USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Essex county, N.J., illustrated > Part 4
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ARTESIAN WELLS.
A
LL over the county, in many a nook or corner where such a
thing would never have been suspected, are artesian wells tapping mother earth, where beneath the shell babbles many a sylvan brook and rest quiet lakes of purest water, undisturbed by the pretty-hued fishes which, with many a dart and swirl, shoot from one water cave to another and where gently rising through seam and crevice, it reaches the surface and, in beds of sand and gravel, by nature formed, provides a home and harvest for the finny friends of man.
ESSEX COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTION.
TO O the lot of a very few, indeed, of her sisters did it fall to play such an active part in the Revolutionary War. Her geographical position was such that the doors were left wide open to its ravages, and hers, from necessity, if from no other cause, could not remain anything but an out and out
VIEW ON WASHINGTON PARK AND WASHINGTON STREET, NEWARK, N. J.
arms to welcome l'equannock's supply to its embrace. As we reach the subject of water supply more in detail in another chapter of this book, the reasons which stand out boldly in proof of the fact that few cities (if any) in the republic are sup- plied with water answering all purposes to a greater degree than that which the Pequannock furnishes, will be given.
ORANGE GETS WATER.
T HE bright little city of Orange, the second in size of the cities of Essex County, whose people made frequent and repeated demands for a better supply of water and this they finally procured. By building a dam across the west branch of the Rahway river, between the first and second Orange mountains, the waters of that sylvan stream were staid baek till a sufficient amount was husbanded to meet the wants of the beautiful city.
patriotie and dangerous position. As soon as the toesin sounded and war, cruel war, was at her doors, the mass of her people. who were patriots to the core, and lovers of liberty and freedom of the most exhalted type, they began playing the heaviest parts on the what proved a bloody stage. They had heard the shrill blasts of the trumpet of liberty which was echo- ing throughout the land, and the despicable stamp aet of the mother country had fired the hearts of the lovers of freedom everywhere throughout the length and breadth of the colonies, and it found the children of Essex ready to snap asunder the ties that bound them to the mother country, Notwithstanding the fact of their loyalty to the king and a religious desire for peace, they were ready to take up arms in defense of their liber- ties and rights.
As in all other sections of the country, there were those who, from one cause or another, had a lack of patriotism or were open and avowed royalists or tories and cast the weight of their
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ESSEX COUNTY, N. J., ILLUSTRATED.
influence and money against the patriots, they being mostly of the wealthier class and such as had been in the enjoyment of favors from the king.
The ringing declaration of Patrick Henry. " Give me liberty, or give me death," was being everywhere rehearsed, and the very safest place possible for the tory and his family was where they could have the protection of King George's red-coated batallions.
So loyal had the Jersey Blues proved in the French war, his majesty felt terribly disappointed and chagrined when he found the Jersey men patriots to the core, except as before said, those who became traitors to the cause and tale-bearers to the king's troops, and who thus were exposing the patriots to greater dangers and unnecessary sufferings.
The enthusiasm which Essex County manifested in the cause
troops to serve in the continental army, on the 9th day of October, 1775; the provincial congress of New Jersey, then sitting in Trenton, had the call laid before them on the 13th, when other than the news preceding it having reached congress, the illustrious John Hancock accompanied the call with a re- quest for several battalions of men, saying, " The congress has the firmest confidence that from your experienced zeal in the great cause. You will exert your utmost endeavors to carry the said resolutions into effect with all possible expedition."
The people hastened to fill the roll, not because of the mere pittance of five dollars a month which they would receive for the service, but because their hearts were fired with zeal for the cause and their bosoms swelled with pride that they were privileged to take part in the glorious battles for liberty.
The patriots of Essex, their close proximity to New York and
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VIEW ON BROAD STREET, LOOKING NORTH FROM MARKET STREET.
in which the people of the thirteen colonies were engaged, had few parallels. The roar of the British lion startled the inhabi- tants of the sparsely-settled region of the New Jersey common- wealth, and each man in whose bosom burned the flame of free- dom and was ready to escape from tyranny and oppression, seized fire-lock, trusty sword, flint-lock or musket, and bore well his part in the struggle which grew more fierce as the nearly right years dragged their slow length along.
Her position, geographically speaking, on the direct route be- tween (as they were even at that early day called) the two great commercial cities of the western world, placed Essex County between the upper and the nether mill stones, and her products, (says Stryker's Jerseyman, in the Revolutionary War,) made, to a certain extent, food for which ever army had possession during the long and eventful struggle.
Congress, then sitting in Philadelphia, making its first call for
other nearby places which were under the control of King George's troops, left them exposed to the wickedness of those who had been invited to leave Essex County for the county's good, and while the general public suffered more or less, there are cases of individual suffering and death on the record which are most heart-rending and cruel.
Joseph Atkinson, in his " History of Newark," compares New Jersey with Belgium. The first he entitles the battle-ground of the revolution, and the latter, the fieldl where the French military meteor, the great Napoleon, met lasting defeat. Little Belgium was his chief battle-ground. Some forty years before Waterloo was fought, "little Jersey " was the Belgium of the Anglo- American conflict.
As we take a survey of the revolutionary field and give the . mind free play over " the times which tried mens' souls," we will not be permitted to forget how our forefathers suffered and
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ESSEX COUNTY, N. J., ILLUSTRATED.
died for the liberty which is such a precious boon to us to-day. That little New Jersey and her daughter, Essex, and the latter's sisters, the misses Mercer and Monmouth, nobly acted their part, we have only to revert to the imperishable pen pictures historians have painted and the many war scenes and bloody battle-grounds which dot their territory over and bespangle their battle-scarred faces o'er and o'er.
From Trenton, in Mercer, where Washington pounced on the Hessians and convinced them by proofs irrefutable that there's virtue in the habit of quite early rising, for Washington bad whispered to his generals and they in turn had said to the foot- sore soldiers under them, " When the cock crows for the dawning,"
Let's up and at 'em- Those plaguy old Hessians, And give each one of them A choice Christmas dressing.
County, where Parson Caldwell immortalized his name and supplied the soldiers with a new stock of wadding and satisfied his spirit of sorrow and revenge - the British soldiers having wantonly and cruelly murdered his wife and child as they sat in the door of the parsonage watching the invading army march by.
Not satisfied with the murder of the parson's wife and infant child, they proceeded to fire the little town and soon laid it in ashes. Having satisfied their fiendish desires, they took up the line of retreat for Staten Island, the Americans keeping up a galling fire all the way to the bay.
Some years ago, while Bret Harte was paying a visit to the old church and the battle-ground of Springfield, he paid the fol- lowing tribute to the memory of Caldwell and the battle of Springfield, in the following lines penned in his own peculiar style :
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VIEW ON CLINTON AVENUE AND HIGH STREET, NEWARK, N. J.
Silently through snow and the bitter cold of a winter night, the patriot army took up the march, and when daylight was just breaking, Washington had crossed the Delaware, which was made wild by the winter's upbreaking of its December ice, and the line of march taken for Trenton. four miles away. And yet the first that Cornwallis knew of the little trouble at Trenton was the thunder of Washington's guns at Princeton. Mercer having done her part, Monmouth was ready to support her, and right royally she did it, with Moll Pitcher to help her, as is so graphically and in sweet poesy told by Dr. Thomas Dunn English.
At Springfield, we touch what was then the soil of old Essex, where Parson Caldwell, when the battle was the thickest, rushed into his church and gathered up the books called Watts' hymns, and in a moment was out again and rushing from soldier to soldier, exclaiming as he ran : "Give them Watts, boys, give 'em Watts !"-they having exhausted their wadding ; and the old church still stands to mark the spot, now in Union
Here's the spot. Look around you Above on the height Lay the Hessians encamped. By that church on the right Stood the bold Jersey farmers, and here ran a wall. You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball, Nothing more. Grasses spring, waters run, flowers blow, Pretty much as they did a century ago.
Nothing more did I say ? Stay one moment. You've heard Of Caldwell, the parson, who once preached the Word Down at Springfield? What? No? Come, that's bad. Why, he had All the Jerseys aflame. And they gave him the name Of " The rebel high priest." He stuck in their gorge. He loved the Lord God, and he hated King George.
He had cause you might say. When the Hessians that day Marched up with Knyphausen, they stopped on their way At the " Farms," where his wife, with a child in her arms, Sat alone in the house. How it happened, none knew But God and that one of the hireling crew Who fired that shot. Enough ! There she lay. And Caldwell, the chaplain, her husband, away.
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ESSEX COUNTY, N. J., ILLUSTRATED.
Did he preach ? Did he pray ? Think of him as you stand By the old church to-day. Think of him and that band Of militant plough-boys. See the smoke and the heat Of that reckless advance-of the straggling retreat. Keep the ghost of that wife, foully slain, in your view, And what could you, what should you, and what would you do ?
Why, just what he did, They were left in the lurch For the want of more wadding. He ran into the church, Broke the door, stripped the pews, and dashed out to the road With his arms full of hymn books, and threw down his load At their feet, Then, above all the shouting and shots, Rang his voice : " Put Watts into 'em boys ; give 'em Watts !"
And they did, that's all. Grasses grow, waters run, flowers blow, Pretty much as they did ninety-six years ago. You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball, But not always a hero like this, and that's all.
farms, in and surrounding these noted settlements, were well stocked with cattle and horses. There was plenty of grain, fodder and provisions, and it was esteemed rich foraging ground to the English who had been taught to believe that the patriots were naught but rebels and should be robbed and plundered at will, their houses, barns and other out-buildings committeed to the flames, while their contented and happy owners were dragged away to foul dungeons and prisons, to be tortured and starved, (as they often declared they should be) into submission to the king, unless, perchance, death should come to their relief.
Their bitter and wanton cruelty had a marked exhibition on the night of January 20, 1780. The weather was, and had been for days, so piercingly cold that the North river was frozen over. Over this bridge of ice marched the fiendish hordes, five hundred
VIEW ON MILITARY PARK AND PARK PLACE, NEWARK, N. J.
While the State of New Jersey was ravaged from end to end by the war waged so unrelentingly by the mother country, yet Essex County must and did bear the heaviest end of the burden. While the British troops occupied New York, Newark and Essex County was their favorite raiding ground and foraging field. For years the people slept with their fire-locks in hand. ready, at the first alarm, to do battle for life, home, kindred, neighbors and property, so close were the relations, and so inti- mate were the people one with another. The Tories would sally forth, banded together, or, as guides to British troopers, would seek out the patriots in their homes, which, in many cases, had long been familiar, take the men prisoners, insult the ladies, vandalize the property, and slip away without being molested. This did not so often happen though, since the watch-fires of the defenders were generally kept brightly burn- ing, and woe was it to him who approached without the proper countersign and pass-word.
Newark and Elizabeth were prospering townships, with many wealthy families who had been on familiar terms with those who had turned traitors and were domiciled in New York. The
strong, and commanded, or rather pretended to be commanded, by Major Lumm. At Paulus Hook, the band of red-coated miscreants formed for the march to Newark, with eyes glaring away to the well-filled larders and to the tables spread for the evening meal before the firesides of home. Newark, it seems, was not to suffer alone, but Elizabethtown had been elected to share its woes. The same night a band of troops crossed on the ice from Staten Island on a like errand for plunder and per- secution. Not content with the result of their plundering expedition by the troops of Major Lumm, the torch was applied to the new academy, and that pretty building, which was the pride of the town, was soon a heap of smouldering ruins This building, which was of stone, and erected on the upper green (now Washington park), nearby Washington place and Broad street, would, in all probability, have been standing to-day had the miscreant's match failed to create the sacrificial blaze.
The sacrilege committed by Major Lumm's command had more than a counterpart when the Elizabeth contingent of robbers, murderers and incendiarists sent the First Presbyterian
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ESSEX COUNTY, N. J., ILLUSTRATED.
Church up in fire and smoke. The flames of this memorable structure illumined the horizon for miles around and alarmed the Lumm soldiers, who mistook the fire for a movement of the Americans. At all events, they beat a hasty retreat from Newark.
As they left the town they vented their malignity on one of the most prominent patriots of the place, Justice Joseph Hedden, Jr. This gentleman came of a family noted for courage and firmness. His father, Joseph Hedden, Sr., who lived to be ninety-six years of age, was wont to speak with pride of the fact that he had eight sons in the service of the country during the struggle for freedom. His son Joseph was a man of great nerve. By the proceedings of the State Council of Safety, we find that Mr. Hedden was chosen commissioner for Essex County for signing and inventorying of the estates and effects of
stands. She saw the academy ablaze, but no one dared attempt to quench the flames, even if a single bucket of water could have saved the building. Some one told her the British were carrying off her brother. Over she ran and entered the Hedden house by one door while the soldiers were dragging her brother out of another. They had forced him from his sick-bed. and Mrs. Hedden was in her night-dress which was stained with blood. It appears the soldiers, whether from sheer brutality or eagerness to get on the retreat will never be known, essayed to drag Mr. Hedden into the street with nothing but his night clothes on. In her efforts to prevent this and to get her husband properly clothed, Mrs. Hedden braved the bayonets of the cruel soldiers and was severely, though not dangerously, wounded in several places. Meanwhile, the soldiers with Mr. Hedden and other captives, started on the retreat, taking the
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VIEW ON BROAD STREET, LOOKING SOUTH FROM MARKET STREET.
persons who "had gone over to the enemy." He was chosen in the place of Isaac Dodd, " who refused to act." The position, as may be readily imagined, was one that demanded in its occupant absolute fearlessness and firmness. So well had Mr. Hedden fulfilled his duties, that he was pointed out by the persons who had gone over to the enemy as a Newarker worthy of the bitterest persecution.
On the night of the 25th he happened to be at home-a rather rare family treat for an active patriot at the particular period we write of. As it was, but for the illness of Mr. Hedden, he would probably not have been at home. His house stood on Broad Street, near what is now Lombardy Street, facing the upper common, Washington Park. His married sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Roberts, lived on the other side of the common, about where the Second Presbyterian Church now
route down what is now Centre Street and along River Street to the old Ferry Road, now the Plank and trolley car road. While passing the Bruen property, the same which now forms the junction of Commerce and Market Streets, Eleazer Bruen is said to have had the coolness and daring to pass Mr. Hedden a blanket. The prisoner was marched to Paulus Hook-now' Jersey City-at the point of the bayonet and thence across the ice bridge to New York, where he was ruthlessly thrown into the old sugar-house. In consequence of the cold and danger to which his captors delighted in exposing him on the night of the raid and the cruel treatment he received at the old sugar- house, Mr. Hedden's limbs mortified, and when it became apparent that he could not live long his friends were notified, and his brothers David and Simon were permitted to remove him to Newark. Here he was tenderly nursed till death came to
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ESSEX COUNTY, N. J., ILLUSTRATED.
his relief on September 27. Like hundreds of others who gave of their fortunes and pledged their sacred honor and gave their lives for the liberties we now enjoy, he lies buried in an unmarked and unknown grave.
Ashamed of his conduet and that of his men-for it is said that he was a man not lost to all that was human-Major Lumm, like many another who thought to thus assuage the griefs begot of the gnawings of conscience, rushed into print and procured the insertion in Rivington's Royal Gasette, a rose- colored statement of the affair which would lead their readers to believe that the British raid, which caused so much needless sacrifice of life and brought into many a household such suffer-
He was a firm friend of his country
In the darkest times, Zealous for American Liberty,
In opposition to British Tyranny, And at last fell a victim To British Cruelty.
"It is proper here to state," says Mr. Atkinson, "that the account given of Judge Hedden's martyrdom, widely different as it is from all versions heretofore published, is related on the authority of the martyr's grand-niece and nephew, with whom he had interviews."
For a number of years after the war the remains of the old
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VIEWS IN NEWARK, N. J., LOOKING NORTH, SOUTH, EAST AND WEST, FROM THE PRUDENTIAL BUILDING.
ing and sorrow, was the result of a mistaken order. The effect of his rose-colored article was such as to make the matter far worse, and resulted in firing their hearts to increased love of country, home and fireside, and hatred of that British infamy which took many a long year to erase, even after the close of the war and the acknowledgment of independence to the American people. Upon Judge Iledden's grave-stone, as Mr. Atkinson has truthfully said in his "History of Newark,"-the whereabouts or existence of which constitutes matters of conjecture-was cut the following inscription :
This monument is erected to the memory of Joseph Hledden, Esq., who departed this life the 27th day of September, 1780, in the 52d year of his age.
Newark Academy were used by the children as a place for them to play " hide-and-go-seek ;" and lessons not a few were taken among the smoke-begrimed timber and stone, which made love of country and blood-bought liberty the household gods of many an American citizen who found his incentives there.
JERSEY BLUES
T "HERE being no shadow of a doubt that the name "Jersey Blue," which has clung so long and with such tenacity to the New Jersey soldier, holding on even to quite an extent during the late war of the Rebellion, originated with the soldiers of Essex County, we cannot well forbear a line or two as to its origin. Washington's grand piece of strategy at Trenton,
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ESSEX COUNTY, N. J., ILLUSTRATED.
which sent the British wheeling through the Jerseys and led up to the final episode of the war after, as we learned in our school days, a struggle which lasted "seven years nine months and one clay," doubtless did much to discourage the British and shorten the war.
Long years after Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, it was a common saying (and believed to be truthful) that he made use of goods which had been the personal property of Wash- ington, in packing his plunder, and which he was permitted to take away, glad to get rid of so much meanness under a commander and chief's uniform without any interference on the part of the grandest and most liberal of conquerors who, without let or hindrance, saw them go away. Our readers will pardon this departure from the thread of our story, so we will get back to where and to whom the honor belongs of furnishing the proud appellation of "Jersey Blue " to Essex County and indeed all New Jersey soldiers.
possess a peculiar charm to the British-on some particular service to which the word plunder clung closer than any. Capt. Littell, with his oddly-uniformed company, followed soon after. He had been a close student of strategy and knew the art of ambushing as well as the savage. Well acquainted with the country, he divided his little command, greatly inferior in numbers to the Waldeckers, and leaving one part behind and by a circuitous route with the other and a rapid march, soon placed himself in front of the enemy and boldly demanded their surrender. Not being able, owing to the nature of the ground and the approach of night, to determine the size of Captain Littell's force, the Waldeckers sought to make a retrograde movement. Instantly they were assailed in front and flank and soon becoming demoralized they surrendered, not having fired a shot. Thoroughly exasperated over the affair, the great inferiority of Littell's force becoming known, the British com- mander ordered out a large force of Hessians to wipe out the
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VIEW ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NEWARK, N. J.
A dashing son of liberty, one Capt. Littell, was a central figure among the patriots. Bold, daring and honorable was this son of Essex and a stranger to fear. He is said to have been a handsome man and a great favorite with the ladies. A volun- teer company which he commanded was presented by the fair daughters of Essex with a uniform of material for the appellation which time has thus far been unable to erase, with such marvellous appropriateness does it seem to have heen applied ; and little wonder, since the uniform consisted of "tow frocks" and "pantaloons dyed blue." Indeed it was not so much the color of the pantaloons or the tow frocks the Essex boys wore that fixed the appellation of " Jersey Blue," but it was their noble deeds in "flaxing " the enemy that made the name honorable and the color lasting. Two incidents, and this pretty narrative must give place to others. The very day Cornwallis moved out of Newark, a company of Waldeckers was dis- patched towards Connecticut Farms-a section which seemed to
affront and disgrace. These were as quickly discomfited by Capt. Littell's " Blues," his skill and gallantry. After goading and injuring the enemy at several points, by an adroit move he led them into a swamp where he soon had them entangled and at his mercy when they, in pursuance of the brilliant and safe example set by the Waldeckers, also ignominiously surrendered, and this time it was the Hessians who had been given a taste of the metal of our " Jersey Blues" and the brilliant tactics of Captain Littell.
THE AFFAIR AT LYONS FARMS.
ULLY determined that Lyons Farms should not be without F
its share in the glory of the success they heard of as being consummated all around, three daring spirits-Wade, Carter and Morehouse-concocted a scheme for capturing a company of twenty-five Hessians camped in a house nearby. These fearless spirits fixed upon a night when they should
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ESSEX COUNTY, N. J., ILLUSTRATED.
attack them in their rendezvous. Wade was to shoot down the sentinel while the others raised a tremendous shout and fired their pieces through the windows in the midst of the Hessians. The latter, terrified beyond measure, without even stopping to pick up their arms, fled in all directions to escape a foe which in the darkness they knew not of the strength or number.
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