Central, the Lackawanna and others carrying thousands of passengers and incalculable tons of freight every day ; consequently more freight is handled through or unloaded here than in New York City.
Huge piers studding the Hudson River front at intervals, mark the des- tination of such trans-Atlantic steamship lines as the Hamburg-American with its ocean palaces, the Imperator and the Vaterland ; the North German Lloyd, noted for its luxurious ships and the number of passengers carried by it, and probably the most popular steamship line in operation ; and last but not the least in importance, the Scandanavian-American, Holland-Amer- ica, Phoenix, Wilson, and Panama lines, and the Italian Lloyds.
On the river front from Constable Hook in Bayonne to the end of the county line at Fort Lee, are also located numerous industries of world-wide fame,-The Standard Oil Works, the Tide Water Oil Co., the largest borax manufacturing company in the world, the plant of the Babcock & Wilcox Co., which is known the world over for the boilers it turns out ; the Colgate Soap Co., the machine shops of W. & A. Fletcher Company, the Tietjen & Lang Dry Docks, beside many others of equal importance.
Numerous other thriving industries are spread throughout the county. attracted here by reason of geographical location, proximity to the great Metropolis of which Hudson County forms an important unit, and because of excellent shipping facilities by land and water. Rich already in these things, the opening of the Panama Canal and the completion of the water highway from the Lake ports to the Atlantic ocean via the Hudson River. gives promise of greater prosperity for Hudson County ..
ROBERT R. STINSON.
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UDSON COUNTY, the smallest county in the state in area, and the second largest in population in the state of New Jersey, is bounded on the east by the Hudson River and New York Bay; on the south by the Kill von Kull, separating the county from Staten Island; on the west by Newark Bay and Passaic River; and on the north by Bergen County. It comprises 43.83 square miles. Nearly half the county, 20.15 square miles. consists of marsh land. One ridge of hills, called the Bergen Hill and Pali-ade Mountain, traverses its entire length from Kill von Kull to Bergen County. varying in width from one-half to one and one-half miles. From a point just below Weehawken to Bergen Point, the ridge skirts the Hudson River. The geological composition is trap rock with underlying sandstone.
Hudson County was formerly a part of Bergen County, but was or- ganized into a separate municipality in 1840. Its initial history is so closely interwoven with that of Manhattan Island that one chronicle serves for both territories. All through the Dutch occupation it was part of New Amsterdam.
The County is named after Henry Hudson who is conceded by the ma- jority of historians to be the discoverer and explorer of the Hudson River. It was his trip to this region in the Half Moon in 1609 that turned the atten- tion of the directors of the Dutch West India Company to the colonization of the New Netherlands, a plan which materialized in 1623 when the first permanent agricultural colony was founded in this vicinity. Thirty families were brought over from Holland on the "New Netherland," a ship of 200 tons burden. Eight men were left at Manhattan to take possession for the West India Company. Several families were detailed for a like service to the castward of Manhattan, and about eighteen families were stationed at Fort Orange, on the present site of the city of Albany.
There is no record to prove whether, or not. any of the pioneer colonists ever settled in Hudson County. History, unfortunately, fails to show who was the first settler in Hudson County. From the wild and barren nature of the country at that time, however, it is not likely that any colonist had the temerity to brave nature in such a crude form for several years after the permanent colony was established on Manhattan.
The eventual settlement of the territory on the west side of the Hudson can be ascribed to the fact that up to 1629 the Dutch territories in America were enormously expensive, or in the phraseology of modern finance, were failing to meet expenses. To attract settlers from the mother country the
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West India Company offered to emigrants the absolute propriety of as much land as they could "properly" improve in any part of New Netherland other than Manhattan.
Michael Paauw Stakes First Claim.
One of those attracted by their offer was Michael Paauw, a director of the Amsterdam Chamber, who in 1630 staked his claim to the tract known as Hopogahn-Hackingh, now Hoboken, and all of Staten Island. He later took possession of "Ahasimus and Aressick." including the whole neighbor- hood of "Paulus Hoeck" or Jersey City, to which Paauw gave the name of Pavonia. It was a wise selection on the part of P'aanw, for the Indians used it as a vantage point from which to ship their peltries directly across the River to Fort Amsterdam. The territory was so desirable, in fact, that its acquisition gave rise to much jealousy. In December. 1633 Paauw was sum- moned to appear before the Assembly of the XIX and was finally forced to sell his property to the company for 2600 florins.
AAlmost all of Hudson County was originally included in Bergen Town- ship, embracing all the territory lying between the Hudson River on the east, the Hackensack River and Newark Bay on the west, the Kill von Kull Creek on the south and what is now the north boundary line of Hudson County on the north.
This territory was the scene of several Indian massacres. It bore the brunt of the retaliation of the Indians for William Kieft's weak and ont- rageous attempt to drive the savages out of the New Netherlands because of their refusal to pay a tax consisting of wampum, maize and furs.
Kieft was the third director-general of the New Netherlands employed by the West India Company. Under his orders a squad of soldiers led by a sergeant rounded the southerly point of Paulus Hoeck, landed near the mouth of Mill Creek and crept up on the Indians who had no reason to believe that the Dutchmen were other than their friends and protectors from the more warlike tribes to the north. The slaughter which prevailed that night was little short of fiendish. Eighty Indians, including squaws and papooses, were murdered in cold blood. The vengeance of the Indians was no less terrible. In 1643 all of Pavonia was laid waste, every house burned with the exception of the brew-house in Hoboken, and every bouwerie and plantation destroyed. We read that on October 1, 1643, a band of Indians burned the house of Jacon Stoffelsen, near what is now the corner of Hen- derson and Third streets, Jersey City, and killed the squad of soldiers guard- ing the house.
Aert Tunissen of Hoboken, out on a trading excursion, was killed near Sandy Hook and his farm afterwards laid waste and his cattle killed.
So complete was the work of devastation that the whole of what is now New Jersey was restored to its aborigines. It was not until the treaty of 1645 between the Indians and the Dutch gave some assurances of safety, that a few of the old colonists could be induced to return to their bouweries in Hudson County.
In 1647. while Petrus Stuyvesant was director-general of the New Neth- erlands, the Indian troubles broke out afresh. The injustice of the Kieft massacre still rankled in the breasts of the savages in spite of Stuyvesant's humane and conciliatory policy toward them. An Indian girl shot by Hen- drick Van Dyck, while she was stealing fruit from his orchard near Fort Amsterdam served as an excuse for the outbreak of a revolt on September 15. 1647. Five hundred warriors in sixty-four canoes, landed at New Amster- dam, wounded Van Dyck, killed his neighbor, Vandegrist, and were repulsed by the guard. They crossed the river and again devasted Bergen Township and its adjoining precincts. All cattle was killed, all houses burned and every man who did not seek safety in flight killed, with the exception of Michael Jansen at Communipaw. This work done, the savages devasted Staten Island.
First Settler in Hudson County.
The first houses erected on the west side of the Hudson were two huts built at Pavonia in 1633 under the direction of Wouter Van Turilles, then director-general of the New Netherlands. Communipaw, adjoining Jersey City was one of the earliest settlements in Jersey. As nearly as can be ascer- tained from the imperfect annals of the time the first settler was Jan Evert- sen Bout, who came across the river in 1634 as the agent of Michael Paauw. When the latter was forced to sell his land to the Dutch West India Com- pany in 1638, Bont bought his farm, including all the upland between Com- munipaw creek on the sonth and the meadow on the north.
Up to 1643 no settlement had been made north of Hoboken. At this place a farm house and a brew house had been built and bouwerie cleared and planted by Aert Tunissen Van Putten.
At Ahasimus lived Jacob Stoffelsen, who had married the widow of Cornelius Van Vorst, and was thus the head of the Van Vorst family. Abraham Isaacsen Planck and his tenants, Gerrit Dirckson Blauw, Claes Jansen Van Purmerendt, and Cornelius Arissen, Egbert Woutersen and his family lived at Jan DeLaecher's Hoeck or Mill Creek Point. Direk Streat- maker lived on the rear of the bluff immediately in the rear of Caven Point. just where the Central Railroad crosses the Morris Canal.
The peninsula of Paulus Hook, on which Jersey City is now situated. belonged from a remote period to the Van Vorst family. In 1804 it was vested in Cornelius Van Vorst.
According to George Scott's book. "The Model of the Government of New Jersey," published by him in 1785. there were several plantations on the Hackensack River. Also "near the mouth of the bay, upon the side of Overpeck Creek, adjoining to Hackensack River," says Scott, "several of the rich valleys were settled by the Dutch ; and near Snake Hill is a fine planta. tion owned by Pinhorne and Eickbe, for half of which Pinhorne is said to have paid five-hundred pounds."
The first definite community in the territory now comprising Hudson County was established at Bergen Village or what is now Jersey City Heights. After the peace pact entered into between the Dutch and the Indians on January 22, 1658. several of the old settlers who had been driven from their homes in Jersey, petitioned the director-general and the council for an ex- emption of taxes for a certain length of time so that they might restore their old farms. The exemption was granted for six years but the director-general and the council preferred that the people congregate in one village for pur- poses of protection. This is the origin of the formation of Bergen Village. the exact date of which is unknown. The place was merely described then as behind "Gemoenepaen." There was a small clearing about where Mont- gomery Street crosses Bergen Avenue which probably had been made by the Indians and was known then as the "Indian Cornfields" or "Maize Land," and after the village was established as "The Old Maize Land." It is probable that the position was selected, the village surveyed, laid out and given a name between August 16th and some time in November, 1660. Bergen Village evolved from a cluster of log huts 800 feet square and surrounded by 3 Palisade. It grew rapidly, and in one year it had become of sufficient im- portance to merit a local government. Up to 1661 the Court of Burgomasters and Schepens in New Amsterdam had since its organization in 1652 exer- cised legal jurisdiction on the west side of the river. Thereafter matters in controversy in Jersey were to be decided by a local court. subject to the right of appeal to the director-general and council.
On August 4, 1661, Tielman Van Vleck was appointed sheriff. or "schout" of Bergen Village-on the same day Director-General Petrus Stuyvesant granted a charter to the village. Thus was established the first municipal government and the first court in New Jersey.
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As all familiar with the early history of North America recall, New Netherlands was captured by the English in 1664 without opposition. (u July 29. 1673. the Dutch recaptured it without bloodshed. On February 9. 1074, a peace treaty was drawn up between the two countries giving England possession of New Netherlands. Philip Carteret, who had been made gov- ernor of New Jersey during the first English occupation of the New Neth- erlands, was restored to that post.
Under Governor Carteret, Bergen was made the capital of East Jersey. and the assembly or legislative body met regularly each year in various cities. In 1714 Robert Hunter, then Governor of New Jersey granted Bergen a new charter making it a body corporate.
The county of Hudson did not come into existence officially until Feb- ruary 20, 1840, when the legislature passed an act to this effect. The first term of the county court was held in Lyceum Hall, on Grand street, Jersey City, April 14, 1840, with the Hon. Chief Justice Hornblower presiding. Hli- associates on the bench were Cornelius Van Winkle, Henry Southmayd. Stephen Garretson and George C. De Kay.
The courts were held in Lyceum Hall until March 11, 1845, when the new court house in Bergen was dedicated. On May 13, 1840, the Chosen Board of Freeholders of Hudson County met for the first time in Drayton's Hotel. Five Corners.
Hudson County During the Revolution.
On June 5. 1774. the Freeholders and inhabitants of Bergen County, of which Hudson was then a part, passed resolutions at a meeting held at Hack- ensack in favor of sending delegates to the General Congress of the Colonies.
On July 4. 1776, General Washington ordered General Mercer to throw up breast works at Paulus Hoeck and station a guard of 500 men there. This was a stragetic point from which to repel invasion from Staten Island. A fort, afterwards named DeLancey, was also erected a short distance below the present canal at Bayonne and General Wadsworth's brigade was sent over to Bergen, where it was joined by a battalion of Jersey troops.
On July 12, the patriot cannons at Paulus Hoeck opened the first fire on the English fleet collected in the harbor. On September 15th, when the British captured New York, a coincident attack was made upon the post at Panlus Hoeck with less success.
During this time Washington, then headquartered at Harlaem. would occasionally slip over to the Jersey shore and in company with General Greene, who had succeeded General Mercer in command on the Jersey shore. reconnoitre as far as Paulus Hoeck. On September 23, 1776, the British took Paulus Hoeck, the Americans falling back to Bergen. Outposts remained at this place, Hoboken. Bull's Ferry and Hackensack until November 20. 1776. when Fort Lee, having been evacuated. the Continental troops here followed Washington to the Hackensack and thence to the Delaware, leaving east Jersey in possession of the British.
It was in the vicinity of Hackensack in 1776 that Colonel Aaron Burr first attracted attention by his bravery.
Another notable engagement of the Revolutionary War which occurred in Hudson County was fought with more humiliating results. This was the attack on Block House Point, located on the Palisades directly opposite Eightieth street, New York City. Here a handful of woodchoppers who were engaged in cutting wood for the English army across the river, repulsed a force of colonial soldiers twenty-five times as large, under General Wayne, the hero of Stony Point.
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Hudson County in the Civil War.
Patriotic feeling ran high in the county at the outbreak of the civil war. Banks and individuals of means vied in their efforts to advance money for the needs of the Union. The Mechanics and Traders Bank of Jersey City pledged itself for $25,000; the Bank of Jersey City $10,000 and the Hoboken City Bank $11,000. The Misses Sophia and Esther Stevens placed $1,000 each at the government's disposal.
Nor was the county behind hand in answering President Lincoln's call for troops. One of the first regiments to be mustered in was the Second of New Jersey, raised entirely in Hudson County. This regiment was raised and equipped by a war committee of five, headed by Major Cornelius Van Vorst of Jersey City. John Griffiths and Benjamin G. Clarke, members of the committee, made themselves personally liable for the debt of $30,000 incurred in uniforming the regiment. The debt was later met by the citizens of the county. The Second Regiment served nine months and was mustered out of service. Hudson County also contributed a company or two to the First. Fifth. Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Thirteenth, Twenty-first, and Thirty- third regiments of New Jersey, all of which saw active service in the war.
llexamer's Battery, known as Battery A. Captain William Hexamer, was recruited in Hoboken. It participated in the battle of West Point, Va., Mechanicsville, Chantilly, Antietam and other memorable engagements. It was composed largely of Germans.
Educational Interests of Hudson County.
In the educational sphere Hudson County boasts one institution which ranks second, if not first, in its line in the country. This is the Stevens In- stitute of Technology, in Hoboken, which was founded by the late Edwin .\. Stevens. The institute teaches mechanical and electrical engineering. Con- nected with it is the Stevens Preparatory School.
Other institutions of prominence are the Hoboken Academy, organized in 1860, Hasbrouck Institute, now part of the public school system in Jersey City, St. Peter's College, excellent high schools and a number of private schools in various parts of the county.
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JERSEY CITY HIGH SCHOOL
Jersey City
URMOUNTING a number of obstacles that would have stunted the growth of any other city in its incipiency. Jersey City has grown from a strip of farming land with a population of 13 in 1802, to a thriving community with a population of 300.885. Nor has it yet come into its own. Located ideally as a centre of transportation, it is now the focal point of a huge fan of railroad tracks running north, south and west. Its river front is hemmed with busy wharfs, while tubes and ferries link it with New York City which can be reached in three minutes. Its heart throbs with industry and sends an ever increasing flow of commodities into the arteries of trade radiating to all parts of the world. As a manufacturing centre it stands among the first cities of the country.
No wonder then that statisticians, with plausible figures to back them, predict a population of 745-374 in 1936, insisting that their estimate is a con- servative one.
A peep into Jersey City's early history makes the fact of its present im- portance seem an unreality. Until the beginning of the 19th century, Jersey City, or what is now Jersey City, was used as farming land. The entire
CHRIST HOSPITAL. JERSEY CITY, N. J.
population of thirteen was gathered in one house with outbuildings, on Paulus Hook. For over one hundred years this property consisting of meadows and a bit of upland, had been in the possession of the Van Vorst family. In 1746 Cornelius Van Vorst built a ferry to New York and in 1769 laid out a race track on his property.
Even in its early days Jersey City, by virtue of its strategic position, was a centre of transportation. Here the "Flying Machine," a springless wagon began its three days' journey to Philadelphia. This was succeeded by the stage wagon, which left Philadelphia on Monday, reached Trenton that day, arrived in Elizabethtown on Tuesday and Paulus Hook on Wed- nesday. Charles H. Winfield, in his monograph on the "Founding of Jersey City." says that at one time as many as twenty stages entered Paulus Hook a day.
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On March 20, 1804. the Van Vorst property was conveyed to Anthony Dey. representative of New York moneyed interests, in return for a perpetual annuity of foco milled dollars, secured by an irredeemable mortgage. The tract contained 117 acres bounded by the Hudson River, Harsimus Bay .. Communipaw Bay and a straight line between the two bays. The Van Vorst title to it had been approved by Alexander Hamilton and Josiah Ogden !laffman, for which legal service the lawyers received a princely fee of $10o.
The capitalists for whom Dey bought the property, cut it up into lots and advertised it for sale, hoping to build up a thriving community in short order. But they found themselves confronted by two formidable obstacle- which for a time threatened to disrupt their plans. These were the Van Vorst mortgage and the claim of New York City to jurisdiction over the lands under the Hudson westward to low water mark on the Jersey shore. United States District Court Judge Robert Troup of New York and Recorder Richard Harrison of New York City, had decided in favor of this contention. but in the nick of time the Common Council of New York City passed a resolution assuring the proprietors of Paulus Hook that the city did not wish to oppose the land project. The resolution added that the improvements "would greatly tend to the convenience of the inhabitants of this city in case of the return of the epidemic" (small pox ).
WHERE THE BOULEVARD CROSSES OVER THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD
The Jersey Company Formed.
The resolution served to reassure all concerned that the wharves along Paulus Hook would not have to be rebuilt under the direction of New York City, and the promotion of the land project was resumed. On October 11. 1804. certain "articles of association" were entered into between the original proprietors and certain associates. On the 10th of November, 1804. the capitalists were incorporated by the legislature under an act entitled "An act to incorporate the associates of the Jersey Company." The statute had been drawn up by Alexander Hamilton and conferred on the associates prac- tically all of the powers of local government. Some of the more prominent associates and the amount of shares held by each in the enterprise were: Jacob Radcliffe. Mayor of New York City, 100 shares; Joseph Bloomfield. governor of New Jersey, 20 shares : Richard Varick, a former attorney general of New York State. 100 shares; Alexander G. Mc Whorter. 30 shares; An-
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thony Dey, 100 shares: J. N. Cumming, 50 shares; William Halsey, 50 shares! Elisha Bondinot, 15 shares ; Samuel Boyd. 40 shares; Arch. Gracie, 40 shares ; lohn B. Coles, 20 shares; David Bogden, 20 shares.
Nine of these associates were, by the articles of incorporation, to be made trustees with the power to conduct and manage the affairs of the company and to sell the property and appoint all necessary officers. Each associate had one vote for each share he hekl in the company.
All sorts of inducements were held out to get purchasers of lots. Lots were offered free, in some cases, except for ground rent and surveyors' fees. to those who agreed to put up buildings above a certain value. In other cases the purchase price of a lot was reduced if the buyer began the erection of a building worth $5co or over within one year after the purchase. An effort was made to get Robert Fulton to transfer his shipyard in the town. This cffort was successful by reason of an offer of one block of land for $toco. payable in five years without interest. Here he made his first attempt to introduce the use of steam power into ferry and other vehicles.
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