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 5
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A RIVAL GAS COMPANY.
"In 1867 a strong disposition was shown to establish a competi- tion with the old gas company, and in the succeeding winter a large deputation of Newark citizens visited Trenton to urge the passage by the Legislature of an act incorporating the Citizens' Gas-Light Company of Newark. By an urgent effort the charter was procured, and approved by the Governor March 16, 1868. It named as incor- porators the following gentlemen: Moses Bigelow, William H. Murphy, John McGregor, John Hall, Andrew A. Smalley, George A. Clark, Nehemiah Perry, John H. G. Hawes, Orson Wilson, Isaac Pomeroy, Frederick G. Agens, James F. Bond, Frederick Stevens, James M. Durand, William B. Kinney, James H. Tichenor and David Anderson. Messrs. Bigelow, Murphy, Smalley, Hawes and McGregor were appointed commissioners for receiving subscriptions for $100,000, to constitute the capital stock of the company, in shares of $50 each. Power was given in the charter to increase the capital stock to $500,000, and to lay pipes and furnish gas to any of the townships of Essex County adjoining the city of Newark, except the town of East Orange. By a supplement passed in 1869, the company was further empowered to lay pipes across the bed of the Passaic River to the works of the East Newark Gas-Light Company, and sell gas to that company. An increase of $500,000 was also authorized to the capital stock, making a full capital of $1,000,000. The books were opened for subscription on April 16 and 17, 1868, and the necessary amount was promptly raised. On April 30, 1868, the stockholders met for the election of directors, and on May 1 the board was organized, as follows: President, William H. Murphy ; secretary, James F. Bond; treasurer, Andrew A. Smalley ; directors, William H. Murphy, George Peters, Francis Mackin, John McGregor, James L. Hays, A. A. Smalley, Orson Wilson, James F. Bond and Charles Engle.
"The work was immediately commenced on Front street, and speedily completed and put into operation. The bitter opposition manifested to the application for a charter by a rival company subsided soon after the establishment of the new works, and the two companies, finding that the growth of the city afforded ample demand for the supply of gas furnished by the additional facilities, suspended animosities and worked together in a friendly way for their mutual advantage, each furnishing gas to private consumers or for public purposes in its respective territory."
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In 1895 the two companies were consolidated under the name of the Newark Gas Company and this was absorbed in the Public Service, as described near the close of the preceding chapter.
EDISON AND WESTON.
Thomas A. Edison did much of his experimenting upon electric lighting in a shop on Mechanic street, in this city. Edward Weston, a resident of this city, and head of the great electrical instrument works at Waverly which bear his name, did a wonderful work, for which the civilized world is his debtor, in making electric lighting a commercial possibility. The first incandescent light was made in Menlo Park, shortly after Mr. Edison removed to Newark, in the late seventies. Weston came to Newark about the same time, and to stay. His first workshop was in Washington street, a little south of Market. By means of his inventions he greatly improved electric lamps, both arc and incandescent. It is not too much to say that Mr. Weston was one of the very first in all the world so to harness electricity as to make the light produced by it of practical daily use at moderate cost. He organized the United States Electric Light Company, with its plant on Morris and Essex Railroad ave- nue, where the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Com- pany, with vastly increased facilities and area, is now (1913) located.
The Newark Electric Light and Power Company was incor- porated in 1892, starting at 31 and 33 Mechanic street. It was absorbed by the Public Service, as already mentioned.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE ANTE-BELLUM MAYORS-OTHER NEWARK LEADERS -EARLY IRISH RESIDENTS.
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CHAPTER XXVII.
THE ANTE-BELLUM MAYORS-OTHER NEWARK LEADERS-EARLY IRISH RESIDENTS.
T HE first Mayors of Newark were picked from among the leading men of the community. Politics played their part then as now, but the head of the city government was always one who had already achieved much for the advancement of the community and was looked up to as representative of the best and highest expression of citizenship as it was then understood. Newark espoused the principles of Jeffersonian Democracy from the time they were first enunciated by the founder of the party. But as the township of Newark grew in wealth and industrial power the Whigs became ascendant. All the early Mayors were Whigs. The first Democratic Mayor was Moses Bigelow. After the Rebellion, Republicanism held sway for a considerable time, although Demo- cratic principles have prevailed in a greater number of elections since the war.
WILLIAM HALSEY.
William Halsey, Newark's first Mayor, was sixty-six years of age when he took office. He was born at Short Hills in 1770 and was admitted to the bar in 1794. From that time he rose rapidly in the esteem of the people not only in Newark but throughout the entire county. He was considered as one of Newark's ablest men, and while he avoided taking public office throughout nearly his entire career, was always among the foremost in public movements intended to improve the community's welfare. A few years after his service as Mayor he was made a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He died suddenly, of apoplexy, in 1843, at the age of seventy-three.
THEODORE FRELINGHUYSEN.
Theodore Frelinghuysen, second Mayor of Newark, was forty- nine when he succeeded Mayor Halsey in 1837. Until 1857 the
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term of office was one year, and two years, thereafter. Mr. Freling- huysen was born in Franklin Township, Somerset County, and was the grandson of the Rev. John Frelinghuysen, who came from Holland in 1730. Mayor Frelinghuysen's father, Frederick, was a graduate of Princeton, then the College of New Jersey, in the class of 1770. He was elected to the Provincial Congress of New Jersey at the age of twenty-two, in 1775, and had been admitted to the bar in the preceding year. He served the following year, and in 1778 was chosen to represent New Jersey in the Continental Congress. He declined to serve, although he served twice a little later. In 1795 he was elected to the United States Senate, from which he resigned a year later because of domestic bereavement. One reason he gave for refusing the first election to the Continental Congress was that he could not afford the expense of travel and the other monetary obligations. In 1776 he organized the artillery company for the eastern part of the State, two having been authorized by the Provincial Congress. He was with Washington at the crossing of the Delaware and at the taking of Trenton. An officer of the enemy gave up his sword to him and it is a tradition in the Frelinghuysen family that a shot from Captain Frederick Frelinghuysen's pistol mortally wounded Colonel Rahl, the Hessian commander at Trenton. The sword is now in the possession of Captain Frelinghuysen's great-grandson, Mr. Frederick Freling- huysen, president of the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company (1913). Captain Frelinghuysen became a colonel in 1777 and served with distinction until toward the close of the war. He was made a brigadier general of the United States Army in 1790 and served in the Whiskey Insurrection. He died in 1804. Such was the father of Newark's second Mayor.
Theodore Frelinghuysen, the Mayor, was graduated from Princeton in 1804, the year his father died. He was admitted to the bar in 1808, and a year later came to Newark. Says Shaw's History of Essex and Hudson Counties :
"During the thirty years in which he was fully employed, and in most of the important cases that arose in different parts of the State, he was sure to be retained. His eloquence as an orator, and
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WILLIAM HALSEY Newark's First Mayor
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his excellent judgment as a counsellor, brought clients to him from every direction. In 1817 a Legislature opposed to him in politics elected him in joint meeting Attorney-General of the State, and, by re-elections, retained him in that office until 1829, when he was chosen a Senator of the United States. Already had he declined the office of Justice of the Supreme Court, tendered him in 1826.
"Not only on the floor of the Senate, but in its committees, his abilities were unquestioned, and the influence which he there exerted was felt many years after he had left it. The first important matter on which he addressed the Senate was the bill for the removal of the Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River. His object on this occasion was to defeat the bill, and his speech is described as one of great power and eloquence. He also took an active part in the discussion of the Pension Bill, the President's Protest, the Force Bill, the removal of the government deposits from the United States Bank, the compromise tariff, etc. His Senatorial term expired in 1835, and he resumed the labors of his profession.
"In the following year Mr. Frelinghuysen was elected Mayor of Newark, and in 1838 was re-elected, and would have been continued in that office, without doubt, had he not been chosen, in 1839, Chancellor of the University of the City of New York. This position he accepted. *
* ** He had passed scarcely five years in this retirement from the conflicts of the forum when, in 1844, he was called upon by the Whig party to be their candidate for Vice- President of the United States, with Henry Clay, their great leader, as candidate for the Presidency. It was a memorable political struggle, to which even the names of these two most popular men could not bring victory to their party, but the principles which they represented were subsequently triumphant. The contest over, Mr. Frelinghuysen continued to pursue the even tenor of his way, performing, perhaps, even more heartily than ever his daily duties, as well as those imposed upon him as President of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, also as president of the American Bible Society.
"At last, in 1850, he was chosen president of Rutgers College, located in New Brunswick, not far from the spot on which he first drew breath, and, though still a vigorous man, it is easy to believe that he looked not forward to many more years on earth, and that so near to the place where they first began it would be appropriate to have them end. He accepted the position, and twelve years after, on the 12th of April, 1861, his distinguished and useful career came to a close."
JAMES MILLER.
Of James Miller, the third Mayor, who served in 1839, very little is known to-day, except that he was a prosperous coach lace
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manufacturer, lived on Park place and was at one time an officer of the militia.
OLIVER SPENCER HALSTEAD.
Oliver Spencer Halstead, Newark's fourth Mayor, in 1840, was also the first chancellor of New Jersey, being appointed under the Constitution of 1844. He was born at Elizabeth, in 1792, was grad- uated from Princeton in 1810, was admitted to the bar in 1814 and at once began the practice of law in Newark. He was the first recorder of the city of Newark, in 1836. He was at different times a member of the Assembly, a member of the State Council and surrogate of Essex County. He was a man of deep learning, and in his later years a great student of the Bible. In 1875, two years before his death, and at the age of eighty-three, he published "The Book Called Job," a literal translation from the Hebrew, copiously annotated. He also wrote "The Theology of the Bible."
WILLIAM WRIGHT.
The fifth Mayor, William Wright, was born in Rockland County, New York, and after being engaged for some time in the saddlery hardware business in Bridgeport, Conn., removed to Newark. He built up a fine business in saddlery hardware manufacture, and retired, after thirty years, about 1854, then being a little over sixty. He served three consecutive terms as Mayor, at the height of his business career. While in his second term he was elected as repre- sentative to Congress. He was re-elected in 1844, and three years later was candidate for Governor, but was defeated by Daniel Haines. He was at first a Whig and an ardent supporter of Henry Clay in 1848, but two years later he went over to Democracy, and in 1853 was elected United States Senator by that party. He was defeated by a representative of the then new Republican party at the expiration of his first term, but in 1863 was returned to the Senate. He died in 1866 at the age of seventy-six. He was deeply interested in Newark's advancement and did much for the develop- ment of its industries. There is a tablet to his memory in the House of Prayer.
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STEPHEN DOD.
The only business credited to Stephen Dod, the sixth Mayor, in the Newark directory for 1844, is that of Mayor. His residence was on the west side of Broad street, between Bank and Market.
Dod's successor, in 1845, was Isaac Baldwin, whose home was on the east side of Broad street, nearly opposite Hill street. He was one of Newark's pioneer jewelry manufacturers, and his concern was one of the most prosperous in the city at the time he was Mayor.
BEACH VANDERPOOL.
Beach Vanderpool, Newark's eighth Mayor, served two terms, 1846-7. His handsome home was on the south corner of Broad and Division streets, where the Continental Hotel now (1913) stands. He was at one time president, manager and superintendent of the Morris and Essex Railroad, was one of the chief promoters of Newark's first gas company and was looked upon as one of the wealthiest men in this part of the country.
His son, Eugene Vanderpool, one of the pioneer members of the Essex County Park Commission, was a powerful force in the development of the Newark Gaslight Company, of which his parent was a founder.
JAMES M. QUINBY.
The tenth Mayor, James M. Quinby, had the honor of three terms, from 1851 to 1854, William Wright being the only one of his predecessors to serve so long. He was the founder of the firm of J. M. Quinby & Co., the oldest carriage manufacturing concern, but one, still doing business in the country. He was born in Orange in 1804, and died in Newark in 1874. As a youth he served his apprenticeship with John Hedenberg. He was foreman in the factory of G. & A. K. Carter when that company failed, in 1834, and he continued the business on his own account. He became State Senator in 1860.
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HORACE J. POINIER.
Horace J. Poinier, eleventh to hold the office (counting the two terms of James Miller separately), served three years, 1854 to 1857, and was the last to be elected for a one-year term. He was born in Newark in 1810. It was said of him in 1884: "He entered upon the duties of the office in January, 1854. This proved to be a trying year for Newark. Asiatic cholera, with all its terrors, came upon it, and, while the doctors were expected to administer medicine to the sufferers, the Mayor was, in a general way, held responsible for the cure and for the ultimate banishment of the horrible disease. Vic- tims were taken from all classes of society. Terror took possession of every household. Every one cried out, 'the cholera must go,' and every one had a method for hastening its departure. Some, believing that the streets were unclean, went to the Mayor and read to him the laws upon that subject. Others, impressed with the idea that rum and beer drinking made all the trouble, went to the Mayor and read to him the laws on that subject. Others, again, convinced that Sabbath-breaking was the sin for which the city was under- going punishment, went to the Mayor and read to him the laws on that subject. All, of course, told the Mayor that the laws must be enforced, and as that appeared to him to be a part of his duty, he took the matter in hand with his characteristic energy, and in his usual business way. Of course, there was opposition, and at the next election he found himself, undesignedly, the leader of a 'Law, Order and Morality' party which comprised a large majority of the voters of Newark, as the election brought to light. Mr. Poinier, after being three times elected Mayor, retired from office with the respect of all who knew him. He was one of the incorporators of the Howard Savings Institution."
MOSES BIGELOW.
Moses Bigelow, the twelfth and last of Newark's ante-bellum Mayors, and whose service to the city in that capacity extended more than half through the Rebellion, was a powerful and, in some ways, inspiring personality. Some day a work may be prepared
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devoted to the "war mayors" of the Union during the struggle with Secession, and if it is done, Mayor Moses Bigelow's name will be given a high place. His difficulties as head of Newark's city government were peculiarly onerous, since there was a strong sym- pathy with the South, due largely to business reasons which per- vaded an influential portion of the community. Moses Bigelow was descended from German and Scandinavian stock, and his first Amer- ican ancestor was prominently identified with the beginnings of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Mayor Bigelow was born on the family homestead at Lyons Farms, in 1800. He attended the schools at Lyons Farms and at Elizabethtown, and, although he read law for a time in the office of Governor William Pennington, in Newark, he engaged in manufacturing when he came of age. He was an influential factor in many enterprises. He was one of the incor- porators of the Morris and Essex Railroad, draughted the charter of the Mechanics' Fire and Marine Insurance Company; was an incorporator and a director of the Bank of New Jersey, the Howard Savings Institution, the Firemen's Insurance Company, the Republic Trust Company, the Citizens' Gaslight Company and other Newark corporations. He was a trustee of the Trenton State Asylum for the Insane for many years, and was the first president of the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He was elected Mayor of Newark, in 1856, as the first to hold office under the two-year term. He was re-elected three times, serving more years than any of his predecessors, and successors, with the sole exception of Mayor Joseph E. Haynes, who served ten years. Mayor Bigelow "was unusually well equipped," writes one biographer, "for such a position. Cautious, reticent, independent and firm, his con- duct was uniformly even and correct, yet his success never led him to unseemly self-assertion or personal ambition. As Mayor, he inaugurated a system of block maps to facilitate taxation and num- bering of houses; procured the establishment of sinking funds to extinguish the city debt; brought about the purchase of private water rights and the formation of the Newark Aqueduct Board; organized a police department, dispensary of medicines for the poor ;
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** * and directed the codification ordinances, and the modifica- tion or repeal of obnoxious ordinances. During the Civil War he made the financial affairs of the city his especial care and negotiated all public loans, and it is high tribute to him to record that all his plans were approved and adopted by the Common Council. In per- son, he had an impressive presence; he was of superior intelligence and entire sincerity, and withal, liberal in benevolence. He was intensely fond of literature, and his evenings were devoted to his books and his library. He died in Newark, January 10, 1874."
The twelve ante-bellum Mayors covered a period of a genera- tion, about thirty years. When Mayor Halsey took on his brief authority in 1836, the new-born city boasted of about 20,000 inhabit- ants. When Mayor Bigelow finished his noble endeavors, in 1864, Newark was three and one-half times greater in population, 70,000. It had passed through two severe panics, those of 1838 and 1857. In the first its population dropped from about 20,000 to a little more than 16,000 in a single year, and it was not until 1843 that the community had regained the population it had in 1837. In 1857 it lost less than two thousand, and in 1859 the population was the largest thus far known.
NEWARKERS OF NATIONAL REPUTATION.
It has been the fixed purpose of the author to deal with the individual as little as possible in this work, believing that a truer grasp upon the history of Newark is to be had by presenting causes for the different changes and developments and tracing them to their effects-to give, as it were, a series of true pictures of life and the periods, from which a clear understanding of the whole panorama of nearly two hundred and fifty years may be had. At this point in the narrative it seems advisable, however, as has been the case occasionally in previous chapters, to present a person or group of individuals in some detail in order that Newark's real life and actual personality, as a community, may be made plain.
While the heads of Newark's industrial enterprises were carry- ing its name and reputation into all corners of the country and often
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to distant climes ; while its sturdy and energetic Mayors were tak- ing dominant parts in expanding and improving upon the admin- istration of affairs as a city, there was another group of men who were lifting its name and fame higher and higher by reason of their intellectual achievements, and who, some of them, became characters of national prominence. This was so during the last three-quarters of the last century, and particularly so in the two middle quarters. Brief life-stories of several of them will be found in chapters outside of the narrative history. Those of a number follow :
GOVERNOR WILLIAM PENNINGTON, 1796-1862.
One of the leading men in Newark throughout the period embraced by the administration of the twelve ante-bellum Mayors was William Pennington, son of Governor William Sanford Penning- ton, the noble old son of '76, who gave up his chances of a patrimony from a rich loyalist uncle and became an officer in Washington's army. The son was born in Newark on May 4, 1796. He prepared for college in the Newark schools of the day and entered Princeton, being graduated in 1813. He studied law in the office of Theodore Frelinghuysen, was licensed as an attorney in 1817 and in 1820 became a counselor, starting the practice of law here. He was a member of the Assembly in 1828, was chosen Governor and chan- cellor in 1837, and was re-elected each succeeding year until 1843. As chancellor, only one of his decrees was overruled. "On ceasing to be Governor he resumed the practice of the law, and soon found his time fully occupied, chiefly in arguing causes before the Supreme Court and in the Court of Errors. Several of these cases became quite celebrated, and are fully reported. On the adoption of the Constitution of 1844 it was generally believed that Mr. Pennington would receive the nomination of chancellor, but such was not the case, and he no more held any prominent State office. During the administration of President Fillmore, in 1850, he was offered the Governorship of the Territory of Minnesota, but declined the appointment. In 1858, notwithstanding his protests, he was nom- inated for Congress and elected. On the assembling of that body
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in December, 1859, the contest between the South and the North had assumed such a shape that the prospect of organizing the House seemed for a time almost hopeless, but after a bitter struggle of nearly two months Governor Pennington was elected Speaker. It was a position which he had neither expected nor desired, but the duties of which he discharged with signal ability. His death occurred on the 16th of February, 1862, and was hastened, if not produced, by a large dose of morphine, administered through the mistake of an apothecary. He had been for some years an elder of the High Street Presbyterian Church." 1
In 1911 the home of the second Governor Pennington, on High street, a little south of Kinney on the east side of the street, was razed to make room for the new synagogue of the Congregation Oheb Shalom. At that time William Pennington, former President of the Common Council, wrote an interesting historical sketch of the old house, which is in part as follows:
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS.
"In 1838, High street, if street it could be called at that time, was an unpaved, muddy thoroughfare, with open fields on either side, and with no fences or evidences of the coming civilization. Almost all west of the street, in the neighborhood of what came to be known as 'No. 670,' was free of buildings of any kind, and where now some of the city's neatest dwellings stand, apple and pear trees grew and the gentle kine lowed and browsed about between them.
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