A History of the city of Newark, New Jersey : embracing practically two and a half centuries, 1666-1913, Volume I, Part 32

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 32


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ST. JOHN'S LODGE CEREMONIES.


The two lower floors of the Academy were completed late in 1792 or early in 1793 and were at once put into use as a school for boys and young men. The rooms of St. John's lodge were dedicated in June, 1795. They were designed by John Pintard, "a highly respectable gentleman of considerable architectural taste," says one writer. Freemasons gathered from far and near to attend the dedication, a function of great dignity and importance as may be gathered from the following newspaper notices:


"The members of St. John's Lodge, No. 2, purpose to dedicate their new lodge room erected in this town, on June 16th. Every member conforming with the resolutions of the lodge shall be entitled to four tickets from the Stewards, for the admission of his friends. The brethren of the several lodges in this State and in the city of New York are invited to attend with their cloathing. A masonie procession will take place on this occasion.


"The hour of assembling is appointed at 5 o'clock P. M., at Brother Archer Gifford's long room. The procession to be formed, move to the Lodge room before sunset, and the dedication to take place at 8 o'clock. The Stewards will furnish the visiting brethren with tickets at one dollar each.


LOSSING


NEWARK ACADEMY, AT BROAD AND ACADEMY STREETS In the early 1850's


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"The erection and compleating this Lodge has been attended with very considerable expense. The stile of its architecture is perfectly adapted to masonic operations, and the elegance of the room and furniture may vie with, if not surpass, any structure of the kind in the United States. Its dimensions are about 38 feet by 30. The centre forms a dome 18 feet high, supported by 8 columns, surrounded by panel work, within which is placed the altar, etc., etc. The seats for the officers and craft are distributed around the extension of the elipsis, by which means the Lodge may be conducted with that order and decorum so essentially necessary to the operations of masonry."


The newspaper account of the exercises was quite extra- ordinary, as the following paragraphs will make clear: "The hall was splendidly illuminated by a superb glass chandelier suspended from the centre of the dome, and eight patent lamps, which gave a delightful aspect to the elegance of the room and decorations. The labors of the craft in constructing this Lodge were more than compensated by the smiles of approbation from a brilliant assemblage of ladies, who honored the ceremonies of the day with their presence. * * .


"Having passed an agreeable and instructive evening, the meek-eyed daughters of benevolence and love reluctantly retired, casting longing, lingering looks behind; tenderly impressed with a fond belief of the last persuasive accents of the fraternity rever- berating from the hallowed dome of the Lodge to their sympathetic bosoms :


"No mortals can more The ladies adore Than a free and accepted Mason."


The exercises in the lodge rooms were preceded by a procession starting at Gifford's tavern, passing around Military Park, just at dusk, with torches.


Just across Broad street and immediately south of where the Morris Canal was to be built some forty years later, stood a double two-story house, which for some years was occupied by the early principals of the Academy and where they took boarding pupils. It became known as one of the best academies in the country and many of its pupils came from distant cities and towns. In 1802, the demand for advanced education for young women having


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become too strong to be longer denied, full courses of instruction for young ladies were opened. The Academy Association built a brick house north of the Academy building as a boarding school for their exclusive use. The Academy continued to be used as such until 1855, when the property was sold to the Federal government for Postoffice purposes, soon after which the institution was trans- ferred to the building on the south corner of High and William streets, where it still (1913) remains.


Thus three truly great works, when one remembers that the town proper numbered scarcely more than 1,200 inhabitants-the Passaic river bridge (described in the previous chapter), the First Church and the Academy-were accomplished in a period of about six years, all through private generosity. The community was alert, and eager to improve. Its people were critical, too, of any- thing which in their judgment impaired the advancement of its physical attractiveness. In March, 1796, there appeared the following graceful paragraph intended to quicken the members of Trinity Church :


TRINITY CHURCH IN 1796.


"The season is now present for decorating the town. And while architecture is improving the appearance of other places, perhaps it may not be amiss to mention that the steeple of the Episcopal Church wants rebuilding. A thorough repair in that pleasently situated temple would greatly add to the entertaining scene which the hills and plains of Newark exhibit. The wealth of the members of that congregation joined to their taste, and it is hoped with their piety, will probably unite them this summer to adorn the end of so noble a street."


Trinity Church at that time and for some years thereafter was considered as marking the northern end of the "parade," as Broad street, starting at Market street, was sometimes called. A little above, it was comparatively open country, with only an occasional farm or manor house, except for the little business centre at Mill Brook. The church at that time as described by one writer


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was "a small, awkwardly constructed building with straight-backed, uncomfortable seats, and a very small pulpit, placed in the west end, and only large enough for one person. The entrance to the church wns on the south side, through a small door placed in the centre of the building." Originally, the entrance was through the base of the tower, as in the present edifice, as a very old drawing shows it. The present church, the second, was not begun until 1809, being dedicated on May 21, 1810. The stone was taken from Newark's quarries and the building was described in 1812 as "the most elegant Episcopal church in New Jersey."


THE FIRE MENACE.


In 1796 Newark was spoken of in the newspapers as growing rapidly, and in 1800 as the "most flourishing town of the State." This very growth brought new dangers, and one in particular that was to finally stir the community to its very foundations and call forth its best brains and resourcefulness to abate. This was the fire menace. In common with all the towns and cities in America it lived in more or less constant fear of serious disaster. The people knew how to build, but adequate protection against fire was yet to be devised. For generations, Newark folk had long been ex- pected to provide themselves with ladders for their own and the common good, but since the war, at least, few had done so. The first fire of record occurred in 1768, when the County Court house took fire. "But," explains a New York newspaper of the time, "it was happily extinguished by the dexterity of the inhabi- tants without doing other damage than consuming part of the roof." One or two houses and barns were partly burned immedi- ately before the War for Independence, but these fires were believed to have been incendiary, due to the animosities engendered in those exciting times.


In the 1790's, however, the community was growing too large to longer feel itself competent to down the fire demon in the crude fashion of its fathers. In 1794, the "Patriotic Society for Promot- ing Objects of Public Utility," organized a short time before among


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the leading citizens, largely for the purpose of furnishing aid to its own people and those of other towns in time of need, provided a number of ladders out of its own funds "to be kept sacred for the use of the citizens in case of fire." 3 Shortly after the half dozen or so ladders were placed about the pretty little village, the pastors of the two churches called on the citizens to assemble and do some- thing to meet the growing emergency. They caused this notice to be published in the town newspaper :


"At the desire of several persons of respectability of character, the subscribers request the citizens of Newark to assemble to-morrow evening, at half an hour after five o'clock, when the bells of the public buildings of the town will ring, at the Court House, to take into consideration the propriety of procuring a Fire Engine or engines, for the preservation of the town. As the object of this meeting is important it is hoped that it will be attended by all the male inhabitants of the place to whom it shall be convenient.


ALEXANDER MACWHORTER. UZAL OGDEN."


THE BURNING OF THE BOUDINOT HOUSE.


The majority of the people (as was strikingly the case in all sections of the country) did not fully appreciate the growing danger. The meeting accomplished nothing definite and the town slumbered again, the thoughtless onces secure only in the imagination of their hearts, until, one epoch-making night in midwinter, 1797-but let the old newspaper tell it:


" This society may truly be reckoned as the first of Newark's uplift, or civic betterment organizations. On several occasions it collected funds for the relief of unfortunates in Philadelphia and New York as well as at home, in times of suffering and want after big fires or during epidemics. 'In October, 1793, it organized a fund to relieve the necessities of "criminals and debtors in the Newark Gaol," who in a public announcement described it as suffering great hardships in winter, living in filth, without sufficient clothing or bed- ding, and often with scanty food. Contributions of shoes, meat, grain and other produce, were solicited, besides money, by a committee of some of the leading citizens. Conditions in the jail must have been appallingly bad, and this society strove to rouse the people to ameliorate them. It does not seem to have occurred to any of the members, however, that steps might be taken to put an end to the imprisonment of debtors. The practise continued well into the 1830's. It even made an effort to organize charity schools as early as 1794. How far it carried this plan is not known. In 1798 it collected $455 and 160 pairs of shoes for yellow fever sufferers in New York. The shoes were to be sold for the benefit of the sufferers.


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"FIRE!


"How terrible thou art as master! How generous a servant! On Monday evening last the magnificent dwelling house occupied and the property of Elisha Boudinot, Esq., situated in the centre of this town, was discovered to be on fire about 7 o'clock. The cry was echoed by the affrighted inhabitants (who have not been accus- tomed to scenes so awful) throughout the town in a few minutes, and not less than five hundred of them were at the scene in from 30 to 40 minutes from its discovery. The want of proper fire imple- ments such as engines, ladders, hooks, buckets, reservoirs for water, were all discovered when it was too late."


In a few hours one of the most pretentious residences in the whole village was reduced to ashes. Boudinot was a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court, a staunch and forceful patriot during the War for Independence and recognized as one of the leading men in the State. The house stood in what is now Park Place about 100 yards south of East Park street. Judge Boudinot rebuilt it, and this structure, long known as the Condit house, became the property of the Public Service Corporation in 1913. The destruction of its predecessor made a profound sensation, and marked the beginning of a new era for Newark, for the shock of it was sufficient to stir the townspeople to action. A few days after the Boudinot fire (the loss being a good-sized fortune for those days, between $10,000 and $15,000), a citizen suggested in the town newspaper an organization vaguely akin to the modern salvage corps. After lamenting the lack of fire-fighting facilities the writer roundly deplored the pilfering of goods salved at the Boudinot fire and advised that some of the respectable people form an association which should provide large sacks in which articles taken from a burning building might be placed and protected under guard until the excitement incidental to the conflagration should be over. The idea was not adopted, however.


FIRE COMPANIES; TIIE FIRST FIRE ENGINES.


A month later a Fire Association was formed at a mass- meeting in the Court House.' The names of all the members (who were called associators) were arranged in a book, alphabetically.


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A small board of assessors was chosen, whose duty it was "to make a just valuation or reprisal of the houses and dwellings of each associator, always taking into consideration the exposed situation of each property to fire; and to fix the amount opposite each name." When funds were needed the association would decide upon the amount and it was then the duty of the assessors to levy upon each associator for his share, an ingenious and ancient system, fre- quently used by the very founders of the town for other purposes of town improvement. The sum of $1,000 was raised in a few weeks. Fire hooks, ladders and other apparatus was bought, and two fire engines were ordered from Philadelphia. It was not until nearly a year later, in January, 1798, that word came that the New Fire Association could have the first of the engines ordered "upon discharge of remaining sums." It was a clumsy little tank on wheels with long wooden bars fastened to an iron pumping gear. When in action men lined the bars on either side of the machine and pumped out the water which others poured into the tank from buckets, the water being thrown upon the flames through an iron or pipe.5


* The officers chosen were: William P. Smith, president; John N. Cum- ming, vice president; Jesse Baldwin, secretary; Colonel Samuel Hay, treas- urer; standing committee, James Hedden, Nathaniel Beach, W. S. Penning- ton, Robert C. Canfield, Samuel Whitaker, John P. Crane, Sr., Thomas Griffith; assessors, Nathanlel Camp, Caleb Wheeler, Abraham Ward; fire wardens, Caleb Bruen, Isaac Alling, Thomas Ward and Joseph Brown, Jr.


The first fire company was composed of the following: Captain Stephen Hays, foreman; Jabez Canfield, assistant foreman; Zephanlah Grant, treas- urer; Isaac Andress, clerk. The others in the company were: Aaron Ron, Luther Goble, Ezra Baldwin, Calvin Goble, James Tichenor, David Cook, Silvanus Baldwin, Aaron Grummon, Elijah Andruss, Jonathan Andress, Israel Curry, Obadiah Woodruff, Samuel Nichols, Jabez Greger, John I. Crane, Jonathan Beach and Smith Burnet.


" Hose is said to have been introduced in 1815, the year that the second fire company was formed. The third company was organized In 1819, and the fourth and fifth between 1830-1835. In 1838 there were seven fire engine companies, a hook and ladder company and a hose company. They were located as follows: Engine No. 1, near First Presbyterlan Church; No. 2 at 4 New street; No. 3 in Hill street; No. 4 at 4 New street; No. 5 at 106 Market street (old style numbering) ; No. 6, Mulberry street, opposite Clin- ton; No. 7 at No. 9 Bridge street; Hook and Ladder, at 108 Market street; Hose company, at No. 106 Market street.


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In April of that same year the people had a chance to use these engines. A barn on the Gouverneur estate at "Mount Pleasent" caught fire. Many of the "associators" who had been directed by the association to supply themselves with leather fire buckets either had not done so or in their excitement forgot to carry them to the fire. The little engines were trundled to the scene of the trouble at what are now Mount Pleasant avenue and Gouverneur streets. The bucket brigade formed a line from the Passaic, up the steep hill to where the engines were located near the barn. The scarcity of buckets made it impossible to keep the tanks supplied with water, the crew on the pumping bars being able to exhaust it faster than it was emptied in. The barn burned to the ground, but an adjacent dwelling was saved. The town credited itself with having been at least partly instrumental in saving the house, "The utility of our engines was obviously evinced," the town newspaper solemnly an- nounced, and it then proceeded to scold the people for failure to provide themselves with buckets.


TOWN'S CENTRE A TINDER-BOX.


But the people had yet to learn the value of "eternal vigilance" in this business of fire protection. Interest in the infant fire department waned each summer and each winter roaring fireplaces did their baleful work. The village was now budding 'into a town -the inhabitants had already begun to give up the former word for the latter. Little ramshackle shops and mills were set up here and there and anywhere except in the very middle of the streets. Barns and stables were beginning to shoulder some of the less ambitious dwellings and many families lived over or in front of the rooms devoted to their shops. By 1805, the centre of Newark had become a veritable tinder-box. It needed the editorial whiplash to rouse it, and it was administered :


"Inhabitants of Newark," cried the newspaper on January 1, 1805, "reflect for a moment on the consequences should a fire take place on any thickly settled part of our town; destitute of the necessary means of extinguishment, with but one tolerable engine,


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with no organized company and with few fire buckets, it would sweep all before it, not only destroying the property but endan- gering its victims. We would merely suggest for your consid- eration whether measures should not be taken immediately to guard against an evil so formidable."


SNOWBALLS AS FIRE EXTINGUISHERS.


The warning, although timely, was not heeded. The fires again began to scourge the town. Major Samuel Hays, (he who had served the cause of liberty so bravely and so well during the war, being associated with Joseph Hedden on the town's Committee of Safety) and his family were driven from their homes in their nightclothes within ten days of the editor's "call to arms."


"The want of a few fire buckets was manifestly evident on this occasion," says the newspaper, "but nobody had buckets to hand water for its extinguishment. We believe twenty could not have been counted. The consequence was the ludicrous sight of men snowballing a house to put out a fire."


After nearly every fire the townspeople were called upon to help the victims upon their feet again. They rallied generously to each other's aid. There were few among them so well provided with worldly goods that they did not face actual destitution when the fire-god feasted upon their homes or shops. The flames made serious ravages throughout the early months of 1805. More than one of the leading families of the town was saved from ruin at that time by the generosity of its neighbors. Appeals for aid fre- quently appeared in the town paper. This is quite characteristic of their general tenor:


"Will not the hand of benevolence generously extend on this occasion ? Can we refuse our aid to the sufferers? Let everyone contribute his mite. * * * Will there be no efficient fire regu- lations adopted until some beautiful part of our town is laid in ashes ?"


Another, after the destruction of the home and shop of an energetic young chap whose family name has since been frequently identified with the city's development was as follows:


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"Mr. - - is a young man of much industry and respectability and we sincerely hope the liberality of the public will in some measure make up the losses he has sustained by this unfortunate accident."


PUMP OWNERS SCOLDED.


In 1808 there seems to have been a general crusade for the equipment of wells with pumps. Hitherto most of the people had contented themselves with a rope-and-bucket arrangement or with the ancient and highly respectable well sweep, of the old-oaken- bucket order. This was all well enough for ordinary farm and household uses, but on the occasion of a fire, was of very little value. Many clumsy old wooden pumps were built by individuals and fixed in their wells. But they were soon allowed to get out of repair. In December, 1809, a public-spirited Newarker strove to rouse pump-owners to their duty, in a letter to the newspaper, which is in part as follows:


"Fellow Citizens: It is now a season of the year when it is not unreasonable to anticipate more or less fires in town. Not to guard against its ravages in time would be folly. Observation as well as prudence speaks to everyone to expect and to be prepared for conflagrations in the winter season in an especial manner.


"My object at present is to call the attention of my fellow townsmen to the situation of our Pumps. I can hardly conceive of a greater convenience and at the same time affording more security than the erection of so many Pumps, as now exist in various parts of the town. The publie spirit as regarded this subject last winter and spring is beyond praise. These pumps must be kept in order. It is not enough that A. and B.'s is in good order while E.'s and D.'s is almost neglected. A fire is likely to happen with C. and D. as with A. and B. * %


"We are well supplied with engines, but what use would these engines be unless water can be provided? In this water is the same as the ammunition wagon is to a train of artillery.


"How is it that the pump in the centre of Market street is in such very bad order? Have the citizens forgot this is a compact and most valuable part of the town, and that a fire here without water would carry dreadful destruction throughout the block ? How is it that in the new well in Broad street no pump is put therein ? Is this neighborhood all ensured, or are they sure others' property will be burnt while their's will escape ?


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"These hints are thrown out for the good of the town. I hope they will be improved; that under providence our beautiful and thriving town may not, like Norfolk, Richmond and Savanna in times back, become a heap of ruins.


"A Newark Freeholder."


THE FIRST FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY.


About the time of the pump agitation just described, Newark property owners began to realize that fire insurance was of sound, practical value. A few took out policies in a New York or a London company. In 1807 a stable in Market street, in the rear of Newark's leading tavern (Archer Gifford's, which stood at the northeast corner of Market and Broad streets) was burned. This was the first insured building to be burned in Newark. The prompt payment of the loss was a powerful object lesson, and it was driven home with force after each fire, for it was a long time before another insured building was burned. In 1809 the offices of the Centinel of Freedom, Newark's only newspaper at that time, was partly de- stroyed by fire and publication (it was printed weekly), had to be omitted for a week. The office was on Broad street, just north of the Gifford Inn.


In February, 1810, a mass-meeting was held "at early candle- lighting," in the Court house, when preliminary steps were taken to organize a fire insurance company among the citizens, on a mutual plan. It was purely a public-one may truly say a patriotic- measure, without the slightest thought of individual gain. The call for this meeting explained the plan, as follows:


"We are paying from $1,500 to $2,000 a year for what insurance are now made in this little town, taking in Bloomfield (which but a few years before had been separated from Newark) into the insurance offices of New York and Great Britain, which, if we reckon for five years past, will be from $8,000 to $10,000. If we calculate the fires we have had where property has been insured, it will amount to $2,500, leaving a balance of $5,500 at least, to the


insurers. * If we had a Mutual Insurance Company, almost all the buildings in the town would be insured, which would have made our premiums about $4,000 a year instead of $2,000. * * * The money we now pay for insurance is sent out of the State, and I might say, some of it across the Atlantic; therefore, if there


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is any profit let us have it amongst ourselves. If there is none we shall be no worse off than we are now, for if one of our fellow citizens had his property destroyed by this fatal element, that is not insured, where is the man that is not willing to be a mutual helper in relieving his distress ?


"Fellow citizens, this is not all; if we adopt the plan proposed we shall be as one man to have our Fire Engines, Buckets, Lad- ders, Hooks and other convenience for the extinguishment of fire when required. I think there now would not be that schism there now is with some of our citizens when solicited to pay a small sum for defraying the expense of the above-mentioned implements."


Aaron Munn was chairman of the meeting and James Vander- pool secretary. A committee of nine was chosen to "digest and report a plan for the establishment of a company for the above purpose." Those nine, whom we may call the real founders of the company, were: Isaac Andruss, Seth Woodruff, William S. Pennington, who was at that time an associate justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court and three years later was to be elected Gov- ernor ; James Vanderpool, Elias Van Arsdale, Thomas Ward, Aaron Munn, Samuel Hays, Jr., Moses N. Combs. The latter was the real father of Newark's industries, and he had a masterful mind. It is quite possible that Combs wrote the call for the first meeting just quoted.




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