USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Newark > A History of the city of Newark, New Jersey : embracing practically two and a half centuries, 1666-1913, Volume I > Part 10
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According to careful calculations" the pound in Colonial money about the time of the settlement of Newark was about equivalent to ten dollars of present money in purchasing power. Making use of this unit, it is easy to convert the total valuation of each settler's estate into its present-money value, by simply adding one cipher, and the reader may at the same time see what the estates were in the original valuation by dropping it. The grand total is about $175,000.
" Made by F. S. Crum, assistant statistician, Prudential Insurance Co., 1913.
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
VALUATION OF SETTLERS' ESTATES.
John Browne
$3080
Edward Riggs $3200
Mr. Matthew Camfield
5000
Zachariah Burwell
1600
Stephen Davis
2890
Ephraim Burwell 1500
Nathaniel Wheeler
1860
George Day
1200
Thomas Luddington
1220
John Brooks
800
Thomas Richards
1100
John Harrison
1200
Thomas Lyon
5700
John Rogers
3500
William Camp
2200
Mr. Jeremiah Peck
2000
Robert Denison
3000
Mr. Robert Kitchell
7500
Thomas Johnson
4200
Mr. Samuel Kitchell
2730
John Catling
3150
John Ward added
500
John Ward, Jun.
2500
John Baldwin, Junr.
1450
Deliverance Crane
1000-1500
Hauns Albers
1000
John Curtis
1900
Samuel Camfield
1740
John Baldwin, Sen.
1370
Samuel Rose
2500
Joseph Walters
1800
Mr. Obadiah Bruen
2000
Micah Tompkins
2600
Mr. Morris
3850
Jonathan Tompkins
1660
Robert Dalglesh
1670
Ephraim Pennington
1500
Aaron Blatchly
1800
John Crane
2500
Stephen Freeman
4400
Edward Ball
1600
Thomas Staples
1500
Ser. Richard Harrison
4000
Lieut. Samuel Swain
5500
Lawrence Ward
3700
Thomas Huntington
3500
Francis Linle
2100
Stephen Bond
1400
Mr. Jasper Crane
5700
Alexander Munrow
1000
Hugh Roberts
4460
John Browne, Junr.
2500
Josiah Ward
2500
Mr. Abraham Pierson, Junr. 3800
Thomas Peirson
2000
Daniel Dod
1500
Mr. Robert Treat
6600
Jonathan Sergant
1500
Robert Limon
2850
Samuel Lyon9
2250
Samuel Plum
5000
LATER ALLOTMENTS.
While every settler, with the exception of Captain Treat, got the same area for his home lot, all other divisions were made on the basis of their ratings. In the second division, that of the
Samuel Lyon's actual estate is omitted from the old record, but as his two-thirds is given it is practically certain that the whole was omitted by error.
Martin Tichenor
1690
Richard Lawrence
3600
John Bostick
1600
Benjamin Baldwin
1200
Mr. Abraham Peirson, Sen. 6440
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
"uplands in the neck," Captain Treat asked that he be allotted a considerable tract near his eight-acre home lot, and was unani- mously granted this by the town meeting. The others received three acres for every hundred pounds of their two-thirds rating. This system of land apportionment prevailed in both the drawings for meadow land, save that Captain Treat no longer received special consideration.
But when it came to the drawing of upland, beyond and largely to the westward of the town proper, it was decided that each free- holder might, if he saw fit, take up sufficient property to make his total landed estate one hundred acres. He could take it all in one parcel, if he desired; but if he wished to have it in different sections of the town's lands, he was permitted to draw for but one parcel at a time, waiting until everyone had had one drawing before coming up for his second parcel, and so on. This prevented any man who might be fortunate in getting a low number, from select- ing several of the choicest spots. It was a veritable lottery, of course, as we see it to-day, but it was the best system that they could devise at the time and there was a strong savor of democracy about it, nevertheless. It was the old Puritan method of fighting monopoly.
The town's first treasurer, Henry Lyon, was not appointed until 1668, to serve for a year, and at the same time Thomas Johnson was chosen as rate or tax gatherer, the tax to be paid in half-yearly payments, "in any current pay that will pass and is accepted between man and man." 10
THE FIRST ASSESSMENT:
The first assessment was for two hundred and forty pounds, eighty of this being the amount it was agreed, in 1668, should be paid to Pastor Pierson for the previous year, 1667, and the remainder, one hundred and sixty pounds, to defray the town's running expenses and to pay off part of the debt incurred in the purchase of the land from the Indians. Deacon Laurence Ward
" Town Minute Book.
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
and Mr. Samuel Kitchell were chosen, in September, 1668, to deter- mine the charge upon each hundred acres of land so far taken up, to meet the outlay of the £240. It was decided that the young men should pay 12 shillings for each home lot that they acquired and also a sum not mentioned in the Minute Book, for such cattle and other livestock as they might possess, this money to go into the £160 fund for paying the town charges as already described. As for the young men's part in the £80 for the minister, they were to give what they could. From this it appears that the founders had a rate of their own and that the younger men, in most cases sons of the founders, were made to bear a lighter burden.
In 1669 an exhaustive system of rating, so as to derive the minister's stipend for the year, was drawn up. It is quaint and most interesting: "For every male person, not freed or disabled to a single rate, 1s. 4d. by the head, that is, 16 years and upward. For every acre lying in the Home Lotts under fence, 3d. by the acre; and for all other upland and meadow, lotted out and enclosed, 12d. by the acre. And for all horses and mares, 2d. by the head; and for all yearling horses, 1d. And for all oxen of five years old and upward at 6d. the head; and for all four-year-old steers at 5d. the head; and for all three-year-old heffers at 3d. the head; and two-year-olds at 2d. the head; and yearlings at 1d. And for all cows of four years old and upward at 31/2 a head; and for all swine of a year and upward at 1d. And for all vacant or deserted lotts or lands * * appropriated to the owners [who] dwell in another town, they shall pay Mr. Pierson's rate one-third as much as they did for the purchase of their lands one-third." 11
The pages of the old Minute Book are thickly dotted with the individual transfers of land from one settler to another, and with the occasional apportionment of a home lot to a newcomer. There was much shifting about, and trading of portions of lots to adjust party lines, etc. All these details had to be taken up at town meeting and approved of before they became binding. Before any lots could be assigned it was necessary to lay out the principal
" Town Minute Book.
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
streets and in each subsequent lottery allowance had, of course, to be made for any new highways. The town also reserved the right to take ground from individual lots for drains or "gripes" and to preserve the water courses, the town to give full and proper satis- faction to each and every individual from whom it took land for the common use. All whose home lots abutted upon the swamps had to build their section of the common fence, a most important item, since it was by means of this fence that the cattle were kept from straying into the marshes and becoming lost. The building of other lines of common fence was accomplished in the same manner.
Another of the highly important early rules or ordinances, fixed at the time of the settlement, was that a settler must live on the land assigned him, with the greater part of his family, for two years, before he could dispose of it. Thereafter, he must first make a tender of sale to the town in general, and if the town meeting did not wish to take over the property, he might sell it to anyone whom the town might approve of. If the purchaser was not approved, the sale was to be null and void and the land was to be confiscated by the town, which was to pay a price fixed by "indifferent" (unprejudiced) meu.
Sergeant John Ward and John Curtis are the first surveyors of highways of whom there is any record, although it is pretty certain that they had either been hard at work before their formal selection by town meeting in September, 1668, or others had done some of the preliminary work in determining the location of the main streets for which they are given no credit in the records. It is highly probable that Robert Treat and Jasper Crane played an important part in the administration of this land apportionment system in the beginning. Ward and Curtis were given full power to call upon the men of the community to do road work whenever they found it necessary.
CHAPTER VII.
THE HOME BUILDERS-EARLY TOWN ORGANIZATION.
CHAPTER VII.
THE HOME BUILDERS-EARLY TOWN ORGANIZATION.
T HE ground-breakers, the sturdy little group of men who remained here the first summer, spoke of the community as Milford, or New Milford, which is easily enough explained, as the greater number of them were from Milford, in the Province of Connecticut. That name was never really adopted by the town. In one of the very first entries in the Minute Book, October 30, 1666, the community is spoken of as "Our Town upon Passaick River," and it is formally entered in the old book as Newark, as early as June, 1667. The Branford contingent, with Pastor Pierson at its head, had now arrived, and the naming of the town was no doubt left until practically all of the first settlers were on the ground. Mr. Pierson was ordained to preach the ministry at Newark-on-Trent, in England. It is practically certain that he himself had a large part in the selection of the name and that the people of his flock were quite willing to thus perpetuate the memory of this, from the Puritan standpoint, important event in his life. Various ingenious theories have been advanced as to the name having been created out of New Work, or New Ark, but these have no foundation in any authenticated writings of the time. The name Newark was used only occasionally for a number of years, the community being "Our Town," "Our Town upon the Passaic," etc. Once, in February, 1669, the Minute Book gives it as "New Ark," but this was probably a quip of the town clerk's pen. Later, and until after the War for Independence, this form appeared occasion- ally in the writing of the time, and this is explainable from the fact that people spelled about as the fancy seized them, and often did not spell the same word twice alike.
THE FIRST HOUSES.
The habitations of the people first on the ground must have been of the crudest character, for they knew that they would be but temporary quarters since the drawing for lots had not yet been
30
120
HISTORY OF NEWARK
held and they could not be certain of just where their holdings would be located. By the summer of 1667 they were busy upon their permanent dwellings. These were of logs, the frame being often of oak, of which there was an abundance, while cedar, drawn from the forest between the Hackensack and Passaic rivers, de- scribed in the preceding chapter, furnished excellent material for shingling. All the timbers were hand hewn, and not infrequently with considerable skill, as inspection of surviving fragments made by investigators many years ago, proved. Newarkers have been skillful handicraftsmen from the very beginning. The first saw mill, which stood on Mill Brook, was not erected until 1696, thirty years after the settlement, and if boards were used before that time they must have been brought either from New York or Connecticut, as there is no record of a saw mill in Elizabeth prior to the one in Newark. There was a saw pit here as early as 1672, near the present site of the postoffice from which boards may have been turned out, although not in any large quantity.
An excellent idea of how the English settlers began life in East Jersey is to be gained from a letter written by one of the original planters of Perth Amboy, in February, 1685, and we may be reasonably sure that the first Newarkers proceeded in much the same fashion :
"Upon the eighteenth day of November I and my servants came here to the woods, and eight days thereafter my wife and children came also. I put up a wigwam in twenty-four hours, which served us until we put up a better house; which I made twenty-four feet long and fifteen feet wide, containing a hall and kitchen both in one, and a chamber and study [both in one, also, no doubt], which we put up pretty well, (with pallisadoes on the sides and shingles on the roof) against Yuill [Christmas] on which day we entered home to it; and have been ever since, and still are, busy with the fencing. So that I hope to have as much ground cleared, fenced, ploughed and planted with Indian corn in the begin- ning of May (which is the best time for planting it) as will maintain my family the next year if it please God to prosper it. Robert Fullerton and I are to join for a plough this spring, consisting of
four oxen and two horses. * : I intend to build a better house and larger, and to make a kitchen of this I am in." 1
1 Whitehead's "Early History of Perth Amboy," p. 62.
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
The process of early settlement was, therefore; first, the hut, lean-to or wigwam for the first pioneers; then the rough house for the first reception of the women and children, followed with a substantial and permanent homestead as soon as possible.
"A carpenter, with a man's own servants builds a house," writes another East Jersey settler, about 1680. "They have all the materials for nothing except the nails. The poorer sort set up a house of two or three rooms after this manner: The walls are of cloven timber about eight or ten inches broad, like planks, set one end to the ground [which explains the word 'pallisadoes' used in the previous letter and which means that the walls were like thick fences, the hewn logs placed upright] and the other end nailed to the raising, which they plaster within." This, according to still another writer of the period, was the style most commonly followed throughout East Jersey.
The most pretentious houses in New Jersey during the first quarter of a century after the beginning of the English settlements were undoubtedly those erected for the Lords Proprietors in the 1680's, at Perth Amboy, where it was proposed to establish a great city. Indeed, for some years it was confidently believed that Perth Amboy was destined to become the greatest seaport city on the whole continent. These houses, according to one letter writer, "are thirty feet long and sixteen feet wide; ten feet between joint and joint; a double chimney, made with timber and clay, as the manner of the country is to build."
As a rule, the first houses in Newark, after the "wigwams" of the first on the ground, had no cellars. An excavation large and deep enough to receive the household's supply of such vege- tables as it was not advisable to store in the barns and other out- houses, being deemed sufficient. Rough stone, practically unhewn and drawn from the fields and woods, was used for foundations. The huge heaps of oyster and clam shells left along the bay and the sea shore by the Indians were levied upon in the making of lime for the mortar. The timbers and beams were usually fastened together with wooden pins made from the pin oak. Nails were scarce and were hand wrought; they were used in Newark as early
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
as 1668, however, as is proven by an item in the town Minute Book for that year, which tells of the town selling to Henry Lyon the home lot of John Gregory (probably the Gregory who accom- panied Robert Treat on his first visit to this region to select the town site, and who did not come here for the settlement) for ten pounds, three pounds of which he was to pay in shingle nails, "as soon as he can, or to do his True Endeavour to get them."
It is possible that the town had a nail forge as early as 1669, as an item in the Minute Book for that year directs that each settler pay his assessment of nails for closing in the meeting house, to "Brother John Brownes as soon as he can." If the nails were really "made in Newark," and not bought in New York (by barter for farm products), we might date the first manufacturing done in the community from three years after the settlement. Unfortu- nately there is no full proof that the latter method of supplying the nails was not used.
The first Newark houses, after the "wigwams" of the pioneers, were for the most part of one story with an attic. A few were of two stories at the front and one at the back. They had, many of them, overhanging roofs. Sometimes the entire ground floor space was taken up with a single room. Here was the huge fireplace where the cooking was done and around which the family gathered in the evening, retiring at night to the close quarters of the attic and drawing the ladder up after them, the common custom among pioneers throughout most of the American colonies.
The fireplaces could accommodate great logs and sometimes these were hauled into the house by horses." Newark's settlers, being most of them men of considerable means, for the period, no doubt brought considerable furniture with them from Connecticut which had originally come with them or their fathers from Eng- land. There was much home-made furniture, of course, and one of the most useful trees in the region was the bitter gum. As this tree reaches a ripe age it rots at the centre. It was cut by hand sawn into sections, the centre dug out and when plugged at one
" Wickes' "History of the Oranges," p. 41.
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
end these sections made excellent barrels, casks, dye-pots, etc. Vessels of this sort may be seen at Washington's headquarters in Morristown, and a very few are still in the possession of private families, heirlooms from their ancestors.
Seats, to be placed within the fireplaces, were always contrived, and the ever-present dye-pot furnished one, the lid or cover being the seat. The dyes were made from sumac and the bark of the black oak and chestnut trees, while some dyes were brought from New York in the very early days. These dyes were used for color- ing the fabrics wrought by means of the spinning wheel and the hand loom, the former being an indispensable article in every settler's living room. This room served as kitchen and dining room as well. A few of the original planters possessed some silver for table use; pewter plate and cups were quite common a little later. Deacon Azariah Crane, son of Jasper, who died in 1730 at the age of 83, gave in his will "to the Church of Christ in Newark afore- said, my silver bowl, to be used for the service of God forever, in the town of Newark aforesaid." This bowl is carefully preserved by the First Church to this day.
The settlers wore homespun, of necessity, and their descend- ants did likewise for a hundred years and more. Their linen was made from the flax (which they took good care to cultivate) by their wives and daughters upon their spinning wheels. Their other garments came from the wool of their sheep, which they brought with them from Connecticut or purchased in New York, and of which they had such generous flocks by 1704 that the town decided to hire a shepherd, chosen by four sheepmasters who were also to have general charge over the sheep, seeing to it that each planter had his animals properly branded. This last was also the case with all other domestic animals, since they grazed upon the common lands largely.
AN ALMOST IDEAL DEMOCRACY.
In some ways the town approached closely to the ideal democ- racy for several decades. Not only were one's taxes large or small according to his estate ("rating"), but the actual physical work
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
required from him and his male dependents between the ages of sixteen and sixty for the common benefit, was adjusted in the same way. The greater his land estate, the more fences was he required to erect, and the greater was his area of highway to build. The able bodied men were all told off into what we would call squads, and these were summoned on certain days to do their quota of work. At one time it was in building the common fence, at another the burning of the brushwood and the clearing of undergrowth, at another the "stubbing of the highways" (clearing the roads of vegetation of all sorts). Again it was the building of ditches in the marshes.
HOW THEY DID THE TOWN'S WORK.
The following digest from the Minute Book for June, 1669, explains the actual operation of the method employed in the ditch- ing of the meadows, which was practically identical with the system used in all other public works: "Every man is required to work one day for each £200 of his [two-thirds] estate. Two rods in length is to be taken for a day's work. The planters are divided into two companies, of which Sergeant Riggs is to com- mand one and Sergeant Harrison the other, [they lived at opposite ends of the town, north and south] and every man must set up stakes marked with the first two letters of his name at each end of his work, so that the Surveyor may know whether he has done his part, and how he has done it. The men are to come out and work in succession as they are called by their leaders, notice having been given the day previous." 3
"Burning Day" was one of the great occasions of the year. For the children it furnished gratifying diversion, no doubt. The ridding of such cleared or sparsely covered land as was ready for it of all growth was a very important business, of such grave moment that the town appointed a special committee which decided when it was to be done and in what neighborhoods, avoid- ing dry spells of weather, when their infant settlement might have
" Stearn's "History of the First Church," p. 39. Note.
1
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
been swept away by their own torches, and noting carefully the direction of the wind so as not to endanger any building or planted field. The day selected, every settler between the 16-60 age limit was required to appear at beat of the drum, at the "common place of meeting" previously assigned, "and then and there come to an agreement with his neighbors as to the best manner of proceeding for the best good of the town." The torch must not be applied until the sound of a general drumbeat proceeding from the lower end of the town, at about Lincoln Park, up to the present Bridge street neighborhood, gave the signal. It is to be regretted that more details are not given in the Minute Book as to the precise method of controlling the fire when once started, and of quenching it when it had done the required work.
ON A MILITARY FOOTING-POTENCY OF THE DRUM.
Thomas Johnson was the town's first regularly appointed constable, selected in 1668, although there must have been very little for this, Newark's first police department, to attend to of the nature attached to that function of government to-day. After Captain Treat, he was one of the most efficient men among the founders. His son Joseph was the first town drummer. The town paid his father, for him, eight shillings a year for drumming. Joseph must have been kept quite busy, since the community was summoned by drum-beat for every doing of common concern. The drummer was a town officer and a person of considerable conse- quence. The community was really under a sort of martial law, with Captain Treat, two lieutenants, two sergeants, and later on two ensigns, as the military heads, clothed with the town authority to fine and to otherwise punish such as did not bend themselves to the will of the town meeting; or to mete out such discipline as was deemed by them proper until one or the other of the two magistrates could act, or until another town meeting disposed of the case.
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
No one was asked to do more than his share (fixed according to his rating), but that share he must render, or take the conse- quences, which in that rigid Puritan company were not likely to be gentle. There is no record of severe physical punishments, however. If there was a stocks or a whipping post, or both, the planters took care to keep all hint of them from their records. It is practically certain that such harsh disciplinary methods were not required. The townsfolk dwelt together in peace and amity for generations, correcting each other by means of fines, chiefly.
THE FIRST INN.
Newark's first inn or tavern was kept by Thomas Johnson, the constable. The job was first assigned to Henry Lyon, the town treasurer, but he does not appear to have accepted it. All settlers were prohibited from selling liquor but the innkeeper Johnson, "except in cases of necessity and that by license from a magis- trate," says the old Minute Book.
Johnson is believed to have kept the tavern in his own home, which was near the corner of Broad and the present Walnut street, not far from, if not exactly on, the site of the present Grace Epis- copal Church. The Minute Book calls the hostelry an "ordinary," using the expression of the day, and the prospective innkeeper was directed (in 1668) to maintain it "for the entertainment of travelers and strangers, and desired to prepare for it as soon as he can." The celerity sought may have been due to the fact that the first Provincial Assembly had directed that all towns establish "ordinaries," it no doubt being the intention of the Lords Pro- prietors to provide suitable accommodations for themselves, when on their visits of inspection over their domain. Thus early did the founders seek to control the sale of liquor. Any evil that might result from it would, by their system, be directly traceable to Mine Host Johnson's door.
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