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 44
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A NEWSPAPER SERMON.
The following, from a Newark newspaper of June, 1811, shows the moral attitude of the time:
"Melancholy! On Sunday last an apprentice boy named Mat- thias Edison who had gone into the river Passaick to bathe was, in a moment of thoughtless security, drowned. His body has not yet been found.
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"Should not this alarming Providence, as well as other acci- dents that frequently happen to Sabbath breakers, be an awful warning to the youth, and at the same time lead parents and those entrusted with apprentices to be more circumspect toward those committed to their care? The profanation of the Sabbath by strolling apprentices and servants is among the crying sins of this town and loudly calls for a remedy."
LAWLESSNESS DESCRIBED IN VERSE.
Newark was growing too rapidly for its village form of gov- ernment. Its township committee had neither the power nor the facilities to preserve good order, nor to attend to many other important features of local government. Here is a clever bit of verse, written by some Newarker of education and literary taste, in 1821, and published in the Centinel of Freedom. It provides a humorous side to the situation, while giving us a glimpse of the actual state of affairs. It is unfortunate the writer did not give his name for publication :
Hoa! Jack, get up and call the watch !- away! Tell them to hurry here, and say That bedlam has broke loose, or hell, And the mad tribe are passing to and fro' "Making night hideous" with their dismal yell!
"Dare be no watchmen in this town you know," Ah! true! true !- well, get you up and go To the "fat Alderman" with speed! Tell him it is a "sorry time" indeed; And say that "under cover of the night" A Bacchanalian crew,
Scaring the very stars, whose light, Disgusted at so foul a sight, Indignantly withdrew!
"Why, dare you be mistaken, sir, agen! Dis town hab no sich fings as aldermen." Confusion: madness !- I forgot-I knew! " "Tis true, 'tis pity !- pity 'tis, 'tis true!" But Jack, I can't give up the matter so !- Go to the Justice !- to the Justice go! Rap loud and long, till the shrill echoes brawl, And if he come not at your rapping, call!
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Tell him injustice with tremendous stride (Taking advantage of the night to hide His odious form) is stalking far and wide !- Tell him loud uproar with obstreperous tongue Frightens the midnight hour!
Debauchery, lascivious and young, The day's restraint foregoes! And red intemperance revels in his power,
And cheats the commonwealth of its repose! My lady starts affrighted from her dream !- My children cover up their little heads and scream! The cats, wild mewing, to the garret fly! The watch dogs howl and the shrill cocks reply!
"O! 'tis a sorry night" for men below !-
Go to the Justice !- to the Justice go.
"Ah, dare, sir, now, you make I sadly weep! Why you no tink de Justice be asleep!"
Asleep !- asleep !- Well, wake him then or pound Upon his door till you alarm the town!
"Alas! sir, should I pull his building down He would not wake! de Justice sleeps so sound!"
"Ye powers of darkness! Spirits of the deep!" "The dead alone in such a night could sleep!" And yet in all this outrage, noise and dread, Is Justice slumbering calmly in his bed? "Oh for a lodge" in some obscure retreat, Which has not e'en a tavern nor a street! Where riots, revels, and the midnight roar Of drunken joy may ne'er disturb me more; And where the Sabbath is not ushered in With deeds profane and Bacchanalian din!
Newark, 12 o'clock Saturday night, March 10.
THE GERMANS AND LAW AND ORDER.
With the coming of the German and Irish immigrants the demand for a more liberal ordering of the community's affairs became more insistent. The great body of the townspeople did not understand these new-comers. Newark was very glad to have them
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work in its shops and on its farms and roads, but it could not com- prehend why the strangers should object to living as they them- selves preferred to live. The descendants of the Puritan founders often misinterpreted a genuine and innocent tendency toward rec- reation and relaxation as license, because they were unused to it. They expected the foreigners to work hard from sunrise to sunset and often later, and forego the various diversions to which they had been accustomed at home and which generations of experience had shown were comparatively harmless when wisely and intelli- gently controlled.
In 1853 a committee of German residents presented a petition to the Common Council asking for a more liberal enforcement of the Sunday laws. The petition was denied and the city marshal instructed to "execute the law." The opposition grew steadily stronger, however. In July, 1879, a mass meeting was held at which three thousand persons, principally Germans, protested against a reform movement then in progress. Other meetings were held, the leading spirits being always the most respected and upright German citizens. Liberal organizations were formed in a number of the city wards. About this time a central committee was formed. A procession of protest against "blue law" enforcement was held in September, 1879, with ten or twelve thousand citizens in line, a large number of floats and about five hundred wagons. Protests against the "tyranny of the law and order people" grew louder. The liberals named a candidate for mayor, William H. F. Fiedler, and that same November he was elected by a majority of over thirty-four hundred, a large one for the time.
Since then the strife between liberal and conservative has con- tinued in Newark with intermittent energy. In fact, as we have seen, the conflict is a century old or more. At no time has all the virtue and right abided in either side. Those who have cried out against tyranny and interference with personal liberty have not always been free from intolerance themselves. It is a world-old struggle, and apparently an endless one.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE BUILDING OF THE STREETS-WATER TRAFFIC- RAILROADS.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE BUILDING OF THE STREETS -- WATER TRAFFIC-RAILROADS.
B Y 1802 the care of the highways had become a problem of large and growing dimensions, and was really responsible for the establishment, first of districts, then of wards (the latter in the early 1830's, just previous to the incorporation of the city) and next of districts within the wards. The first, the district subdivision, of 1802, provided no less than thirty for the township of Newark, as follows:
First, Lyons Farms; second, Bound Creek; third, Camptown ; fourth, North Farms, roughly defined as being between Springfield avenue and Orange road, now Orange street in Newark and Main street, in Orange; fifth, Centre Hill, from Chatham road to Con- necticut Farms; sixth, Vaux Hall district; seventh, Jefferson Village; eighth, South Orange district; ninth, South Orange; tenth, Orange; eleventh, Orange district ; twelfth, given no name, but com- prehending the northern part of West Orange and extending to the Caldwell line; thirteenth, South Cranetown (lower Montclair) ; four- teenth, "Williams' district, including the road leading to Swine- field to the top of Second Mountain to Caldwell line, including cross roads"; fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth districts, comprising approximately all of the Newark of to-day ; twentieth, North Second River, including the present Belleville. The next seven districts covered the northern and part of the north- western section, as far as the Paterson line, and including Franklin and Bloomfield. The last two districts, apparently added after the system had been laid out, dealt with upper Camptown. Each of these districts had an overseer of highways.
The ever-increasing press of road and street development and upkeep caused a subdivision of the more or less informally deter- mined four wards of Newark into districts, in 1833. The wards were vaguely and to us unsatisfactorily defined; and by the four cardinal points of the compass. Each district had its road overseer.
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North Ward: First district-All north of Bridge street on the east side of Broad street and all north of Orange street on the west side of Broad street. Second district-All south of Bridge street, including Bridge street, and the remainder of the ward not included in the first district.
South Ward: First district-All of this ward west of Broad street, south of William street, to the South End schoolhouse, in South Park. Second district-All of Broad street within the ward to its junction with the Camptown district, and the "Newark South" district, including the cross streets east to Tichenor's lane. Part of this lane still survives and with the same name, running from the junction of Parkhurst and Austin streets, southeasterly to Poinier street, near Avenue B. It ran to Broad street originally, to what was called "Tichenor's Gate," in the days of the settlers and for some time thereafter, marking the southern end of the settlement. Third district-All of Mulberry street within the ward and all the streets and roads east of Mulberry street.
West Ward: First district-All of this ward north of Market street, to the North Ward, including the Crane road, which is now the Market, Bank and Warren route to Orange of to-day, bearing the name of Crane road until it joined with the Orange road, now Orange street, near Thirteenth street. Second district-All of Mar- ket street as far as to Nelson's gate (now Nelson place). All of the ward south of it.
East Ward: First district-All of this ward north of Market street, embracing Market as far east as Mulberry street. Second district-The remainder of this ward south of Market street, includ- ing Market street from Mulberry to Commercial dock. Market street then ended at the dock. The old Ferry Road did not enter into consideration then as a boundary line.
THE NEW ARTERIES AND THEIR INFLUENCE.
Every new highway was like a new artery to the body politic, bringing "new blood" into the system, causing what may truthfully be described as the "growing pains" of the now thoroughly awak- ened County of Essex, and forcing the partition of the ancient
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Newark into many smaller divisions. In a generation after the opening of the nineteenth century a more economical and efficacious system of government was imperative-and then Newark became a city.
One of the most useful of those "arteries," in addition to those mentioned in Chapter XVIII, was the Newark and Mt. Pleas- ant turnpike. From Orange it runs almost due west through Liv- ingston and Hanover, to Whippany, thence to Morristown. The same year the township of Orange was set off, 1806, a charter was granted for the construction of a turnpike from Newark to Morris- town. "In the early years of this," the last, "century, there was a general desire," says Wickes in his History of the Oranges, "to facilitate the communication between the cities of New York and Philadelphia, and to open the interior of New Jersey by easier methods for the transportation of its agricultural and mining prod- ucts to tidewater. * From 1801 to 1828, fifty-four charters for turnpikes were granted by the Assembly; thirty-five of which were passed during the first thirteen years of the century. The demand for turnpikes at that time was not unlike that for railroads in these latter days. And of the whole number of turnpikes so authorized more than one-half were actually constructed.
"The Newark and Mt. Pleasant road passed through Orange, and was laid, for the most part, on the old highway which had been surveyed in 1705. Orange street in Newark, from a point about four hundred feet above Iligh street, was then [1806] opened, as it now runs, and was 'worked' as far as its intersection with the old Crane road," described in the previous chapter. From this point, at the present North Thirteenth street, "the turnpike was laid out anew for a distance of about six hundred feet, leaving the old road to the north. This part still remains open to public use and is honored with the name of Hedden place. No other change was made until the turnpike reached the open space in front of St. Mark's church in West Orange, where it left the old route toward 'Wheeler's,' and, turning to the north, took a direet course to the base of the Mountain. *: The turnpike was continued to * * Morristown, and thence, by the Washington turnpike, to the Dela- ware River. This was for many years the principal means of travel from Easton, Pa., and from Warren, Sussex and Morris counties, to the Passaic River, and the waters of New York Bay.
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"Another great thoroughfare from the interior was down the Pequannock River, over the Paterson and Hamburg turnpike, to the head of Pompton Valley ; and thence by the Pompton and Newark turnpike through Bloomfield and Newark to New York.
"In the fall and winter season these roads, for the first three days of each week, were alive with teams and heavy Jersey wagons, carrying butter, grain, flour, pork and other farm produce to mar- ket. The last three days of the week witnessed their return, freighted with sugar, molasses, Jamaica rum and merchandise of all kinds, for the shop-keepers in the interior.
"The traffic was economically managed. The feed for the teams was carried upon the wagons, and often the food for the men who drove them. One shilling was the uniform rate, at the way- side inns, for each stabling and lodging for the night, as well as for a single meal at table. The evenings at these inns were festive occasions. The bar-room was primitive in construction and furni- ture; but it was well warmed by stove or open fireplace, and often crowded with guests. Frequent tumblers of hot toddy-made from applejack or whiskey-opened the hearts and loosened the tongues of the assemblage; and song and story followed in quick succes- sion. * *
"Previous to the extension of the Morris and Essex Railroad to Phillipsburg, these caravans of Warren and Sussex wagons were a bi-weekly spectacle on the main street of the Oranges. We have been told by old residents who remember them, that they have sometimes seen as many as thirty teams in line. But the turnpikes were beaten by the railroad. The charters were surrendered; the [toll] gates were taken down; and the roads abandoned to the public. And the country taverns, thus deprived of their principal source of income, have either gone out of business entirely or have lost their old-time gayety and prosperity."
The changes wrought by the building of the Mt. Pleasant turn- pike as just described, were quite typical of those brought about in all directions where new, or rather better ordered, highways were set up. In comparatively few instances were any of these turnpikes entirely new, the old cart paths, which themselves were nothing more nor less than the broader and clearer defining of the ancient Indian trails, were usually the basis upon which the high- roads were built. Little by little, time saving became an element in road building, and wasteful curves were cut off and grades reduced. For many years, for at least three decades after the War for Independence, the annual Town Meeting, and the Township
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Committee, found their chief business in the development and improvement of the highways and in the care of the poor.
A map, showing all the streets in Newark that have been built in the past, and that have been laid out on paper, if drawn upon the city map as it now is would make a most inextricable maze. There are as many streets, plotted, or formerly in use and now forgotten, as there are streets in actual use to-day, according to the testimony of a city engineer in 1913. All of which shows that Newark has been extremely sensitive to the impulses of the moment in its development, and has never, since the day of the founders, had a definite and farseeing plan for growth. It is not unfair to blame the founders -- one might as well censure the framers of the Consti- tution of the United States for failing to provide for the emergen- cies of to-day. The men who came into the wilderness and made the Newark of to-day possible, gave future generations a sure and safe basis upon which to improve the talents which they left to them. The community drowsed and dozed for a century and more, and, after the War for Independence when the industries began to stir, and the village was forced to provide facilities for growth, the men at the head of affairs found themselves unprepared, although they rose, as the years passed, to meet the increasing emergencies.
NEGLECT OF THE STREETS, 1807.
Complaints as to the neglect of the streets of Newark have been made for more than a hundred years. One of the first came as far back as 1807, when sickness was unduly prevalent. "At a time like the present," wrote "A Citizen" to the Centinel of Freedom on August 25, "when an epidemic has spread almost uni- versally through our town, would it not seem well for us to enquire whether sufficient attention has been paid to the means of preserv- ing public health ? What is the situation of our streets? Are they in a state of cleanliness? Are they freed from stagnant water, from putrid substances, or do they present a scene of filth and putrefaction ? The latter is the case; it is not unfrequent to see dead animals in our streets and about our public market house the
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feet and heads of dead animals. These things are offensive; they pollute the air we breathe and have a sensible effect on our health.
"These gross violations call loudly for public interference. Causes will produce their effects, and what are we to expect if abuses of such nature are suffered to pass unnoticed, but a repeti- tion of them and their natural consequences, disease and death ?"
In 1809 this appeared in the Centinel: "A traveller begs leave to ask the citizens of the handsome and flourishing town of Newark if it would not be beneficial and to them honor, to have at least one good road for carriages through the place? If they shall answer in the affirmative, he will then flatter himself that when he shall again journey through the town he will not, as at present, be impeded in his way by so much mire and dirt."
FIGHTING ENCROACHMENTS, 1800-1810.
About 1800 the people of Newark began to grow apprehensive lest the town should lose some of the ground that belonged to it. So some years later a law was enacted by the Legislature "to ascer- tain the exact original boundaries of the principal and most ancient streets." By that law every encroachment was moved back, all fences, railings, etc., that were beyond the line were demolished except in cases where the fences or rails protected areaways, stairs, etc. There was much debate over this new law, and nothing was done for several years. In 1810 this announcement was published :
"Inhabitants of the town plat of Newark take notice! Agree- able to an act of Legislature passed for the surveying and defining the lines of the streets in the town plat of Newark, passed in the year 1808 and amended in the year 1809, the commissioners," of highways, "have been called to run said streets, and in so doing there appears to be many barns, shops, sheds, chair houses and fences further out than the line of the street. This is to notify all such persons that own where such encroachments are, to have the same removed in 30 days agreeable to law, and as it has been an undertaking of considerable cost and expense to the town, it is presumed that we shall have all encroachments moved and our handsome town built in a regular manner for time to come."
The agitation leading up to this enactment must have begun even before 1802, for in that year, early, a committee was appointed
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at a special session of the town meeting, to consider ways and means for the abatement of the assumption of ownership in town lands by individuals. That same year this special committee made the following interesting, and to us of to-day, instructive report:
STRIVING TO STIR CIVIC PRIDE.
1 "That the first Inhabitants of the Town purchased all the lands of the Indian Natives, and held and possessed the same for a considerable time without any other title. During this possession they divided off to each Individual Inhabitant such part as reason- ably fell to his Lott according to agreement made with the whole, which divisions were usually confirmed by a Vote of the Town Meeting and Entered in the Town Book now in the possession of the Town Clerk.
See Chapters VIII and IX.
"That beside the Grants to Individuals, the Inhabitants of the Town-reserved to themselves for certain public purposes-In the first place, Large, Extensive Roads without any precise dimensions to the same, varying according to local circumstances, in many cases arising from the broken situation of the ground, and often exceeding the Eight Rods in width. In the Second Place-Large pieces of ground for sundry public purposes, such as a 'Parsonage,' 'Burying Ground,' 'Training place,' 'a Market place,' and a 'Water- ing place,' and in fact all the lands not particularly and specifically given to some Individual were reserved to the use of the Town. After this occupation and possession of the Lands for a considerable ยท time by the Inhabitants of the Town, the eastern Proprietors set up right to the Lands, and demanded of the Inhabitants a quit Rent for the same.
"This demand was, however, resisted with great spirit by the Inhabitants, who refused to pay the quit rent and they were finally abandoned by the Proprietors. But, notwithstanding this, many of the Inhabitants thought proper to obtain from the Proprietors, Grants or Patents for their lands; And the Inhabitants of the Town in the Year 1695 or 1696 took of the Proprietors a Patent for their Reservation including roads of uncertain dimensions in the name of Certain Trustees.
"The Committee cannot learn that the Proprietors ever granted any Lands adverse to the original division made by the Inhabitants, nor adverse to their Reservations, nor in any way to disturb the Inhabitants in the disposal of their Lands according to the Original plan under the Indian purchases; but only granted Patents for the confirmation of the original lots as previously sett off and allotted to each Individual. [The committee was in error
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here for, as has been shown in early chapters of this work, there was turmoil for generations over the Lords' and the people's claims to some of the land.]
"That on the before-mentioned Public Lands and Roads so as aforesaid reserved by the Inhabitants and confirmed by the Patent of the Proprietors, Individuals have been constantly making Encroachments.
"The Lands thus encroached upon being Enclosed with the Antient Lotts, it is in many cases difficult to ascertain the ancient boundaries, the Land Marks being in many cases destroyed or removed.
"But many Encroachments are so recent as to be Easily ascer- tained, and the Land Marks precisely traced, described and ascer- tained-Especially where Encroachments have been made on Pub- lic Lands, and in many cases on Public Roads.
"The Committee think that the encroachments on and about the Antient Watering Place are wanton and without a shadow of Right, that some of the Trespassers, Emboldened by the remiss- ness of the Inhabitants openly avow their intentions to maintain and defend not only their former Encroachments; but threaten to fence in the whole of the Public Lands and set the Town at Defiance.
"It is with pain the Committee observe that the manly and Enlightened policy of our Ancestors in providing Lands for Public uses and Capacious streets, at once calculated to preserve the Health of the people, and to adorn, beautify, and render com- modious the Town, has been greatly circumscribed by the narrow and selfish dispositions of some of their Descendants and the . shameless Avarice of more modern Settlers."
This well-written document-a precious evidence of the early stirring of what we now call civic pride, while revealing the fact that the all-too-human lust for personal gain at the expense of the common good was then abroad-was signed by the members of the committee, who were: Caleb Camp, Samuel Hayes, William S. Pen- nington and Stephen Fordham.
How much was accomplished by this crusade we shall probably never know. It took many years to adjust the curb lines, and the end is not yet. There is, oddly enough, at least one tangible evi- dence of where public ground set apart for one common use was a century or so ago permitted to become larger at the expense of another section, also public, but dedicated to different uses. It is significant that, when a Newark map was made in 1838, the
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encroachment of Military Park upon Broad street was clearly defined. One can make out the original western boundary line of the park on the map, and easily enough realize that the sidewalk space as it is to-day (1913) was originally a part of the street, and that the park of to-day is wider by the width of the sidewalk than it ought to be, if we are to follow the original measurements of the founders of Newark. However, ideas of civic betterment have changed since then, and we, most of us, are thankful, indeed, that the slender patch of earth on the Western edge of Military Park was taken out of the street in the early 1800's or before. Every square foot of ground in that park is precious to-day.
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