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 29
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It was also Pennington's melancholy fortune to be present at the execution of Major Andre, or near the spot, as the following entry in his journal shows: "Monday 2nd October, 1780-This day at twelve o'clock, Major Andre, Adjutant General of the British army, was executed as a spy. He behaved with great fortitude. Although self-preservation and the laws and usages of nations justify, and policy dictates the procedure, yet I must conceive most of the officers of the army felt for the unfortunate gentleman."
But Lieutenant Pennington's diary does not always deal with the grim side of war, as we find from the following:
"Tuesday, December 26-This day I had the honor to dine at his excellency General Washington's table, and the pleasure of seeing for the first time, the celebrated Mrs. Washington. Instead of the usual subjects of great men's tables, such as the conquering the worlds and bringing the whole human race into subjection to
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their will, or of the elegance of assemblies and balls, and the sub- limity of taste in dress, etc., the simple but very laudable topic of agriculture was introduced by his excellency, who, I think, discussed the subject with a great degree of judgment and knowledge. The wine circulated with liberality, but the greatest degree of decorum was observed throughout the whole afternoon."
The stalwart young soldier was evidently a favorite with the ladies and whenever he was fortunate enough to get a furlough he seems to have hastened to his home in Newark for the enjoyment of their society. In October, 1780, he made one of these visits, and set down the following: "Wednesday, October 16, I spent the principal part of the day in Newark, visiting my female acquaintance in this place. The ladies in town, to do them justice, are a very sociable, agreeable set of beings, whose company serves to educate the mind, and in a manner to compensate the toils of military life."
Pennington took up the hatting business soon after his return to Newark upon the close of the war. Later he became active in mercantile lines. He embraced the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 1802, within two years thereafter being made an asso- ciate justice of the Supreme Court of the State. He was one of the founders of the Republican, (afterward the Democratic) party, being a staunch supporter of Thomas Jefferson, and was Governor of New Jersey, 1812-1814.
MAJOR SAMUEL HAYES.
Major Samuel Hayes, besides serving upon a number of pat- riotic committees was in active service as major a good part of the time from 1776 to November, 1783. He was made prisoner in 1780. After the war he was for many years one of the leading figures in all patriotic demonstrations.
CALEB BRUEN.
Throughout the entire war Washington was rendered invalu- able service by spies, men of steel nerves, carrying their lives in their hands every hour in the twenty-four for days at a time. One of these who chose to risk going down to oblivion by means of the noose or the bullets of a file of soldiers, in order to best serve his
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country, was Caleb Bruen of Newark. He possessed Washington's confidence, and risked the gallows many times. At the time of the mutiny of the Pennsylvania line the British made use of Bruen to carry messages to the ringleaders at Morristown, as he had led them to believe he was devoted to the cause of the Crown. Bruen turned over a parcel of papers entrusted to him for the mutineers, to Wash- ington. Later the British, having grown suspicious of him, arrested him while he was within their lines and put him in the Sugar House prison. He was brought home at the end of the war little better than an imbecile as a result of the awful hardships and privations he endured. He afterwards recovered and lived to a ripe old age.
THE CAMP FAMILY.
It was Captain Nathaniel Camp to whom, as told in a previous chapter, Washington presented the cannon that now bears the name of "Old Nat" and which stands among the other antiquated ord- nance on the lawn at Washington's headquarters in Morristown. Capt. Camp was an officer in an artillery company, but just what service he rendered is not known. He was very properly proud of the fact that he had the honor of entertaining Washington in his own home at Camp and Broad streets and long after the war used to show people the buttonwood tree in front of his home, to which the General tied his horse. He even remembered that Washington ate the ham and eggs offered him on the occasion of one visit, with great relish. The very chair the distinguished guest occupied is still preserved.
William Camp, brother of Nathaniel, was a merchant and one of Newark's leading citizens at the outbreak of the war, but because of his aggressive patriotism was lodged in the Sugar House at New York, in 1776, dying there the next year. Captain Camp brought his body to Newark under a flag of truce, where it was laid to rest in the Old Burying Ground.
Caleb Camp, a third brother, was also an active patriot, and survived the war many years. John Camp, a nephew of Captain Nathaniel, was killed in action in Georgia.
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CAPTAIN ELIAKIM LITTELL.
Captain Eliakim Littell rendered most efficient service as a leader of bodies of militia in dashes upon the enemy when it was in Essex County. He raised a company which the ladies of Newark outfitted with uniforms of frocks and pantaloons dyed blue. They were called the "Jersey Blues," thus helping to perpetuate the name made famous by Peter Schuyler and his men in the French and Indian wars. Littell and his men are believed to have captured a considerable number of Hessians in their various expeditions. The British put a price on Littell's head, and made several desperate attempts to get him, but failed. Littell and his men were conspicu- ously active at the time of Knyphausen's expeditions to Connecticut Farms and Springfield. He was regarded as one of the most cour- ageous and efficient of Newark's militant patriots, for although he was a resident of Springfield, that place was at that time a part of Newark. At the opening of the war he was a well-to-do farmer; at its close he was impoverished. Later he played a gallant part in St. Clair's punitive expedition against the Miami Indians.
LIEUTENANT CONGER, CAPTAIN WHEELER, JOSIAH BEACH, CAPTAIN HOLDEN, LIEUT .- COLONEL CUMMING.
Lieutenant Samuel Conger served with faithfulness and cour- age. After the war he returned to his trade, that of a weaver. When asked if he wanted a pension, he is said to have answered: "No; I want no pension-at least not as long as I can shoot a shuttle."
In the summer of 1776 Captain Caleb Wheeler completed what for the time was a most imposing mansion, setting a little back from the northeast corner of what are now Market and Mulberry streets. It had taken seven years to build, and there are said to be vestiges of it still in the tangle of buildings at the rear of those that now [1913] occupy the front. The house was a place of refuge for many a patriot seeking to escape the British who visited it more than once and who carried off many household and other articles, and committed acts of vandalism. On one occasion Captain Wheeler
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had to leave his house in a hurry and hide in his haymow, first concealing his wife and family in a place he had prepared for such emergencies in the house. The British searched the hay and Camp could hear them swearing vengeance if they found him, as they plunged their bayonets into the hay. His clothing was pierced, but he escaped uninjured, and later found his family in safety, also. A neighbor of the name of Williams, and who had warned Wheeler of the approach of the enemy before retiring to his own hiding place, was found and shot dead. A French officer who had engaged to serve with the British, found his way to Captain Wheeler's house, where he announced that he could not permit himself to fight against the Americans, now that he had come to understand them and the nobility of their cause. He was sheltered for a few days until he could make his escape to France.
Josiah Beach was killed in action at Scotch Plains, in 1777.
Joseph Crane was mortally wounded in a skirmish on the shore of Newark Bay.
Captain Levi Holden was a Massachusetts youth who found himself mewed up in Boston when General Gage occupied it. He managed to escape and when a little distance out of the city came upon a British officer, mounted. He took the officer prisoner, ap- propriated the horse and let its rider go free. Holden then raised a company of young men of his neighborhood who fought under him throughout the entire war. Although his name is set down in the official roster of New Jersey troops as from Essex County, his de- scendants have stated that Holden did not take up his residence in Newark until about 1800. He is said to have been a member of Washington's bodyguard at one time. He died in 1825 and was buried in Trinity church cemetery.
Lieut .- Colonel John Noble Cumming was another shining light in the struggle against tyranny, who did not make his home in Newark until after the war was over. He was born in Monmouth county and his half sister was the wife of Newark's militant pastor, the Rev. Dr. Macwhorter. Cumming was graduated from Princeton
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in 1774, and entered the service with the second establishment, New Jersey Continental Line, in 1775, as a private, leaving it at the close with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He married a daughter of Joseph Hedden, the Newark martyr. He was one of Newark's most active and progressive citizens, being a public-spirited promoter of many of its earliest financial and commercial enterprises and deeply concerned in all measures for the advancement of the general good of the community.
Rev. Dr. Alexander Macwhorter, whose services throughout the greater part of the war were of incalculable value, is frequently noticed in other chapters.
CHAPTER XVII. THE FIRST BRIDGE-NEWARK AS TRAVELERS SAW IT, 1679-1800-ERA OF THE STAGE COACH.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE FIRST BRIDGE-NEWARK AS TRAVELERS SAW IT. 1679-1800-ERA OF THE STAGE COACH.
W ITH the end of the War for Independence came the begin- nings of an entirely new order of things for Newark. The smiling village, so pitilessly scarred by war, was to blos- som forth for awhile in new and radiant beauty, and then, gradually, with scarcely perceptible transition at first, was to take on the more or less monotonous and unattractive attributes of the industrial town. Long, long ago, the village slipped well nigh unnoticed into the town, and long ago it became a city, forgetting for the most part during these processes that there is something more in life than toil. It is our great privilege to-day to see Newark advancing upon the third stage, to be a part of its making into the Greater Newark, the city that it is now striving to become in the broadest and most modern sense, comfortable and attractive to live in as well as useful.
For the better part of a century Newark seems to have for- gotten well nigh everything but moral and industrial advancement. Its skill at manufactures, its zeal for temporal gain, caused it to focus its eyes upon these ends. It utilized the talents handed down from the days of Robert Treat; it saw that the founders had built with masterful far-sightedness, and it seized upon some of the advantages with a strenuous enthusiasm that has made the mighty Newark of to-day possible. It obeyed the trend of its time, as we of to-day and those coming immediately after shall obey ours. Its people made the city rich and powerful; we shall make it beautiful and masterful.
The war had dealt Newark and all Essex County staggering blows, as indeed was the case throughout the length and breadth of the inhabited country. Newark, a farming village, had perforce neglected agriculture and the farms were in a sad state of disrepair. Neither Newark nor the county had any industries really worthy of the name. Newark's means of communication with the outside
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world were crude and grossly inadequate. Could it have remained thus in a state of semi-isolation little change would perhaps have been necessary ; it could have continued smiling and drowsing on the hillsides to the end of time. But the superb location given it by the founders made that impossible; and what is more, the men of Newark at the close of the War for Independence were not of the sort who could moulder their lives away. Their days had been too full of action for the previous seven or eight years to return to the simple methods of their forebears. There were things to be done, and the men of Newark were ready and able to do them.
It is a most significant fact that when you search the records of this city for the quarter of a century immediately following the War for Independence, the men who stood staunchly for the cause of freedom throughout the trying time, were constantly in the lead among the upbuilders of the new community.
DEMORALIZED BY THE WAR.
From 1783 until about 1790, little is heard of Newark in the newspaper and other prints of the time. The village was busy pulling herself together. It was demoralized, as was natural enough for a village in the path of contending armies and upon the edge of territory held by its enemies. The moral tone of the community was at a low ebb and Pastor Macwhorter set vigorously at work to bring back his flock to higher ideals of living. On one occasion in 1784, a visiting clergyman, after denouncing the vices and frivolities of the time, spoke directly from the pulpit to the young people in the congregation, crying out: "And will you go dancing to Hell?" This fiery question and the discourse preceding it are said to have had salutary effect. Praying circles and conference meetings were organized and altogether, "an almost universal reformation of out- ward habits was effected." 1
Peace was declared on April 19, 1783. For that year the Town Meeting voted to raise £350 "for the poor for the ensuing year." In 1782 but £150 had been required for that purpose, and in 1781, £100. This destitution was a more or less direct outcome of the war.
1 Atkinson's History of Newark, p. 136.
VIEW OF MARKET STREET, EAST OF BROAD STREET, 1790
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TOWN MEETING GOVERNMENT CONTINUED.
For a little more than fifty years Newark had governed its affairs by annual town meetings, held in March, instead of occas- sionally throughout the year, as had previously been the custom from the days of the founders. These yearly meetings were held throughout the War for Independence and the minutes are pre- served, all except those of March, 1780, which are believed to have been destroyed during the war.
The routine business of the town was attended to with perfect steadiness, according to the minutes for those years of the war that are preserved. Indeed, from reading them one could never know that people were engaged in a bitter fight for their independence. These annual town meetings were continued until 1833, becoming more and more perfunctory each year. In 1833 the township of Newark was divided into four wards, in order to better facilitate the handling of business. One cannot but be amused at the otherwise dull and formal reports of these gatherings, conducted solemnly, on down through the years, disposing of all business which was con- sidered the town's business, in precisely the same fashion as that made use of by the forefathers of the hamlet, while the actual growth and development of the town was being managed by private companies, usually raising the money for each new enterprise on stock and embarking in each undertaking quite as much from patriotic and public-spirited motives as for private gain, and indeed for many years with very little profit.
To have proposed taxes sufficient to meet the needs of the awakening community would have brought on something little short of a riot. The people were sick of the very talk of taxes. They had fought Great Britain to get rid of unjust taxation, and it seems to have been impossible for them in the years immediately following the war, to have discriminated clearly between just and unjust levies ; they were prejudiced against taxation in all forms. At the same time they were quite content for the new works to proceed in the hands of private organizations of citizens, the stockholders to reap such benefits as might accrue. Occasionally, when the
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promoters of a new and virtually a public, enterprise, were in need of capital, they were permitted to hold a lottery.
THE FIRST POSTMASTERS.2
Newark had a post office, at least a Post, during the War, as the following announcement made in April, 1778, will explain : "This is to certify to the Publick that the Newark Post will not carry letters unless they are paid for it, except letters from the subscribers for this paper to the Printer. John Hedden, Alexander Anderson." The paper in question was the New Jersey Gazette, New Jersey's first printed newspaper. The newspapers employed post riders to deliver their sheets, and these riders eked out their incomes by carrying letters for those who would pay them. There was no reliable postal system other than this. The post riders just mentioned made another announcement a little later in the same year, which further illustrates the methods employed for carrying newspapers and such other mail as was offered, during the war:
"The Publick will please take notice, that we, the subscribers, have rode post four months, and undertook to carry the New-Jersey Gazette to the subscribers in Essex county, and other places, at our own risque, not knowing when we undertook the business, what we should be able to ride for: We can, however, now assure the Publick, that we carry the papers as cheap as we can afford: Wherefore the subscribers in Princeton are to pay us one dollar per annum; in Brunswick and Quibbletown, [Newmarket], twelve shillings; and in Essex County, two dollars. And we desire that those who have not advanced any money for us, would please pay one half of their rate to those gentlemen who have taken in the subscription for said paper, as we are a great deal out of pocket, and travelling expenses are very heavy." One of the chief "risques" of these sturdy precursors of the rural free delivery was the chance they took of being gobbled up by any detachment of British that
" See end of chapter for list of Newark's postmasters.
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might happen along, and whose horses were faster than theirs. The Gazette was published, at that time, in Burlington. It was issued weekly.
The first postmaster in Newark was John Burnet, a son of Dr. William Burnet, who was one of the town's most efficient patriots during the war. His son was appointed postmaster in 1790, three years after the adoption of the federal constitution, previous to which time the States had been very loosely joined and all nation- wide development in a more or less nebulous condition. It is easy to imagine that Dr. Burnet procured his son's appointment from Wash- ington, since the father was well known to the first President, and thus a system of patronage in the appointment of postmasters was, so far as Newark was concerned, inaugurated. John Burnet's post office was located in his store on the southeast corner of Market and Broad streets, a part of the home lot of Captain Robert Treat, and the site of the present Kinney building.
Burnet's term ended in 1804, for he was succeeded by Matthias Day, the appointment being made by Thomas Jefferson. Newark was now a strong Republican (then Democratic) town and Day was of that stalwart young party, while the Burnets were Federalists. Day 3 set up his office on what is now the north corner of Broad and Mechanic streets and immediately issued this notice:
"No credit will be given on letter postage after this date. * * Letters will be received and forwarded for the Southern mail every day (Sundays excepted) until half past two in the afternoon; and for the Northern mail until eight o'clock at night, at which hour the office will be closed during the winter months." Postmaster Day continued in office for nearly thirty years, surviving every administration. In the latter years of his regime his office was about where Centre Market now stands. In due process of time Day had to go, and he took it very much to heart when President Andrew Jackson ousted him, in 1833. That enterprising old soldier was a firm believer in "to the victor belongs the spoils," and many
" Day was one of the editors of the State Gazette in Trenton during the War for Independence not long before his appointment.
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fell beneath his trusty sabre. Postmaster Day at once issued a card to explain that his dismissal could not be in the slightest meas- ure due to any lack of efficiency on his part. He gave a tabulated list of his average personal income from the office during his incumbency, in five year periods, which is exceedingly instructive: 1804-'09, $492.20; 1809-'14, $569.31; 1814-'19, $611.83; 1819-'24, $707.80; 1824-'29, $871.25; 1829-'33, $1,317.43.
This list shows plainly enough the comparatively slow growth of Newark's postal business for a quarter of a century, but is not to be taken as a criterion of the growth of the community's popula- tion, which was during a large part of that period very rapid for the standards of the time. The people were still to a considerable extent farming folk and the manufacturers were not as yet doing a bus- iness that required much correspondence. Postmaster Day went on to explain that during the last year of his service the receipts had increased so rapidly as to make his percentage $1,591.86. This would not be considered a princely salary, but Day further explains: "When from this the expenses of rent, clerk hire, fuel, lights, sta- tionery, etc., be deducted, it will be seen that only for a few years past has the office yielded a fair compensation for the service per- formed, and only during that period has there been any effort to apply to it the principle of 'rotation in office'." He thanks his friends for using their influence to keep him in office, "even though in vain."
PROSPERITY STARTS WITH THE BRIDGES.
The news of the battles of Concord and Lexington was carried through New Jersey and on to Philadelphia and the south, by despatch riders, starting at Elizabethtown, being ferried over from New York. Had there been bridges over the Hackensack and Passaic rivers, the course would have been across the Bergen hills, over the Hackensack, across the marshes and over the Passaic to Newark, and so on down through Elizabethtown. Newark showed no appreciable signs of growth until the first bridge over the Hack- ensack, about where the old Schuyler ferry was, and another across the Passaic at what is now Bridge street, were erected. Perhaps
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nothing in Newark's history has had so immediate and potent an influence for development as the erection of those two bridges.
Agitation for the bridges began very shortly after the war. A turnpike company was formed to build them and the road across the meadows between. One of the members was the rector of Trinity Church, the Rev. Uzal Ogden. In order to raise funds a lottery was arranged by permission of the Legislature, and the drawing held in Newark on July 6 and 13, 1791. Sayres Crane, of Newark, won the highest prize, $5,000. In those days Newarkers were not at all afraid to employ skilled workers from without their borders, and in May, 1793, they hired an expert, Josiah Nottage, who had a short time before built a bridge over the Charles River from Boston to Cambridge. Late in September of the same year there appeared the following advertisement: "Wanted immediately, twenty carpenters and a number of laborers, to work at the bridges building over the Passaic and Hackensack rivers. Cash will be paid for their services weekly or oftener if required. Apply to Mr. Josiah Nottage, Esq., or Mr. William Mills, at the bridge at Newark. Proposals addressed to Mr. Philip Kearny in said town will be received until the 10th of next month, for the delivery of five hundred ton of stone from Snake Hill at the bridge building at Hackensack river."
The bridges were opened in 1794 4 and the toll list, announced the next year, was as follows: Single person, 2 cents; man and horse, 4 cents; sulky and horse (one person), 8 cents; chariot and poste chaise or phaeton, 2 horses, 12 cents; horned cattle or horses, 2 cents each ; calf, 1 cent ; sheep and hogs, per dozen, 6 cents." The building of the Newark bridge cost at least one life, as a workman, Ephraim Young, of Morris County, was killed there.
' The present bridge is the third, the original being removed to give place to a wider and more suitable structure somewhere between 1840 and 1850. The second bridge was taken over by the county authorities in 1871, the sum of $27,000 being paid to the turnpike company. This bridge was patched up year after year, and in 1911 it was decided to remove it. This was done in 1912 and 1913, when It was found that the centre pier was so substantially built that it had to be blown out by dynamite. The third bridge was completed late in 1913.
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