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 8
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Micah Tomkins, together with Richard Lawrence, succeeded Lawrence Ward as deacons of the First Church. Tomkins was allowed additional land to his home lot, because he was willing to have it laid down at what was then held to be a considerable distance from the town centre. This was near the corner of what are now Elm and Mulberry streets.
SAMUEL SWAIN-Captain Samuel Swaine, or Swain, was a representative to the Assembly of New Haven Coloney from Bran- ford. He was several times chosen as "third man" or alternate to the New Jersey Assembly, from Newark. As such he represented Jasper Crane in the first General Assembly ever held in the Province of New Jersey. He was at first a lieutenant in the town's military government, and became the captain upon the return of Captain Treat to Connecticut.
HAUNS ALBERS AND HUGH ROBERTS-The first tanners in Newark were Hauns Albers and Hugh Roberts, who were among the Milford founders. The tanning industry thus began practically with the settlement, although these tanners only plied their trade for the benefit of the community. Azeriah Crane, son of Jasper Crane, and son-in-law of Robert Treat, was the first man to regularly set up a tan yard, in 1695.
STEPHEN BOND-Stephen Bond was a man of importance in Easthampton, L. I., being a magistrate there. Almost imme- diately after his removal to Newark with the other Milford settlers, he became a member of Governor Carteret's Council at Elizabeth- town. He is believed to have been a blacksmith by trade.
OBADIAH BRUEN-Obadiah Bruen arrived from England in 1640 and first settled with the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth. Later he lived at Gloucester, Massachusetts, and removing to the town of Pequot, was town clerk there for fifteen years, representing that place in the Connecticut Assembly.
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JOHN CATLIN-John Catlin, a Branford man, performed services of greatest value in laying the town's foundations. In the early Newark records he is given the rare honor of the prefix "Mr." He was more than once a member of the board of selectmen or "town's men," and was associated with others in various important commissions. He was deeply interested in the cause of education and is believed to have been the town's first schoolmaster, keeping school in his own home, near the corner of Broad and Commerce streets, where the Newark Schoolmen's Club, in November, 1911, erected a handsome bronze tablet to his memory and to mark the school site. The tablet was unveiled by one of Catlin's lineal descendants, little Miss Margaret Catlin Parrish Franchere. Catlin returned to New England about 1681, and became one of the leading men in ill-fated Deerfield, Massachusetts. His wife and two of his sons were killed in the massacre of 1704.
ROBERT KITCHELL-Robert Kitchell was the most impor- tant man in the little group from Guilford. He came from England in 1638 with the Rev. Henry Whitfield and others, and it is believed they were on the first ship that ever anchored in New Haven Bay. Kitchell is therefore to be reckoned as of the very first group of the founders of the New Haven Colony. Just before leaving the ship, or immediately after, they drew up their Plantation Covenant and signed it, "intending by God's gracious permission to plant ourselves in New England, and we will, the Lord assisting, sit down and join ourselves together in one certain plantation." Robert Kitchell was the first to sign this document. He was repre- sentative to the New Haven General Assembly from Guilford. He was among the older men among the Newark founders, and is believed to have been a man of considerable education.
JEREMIAH PECK-Jeremiah Peck, of the New Haven group, lived in Guilford and later in New Haven. He taught school in Guilford and afterwards in New Haven, teaching Latin, Greek and Hebrew and preparing youth for college. If he taught school in Newark there is no record of it. He became a preacher and occupied a pulpit in Saybrook just before the settlement of Newark. He
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was ordained a minister of the Congregational Church in Newark, in 1669, is believed to have later preached in Elizabethtown and is known to have later returned to Connecticut, being the first settled minister in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Additional information concerning the founders, including Thomas Jolinson, Henry Lyon and others, will be found in the chapters immediately following, in the regular historical narrative.
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ON THIS SITE JOHN CATLIN
NEWARK'S FIRST SCHOOLMASTER OPENED HIS SCHOOL IN 1676, HOLDING IT IN HIS HOME AS WAS THE CUSTOM IN THOSE DAYS. IBY VOTE OF THE TOWN'S MEN HE WAS ENGAGED TO
DO HIS FAITHFUL HONEST AND TRUE ENDEAVOUR TO TEACH THE CHILDREN OR SERVANTS OF THOSE AS HAVE SUBSCRIBED ... . ENGLISH AND ALSO ARETHMETICK. . AS MUCH AS THEYARE CAPABLE TO LEARN AND HE CAPABLE TO TEACH THEM
HE WAS A MAN OF MARK IN THE COMMUNITY, SERVING AS TOWN'S ATTORNEY AND LATER AS TOWN'S MAN
IN 1683 HE BECAME ONE OF THE EARLY PERMANENT SETTLERS OF DEERFIELD, MASS. WHERE HIS SERVICES GAINED FOR HIM THE HONORABLE TITLE OF "MR. HE WAS KILLED FEB. 29, 1704, IN THE DEFENCE OF HIS HOME AGAINST AN ATTACK OF FRENCH AND INDIANS. HE WAS A GUIDE OF YOUTH AND A LEADER OF MEN
ERECTED, BY THE NEWARK SCHOOLMEN'S CLUB NEWARK DAY. NOV. 6. 1911
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THE CATLIN TABLET, AT BROAD AND COMMERCE STREETS Erected 1911
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CHAPTER VI.
ON THE GROUND-ALLOTMENT OF THE LAND.
T HE men who founded Newark were masters at town build- ing. They were no company of unlettered woodsmen or dull clods of the farm, nor about to live in a state of semi- barbarism in order to wrest their livelihood from the land. They were not, like so many groups of pioneers, forced into the wilder- ness through poverty and a consequent inability to rear their homes only where they could start empty-handed and trust to strong right arms alone to make the venture a success. They were, on the contrary, men of remarkable executive force and of rare constructive ability and were comfortably off in worldly goods. They possessed astonishing foresight and exhibited unusual shrewdness, as is shown in their selection of the town-site and in all their fabric of town government as they constructed it, year by year.
If the founders of Newark were living to-day they would, many of them, hold positions of high responsibility and trust, not only in the affairs of the city, but in the State, and possibly in national affairs. It is essential that the readers of Newark's history should understand this at the beginning, if they are to grasp why and how it was that Newark became one of the leading communities of all New Jersey from its settlement and forged ahead of them all soon after the War for Independence.
They attended to all the town's affairs, both great and small, with a searching thoroughness and with a tirelessness for details that have made more than one student of their old Town Minute Book-in which much of the minutiae of their planning is set down-exclaim that it is not possible that another town on the entire continent was established and ordered more perfectly when the ends they aimed at and the facilities at their command are remembered.
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During the first year the time seems to have been largely taken up with the preliminary work of town building, putting up a few rough houses and planting, caring for and harvesting what small crops they could. There were comparatively few on the ground for the first summer and there was no doubt much coming and going back and forth between Newark and the Connecticut towns. Not more than a week was needed to make the round trip, which was reasonably short for the standards of the day. The journey was neither difficult nor hazardous. The cattle and horses, swine, sheep, fowls, etc., were removed in small groups in sailing vessels as fast as proper quarters were prepared for them and there were sufficient settlers to look after them. The town was beginning to take some sort of crude form by the time all who may be termed the founders were here, in the summer of 1667.
THE ORIGINAL CITY PLANNERS.
They had by this time decided on the location of their principal streets, in fact the only ones for many a year: Broad street, which was known as "the main street" and which was to be eight rods wide; Market street, six rods, and Mulberry and Washington streets, four rods, but which for several generations were little less than lanes, and which were called "East back street" and "West back street" as late as 1800. In every instance the original widths of these streets has remained down to this day, with the exception of a single stretch of Broad street bordering Military Park and which was reduced in width early in the last century to allow for the sidewalk. As any observer can see, the street is narrower from what is called "Canal bridge," just above the Post Office, to Trinity Church. The eight rod width of the settlement's principal thoroughfare was quite commonly used by the Puritans in their New England towns, although it seldom survives to-day except in such as have grown but little.
With most admirable skill, which entitles them to be consid- ered city planners of eminence for their day, they relieved the main street (Broad) with little commons or plots set apart from
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lot holders and dedicated to the use and enjoyment of all the people; at South Park, to which they gave no name, as it was for a long time just without the southern boundary of the village; at the Training Place, or Military Park, and at the Market Place, Washington Park. The two last named were most logically chosen. Military Park marked the first curve in their long, broad, main highway, and it curved here because it followed, no doubt, the lines of least resistance over comparatively level ground and conformed to the bend in the river. At the Market Place a triangle was made by the intersection of the "west back street" (Washington) meet- ing the main street in front of where the Free Public Library now stands.
ENCOURAGING THE INDUSTRIES.
On the river bank, at Bridge street, as it now is, directly east of the head of the Market Place, they set aside a plot, known as the Boatman's Lot, where the settler who looked after the meagre traffic and transportation of the town's goods was to live and do his business and which was within easy distance of what was at first intended to be the town's business centre, the Market Place. It was reached by a lane from Broad street and was never more than a cart path until the first bridge was built, in 1792.
A Seaman's Lot was also set apart and it took up a goodly portion of the river front from what is now Centre street to where the Pennsylvania main line tracks cross the river. The difference between the Boatman's and the Seaman's lots has not been adequately explained. The former passed out of the town's possession when the boatman was selected, and as for the Sea- man's lot, nothing remains of it in the hands of the community except a small portion known as the City Dock.
THE WATERING PLACE.
It was necessary to fix some central spot where cattle could be conveniently watered, and from whence, if necessary, the people could draw their drinking water. This they fixed at what is now the apex of the triangle formed by the junction of Market street
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and Springfield avenue, some little distance below where the Lincoln statue now stands, and to the south.
The Parson's lot was another reservation of lands upon which the home of the shepherd of the flock was to be reared, on the south corner of Broad and William streets, and where the parson- age stood until long after the War for Independence. Just when the parsonage was built is not known. Rev. Aaron Burr lived in it in the 1740's and 1750's. The first pastor, the Rev. Pierson, had his home lot immediately south of Robert Treat, on the east side of Broad street, starting about where the Broad street station of the Central Railroad of New Jersey now is.
The Meeting House Lot, with the Burying Ground to the immediate west, south and northwest of it, fronted on Broad street, where Branford Place now is. The Burying Ground plot extended nearly to Washington street for a time. On its northern border were two ponds, while on the south the plot ran nearly to what is now William street.
All these lands had virtually been set aside during the first year. It had also been agreed that six-acre home lots should be given the first subsequent settlers proficient in the trades, such as tailor, cooper, shoemaker.
GENESIS OF THE "FOUR CORNERS" HABIT.
Already the men from Milford and the few who had come with them or who soon joined them, from New Haven and Guilford, in 1666 and early in 1667, had begun to group themselves about the southeast, southwest and northeast corners of what are now Market and Broad streets, at the never-to-be-forgotten "Four Corners"; thus laying the foundation, as it were, for the custom which has, after two hundred and fifty years, made it seemingly impossible for the city to divorce itself from the belief that it can have but one central and focal point, right there where the first two of the four original highways cross.1
' A striking illustration of the town's conservatism appears in the following reference to the opening of Green street in 1834, published that year in the Daily Advertiser: "This we believe to be the first and only street in a direct line, excepting only Market street, connecting the south- eastern section of the town with Broad street."
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The kind and character of the soil and nature of the vegeta- tion, the sorts of beasts, wild fowl and fish, had been carefully inquired into, as well as the number, size, source and general direction of all streams and the area and location of the marshes. They had found the Indians not only peaceful, as they had been assured by the Dutch and by Carteret, but invaluable, in a way, since they told them all they knew of the entire region and taught them their own simple arts of husbandry.
Were they appalled by the tremendous stretches of meadow- land? Not at all. Others might have been deterred from making their homes amid such great areas of swamp, but they were familiar with such territory as anyone who visits New Haven and its neighborhood, with its great area of marsh, will readily realize they must have been. Moreover, they saw in the miles of waving meadow grass unlimited quantities of salt hay to be had for the cutting, to be used as bedding for their bea'sts and in the early days for the cattle's food until the land should be sufficiently cleared to provide room for the extensive growth of blue grass and red clover. They began grading the hillocks and filling in the marshes as soon as they arrived, and this has been going on without interruption (except during the War for Independence) practically ever since.
THE WATER COURSES.
The Passaic appealed to them in all its natural beauty, and they rejoiced in it. But they saw quite as clearly its commercial value, most precious to them, too. It was in the beginning of the settlement their only highway, except for the Indian paths, out of the wilderness, and far surer and more safe should hostilities ever arise.
Several streams ran down the hillside from the present line of High street and beyond, draining the slopes as well as generous stretches of swamp in the gently rising region west of High street and Mt. Prospect avenue. It is an interesting fact that while but three of the many little streams which the settlers found within what are now the actual confines of the city, still remain visible,
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those three are all boundaries of the city for greater or less distances. They are Bound Creek," on the south, Second River on the north, and Meadow Brook on the west. Bound Creek, until long after the War for Independence, was large enough to accom- modate fair-sized sloops which unloaded at a dock near the present line of the Pennsylvania Railroad. This was the largest of all the three streams that still remain.
Of all the streams that have vanished, the First River was the most important. It was formed by the junction of two brooks which met near what is now the southern end of Branch Brook Park, and it flowed almost directly east through a little valley about where Eighth avenue now is. One of the two brooks rose near where Sussex avenue and Fourth street now join, flowing east and north until it met the other branch. Its source was really in a number of springs, from which Newark's first water supply, to be conveyed to the people through pipes, was established, about 1800. The other brook, whose name has been given to the park, drained the region the park lakes now occupy. It is to Mill Brook, or First River, that Branch Brook Park owes its being to-day; for had it not been used for the public water supply the city would not have come into possession of much of the land which it later disposed of to the Essex County Park Commission.
The First River was at once recognized by the settlers as the most available for grist mill purposes. Two years after the settle- ment they began preparations for the erection of a mill which, however, did not really rise until 1671. The old Mill Brook or First River still courses along practically its ancient channel, although much shrunken and hidden from sight. In 1861 the section of the brook from High to Factory streets was arched over and the land filled in above the arch. Other portions were enclosed from time to time. The last section was covered in 1890, to form the approach to the Clay street bridge over the river: From the earliest times of the white man's occupation, there was a bridge over Mill Brook where it crossed what is now Broad
" See Chapter I.
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street. When the last was built no man knoweth, but the spot is still spoken of (in 1913) by older Newarkers as "Clay street bridge." But the old stream has virtually disappeared from Newark and may truthfully be considered as one of Newark's vanished waterways.
Second River forms the northern boundary of the city to-day and Meadow Brook, which flowed along part of the western bound-' ary of the city, from Central avenue northward, was one of its chief tributaries. It began on the south side of Central avenue, between the first and second ridges west of Newark, and discharged into Second River a mile and a quarter from its mouth. Second River became a very important stream shortly before and immediately after the War for Independence, as traces of the old mills along its northern bank testify.
There is also Third River, the original northern boundary of the settler's purchase, which we know to-day as the Yantacaw,3 and it is the only one of the three existing water courses of which the original Indian name is preserved. It is to be regretted that the settlers did not retain the ancient names of the First and Second Rivers, but no trace of them can be found.
Of the water courses that have absolutely disappeared there were several of considerable importance.
A little stream had its source near the junction of Third avenue and Garside street, running down the hillside and crossing Belleville avenue between Taylor street and Third avenue, into the old Kearny Homestead property, where the handsome State Normal and Training School now stands. Turning sharply to the southeast here, it merged in the Passaic a little south of the foot of Fourth avenue. A short stretch of the stream's gully has very thoughtfully been preserved by the Newark Board of Education (in planning the establishment before the possibility of its becoming a State institution, was broached) in the sunken gar- den effect upon the Normal School lawn. Another rivulet flowed out of a pond that was a little back from the south-
3 See Chapter I.
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west corner of High and Orange streets. It crossed Broad street near State street and entered a pond of considerable size on the edge of the Passaic. This pond was about midway between Clay and Crane streets. The first mentioned pond at High and Orange streets, in the second quarter of the last century, became known as Boyden's Pond, from the fact that Newark's famous inventor, Seth Boyden, at one time had his shop near it.
Newark's civil engineers in previous generations have been baffled by the fact that they found traces of another stream quite close to that just described, and which flowed in a general southerly direction. One map maker even plotted the two as crossing each other. It is now considered probable that the two streams emerged from Boyden's Pond as one and the same, and that this stream was divided through some peculiarity in the topography, on the line of Orange street, not far from Plane. The southern tributary flowed down the line of Plane street, to about Nesbitt street, down Warren street for about half a block, then southeast across Academy and Bank streets, crossing Market street at Washington street and joining Wheeler's brook a little south of Camfield street.
Of all Newark's vanished streams the most important, histori- cally, was Wheeler's brook or creek. It started from the springs and spongy ground where the Essex County Court House now stands, and which also extended as far up as Springfield avenue. This was a marshy region of considerable extent. There were ponds near the foot of South Orange avenue, while further west, near where the old South Orange avenue reservoir still stands, and extending for a distance north and south, were the "Magnolia Swamps." Civil engineers and surveyors who have given careful study to all existing traces of the city's old water courses have been unable to detect any direct connection between the "Magnolia Swamps" and the marshes in the Court House tract. Geologists, however, and others, whose researches sometimes stop where those of the surveyors begin, are strongly inclined to believe that ages ago, a stream of good size, large enough to be dignified with the name of river, flowed through the region here described, emptying
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into the Newark Bay, possibly into the sea, along the line of Market street. In deep excavations, such as those made for the foundations of the Firemen's Insurance Company and Kinney buildings at the northeast and southeast corners of Market and Broad streets, and further west on Market street, sand that shows water influence is always brought up. It is quite possible, there-, fore, that Wheeler's Brook, the little stream the settlers found running down the hill from the present Court House region, was all that survived of an ancient, prehistoric river.
One of the principal tributaries to Wheeler's Brook, or to the marshes from whence it started, began somewhere in the neighbor- hood of Orange street, flowing in a westerly and southerly direction to Howard street and then into the Watering Place tract.
Wheeler's Brook ran down the south side of Market street until it developed into two ponds, one near the southeast corner of Market and Halsey streets, and the other just west of Broad street at its junction with Market The first pond mentioned seems to have been the smaller of the two and it was filled in very early in the town's history The other was spoken of in the old records as the "Frog Pond."
Broad street, along the greater part of its length from South Park to Washington Park, was somewhat higher in level than what is now Washington street, and from the Frog Pond, south, was a tiny valley, diverting the course of the stream from its hitherto easterly course, to one almost directly south. This stream drained the ponds and ran, one might almost say, parallel with Broad and Washington streets, crossing South or Lincoln Park (which was part swamp), and losing itself in the meadows. Traces of it are still to be seen east of the Pennsylvania Railway near Emmet street, continuing across the meadows to the Peddie street canal.
Discoveries made by city engineers early in the present century lead to an apparent explanation of the oft-repeated story that there was once a brook running along the south side of Market street east of Broad street and finding its way into the marshes just east of the present site of the Market street station of the
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Pennsylvania Railroad. Excavations made for city work have revealed traces of a stream near Halsey street and Maiden Lane and indicating that a tributary of Wheeler's Brook ran east from that point near the southern end of the Old Burying Ground, then northeastward, crossing Broad street and finding its way into what is now Market street, a little west of Mulberry street. There are traditions of a bridge over this brook at Market street, about Mulberry street.
The exact location of the principal pond at Market and Broad streets was fixed late in the last century by Harrison Van Duyne while engaged in gathering data for use in the celebrated First Church Burying Ground case. He found the pond was longer than it was wide; that its greatest width was east and west, and that its greatest dimension was approximately one hundred and fifty feet. Mr. Van Duyne unearthed several tree trunks, the last relics of trees that no doubt once stood upon the banks of the pond.+
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