A History of the city of Newark, New Jersey : embracing practically two and a half centuries, 1666-1913, Volume I, Part 46

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 46


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1 "Work was immediately commenced. The roadbed was laid across the meadows, bridges were built across the Passaic and Hackensack, and in two years, or, on September 1, 1834, an excur- sion was made over the road in the passenger car 'Washington,' described by a chronicler of the period as 'a splendid and beautiful specimen of workmanship, containing three apartments besides seats on top,' Regular trips were commenced on September 15,


' Shaw's History of Essex and Hudson Counties, vol. i, p. 194.


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1834. The cars were operated with horse power, making eight trips each way, leaving either terminus at 7, 8, 9 and 11 o'clock a. m .; 1, 2, 3 and 5 o'clock p. m .; starting from the ferry at Jersey City, and from Thomson's Hotel, Newark (situated on the site of the present City Hall-1884), stopping 'for the purpose of deliver- ing and receiving passengers' as the advertisements of the day read, at Chandler's Hotel, on Broad street, opposite Mechanic street; at Dickerson's Hotel at the foot of Market street; at the west end of the bridge over the Passaic (Centre street) ; at the Hackensack Bridge, and at the Paterson Depot (at what is now known as Marion). The fare each way was 3712 cents, and the trip was made to Jersey City in about half an hour.


"It was not then deemed safe to use locomotives on the embank- ments extending over the marshes, and not until the embankments were thoroughly settled was steam power considered secure upon them. The first engine passed over the road, from Jersey City to Newark, on December 2, 1835. It was named the 'Newark.'


"Up to January, 1838, when the Bergen Cut was completed, the cars were drawn over the hill by horse power. This cut was a heavy undertaking, and involved an immense outlay of money for the time. * The road was extended to Elizabethtown in * 1835, to Rahway in 1836, and, in the report of the directors for the year 1837, it is stated that the distance from the Raritan to the Passaic (22'4 miles) was completed 'with a single line of rails and an adequate number of turnouts, upon the most approved mode of structure, with heavy upright iron rails. On the whole of this distance a locomotive engine has been used since the middle of last July, making three trips a day.' On January 1, 1839, the road was opened through to Philadelphia, and thus direct communication was established between that city and New York. Previous to this the line of travel was by means of the Camden and Amboy Rail- road, steamboats connecting New York with the terminus of that company at South Amboy, involving a water passage of twenty- seven miles.


"The original cost of the road, with each item separately enumerated under oath, in 1839, was $1,951,638.34. It was not long before the company availed itself of the authority given it in the charter, to purchase the stock and franchises of the bridge and turnpike companies, which cost the company about $300,000. The ferry franchises in Jersey City were bought in 1853, and large sums were expended in improving the terminal facilities.


"In 1856, the company projected a more direct route between East Newark and the Market street depot, by bridging the Passaic at Commercial Dock." This is the site of the present bridge of the Pennsylvania main line. "The project was bitterly opposed by the navigation interests." The matter was taken to the courts, and it


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HISTORY OF NEWARK


was not until 1862 that the railroad company got a decision in its favor from the United States Supreme Court. In 1867 the New Jersey Railroad Company and the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company were consolidated, and were merged with the United Railroad and Canal Company. On December 21, 1871, a lease was consummated whereby the Pennsylvania Railroad Company got control of the railway and canal of the joint companies just men- tioned, for the term of nine hundred and ninety-nine years.


In 1838 a map of Newark was made for the city authorities, in two sections, one showing everything east of the west side of Broad street from a little above Bridge street, and the other the section west of the line just mentioned. Unfortunately, only the first-mentioned section is preserved in the city archives, in the Municipal Library, and that in a state of sad dilapidation, due to carelessness on the part of city employees of a previous generation. This map shows the tracks of the New Jersey Railroad and Trans- portation Company, from the point where they crossed the original Centre street bridge, proceeding down what is now River street, and through Market street plaza, from whence a branch ran up Market street, down Broad and all the way south on that thorough- fare to Thomas street. Beside the stopping points on Broad street mentioned in a preceding paragraph (and which are not indicated on the map), it is understood that the locomotive and cars often hauled up for the night in William street, just off Broad, and at other times were simply left on the tracks further down Broad street. An old resident wrote many years ago, that for a time after the railroad was introduced gangs of apprentices would sometimes push the car, or cars, from their nocturnal resting place up to Mar- ket, and then let them proceed downward, "by the force of rum and gravity." During the first week 2,026 passengers were carried to and from Newark and New York; second week, 2,548.


The main line of the New Jersey Railroad Company continued on beyond Market street plaza upon the "splendid avenue," New Jersey Railroad avenue, mentioned by Gordon in his Gazeteer as quoted on a preceding page of this chapter.


The old map of 1838 shows a line of track running up Broad street all the way to the top of the map, making a continuous line


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OLD NEWARK SCRIPT Showing railroad train of 1839, such as moved up and down Broad Street from the present Division Street as far south as Thomas Street


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IHISTORY OF NEWARK


from the terminus, at Division street, where it connected with the Morris and Essex Railroad, to Thomas street. There was also a line of track running from Broad street, at what is now Central avenue, through Park place at the upper end of the park and down Centre street to the Centre street bridge. For many years after the opening of the Morris and Essex its cars were hauled down Broad street from Division street to the Centre street bridge by horses. It is believed that the railroad line on Broad street was used for the delivery of freight, the cars being hauled up and down by horses, and the merchants receiving their goods from the cars in front of their store doors.


THE MORRIS AND ESSEX, 1835.


A meeting for the organization of the Morris and Essex Rail- road Company was held in Newark on January 14, 1835, the prime movers in the enterprise being a number of influential residents of Morristown. It was then voted that a Newark committee co-operate in the venture with that of Morristown. The railroad's charter, obtained from the Legislature at the close of that same month of January, provided for $300,000 capital stock, with authority to increase this to $500,000. The books for the subscription of stock were opened on March 9 at Morristown, March 10 at Elizabethtown and on March 11 at Newark. On March 23 the stockholders organ- ized the company at Chatham.


Early in 1855 the New Jersey Railroad Company completed a branch road from its line in what is now Harrison, and a bridge across the Passaic, perfecting a steam railroad connection with the Morris and Essex, whose eastern terminus was then on the Newark side of the river. A charter was obtained by the Hoboken Land and Improvement Company in 1860 for a railroad connecting Newark with Hoboken, and which was completed on November 19, 1862. This was leased to the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Rail- road in 1868, at the same time that the Lackawanna obtained con- trol of the Morris and Essex. The Newark and Bloomfield Rail- road, now the so-called Montclair branch of the Morris and Essex,


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HISTORY OF NEWARK


was opened, from what is now the Roseville junction, to Mont- clair, on July 1, 1856. It was at once leased to the Morris and Essex. The so-called Boonton branch of the Morris and Essex was put in commission on May 12, 1877.


"The crew of the first train was made up of Benjamin Myer, conductor ; William Pierson, brakeman; Henry L. Brown, engine- man; John Osborn, fireman, and A. O. Crane, wood passer. As late as 1892 three of these pioneers were living, viz .: Conductor Myer; Engineman Brown, who resided on a farm in New York, and Wood Passer Crane, to whom credit for much of the data contained in this article is due. Mr. Myer became a merchant in Newark and died in 1892.


"Mr. Crane, who died in Hoboken several years ago, was a close personal friend and life-long admirer of Seth Boyden, and builder of the road's first locomotive 'Orange.' In those days the name of the inventor occupied a position in mechanical and scientific circles similar to that held by Thomas A. Edison at present. On one of the trial trips between Newark and Madison, previous to the opening of the line to Morristown, Boyden himself acted as engineer. This trip, it is recalled, was not in many essentials a successful one, as when the engine arrived at Bathgate's lane, near the site of the present Roseville Avenue Station, the thin copper steam pipe which led to the boiler flattened out, rendering further progress impossible. This was but one of many similar incidents dents that occurred during these pioneer days.


"As this was many years previous to the extension of the line to Hoboken, a connection was established with the New Jersey Railroad & Transportation Company at their Centre Street Station, the Morris & Essex cars being hauled by horses over tracks laid down Broad and Centre streets, where they were attached to the regular trains of the New Jersey Railroad for Jersey City. When the original two passenger coaches arrived at Newark, a trial trip was made down Broad street with the 'Orange' as a 'pusher.' On the return trip both cars left the rail opposite Lombardy street and two spectators were instantly killed. This was unquestionably the first casualty in the history of the company and created consider- able talk and unfavorable comment at a time when stage coach interests were supreme and anxious to discredit the new method of transportation.


"The seats in the original passenger cars were arranged hori- zontally around the interior so that passengers faced each other. They were of rough lumber entirely devoid of upholstery. The cars when in motion had a tendency to sway forward and backward, and when passing over imperfect tracks the sensation produced was


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HISTORY OF NEWARK


somewhat similar to attempting to manipulate a rocking-chair on a log pile.


"The freight cars were similar in construction to the modern flat car, but less than half their length. Merchandise was protected from the elements by large sheets of canvas attached to the side of the car by means of hooks. Frequently in passing over the line the motion of the train would cause the load to shift on the car and ofttimes roll down an embankment when it was a case of * * stopping the train and reloading before proceeding. * Owing to the limited number of freight cars, it was often found necessary to drop the rear car of the train at some station along the line, where it would be unloaded and the empty car picked up by the train on its return trip." (From "The Railroad Employee" for June, 1913.)


THE ERIE AND THE CENTRAL.


The Paterson-Newark Branch of the Erie Railroad was opened in 1868 by the Paterson, Newark and New York Railroad Company, and was leased to the Erie. The New York and Greenwood Lake Railway was constructed in the 1870's, originally as the Montclair Railway, but had many tribulations, being sold at foreclosure sale to the Erie.


While the Central Railroad of New Jersey was chartered in 1831, its Newark and New York branch was not chartered until March 1, 1866, and it did not go into active operation until 1869. The branch road between Newark and Elizabethport was opened in 1872. "


The Newark Branch was opened during the summer of 1869,


" Early In 1912, railroad conditions in Newark were briefly summarized by the Newark Board of Trade, as follows:


Trunk Line Roads: Pennsylvania, Lehigh Valley, Lackawanna, Erle and Reading (N. J. Central).


Passenger trains daily to and from Newark


846


Freight trains dally to and from Newark.


254


Number of passenger stations ...


12 Passenger movement to and from city annually. 12,861,420


Number of freight delivery yards. 14


Number of cars of merchandise freight, including coal, received and shipped annually. 285,610


Total railway tonnage delivered 3,670,738


Total railway tonnage shipped 1,047,489


Aggregate total tonnage of freight received and shipped. 4,718,227


Electric Railways-Hudson and Manhattan Tubes, 18 minutes New York.


ยท


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HISTORY OF NEWARK


under the name of the Newark and New York Railroad, and was intended at first to be exclusively for passenger service. The line was double-tracked from Broad street, the Newark terminus, to West Side avenue, Jersey City, and single-tracked over the heights and down to Arlington avenue. A tower on the top gave the signal for the trains approaching either way. Several years after the Bergen Cut eliminated the hill.


The Newark Branch was opened formally July 23, 1869. The trains, of ten coaches each, left every hour from 10:10 A. M. to 4:35 P. M., from the Broad Street Station, packed with passengers, who were all carried free. Broad street was lined with wagons and carriages and the station, considered then a magnificent structure, was packed with curious onlookers, many of whom feared to ride because of the "hazardous" rate of speed. Twenty-five minutes was the time of the trip, and within three months a petition was drawn up by the commuters asking for a reduction in the rate of speed. The road opened for regular traffic August 2, 1869, and it soon began to transport freight in large quantities.


Captain Benjamin W. Hopper, an officer in the Civil War, who entered the service of the Central, October 1, 1865, when Josiah O. Stearns was general superintendent, sold tickets from a box car at the foot of Liberty street, New York, before the old station was built, and in 1869 was appointed general agent at Newark. He remained in the service of the road for forty and a half years. He was a genius at railroading. During the blizzard of 1888 he kept traflic open between New York and Newark, a feat of consider- able importance.


NEWARK'S FIRST HORSE CARS, 1862.


The first horse cars in Newark, if we put aside the early period already described when the railroad companies hauled their trains into and out of Newark, were run by the Orange and Newark Horse- Car Railroad Company. It obtained a charter in 1859.3 "The enterprise was urged with great zeal by the people of Orange, who


" Shaw's History of Essex and Hudson Counties, vol. 1, p. 203.


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HISTORY OF NEWARK


had been in constant turmoil for years with the Morris and Essex Railroad Company, owing to a lack of facilities to reach New York. The project slumbered for a year or two, partly owing to an effort :1: to procure an injunction restraining the horse car company from laying its tracks in Market street, Newark. This case was decided in favor of the Company in December, 1860. The excitement then prevailing throughout the country arising from the secession movement in the South, and the prospect of war, delayed the enterprise, and it was not until the fall of 1861 that measures were adopted looking to the speedy building of the road. The first track was laid through Market street from the depot to Roseville in the early spring of 1862, and on May 23 a trial trip was made over the whole length of the road to Orange. Regular trips were run on June 6, and on the succeeding Fourth of July the Broad street line, from Market to Orange street, was operated. The first organi- zation of the company in 1860 was as follows: William Pierson, M. D., (then for the first time Mayor of Orange), president; John C. Denman, vice-president; Nehemiah Perry, treasurer; Martin R. Dennis, secretary. Directors-William Pierson, Lowell Mason, Jr., James Trippe, Ira M. Harrison, Nehemiah Perry, Martin R. Dennis, John C. Denman, John P. Jackson and Henry R. Remsen."


The road was for some time controlled by the United Railroad Company, and subsequently by the Pennsylvania. In 1883 the Orange-Newark road was purchased by a group of capitalists and run in connection with the Irvington and Bloomfield lines, which they then owned.


This, Newark's pioneer horse car company, owned and operated in 1884 the routes traversed by the Broad street cars from the stables in Clinton avenue up Broad street and Belleville avenue to Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, where transfer was made to smaller cars running up Washington avenue to the North Newark station of the Greenwood Lake Railway; the Roseville line, from Ferry street, through Bowery, Market, Bank and Warren streets to Roseville ; the Orange cars, from the Market street station through Market, Bank and Warren streets to Main street, East Orange, and thence


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HISTORY OF NEWARK


up Main street to stables in Lincoln avenue. The first horse cars on the historic "old Ferry road," or Ferry street, ran in July, 1880.


THE FIRST SUNDAY CARS.


In 1869 it was proposed to run horse cars on Sunday and there was a loud protest against it. On June 1, 1869, an election was held and the vote was in favor of Sunday cars. But, strange to tell, the several car companies were not at all eager to furnish Sunday service, and although the Common Council on August 6 of the same year passed a resolution requesting the companies to operate cars on Sunday, it was necessary to adopt similar resolutions the next year, on July 1, and again on August 5, 1870. On the latter date the Common Council also instructed the city counsel to defend all suits brought against any of the companies for alleged violation of law in running Sunday cars. On October 7, 1870, another resolu- tion was passed, requiring-not "requesting" this time-the New- ark and Elizabeth Horse Railroad Company to operate on Sunday so much of its road as lay in Newark. The vote in the election of June 1, 1869, was: For Sunday service, 6,486; against, 3,563.


The second horse car line in Newark was that which ran from car barns at Springfield avenue and Wall street, Irvington, down Clinton avenue, into Broad street at South Park and down Market to the Market street station. It was operated by Prospect P. Shaw. It failed to pay expenses. It started in July, 1863, and was aban- doned about 1869. The Newark and Irvington Street Railway Com- pany was opened for travel in June, 1867. It gave a Sunday service in 1869.


4 "The Newark, Bloomfield and Montclair Horse-Car Railroad Company began running cars in 1870 or 1871. Its lines originally ran up Bloomfield avenue, along Mt. Prospect avenue, north of the old Bloomfield road, and entered Bloomfield by way of Franklin street. The plant was bought at foreclosure sale in January, 1876, by the Newark and Bloomfield Street Railway Company, whose original project was to continue the road to Montclair, and also to extend a road from the northerly termination of Mt. Prospect ave- nue to Franklin. Neither of these projected roads were ever built.


' Shaw's History of Essex and Hudson Countles, p. 204.


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HISTORY OF NEWARK


During the winter of 1875 the old route to Bloomfield was aban- doned, and in 1876 the new management laid the track as at present directly up Bloomfield avenue."


The Newark and South Orange Horse-Car Railroad Company began to run its cars about the same time the Irvington line on Springfield avenue started. It did not prosper and it was bought by John Radel for $35,000. The Newark, Harrison and Kearny Horse- Car Company opened its road to the public in July, 1884.


THE COMING OF THE TROLLEY, 1890.


The first electric street railroad in New Jersey was run along Scotland street, Orange, from Central avenue to McChesney street, for several months in 1887. It was an overhead trolley known as the Daft motor type. The first car was publicly operated on Wednesday, April 13, 1887, by Leo Daft, the inventor. The road was a part of the crosstown road afterwards extended to Bloom- field. The Daft trolley road from Newark to Bloomfield was first operated in 1889. It was not successful in Bloomfield avenue.


The first successful trolley cars in Newark were operated by the Consolidated Traction Company, the Springfield avenue line, on October 4, 1890. The then recently organized Rapid Transit Company had applied for a franchise with the intention of running electric cars. The Consolidated Traction Company sought to obtain the same privilege, got it and was first in putting the new equip- ment in operation. The Rapid Transit Company started its first electric line on October 25, 1890, three weeks after the beginning of the Springfield avenue trolley line. The Rapid Transit's first cars ran up Central avenue to Broad street.


The Kinney street and Washington street electric line, stopping at Market street, and opened by the Rapid Transit Company, was put in commission on November 17, 1890. The connection from Market street, along Washington street to Central avenue, was made a little later. The first electric car run over the Plank road to Jersey City was on April 18, 1894.


When the Rapid Transit Company built its road and operated the first successful trolley cars, in 1890, its cars ran only to Central


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avenue and Fourteenth street. But in 1892 it was sold to the Con- solidated Traction Company, and thereafter the cars ran through Fourteenth street to Main street and thence to West Orange. Elec- tricity was first used on the South Orange avenue line on February 13, 1893.


The Public Service Corporation of New Jersey was incorporated in the spring of 1903 and began business on June 2, 1903. Concern- ing its organization President Thomas N. MeCarter, in a paper entitled "The Public Service Rate Problem" (1912), has given the following facts:


"While, of course, in a small way, the electric industry was pushing its way forward in the decade between 1880 and 1890, the great development of the industry for purposes of light, power and traction took place in the decade from 1890 to 1900. The latter half of that decade was a period of unexampled prosperity the country over, in all kinds of business. Even the gas business, with its half century of previous life, but theretofore a sleepy kind of business, caught the infection. New uses for gas never before considered quickly made their appearance. The Welsbach burner, extending the efficiency of gas as an illuminant and cheapening its use, helped it to compete with electric light. New and more vigor- ous methods were adopted by all the companies, enormous sums were spent in extending and developing the plants, the public pulse quickly responded, and the output multiplied by leaps and bounds.


"About 1903 the larger of the street railway systems of the State had become financially embarrassed, and some plan of reor- ganization was absolutely imperative. The electric properties of the State were in a fair financial condition. Some were sound, some were not. The gas properties were sound, but some had very largely exhausted their capacity for new capital. At this june- ture Public Service was formed with $10,000,000 of full paid cash capital * :: to take over and acquire these various proper- ties, by lease or otherwise.


"During the intervening years some additional properties, other than those at first acquired, have been taken over and the scheme of organization perfected, so that now the entire railway system is either merged into or leased to Public Service Railway Company, a corporation having $38,000,000 of capital stock, being a somewhat less amount than the total amount of the capital stock of the companies merged into it. Upwards of 99 per cent. of the capital stock of the Public Service Railway Company is owned by Public Service. Public Service Gas Company, by lease or assign- ment thereof, controls all of the gas properties in any way connected


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with Public Service. % *: In like manner the Public Service Electric Company controls, through lease or assignment thereof, all of the electric properties in any way connected with the corporation. ** :: Thus it appears that the corporation proper is not an operating company, but only a holding company, owning practically all of the stock of the operating companies and sundry securities of subsidiary companies."


In 1912 Public Service was serving 193 municipalities with one or more classes of public utility, and most of them with all three, electric traction, electric light and gas.


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