A History of the city of Newark, New Jersey : embracing practically two and a half centuries, 1666-1913, Volume II, Part 16

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: 1136


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 II > Part 16


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NEWARK FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY, 1888.


The Newark Free Public Library was incorporated in 1888. The provisions of the New Jersey library act of 1884, at the elec- tion held in October, 1887, were adopted by the voters of this city. The organization meeting of the first board of trustees was held May 9, 1888. It was composed of the following: Mayor Joseph E. Haynes, Superintendent of Schools William N. Barringer, Edward H. Duryea, L. Spencer Goble, Frederick H. Teese, James Peabody and Samuel J. Macdonald. Later that year the building at 14-16 West Park street, at that time in course of remodeling for the Newark Library Association, was leased for a term of years, and at the same time the library of the old association was disposed of, the Free Public Library buying 10,000 volumes, the best of the collection.


In January, 1889, Mr. Frank P. Hill was selected as the librarian and assumed his position March 1. The collection of books was opened to public use October 17, 1889. It was not many years before the library became crowded in its rented quarters and in 1895 agitation was started looking toward the erection of a city- owned and larger building. Legislation was secured, and bonds were issued by the city to the amount of $350,000. A portion of the site now occupied at the head of Washington Park was purchased in 1897 for $100,000 and later adjoining ground, costing $53,750, was added by the city.


After competition, the plans of Messrs. Rankin & Kellogg, of Philadelphia, were selected, the building started, the cornerstone laid January 26, 1899, and the building opened to the public March 14, 1901. The building and furniture, including heating and light-


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ing plant, cost $315,000. Mr. Hill continued as librarian till May, 1901, when he resigned to become librarian of the Brooklyn Public Library system. On January 15, 1902, Mr. John Cotton Dana, then at Springfield, Mass., became the librarian and has continued in charge to the present time (1913).


The collection of books is well chosen, and covers all classes of literature in good balance. At present the number of volumes is 210,000. Special features of the work of the library with its readers are its art collections, its technical and scientific works, its business books and its schoolroom libraries. Business books, city directories, maps and trade information are specialized at a branch library near the business center of the city. The library also maintains five rented branches in distant sections of the city, one at the Barringer High School, and twelve deposit collections for neighborhood con- venience. In 1912 there were circulated from the entire system 1,073,000 books, over three times as many as were given out the first year in the new building. The Newark Free Public Library is recognized by authorities as one of the best organized and most efficient in the country.


NEWARK'S PIONEER NEWSPAPERS.


For a half century and more, beginning with the. spring of 1791, the newspapers of Newark were its most potent literary influence. During that period some of the best-edited journals in the United States throve here. The first publication of any sort produced in Newark was the half dozen or so copies of Hugh Gaine's New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, issued during the fall of 1776, when Gaine, fearing to remain longer in New York because of the approach of the British, moved his printing para- phernalia to Newark, as described in a previous chapter; and who then, concluding that the patriot cause was practically lost, returned to New York and resumed his newspaper, but as an organ of the King.


WOOD'S GAZETTE, 1791.


The first truly Newark publication was John Wood's Newark Gazette and Paterson Advertiser, whose first issue left the press on


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May 13, 1791, almost simultaneously with the founding of Paterson. It was always published in Newark, and, so far as can be learned, from one location, the corner of what is now New and Broad streets. It was a federalistic sheet, and most ably edited, as, indeed, were nearly all the journals of that time. Their editors were almost invariably men of excellent education, and they took infinite pains with their publications, striving to make them models of elegant English. After a time the Gazette dropped the "Paterson Advertiser" portion of its name. In October, 1797, the sheet became the Newark Gazette and New Jersey Advertiser, John Wood retir- ing from its management. For a time it was published by "John H. Williams, for the Proprietors," and one of its owners is believed to have been Jacob Halsey, who is thought to have conducted it in connection with his printing office, book store and bindery. About 1800 Halsey disposed of the entire business to John Wallis, who had been an apprentice in his employ, and who carried it on until it died, in 1804. The Gazette was brought into being at a moment when the Federalists were dominant, before the Republicans (later Democrats) had taken form. As time passed, federalism lost its grip in Newark and the Gazette's popularity waned. Its rival, the Centinel of Freedom, Newark's second newspaper, first published on October 5, 1796, grew stronger and more aggressive as it felt itself steadily into popular favor. With the end of the year 1804 the Gazette passed out of existence, and the Centinel on January 1, 1805, printed the following concerning the Gazette's demise :


"The Newark Gazette expired on Tuesday of a decline which it bore with Christian fortitude. This legitimate child of federalism; it was generated by corruption, it progressed in infamy, and finally died in disgrace. But a few years since, in the ever-memorable years of 1797-'98, it was at the height of its glory, in full strength and vigor; * we saw federation herself in a deep decay and her children fast verging towards the tomb of oblivion. * * Scarcely had it given up the ghost and allowed time for its relatives and friends to groan out their plaintive moans and pay the sad tribute of a tear to its memory, ere it has been born again. Like the Phoenix of the East, the Republican Herald arose out of the corrupted remains of the Newark Gazette. Let the people say Amen ! Amen !"


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Fortunately, we do not have to believe all the harsh things said of the Gazette by its triumphant contemporary. Newark's pioneer newspaper was of great value to the community, and the com- munity then meant all of what is now Essex County and generous portions of Passaic and Union Counties. It kept the people informed as to the important news of the day, aided them in the conduct of their business with its advertisements and occasional news notes, and stood always for a high grade of citizenship. The doctrines that it supported were never pernicious, and far and away from being corrupt. It was a dignified, high-toned publication, and no Jerseyman can scan its now yellowing pages, in the newspaper files of the New Jersey Historical Society, without realizing that it must have been a powerful force for good, particularly during the first half of its career. It was, unhappily for it, located in an unfriendly region. Democracy, once it began to assert itself, appealed with peculiar and convincing force to the people of Essex County.


The Republican Herald, born as we have seen, out of the ashes of the Gazette, and diametrically opposite to it in politics, lived only from January, 1805, to March of the same year. The Centinel of Freedom filled the field to the satisfaction of the people, evi- dently. The editor and proprietor of the Herald was David C. Baldwin.


THE CENTINEL OF FREEDOM, 1796-1895.


The Centinel of Freedom continued in uninterrupted publica- tion from 1796 until 1895, a truly remarkable record. Its first publishers were Daniel Dodge & Co., Dodge being the printer and Aaron Pennington the editor. Its first home was "near the Court House," which was on the west side of Broad street, near the present Branford place. A year later the paper appeared under the auspices of Aaron Pennington and Daniel Dodge, the original firm name being discarded. It showed signs of prosperity, for it was larger, although, of course, continuing at four pages, but with new type, and, as one writer describes it, "a new heading, elaborately gotten up in German text, with many flourishes, and embellished with a most warlike design-a knight in full armor, in an attitude


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of defense, the champion of the 'Rights of Man,' as the motto set forth. In the initial number of the second year [beginning October 4, 1797] the conductors of the paper felicitated themselves on the 'gayety of its attire,' and its enlarged columns, as likely to be 'more alluring' and afford better facilities for the entertainment and information of its readers." At the time of this enlargement the paper seems to have moved across the street, for certain it is that from about 1797 and a few years thereafter, it was published on the south corner of what are now Mechanic and Broad streets.


On October 1, 1799, Aaron Pennington retired from the paper because of failing health, and Daniel Dodge gave up his interest in it also. Jabez Parkhurst and Samuel Pennington, the latter a brother of Aaron, assumed control. In 1800 Parkhurst sold out his interest to Stephen Gould, and the latter and Samuel Pennington conducted the Centinel until May, 1803. Pennington retired the following November and William N. Tuttle, who had been an apprentice to Pennington, bought the property, together with John Pike. The latter retired a year later. From that time until the paper was bought by the proprietors of the Newark Daily Adver- tiser in 1833, the publishers were William Tuttle & Co. In 1800 the plant was removed to the west side of Broad street to a building a little south of Branford place. The old-fashioned spelling, "Cen- tinel," was continued until mid-September, 1823.


The Centinel, like all the early Newark newspapers, was a weekly. It was most of the time a vigorous partisan. A member of the Pennington family, writing about 1884 of the two stalwart pioneers of Newark journalism, said:


"The readers of the Newark Gazette and Centinel, as published at the close of the last and the beginning of the present century, will find good ground for the belief that there has been some improvement since then in the manner of conducting political con- troversy. The animosities of party strife did not always expend themselves in mere newspaper squibs, but personal brawls and even street fights were not of infrequent occurrence. In one instance, an editor, enfeebled by pulmonary disease, was assailed by a robust antagonist, and only rescued from violence by a more vigorous brother, who seized the threatening lash and laid it effectually about the shoulders of the assailant. . Another hostile rencontre is


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described as having taken place about this time near the town pump, at the junction of Broad and Market streets, that resulted in more than a war of words between two prominent gentlemen of the rival factions, one of whom afterwards became an eminent criminal lawyer and the other a judge of our higher courts. Both have heartily laughed over it since."


The "enfeebled" editor was Aaron Pennington and his antagon- ist, John Wallis, of the Gazette.


We will probably never know the exact number of weekly newspapers and small periodicals published in Newark during the first half of the last century. Stray copies of publications forgotten for two or three generations come to light occasionally to this day (1913). In 1798, on Saturday, February 7, the first copy of The Rural Magazine, "intended to combine the utility of a monthly magazine with the advantages of a weekly gazette" and to be devoted to "judicious selections of essays on Religion, Morality, Agriculture and miscellaneous subjects in prose and verse," was published by "John H. Williams, for the proprietors." It lived but a year and sold for 12 shillings per annum. Another short-lived Newark publication was The Modern Spectator, published during the year 1808 by E. B. Gould, "opposite the Episcopal Church."


THE TELESCOPE, 1809-1810.


In 1912 a few copies of a Newark newspaper, of whom nobody living seems to have heard, were presented to the New Jersey His- torical Society, being rescued by some thoughtful soul during the process of house-cleaning. They were stray copies of the Newark Telescope, published in 1809 and 1810, by Thomas Blauvelt in what is now Washington place, close to Broad street. It was federalistic in politics, and its Newark contemporary, the Democratic Centinel, took no notice of its appearance in the newspaper arena. The Trenton Federalist, however, makes mention of the new Newark journal as follows :


A JOURNAL TYPICAL OF ITS TIME.


"New Jersey Telescope. A new federal paper has recently made its appearance. It is published in Newark in the county of


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Essex, and from the respectability of its appearance and talent displayed by the editor we trust it will meet with a liberal support. In no part of the State of New Jersey has a publication of this kind been so long and so much needed as in the county of Essex. In that quarter the country has been inundated with vulgar, malignant Democratic publications, to the almost total exclusion of everything decent and correct.


"The newspapers of the day were made on well-established lines, which they all followed with surprisingly few variations. The first page carried a quantity of advertisements, and its leading article, which sometimes trailed over to the second page, was on some topic of country-wide importance or of interest to the whole civilized world. Long, elegantly written, but exceedingly prosy, 'letters to the editor' appeared on the second page, signed by 'Aristides,' 'Solon,' 'Epictetus,' and so on, lashing it into the opposing political party, or perhaps discussing the futility of Bona- parte's cruel ambition. On the third page there always appeared a date line, with the name of the place where the paper was published. One would naturally look there for local items, and what few there were could be found there. But they paid very little attention to the doings of the neighborhood, arguing evidently that it was useless to print things that the whole town knew; and as Newark was little more than a village at that time, everybody did know everybody's else business, usually. Advertisements took up a goodly portion of the third page, and very often all of the last page. The poetry column, which nearly every newspaper in the land was at great care to have, usually had the top of the fourth, back page, first column. In the case of the Telescope, however, it departed from this rule and scattered its verse about wherever room was to be found.


"Those who wrote for the newspapers in those days were almost invariably persons of considerable education and culture. Those who had any education at all were usually well grounded in the ancient classics, as their writings show. They expressed them- selves with delightful clearness as a rule. They loved to write the editor on all manner of topics, sometimes touching themes that are quite as much alive to-day as in 1809.


"One of the most amusing letters to be found in the Telescope is an effusion from the pen of one who signs himself, 'A Bachelor of the Second Degree.' He calls for local news in the paper, and part of his explanation of what he means by this expresses graphically the popular craving to-day, which is the cause for being of sensa- tional journalism. Follow the 'Bachelor' a little way; you will be interested :


" 'Having myself figured, some twenty years ago, in the mercantile walks of the busy world, I can readily conceive with what avidity the news of the day is sought after and devoured by politicians, and how necessary it is that you should try and please that large and respectable portion of your


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patrons; but can't you contrive sometimes to afford a small niche in your paper to detail the local events that happen? To a man of my domestic habits, who seldom allows his imagination to stray beyond the purlieus of the town, you can scarcely believe how interesting it is to me to find the little good and bad occurrences of our town and neighboring towns in print. Nay, I will acknowledge that I am nearly allied to the Wonder-Hunting family of readers, and you cannot better please that class than by dealing frequently with deaths, natural, casual and suicidal; melancholy accidents, duels, nearly or quite fatal; dying speeches, tempests, hurricanes, hair- breadth escapes,


" 'With all the long list of every human ill.'


" 'I was highly delighted the other day by reading an account of a Frenchman who was 'shot flying [Bachelor did not dream that Frenchmen, as well as others, were to 'actually fly a hundred years later] a short time ago in one of the cities of Spain; or, in other words, who was shot before he reached the ground, having leaped from an upstairs window, by an English soldier. (This episode happened during the Spanish resistance, with the English as allies, of Napoleon's army, led by Murat.)


" 'This was actually,' continues the letter writer, 'something so unheard of before, so wonderfully new, that I was actually attempted to persuade somebody to jump from a three-pair-o'-stairs window, that the experiment might be made for the satisfaction of us wonder-lovers. * *


* If you will pay a little more attention to printing this kind of news, I think I have in my mind's eye at least twenty additional subscribers for you.


" 'Then there is the important intelligence of marriage, I think you neglect too much. When from tea-table chat or corner-o'-street whispers, it is pretty well ascertained that Hymen has been holding court in town, I can hardly describe to you the void one feels on taking up the paper to find no mention of the wedded parties. Do, Mr. Editor, be a little more particular in these matters-only tell the news:


" 'Who danced with whom, and who are like to wed, And who are gone, and who are brought to bed.'


"'And you may soon expect to hear that your paper has found its way to the toilette of many a fair creature in town. And, oh! for an occa- sional incident or catastrophe! Only give now and then a little of the marvellous, a precious morsel of melancholy "matter-o'-fact stuff."


thousands butcher'd on the bloody field,


And thousands starving on the wasted land,


Deaths and murders,


Or people drown or suffocated.


and I promise you a file of the Telescope shall become an appanage of the escritoire of every bachelor in the place.'


"There is much of good sense in the badinage of 'A Bachelor' as given above. The papers of the day were dull and dry, not only as seen through our eyes, but as viewed by a certain growing propor- tion of Americans who wearied of the endless discussions of politi- cal, moral and religious themes, with which the editors saw fit to fill their pages. The editors gave their readers all this prosiness because they wanted it, as editors of to-day serve their patrons with the sort of reading they think the people desire. In 1809, however, people had begun to long for more human interest material; yes, they had begun to yearn for the sight of their own names and those of their neighbors, in print.


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"Telescope was not original as a newspaper name in Newark, by any means. It was widely used in various parts of the country, especially, perhaps, in New England, just as Times, Star, Herald, Courier, etc., are used to-day. Telescope appealed to the imagina- tion of the period, suggesting the wide and long vision and a search- ing into things. The old paper printed free all advertisements of religious and charitable institutions throughout the State, and it agreed to pay the postage on all letters addressed to it, reimbursing the local Post Office when such material was brought, unstamped. Advertisements such as the following appear in every number of the Telescope :


" 'For Sale. A negro woman, 26 years old, with a male child eight months old. She is used to all kinds of work except cooking; and is very healthy. Enquire at this office.'


"The supply of slaves evidently exceeded the demand, for this advertisement ran for several months.


"Another advertisement announces that a 15-year-old black girl is for sale, and that she is not to be sold for any fault.


"The present Trinity Episcopal Church was in process of erec- tion in 1809, and the following advertisements appeared in the Telescope :


"'Notice. The subscribers for Trinity church are requested to pay the first and second installments of five dollars on each share, into the Newark Bank, to the credit of George Nelson, treasurer.'


" 'Wanted. A number of masons acquainted with stone work and a number of laborers acquainted with attending masons, at the building of the Episcopal church in Newark; to whom the customary wages will be paid in cash, every Saturday night. None but persons well acquainted with their business need apply. Application to be made to the subscriber, Josiah James, superintendent.'


"The newspaper habit was of slow growth and required per- sistent cultivation on the part of the publishers. One number of the Telescope contains a long article on the first page, being an argument why people should patronize the town sheet, and giving some of the reasons commonly given for not doing so, as follows:


" "There's no occasion for my taking the paper; I am in neighbor Blank's store every day and see it as it comes.'


" 'There's no use in my taking the paper, for we can't have it a minute after it comes into the store; one or another catches it up so quick.'


" 'I have no need to take the paper; I can always read it at the barber's.' " 'I need not take the paper, for I am so much abroad among the people that I can hear all the news before it comes out.'


" 'I don't want the paper; I can inquire all the news at the post office.'


" 'It's no matter about our taking the paper; father generally goes to meeting every Sunday, and comes back by Mr. M-'s, as it is no more than a mile and a half out of the way, through the woods, and borrows his paper every week.'


" 'We don't want the paper; there's one or two left at our house for the back neighbours, that we read.'


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"Think of that; the poorer folk lived in the houses set back from the street, because of the scarcity of streets, and their more prosperous neighbors in the front were small enough to keep posted on the weekly doings by reading the newspapers before the sheets got to those who subscribed for them!


"In such a fashion did the Newarkers of a hundred years ago wrestle with the new idea, embodied in a newspaper.


"If one could get all the news in the paper of that day he must read the advertisements carefully, for many of the happenings were set down in paid notices. Now and then the editor would announce in his paper that he had found it necessary to leave out a number of advertisements in order to make room for important news matter, interesting as well as amusing, since it shows that the value of advertising as a source of 'motive power' for the newspaper had not as yet been developed. The newspaper was still in the stage when its promoters looked for its circulation to make their money. Advertising rates were very, we would say to-day, ridiculously low.


"One is impressed in reading these old newspapers, by nothing more forcibly than the fact that they were edited and made up with exceeding care and intelligence. The number of proof errors was astonishingly few. It is not too much to say that many a number of the Telescope and the good old Centinel of Freedom would put scores of modern sheets to shame in the matter of careful prepara- tion and excellence of English." (From the Newark Sunday Call, 1912.)


A weekly newspaper called The Newark Messenger appeared on October 10, 1817, published by Peter Couderer, "opposite the Upper Common," possibly in the shop formerly occupied by the Telescope. It announced itself as "open to all parties, but influ- enced by none." The times were not then ripe for an independent sheet, and it died in about a year.


THE EAGLE, 1820.


A long-lived and useful paper was The New Jersey Eagle, which first appeared on Friday, July 28, 1820. Its publisher was Edward M. Murden and the editor Joseph T. Murden. Within its first year the publisher became J. Johnson and the editor William B. Kinney. A little later Gorham A. Hull became the publisher. In 1822 James E. Gore succeeded Hull and he in turn gave way to Daniel A. Cameron, in 1823. In 1825 Mr. Kinney gave up the editorship to Moses Lyon, who conducted the paper until 1828,


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T. B. Crowell succeeding Lyon. In 1835 Crowell was so encouraged by his success that he began to issue it as a semi-weekly on Friday, February 13. He was spurred to this move by the Newark Daily Advertiser, which, then about two years old, was no doubt making inroads in its field as a weekly newspaper. In June, 1847, Mr. Crowell and his son started The Newark Morning Eagle, abandon- ing the semi-weekly. About this time the elder Crowell (T. B.) retired and the editor became Charles K. Bishop. In 1853 the Newark Daily Eagle claimed to be the largest daily paper in New Jersey. The paper was a strong Democratic organ until the late fifties, when it espoused the interests of the "Native American" or "Know Nothing" party and soon went down in ruin.




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