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 35
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opening to each of the three other cardinal points. It was built of stone (Dutch brick), and had been originally weather-boarded, although most of the boards had (in 1859) fallen off.
"It had evidently been constructed with great care, being fully plastered within and papered, having an ornamental cornice and chair-board, an arched doorway and cut stone steps, all indicat- ing a fastidiousness of finish not ordinarily found elsewhere than in dwellings; but it was far gone toward utter ruin, the window sashes being all out."
Cockloft (meaning, of course, Isaac Gouverneur) was, accord- ing to Washington Irving, "determined to have all of his views on his own land and be beholden to no man for a prospect. So he placed, you see, the door of his summer house on the side toward the water, while the windows all looked inland." The summer house was the scene of the "Nine Worthies'" feasting and much of their frolicking. They no doubt made use of its cellar to store their wines.
"With Newark," wrote Washington Irving in a letter to a friend, near the end of his life, "are associated in my mind many pleasant recollections of early days and of social meetings at an old mansion on the banks of the Passaic."
Cockloft Hall passed out of the Kemble family about 1824. A comparison of the two pictures of the house given in this chapter will serve to indicate the marked changes made in the structure in the last sixty or seventy years, previous to 1913, and it is probable that the original "Mount Pleasant" was very much as we see it in the older picture. In itself, Cockloft Hall stands quite typical of the homes of Newark's most influential families of a century back; while, behind it, one may say, and but dimly descried down the long vista of years, lies the era when both banks of the Passaic were a series of comfortable farms, with groves and gardens and occasional parks for deer, with coaches and "chairs" moving with stately dignity along the few winding roadways, and the boats and barges of the lords of the manors floating upon the surface of the crystal-clear stream; with sheep grazing on the hillocks and the lowing of cattle sounding musically across the quiet waters.
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Late in 1911, the Century Company of New York published a highly entertaining novel by Mary Dillon, entitled "Miss Living- ston's Companion," in which the greater part of two chapters is devoted to fictitious goings on at Cockloft Hall. The time is the beginning of the last century, and some of the characters are the same "Nine Worthies."
It was amid scenes such as Mount Pleasant afforded and with an environment closely similar to that along the Passaic before the War for Independence that the leaders of the country in its early days were nurtured. Petersborough, across the river in Kearny, already described, brought forth Colonel Peter Schuyler, New Jersey's first military leader. At Petersborough Captain Kennedy, who won honor fighting for the king before the War for Independence, abode. On the Kearny estate on this side of the river Major General Philip Kearny passed part of his boyhood, and in his later life sought to restore the traditions and the spirit of old Petersborough in his own "Kearny Castle," reared on the self-same ground, and from whose gates his body was borne after his fall at Chantilly, Va., in 1862. One might almost say that the ancient order of things on the Passaic's banks, the brave days of strong men and fearless leaders, living in something akin to old knightly grandeur, passed out and away with Kearny's battle-worn body. His "Castle" still stands as a mute monument of the past, while on this side of the river we still have Cockloft Hall, the last late link connecting us with the manor house days; much changed since the days when that kindly and public-spirited gentleman, Isaac Gouverneur, knew it; shut in and pent up, stripped of its broad acres, its quaint summer house, its pond, its groves, its flock of sheep and its herds of cattle.
The property was purchased in the late 1850's by the late Winslow Whiting, it having had but three or four owners from the time of Isaac Gouverneur. The Whitings preserved the house with scrupulous care, about as it came to them. The interior, in its room arrangement, remains (1913) much the same as in
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SETH BOYDEN
COCKLOFT HALL AND THE SUMMER HOUSE As they were in the 1850's
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COCKLOFT HALL IN 1913
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Irving's day. Miss Mary R. Whiting, the last of the immediate family, died in 1912, and in 1913 the property was purchased by Edward M. Waldron.
FRENCHI INFLUENCE IN NEWARK.
Beside the French refugees of distinction mentioned earlier in this chapter, who found their way to Newark in those awful days when the old monarchy in France was in its death throes, there were many others of humbler pretentions. In Elizabeth there grew up a large French colony, including several of the nobility, but few of their class resided for any consid- erable time in Newark. Those who made this town their homes strove to make their livelihood in the ways for which they were best fitted. Newark's first dancing school was formed in 1794, when one of these exiles from "la Belle France," Mr. Dillion (or Dillon) "presents his compliments to the ladies and gentlemen of Newark" and announces the opening of classes in dancing at the new Academy. He taught "Cotillions, the Almanda, Larues, Classets; plain Minuet with a Paugrau Balance, Coupet, Paragranade and Minuet de la Cour; Gavot, Countrydance, Stage hornpipe, etc. All which he will engage to teach in the newest and most fashionable mode."
Peter Proal, another Frenchman, taught French in the Academy building, in 1795, on the top floor, adjoining the rooms of St. John's Lodge. E. Donfier, "recently from Paris," taught architecture in 1800, having his rooms in the residence of John Pintard. In 1795 R. Capron offered his "Forte Piano" for sale. In 1800 exhibitions of wax works were occasionally shown in Gifford's tavern, "Admission 25 cents, children, half price," and it is reasonably safe to assume that these displays were the creation of some ingenious Frenchman. The French brought a new and in many ways desirable influence into the life of the sober little community. One sees too the spirit of the times
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as they were in France, reflected in the town newspaper, which often referred to some neighbor as "Citizen" So-and-So. The polished strangers did their full part in the making over of Newark, which was now to proceed rapidly.
One of the wax works exhibitions at Gifford's, in 1805, showed Hamilton and Burr in the act of fighting the duel at Hoboken, in which the former lost his life. It also had Washington, Columbus, America, and a "Grecian maid nourishing her father in Prison." The advertisement concludes thus ingenuously : "The above figures are new and allowed to be striking likenesses."
The Irish began to appear in Newark in the late 1790's. Lists of uncalled-for letters were advertised in the newspapers as early as 1798, and often contained Irish names. In 1800, Miss Kitty Crowley of Newark was married here to James Conners of Phila- delphia, by the Rev. Mr. O'Brien of New York. A Scotchman, of the name of McElheran, kept a store here, in 1787, but for a very few years only.
Itinerant tailors began to wander to Newark and thus out into the country, as early as 1790, as shoemakers had done for a century and over. Newark's first auction room was conducted in Park- hurst's Inn in 1795. Peddlers were common in 1800 and several complaints found their way into the newspapers, of how these shrewd travelers were fooling the people throughout Essex county, selling them "brass things for gold." In 1806 someone wrote a solemn essay for the paper, proposing a bill for the Legislature that would prohibit peddlers from practising their wiles upon the people. They were foreigners, said the essayist, which was a very serious indictment in his mind; they not only bamboozled folk, but they stole. He was promptly answered by a broader-minded neigh- bor who argued that the peddlers had come to stay ; that they had a right here, in the country of the free, and should not be restrained except when they transgressed the laws that applied to other folk as well as to themselves.
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THE FULTON FERRYBOATS.
The Powles Hook-New York ferry was not the first to use steam, for John Stevens, of the celebrated family of that name, had put one in commission for his Hoboken-New York ferry in the fall of 1811. He, however, soon withdrew his steam boat and substituted horsepower, considering it more economical. Later on, the Stevens family paid more attention to the development of the steam ferryboat with most remarkable results. For a time, how- ever, the Fulton boats plying between Jersey City (still called Powles Hook a hundred years ago) and New York were the only ones of the kind in the world.
Fulton's description of his invention is in part as follows:
"There are two boats, each ten feet beam, eighty feet long and five feet deep, in the hole; which boats are distant from each other ten feet; confined with strong transverse beams, knees and diagonal traces, forming a deck thirty feet wide and eighty feet long. To give her more strength she is held together by four-inch traces, each two inches square, which pass through her one foot above the water line and key on strong plates on the inside of each boat.
"Reflecting on a steam ferryboat," continues Fulton, "for Hudson's river, the waves usually running up and down, I found a great breadth of beam absolutely necessary to prevent the boat rolling in the trough of the sea. This is attained by two boats and one open space, giving thirty feet beam.
"By placing the propelling water wheel between the boats, it is guarded from injury by ice or shock on approaching the wharf or entering the dock, which operation being performed twenty-four times in twelve hours, allows no time for fending off with boat hooks. The whole of the machinery being placed between the two boats over the open space, leaves ten feet wide on each side on the deck of each boat for carriages and passengers. One side is appropriated to carriages, horses, cattle, etc., the other having neat benches and covered with an awning for passengers; on the latter side there is a passage and stairs to a neat cabin which is fifty feet long and five feet clear from the floor to the beams, finished with benches for passengers in rainy or bad weather. In winter there will be a stove in this cabin, which will add much to the comfort of passengers while navigating through the ice."
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Colonel John Stevens, as already told, invented the first steam ferryboat. He had been working on it from the year 1808. It was called the Julia Ann and it carried 100 passengers. One historian says this, the first steam ferryboat in the world, made but sixteen trips and then was taken out of commission.
The development of the Paulus Hook-Jersey City ferry was brought about largely through the industry and foresight of the "Associates of the Jersey Company," a number of capitalists who bought the Paulus Hook ferry rights and the adjacent land in 1804, after having employed Alexander Hamilton to search the titles to the property and to act as counsel. These men then proceeded to lay out a city, which is now Jersey City. Prominent in the group were several Newarkers, some, if not all of whom became subsequently interested in the steam ferryboat idea. Among these Newarkers were Judge Boudinot, General J. N. Cumming, William Halsey, Alexander C. Macwhorter, Samuel Hayes, Jr., Governor William S. Pennington and Samuel Penning- ton. Previous to the steam ferry, the accommodations were of the crudest sort. Most of the ferryboats were row boats, and they never had more than four men to row them. They ran from sunrise to shortly after sunset, except in the summer, when they ran until 9 o'clock. There were usually spare oars aboard and passengers could lend a hand if they wished to, or if they chafed at the slowness of the passage, when they were probably told to "get an oar." Sails were used when the winds were favorable. The trip must have taken at the very least half an hour, and probably the average time was closer to an hour. (See reference to these boats earlier in present chapter.)
CHAPTER XX.
EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN NEWARK-THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION-THE MILITIA, 1793-1798.
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CHAPTER XX.
EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN NEWARK-THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION. THE MILITIA, 1793-1798.
N EWARK played no inconsiderable part in the creation of political parties in the State. While it was busy with the physical reconstruction of the community it did not lose sight of the fact that it had a vital place in the development of the new republic. Newark has always taken itself seriously, which is most fortunate for Newark, and probably for all New Jersey. As it has been, ever since the English came into the region, one of the dominant forces within its borders, it seems to have felt its responsibility from the start, and in each genera- tion there have arisen those who have helped in maintaining the high standard established by the founders. In the early formative days of our present government which culminated in the adoption of the Constitution in 1787, and for some time thereafter, Newark was warmly devoted to the idea of a central government; in other words it was Federalist in its sympathies. This was natural enough, since it had been in no small measure a part of the battleground of the then recent war, and its sons had played no inconspicuous part, especially in the latter years of the struggle, in its happy consummation.
It was not long after the Constitution had become a living and active institution, however, that there arose here, as else- where, a feeling of distrust and uneasiness, a dread lest the country were being stealthily moulded into a monarchy by those at the head of government. Newark's first regularly established news- paper, John Woods' Newark Gazette and Paterson Advertiser, was an ardent Federalist organ, and in its columns one may trace the gradual waning of the power of that party, until the paper, after a few years' troublous existence, collapsed, giving way to a lusty opposition newspaper, the Centinel of Freedom. The decadence
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of the former and the rise of the latter sheet, show the trend of the times, as reflected by the political thought in Newark and throughout Essex County.
The first crystallized opposition to the Federalist ideas appeared in the Anti-Federalist party, often spoken of as the first political party in the United States. One can find no trace of it in the annals of Newark. It accomplished little. But events of great importance during Washington's first term as President worked steadily to foster the feeling of suspicion in the minds of the perfervid anti-monarchists, and his proclamation of neutrality toward the European confliet then brewing, served to fuse the anti-Federalists with the Republicans, who, led by Thomas Jeffer- son, now began to take form in definite opposition to the adminis- tration. Very soon they were to call themselves the Democratic party, for Democrats they certainly were.
THE BIRTH OF DEMOCRACY IN NEWARK.
The Republican (Democratic) party made its appearance in Newark toward the close of Washington's first term. A meeting was held at Seabury's tavern, on March 19, 1794, which appears to have been the genesis of the party in Newark. The first call for this meeting was issued on March 5th. Matthias Day, who a few years later was to be appointed postmaster by Jefferson, was chosen as chairman of that meeting, and William S. Pennington, who was later, under the Democratic regime, to be elevated to the Supreme Court of New Jersey, and afterwards was to become Governor of New Jersey, was made treasurer and secretary. It was decided to meet on the second Monday of each month, "to receive political instruction and to diffuse political understanding." The infant organization was named the "Republican Society." The initiation fee was fixed at two shillings, and the annual dues at the same amount. The committee on organization was com- posed of three stalwart soldiers of the War for Independence: Major Samuel Hays, Captain Thomas Ward and Lieutenant William S. Pennington, the latter already mentioned as secretary and treasurer.
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In a letter to a friend, written in 1795, Thomas Jefferson gave an excellent description of the political parties of the moment, as follows :
"Two parties exist within the United States. They embrace respectively the following descriptions of persons. The Anti- Republicans consist of: (1) The old refugees and Tories; (2) British merchants residing among us, and composing the main body of our merchants; (3) American merchants trading on British capital, another great portion; (4) speculators and holders in the banks and public funds; (5) officers of the Federal govern- ment with some exceptions; (6) office hunters willing to give up principle for place, a numerous and noisy tribe; (7) nervous per- sons, whose languid fibres have more analogy with a passive than an active state of things. The Republican-Democratic party of our Union comprehends: (1) The entire body of landholders throughout the United States; (2) the body of laborers not being landholders, whether in husbanding or the arts. The latter is to the aggregate of the former party probably as 500 to 1; but their wealth is not as disproportionate, though it is also greatly superior and is in truth the foundation of that of their antagonists.
"Trifling as are the numbers of the anti-Republican party, there are circumstances which give them an appearance of strength and numbers. They all live in cities together, and can act in a body and readily at times; they give chief employment to the newspapers, and, therefore, have most of them under their command. The agricultural interest is dispersed over a great extent of country, have little means of inter-communication with each other, and feeling their own strength and will, are conscious that a single exertion of these will at any time crush the machinations against their government."
THE FEDERALISTS OF NEWARK.
So far as Newark was concerned, the Federalists are but imperfectly described in Mr. Jefferson's analysis. They embraced many of the strongest men, usually of a conservative turn; men who feared the country's future might be jeopardized if the thoughtless, irresponsible and hot-headed should be given too free a voice in government. Not a few of the town's most fearless patriots during the War for Independence stuck unfalteringly to the idea of a closely united country, with a strong central govern- ment. There was undoubtedly a decided leaning on the part of
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some Federalists toward a monarchical form of government, although that element seems to have been but scantily represented here in Newark. To tell the truth it was many years before the party lines became firmly and definitely established, many shifting and with all honesty and patriotism, from one side to the other during the various crisises that beset the infant republic.
In writing of the leaning toward monarchism evidenced by some of the Federalists, throughout New Jersey, Judge L. Q. C. Elmer, of the New Jersey Supreme Court, in his "Reminiscences," published by Martin R. Dennis & Co., of Newark, in 1872, says:
"This sort of preference was by no means universal among the Federalists. Most of them were only devoted, honest patriots, but believers in a republic. Many, however, had no faith in such a government. My classical teacher, when I was a youth, often told me if I lived to old age, I should live to come under the dominion of a king.
"As I have said, a change was inevitable; a social as well as a political change. The influence of a kingly government under which the colonial subjects so long lived, was more or less apparent in all the arrangement of society. Laws of etiquette as to the preference certain classes were entitled to in composing social parties, had great influence over many minds. Even our well-to-do farmers considered the laborers they employed as an entirely different class, and some of them were opposed to their being taught to read and write. I well remember that this sentiment was openly expressed by more than one during my boyhood. Every effort was made during several of the first years of the conflict [political] to put those of the other party under a social ban; and in this way the families of brothers and sisters were sometimes so divided as to cease all friendly intercourse.
BREECHES GIVE WAY TO PANTALOONS.
"The extent to which the change was carried by the ultimate success of the Democratic party is dwelt upon by Goodrich, a Federalist himself, in his recollections of a lifetime. He says: "The change in manners had no doubt been silently going on for some time; but it was not distinctly visible to common eyes till the establishment of the new Constitution. Powder and queues, cocked-hats and broad-brims, white top-boats, breeches and shoe- buckles-signs and symbols of a generation, a few examples of which still lingered among us,-finally departed; while short hair, pantaloons and round hats with narrow brims, became the estab- lished costumes of men of all classes.'"
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THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY.
The Republicans of Newark are reasonably well comprehended under Mr. Jefferson's first analysis, No. 1. The Republican Society in Newark seems to have held regular meetings from the very beginning, usually in taverns, since there was no other place to assemble unless one took the County Courthouse or one of the churches, which, for a political party, was impossible. Sometimes these "progressives" of their day met in "Mr. Moses Combs' school," as a notice of February 10, 1795, tells.
They were fiery gatherings. An account of one of their meetings, published in February, 1795, and possibly referring to the assemblage in "Moses Combs' school," tells of doomful speeches, and refers, apparently to Washington, as "a despot from the South, with Democracy on his lips and tyranny in his heart." Those were times of intense concern for the infant republic's future. Dr. Macwhorter, that noble old patriot, who had worked so fearlessly and with consuming energy to promote the cause of the people against the Crown, found it necessary to declare himself in opposition to many of his old friends and, one may honestly say, companions in arms. In that same month of February, 1795, Dr. Macwhorter preached a sermon in which "despotism" is denounced, and in the course of which he said: "We must not exalt any man or set of men," referring, unquestionably, to Wash- ington and Hamilton, and explaining that "the Constitution is made to be changed as circumstances demand."
PATRIOTISM AND THE FLAGSTAFF.
On July 3, 1793, a flagstaff was erected at what is.now the apex of Military Park, in anticipation of the coming Independence Day celebration. For several years thereafter the high-spirited youth of the village strove to have dominant the emblems of which- ever party they were in sympathy with, upon that "liberty pole." Under cover of darkness one party would remove the trophies of the other; certainly a foolish and altogether unefficacious way of showing one's patriotism. The Republicans made a brave show
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with a cap of liberty, in more or less conscious imitation of the turbulent founders of the French republic and as a sign of their warm sympathy with the revolution which was then in full and bloody progress in France. The Federalists resented all such manifestations, believing that they tended to embroil this country in European difficulties with which America, they felt, should have no part. The Republicans looked upon the Federalist conservatism as an outward expression of a secret leaning toward monarchism, with the possibility of a return to British tyranny. They called the Federalists "aristocrats" and all expressions of their views "aristocratical." Republicanism was given a strong impetus in Newark as well as all Jersey and in many other States, early in 1793, when France declared war on Great Britain and Holland.
To us of to-day, the fears of a return to English domination seem trivial, not to say amusing; but in the last few years of the eighteenth and for a decade and longer of the nineteenth century, these apprehensions were very real to a large proportion of the people here in Newark and throughout Essex County. The contro- versies between the two contending parties were incessant and at times exceedingly bitter, as the newspapers of the period show.
At the annual Newark town meeting, April, 1798, an address to both houses of Congress was adopted "earnestly desiring the government to restrain from the arming of, our merchant ships and to restrain from instituting or augmenting a naval armament." But the address at the same time expressed the determination of the citizens of Newark to support the constitution of the United States "with their lives and fortunes. Out of about 300 persons a small number, from 10 to 15, voted against it."
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