USA > New Jersey > Morris County > A history of Morris County, New Jersey : embracing upwards of two centuries, 1710-1913, Volume I > Part 72
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Newspapers-There are now two newspapers in Dover-the Iron Era having recently ceased publication. The oldest of these is the Dover Index, now in its thirty-ninth year, a weekly, first published October 5, 1875. The present editor and proprietor is Francis F. Hummel, who has made his
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journal an interesting and profitable medium. The Dover Advance, now in its twelfth year, is published Mondays and Thursdays, by Harry R. Gill, editor and proprietor. Both papers are well supported, and give cordial and efficient support to the interests of their town. There are also several book and job printing offices in Dover which turn out excellent work.
Societies-There are in Dover many societies and organizations-social, fraternal, patriotic, religious and benevolent. The churches maintain strong societies, each in its own sphere, and all accomplish great good. The fra- ternal orders are the Masonic, Odd Fellows, Royal Arcanum, Moose, Knights of Pythias, Pythian Sisters, Knights of Malta, Daughters of Lib- erty, Elks, Eagles, Buffaloes, Grand Army of the Republic, and others.
Destructive Fire-While the foregoing pages were being prepared for the press, Dover experienced a most destructive fire. On June 28, 1914, the Richardson & Boynton stove and range manufactory caught fire, and the entire plant was destroyed, with the exception of the shipping department building. This was Dover's largest industry, covering thirty acres of ground, and involved a loss of half a million dollars, partially covered by insurance. The works ordinarily employ upward of eleven hundred men. They had been closed down for about three weeks, for repairs. The fire is attributed to incendiarism. At noon of the day following the fire, laborers were en- gaged in removing the debris, and the work of rebuilding was immediately begun.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH.
The following concerning Mr. Alfred Vail and his connection with the American Electro-Magnetic Telegraph is by his son, James Cummings Vail :
The Electric Telegraph had, properly speaking, no inventor. It grew little by little, each inventor adding his little to advance it towards perfec- tion. In 1816 Ronalds signalled through eight miles of wire. In 1828 Dyer, an American, strung wires on poles, with glass insulators. From 1828 to 1831 Prof. Joseph Henry sent electric signals at Albany, New York. Prof. Chas. A. Joy, Ph.D., writes in Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly for August, 1878, as follows :
Prof. Morse in his Report of the Paris Exhibition of 1867 lays claim to the following inventions and discoveries as having been made by him:
I. The recording telegraph, operated either electro-magnetically or electro- chemically.
2. The telegraphic relay circuit, or the opening and closing of a secondary circuit by means of a primary circuit.
3. The dot and line alphabet.
4. The use of sounds as a medium of receiving telegraphic communications.
5. The system of automatic transmission by the use of metallic type, or of the embossed paper strip from the register, as a means of opening and closing the circuit. 6. The use of a printing wheel and ink as a mode of recording, generally known as the "ink writer."
On page 159 of Alfred Vail's book, "The American Electro-Magnetic Telegraph," 1845, is a chapter headed "Electro-Magnetic Printing Tele- graph invented by Alfred Vail, Sept., 1837:"
Baxter, Vail's mechanical assistant in 1837 and 1838, says: "Alfred was exceed- ingly modest As the weak points developed Alfred began to draw upon the resources of his own wonderful power of invention We constructed the new lever and produced a register capable of making dots, dashes, and spaces. He saw in these new characters the elements of an alphabetical code . and instantly set himself to construct such a code."
The following letter was written about the time they began to read by sound :
MED. COLL. OF OHIO, CINCINNATI,
Feb. 16, 1846.
Mr. Vail : some explanation is due to Prof. Morse and his friends in reference to my newspaper announcement of my discovery of the "talking telegraph." I was not aware of Prof. M.'s special experiments on this subject and the announce- ment was made, not as a piece of public information, but as an exciting point of information to my subscribers, to whom I stated that the thing had no practical utility, differing little from the recognition of the letters by tapping or drumming out the contacts, a thing shown to me at the Telegraph Office, at Washington, and I considered it still as Morse's Telegraph
The evolution of the telegraph, as given in Vail's records: (Signed) JOHN LOCKE.
Jan. 15, 1848, Vail writes in his Diary: "Have been writing the history of my connection with the Telegraph," and an undated manuscript was amongst his papers, in which he says, "called on Morse early in 1837 and was told by Morse that he was about to bring out a discovery which would make some noise in the world."
On Sept. 2, 1837, an accidental visit revealed to him this discovery, being the
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"pendulum" machine, constructed by Morse, and he at once offered assistance for a share in the invention, and the agreement of September 23, 1837, was made.
Alfred Vail was born September 25, 1807, at Morristown, New Jersey. On his mother's side he was descended, through a long line of preachers, from one of Queen Elizabeth's chaplains, and had several preacher an- cestors on his father's side.
His diaries, which he began in 1825, show a deeply religious trend, and he studied for the ministry, at the N. Y. University, before his partner- ship with Morse. In 1825 he went to work in his father's machine shop and at once began to record the products of his inventive brain, amongst others, fountain-pens, stenographic printing machines and drawing machines for artists. The mechanical work of his early youth fitted him well for taking hold of "the rude machine containing the germ of what was destined to produce great changes in the condition and relations of man."
The diary of Judge Stephen Vail for 1837 gives the following: "Sept. 9, Alfred home. Oct. 28, S. F. B. Morse came here last evening. Dec. 21, Prof. Gale is with us. Prof. Morse came this evening." On September 18, 1837, Vail sent Morse a check for $30 to pay for filing his caveat. Morse writes Vail from New York, October 11, 1837: "I am not idle, I assure you"-he was working on his dictionary, completed October 24, 1837. On October 19th he writes to Vail, still from New York, "I long to see the machine you have been making, and the one you have been maturing in the studio of your brain." This shows that mechanical work was taken up by Vail on his own lines shortly after the partnership was arranged for.
Judge Vail's diary for 1838, during which period the Vails supplied the necessary funds for the development of the machinery, and provided the locus in which the work was performed, records under date of Janu- ary 6th, "they have worked the telegraph in the factory this evening for the first time."
So far as I know, after careful inquiry, there is nothing to show what machines were produced at the Speedwell Works between September 9, 1837, and the machine used in Baltimore in 1844, except the following from Vail's notes :
The frame, wheels and drums of the Register instrument were made, for then it was designed to put a sheet of paper upon a drum which slid upon a square bar of cast-steel for about 18 inches. This drum has a single spiral on one end made of steel plate which projected beyond the surface of the drum. Below each drum there was a long brass bar containing teeth of the same gradation as the spiral and into which the spiral worked so that at every revolution of the drum it would move on the steel bar the distance of one spiral on the end of the drum. The drums were placed horizontally and side by side and the machinery was so constructed that when the paper of one drum was entirely filled with the markings of the pen it could be stopped and the other cylinder commence its movement. The pen was placed midway between each end of the steel shaft, whose length was nearly twice that of the drum. This machine was never entirely completed as it was thought to be too cumbersome and also on account of a better mode having been devised so as to dispense with one of the drums. That improvement consisted of a single drum about 3 inches in diameter which opened through its center, and when it was designed to put paper on these two half drums, the paper was inserted into a clasp on the side of each half drum which shut down, holding the paper fast. The two half drums were then taken, one in each hand, and placed on the square cast-steel shaft and, when brought together, a catch secured both half drums together and drew the paper tight to the outer surface of the drum. When on the shaft the spiral on the end of the drum moves in a tooth rack below and thus carries the paper along making a sort of spiral written line on the paper. When one drum was about to be filled another was put on the shaft and by a peculiar catch fastened to the one before it until the first was entirely filled when it was taken off, the paper taken off and new put on. There were two machines of this kind.
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During the construction of the register and magnets there was also constructed a machine for holding the type in convenient rules about three feet long, called port rules, and also apparatus for carrying it along at an equal speed so as to close and break the circuit. There was also another instrument made for changing the poles of the electro magnet, so that the current should pass thro the helices of the magnet, first in one direction and then in another, the object of which was to counteract the effects of the permanent magnetism which it was apprehended would increase to such a degree from long use of the current in one direction as to destroy its electro magnetism by producing permanent magnetism. It was, however, found after a short trial without it that it was useless and could be dispensed with.
After a stay of a few days at Philadelphia the instruments, etc., were taken to Washington and set up in the room of the Committee of Commerce in the Capitol (the wire was placed on two reels of five miles each; used numbers entirely and a Dictionary) where they were exhibited for several weeks to members of Congress, the President of the U. S., Martin Van Buren, and his Cabinet.
Prof. Morse, F. O. J. Smith and myself set out for the North. The two former with the intention of preparing to sail at an early day for Europe, and myself to Speedwell Iron Works to prepare suitable instruments for them to take with them in order to take out patents in European Countries: On my arrival at Speedwell two instruments were commenced on a different plan from that so recently exhibited at Washington. The paper was to be ribbon paper, and the pens to hold ink instead of using pencil as in the former case. New devices were also made for the port rule, one of which was a groove in which the punctured type were to slide down an inclined plane until they came in contact with a trap wheel surrounded with small wire protections that match the holes in the type. This wheel was driven by clock- work and gave a uniform motion to the type. Another plan was that in which the type were to descend vertically in contact with the wheel as described Fig. 17 in the "Description." The pen was made by taking a piece of plate brass about 1-16 and a half thick, 3/4 inch long and 1/2 inch broad, slitting the plate into two plates for about half its width with a saw 1-16 or less in thickness and then sawing with a fine saw at right angles the opposite edge in four equally distant places until the cut reached the parallel division. These spaces were filed to a point so as to form pen points and the wider saw cut was then stopped at its two. ends, so as to form a reservoir for the ink. This, soldered to the end of the magnet lever, was used as a pen for making four dots or lines in paper, instead of a pencil as in the former case. The paper was made to pass over a cylinder directly under the pen so as to make the proper marks. The paper was driven by a clock train as in the other cases.
On his return to America, Morse applied himself occasionally to perfecting his invention and as I occasionally called upon him at his office I was made acquainted with his improvements. He was also engaged at this time with the new discovery of Daguerre. One of his improvements, so considered then, was the correspondent for the purpose of transmission by means of keys for each letter of the alphabet. He could on pressing down the key wind up a weight over a pulley, then releasing his finger from the key, the type for breaking and closing the circuit representing a letter would slowly return to its former position, producing the required marks of spaces for making the letter. He was also much engaged in producing some mode of marking better suited for the purpose of marking on paper than lead pencils or pens supplied with ink. In this his modes were numerous, such as marking upon metallic plates, upon different kinds of prepared paper, all these in turn were thrown aside for some better device.
Alfred Vail writes of seeing the Pendulum machine on September 2, 1837, "Before leaving the room in which I beheld for the first time this magnificent invention, I asked Prof. Morse if he designed to make an ex- periment on a more extended line of conductors. He replied that he did so intend, but desired assistance to carry out his plans. I then promised him assistance for a share in his invention, to which he assented." On January II, 1838, the first public exhibition was had at the Speedwell Iron Works, described in a manuscript found among the Vail records. I believe written by Morse, which says in part :
"It is with some degree of pride that it falls to our lot first to announce the com- plete success of this wonderful piece of mechanism, and that hundreds of our citizens were the first to witness its surprising results, and no place could have been found, more suitable to pursue the course of experiments necessary to perfecting the details
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of machinery, than the great retirement of the Speedwell Iron Works. Replete as they are with every convenience which capital and mechanical skill can supply, Prof. Morse quietly pursued the great object, which for a considerable time has engaged his attention, and has finally succeeded in carrying it into successful practice, aided by the ingenuity of Mr. Alfred Vail. Others may have suggested the possibility of conveying intelligence by Electricity, but this is the first instance of its actual trans- mission and permanent record. The words were put into numbers from the Dictionary; the numbers were set up in the Telegraphic type in about the same time ordinarily occupied in setting up the same in a printing office. They were then all passed complete by the Port Rule in about half a minute, each stroke of the lever of the Port Rule at one extremity marking on the Register at the other, a distance of two miles, instantaneously. We watched the spark at one end, and the mark of the pencil at the other, and they were as simultaneous as if the lever itself had struck the mark. The marks or numbers were easily legible, and by means of the Dictionary were resolved again into words. Part of this appeared in a Morristown Newspaper a few days after the exhibition."
The location is thus described by Vail:
It was in the upper room of the old factory building on a wire, hung around the room two miles in length. At one end of the wire was the battery-at the other was a small frame upon which was placed a sheet of writing paper. The battery was put in operation and communicated the contents of a note, written by one of the ladies present, thro the wire, in the spaces and lines in the other end; Prof. Morse translated it into English.
A picture of this old building is shown in Pope's 1888 "Century" articles. Shortly after this exhibition, the machines were taken to New York, as recorded in the following letters from Alfred to his brother George:
New York, January 22nd, 1838.
We received the machine on Thursday morning and in an hour we made the first trial, which did not succeed, nor did it with perfect success until Saturday-all which time Prof. M. was unwell; he is altogether inclined to operate in his own name, so much so that he has printed 500 blank invitations in his own name, at your expense. Prof. Gale is not at all pleased with his conduct towards him, in not making the agreement.
New York, January 23d, 1838. 1
Prof. M. feels better and will perhaps be willing to have us share with him in the honors, etc.
Extracts from a record kept by Alfred Vail and called by him "Journal of the Telegraph," beginning from the opening of the Washington-Balti- more line :
M. for Morse at Washington, V. for Vail at Baltimore, R. for Rogers at Balti- more, W. for Wood and Z. for Zantzinger, both at Washington.
May 27, 1844. Separate your words more. Oil your clockwork. Don't be so impatient. V. Yes. M.
May 28. Mind your Bs and Ms. M. Yes. V.
June 7. When did you come this morning? M. 10 minutes after 9 o'clock. V. That explains. M. Keep circuit closed. V. Accident. M.
June II. You closed your circuit-don't do it. V. Wait a minute. M. Yes. V. I had it so. M. It is strange. V. Study it out. M. Yes. Change to E. & W. V. Yes. M. Is it all right? V. Yes. M. The two wires require more cups. V. No go. M. Yes, Yes, I have caught him now. V. Glad. M. You have not soldered the wires right. V.
June 12. Dr. Smith says you must not go without dinner. V. No danger. M. Dr. Lardner spoke in high terms of your telegraph-if it was yours. V. Who does he think it belongs to? M.
June 14. Write faster. V. Yes. M. How do you like standing? V. Not much. M. A great bug has confused me. M. Drive him out and sit down. V. I can't. M. I hope you have no impediment. V. Only the bug and I have killed him. M. Three cheers. V.
July 15. Now for the great experiment. Is it all right? V. Yes, good, three cheers. M. Don't keep your circuit closed. It bothers me-Hurrah boys. V. This
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is grand. M. Three cheers. V. Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah. M. Well done. V. Don't keep the circuit closed. V. Habit is strong. M.
Aug. 30. I have finished the new register, it works well. V. Glad. M.
Aug. 31. I shall go to Washington on Monday morning with the new register- do you want it at the Capitol? V. I want 2 at the Capitol and 2 at the Post Office. M. I have but one ready. V. No matter at present. M.
Sept. 7. I have made a diagram of the wires as they now are and by it the thing is no mystery. V. Yes. M.
Sept. 9. Let us take things leisurely. V. I wish I had your diagram. M. Made you one. V. I will look for it. Is all right? M. Yes-strike firmer. V. Yes. M. Repeat your last. V. Three cheers. M.
During the long wait from February, 1838, to March, 1843, when the Congress appropriated $30,000 for an experimental line from Washington to Baltimore, Vail was engaged on other affairs, in Morristown, and with Baldwin, Vail & Hufty in Philadelphia, now the Baldwin Locomotive Works; he was also from time to time experimenting on the machinery for the telegraph.
May 1, 1844, "Telegraphed all day. In the afternoon announced the nomination of Mr. Frelinghuysen." This seems to have been the first message, by telegraph, of a public nature.
August 6 and 7, 1844, "Experimented across the Susquehannah River without wires, favourable results."
September 26, 1844, "Telegraphed from the Post Office."
December 25th, Washington, A. Vail to his father, "We are every day engaged in reporting proceedings of both Houses for Baltimore Patriot- so much depends upon me that I cannot leave for the present. I have the complete oversight of working the Telegraph."
April 2, 1845, Washington, A. Vail to G. Vail, "I am now connected with Post Office Department at Washington, U. S. of America. Have been sworn in and entered upon my duties."
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CHAPTER XVIII.
THE ROGERENES: FIRST WHITES IN ROXBURY TOWNSHIP. BY THEO. F. WOLFE, M.D., LITT.D.
The fact that the only existing "histories" of Roxbury township and Morris county contain no mention of the peculiar people who were certainly the earliest white settlers within the boundaries of the township apparently makes it worth while to preserve in print the little that, at this late day, may be ascertained concerning them.
It seems incredible that a wide district in the vicinage of Lake Hopat- cong was much more populous two centuries ago than it now is. Of this district the pretty lakelet, locally known as Mountain Pond, is the approxi- mate geographical centre, and upon its shores and in the adjacent valleys were the abodes of forty or more families of a religious sect called Rog- erenes, who came from the vicinity of New London, Connecticut, where their peculiarities of belief and conduct had provoked a persecution by their orthodox "Christian" neighbors which "left them neither liberty or property or a whole skin," as one ancient chronicler narrates. Being non-resistant and seeking an asylum from their tormentors, many families of the sect organized a colony and with their little ones and cattle set out upon a tedious and toilsome march, through a country much of which was then a trackless wilderness.
This journey, at length, brought them to this, then wild and secluded region, where they were to live out their lives and sleep in death. The date of their settlement here cannot now be definitely fixed, but trappers, sur- veyors, etc., who visited the district in 1709-15, found the Rogerenes already established here, having large fields of grain and orchards of productive apple trees. That the apple trees were already bearing fruit would seem to indicate that the settlement had been begun as early as 1700. The sect had been founded in New London in 1674, by John Rogers, who passed most of his subsequent life in prison, and, as persecutions by the church authorities began almost immediately, it is not improbable that this New Jersey community may have made their exodus by the beginning of the eighteenth century. Why they chose this comparatively rough tract of land for their settlement in preference to the more level and more easily cleared and cultivated lands of the plain bordering the nearby Alamatong (the Indian name for the Black River ) will never be known.
Some decades later, about 1734, a smaller company of Rogerenes, whose practises differed somewhat from those of the Mountain Pond com- munity, came from New London and settled upon the eastern slope of Schooley's Mountain. This company was composed chiefly of the Colver family and the families with which it had intermarried-the Lambs, Tuttles, Burrows, Salmons, Manns and Owens-and were usually called Colverites by other settlers. Three years later they removed to Monmouth county, where they remained eleven years, and then returned and located on the summit and western declivity of Schooley's Mountain, a few of them near the famous Chalybeate Spring, whose medicinal virtues were already recog- nized. Two of the original colonists, Thomas Colver and Sarah Mann,
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were living as late as 1792, and descendants of the Colverites are among the most reputable residents in that neighborhood to this day.
But the Mountain Pond Rogerenes had no direct association with the Colverites. They (the Rogerenes) came at a time when the Indians were yet in undisturbed possession of the territory, and they planted their homes in an unbroken wilderness among reputed savages, whom they found more friendly and tolerant than their Christian neighbors in New England. Their rude houses were of logs, mostly sixteen feet by twenty in size. Remains of stone foundations and of excavations for cellars or caves of at least twenty such habitations may yet be found in the district indicated, and many more have been removed in clearing the present fields for cultivation. Their log schoolhouse-sometimes used as a church-stood near the point where the road from Mountain Pond joins the Mt. Arlington highway. This was the "one place of worship" in New Jersey accredited to the Rogerenes by Samuel Smith, the State's first historian, in his quaint chronicle of 1765.
Some of their cabins were near the present line of the highway as far north as the late John Tone's place, and the settlement extended westerly toward Berkshire and easterly almost to Shippenport. The clearings which once surrounded their dwellings have in many instances given place to heavy growths of timber, in which may be seen regular rows of decaying apple trees, obviously of great age and probably planted by this people in the last years of their sojourn. A long and deep trench, manifestly ex- cavated for a superficial outlet to Mountain Pond into the Shippenport swamp, also remains an evidence of their patient industry.
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