History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of many of their Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 207

Author: W. Woodford Clayton, Ed.
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia: Everts
Number of Pages: 1224

USA > New Jersey > Middlesex County > History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of many of their Pioneers and Prominent Men > Part 207
USA > New Jersey > Union County > History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of many of their Pioneers and Prominent Men > Part 207

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silicic acid, 42.20; water (combined), 14.05; silica (sand), 0.20; titanic acid, 1.05; potash, 0.25 ; sesqui- oxide of iron, 0.45; water (moisture), 0.90. Total, 100.24. The purity of this clay is apparent at a glance at these figures. The blue portion of the bed under the buff is thought to be equally good, but it burns a little darker color. Selected lots from this bank are sold for ware, the buff going as a paper clay. The rest is good enough for fire-brick. Sand underlies the clay, and the digging stops when it is reached.

The Kearney clay bank is three-quarters of a mile northeast of the Roberts opening, and half a mile southeast of Kearney's dock. The ground about this opening is 70 to 80 feet high, and the top of the clay, as ascertained by the leveling done in 1855 by the geological survey, is 57 feet high. The fire-clay bed was 17 feet thick, of which 13 feet of the top was of good quality, and 4 feet at the bottom of spotted clay. The pits stopped at a sandy clay at the bottom. Rest- ing on the fire-clay bed there was in places a black, lignite-bearing clay, but most of the top or bearing, which was 10 to 18 feet thick, was yellow sand. A kaolin was dug in the lower ground, about 200 feet from this clay bank, and at the side of the road. Its height above tide-level was 44 feet. In Roberts' bank (worked in 1855, but not lately), a few rods northeast of the Kearney bank, there was yellow sand 15 to 30 feet thick, then 14 feet of fire-clay, and the surface of this latter was found to be 58 feet above mean tide- level. The operators upon the Kearney tract, Messrs. E. F. & J. M. Roberts, make a practice of throwing the spits in heaps upon a board flooring at the side of the pit, sorting them into paper, ware, fire-brick, and alum clays, according to their quality. Most of these clays go either to Jersey City or to Trenton, although some are sent as far as Baltimore and Boston. The fire-brick clay is sold to manufacturers in Philadel- phia, Reading, the Lehigh Valley, and other distant points. The aggregate production of the banks ou this tract, worked steadily for so many years, is very large, and of this amount an unusually large propor- tion has been of very superior quality and has com- manded high prices.

Fire-sand, feldspar, and sandy clay have been dug at the pits on the J. N. Coleman estate, a mile north- west of South Amboy, and near the road to Kearney's dock. At the most westerly pit a sandy material re- sembling feldspar is found a few feet below the sur- face. The top of this layer is about thirty feet high. In the pit southeast of the feldspar some clay has been dug, but it is said to have been in thin layers and of limited extent. A yellowish-white quartz sand forms the bearing in these pits. The fire-sand pit is in lower ground, northeast of the road. Both the fire-sand and clay dug on this property are very probably of drift origin, a part of the great sheet of sand, gravel, and clays which cover the members of the plastic clay beds in this part of the clay district.

The clays nearer the shore and southeast of these pits appear to be of like character.

W. C. Perrine's clay pits are located half a mile south of South Amboy, 200 yards northwest of the old Bordentown turnpike. A shaft was sunk 46 feet, 32 feet through sand and gravel, and 14 feet in a dark- colored tough clay, containing a little lignite and pyrite. This clay was deemed unsatisfactory for stoneware, and the shaft was abandoned. West of South Amboy, and near Roberts' banks, W. C. Per- rine dug a little clay, merely as an exploration, and operations there were speedily abandoned. The clay pits of E. R. Rose & Son and the adjacent diggings of W. C. Perrine are at the side of the Camden and Amboy Railroad, near the old Bordentown turnpike. The ground here and for some distance to the north and west is rather flat, and 60 to 80 feet above tide- level. The strata observed in these pits are in the following order and thickness, beginning at the sur- face :

(1) Sand, gravel, and very sandy clay, six to ten feet; (2) stoneware clay, six feet; (3) dark-colored sandy earth at the bottom.

The clay bed varies in thickness, having been found as much as fifteen feet thick, including eight feet of the top clay, which is sandy aud stained a little by oxide of iron. This top clay is sold for common yellow-ware manufacture. The stoneware clay has a grayish color, and is marked by dark spots of oxide of iron, so characteristic of the clay of this bed, and known as "fly-specked clay." It is very solid, and its specific gravity is 2.129 to 2.151. The composition of this clay is as follows :

Alumina, 20.12; silicic acid, 28.60; water (com- bined), 7.22; sand (quartz), 37.10; titanic acid, 1.10; potash, 1.50; soda, traces; magnesia, 0.29; sesqui- oxide of iron, 1.38; water (moisture), 4.18. Total, 101.49.

The bed becomes more sandy towards the bottom, and in the more northeastern pits it is underlaid by a dark-colored sandy clay, which farther west is re- placed by a looser sandy earth. The top of the bed, as opened in Rose's pits, has a mean height of seventy feet above tide-level. W. C. Perrine's clay pits are in the flat ground southwest of Rose's, and the beds have the same average thickness as the latter. West of the pits of W. C. Perrine, and near the Burt's Creek and Jacksonville road, stoneware clay has been found in borings made by Otto Ernst. The layer penetrated was only one foot thick, a foot and a half beneath the surface, and under it there was white sand. Its elevation above tide-level was about sixty- seven feet. So thin a layer is of no practical value. Two other borings near this one did not show any clay.

The deep valley of Crossway Brook, south of South Amboy, running from the old Bordentown turnpike to Cheesquake Creek, affords favorable localities for opening the stoneware bed. E. R. Rose & Son, Morgan

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HISTORY OF UNION AND MIDDLESEX COUNTIES, NEW JERSEY.

& Furman, W. C. Perrine, and William Hayes have pits in this valley, and near its mouth Otto Ernst has . a clay bank. At the clay pits of E. R. Rose & Son the following strata are cut: (1) yellow sandy gravel and (2) yellowish-white sand, ten feet; (3) dark drab- colored clay, one foot ; (4) blue stoneware clay, six to seven feet; (5) yellow streaked earth at the bottom. These pits are on the west side of the valley, south- east of the residence of Mr. Rose. Morgan & Fur- man's pits and mines are across the brook from the pits just described, and not more than a mile south- west of South Amboy. The following is the order of beds :

(1) Yellow sandy gravel, 2 to 4 feet ; (2) yellow sand, 10 to 11 feet; (3) black clay (not in all the pits), 3 to 4 feet ; (4) blue stoneware clay, 10 feet ; (5) dark red clay, 13 feet. At the bottom there is generally a sandy black clay. The northeast pits are about a hundred yards from the western opening and in higher ground. The surface has an elevation of ninety-six feet. In these pits the top-dirt consists of yellow sand and gravel, 6 to 8 feet, and black clay, 3 to 4 feet. The blue stoneware bed is 10 feet thick, and lies upon a black clay. Neither of these places is now being worked. The first work was done in 1876. On ground northeast from the last-mentioned openings shafts have been sunk and work has since been done. The pit of Ward C. Perrine, about sixty rods southeast of Morgan & Furman's mines, is one of the oldest in this valley. The stoneware clay there is said to be about three feet thick. Down the valley farther are the pits of William Hayes, which were opened in 1867, the clay being carted to South Am- boy. The following strata are seen in these pits :

(1) Yellow gravel, 1 to 3 feet ; (2) yellow sand, 12 fect ; (3) stoneware clay, 5 to 6 feet; (4) dark drab- colored clay, 1 to 2 feet; (5) yellowish earthy clay (yellow streaked) at the bottom.

Morgan's old and well-known clay bank is one mile south of South Amboy, on the shore of Raritan Bay. The following is the order of the succession of strata and their thickness at this bank, beginning at the surface :

(1) Laminated sand and sandy clay, 40 feet; (2) sandy clay (inferior), 8 feet; (3) blue stoneware-clay, 3 feet ; (4) red (including peach-blossom clay), 6 feet ; (5) stoneware-clay, becoming sandy at the bot- tom, 5 feet ; (6) sand at the bottom.

oldest in the State or country, potter's clay having been dug here before 1800. Otto Ernst's clay beds at salt-works dock, on the north bank of Cheesquake Creek, half a mile from its mouth, were formerly worked by the Amboy Clay Company. Here there seem to be two distinct beds,-an upper one, which was worked in the bank, being from 5 to 7 feet thick and 10 feet above high-water level, and a lower one, which is 17 feet thick and 12 to 29 feet below the same level.

POTTERY AND BRICK-MAKING .- Clay from Mor- gan's banks was used in making stoneware about 1800. Soon afterwards Xerxes Price, perhaps in company with some of his brothers, purchased the property at Roundabout and began making stone- ware pottery, using clay from Morgan's old bank. The plentiful supply of clay close at hand and its excellent adaptation to brick manufacture, the small amount of waste material to be removed, the natural drainage, and the convenience of navigable waters combine to render Sayreville one of the greatest brick-making areas in the country.

James Wood was the first to embark in this busi- ness, beginning to make common brick in 1851 on his clay property at Roundabout. At the outset his works had a manufacturing capacity of fifteen thou- saud bricks daily, which has increased to fifty thou- sand. His yard covers a large area, his sheds being seventy by five hundred feet, aud containing five kilns, each twenty-eight by fifty-six feet, all heated from ninety-four arches. A fifty horse-power engine is employed, seventy men being required to do the labor connected with the various processes. The present annual production is eight million brick. There is a store on the property, which Mr. Wood conducts for the accommodation of his employés.

In the fall of 1851, Peter Fisher and James Sayre, Jr., the former from Fishkill, N. Y., the latter a resi- dent of Newark, began the manufacture of common brick on the Price property, west of Wood's yard. In 1861 this firm began making fire-brick at Sayre- ville. Sayre & Fisher rank among the most exten- sive brick manufacturers of the United States, having five yards containing twenty-one kilns, their opera- tions covering many acres, involving the erection of several large sheds and the employment of about two hundred men. In the report of the State geological survey of 1878 the annual product of the yards of Sayre & Fisher was computed to twenty-two million bricks, to make which would require at least fifty thousand tons of raw material. In 1858 this firm began manufacturing common brick near the bridge from Sayreville to Washington. This business passed entirely into the ownership of Peter Fisher in 1876. At this place the annual production is estimated at four million bricks.

The method of excavation here has been somewhat varied. More commonly the top dirt is removed, and then large pits are sunk in the clay, which are in turn filled by the bearing of the succeeding pit, and so on. Sometimes a pit is dug, and then from it short drifts are cut in the clay bed, after which the top is allowed to fall down and fill the excavated space. From the pits the clay is carted at low tide to vessels lying off the shore. Most of it is sold for stoneware, but a Near this last-mentioned yard Robert L. Serviss began making common hard brick in 1853, abandon- large quantity goes to Norwalk, Conn., and elsewhere to door-knob factories. This bank is one of the | ing the enterprise in 1871. During a portion of this

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time the yard was operated by Tuttle & Serviss. In 1877 the property was purchased by William F. Fisher, who made many improvements upon it and added much to the capacity of the works.

Adjoining Peter Fisher's brick-yard on South River, near the road from Washington to South Amboy, the Washington Brick Company established a yard in 1868, and the business was continued until the death of H. F. Worthington in 1879. The capac- ity of these works is large, but they are now idle.

The brick-yards of the Middlesex Company are located on Burt's Creek near the Raritan. This com- pany began operations in 1881, with Peter H. Valen- tine as president, E. Belknap as treasurer, Mr. S. Higbee as general manager, Lawrence Neubrandt as superintendent, and M. S. Ross as secretary, manufacturing fire-brick and furnace-blocks, which are burned in what are known among brick-makers as " square-down draught-kilns." The capacity of the works is twenty thousand bricks per day, one hun- dred and ten men are employed, the factory measures ninety by one hundred and sixty feet, the kilns are four in number, each having four arches, and an engine of one hundred horse-power is used. The products of this establishment are shipped chiefly to New York State and Pennsylvania.

E. F. Roberts carried on the manufacture of com- mon brick for some years on the Kearney tract, but abandoned the business to engage in the sand and clay trade.

GEORGE SUCH'S GREEN-HOUSE .-- One of the most notable of Sayreville's industries is the celebrated green-house of George Such, on the Ridgway property on Burt's Creek. This enterprise has gradually grown to large proportions, having its nucleus in a small green-house established by Mr. Such for his recreation, and with no idea that it would ever become in any sense a business. Its growth has been of that kind which cannot be expressed statistically or descrip- tively, but it has been steady and substantial, and Mr. Such now offers to lovers of the beautiful in flower-culture as good a collection of fine plants as is to be found in the Union, his trade extending to all parts of this country and to foreign lands, many of his plants surpassing those of the same varieties grown in England and France. His hot-houses are six in number. Three of them measure each one hundred feet by twelve, and three each one hundred and twenty-five feet by twenty. Near by are a fernery fifty feet by forty, and a house for pitcher plants one hundred feet by twenty. Ten men are employed.

Villages and Hamlets .- SAYREVILLE is a small village which has grown up under the influence of the extensive brick industry carried on there and near there. It was formerly called Roundabout, a name derived from the fact that it was accessible by water only by a very circuitous route by way of the Rari- tan and South Rivers. In 1872 it was renamed in honor of James R. Sayre, Jr., an extensive land-owner

and manufacturer there. The first and only post- master to date is Peter Fisher. The population is above eight hundred, mostly employés at the several brick-yards about the village and other families.

There are at Sayreville two stores, kept by Sayre & Fisher and James Wood, a Methodist Church, a school- house, a hotel, and a saloon, with such a number of dwellings as are necessary for the accommodation of the inhabitants. The Sayreville Hotel was estab- lished in 1870 by Maximilian Bailey ; the Mitchell House, as the other public-house is known, in 1877 by Christian Mitchell. Sayreville, as the principal settlement within the new township, gave its name to the latter upon its organization.

BURT'S CREEK .- This is the name by which is known a scattered neighborhood extending along the creek of that name from near its mouth to its head- waters. Within its not very definite limits are the steam clay-works and green-houses of George Such, and the brick-factory of the Middlesex Company, and several dwellings.

MECHANICSVILLE. - The extreme southwestern corner of what was the village of South Amboy be- fore the erection of Sayreville, now separated from South Amboy proper by the boundary line between the two townships, is called Mechanicsville. It em- braces between four and five blocks of village lots, and contains a few dwellings.

Schools .- Nothing definite or interesting of early schools in this township is ascertainable. There are two school districts in Sayreville, of which that at the village is the older and most important. These are numbered 37 and 25 in the enumeration of the school districts of Middlesex County, and are locally known respectively as " Brickland" and " Ernston."

The number of children of the school age in Sayre- ville township in 1881 was 148 in District No. 37, and 92 in District No. 25. In 1880 schools were kept open nine and three-tenths months in District No. 37, and eight months in District No. 25. In District No. 37 the average attendance was 90, in District No. 25, 20. It was estimated that in the former district 8 attended select school, and in the latter 25; 37 in District No. 37 and 28 in District No. 25 attended no school. The school-house in District No. 37 will seat 125 scholars; that in District No. 25, 60. One male and one female teacher were employed in District No. 37, at salaries of $45 and $33 per month respectively. A female teacher was employed in District No. 25 at $16.50 per month. The apportionment from State appropriation to Districts Nos. 37 and 25 was $633.77 and $300 re- spectively. For the payment of teachers' salaries $150 was voted in District No. 25. The amount of district school tax voted for building, purchasing, hiring, re- pairing, or furnishing public school houses was $400 in District No. 37, and $150 in District No. 25. In Dis- trict No. 37 the total amount of district tax ordered to be raised was $400; in District No. 25,8300. The total amount received from all sources for public school pur-

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HISTORY OF UNION AND MIDDLESEX COUNTIES, NEW JERSEY.

poses in Districts Nos. 37 and 25 was $1033.77 and $600 respectively. The present value of school property in District No. 37 is $1600. The school-house in District No. 25 is a rented building. In District No. 37 a fund is being raised with a view to establishing a school library, $20 having been received to date (1882).

Churches .- SAYREVILLE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH .- Old Bethel Circuit, out of which Sayreville station grew, had its origin in 1842, at which time Rev. J. B. Dobbins was pastor. The charges as then arranged were Bethel Church of Sayreville, with 80 members ; Old Bridge Church, with 27 members; and Princeton Church, with 12 members, making 119 mem- bers. The circuit at this time included the district of country embracing Princeton, South Amboy, and Roundabout.

In 1848 occurred in records the first mention of what is now the Sayreville Church. The class was formed at Roundabout, and was composed of Jolin Van Deventer, Eliza Van Deventer, John Slover, Peter Van Deventer, Louisa Bolton, Lorenzo Van Deventer, Mary Slover, and Sister Bolton, and services were held in private houses. In 1850 the name of the charge was changed to Middlesex Mission, and then included Washington, Old Bridge, South Amboy, Fresh Pond, and Roundabout.

In 1869 the erection of a church edifice in Sayre- ville was commenced, and the corner-stone was laid with appropriate ceremonies by Revs. E. H. Stokcs, C. R. IIartranft, B. F. Sharp, I. H. Mickel, and J. J. Corrin. This building was completed in 1872, and dedicated in June, 1878. The dedicatory sermon was preached by Rev. T. Hanlan, D.D.

For a period of years this church and that at Wash- ington were connected. In 1874 Roundabout was sepa- rated from the Washington Church and became a separate station, with Rev. Firman Robbins as its first pastor. His successors have been Rev. David McCurdy, 1875-77; Rev. A. J. Gregory, 1878; and Rev. John Handly, the present pastor, 1879-82.

The present trustees are Peter Fisher, I. Letts, J. Blew, J. Slover, and I. Griffin. The church has a membership of fifty, and is in a prosperous condition. The house of worship is of brick, thirty-three by forty-three feet, with a " recess pulpit," is pleasantly located on a high elevation overlooking South River, and cost $6600. The parsonage, which is of brick, cost $1816.

THE HOLY TRINITY CHAPEL .- In the school- house at Sayreville Episcopalian services were held in 1859 by Rev. Gideon J. Burton, rector at that time of Christ Church, South Amboy.

Jan. 12, 1860, Rev. Mr. Burton laid the corner-stone of the Holy Trinity Chapel, and on the 14th of the following April he held the first service in the new house of worship, which was consecrated by Right Rev. Bishop Odenheimer on Whit-Sunday, 1861.

The cost of the erection of this chapel was but little more than $1000, which amount was donated for such

use by Miss Sophia Conover, then a resident of South Amboy. The land on which it stood was given by Mr. William Van Deventer.

At the suggestion of Rev. Gideon J. Burton, and with the consent of those whose benefactions had made its erection possible, and with the sauction of the ecclesiastical authorities of the diocese, this struc- ture was taken down and removed to Washington, in East Brunswick, in the summer of 1876.

The Washington Canal .- In 1823 a charter was procured for a canal something more than a mile in length from South River to the Raritan, traversing the narrowest part of the western portion of the present township, its object being to shorten the dis- tance by water from Washington to the Raritan, thus facilitating the carrying trade from that point. This canal was constructed by Samuel Gordon, of South Amboy, as contractor, and finished about 1824 or 1825, and bas since been familiarly known by the above name.

CHAPTER CVII.

CRANBURY.1

Situation and Boundaries .- Cranbury, contain- ing nine thousand one hundred and sixteen acres, is the smallest township in the county except South Amboy, and was the last organized. In its entirety it is the most southern of the townships, though the southern extremity of Monroe extends farther south- ward than the southern limit of Cranbury. It is bounded north by South Brunswick and Monroe, east by Monroe, south by East Windsor and' West Windsor (Mercer County), and (if from its peculiar wedge-like shape it may be said to have a western boundary) on the west by Princeton (Mercer County).

Descriptive .- The surface of Cranbury is slightly rolling, and the soil is generally well cultivated and in most parts quite productive. It is drained by Cranbury Brook, which flows across it east and west, and Millstone River, which has its course along its southern border. The principal thoroughfares are the New Brunswick and Cranbury turnpike (the old George's road) and the Cranbury and Princeton turnpike. The Camdeu and Amboy Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad defines a portion of the eastern boundary and crosses the southeastern corner, and the New York Division of the same railroad crosses the township near its western extremity. In 1880 the real estate in Cranbury was valued at $624,600, the personal property at $805,000, the number of voters was 390.

Settlement and Early Occurrences .- The earliest data concerning any portion of the present township of Cranbury is to the effect that within teu days

1 By M. O. Rolfe.

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CRANBURY.

after the confirmation (March 14, 1682) of East Jersey to the twenty-four proprietors (of whom John Haywood and Thomas Cooper were two) by the Duke of York, John Haywood conveyed his share to Robert Burnett, who divided his possessions and sold them out in parcels, one of which, embracing a tract in Cranbury, bounded east by George's road and south by Cranbury Brook, was granted in 1703 by Isabella McKinsie to Philip French, of New York City.

In 1734 the heirs of Philip French sold this tract to Noah Barton, who sold the part on which most of the northern part of Cranbury village has grown up to Samuel Leonard. From Leonard it passed to Peter Wyckoff, and a portion of it has since remained in possession of successive generations of his descend- ants.

Thomas Cooper seems to have held the land em- bracing that part of the village south of the brook. In 1683 he sold one-half of his tract to Sir John Gordon, whose son, Sir Robert Gordon, sold the same in 1720 to John Rochead. In 1736, John Rochead conveyed four acres and a half on the brook to Thomas Grubbs, doubtless as a seat for a grist- mill, for it is recorded that Thomas Grubbs conveyed this same lot, together with a grist-mill, to John Collins in 1741. There is no means of ascertaining how much of a settlement had at that time grown up about the mill, which must be regarded as the probable nucleus of whatever population the vicinity then and has since contained.

THE NAME OF THE TOWNSHIP .- The settlement and subsequent village received their name from the brook on whose banks they had their beginning and growth, and the village transmitted the name to the township.

When and by whom Cranbury Brook was named is not known. During former years the name was often erroneously spelled Cranberry. The following para- graph on this subject from the pen of Rev. Joseph G. Symmes, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Cranbury since 1857, will be found interesting in this connection :

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History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of many of their Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 207

Author: W. Woodford Clayton, Ed. Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Philadelphia: Everts Number of Pages: 1224

Author: W. Woodford Clayton, Ed.
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia: Everts
Number of Pages: 1224