USA > New Jersey > Hudson County > Jersey City > History of Jersey City, N.J. : a record of its early settlement and corporate progress, sketches of the towns and cities that were absorbed in the growth of the present municipality, its business, finance, manufactures and form of government, with some notice of the men who built the city > Part 50
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Mr. Flemming gave much of his time to public duties in various city and county JAMES FLEMMING. offices to which he was elected, and was active and untiring in his efforts to bring about reform in the various departments of the city's interest. He was an active member of the board of education from its organization to his death, and was largely instrumental in building up the public school system in Jersey City, believing that the free public schools would be the safeguard of our nation.
In the latter years of his life Mr. Flemming had retired from business, but devoted much of his time in the performance of publie duties in offices held by him. Although a man of robust health and fine physique, he was stricken with an acute disease which terminated his life, in a few days, on March 14, 1863.
The numerous public bodies with which he was and had been connected met and passed eulogistie resolutions.
The board of education bore willing testimony to the earnestness and diligence with which all the duties pertaining to his office were ever faithfully performed.
In the common council, resolutions were offered by Alderman Hardenburgh : " In private life he was quiet and unobtrusive ; in his public course he was devoted to principle, and knew
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no compromise, nor would he admit of any. We have lost a citizen of no mean distinction, and it is eminently fitting the public authorities should thus make record of their appreciation of their loss and of his own public and private worth."
Mr. Flemming married, in 1831, Alice Amy, eldest daughter of Mr. Isaac Edge. Their children were: James, Jr., died October 1. 1894 ; married Sara, daughter of Robert Latou, Esq., of New York. George W., died in infancy. Frances H., wife of Dr. Isaac N. Quimby. Alice E., wife of William Henry Lewis. L. Julia, deceased. Benjamin E., deceased 1877. Dudley Digges. Mary Louisa, deceased 1889, wife of Clarence Gray Parker. (A son, Dudley Digges, and daughter, Louise Flemming, survive Mrs. Parker.) Mrs. Alice Amy Flemming, a lady of intelligence and refinement, devoted to her family and home, survived her husband seven years, and died December 11, 1870.
DUDLEY D. FLEMMING was born in Jersey City, on the property now occupied by 57 Mont- gomery Street. He attended Publie School No. 1 until 1860, when he entered business in a coal office at the Morris Canal basin. He left there to enter the service of the Jersey City Gas Com- pany, and held various positions in the manufacturing department until 1880, when he became engineer and superintendent. He remained in that position until 1887, when the property was transferred under lease to a Philadelphia syndi- cate, and he resigned. Since that time he has been consulting and constructing gas engineer. He has never accepted any publie office, though he has taken a lively interest in the progress of his native city.
ROBERT COCHRAN BACOT was born in Charleston, S. C., September 16, 1818. His ancestors were descendants of the French Huguenot families of Bacot and De Saussure, who settled in South Carolina in 1694. He graduated at the College of South Carolina in 1835, and began to practise his profession of civil engineer in exploration for the South Carolina and Louisville Railroad through the Carolinas, Kentucky and Tennessee, and subse- quently in New Hampshire and Massachusetts for the Concord and Manchester Railroad. At the age of twenty-one he settled in Jersey City, where he married Mary Gilchrist, daughter of Robert Gilchrist, Esq. For a score of years he had nearly DUDLEY D. FLEMMING. exclusive charge of the improvements in Jersey City, and the development of the farm land as the city grew. He laid out most of the streets, planned the sewers and had charge of the improve- ment of the Coles, Van Vorst and other large estates which comprised the greater part of the lower section of the city, and subsequently, as a commissioner under appointment of the court, divided the property among the heirs.
Architecture was then a part of his profession. and Public School No. 1, in York Street, the county jail, several churches and many private dwellings, still remain as monuments to his in- dustry and skill. Part of the time he was associated with Andrew Clerk ; the firm's name is continually turning up in the old records of the eity. During Mr. Bacot's active career of half a century the city has grown from a population of 2,500 to over 180,000, and his professionai skill and labor contributed notably to this development. The county, town, township and city maps made by him are constantly in use, as the original surveys, as the standards for conveyance and transfers of property and landed interests. He acted as commissioner to divide the Kerrigan, Annett, Oliver and many other large estates ; purchased and developed the Tonnele and Van Wagenen properties, and was a commissioner on the condemnation of lands for the Hudson River tunnel, as well as for numberless other similar commissions. His estimates of cost de- feated the original Boulevard scheme in 1870. Between 1870 and 1880 he purchased the right of way for the Ilarsimus branch of the New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company, involving
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an expenditure of about $2,000,000 ; and for many years he was the New Jersey appraiser for the Equitable Life Insurance Company, of New York. He built several of the main sewers of Jersey City, and recommended a plan for flushing them by utilizing Mill Creek as a tidal reser- voir. He was registrar of the Jersey City water department in the years 1857-60, and engineer and superintendent from 1860 to 1865. During this period he introduced a system of measur- ing water used by large consumers, and its successful results led to the use of meters for the same purpose in New York. The second large Cornish engine at the Belleville pumping station was built under his superintendence. He built the Hackensack water-works in 1873, to supply the town of Hackensack, and afterwards purchased them in partnership with John F. Ward, be- coming president of the reorganized company. In 1880 he offered to supply the city of Hobo- ken from the Hackensack works, and his proposition was accepted immediately. The city and adjacent townships were furnished with a pure water supply. The company has since enlarged the field of its operations, and now supplies a dozen towns outside of Hoboken. In 1887 he furnished estimates on the basis of the Bartlett proposition to supply Jersey City with water from the Passaic water-shed, and advo- cated an acceptance by the city of the proposition. His estimates and predic- tions, although contested at that time, have been vindicated by time. The water reve- nue of the city has exceeded his figures. The cost of similar works to supply New- ark from the same source have verified his estimates, and the present condition of the city's water demonstrates the wisdom of the advice he gave at that time.
He was a member of assembly from Hudson County in 1857 and 1858. His report as chairman of a committee on the geological work of the State, and recom- mendations made therein, were adopted for the future conduct of the survey, and contributed largely to its efficient com- pletion under the charge of Prof. Geo. H. Cook. In 1864 he was appointed secretary and engineer of the legislative committee to ascertain the rights of the State in lands under water, under the act of April 11, 1864. His report led to the organization of the Riparian Commission under the act i of March 31, 1869. He was appointed sec- retary and engineer of the commission, and has continued to the present. By his rec- ROBERT COCHRAN BACOT. ommendation a tract of twenty-two acres of land under water was granted by the State to Jersey City for warehousing and other public uses. The tract was offered in 1872 for the nominal price of $1,000. Its acceptance was then refused. It is now worth $2,000,000. Lately the city realized the value of the grant, and legal proceed- ings are in progress to secure the tidal basin. In 1874 and 1875 he was a member of the Jersey City board of finance. He was a director in the Hudson County National Bank for many years, and was a trustee in the Provident Institution for Savings in Jersey City. In 1887 he was appointed by Gov. Green as a commissioner to locate the boundary between New York and New Jersey in the waters of Raritan Bay. Acting in conjunction with a similar commission appointed by the State of New York, the work was finished on October 12, 1887. In the follow- ing year he was appointed on a similar commission to locate the boundary between New Jersey and New York in the Hudson River, New York Bay, Kill von Kull and Staten Island Sound. On this commission he was elected chairman. This boundary had been in dispute more than fifty years, and was frequently in court. The commission succeeded in having the line placed
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in the middle of the main channels of these waters. Mr. Baeot was a resident of Jersey City from the time he first settled here until 1890, except a period of three years, 1868 to 1871, when he lived at Englewood, Bergen County. In 1890 he moved his residenee to East Orange, in Essex County, where he now resides, though his place of business still remains in Jersey City. He has made a more pronouneed impress upon the physical development of the city than any other resident during more than fifty years.
CHARLES BALDWIN THURSTON has for a quarter of a century been one of the most widely- known and popular residents of Jersey City. He was born in New York City on April 2, 1832. He comes of colonial stock, his grandfather, Rev. Peter Thurston, of London, England, having accepted a call to New York in 1767. Peter Kipp Thurston, the father of Charles B., was a well-known pianoforte manufacturer in New York. He died while his son was quite a young boy, and Charles B. made his home with his unele, Justice David W. Baldwin, in Newark, N. J. In that city he attended the school of William Walton, and subsequently spent two years in the academy at Chatham, N. J., under the in- struction of Prof. Foigns, completing his education at the private school of Nathan Hedges, a well-known educator of Newark.
Soon after graduation he became a medi- cal student with his consin, Dr. Dennis E. Smith, in Brooklyn. While there he be- eame acquainted with Dr. George Wood, a well-known and highly esteemed dentist, and, being often in his laboratory, he decided to give up medieine and apply himself to the study of dental surgery. He entered .the office of Dr. John Hassell, a dentist of good repute, who had a large practice in Newark. After completing his studies, he practised for himself, and soon established an enviable reputation as a practitioner. Close application to business brought a failure of health, and he gave up his practice to associate himself with an uncle in the paint and varnish business ; but this was not congenial, and early in 1865 he went, via Panama, to California and Nevada, to look after some mining interests. He returned, via Niearagua, in 1867. and accepted the agency of several CHARLES BALDWIN THURSTON. large insurance companies. He had con- trol of the insurance of several railroad companies, among which was the United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company. At the time this company leased to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company he became associated with the late A. L. Dennis in looking after the general interests of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- pany in New Jersey and New York, and was made a direetor in a number of railroad compa- nies controlled by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. As special agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, his relations have been of a elose and confidential eharacter. In 1872 he was elected secretary and trustee of the Associates of the Jersey Company, which position he still holds. In 1882 he was elected president of the Jersey City and Bergen Railroad Company. At that time, and for many years, this company had been operating the Jersey City street railway system in an unsatisfactory and unprofitable manner. Under Mr. Thurston's man- agement the road was rebuilt and restocked. The same success which had followed his efforts in his private business resulted from his management of the railroad, and when it was sold a short time ago to the present company, the stock fetched an average of 400.
On April 14, 1859, Mr. Thurston married Lida, daughter of the late James J. Armour, of New
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York ; she is still living. They have no children. Mr. Thurston is a Thirty-second Degree Scottish Rite Mason, and a member of the New Jersey Consistory. He was made a Mason in Eureka Lodge, No. 39, F. A. M., in Newark, in 1858, and served several years as secretary. He affiliated with Bergen Lodge, No. 47, in Jersey City, and became Master of the lodge in 1879. He was elected High Priest of Union Chapter, No. 7, R. A. M., of Newark, in 1864, and is repre- sentative of the Grand Chapter of Nevada in the Grand Chapter of New Jersey, and represent- ative of the Grand Lodge of Wisconsin in the Grand Lodge of New Jersey. He is chairman of the Grand Lodge committee on territorial jurisdiction of lodges. He is also a member of the Masonic Veterans of New York. He is a member of the Jersey City and Carteret clubs in Jersey City, and of the Lawyers' and Sullivan County clubs in New York. and a member of the Metro- politan Museum of Art.
In June, 1888, he was appointed by the late Manning M. Knapp, ther a justice of the Supreme Court, as one of the Hud- son County Park commis- sioners, and was elected president of the board. which position he retained as long as the board con- tinued in existence. He is now one of the commis- sioners of adjustment, hav- ing been appointed by Judge Werts in 1892, to succeed William Muirheid, deceased. He is president of the Fayetteville Water, Light and Power Company, of North Carolina; presi- dent of the Jersey City Chain Works; president of the Port Richmond and Bergen Point Ferry Com- pany ; president of the Millstone and New Bruns- wiek Railroad Company, and is a director or trustee in a large number of cor- porations, and is receiver for quite a number of com- panies.
GEORGE FITCH PERKINS.
GEORGE FITCH PERKINS is a well-known citizen and a typical American. He hegan at the bottom in his line of business, and by energy and perseverance reached the top. His father was Timothy D. Perkins, of Andover, Conn., a well-known citizen who married Lucy Fitch, and their son was born in that town on December 16, 1835. Two years later Mr. Perkins moved to Lee, Berkshire County, Mass., taking his family with him. There, and at the Charlotteville Seminary in New York State, George F. received his education. He was employed in a Lee dry goods store for a year, and later served a regular apprenticeship in constructing and oper- ating paper machinery. In 1858 he went to New York, where he was employed as a clerk in a paper warehouse. In April, 1861, he joined the Twelfth Regiment, N. Y. S. M., and went to the front under Col. Daniel Butterfield. In November, 1862, he married Charlotte, daughter
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REUBEN SIMPSON.
of Lucius Crocker. of Lee, Mass. They had four children, two sons and two danghters. One son died in infancy, but the others still survive.
In 1865 Mr. Perkins organized the firm of Buchanan, Perkins & Goodwin. In 1869 the firm became Perkins & Goodwin, and is now Perkins, Goodwin & Company. They are dealers in paper and paper makers' supplies, and known in every printing establishment in the country. Mr. Perkins has lived in Jersey City most of the time since 1862, and in 1884 built the home he now ocenpies at Bergen and Kensington avennes, one of the most commodious in the city. He still maintains the old Crocker homestead in Lee, Mass., as a summer home. He has always taken an interest in politics, though it was not until 1884 that he would consent to accept an official position. He became a member of the Jersey City board of education, and in 1890 was the republican nominee for mayor. His social disposition and business success made him prominent in club and financial eireles. He is a member of Union League, Hollywood and Merchants' clubs, the New England Society and the Chamber of Commerce in New York, and of the Union League, Carteret and Athletic clubs in Jersey City. He is a director in the Coni- monwealth Insurance Company of New York ; of the New Jersey State Board of Agriculture ; the Newark & New York Plank Road Company ; the Jersey City & Bergen Railroad Com- pany ; the Rumford Falls Paper Company in Maine ; vice-president of the New Jersey Title Guarantee and Trust Company ; vice-president of the Jersey City & Bergen Railroad Company, be- sides being president of the board of trustees of the First Presbyterian Church of Jersey City, and a member of a number of charitable institutions.
In spite of the demands made upon his time by business and social engagements, Mr. Perkins has found time to travel extensively in the United States, Canada, Cuba and Europe, and is a well- read man, being conversant with current events in the literary, business and political world.
REUBEN SIMPSON was born in Nottinghamshire, England, March 16, 1833. When he was twenty- one years of age his parents came to America and settled in Virginia, where the subject of this sketch remained nntil 1863. In that year he removed to Washington, where he remained until 1869, at which time he came to Jersey City, and where he has resided ever since. In 1890 he retired from a long and successful business career, prior to that time having been engaged in the gardening business.
In 1889 Mr. Simpson was elected a commissioner of the board of public works, that being the first publie office he ever held. After filling that office for two months a change in the city's charter was effected by the legislature, by making that office appointive by the mayor. In 1892 he was appointed by Mayor Wanser a member of the board of commissioners of ap- peals. In 1893 he was elected president of the board of aldermen, a position he still retains. During the recent illness of Mayor Wanser Mr. Simpson was made mayor pro tem, and has filled that position with becoming dignity and ability.
In 1858 Mr. Simpson married Miss Mary Elizabeth Taylor, of Virginia. One child, a daughter, has been born to the marriage.
CHARLES G. Sissox was a prominent citizen of the town of Van Vorst and of Jersey City after it absorbed the town. lle was foremost in all the enterprises for the advancement and permanent improvement of the city from 1546 until death closed a busy life in 1874. William Sisson, a brother, was established in the dry goods business in Jersey City, and, like all of the earlier inhabitants, had unbounded faith in its future. The population of the little city was 5,418 in 1846, and Van Vorst township had but 2.400. It required foresight and ability to dis- cern the possibilities of the swamps and sand-hills at that time. The speculative character of
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these possibilities, with the field they offered for personal effort, made them very attractive to Mr. Sisson. His father kept a furniture store in a village in Connecticut, and Charles obtained a rudimentary education in the local schools. His first business experience was secured in his father's store. By hard work and practical economy Charles acquired a small capital, and opened a general store on his own account. He found the life of a country storekeeper too prosaic. He realized on his assets, and found more congenial employment in buying and sell- ing mules and horses. His buying tours carried him all over the country. He was well known in every good market, from Maine to Missouri. The animals he bought were sold in the West Indies at a liberal profit. For fifteen years he was a heavy shipper of live stock from New Haven and New London. In 1840 he was considered a well-to-do man with a bright future. He was popular, and was elected a member of the Connecticut legislature, but did not find po- litical position congenial, and served but a single term. It was with the experience and capital acquired in horse trading over much territory and a long term of years, that he selected the village across the river from New York for his future home. His first speculation was made on the advice of his brother William, who called his attention to five frame houses that were advertised for sale. These were in Willow Street, Van Vorst. Charles attended the sale and bought them. The investment was profitable, and showed him a new field. He took contracts for grading tracts of land on the Coles estate, and he bought tracts and improved them on his own account. He built a row of briek dwellings occupying the east side of Jersey Avenue, between Sixth and Seventh streets. He built a home for himself on the northeast corner of Jersey Avenue and Sixth Street, and lived there for a score of years. He bought considerable tracts of land in the Lafayette section, and on the meadows west of Mill Creek, between Grand and Montgomery streets, and found active and profitable employment in turning the hilly farm land and marshy meadows into a well-built residence section.
He was one of the promoters and financial supports of all the plans by which the Erie Railway Company organized separate corporations to create and control its Jersey City termi- nus. He bought the water front, the right of way, and the hill real estate required for the tun- nel. When the plans were realized he merged all the interest in the Erie Railway Company.
During the panic of 1857 he advanced more than $100,000 to help the tunnel contractors, when they found it impossible to secure money to pay their men. Mr. Sisson was not interested in boring the tunnel, but he was largely interested in the work at the Long Dock, and the strike seriously impeded his end of the improvement. He supplied the Erie company with money, and courageously went to the seat of war on the hill, where he paid the strikers, and put an end to their riotous demonstrations.
He held a large block of Erie stock, and was in the directorate during the triangular war between Drew, Fisk and Vanderbilt, in the famous struggle for control of the corporation. From 1867 to 1872 he controlled the millions for which these Wall Street magnates contended, and his aid was eagerly sought by both Drew and Fisk.
It was through his influence that the Central Railroad of New Jersey was enabled to secure a right of way through Hudson County, by which its terminus was moved from Elizabethport to Jersey City. He bought the land, and devised the plan by which the tracks were laid on piling a mile out from shore, thus forever settling New York's claim to control the Jersey City water frontage.
In 1866 the Northern Railroad of New Jersey passed by purchase into Mr. Sisson's con- trol. He was elected president of the company, and its betterment made the road popular. As in the case of Jersey City, he saw a great future before the farm and woodland through which the road extended. He purchased lands at intervals from Englewood to Nanuet, a distance of seventeen miles. On these purchases he started settlements which are now progressive subur- ban towns. He, with others whom he had interested, built the Highwood House at Tenafly. and, by his good judgment and liheral investment, not only added materially to his fortune, but greatly benefited the railroad. He was a keen business man, clear-sighted, quick of compre- hension, energetic in execution and uniformly successful. He amassed a fortune of several millions, which he left to his children.
Mr. Sisson was born on April 15, 1807, at North Stonington, Conn. He was the seventh child in a family of six brothers and four sisters. His grandfather, William Sisson, was one of five brothers who emigrated from Soissons, in Normandy, France, and settled in Rhode Island.
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They took an active part in the Revolutionary War on the patriot side, and Nathan, one of the brothers, suffered severe captivity in the British prison ships in New York Harbor. His father, Major Gilbert Sisson, was born in North Stonington, and his mother, Desire Maine, was a woman of notable talent and dignity. She was the seventh daughter in a large family of French descent. Mr. Sisson was married three times ; first, to Martha, daughter of Asa Wheeler, of North Stonington ; second, to Nancy Mary, daughter of George Elias Hewitt, of North Ston- ington, of which union there was one child, Elias H. Sisson, now a resident of Tenafly ; and third, to Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Myndert Garrabrant, of Jersey City. His third wife died in 1870, leaving a large landed estate of her own to their three surviving children. Four of Mr. Sisson's children survived him : Eva B., wife of John Hull Browning, of Tenafly, now president of the Northern Railroad of New Jersey ; Elias H. Sisson, of Tenafly : Charles G. Sisson, now deceased, and Elizabeth B., wife of James Wilkinson, since deceased. Mr. Sisson died in Tenafly, August 21, 1874, after impressing himself on the records in every town from Bergen Point to Rockland County.
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