A History of the city of Newark, New Jersey : embracing practically two and a half centuries, 1666-1913, Volume II, Part 7

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 7


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"Quite a colony of Irish Roman Catholics and Presbyterians removed from Newark to Belleville about this time and worked there in large numbers in the large quarries, calico, copper and white lead factories. Among the number was a man named John Ryan, who is said to have been a participant in many Irish Revolu- tionary engagements, and to have figured conspicuously in the famous Vinegar Hill battle. Also Robert Riley [the Newark set- tler of 1810], of whom it is said, some of his people were ardent believers in the revolutionary doctrines of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Theobold Wolf-Tone and Robert Emmet, and were hanged in Ireland in 1798, from the shafts of their own drays."


According to an aged and highly respected Irish-American citizen still [1878] living, who came here in 1828, there were then in Newark only about thirty Irish families, including those already named. One of the most kindly remembered and universally esteemed of these was Charles Durning. He was a weaver by trade, and used his opportunities so as to acquire ownership of con- siderable property.


FATHER PATRICK MORAN.


While there were a few Irish families attached to the Pres- byterian church, the majority were Catholics. The history of the early Catholic church in Newark will be found in the chapters devoted to the churches. But one cannot omit from the main narrative some mention of Father Patrick Moran, the second regu-


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larly installed pastor of St. John's Roman Catholic church, in Mul- berry street, the first in Newark. He began his duties here in 1832, and was virtually the father of Catholicism in Newark. He was a potent force for good in the community throughout all his long pastorate, which ended only with his long-lamented death, thirty-three years after he came to Newark. He had many strong friends in the city outside of his own religious faith, and was of inestimable value in reducing the depressing prevalence of drunken- ness. In 1842 he prevailed upon his entire congregation to take the pledge, and it was seldom, indeed, that any of these members forgot their obligations. He is said to have resembled Benjamin Franklin in personal appearance.


It is a fact of little significance, viewed from the standards of to-day, that Newarkers of other faiths taught their children to treat Father Moran with respect; but it means much, when it is remembered that in the thirties, forties, fifties and for some little time thereafter, the Irish in Newark had to submit to many indigni- ties. The first St. Patrick's celebration in Newark was held in 1834, and the paraders were treated with derision then and on many a similar occasion thereafter. Nearly all the early New- ark Irish were immigrants, arriving with all the poverty and after the manifold hardships that the name once implied. The Newark-born who controlled the affairs of the community, while they welcomed them as workers, would not, or could not, treat them as their equals. It was the day of "Know-Nothingism," one of the last dying traces of the ancient Puritan intolerance, out of which grew small riots and more or less turbulent times. More is told of this period in the chapters devoted to the Germans in New- ark. The sturdy old ante-bellum Mayors of Newark found them- selves sadly beset by the contending factions in those controversies, and they handled them with varying tact and wisdom. As in the case of the Germans, the Newarker of many generations seldom understood the Irish. He could not credit the immigrant from the Emerald Isle with being animated with much the same spirit of aggressive independence as his own forebears.


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Nevertheless, Newark was quick to sympathize with the suf- ferers of the great famine in Ireland and Scotland in 1847. Two shiploads of provisions, clothing and other necessities were sent from New Jersey. One of these vessels, the William T. Dugan, was built and owned in Newark. This vessel carried nearly $7,000 worth of food for the Irish, and $1,000 worth for the Scotch. All this could scarcely have been supplied by the Irish and Scotch residents of this section of the State, for they were comparatively few in numbers and nearly all of them in most humble circum- stances. The first Roman Catholic cemetery in Newark (if one except the few interments made in the very early days at St. John's Church) was a little plot on the hillside, looking towards the then beautiful Passaic. To-day it is the well-nigh forgotten burying place in the rear of St. Michael's church, near the southwest corner of Belleville and Fourth avenues, and was there long, long before St. Michael's parish was dreamed of. Thither, for many a year, the exiles from Erin when called to their last sleep, were borne from old St. John's church on Mulberry street. There many a sturdy soul who had left the homeland disheartened and discour- aged by oppression was finally laid to rest. The plot has not been used as a cemetery for a generation and longer (1913) .


One of the very earliest of the Irish settlers in Newark was Michael Donnelly, who "landed in New York January 2, 1805," writes Paul V. Flynn in his History of St. John's Church, Newark, "and walked to Perth Amboy, where he found employment, but soon after came on foot to Newark. * * In the 40's the Irish population increased rapidly; many of them formed inde- pendent military organizations later and were members of the volunteer fire department. Dr. James Elliott was a member of Columbian Engine Company No. 6 for many years. Only healthy, athletic and sober young men were admitted to the fire companies in the early days; abstinence from intoxicating drinks was one of the standing rules. Many of those who came here at an earlier date prospered as merchants and tradesmen. Christopher Nugent (father of the wife of former United States Senator Smith), his


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brother James (the father of City Counsel James R. Nugent), and the Doughertys became leading morocco leather manufacturers ; the Sanders, the Brannans and McFarlands had large factories, and the sons of Irishmen were apprenticed in all trades. Irishmen formed the Erin Guards and the Montgomery Guards; and when the Civil War broke out the Irish and their descendants were potent factors in the community. Charles Bogan (father of the Rev. Bernard M. Bogan), Thomas McNair, Peter Grace and Francis Quinn were prosperous bakers. The Shanleys (Michael and his sons, Bernard M. and John F.), the Smiths (James Smith, Sr., and his son, James Smith, Jr.), the Morrises and the Clarks and Thomas O'Connor (father of the Right Rev. John J. O'Connor, Bishop of Newark), led as contractors and builders; Christopher Nugent was one of the largest leather manufacturers in the country."


Among the names added to the list of Newark's early Irish settlers by Paul V. Flynn are the following: "Michael Rowe, Charles Bogan (father of the Rev. Bernard Moran Bogan), the Far- rells, John and Hugh McConnell, John McColgan, John Holland (father of the late Rev. Michael J. Holland, who died while rector of St. Columba's church), William Downs, Patrick Matthews, Maurice Fitzgerald, John Neil, Robert and Thomas Garland, Patrick McEn- roe, John Francis Hoppen."


THE MEXICAN WAR.


By 1848 Newark's population had reached 30,000, which shows that the average gain for the twelve years since the incorporation of the city had been less than one thousand. It still, no doubt, felt the effects of the panic of 1837, although its industries were steadily increasing in prosperity. Its people were immersed in their business. They paid comparatively little attention to the Mexican War, the majority looking upon it as a political war, and one that might have been avoided, as was the feeling in many other American cities at the time. Several of the city militia companies, in the first burst of enthusiasm, offered their services to the Gov- ernor of the State, but none of these went to the front. New Jersey


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sent a single battalion to Mexico, with comparatively few Newarkers as members. This battalion was entertained in Newark at. the City Hotel, Broad and William streets, and then marched un Broad street, over Bridge street bridge and on to Jersey City, tak ing transport for Vera Cruz from New York, on September 29, 1847. General Joseph W. Plume, in conversation with the writer in 1913, recalled having seen this battalion passing up Broad street on its way to cross the bridge. The popular attitude of Newark toward this war may be gathered from the following paragraph published in the Daily Advertiser for June 27, 1848:


"A small company of battered soldiers passed through with the Rail Road train yesterday, on their way home from the battlefields of Mexico-having had quite enough of gore and glory. One of them, a modest, sensible-looking man, mentioned that he was the only survivor of twenty-one men who left Waterbury, Conn., about a year ago-a sad messenger to twenty heart-stricken, bereaved family circles. And all for what?"


THE PASSAIC RIVER IN THE SIXTIES.


If there is one picture to which the Newarker past middle life (in 1913) clings lovingly in memory, it is the Passaic as it was in his childhood. A Newarker who was a boy playing about the river in the days of the Civil War wrote out his reminiscences about a decade ago. They contained the following:


"During the war one of the Marcus L. Ward hospitals was in the White building, at Commercial Dock, and another was in the trunk factory building at Centre Street wharf. * * * I will never forget a seare we boys got there in 1864, when some of the wounded soldiers made targets of us from the wharf across the river. Maybe they were not shooting bullets from their Springfield rifles, but we thought they were, and we left our clothes behind and skedaddled, lying down in the hedge behind the bank.


"In the days I speak of we caught shrimp and crabs at Centre street bridge, and just above the bridge was a famous place for catching striped bass and white perch. During the war several big blockade runners were sent up the river and anchored just above Centre street bridge while their cases were being settled by the courts. The draw of the Centre street bridge was a queer thing in those days. When they wanted to open it, they slid aside a section of the framework of the bridge on the west end and then rolled back the draw into the place vacated by the block of track


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which was removed. It was said to be the only draw of its kind in the world when it was built. * *


"The water was beautifully clear in those days, and it was easy to see objects on the bottom at a depth of ten or fifteen feet. One of the points of interest was Green Island, just off the shore in front of the Cedars [near the Gully road], the home of Henry William Herbert, who styled himself Frank Forester. This sedge island which bloomed at times with rose mallows among the calamus and cattails, was the mark for a famous striped bass fishing reef across the river. Little striped bass were to be caught almost any- where in the river in those days, but fish of over a pound in weight were seldom taken except upon this reef or down at the poplars about where Chambers street comes down to the canal. At the Point House [on the River road three or four hundred yards above the foot of Chester avenue], known then as the Halfway House, was a fisherman who netted the river for smelt, shad, bass and everything else; but then he was not alone. Half a dozen net reels were to be seen along the shores, between Newark and Belleville, and there were several more between the latter place and Passaic. The smelt, shad, bass and sturgeon ran up as far as Dundee Dam, and some- times the river would be as thick as gruel with young menhaden, while at other times millions of small, translucent eels would swarm upstream.4


"At the mouth of Second River, at Belleville, a reef extended nearly across the river, just above the point where the Greenwood Lake Railroad bridge crosses. On the east bank was one of the most picturesque little parks in the country. It was in a grove of hemlocks, spruces, oaks and chestnuts, rising abruptly from the river to a height of more than fifty feet. A wealthy man built a house on the east of the road at this point and then proceeded to make a pretty little rustic park of the section between the road and the river. He built rustic stairways about the trunks of some of the big trees, with summer houses amid the boughs; constructed fences, pathways and stairways of cedar boughs and logs, and made the place a veritable garden of natural beauty with ferns, rhodo- dendrons and vines." (Traces of this work were to be seen quite recently.)


Until within a decade or so of the period with which the writer just quoted dealt, the banks of the Passaic from a point about opposite Kearny castle, and, in fact, on both sides of the river, was given up largely to goodly estates, the families being on terms of social intimacy, moving back and forth in their boats in pleasant


" There was a record run of shad in the Passaic in 1878, also of herring and smelt. There were very few in 1879, and practically none in 1880.


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weather, and enjoying the beauties of the river to the full. Even before the War for Independence, the river banks had been widely advertised as an ideal region for gentlemen's estates. These estates continued for several miles up the river. The heads of not a few of the families traveled back and forth to business in New York, over the old Schuyler road behind their teams of fast horses. All this began to disappear soon after the coming of the railroads.


Passaic River aquatics had a comparatively short but brilliant history. Boat-racing began on the stream soon after the close of the Civil War, and came to a melancholy end in the early 1900's because of the pollution of the river, the popularity of the bicycle and the multiplication of outdoor attractions. One by one the clubs dropped out of existence or maintained social organizations only. To-day but two are left, the Institute Boat Club and the Nereid Boat Club of Belleville.


The first regularly organized club was the Passaic Boat Club. Its first meeting was held July 5, 1865, the original members being W. H. Beebe, E. B. Vanderveer, E. C. Dillingham, E. N. Crane and D. S. Crowell. The first race of which there is any record was rowed in September, 1866, between six-oared crews of the Passaics and a short-lived Newark organization known as the Nereids, but having no connection with the Belleville Nereids, formed later. The course for this race was two miles. The Passaics won, and the Nereid Club collapsed. The Passaics got their charter in 1868.


The Triton Boat Club was organized in 1868, being formed "around," as one may say, a boat owned by Sidney N. Ogden, called "Flash." It carried three oarsmen, each rowing two oars. Associated with Ogden at first were Allan C. Thorburn, William Lowe and Sydney Cockshew.


The Mystic Boat Club was the third on the Passaic, but it was really older than the Tritons, being formed on the Mystic River, in Connecticut, by a small group of young men who lived in New York, and who removed their outfit to the Passaic, in Newark, because of its accessibility, not long after the Triton Club was started.


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In 1873 the Eureka Boat Club was organized, as an offshoot from the Tritons. The Belleville Nereids were organized on July 10, 1875, in what is now Nutley, with eight charter members and with J. Roger Kingsland as the first president. The clubhouse was removed to Belleville in 1879.


The Institute Boat Club held its first meeting on September 3, 1878. It is the sole surviving Newark boat club (1913). The Ariel Boat Club started in 1879 and ceased to be active in 1886.


The Passaic River Amateur Rowing Association was formed by the Newark boat clubs in the winter of 1874-'75, and its first regatta was held on Memorial Day, 1875. These regattas were con- tinued for twenty-seven years, the last being held in 1901. By that time the river had become so foul that it was found impos- sible to get young men sufficient to row in the crews.


When boating was at its height here, two great regattas of the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen were held on the Pas- saic course, in 1878 and in 1883. In 1878 there were no less than eight boat clubs on the Passaic. In the year 1890 the Middle States' Regatta Association was organized and held its first annual regatta on August 6 and 7 of that year, on the Passaic. In 1889 the Atalanta Boat Club of New York established a Newark branch, maintaining a clubhouse on the Passaic until 1894. The Newark Rowing Club was organized in 1894, and disappeared with the others in the decadence of the sport. Newark oarsmen during the generation in which aquatics were followed by several hundred of the city's young men, won scores of races, both here, on the Har- lem, the Schuylkill, in national regattas and elsewhere.


NEWARK IN 1876.


The late Mrs. Martha J. Lamb gave a highly interesting pen picture of Newark as she found it in 1876, the Centennial year. Part of it is given in one of the chapters on the Germans in Newark. Another shows the city in general as it impressed her while it was still, after all, in many ways an overgrown factory village, with a few traces of the village days still discernible. It then had a


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population of about 123,000, about one-third of the present (1913) total:


" 'I am seized with a violent disposition to take off my hat to my ancestors whenever I walk down Broad street,' once remarked a distinguished public character. It is one of the widest and finest thoroughfares on this continent. It is not only the great business, but the social centre of a city which spreads over an area of eighteen or more square miles. And it was created in the beginning. Its banks, insurance and mercantile blocks are substantial and in many instances elegant. (How they did love to use that word 'elegant.') Its churches illustrate the ornate architecture of the period. The northern and southern portions (of Broad street) are deeply shaded with magnificent trees. Here, in dignified mansions, reside the families enriched by the industries of the busy town. The southern portion of the street is now, more strictly speaking, Newark's West End. In former years the aristocracy clustered about the enchant- ing parks to the north. The stately homes of such ancient and important families as the Frelinghuysens, the Hornblowers, the Wrights, the Wards, the Days, the Halseys, the Van Antwerps, the Nicolls and many others, still ornament this part of Broad street. About midway Broad is crossed at right angles by Market, another exceptionally wide street, also an ancestral legacy. The neighbor- hood of the intersection is the great pivot of the city's trade and commerce, which extends to every quarter of the civilized globe. Market street rises, in district school parlance, in the Court House, in the western hillside, and empties into the railroad depot, to the east. From the top of the Court House you look down upon a per- fectly straight street filled with horse cars and vehicles of every sort and description, while the sidewalks are half hidden from view by the boxes and bales and moving throngs of people.


"The sight of a weekday morning about 7 o'clock is something to be remembered. An army of men and women and children, the latter of all ages, fill both street and sidewalks as they proceed to their various employments. There was never a more useful thor- oughfare than Market street. It is none too broad; and it is exactly where it should be. It drains that portion of the city which sits upon a hill. And a very large portion of the city seems to sit upon the hill, or on the billows of hills and picturesque elevations which overlook the sea of brick and foliage upon the plains below. To the right and left of you runs High street, parallel with Broad. It is very properly named, although the brow of the heights is not yet reached. It is lined with handsome private residences, planted at easy distances from each other, amidst leafy and flowery sur- rounding, and has the smooth pavement which renders it a favorite drive. The streets which connect it with Broad street are a little


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too steep for comfort, but by a gradual descent to the south, where elegant mansions dot the soil as far as the eye can reach, and a mild detour, you will find yourself upon the common level. To the west, north and northwest of the Court House the better class of dwellings prevail, the more noticeable the farther you go. Tasteful villas are scattered here and there, but their grounds have been clipped off at the edges by the scissors of industry, and they are closely pushed by rows of ambitious cottages, schoolhouses and great, unsightly mills. * * * Newark affords very slight facilities for evening entertainment. Concerts and lectures have a fair share of patronage during the winter season, and one theatre is sustained. New York is too conveniently near, however, for the encouragement of artists and actors, and Newark is well educated and exacting as far as real excellence is concerned. The press of Newark is cordially supported in the production of several daily and weekly journals, notwithstanding the influx of New York papers with their triple sheets.


"The charities of Newark are more interesting than numerous. The wants of the suffering poor are as fully met as elsewhere, which leads me to observe that cases of extreme destitution are less frequent than in most of our large cities. * * *


"Perhaps Newark, with her aspiring tendencies, will yet spread forth her arms and embrace the whole of Essex and Hudson coun- ties. It would be no more wonderful than the events of the last half century."


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CHAPTER XXVIII.


NEWARK AND THE CIVIL WAR.


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CHAPTER XXVIII.


NEWARK AND THE CIVIL WAR.


N EWARK paid heavy toll, in blood, treasure, privation and sorrow, to the Civil War. Its population (United States Census) in 1860 was 71,941. A year later it had grown to about 73,000. By 1862 the population had dropped to 70,000, and in 1863 had sunk to 68,000, returning to 70,000 a year later. There is no adequate unit of measure by means of which one may estimate what the war cost the city. The bereavements and desolation of families are scars no longer visible, and succeeding generations have no comprehension of the strain and stress and trial through which the city passed. It is quite within the natural order of things, but to be regretted nevertheless, that Newark of to-day does not more clearly realize what the Newark of the early sixties endured.


EARLY NEWARK ABOLITIONISTS.


Newark had its abolitionists from the time of the War for Independence. Shortly thereafter Moses Combs, the father of Newark's industries so far as putting them on an organized basis is concerned, had preached the freeing of the blacks ; and in order to show that he dared to practice what he preached, he gave a slave his freedom, as told in a preceding chapter. This black man was most ungrateful, and he later killed his own wife and was hanged, here in Newark. New Jersey had an Abolition Society as early as 1792.


TROUBLE OVER THE NEGROES-1801.


The slaves, and, in fact, all the black population, gave the people of the town much anxiety from the opening of the last cen- tury. On January 7, 1801, the people were "requested to meet at the Court House, at the ringing of the bell, to deliberate upon the expediency of adopting measures to effect the following objects:


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1. To prevent the unlawful residence in the town of free negroes or such as falsely declare themselves to be free. 2. To prevent negro slaves from meeting together in an unlawful manner. 3. To prevent their unlawful absence from their owners after 10 o'clock at night. 4. To prevent persons unlawfully dealing with or employing slaves."


In February, 1804, an act of the Legislature was adopted declaring that all children of slave parents born after the Fourth of July of that year, free; but providing that those born previous to that date should continue in bondage. This left sixteen male and fifteen female slaves in Newark for life. There were twenty slaves here in 1836, and three in 1840.


By 1809 the black population had become so demonstrative that another meeting was called, for the evening of October 3, "to con- cert means to suppress the riotous and disorderly meetings of Negroes in our streets at night. These disorders have grown to a very great pitch and call loudly for the vigorous application of the law." At that meeting committees from each of the four wards were appointed to see that the slave laws were enforced. On the night of December 1, 1830, the New Jersey General Debating Society met in Newark and discussed this question: "Would it be politic for the United States to effect an immediate emancipation of slaves ?"




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