History of Sussex and Warren counties, New Jersey, with Illustration and Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men and Pioneers, Part 136

Author: Snell, James P; Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1140

USA > New Jersey > Sussex County > History of Sussex and Warren counties, New Jersey, with Illustration and Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men and Pioneers > Part 136
USA > New Jersey > Warren County > History of Sussex and Warren counties, New Jersey, with Illustration and Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men and Pioneers > Part 136

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having resigned the office of third assistant postmas- ter-general, Mr. Hazen was appointed by the Presi- dent to succeed him, upon the recommendation of Postmaster-General Key, who had been quick to dis- cern his executive ability, efficiency, and the purity of his personal character. At the first executive ses- sion of the Senate after his nomination had been sent in, it was unanimously confirmed. The appointment was universally commended by the press at the time as one highly creditable to the administration, and as a practical example of civil service reform.

By law the third assistant postmaster-general is made the financial head of the Post-Office Depart- ment. His office embraces the divisions of stamps, stamped envelopes and postal cards, dead letters, finance, and registration, and comprises nearly half the clerical force of the department. He commenced the duties of his office by applying the experience he had gained in the department towards simplifying the machinery of the postal service and by a rigorous economy in the administration of its finances. One of the first reforms he successfully accomplished was by inducing Congress to repeal the law compensating postmasters by commissions upon the sale of stamps, and to substitute the plan of making their compensa- tion depend on the value of stamps canceled upon matter actually mailed. The law was rapidly demor- alizing the service by holding out a premium to dis- honesty, and also depriving the government of its just revenues. The new plan resulted, according to the report of the Postmaster-General for 1879, in an annual saving of over one million dollars. He also originated the plan of collecting partially prepaid postages at the office of destination by special stamps, thus insuring the faithful return to the government of all the revenues derived from this source. With their introduction disappeared the last vestige of the old sys- tem of collecting postages in money. Another impor- tant feature of his administration was the thorough revision of the registry system, by which its methods were greatly simplified and improved and the labor and expense of conducting it correspondingly reduced, and the extension of the system to all classes of mail- able matter, thus enabling the public to obtain for samples of merchandise and other small articles ad- mitted into the mails the security that was previously afforded to letters only. The popular approval of this reformation is sufficiently attested by an increase in the receipts of thirty per cent. the first year of the change. In his report for 1880 he published an able and elaborate review of the progress of the postal ser- vice for the preceding twenty years, in which the im- provements made during that period have been traced with great minuteness and detail. Its more essential features have been summarized as follows :

"1. A heavy reduction of postage, both domestic and foreign, espe- cially on printed matter, and the extension of privileges to the public. "2. The introduction into the mails of small parcels of merchandise and miscellaneous articles at low rates of postage, largely augmenting the volume of mail matter without correspondingly increasing the

549

TOWN OF PHILLIPSBURG.

postal revenues. To the Immediate advantages furnished to the public by this measure are to be added the indirect benefits arising from a con- sequent reduction of charges by other modes of conveyance, notably the express companies.

"3. The introduction of the railway post-office, the freedelivery, the moury-order, and the registry systems,-now among the great pillars of the postal service.

"4. Largely-Increased ' certaInty, celerity, and security' In the carriage and delivery of mail matter, improved methods of collecting and account- Ing for the postal revenues, and, In general, a simplification of ull the modes of conducting the puldle business.

"6. A gradual reduction of the appropriations required from the treasury to meet deficiencies in the postal revemex. While the great object has been rather to promote the public convenience than to profit the postal revenues, there hns nevertheless been a steady galu uf the re- cripts on the expenditures, the former living increased 291 por cent. and the latter only 142 per cent. during the last twenty years; and the defi- elency required from the treasury to sustain the service because of its In- ulequato revenues has been reduced front 12.7 per cent in 1860 to 7.7 per cent. In 1880, a comparative saving of 35 per cent., or $12,035,637.13, in the expenditures uf the latter year.

" These results deserve the wile expressions of popular approval with which they have been met; and the generous confidence reposed by the public should afford not merely a source of present gratification to the postul authorities, but it will doubtless furnish a stimulus to further la- creaso the efficiency and extend the usefulness of the service."

This paper, although non-partisan, was published

as a campaign document and extensively circulated by the National Republican Committee. It was also copied and commented upon by the press throughout the entire country. He has attained his present high position by merit alone, never having skipped a grade or asked a promotion. This fact is the more worthy of remark, as such places are usually bestowed only as a reward for political services. He is much liked and respected by his subordinates, and his kindness of heart and uniform courtesy endear him to all with whom he comes in contact. He is hardly yet in the prime of life, being in the full possession of mental and bodily vigor, and, from the light of the past, his future promises a long life and higher usefulness.

In his private life Mr. Hazen is much respected for the simplicity and purity of his habits, his beney- olenee and uprightness. His charities are numerous, and his kindness of beart has won for him a large cirele of friends. It is said that he daily visits his mother on leaving his office before going to his home, and his evenings are devoted to reading and study with his family.

TOWN OF PHILLIPSBURG.

I .- GEOGRAPHICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE.

THE incorporated town of Phillipsburg lies upon the Delaware River, directly across the river from the town of Easton, and occupies a picturesquely romantic situation. Although known as Phillipsburg as long ago as 1753, it did not until nearly a hundred years later assume a form of greater pretensions than that of a straggling village. The presence of the flourish- ing town of Easton on the opposite bank of the stream operated as a check to the necessity for a second town as near as Phillipsburg. The first step forward was made when the completion of the Morris Canal, in 1832, made Phillipsburg one of the termini of that water-way. A more vigorous push was given in 1848, when the Trenton Iron Company established a fur- nace here, and then, the tide having set in, other man- ufacturing industries reared their welcome fronts, and in 1852 the New Jersey Central Railway, opening to Phillipsburg, saw the town safely upon what prom- ised to be a journey towards the prosperity so long deferred. In 1854 the Belvidere Delaware Railroad was completed to this point, manufacturing began to enlarge, and Phillipsburg grew rapidly. To-day it is an important manufacturing and railway centre. The railways touching here are the New Jersey Cen-

tral, Belvidere Delaware, Lehigh Valley, Morris and Essex, and Easton and Amboy. The manufacture of iron is extensive, and gives employment to not far from a thousand persons. Across the Delaware at this point communication is maintained by means of a toll-bridge and a double railway bridge. The pas- senger depot of the Belvidere Delaware Railway (now under lease to the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- pany ) is a commodious brick structure, and cost with the freight depot about $14,000. The latter edifice measures 200 feet in length by 80 in width. The town is lighted with gas and supplied with water fur- nished by the Easton water-works. The business portion of Phillipsburg is confined chiefly to Main Street, which reaches between northwest and south- cast for a distance of about one mile and a half, and upon its route are located many business places and all the manufactories. Back from the river the land rises into an abrupt elevation, and along its summit, whence a magnificent view of landscape may be ob- tained, lies a pretty thickly populated portion of the town.

Phillipsburg is famed for its excellent schools and ample and handsome architectural accommodations for them. t'hurches are numerous and prosperous. The town is divided into four wards, in which the population at the census of July, 1881, was as fol-

* Hy David Schwartz.

550

WARREN COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

lows : First Ward, 1753; Second Ward, 1845; Third Ward, 2217; Fourth Ward, 1361; total, 7176.

As an evidence of Phillipsburg's rapid growth it may be noted that in 1860 the population was but 1500, while in 1870 it had risen to 5950.

II .- EARLY SETTLEMENT.

Mathew S. Henry, in an interesting work* called " The History of the Lehigh Valley," thus alludes to the tract now known as the town of Phillipsburg :

" The present site of Phillipsburg, according to a map made by Vonder Donk, a Dutch engineer, in 1654, was at that time called Chintewink, and was an Indian settlement. The ' Flats' or ' Old Fields,' so called by Mr. Parsons io his draft of Easton in 1755 (now Howell's farm), just above the Delaware bridge, were the Indian coru-fields. Tradition says that Chintewink was the favorite fishing-ground of the Indians, and the fact that it was an Indian settlement is attested by the great number of finished and unfinished flint-arrows, spears, tomahawks, axes, and corn- pounders that have been found here.

"The origin of the name of Phillipsburg is not well known, the im- pression being that it was named after a large landholder by the name of Phillips, who resided here at an early day; but the more plausible supposition is that it was derived from the Indian chief Philip, who re- sided here. This Indian chief was an intimate friend of the great chief 4 Teedyuscung. The name of Phillipsburg was found on the map of the 'inhabited parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey,' published by Evans in 1749, which was before the time of Mr. Phillips' residence here. This Indian chief Philip, with fourteen other Indians, was arrested by the Jersey people in December, 1755, and brought to Easton (it being the nearest place containing a jail) and committed to prison,-not for any crime they had committed, but because so great was the panic created by the massacre at Gnadephiitten on November 24th of that year that all Indians livingamong the whites were suspected. At the treaty held at Esston, commencing July, 1756, the chief Teedyuscung in several of his speeches greatly interested himself in their behalf. The event occasioned a correspondence between Governor Denny, of Pennsylvania, and Gov- ernor Belcher, of New Jersey, Governor Denny, in writing to Governor Belcher, said, 'You will please to observe that io the course of the con- ference the chief Teedyuscung has warmly solicited me to use my good offices with yon that the Indians now living in your province have liberty, if they please, to go and visit their relatives and friends in the Indian country. The chief thinks when the Indians come to see one another, and learn how friendly those in your province have been treated, it will dispose them to peace. lle particularly desires this favor for one of your Indians, called Philip, who it appears is an old man and bad at first been pot in prison but was released, and now lives along with the other Indians.'

" We also find that the Exeentive Council of New Jersey at Elizabetli- town, March 31, 1757, advised Ilis Excellency the Governor to permit the Indian chief Philip to pass to Philadelphia.

" Phillipsburg was evidently settled by the white people before Easton, inasmuch as Easton was not laid out until some time after the different maps were published giving the name of Phillipsburg. About the time Easton was laid ont, the land upon which Phillipsburg was built was owned by the heirs of David Martin, a ferryman, and a Mr. Coxe, a mer- chant of Philadelphia, Mr. Coxe owning the principal part,-about four hundred and eleven acres, among which were the ' Old Fields,'-on which, on account of their beautiful location and the advantages they appeared to have for the purposes of a town over the land on the opposite side of the river, he contemplated in 1752 to lay out a town. This intention of Mr. Coxe appeared to greatly alarm the proprietors of Pennsylvania, who were afraid that it would injure the infant town of Easton. In a letter from Thomas Penn, dated March 9, 1752, to Richard Peters, he said, ' I think we should secure all the lands we can on the Jersey side of the water,' the intention being evidently to get this land in their pos- session, and thus prevent any settlement there.

" Mr. Coxe finally abandoned his project of laying out a town on the Jersey side. Easton, being in the mean time made the seat of justice for the new county of Northampton, and having a jail in which to confine all lawless characters, soon acquired a position that proved prejudicial to the welfare of Phillipsburg.

" The first church in this section of the country, and perhaps of all $: Published in 1860.

northwest New Jersey, was located at Phillipsburg, and was built of logs. A part of the burial-ground attached to that church is inclosed in the garden of John S. Bach, Esq., and the rude gravestones there still mark the last resting-places of the fathers of Phillipsburg. Mrs. Eliza- beth Stryker, whose grandfather worshiped in that old church, has in her possession the plate and sacramental cupt used by the congregation at that time, and a large Irish linen cloth which covered the sacramental emblems. The cup is made of material similar to bell-metal, and on it is rudely engraved the following: 1761. C. A. M. I. P. B. The meaning of the legend no one has yet been able to decipher. No doubt in this old church Brainerd, ' the apostle to the Indians' at the 'Forks of the Delaware,' occasionally preached, and is the Greenwich alluded to in bis diary.

"Phillipsburg has, too, its strange traditions. One is that Spanish coin was buried by pirates, in the days of buccaneers, in Monot Parnas- sus (Reese's Rock); and the other that an Indian was induced to leap from the top of 'Indian Rock' for a bottle of rum. Needless to say that leap was his last."

In 1752, William Coxe, above alluded to, died, and under his will, ordering the payment of a bequest of £500, the executors proceeded to lay out a certain number of quarter-acre lots upon Mr. Coxe's Phil- lipsburg property. Many of the lots were sold at £5 each. A deed for one of these lots runs thus :

" This indenture made the 4th day of October, in the twenty-seventh year of our Sovereign Lord, George the Second, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, and in the year of our Lord 1753, between William Coxe, etc. and Peter Seiler of Phillipsburg, County of Sussex, miller, for £5. proclamation money, four perches front on George Street by ten perches deep, containing one and one quarter acres being lot No. 82."

In that deed, witnessed by Thomas Kennedy and Frank Sheldon, the place was called "the intended town of Phillipsburg." The thoroughfare now known as Main Street was called George Street, in honor of the English king. The David Martin, "ferryman," referred to as one of the early owners of the Phil- lipsburg land, obtained in 1739 the first grant and patent for ferrying at the " Forks of the Delaware." An extract from that grant reads :

"Giving and granting to said David Martin, his heirs and assigns, the privilege of constructing a ferry from the Pennsylvania sbore by the upper end of an island called 'Tinnienm' to the place in said county of Morris called ' Marble Mountain,' about one mile above the 'forks of the Delaware,' the undivided right to ferry over horses, cows, sheep, mules, etc."

His ferry privileges extended about thirteen miles. Although the town took a start before Easton did, the latter soon outstripped it. Apropos of the relative size of the two places about 1770, Mathew Henry writes,-

"Mr. Philip Reese, an old gentleman of the town, informed the writer that in his youth there lived an old lady by the name of Myers who said when her parents first came to Phillipsburg there were cleven houses there, and but three on the opposite side of the river. These eleven honses were sitnated on the south side of the New Jersey Central Rail- road track, near the wagon bridge that crosses the road."

Easton thrived, however, and Phillipsburg existed under protest in a lingering way. Main Street was simply a country highway, bordered here and there by an occasional log house. Those among the prominent families living in or near the place during the latter part of the eighteenth century were the Bidlemans,

+ Now in the possession of Mrs. Nelson Stryker.

551

TOWN OF PHILLIPSBURG.

Roseberrys, Howells, Recses, Beers, Bullmans, Phil- lips, Sacgers, Ramseys, Stulls, and Barnes. Jacob Reese, a tailor by trade, removed from Easton about 1787 to Phillipsburg, where, in conjunction with Philip Saeger, he bought a considerable tract of land lying along George Street and reaching to the river. Reese lived in a log house that stood on the lot now occupied by the Phillipsburg Hotel, and in that house was born his son, Jeremiah Reese, in 1797. Jeremiah Reese, now the oldest inhabitant of Phillipsburg, is still pretty hearty at the age of eighty-four, and from him this chronicler obtained much of interest touch- ing the early history of the town. Philip Saeger lived in a stone house that stood about opposite the present site of the Presbyterian church, and very close to that site stood his barn. Saeger was a large landowner, and devoted his time chiefly to farming. Jacob Reese was likewise a farmer, and occasionally did a little work at his old trade of tailoring. Near him lived three brothers named William, Charles, and Amos Beers, who carried on a cooper's shop. On the hill in what is now the Third Ward, John and Joseph Roseberry were living on farms, James Barnes, a vordwainer and boatman, lived with his father, Henry, in a frame house that adjoined Philip Sae- ger's residence. James Barnes, who was born in that frame house, died there in 1879, aged eighty-one. His father, llenry, shoemaker and boatman, became a resident in Phillipsburg probably about 1790. Thomas Bullman, grandfather to the late Maj. Chas. Sitgreaves, came to Phillipsburg from Hudson County and bought the ferry privilege, together with land that included Union Square and along on Main Street. He built a stone dwelling on Main Street, near the Sitgreaves mansion lot, and presently converted it into a tavern. He came to the place probably about the year 1800, shortly after which his house was built. A man by the name of Albright subsequently bought the tavern, which was long known as Albright's Tavern.

Bullman's ferry privilege could not have lasted long, since about the year 1800 a toll-bridge was thrown across the river where the present bridge spans the stream. A freshet washed the first struc- ture from its foundations, and in 1805 the Easton Delaware Bridge Company, under authorization from the State of l'enn-ylvania, raised, by lottery, a fund, with which they erected the bridge now used. It was doubtless at this time that Bullman opened his tavern. Hle was for many years a justice of the peace, and at one time a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and died in 1824, in his eighty-second year. Philip Reese died in 1873, aged ninety-six. Both he and his son Hiram were physicians, being, however, simply self- taught doctors who ventured upon practice only be- cause of the frequent occasions upon which medical help from elsewhere was not easy to obtain. Philip lived in a stone house that stood opposite his father's old log cabin, and died on his farm in Greenwich.

The old stone house mentioned was alluded to during Jeremiah Reese's boyhood as the house that had been built more than ninety years. Gen. John Phillips, the miller, lived in it, and sold it to Philip Reese. Phillips then went to live with his father-in-law, Thomas Beers, just below the Ramsey house. The stone house now occupied by Charles Reese as store and residence was built shortly after 1800 by Adam Ramsey, a Presbyterian preacher, who came from Manunka Chunk to Phillipsburg for the purpose of storekeeping. He occupied at first an old storehouse standing on the stone house lot, but who had kept a store in it is not known. Ramsey's was probably the only store for a little while between Bidleman's and the other end of the town. In ISI1 or thereabouts John P'. Roseberry built the tavern now known as the Union Square Hotel. Mrs. Jeremiah Reese, now aged seventy - six, recalls the circumstance as occurring when she was about six years of age, and remembers, moreover, that she went down there one day, from her father's farm on the hill, with those who carried dinners to the builders. At that time Main Street was but little better than a country road. John Mix- sell was keeping store in the building now known as the Lee House, and John Myers, who worked for Mixsell, lived in a shanty adjoining the store. Across the way, where the depot and bank are, was a field. Some years afterwards Charles Rodenbaugh kept store in a low building put up there by Joseph Roseberry. On Main Street were the taverns of Roseberry and Albright, the dwelling of Thomas Bullman, and be- yond there was no house between Bullman's and the residences of Philip Saeger and James Barnes, Down where the Morris and Essex depot is lived Amos Beers, a cooper. On the land between the two railway bridges, on Main Street, Michael Roseberry lived in a stone house, and at the present corner of Hudson and Main Streets was a double framed farmhouse owned by Joseph Roseberry. Near there lived Adam Ramsey, Beers, and the Reeses, and thence down the street there was no house (except John Carpenter's, on the Furnare ground) until Bidleman's was reached, at what is now called Green Bridge. That was the condition of Phillipsburg about 1811, save a few cabins here and there. Peter Skillman, a hand in Thomas Reese's wheelwright-shop, lived in one, The- ophilus Phillips, a boatman, in another, and Conrad Shaup, with his son John (both tailors), in another. Barnes, Skillman, Phillips, and Conrad Shaup went out in the war of 1812. George and Henry Bidleman had flouring-mills below the present limits of Phil- lipsburg.

In 1832 the Morris Canal, emptying into the Dela- ware at Phillipsburg, was completed, when it was ex- pected that the town would be materially benefited, but the benefit was very slight. In 1847, Phillips- burg contained about fifty dwelling -. The present Third Ward was a farming region. Below the bend in Main Street, Michael Roseberry's farming lands

552

WARREN COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

reached to Green Bridge. The only stores in the town were those of Charles Rodenbaugh and Mixsell & Tindall, both on Union Square. Adam Ramsey's store was then closed. Mixsell & Tindall carried on a lumber-yard, but beyond that and the stores Phil- lipsburg had then no business interests. The first brick dwelling in the town had then been up bnt two years. Garret Cook erected it. It now serves as the residences of Jeremiah Reese, Charles F. Fitch, and William Ashmore. About 1850, in anticipation of the completion to that point of the New Jersey Cen- tral Railroad, Phillipsburg began for the first time to look up. Previous to that the establishment of Tin- dall's distillery, Templin & Co.'s foundry, and the Cooper Furnace had encouraged its future. In 1852 a post-office was first established at Phillipsburg, and in 1853 the Phillipsburg Land Company bought the Roseberry farm, laid out the lower portion of the present town into village lots, and made the induce- ments so favorable that many people purchased homes there. When the Belvidere Delaware Railroad was completed, in 1854, the demand for lots was so great that the land company laid out an addition, and, in 1855, a second. In all, they bought three hundred acres, laid out eleven hundred and thirty lots, and paid for lands $55,000. In 1854 the first church in the town (Presbyterian) was built; in 1856 the Warren Foundry was started, the Phillipsburg Bank was founded, building enterprises were rapidly pushed forward, and population increased rapidly.

Among the citizens prominent in Phillipsburg's early history may be named Gen. John Phillips and Maj. Charles Sitgreaves. Maj. Sitgreaves was chosen president of the Belvidere Delaware Railroad Com- pany, and represented his district in Congress. In the winter of 1856, when a new county called Mus- conetcong was created, it was tacitly understood that Phillipsburg was to be the county-seat. Maj. Sit- greaves, being then in the State Senate, discovered, however, that secret efforts were afoot to ignore the agreement tonching Phillipsburg in favor of some other point, whereupon he set himself successfully to the task of obtaining the reconsideration and repeal of the act creating the new county.

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History of Sussex and Warren counties, New Jersey, with Illustration and Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men and Pioneers, Part 136

Author: Snell, James P; Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford) Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1140

Author: Snell, James P; Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1140