A History of the city of Newark, New Jersey : embracing practically two and a half centuries, 1666-1913, Volume I, Part 14

Author: Urquhart, Frank J. (Frank John), 1865- 4n; Lewis Historical Publishing Company. 4n
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: New York, N.Y. ; Chicago, Ill. : The Lewis Historical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1186


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 14


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" Offenses punishable with death were: arson, murder, perjury to the prejudices of life; stealing any of mankind; burglary and robbery, for the third offense, as incorrigibles ; theft, if incorrigible; smiting or cursing parents by children, on complaint of parents only ; rape, subject to the discretion of the court; gross and un- natural licentiousness. In all these offenses life was not to be taken except on proof of two or three witnesses.


The penalties for infidelity were divorce, corporal punishment or banishment, as the court might award. Unchastity was at first punishable by fine, marriage or by corporal punishment : in 1682, three months' imprisonment, or a fine of five pounds was incurred, and later, ten stripes at a public whipping post were substituted in place of imprisonment, upon non-payment of the fine.


" See Whitehead's "East Jersey Under the Proprietors," pp. 239-240.


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Night walkers or revelers after 9 at night and later on, after 10, were to be detained until morning by the constable, and, unless excused, were to be bound over to appear in court. Liars were liable to a fine of ten shillings for the first offense and twenty shillings for the second offense. If the fines were not paid the liars were to be put in the stocks or publicly whipped.


For the "beastly vice of drunkeness," the early laws inflicted fines of one, two and two and one-half shillings for the first three offenses, with corporal punishment; and if the culprits should be unable to pay, or were unruly, they were to be put in the stocks to remain until sober. Later, each offense, incurred a five-shilling fine, and if not paid, to the stocks for six hours. Constables who did not do their duty in this were fined ten shillings for each case of neglect.


Imprisonment for debt, save when fraud was intended, was prohibited as early as 1675. But there were rooms for debtors on the top or third floor of the Essex county jail at the corner of Broad and Walnut streets, Newark, early in the last century, and they had occasional tenants.


In 1698 the common law of England was assured to every one, and more than a dozen years before that, it was provided that no one should be imprisoned except by the judgment of his peers, or by the laws of the Province. All courts were open to persons of any religious belief ; they were allowed to plead in their own way and manner, either in person or by their friends or attorneys. Trial by jury was confirmed with reasonable challenges allowed; all persons were bailable, except for capital offenses. No court by execution or other writ could authorize the sale of any man's land without his consent, but the rents and profits might be stopped for the payment of just debts


All prizes, stage plays, games, masques, revels, bu'l baitings and cock fighting, "which excite the people to rudeness," were to be discouraged and punished by courts of justice, according to the nature of the offense. Swearing, or "taking God's name in vain," was punishable by one shilling fine for each offense. In 1682 this


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fine was increased to two shillings and six pence, and, if not paid, the offender to be placed in the stocks or whipped, according to his age, whether under or over twelve years. The observance of the Lord's day was required; servile work, unlawful recreations, un- necessary traveling and any disorderly conduct on that day being punishable by confinement in the stocks or common gaol, or by whipping.


NEWARK'S FIRST HANGING, 1738.


That the grim old fathers of Newark did not hesitate to administer capital punishment under the law is certain enough. The first instance of it on record, however, occurred in 1738, when a man with many aliases, of which the first mentioned is "John Barnes" and the last "George Brown," was hanged here, for three times robbing the house of Thomas Bailey. He made a long con- fession of a dreary series of petty crimes, committed in England and in various provinces, concluding with the Bailey robbery, which seems to have been his most ambitious effort, and ending his state- ment with, "For which I now must die, and hope all people will take warning by me, and put their trust in God, and not give way to the temptations of the devil as I have done. N. B .- This is taken down from his own mouth and read at the gallows at his desire."


It is practically certain that the execution took place near the town's first jail, which was just south of the first meeting house at Branford Place and Broad street.


A PEOPLE OF DEEDS AND FEW WORDS.


The second generation of Newarkers were quite as diligent as their fathers, and they relaxed but little from the hard, iron-bound rules of living of their parents. They were farmers, nearly all of them. They carried their produce to New York in their boats, which were for the most sort, periaugers or petteaugers-light, one-sailed craft, broad of beam, steady of keel, and capable of carrying good loads.8 For many years they exchanged their pro- duce in barter, bringing back teas, coffees, sugar, spices, nails, hinges, glass and various other useful things.


8 "Periauger" is derived from the French "pirogue," a dugout.


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Their tilling of the fields was not accomplished without infinite labor, and they were very well adapted for it. They were a people of deeds and of few words. The terseness and directness of the language employed in the Town Minute Book gives ample testimony to this. They seem to have written very few letters to their friends and relatives in New England or elsewhere. Exhausted from their long days afield, from sunrise until dusk, they had little time or ambition for writing or for reading beyond the conning of the Good Book.


THE FIRST VEHICLES.


They had no wagons for two generations or more; they would have been of little use on the crude roads. They used two-wheeled carts drawn by oxen for the heavy work, and sleds and drags, usually pulled by horses for lighter work. The old English plow, with an iron share and a wooden mould board, broke the soil for them.


NEWARK FAMED FOR ITS CIDER.


They had been on the Newark ground less than a generation before they were manufacturing excellent cider. As fast as a settler cleared his land he devoted part of it to his apple orchard. The young trees often came from the droppings of the cattle that had fed upon the fruit in the woods, for the apple is indigenous to New Jersey. Apple trees are mentioned in the Minute Book as early as 1678, as a boundary. These young plants were carefully fostered until fit to set out in the orchards. The apples improved steadily with cultivation, and for a long time the cider improved as the settlement became older. Newark was soon celebrated throughout the colonies for its cider. In a description written in 1700, we find: "The town of Newark alone in one year made ready a thousand barrels of good cyder out of the orchards of their own planting." It was shipped to many parts of the colories, largely to southern ports. Cider-making was a very profitable industry for Newark for over a century. It was, practically, Newark's first industry and out of this fact we read another evidence of Newark's industrial skill and success from almost its very beginning.


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In 1731, there was offered for sale in Newark a farm upon which "there is a good bearing young orchard and a good barn, as also a distilling house, with stills and all conveniences ready for distilling of strong liquors and especially of Syder; and where the buyer may also be instructed in the art of distilling." Which makes it manifest enough that the Puritans, with all their strait- laced ways were by no means above manufacturing liquor when there was a profit to be made from it. They were distilling West India molasses into rum as early as 1732.


One of the first accidents reported from Newark occurred in 1739, when a boy, a son of Peregrine Sandford, living on the east side of the Passaic, got his fingers "in between the cogg'd rollers of a Cyder Mill, which drew his arm up to the elbow before he could be rescu'd by him that 'tended the mill; they were obliged to set [cut] off his arm below the elbow."


THE FIRST SAW MILL, 1695.


In 1695, the first saw mill of which there is any record was authorized by the town meeting, upon Mill Brook, by the following resolution : "Thomas Davis hath liberty to set up a saw mill, with liberty to have use of any timber in any common land; provided he shall let any of the inhabitants have boards as cheap as others and before strangers."


NEWARK'S QUARRIES.


In 1721 and possibly a few years before, freestone was quarried for market in Newark, "and this article, celebrated for its excellent quality, has long been exported in great quantities," said Gordon in his Gazeteer of New Jersey in 1836, nearly a century later. No doubt the first generation of settlers quickly discovered the value of the Jersey brownstone and used it in their own buildings to a limited extent. We do know that by 1700 the second generation had to an extent replaced the first permanent habitations of their fathers with more spacious and substantial homes made, in part, of this stone. The fact that it was not marketed until a half century


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or so after the settlement was no doubt due to the lack of roads and the proper facilities for quarrying the stone in large quantities and for moving it.


" One of the very first quarries, possibly the first, was located on the north side of what is now Bloomfield avenue, about a hundred yards west of Belleville avenue. This was quite near the Passaic, and the stone was probably moved down the slope to the mouth of Mill Brook, where a rude dock is believed to have been constructed in very early times.


The largest quarry in Newark was no doubt that of which the last vestige disappeared in the 1890's, on the north side of Bloomfield avenue, between Mt. Prospect and Clifton avenues, and which was part of a system of quarries extending along Clifton avenue and Ridge street about to what is now Seventh avenue. One big quarry hole was located where the reservoir now is in the southern division of Branch Brook Park. Mill Brook, shortly after leaving the Branch Brook ponds, ran through the middle of one large quarry hole, and the Lackawanna Railroad passes over part of the same quarry.


There was also a quarry on the north side of Mill Brook, between Factory and Sheffield streets, and extending north nearly to Crane street. Quarry street (now Eighth avenue) connected with the two quarries last mentioned. One or another of these quarries seem to have been worked with little cessation for nearly two hundred years. The first stone masons in Newark, of whom we have any record, tell their own story in an announcement printed in a New York newspaper in September, 1745: "This is to give notice to all persons whatsoever, that William Grant, stone cutter, and Samuel Hunterdon, quarrier, of Newark, lately arrived from England, carves and cuts all manner of stones in the neatest and most curious fashions ever done in America. The said Grant is to be spoke with at Mr. Walsh's, sexton to Trinity Church, in


" This quarry was apparently in operation as late as 1838, for it is plotted on a map of the city made in 1838, together with the others men- tioned in succeeding paragraphs.


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New York." Newark sandstone was used in constructing the New York City Hall that preceded the present venerable structure; in churches and other pretentious structures in various places.


THE SCHUYLER COPPER MINE AND OTHERS.


The discovery of copper ore in 1719 in what is now Arlington, on the east side of the ridge, caused great excitement, not only in Newark, but throughout the entire province. This was the famous Belleville copper mine, its original owner being Arent Schuyler. The mine was worked at intervals and with varying success from about 1725 until 1870 or thereabouts. An unsuccess- ful effort to put it in operation was made about 1900. The early owners are believed to have realized very handsomely from the mine. Great quantities of the ore were shipped to England. This was one of the very first mining ventures in what are now the United States, and it is further remarkable from the fact that the first steam engine brought to the American colonies was set up at this mine, in 1753, at a cost of £3,000. The old mine is a little north of the cut through the hill of the Greenwood Lake branch of the Erie Railroad, at its eastern end.


With the discovery of this mine, every freeholder in Newark was roused with the hope of finding similar treasure on his own acres. In 1721 the people of Newark, at town meeting, appointed a committee to let out the common lands, or any part thereof, "to dig for mines, to such persons and on such terms as they shall agree upon." But no mines were found in what is now Newark. One mine was worked in Orange, between Dodd street and the Bloomfield township line and close to the bank of the Second River, and a shaft was sunk near where the foot of Vernon avenue now is, in Orange also. There was much mining activity in old Bloom- field, from east of Ridgewood avenue (now Glen Ridge), and con- tinuing on over the line into Montclair. These mines were opened soon after the discovery made by the Schuylers across the Passaic, but little work was done after 1760. In the early fifties of the last century people living on the site of the Dodd street mine mentioned


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above were thrown into a state of panic by the sudden sinking of the ground, which was no doubt caused by the decay and collapse of the timber supports of the mine below. A few years after the Civil War a well digger discovered a chamber in this ancient mine which he estimated to cover half an acre.10


While the searchers after the precious metals were busy in all parts of this neighborhood, looking, with their crude knowledge of geology and mineralogy, for signs of ore, others, stirred by the find of the Schuylers, were scanning the rock formations in various sections of the Colony. The governor of East Jersey in 1723 reported to the Crown that silver and gold were to be found in New Jersey, shrewdly adding, however, "there must be a great allowance made for the humour that now prevails to run a mine- hunting."


Danger lurked in the old mines as in those of to-day. An item in a New York newspaper, published in November, 1739, reads: "One Marsh in the [Schuyler] mines, being about to blow off a blast, before he could shelter himself from the explosion, it went off and bruis'd him very much; and that there was some hopes of his recovery." And in 1743, also from a New York paper : "We hear from Newark, that on Saturday, the 26th of March last, one Malachi Venderpoel unfortunately fell into one of the mine pits near that place [the Schuyler mine] upwards of 100 feet deep, by which his whole body was so bruis'd, and many bones broken, that he died immediately."


Slaves worked in the old Belleville copper mine, as appears from the following from a New York newspaper of 1746, which also chronicles the fact that the mine lessees were ready to part with their property: "To be sold at publick Vendue, on Friday, the 29th instant, at the house of Mr. Joseph Johnson, in Newark, two negro men, whome understands mining; also the utencels belonging to the mine, in Kingsland's lands, with pots & kittles, &c. As also the remaining part of the leace of said mine which being near two years."


10 Wickes' "History of the Oranges," pp. 58-61.


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CURRENCY FROM 1665 TO 1776.


As most of the commercial and mercantile business of East Jersey was done by barter during the first quarter of a century, currency did not become a matter of special concern until about the opening of the eighteenth century. The first Assembly, in 1668, provided that taxes, quit-rents and the settlement of accounts might be payable in produce at prices fixed by the authority of the Lords Proprietors. For that year the standard of money equivalents was as follows: Per bushel-Winter wheat, 5 shillings; summer wheat, 4 shillings sixpence; peas, 3 shillings sixpence; Indian corn, 3 shillings; rye, 4 shillings; barley, 4 shillings; per pound-beef, two and half pence; pork, three and half pence; per barrel-beef, 50 shillings; pork, 70 shillings.


The coins of England, the Netherlands and their respective moneys of account circulated without trouble for a time, but the difference in values, especially between New York and New Jersey and Pennsylvania gradually grew vexatious. In 1704 Queen Anne issued a proclamation to correct the "inconveniences caused by the different rates at which the same species of foreign coin pass in drawing money from one plantation to another, to the great preju- dice of her Majesty's subjects," ordering the reduction of all foreign coins to the same current rate within her territory on this continent. By way of illustration of the varying values of the same coin, which the proclamation sought to correct: pieces of eight, weighing not less than seventeen pennyweight, were current at six shillings in Boston, eight shillings in New York, seven shill- ings sixpence in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, four and sixpence in Maryland. The equalization ordered by Queen Anne was con- firmed by act of Parliament a few years later. Bills of credit, based on the "proclamation" standard, were afterwards issued. The expression "proclamation money" is constantly met with in old Colonial records and writings.


The proclamation was unsatisfactory to American traders. It was suspended in New York, by Governor Cornbury, and it was practically ignored in the other colonies. In 1708 the Assembly


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of New York fixed the value of silver coins at eight shillings per ounce troy. Hence arose the term "New York money." In making contracts in New Jersey thereafter, payment was provided for in "New York" or in "proclamation" money.


But coin was very scarce, it being constantly drawn back to the mother country by the English traders. An urgent demand arose for paper money, which was grudgingly permitted by the British Board of Trade, the body to which all matters of currency were referred by the Crown. The Colonial governor could sanction the issue of paper only on special emergencies. New Jersey's first paper money act was passed in 1709, authorizing the issue of bills to the amount of three thousand pounds for his Majesty's service. Some of these notes continued in circulation for about eight years, disappearing finally in the payment of taxes. In 1716 an issue of bills of credit to the amount of 11,675 ounces of plate, or about £4,000, of proclamation money, was authorized. These were soon paid in and redeemed.


There was a long controversy between the New Jersey Assembly and the Governor, the former denying its support of the government unless bills of credit were permitted. An under- standing was reached in 1723, when the Assembly "provided for ten years to come for supplying the government in order to obtain money which their necessities made inevitable." 11


By this act £40,000 in bills of from three pounds down to one shilling were issued. In its preamble the act explains that the people, in order to pay their taxes for the support of government, had been forced to cut down and pay in their plate, including, it is understood, silver coin, ear-rings and other jewels.


Later laws provided for other issues amounting to about £600,000, previous to the War for Independence. None was issued for a period of almost ten years before the beginning of the war. Then the last was assented to in 1774, by Governor Franklin. This


" Elmers' "History of Cumberland County."


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paper bore the date of March 26, 1776. From this issue came most of the currency of New Jersey at the beginning of the conflict.


Death was the penalty meted out to counterfeiters, but there were many offenders, nevertheless. The bills were crudely printed on coarse paper, and the temptation to copy them proved too great to a number. Persons of high intelligence and of considerable culture were sometimes among the criminals.


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CHAPTER X. NEWARK, MOTHER OF TOWNS-A CENTURY-LONG CHURCH CONTROVERSY-PRINCETON COLLEGE IN NEWARK.


CHAPTER X.


NEWARK. MOTHER OF TOWNS-A CENTURY-LONG CHURCH CONTROVERSY --- PRINCETON COLLEGE IN NEWARK.


N 'EWARK may truly be called "Mother of Towns." She has been chiefly responsible for the creation of every town in Essex county and in West Hudson; and her staunch sons, in the very early days, made their way still further out into the wilderness. Learning from the Indians of the presence of iron ore in what is now Morris county, a small company penetrated to the Whippany river and founded the town of Whippany where they set up their forges, bringing in the ore from the hills further above in their pack saddles, to the furnaces. They also founded Morris- town, which was really an offshoot of Whippany. They had an influence upon the creation of Hanover, Hanover Neck and Troy Hills. This Whippany river colonization movement was in opera- tion shortly after 1700. The gravestone of Whippany's first school- master, Richards, still standing in Whippany cemetery, bears the date of death as 1710.


The first movement out of the very centre of Newark began within a half dozen years or so after the settlement, when the settlers found the uplands to the west of what is now High street very useful for the pasturage of their cattle. The beasts roved at will all the way to the Orange Mountains, which explains why it was so essential that all the animals should be branded and the owner's brands entered in a town book. The third division of land was made in 1675, and this comprised the partition of all lands west of High street to the mountain, which had been previously held in common. It is doubtful if a single habitation was built west of High street previous to the third division of land, in 1675. High street was, then, for ten years, the dividing line between civilization and the wilderness.


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MAKING ROADS OF INDIAN TRAILS.


Now the sons and daughters of the founders, taking their life partners, began to move westward and northward, and thus, grad- ually the nuclei for the Oranges, Irvington, Bloomfield, Montclair, Caldwell, Belleville and Nutley were formed. Here and there, to the north and northwest, the Newark "frontiersmen" found Dutch farmers on the ground ahead of them. But there was nothing approaching community organization until the Newarkers came. In the beginning, that is, when the lands west of High street were used for pasturage, the people resorted to the Indian paths to get back and forth. But when homes were reared, better ways of getting to and from the mother settlement on the Passaic became necessary. The Indian paths were straightened, little by little, and widened, although it was many years before the people got beyond the saddle and the pillion. They came to town to attend church, to market their produce and to visit their relatives, and the need for highways increased rapidly. While the Assembly, in 1675, made provision for the laying out and improvement of roads, and from then on two surveyors of highways were required in each town in the colony, little was actually done beyond the making of rude paths which accommodated a two-wheeled cart with difficulty out of the Indian trails. It was not until 1705 that the Newark people responded to the demands of the "frontiersmen" for better roads. In a single day in that year twelve new highways were provided for, on paper.


TWELVE HIGHWAYS PROVIDED FOR, 1705.


It is not possible to-day to locate all these old roads with absolute accuracy. The first in the list is undoubtedly that starting at the head of what is now Market street, at the County Court- house, through Warren street to Roseville and thence to Orange, being practically identical with Main street in the Oranges. It was for generations called "the Crane road," in honor of old Jasper Crane, one of the chief founders of Newark, who lived on what is now the northeast corner of Bank and High streets. It was to be


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laid out "as the path now runs, as straight as the ground will allow," which virtually meant along the lines of least resistance, a method employed in all the early highway building. It followed the original Indian path for a great part of its way, and the trolley cars to-day pass over much of that ancient trail.


The second road laid down in that memorable list of twelve was wholly in the Oranges, running north and south, from the road just described to what is now South Orange avenue, part of the way over the present Valley road and over Ridgewood avenue.


The third road was South Orange avenue. The location of the fourth is uncertain but it was in Orange. The fifth road is believed to have opened communication between Cranetown (now Mont- clair), and Orange. It is impossible to locate any of the others except one that appears to have been the Eagle Rock road, from the foot of the mountain to the top. The roads were fixed in the specification of their planners, by trees, boulders and other land- marks long, long since disappeared.




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