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 41
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The early shoe manufacturers lived a life of almost ceaseless toil. It was a common practice for the master and owner of a shop to start out at daybreak with the previous day's product from his shop in a bag or sack, which he carried on his back, and to walk with it to what is now Jersey City. He was too poor or too penurious to ride on the stage wagons. From Jersey City he took the ferry to New York, disposed of his wares and returned by the same method, reaching his shop in the mid afternoon in time to inspect that day's work and often to toil among his men until darkness set in. Whether Moses Combs subjected himself to this rigid method of building up his business is not clear; the fact remains that the practice as outlined above was typical of the time and of the men who laid the foundation for Newark's industries. Mr. Combs, like some of his competitors in the business of shoemaking, appears to have been a veteran of the War for Independence, and he would not have spared himself if he thought it necessary to walk to the New York markets with his goods on his back.
Moses Combs was the actual father of Newark's industries, although he was far and away from being the first tanner or shoe- maker. It was through him that the town's industrial system was formed. It was Moses Combs who seems first to have grasped the idea that Newark-made goods could be pushed into markets else- where, and he was the man that made those goods known, and through his honest and fair dealing gave Newark products a repu- tation from the very start. He saw with rare sagacity that the future of Newark's industries lay in the efficiency developed in the boys and young men whom he and others had grouped around them as apprentices, so he set himself to work to make his employees more capable. In other words, he strove to do what many of the most progressive manufacturing corporations are seeking to do in this generation. But he was a century ahead of his time, although what he managed to do in this direction bore remarkable fruit in his own time, or immediately thereafter.
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
COMBS AS A REFORMER.
"About the year 1792," says a writer in the Newark Daily Advertiser in 1865, one who was either an apprentice of Moses Combs or closely associated with some of those who were, "Mr. Combs, having several apprentices, was in the habit of calling them together after the hours of labor for the purpose of study and for moral and religious instruction. Soon after, he prepared a large room and furnished it and supplied teachers. He afterwards erected a building on the south side of Market street, near where Plane street now runs. The lower part was occupied for a meeting house and the upper part for a schoolroom, after which it was divided into two departments for a male and female school, which was used for the purpose for which it was built for many years. When Plane street was cut through the building was removed to the corner of Market and Plane streets, where [in 1865] it now stands."
Moses Combs strenuously advocated three things many years ahead of his time: emancipation of the slaves, temperance and uni- versal education. He was old-fashioned in but one way; he never wore a superfluous button on his coat, which, of course, made him more or less conspicuous in those days of brass buttons galore. He was not altogether fortunate in his first emancipation experiment, for a black man he was the means of setting free was afterwards hanged in Military Park for killing his own wife, as already told in another chapter of this work.
Hle was a regularly ordained preacher. He was a liberal con- tributor to the building funds of the First Presbyterian Church, the one now in use, and which was erected chiefly through the endeavors of Pastor Macwhorter. So far as can be learned the only church over which Mr. Combs presided was that which he himself erected on Market street, as just described. He disapproved of some phases of the religious teaching of the First Church and he and his asso- ciates withdrew and for a period attended the First Presbyterian Church in Orange. Subsequently the Combs church and school were erected and he and his congregation held services there. After a time the Combs religious society was disintegrated and most of its members went back to the old First Church fold.
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THE FIRST FREE SCHOOL.
Moses Combs did not build up a profitable manufacturing busi- ness for the sake of a personal gain. Money seems to have meant little to him unless he could do good with it. About the time he made his ever-memorable sale of shoes to a Georgia planter, Mr. Combs established his night school for apprentices. The first pub- lished announcement of the school appeared in John Wood's Gazette in October, 1794, and was as follows:
"An evening school, for teaching Reading, Writing and Arith- metic, is now opened at Mr. Combs' school house under the tuition of Mr. Dod, on the following plan :
"1. This school to be kept three evenings each week, from this time till the first of November, beginning at half after six o'clock and ending at nine; and from the first of November to the first of March to begin at six and end at nine o'clock, five evenings each week-after which period to the first of June, to begin at seven and end at nine, three evenings in each week.
"The proprietor of this school will furnish it with firewood and candle light at his own expense, and demands only Ten Shillings ($2.50) for each scholar for the whole of the time above mentioned. But will make no allowances to those who shall quit the school before the time expires, as his object is purely to persuade the young people to acquire as much learning as they can. He hopes parents and others who have youths under their care, not now at school, will second his views, by sending them if they approve of this plan at his school."
It was not long before pupils were admitted to this school free. It was probably the first night school in the United States, and was one of the first free schools in the country, (and possibly the first). In that same year the New Jersey Journal, recognizing Moses Combs' free school was something extraordinary, published the fol- lowing: " A worthy, industrious Newark mechanic in the town of Newark maintains at his own expense a School Master of a reputable character who teaches the English Language, Writing and Arith- metic to about forty children, among them the poor are taught gratis, at his annual expense of £20. Noble philanthropy ! Honorary to human nature and Christianity."
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
COMBS' MANY ACTIVITIES.
The Combs school was a place for the plain people, a place where working boys could fit themselves for a broader sphere in life if they chose. Not a few of the pupils of the school became men of influence in the town later on. Moses Combs was among the ten leading manufacturers of leather in Newark as late as 1812. He invested his money in various public enterprises and from purely patriotic motives, as was the custom of the leading men of the time, when the money lust had not yet become offensively in evidence in the little community. He was treasurer of the Springfield-Newark Turnpike Company in 1806, and the same year was giving his money, with others, to improve the old ferry road (now Ferry street) and to reopen the old ferry connecting with that road, which had fallen into disuse since the opening of the bridges over the Passaic and Hacken- sack rivers. In 1812 he offered for sale four building lots at the junction of what are now Springfield and South Orange avenues, for money or in barter "for soal or upper leather." He was in the group who established Jersey City, buying up the land in great stretches and developing it. He was among the founders of the Newark Fire Insurance Company, and one of its directors. He was actively identified with the organization of one of the first of New- ark's banks. When he came to die he did not leave a vast estate, even for his day and generation. He had worked quite as much for the betterment of Newark as for his own prosperity, in fact more. He was a remarkable and most valuable man to Newark, and well deserves the space given him here. His best service was, of course, the providing of ways and means for poor but industrious youths to make more out of themselves than would have been possible had he not extended to them the privileges of education. Some of his direct descendants are living in Essex County to this day.
LEATHER AND PROSPERITY.
From 1790 to 1803, or thereabouts, the leather business in New- ark consisted of tanning, currying and shoemaking, all three branches being carried on by the one concern. About 1803
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
the subdivision of the industry began and each branch soon proved enough for one concern to attend to. In 1804 the first bank in all New Jersey, the Newark Banking and Insurance Company, was established. It had a speedy and beneficial effect on business; the town showed the new influence in increased prosperity. The bank- ing business brought elements of confusion, however, for not a few of the business folk of Newark, long accustomed to giving each other their notes, and because of their confidence in each other's business honesty, were sometimes lax in meeting their obligations in the bank. Little by little, however, those unbusiness-like methods disappeared.
In 1806 Mr. Charles Basham of the Newark Academy made a map of Newark. A picture of a shoemaker at his last was given in the lower left hand corner, and because of this it became known as the "Shoemaker Map." Mr. Basham, very fortunately for us of today, gave the following descriptive line under the shoemaker in his map: "Newark is one of the most pleasant and flourishing towns in the United States. It is on the main road between New York and Philadelphia, nine miles from the former and eighty-seven from the latter. Its stone quarries are visited by travelers from curiosity. It is noted for its cider, the making of carriages, of all sorts of coach lace, men's and women's shoes. In the manufacture of the last article one-third of the inhabitants are constantly engaged." A few years later it was asserted that nearly if not quite nineteen-twentieths of the town's industrial population was engaged in work that required the use of leather in some form and for some purpose.
Others of the pioneer shoemakers besides Moses Combs were: Luther and Calvin Goble, Aaron Roff, David Crowell, Jonathan Belden, David Hays, Joseph Case and Ephraim and Enoch Bolles. The Bolles brothers subsequently became the fashionable boot and shoe makers of the town. They introduced many improvements into the manufacture.
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
LUTHER GOBLE.
Luther Goble seems to have been of very much the same stamp as Moses Combs and nearly a generation younger. He was an apprentice of Combs and a pupil in his free school. He helped pow- erfully to uphold the principles of business practice which Combs had laid down. Ile was a builder as well as a manufacturer, and erected scores of plain homes in various sections of the town for his workmen and for others. He fell from one of his own buildings in 1833 and died from his injuries a month or so later, and the Sentinel of Freedom said of him:
"This death is a serious loss to the town. Mr. Goble was one of the most useful as well as most esteemed citizens, and his death is a subject of common regret. He commenced business here in a common sphere many years ago, but by well directed enterprise and industry his own business was soon enlarged, and with it the busi- ness of the place. And we have no doubt that a faithful history of his life would show that the present size and prosperity of the town is more owing to his individual and public enterprise than to any other single man. His history shows a remarkable example of the influence which one individual may exercise in the advancement of society. In the pursuit of his private aims Mr. Goble always scrupulously regarded the rights of others and the paramount inter- ests of the country. His influence was always on the side of public order and Christian morals. He contributed largely and habitually to the various political and religious interests of society and hun- dreds among the laboring and poorer classes of the town have occasion to remember with gratitude his judicious counsels and liberal benefactions; and whatever may be the extent of his pos- sessions, the most precious legacy he leaves to a numerous family is an unsullied character, a name associated with probity and honor."
By 1812 the enterprise and energy of the manufacturers of Newark and the neighborhood, together with the superiority of their carriages, boots, shoes, hats, etc., had created a demand for all that could be manufactured. The war gave a great impulse to the leather trade. Large contracts were procured by the manufac- turers of Newark and Orange for soldiers' boots and shoes, harness and war material of all kinds. Government contracts were usually
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
shipped to Philadelphia. This business continued until 1815. Dur- ing the war of 1812 shoes were wagoned all the way to Savannah, Georgia.
The leather business continued to be the basis of the principal manufacturing interests of Newark and the neighboring towns for a long time thereafter, and to the liberality of the men engaged in it in giving credits to beginners in business without any other capi- tal than their industry and integrity of character may be attributed the great prosperity of Newark's boot and shoe trade, for which Newark was more celebrated for quality and quantity produced than any other place in the country.
EARLY MOTIVE POWER.
The first motive power applied to manufactures in Newark was, of course, water power, which the many little streams made it comparatively easy to get. Animal power was also utilized to drive machinery from quite early times, by means of treadmills. Oxen sometimes furnished this power, as well as horses. In the tread- mills animals were made to walk on a place almost as steep as the roof of a house, on slats of wood which moved downward as fast as they were stepped on. As the slats moved wheels beneath were turned. These mills are still in use, and may be seen in some of the rural districts in New Jersey for the sawing of wood, threshing of grain and for other farm purposes.
In 1810, in a foundry on Market street, a blower was used and an ox walked the treadmill to make the blower go. The first printing presses in Newark were operated by hand. Steam for power in shops and factories did not come into use in Newark until about 1825, when Seth Boyden made a steam engine for the use of the Newark Lime and Cement Company. That engine is preserved in the museum room of the Newark Technical School, in High street. Boyden made the second steam engine used here, and for the Phoenix Works, in the rear of Market street, near Lawrence. Before 1829 John C. Hedenburg, in a shop in Mechanic street, near Broad, had a small rotary engine for the turning of carriage axles.
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
As has been shown in Chapter XI, Newark had an iron foundry before the War for Independence. It was on the north corner of what are now James and Washington streets, and was continued until just prior to the erection of the original building of the Second Presbyterian Church in 1810. Whether this foundry was continued in operation after removal from the church site is not known.
SETH BOYDEN; A REMARKABLE MAN.
Moses Combs taught the people of Newark that they could make things well enough for other people to want to buy them, and out of his free school came a number of sturdy young men who advanced the standard of Newark industrial proficiency. But it remained for a youth from New England to put Newark industries on so high a plane that the town was to become known far and wide as one of the most progressive manufacturing communities in all the United States. And that youth was Seth Boyden. All things considered, he was perhaps the most remarkable man in the entire two and one-half centuries of Newark history. He towers high above the rank and file of Newarkers in all generations. He was a man of singular gifts, of profound mentality, with a quickness of intellectual grasp that made him the wonder of his time in the world around him. Like most great men he labored chiefly, almost solely, for the general good. As one surveys Newark's entire growth it seems as if Seth Boyden were the one man, with the sole excep- tion of Robert Treat, absolutely essential to the achievement of the prosperity we know and enjoy. As time goes on his attainments will be more clearly perceived, and, perhaps, more substantially appreciated. He toiled for the good of his fellow men. He wrought tools and devised methods whereby Newark might immeasurably increase the variety and volume of its industrial output, and always with an advancing excellence in the grade of the product. His influence upon the welfare of the community was but imperfectly appreciated until he died, on March 31, 1870, and the fact that his fame was not more loudly exploited while he was still alive was largely due to his own modesty. In 1867, at the age of 78, he was
HISTORY OF NEWARK
working for his daily bread. A movement was started for the raising of a fund which should make him and his family inde- pendent. But he deprecated it at once; virtually forbade it.
In 1872 a meeting was held at the Newark Opera House for the purpose of inaugurating a movement for the creation of a suitable memorial to him. General Theodore Runyon, afterwards Chancellor of New Jersey, and still later Ambassador to Germany, was the chief spirit in this enterprise, and made the leading address upon that occasion. Some funds were gathered as a result of this demonstration, but it was not until 1887, when the Board of Trade took up the cause, that it was pushed to a successful culmination, and on Wednesday, May 14, 1890, the Seth Boyden statue, the work of the sculptor Karl Gerhardt, of Hartford, Conn., was unveiled in Washington Park, with appropriate ceremonies. From the addresses of General Runyon, at the Opera House meeting in 1872 and at the unveiling of the statue, is derived most of the information concerning Seth Boyden's life and services given in the succeeding paragraphs.
Boyden was born in Foxboro, Mass., in 1788. His paternal grandfather was one of the "minute men" of Massachusetts in the early days of the War for Independence. His maternal grandfather made cannon, ammunition and other metal equipment for the Continental army. His own father was a privateersman in the War for Independence, was made prisoner and was for a time confined on the British prison ship "Jersey," in New York. Seth was a sturdy patriot himself, far more beneficent in his patriotism than most, for he made himself an instrument for the upbuilding of the industries. From 1823 to 1830 he was captain of a company of militia in Newark in the Third (Newark) regiment, when John I. Plume was colonel.
HIS FIRST INVENTION.
He came to Newark in 1815, when he was twenty-seven years old. He was repairing watches when a boy of fifteen in his Massa- chusetts village. Before coming to Newark he had made machines
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for making brads and files of different sizes and for cutting and heading tacks. He brought with him to Newark his device for splitting leather (and it is more than probable that he came here because of Newark's wide reputation at that time for the excellence and progressiveness of its leather industries). This device was at first used to shave down the inequalities of leather so as to present a smooth surface, but it was later applied to splitting hides and then to splitting other substances.
"This was obviously," says General Runyon, "a very important and valuable invention, not only for smoothing leather, but espe- cially for increasing, by at least doubling, the quantity of leather obtained from a thick hide."
SURPRISING VERSATILITY.
Seth Boyden had no trade; he could do almost anything he set his hand to. "He was endowed by nature," to quote again from General Runyon's address at the unveiling of the Boyden statue, "with a surprising aptitude of practical mechanical operations. Much that other men could learn only after years of instruction, he seemed to know by mere intuition; and the skill and dexterity in the handling and employment of tools which are usually acquired only after long practice he possessed naturally. * In his later years, when he wished to study astronomy, he made his own telescope of great power, doing much of the work upon it with his own hands. He made his own electrical apparatus. He made for his own use a rifle with a lock of peculiar and ingenious construction, and he made also an air gun. He made a micro- scope of great power. He painted a miniature of himself on ivory when he was but eighteen years of age. He engraved a label for his books and he engraved also a portrait of Washington, both on steel. He made a watch case of oroide with only a hammer and a small foot lathe for tools, and this he did when he was over eighty years of age. When one of his eyes was affected by some malady and physicians were in vain, he undertook to treat the disease himself, and to that end constructed an instrument of
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great magnifying power by which, with the aid of a mirror, he could with the eye which was unaffected look into and examine the condition of the other. * The articles which I have men- tioned are by no means all that he made, but they show his won- derful versatility and natural mechanical ability. And these quali- ties were exhibited on a larger scale when he entered upon the business of manufacturing machines. *
FIRST PATENT LEATHER MADE IN THE COUNTRY.
"In 1818, while he was engaged in manufacturing silver plated articles for harness and carriages, he set about experimenting to discover the process, then unknown in this country, of making glazed or patent leather, A piece of such leather was shown him. It is said to have been a fragment from a German military cap. By analyzing the coating or varnish he in a short time discovered the process and produced an article better than that which had been exhibited to him. The factory in which he carried on the silver plating business was burned in 1818, and in December of that year he built a shop for the manufacture of patent leather. There he made the first side of that article ever manufactured in this country. He carried on the business there until 1831, when he sold it out to a Brooklyn firm. He at first dried his varnish on the leather, except the last coats, in the sun, and those coats in a warm room. He made but little of the goods in the beginning, and sold what he made to harnessmakers for blinds. In 1820 he made an oven which would hold sixteen skins and he finished about seven a week."
In 1822 his sales for the year of patent leather reached $4,521. In 1823 his sales reached $6,475; in 1824, $9,703; 1826, $12,144; 1826. $13,169. In 1829 the sales totaled $20,341 for the year.
The real reason for Seth Boyden's sale of his patent leather business seems to have been his desire to go more deeply into the manufacture of malleable iron. He discovered the process on July 4, 1826, when all his fellow townsmen were holding high festival in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The day was therefore made especially note- worthy in the annals of Newark.
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