A History of the city of Newark, New Jersey : embracing practically two and a half centuries, 1666-1913, Volume II, Part 2

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 2


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that took the government of New Jersey out of the hands of the last Royalist Governor, William Franklin, natural son of Benjamin Franklin; was in Congress throughout the greater part of the War for Independence, was made its president in 1782, and as such signed the treaty of peace with Great Britain in 1783. He was director of the mint from 1795 to 1805, was one of the founders of the Ameri- can Bible Society, and was the author of several books, including "The Age of Revelation," whose object was to counteract the in- fluence of Tom Paine's "Age of Reason." He was a trustee of Prince- ton College, of which he was a graduate, from 1772 until 1805. Such was Elias. No wonder Elisha of Newark was proud of his big brother, Elias of Elizabethtown.


JUSTICE BRADLEY'S ESTIMATE OF ELISHA.


Now for Elisha himself. This is what Justice Joseph P. Brad- ley, of the United States Supreme Court, wrote of him:


"For many years no professional man stood so high in Newark as Elisha Boudinot during the same period. He was a Newark lawyer (from Elizabethtown first) of high reputation, a rigid Pres- byterian and a strong Federalist, a supporter of the Federal consti- tution and of Washington, its representative champion.


"The Federalists of New Jersey, wishing to have him on the bench, passed a law making an additional judge of the Supreme Court (there were only three before), and elected him as judge. Before his term expired the Jeffersonians (or the mob) got the political power and repealed the law, so that when his term expired there was no election to fill his place."


Elisha was a member of Newark's Committee of Correspond- ence in 1775. During the war he was commissary of prisoners for New Jersey, and, oddly enough, his brother Elias was commissary- general of prisoners for a goodly time. "They, the two Boudinots," says Jane J. Boudinot in her "Life of Elias Boudinot," published in 1896, "with William Peartree Smith, whose daughter Elisha mar- ried, in 1778, were men peculiarly distinguished by the British raiders, as view the family portraits, hewn and gashed by the Hessians in the visitations of their homes; lucky substitutes for the masters, whose absence saved their own heads, for which rewards were offered by the enemy."


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ELISHA BOUDINOT HOUSE IN PARK PLACE, 1913 Just before it was demolished


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The first house Elisha Boudinot occupied after coming to Newark stood where the house in Park place, razed in June, 1913, was later reared. The British are said to have visited it during their stay in Newark late in November, 1776, when they were driving Washington across New Jersey in one of the very darkest moments of the war.


On July 5, 1780, the New Jersey Journal, then published in Chatham, published the following:


"On July 5 Mrs. Josiah Hornblower was designated with Mrs. Governor Livingston and Mrs. Elisha Boudinot and Mrs. William Burnet as a committee of Essex County ladies, with others equally prominent throughout the State, to receive subscriptions for the succor of the country's defenders in the field."


"At the present writing," says Jane Boudinot, in her "Life of Elias Boudinot," already mentioned, "there still exists in active operation a society of ladies for aiding the poor of Newark, known as the Female Charitable Society, which had its origin in Mrs. Boudinot's parlor. It is largely carried on by the descendants of the ladies there assembled." The society was founded in 1803.


There is a tradition that Washington, who was a personal friend of both Elias and Elisha, stopped at the Boudinot mansion in Park place, during the war, but it is difficult to find corroboration of this. If he visited there afterward the record is also elusive. He was invited, that we know, and from a letter written by Elisha Boudinot to Washington, expressing his profound joy at the happy termination of the war and paying the highest tribute to Washing- ton's achievement. A part of this letter, written in Newark in April, 1783, reads as follows:


JUDGE BOUDINOT TO WASHINGTON.


"My publick business [as commissary of prisoners] calls me into every county of this State, and a very general acquaintance with the inhabitants, and I am certain I should do them the greatest injustice did I not assure your Excellency that there is scarcely a man or woman among them but what entertain these sentiments, and but what have a monument erected to you in their breasts, that can only be effaced with their lives. Was it possible for your Excel- lency to have a view of the whole country at once, and see the honest


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farmers around their fires, blessing your name and teaching their children to lisp your praises, you would forget your toils and labors, and thank Heaven that you were born to bless a grateful land.


"When your Excellency is retiring from the field, will you indulge the inhabitants of this State to spend a short time, as you are passing through free from care where you have spent so much in distress and anxiety of mind ?"


Boudinot inclosed in his letter an ode in glorification of Wash- ington written by his father-in-law, William Peartree Smith.


WASHINGTON'S LETTER TO BOUDINOT.


Washington's letter in reply came a few days later, from Newburgh, on the Hudson, to Boudinot in Newark. It was of good length, contained expressions of esteem for his correspondent, and the wish that he be remembered to his wife, and two or three most interesting paragraphs, including the following:


"Having no reward to ask for myself, if I have been so happy as to obtain the approbation of my countrymen I shall be satisfied. But it still rests with them to complete my wishes by adopting such a system of policy as will ensure the future reputation, tranquility, happiness and glory of this extensive empire, to which I am much assured nothing can contribute so much as an inviolable adherence to the principles of the union, and a fixed resolution of building the national faith on the basis of public justice, without which all that has been done and suffered is in vain, to effect which, therefore, the abilities of every true patriot ought to be exerted with the greatest zeal and assiduity."


WINS A SLAVE HIS FREEDOM.


Elisha Boudinot returned to the practice of law at the close of the war until called to the Supreme Bench. In 1790 he was asked to take up the case of a darkey slave, whose master had promised him his freedom when he, the master, should die. The master, in his death struggles, sent for a lawyer to draw the will, but became demented before it could be signed. The heirs contended that the darkey should remain a slave. Boudinot won the man's freedom in the courts.


In the 1790's Newark was in grave peril from fires, as already told in this history. There was no fire department and, of course,


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no fire engines. A number of buildings were destroyed, and the climax came in January, 1797, when Judge Boudinot's mansion, in Park place, was consumed. This fire was directly responsible for the first fire department, and for the purchase by an association of citizens of the two first fire engines. The house torn down in 1913 was promptly built. Concerning this structure the Rev. Dr. Henry A. Stimson, of the Manhattan Congregational Church, New York, and a member of the Boudinot family, has kindly furnished the following:


FAMILY REMINISCENCES.


"He built it in its present form in order to enable him to dis- pense the hospitality which he so much enjoyed, to his neighbors and friends. The dining room, which did run across the entire rear of the house, was exceptionally large, for he gave a dinner every Monday to the officers of the Presbyterian churches of Newark. The right hand side of the house, as you enter, you will notice, is much more elaborate in all its appointments than the opposite side. This is the side that was occupied by his wife, and he spared no expense in decorating, not only her own rooms, but the whole side of the house, for her pleasure, while on the left hand side was his office and the part of the house which he felt represented himself and his work more particularly, which was, and I think still is, severely plain.


"Lafayette was entertained there when he visited this country and a platform was erected on the ground in front, from which he addressed the public. A reception was given in the parlors at the right. Lafayette himself and his host standing just inside the parlor door, the procession passing through the front parlor and back into the larger rooms at the rear of the house.


"On that occasion Judge Boudinot's son, in his enthusiasm, brought a punch bowl and a towel for the Marquis to use in wash- ing his hands before he sat down to dinner, picking up for the pur- pose the silver punch bowl which had been used by Washington, in earlier days at the house, greatly to the indignation of his sister, my grandmother.


"This, the 'Washington bowl,' belonged originally to William Peartree Smith, whose daughter Mary was the first wife of Judge Boudinot. It came with her to the Boudinot house. Washington was present at her wedding, and Alexander Hamilton was a grooms- man. Whether Washington drank punch from that bowl then for the first time, I do not know. But he did at some time, which gave the bowl its significance. I have no means of knowing whether he



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was ever in the Newark house. The wedding was celebrated in Elizabethtown, in the Belcher house."


Both Mrs. Boudinots, the second of whom was Rachel Brad- ford, died in the house, as the Judge did subsequently.


Miss Jane J. Boudinot has contributed the following concerning the house removed by the Public Service Corporation :


"It was built by Judge Elisha Boudinot, of the Supreme Court of New Jersey (my grandfather). I know by tradition in the family that when his former house had been burnt and utterly destroyed the good workmen of Newark turned out the next morn- ing to clear the cellars, etc., saying that Judge Boudinot should not be without a house over his head so long as his fellow citizens could avoid it. My father, Judge Elias Boudinot, to whom the property descended, built another house on the corner, but I, being a mere infant when he left Newark and sold his property there, can tell nothing about it. I know that the Female Charitable Society had its origin in the drawing room of the old house. I have it from my older cousins, no longer living, that the present porch of the Elisha Boudinot house is of recent construction, the old entrance being the old-style marble stoop, led up to by several steps, flanked on each side by iron banisters, ending in the same wrought iron pedestals, each mounted by a brass ball. On either side of this stoop was an enclosure, filled with tulips, running across each side of the house."


SOME OF BOUDINOT'S PUBLIC SERVICES.


Behind the house was a garden and an orchard, and beyond the open country sloped gently to the little bluff along the river's edge. Two stately trees, known from Boudinot's time, one as the Wash- ington and the other as the Hamilton tree, that stood in the garden, were cut down to make way for the proposed terminal, in 1913. Boudinot had a summer house in his garden and there men of prom- inence, some with country-wide reputations, were often gathered to devise ways and means for the advancement of Newark and the State at large. Their patriotism was of sterling order. The fight- ing over, they turned at once to the acquirement of the blessings of peace. They saw clearly that it was through the development of the industries that the salvation of the young and untried nation was to be wrought. Their business enterprises were patriotic enter- prises; their personal advantage was a secondary consideration.


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This is not an opinion, but actual fact demonstrated time and again in the preserved records of the time. The very articles of agree- ment which they drew up when they embarked on one scheme after another show it.


Elisha Boudinot was in almost every good work for the town's betterment from the close of the War for Independence until near the end of his life, about thirty-five years. He was one of the chief promoters of the Society for Propagating Useful Arts and Manu- factures, which erected what is now the city of Paterson. Alex- ander Hamilton, the great power behind the whole plan, often came to the Boudinot house to arrange for the establishment of the society.


BOUDINOT A FOUNDER OF JERSEY CITY.


Elisha Boudinot was one of a little group of men who created the City of Jersey, now Jersey City. He was in the little concern that financed the first Fulton ferry boats, running from Jersey City to New York. He was in the company that built the turnpike, the Bridge street bridge and that over the Hackensack. He was active in the erection of the Newark Academy at Broad and Academy streets, was one of the foremost in providing for the building of the present First Presbyterian Church. He was the first president of Newark's first bank, the first in New Jersey. He inspired the young men to form companies of militia. His daughters once made a flag which was formally presented to one of these companies, on Mili- tary Common. He was president of the New Jersey Missionary Society for a number of years.


It is easy to see that he strove to walk in the footsteps of Washington, and was tireless in his strivings to advance the general good. He does not seem ever to have sought for lofty preferment, and in 1805, as Justice Bradley explains in the paragraph already quoted, the judgeship of the Supreme Court of the State was taken from him because he was a Federalist in polities. In Washington's terms as President, Elisha Boudinot could have had a high national office beyond a doubt. He seems to have preferred to remain at home in his own State, and most fortunate it was for Newark that


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he did so. He embodies the highest type of Newark citizenship, and his character and achievements should be far better known than they are. The schools of Newark should become familiar with him, for Elisha Boudinot ranks, in the community's annals, with Robert Treat and Jasper Crane, of the founders; Colonel Peter Schuyler, the hero of the French and Indian wars; the Rev. Dr. Alexander Macwhorter, the first Governor Pennington, Dr. William Burnet, Colonel John Noble Cumming, heroes of the War for Independence and earnest promoters of Newark's welfare immediately thereafter ; with Justice Joseph Hedden, Jr., the Newark martyr, who virtually gave his life for the cause of independence, and with Moses N. Combs, Luther Goble and Seth Boyden, Newark's early "captains of industry."


Two days after Judge Boudinot's death the Centinel of Free- dom for October 19, which was on the opposite side of the political fence, published this tribute:


"His long and useful life has been devoted to the temporal and eternal interest of his fellow men. Eminently useful in his earlier days in the town in which he lived, by his zeal and liberality in measures calculated to promote its prosperity, he was endeared to his fellow citizens by every consideration that can excite esteem and respect in the bosom of honest and honorable man. *


* * His beneficence was large and universal. His life exemplary, his death peaceful, and his memory is blessed by his family and friends."


DEATH OF A TOWN FATHER.


Colonel John Noble Cumming, another of the soldiers under Washington who played a potent part in the making of the Newark of a century ago, went to his long rest in July, 1821. Of him the town newspaper said: "Seldom hath death called from us a man more worthy. Early in life he entered the tented field in the defence of our rights-and by his active, persevering bravery and patriotism through the eventful struggle of our Revolution greatly aided to establish American liberty. He fought by the side of Washington, enjoyed his confidence and reaped with him the rich reward of a nation's gratitude.


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"His counsels were sought as one of the fathers of our town. He cherished and encouraged the young, and for the afflicted and destitute he always had a heart and hand to console and relieve. Long will his memory be precious with the poor."


For more than a quarter of a century thereafter the news- papers occasionally chronicled the passing of some soldier of "Sev- enty Six," always speaking of them in terms of respect and high admiration, and, towards the last, invariably referring to each one that departed as a "Jersey Blue."


OTRA POTETE BLEVY


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CHAPTER XXVI.


NEWARK A CITY.


Want, mit


CHAPTER XXVI.


NEWARK A CITY.


F OR more than a decade before Newark actually became a city, the township's business had grown so great that it was con- ducted only with the greatest difficulty. Various expedients were tried, as described in Chapter XXIV, but the business continued to increase and the call for a city government became louder and more insistent. At the annual town meeting held on Monday, April 9, 1832, the following resolution, offered by General Isaac Andruss, was adopted :


"Whereas, the Township of Newark has become so populous 1 that it is impracticable to procure a room adequate for the accommo- dation of the Inhabitants of the Township when in Town Meeting assembled for the transaction of the annual business of the Town- ship,


Be it Therefore Resolved, That a committee be appointed to digest a plan for the division of the Township into two or more Wards, with a system for the transaction of the Township business upon equitable principles, by the two, or more separate Wards, and that the Committee report to a special Town Meeting to be called for that purpose."


The committee was made up of General Isaac Andruss, Joseph C. Hornblower, Stephen Dod, William H. Earle and Archer Gifford, the latter one of the town's leading lawyers, and a relative of Archer Gifford, the innkeeper. On June 2 of the same year this committee reported "that owing to the numerous population of the town," then about 15,000, "and its rapid increase," the division as suggested in the resolutions of April 9 was advisable, but that the aid of the Legislature was necessary. It therefore recommended that another committee be appointed to draft a bill for the division of the town into two or more districts. This idea was adopted and Hornblower, Andruss and Dod of the various committees were selected to draw the bill. A special meeting was held on January 3, 1833, to hear the report of this committee, when the plan for the proposed bill was


1 See Appendix D for population statistics.


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submitted, considered by sections and a committee of two from each of the informally existing wards was chosen to draft the actual bill. This committee was: £ North Ward-James Vanderpool, Archer Gifford. South Ward-Asa Whitehead, Amzi Armstrong. East Ward-Joel H. Condit, Joseph C. Hornblower. West Ward- Isaac Andruss, William Pennington.


This bill was quickly made a law. It afforded some slight relief, but not sufficient to meet the ever-growing demands. The desirability of incorporation as a city became a more and more popular theme of discussion. So, another act, providing a city charter, was prepared and adopted by the Legislature, on February 29, 1836. This was approved by a popular vote on March 18 of the same year.


PEOPLE ACCEPT CITY CHARTER.


The law required that the Act of Incorporation be approved by three-fifths of the voters. The total vote was 2,195. The tickets were simply "Corporation" and "No Corporation." The vote for incorporation was 1,870 "for" and 325 "against." The opposition was not so strong as had been anticipated, and the progressive spirit of the community won with a margin of 533 votes, the neces- sary three-fifths. The next day the Daily Advertiser published the following:


"Newark a City .- The roar of cannon announced to the town last night the gratifying result of the election. The charter is accepted by an immense majority, and the powers and privileges of a corporation are thus secured to us. * * The election was * conducted with entire good feeling and without any mixture of political prejudice. The same public spirit, we trust, will continue to prevail in all the future arrangements and counsels of the town. * As we have commenced, so let us continue, in the spirit of kindness, conciliation and disinterestedness, to act with a single eye to the common interest of the whole."


NEWARK'S FIRST CITY FATHERS.


The first charter election was held on Monday, April 11, the same year, 1836, and thus Newark became a city, with these officers: Mayor, William Halsey. Aldermen: North Ward-


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Abraham W. Kinney, William Lee, Isaac Meeker, John H. Stephens. South Ward-Isaac Baldwin, Thomas B. Pierson, Aaron Camp, H. L. Parkhurst. East Ward-William Garthwaite, Joel W. Condit, James Beardsley, James Miller. West Ward-Enoch Bolles, William Rankin, Abner P. Howell, James Keene. Each ward had also: A ward clerk, an assessor, a collector of taxes, a commissioner of appeals, a judge of election, two representatives in the school com- mittee, and three constables.


The following Saturday evening the city government was organized. Oliver S. Halsted (later made Chancellor of New Jer- sey) was chosen Recorder; Abraham Beach, City Clerk; Joseph N. Tuttle, Clerk of Common Council; Coroners, Stephen H. Pierson and J. I. Plume; Chosen Freeholders, William Stephens and Smith Hal- sey ; Surveyors of Highways, S. S. Dickerson and Edward Jones. The organization took place in St. John's lodgeroom, on the top floor of the Academy building, at Broad and Academy streets."


There were thirteen standing committees: Finance, Streets and Highways, Wharves, etc., and Commercial Affairs, Lamps and Watchmen, Fire Department, Public Markets, Poor and Alms Houses, Water for the Extinguishment of Fires, Police, Assess- ments, Public Grounds and Buildings, Schools, Offices and Applica- tions for Offices.


THE CITY'S SEAL.


On June 27, 1836, the committee appointed to procure a cor- poration seal made its report, which was adopted, and which was as follows: "On the right is a female figure seated; her right hand resting upon the hilt of a sword, her left suspending a scales, in equal balance. On the left is a female figure in a standing posture sustaining with her right hand the standard and cap of liberty, and her left arm resting on a bundle of rods, holding the olive branch. Between these figures is a shield, on which three ploughs are repre-


" The Charter of 1836, with many supplements adopted during the pass- Ing years, continuing in force until 1857, when the present (1913) Charter was obtained.


" See Appendix E for list of Newark's Mayors.


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sented; above is the dexter arm suspending a hammer. Encircling the whole are the letters and figures following, 'Newark City Seal, Incorporated, 1836.'"


THE SEVERAL HOMES OF CITY GOVERNMENT.


The town meetings were held in the town meeting house or church for several generations after the founding of the town. For a time before and after the War for Independence they convened in the County Court House. Early in the last century the session room of the First Presbyterian Church was used, and a small sum paid for cleaning the room after the meeting. Some of the meetings held immediately before the incorporation were in the lecture room of the Third Presbyterian Church, at James and Washington streets. The fact that there was no hall or room in the entire town large enough to accommodate the people at town meeting had quite as much to do with the creation of a city as all the other really larger needs. There had been talk of building a town hall for twenty years and more before the city charter was adopted. The Township Committee, which transacted the business authorized at the annual town meeting, met in one tavern or another, and toward the end of the township regime in the First Church session room.


4 On May 19, 1836, the new Common Council adopted the fol- lowing: "Resolved, that a special committee of three be appointed to negotiate for a room for the use of the Common Council and to report at the next meeting." At the next meeting, May 24, it was decided to lease the church building at what was then 16 Clinton street, and where the Young Men's Christian Association building was until the institution's removal to Halsey street. This edifice was leased for four days a week, with the privilege of using the basement for the use of the city surveyor, street commissioner and all other city officers, "the watch excepted." The yearly rental was $150. The next meeting of the Common Council was held in the Clinton street building, which was Newark's first City Hall, on the evening of May 27, at 7 o'clock.


' The author is indebted to Mr. Clarence Tobin, secretary of the City Hall Commission, for the greater part of the material upon Newark's City Halls.




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