USA > New Jersey > Union County > History of Union County, New Jersey > Part 24
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HENRY R. WORTHINGTON.
This concern in its entirety is the most extensive of any here devoted to the manufacture of machinery in general. The first Worth- ington engine was built over forty-two years ago, and applied to the water-works service in the city of Savannah, Georgia. Six years later the improvement known as the duplex-valve motion was invented, and from that time Worthington engines have been so extensively intro- duced for the supply of water for the cities and towns that to-day there are more of them in use than all other types combined. Of the three higher classes of the Worthington pumping engine, upward of two hundred and forty have been built and furnished to water-works in all parts of the world. Henry R. Worthington received a medal and high- est awards on twenty-four types of pumping engines, steam pumps, etc .; also a special award for their general exhibit. This was the award of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. The main offices and hydraulic works, covering many acres of floor space, and having numerous buildings for the various departments, where they employ one thousand hands, are located at Van Brunt and Rapelyea streets, Brooklyn. A branch plant is located in this city at the foot of Trum- bull street, and covers six acres of ground, on which there are numer-
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ous buildings used as foundries, pattern shops, pattern store houses, brass foundry, core shop, crane shed, sand and core shed, numerous outbuildings, and they have just added a new store house and core shop. They furnish constant employment to five hundred mechanics in this city. So extensive is the plant and so well equipped is it that the largest orders can be executed in a very short time. Founded in 1845 it was incorporated in 1891, under the laws of New Jersey, and at the present time has branch offices in every leading American and Cana- dian city; also in all the principal cities throughout the world. The officers upon whom devolves the management of this immense concern are C. C. Worthington, president, and Theodore F. Miller, treasurer and secretary.
ELIZABETH ICE COMPANY.
The business was founded in 1866 by Reeve & Company, and was known as the Elizabeth Ice Company; incorporated in 1887, with a capital stock of sixty thousand dollars, and is now known by the same name. The growth of the business can be best shown by the state- ment that the company when first started gathered all of their ice from the surrounding ponds, but upon the erection of the water works they began to cut and buy ice from them. Besides the cutting of ice they have a Blymyer ice machine for making artificial ice, manufactur- ing and storing about five hundred tons in winter, and running from April Ist to December Ist, day and night, in order to supply their immense trade. The machines have a capacity of thirty tons a day, and the company manufacture about nine hundred tons a month. The water used in making their ice is condensed steam, condensed by running cold water over tubes containing steam, and is not subject to the atmosphere from the time it enters the boiler until it reaches the can. The company have three boilers of eighty horse-power each, and employ from twenty-five to thirty men, running from ten to twelve wagons. The officers of the company are M. W. Reeve, president; C. H. K. Halsey, treasurer; R. S. Williams, superintendent.
BOWKER FERTILIZER COMPANY.
This meritorious industry was established in 1880, and was incor- porated under the laws of Massachusetts, and is now operated on a capital stock of one million dollars. The company are to-day one of the largest manufacturers of fertilizers and phosphates in the country. The grounds of the company cover over seven acres, most of which is occupied by buildings of various sizes, scattered in different parts of the premises ; main buildings are three to four stories high, and have a frontage on Staten Island Sound of one thousand feet, with a depth of water abreast the works of about eighteen feet. The yards are interwoven with a network of switches connecting with the Central Railroad and, through
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it, reaching any trunk line in the country. The company are manu- facturers of about fifty or sixty standard brands of fertilizers, among them being the celebrated Stockbridge manures. Another product is a special feed for fowls and animals, which includes animal meal, ground beef scraps and ground oyster shells. They are also manufacturers of sulphuric acid. Mr. Bowker was the first one to introduce into this country the method of using pyrites instead of brimstone with sulphur burner, as formerly. They have an elegantly equipped plant for the production of sulphuric acid, sparing no expense, the lead alone used in this plant having cost twenty-five thousand dollars. There are four sheets of this material used in each tower, being eleven feet three inches wide and twenty-six feet high, weighing five thousand eight hundred pounds each. They have in various departments of this establishment about one hundred and twenty-five employes, and have a shipping capacity of six hundred to seven hundred tons a day, if needed. Their output is shipped to all portions of the United States, but principally to the section east of the Mississippi river. The company have, besides the factory in this city, a very extensive one at Brighton, Massachusetts. The officers of the company are : W. H. Bowker, president ; and Henry F. Coe, treasurer. G. H. Gustin is superintendent of the Elizabeth factory.
COOKE BROTHERS.
One of the most prominent concerns engaged in this line is that of Cooke Brothers, manufacturers of animal oils. Their plant occupies about three and one-half acres of land, on which is erected a main building, 300 x 450 feet, besides numerous outbuildings and sheds; the company have a large dock frontage, which enables them to ship goods by water as well as rail. The firm are manufacturers of animal oils for lubricating purposes, including high grades of lard, tallow and meats, foot oils and stearine for soap and candle-makers' use. The low temperature of these oils is their specialty, the products being so manu- factured that they run freely in cold weather. The plant was entirely destroyed by fire in 1892, and has been reconstructed on a large scale, with all the latest conveniences and appliances. The works are run night and day-having both day and night shifts. The firm was started in 1865 as Cooke Brothers, later becoming Cooke Brothers & McCord, then again Cooke Brothers. The individual members of the firm are C. A. and H. C. Cooke.
EUGENE MUNSELL & COMPANY.
The Manhattan Stove Works are located on Fulton and Marshall streets, between First and Second. The business was established in 1840 by Munsell & Thompson, at Crescent, New York. In 1860 it was removed to this city and at the start utilized the factory now occupied by Graff & Company. The present factory was built by
15
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Munsell & Thompson, and occupied in 1870. The foundry building is 200x 75 feet, with two additions 100 x 40. This firm manufacture heating and cooking stoves, furnaces, fire-place heaters, brick-set and portable ranges, gasoline and oil stoves, etc., and are proprietors of the Manhattan stoves. Their trade extends all over the United States and to foreign countries, and they employ a large force of men constantly. The firm is composed of Eugene Munsell, Lewis W. Kingsley and Franklin Brooks.
CRESCENT SHIP YARDS.
In 1895 Mr. Lewis Nixon, formerly constructor of the United States navy, leased the Crescent Ship Yards, Elizabethport, from the Samuel L. Moore & Sons Company. The company was at once reorganized, with Arthur L. Busch, construction manager, and C. C. Bowers, superintending engineer, and during the past twelve months they have built vessels to the value of seven million five hundred thousand dollars. It was at the Nixon Ship Yards that the yacht Free Lance, now acknowledged to be the finest craft afloat, was built. The record made an her trial trip was twenty-one miles an hour. During the last year the company have built twenty-four vessels and repaired fifteen others. The yard is situated on Staten Island Sound and covers about forty-eight and one-half acres. They employ a working force of five hundred expert mechanics.
THE NEW JERSEY DRY DOCK & TRANSPORTATION COMPANY
is located on South Front street, and was incorporated in 1883. It has a most excellent establishment for the building of wooden vessels, and the repairing of both iron and steel ones. Three hundred skilled inechanics are furnished constant employment in the various depart- ments. The entire establishment covers two hundred and fifty thousand square feet, with a frontage of one thousand feet on Staten Island Sound. The officers of the company are Henry D. Heissenbutter, president and secretary; A. L. Alpers, treasurer; Thomas Dunn, general manager.
THE SANFORD CLARK COMPANY.
This company was founded in 1892, by Sanford Clark, and incor- porated in 1894. The company are probably the largest dealers in masons' supplies in the city, and they employ six workmen for the handling and delivering of their goods. The officers of the company are Sanford Clark, president; and H. A. Bushnell, secretary and treasurer.
W. C. Arzt, manufacturer of wagons used by merchants for delivery purposes, entered into this business in 1892. His factory is located on South Spring street. Twelve workmen are employed. Alfred S. Campbell, art photographer, was formerly in business with
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the late Sarony, in New York. In 1886 he removed to Elizabeth where he began in a small way a business which has now grown to large proportions. He employs from three hundred to four hundred expert workmen, and last year manufactured over one hundred million stereoscopic pictures and photographs of distinguished celebrities, mostly for the Sweet Caporal brand of cigarettes. The works of W. H. Rankin are at the foot of Elizabeth avenue. He is a manufacturer of painted felt, roofing pitch, three-ply brown felting and tarred single, and two-ply and three-ply roofing. Eight different kinds of roofing paper are made in these works, from woolen rags. Under the name of the Empire Target Company, Mr. Rankin manufactures annually about ten million flying targets, or clay pigeons, for sports- men's use. The business was established in 1873.
A. & F. Brown are manufacturers of power-transmitting machinery. Three buildings, on Third street, Elizabethport, are occupied in the manufacture of shaftings, couplings, hangers, and iron pulleys. Motive power is derived from a two hundred horse-power engine. The firm was founded in 1855 by Adolph and Felix Brown, and at that time they employed about thirty men. They now employ two hundred and fifty skilled mechanics. On the death of Adolph Brown, in 1881, Felix Brown, Sr., assumed full charge of the business.
The Pacific Rubber Company occupies a building on East Jersey street, in the manufacture of mackintoshes, rubber cement and coat cloths, for corset and hat manufacturers and for hospital sheetings. The business was commenced in 1893, and it now gives employment to more than eighty operatives. The officers of the company are: S. G. Hartshorne, president; J. E. Gates, vice-president; and F. M. Harts- horne, secretary and treasurer.
Charles Spittlehouse, whose large establishment is located on East Broad street, is successor to Tower & Spittlehouse, who began the plumbing business in 1862. From a small beginning this business has grown to its present proportions, and now about twenty workmen are employed.
James H. Faulks, also a skillful plumber, occupies a large building of his own on West Jersey street, and gives employment to about twenty men. Mr. Faulks began in 1873, with L. C. McCabe. He makes a specialty of the "Triumph King Heater."
The manufacture of awnings, tents, etc., was commenced in 1890 by R. G. Laggren, at 8 and 10 Julian Place. In 1891 he was joined by Mr. John Ball. The premises occupy over twenty-three thousand square feet of floor space, utilized for manufacturing purposes. Employment is furnished to twelve men. Reilly & Purcell began business as boiler- manufacturers and sheet-iron workers in 1894. The plant is on Trum- bull street and employment is furnished to ten skilled mechanics.
The firm of F. J. Blatz and Brother had its inception in 1865, when
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NORTH BROAD STREET, FROM WESTFIELD AVENUE
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it bore the name of Schreiber & Blatz. The plant of the firm is located at the foot of High street and occupies four buildings. From sixty to seventy-five skilled male workers are furnished employment in making the best grades of gloved kid, exclusively of goat skins, and the product is chiefly used for uppers in ladies' shoes.
Benjamin F. Straus, the proprietor of the Elizabeth Wagon Works, began the manufacture of wagons in the city in 1886, and his business since that time has grown until to-day his wagons are shipped to every part of the United States and, in fact, of the civilized world. He now furnishes from twenty-five to thirty skilled employes steady work the year round.
The Peter Breidt City Brewery is located on Pearl street, near Rector. This enterprise was started by Eller & Bayer in 1864. In 1882, after the buildings had been unused for years, Mr. Breidt purchased the premises and began to rebuild the entire property. The company was incorporated in 1885. The water used in the manufacture of the beers, ales and porters of this company is secured from a well six hundred and seven feet deep. The plant has a capacity of twenty-five thousand barrels annually, and employment is given to thirty workmen. The immense business of the Rising Sun Brewing Company had its inception on March 21, 1887, the plant being located at the corner of Seventh and Marshall streets. The output in the first year was fifteen thousand barrels, and in 1896 the output was fifty thousand barrels. Charles Seeber is president.
ELIZABETH POTTERY WORKS.
This ably conducted establishment was set in operation under its present management in 1879, succeeding the old company which had been in existence from 1835. The premises occupied for manufacturing purposes comprise buildings covering fully an acre of ground. The products of the company are semi-granite druggists' ware, jardiniers, etc. They employ one hundred and fifty men. George S. Morley is manager; L. B. Beerbower, sole proprietor.
AMERICAN GAS FURNACE COMPANY.
This well equipped plant is located at Lafayette, Spring and Elizabeth streets, and was established in 1879 and incorporated in 1887. The company are manufacturers of the American oil-gas machine, gas- blast furnaces, forgers, burners, etc. They make a specialty of install- ing complete fuel-gas plants for all manufacturing purposes, and in 1894 they were awarded a inedal by the city of Philadelphia, on the recommendation of the Franklin Institute. This company was started in an extremely small way, about fourteen years ago, but their business has so grown from year to year that to-day all their pattern and foundry work has to be done by other firms. The officers of the company are: E. P. Reichhelm, president, engineer and manager; George Machlet,
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vice-president and factory superintendent; Robert Von Cleff, treasurer; F. Dieffenbach, secretary.
GRAFF & COMPANY
are manufacturers of high-grade furnaces, heaters and ranges. The foundry is an extensive one, located at Elizabethport, the whole plant occupying an entire block, and being equipped with every modern appliance for producing first-class work. They employ a force of more than eighty skilled workmen, and their products are shipped to every part of the United States. The members of the company are John M. Graff, W. M. Seymour and John H. Forshew. Frank Dakin is superintendent.
A. HEIDRITTER & SONS.
The lumber business of Heidritter & Sons was established in 1860, but the senior member of the firm was here engaged in mercantile pursuits many years before. The main office, planing mill, etc., are on the New Point road and Point avenue. The sons, Frederick L. and Augustus Heidritter, Jr., are the present members of the firm. The yards and mills are well located so far as railroad facilities are con- cerned. Sidings run into the yards, and lumber, coal and other inaterial are received in cars direct from the timber-cutting districts and the mills and mines of the west and south, without being rehandled. The firm have extensive lumber yard, warehouse and wharves on the Elizabeth river, near Staten Island Sound.
THE BORNE-SCRYMSER COMPANY
are manufacturers of mineral lubricating oils and grease, and are located on Staten Island Sound. Starting in 1883, they have gradually increased their plant until to-day it covers fourteen acres and consists of various buildings, scattered throughout the grounds. There are about sixty iron tanks used for storing oils and ranging in capacity from fifty to two thousand barrels each. The company manufacture about one hundred different grades of oils. The crude oil used is run through pipes from the oil regions. They have a barrel run of over one thousand feet in length, and there are always to be seen huge piles of empty barrels, occasionally numbering as many as ten thousand. All sections of the buildings are connected by a system of pipes, and there are seven stills, with a capacity of twenty-five to six hundred barrels each, and they have one tank holding thirty-five thousand barrels and two holding fifteen thousand barrels each. One section of the buildings was destroyed by fire about four years ago, entailing a loss of one hundred thousand dollars. This has been entirely rebuilt, and their facilities greatly enlarged. The plant is admirably adapted for shipping purposes, having docks on the water front and switches from the railroad running directly into the
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works. The company originally started in Brooklyn with a small experi- mental plant, capable of producing four hundred and fifty barrels of manufactured oil per month. They increased their capacity from year to year till 1883, when, on the destruction of their plant by fire, they removed to this city and built their present works; to these they have been constantly making additions until to-day their capacity is one thousand one hundred barrels of finished oils per day. They employ forty workmen in their various departments. They have for the sale and handling of their manufactured products offices and agencies in every civilized country in the world, with offices at 80 and 81 South street, New York. The officers of the company are : J. E. Borne, president and treasurer ; Charles E. Renshaw, secretary ; Theodore G. Sullivan, general manager ; George H. Kline, superintendent of works.
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FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CHURCHYARD, AND CHAPEL
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CHURCH HISTORY OF ELIZABETH.
HE early religious history of the town of Elizabeth is involved in uncertainty. As early as 1667 Dr. Hatfield, from whom we quote liberally, says it is quite probable the sturdy men here wended their way to Newark to hear their venerable pastor, Abrahain Pierson, who, with large accessions from Branford and Guilford, Connecticut, had taken up residence with them in that new settlement. Mention is made of the town house as early as June, 1671. The "Town House " and the " Meeting House," were one. It is quite probable that this house was erected about the year 1665; for as early as February 19th, of that year, they held a "meeting court," at which the whole town was present, and sixty-five men took the oath of allegiance and fidelity. The lot on which the house was built included the present burying-ground of the First Presbyterian church, extended on the west of the river and contained about eight acres. The earliest survey of the lot bears date of June 5, 1732, and was made by Joseph Mann, surveyor.
The meeting house occupied the site of the present church, but was much smaller. Graves were sometimes dug on ground now occupied by the church building, and the whole area of the First church probably is occupied with the remains of the first two or three generations of the people of the town. Rev. Thomas James, pastor of the church of East Hampton, Long Island, was chosen, in 1667, first minister of the town, and had consented to cast his lot with them, but was persuaded by his people to abandon the enterprise. The Rev. Jeremiah Peck, son of Deacon William Peck, of New Haven, Connecticut, born near London, England, in 1622 or 1623, became a freeholder of this town in 1668, and about this time, on invitation extended by the people to serve them in the ministry, became first pastor of the church in this place.
According to Cotton Mather's statement, Jeremiah Peck was gradu- ated at Harvard College in 1654, but his name is not included in the Harvard catalogues. He was employed as a teacher at Guilford, Connec- ticut, where he married Johannah, daughter of Robert Kitchell, of that town, November 12, 1656. He was minister to the people in Saybrook, Connecticut, from 1661 to 1665, when he returned to Guilford, and with his father-in-law, many of the Guilford people, and the greater part of Branford, with Mr. Pierson, their aged minister, came to Newark, in the autumn of 1667, becoming one of the founders of that town. His house
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lot was on the east corner of Market and Mulberry streets, adjoining that of his father-in-law, on the latter street. It is probable that he served the town in the ministry until Mr. Pierson's arrival, on October 1, 1667. Mr. Peck was known extensively as a minister of the gospel, and applications for ministerial services were made at different places. In 1678 he accepted an invitation to settle with the people of Greenwich, Connecticut, in the ministry, and here he remained till 1690, when he went to Waterbury, Connecticut, where he died, in 1699.
Rev. Seth Fletcher became the second minister in the town, in 1680. His death occurred in August, 1682. He was a graduate of Harvard, in 1645; was the first minister of Middletown, Connecticut, in 1664; subse- quently of Wells, Maine, where, owing to the laxness of his views on the sanctification of the Sabbatlı, he was dismissed, in October, 1660. He was a man of scholarly attainments and of much zeal for the truth. There was no settled pastor of the church from the death of Rev. Mr. Fletcher, until the year 1687, when a call was made to and accepted by the Rev. John Harriman, a native of New Haven, Connecticut. This worthy minister was trained under the rigid old Puritan, the Rev. John Davenport, by whom he had been baptized. In his thirteenth year he came under the instruction of Jeremiah Peck, at that time principal of the grammar school at New Haven, and afterwards the first pastor of this town. He received his college education at Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was graduated in 1667. After his graduation he returned to New Haven and taught the Hopkins Grammar School several years, and in 1674 accepted a call to preach at Fordham, continuing in the ministry till his death, which occurred August 20, 1705. On the day of his death, he preached, and told his people, says the Boston News Letter, "that his time of departure drew near, and exhorted them to peace and unity with one another, and to stand fast in the covenant that they had engagad themselves to." Mr. Harriman was a man of great exactness and of large business. He had a hundred-acre lot "in the plains," and this he cleared and cultivated. He leased and operated the old mill which John Ogden had built, at the bridge on the creek. In 1698-1701 he built his house in Meadow street, north of Jersey street, and he had also a cider press, an agency for furnishing glass to his neighbors; now and then he surveyed lands, and was elected as a deputy to the legislature in 1693, 1695 and 1698, and kept a boarding school also. Mr. Harriman dealt largely in real estate and also in slaves (at least for his own use.) "We bought the negro, Toney, August 14, 1697, from Charles Tooker, Jr., for forty-eight pounds." Again, "October 28, 1701, lie bought of Mr. James Emot an Indian girl, named Hagar, for nineteen pounds, ten shillings."
It was during Mr. Harriman's ministry that the Episcopal church in the town was formed. At first the rival church services were held at Colonel Townley's house, but afterward in the church building. Mr. Harriman held the first, beginning at eight A. M.,-the established
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custom of meeting on the Lord's day,-ending at ten, A. M., after which the house was used by the Episcopalians, but with the proviso that they should not read any of the prayers of the church. They were permitted, however, to read the psalms, lessons, epistle and gospel, and says the Rev. John Brooke, the first minister of St. John's church : " I said all of the rest of the service by heart."
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