History of the city of Paterson and the County of Passaic, New Jersey, Part 4

Author: Nelson, William, 1847-1914
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Paterson : Press Printing and Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 466

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traced1 by the careful observer at Totowa, in the sand hills above Browertown, on the Preakness mountains, at Bloom- ingdale, at Pompton, on the hills enclosing the lovely Wana- que valley as far north as Ringwood and Hewitt, through the Ramapo valley, and southerly to Liberty Corner, in Somerset county, including all of Pompton Plains, and the country about Chatham and Morristown. was ten times the size of Lake Hopatcong to-day. At this period, the earth in this part of the country was sixty or sixty- five feet lower than it is now,2 so that the waters from this great lake leaped directly into the ocean, whose waves dashed against the gloomy cliffs at the present Pas- saic Falls. As the Glacier had pressed onward south- erly it had probably followed the course of the Passaic river, and so deposited along its banks vast quantities of valley drift-small boulders, coarse gravel, fine sand and clay, which were piled up in terraces, rising higher and higher.

Toward the close of the Glacial period, and with the in- coming of the Champlain epoch, there was a depression of the earth's surface,3 accompanied by a great thaw. As the melting of the ice increased, vast floods followed at irregular intervals. At length the lofty dam was swept away, and the imprisoned waters of the ancient lake rushed down across the trap edge to the country be- low. Finer sand was added to the summits of the terraces, with occasional layers of gravel, suggestive of periods of raging torrents succeeded by seasons of a long-continued even flow of water. During the Drift epoch fragments of fossiliferous rocks were carried from long distances and de- posited by the Glacier along its margin, or perhaps where it met the ocean.4 Thus by the combined action of ice and water were formed those singular terraces known as Colt's Hill (bounded by Ward, Main, Grand and Prince streets, and removed in 1890-91) and Sandy Hill (now bounded by Market, East Nineteenth, Clay, Chestnut and Vine streets). These hills had flat summits, one hundred and fifty-two feet

1 "In a region where forests afford no obstruction, the observer has merely to bring his eye into the plane once occupied by the water sur- face, and all the borizontal elements of shore topography are projected in a single line. This line is exhibited to him not merely by the dis- tinctions of light and shade, but by distinctions of color due to the fact tbat the changes of inclination and of soil at the line influence the distri- bution of many kinds of vegetation. In this manner it is often possible to obtain from the general view evidence of the existence of a faint shore tracing, which could be satisfactorily determined in no other way. The ensemble of a faintly scored shore mark is usually easier to recognize than any of its details."-G. K. Gilbert, " On the Topographic Features of Lake Shores," Fifth Annual Report of the U. S. Geological Survey, 1883-84, p. 122.

2 As shown by beach marks at Mount Pleasant cemetery at Newark ; on the bluff at Navesink Highlands; in the gravel hill wbere the new Pennsylvania Railroad station at Trenton stands; on the hills west of Shark river, and at other points.

8 Probably 150 feet about Philadelphia, and increasing to the north .- Wright's Ice Age in North America, 414.

4 Such fragments of rocks, generally sandstone, sometimes yellow and sometimes red or brown, containing fossils, were found in excavating for the cellars of the buildings on the south-east corner of Broadway and Washington street; in digging for the foundations for the new gas works near Lyon street ; in grading the Boulevard between Nineteenth and Twentieth avenues, and at other places in Paterson.

HISTORY OF PATERSON.

above tide level. The Broadway Hill, the hill at East Eighteenth street and Seventh avenue, in Paterson, and the sandy hills at Haledon, are all of the same height-one hundred and fifty-two to one hundred and sixty feet; this similarity in height and material, at least as regards Colt's Hill, Sandy Hill and the hills of sand formation at or near Haledon, and at North Paterson, indicates an origin due to the same time and the same cause.

Strange scenes were enacted about the shores of that pre-historic "Lake Passaic." The mammoth, twice the size of the largest elephant of to-day, and covered with red- dislı wool and black hair, having tusks twelve feet long, curved upwards, roamed about the neighborhood, and occa- sionally encountered the still huger hairy mastodon.1 The Greenland reindeer? glided swiftly over open spaces across the ice, with the caribou, the bison and the musk-ox.3 The industrious beaver set the precedent for the mighty bar- rier at the Falls, by damming up the streams that flowed into the Lake. Birds, five or six feet high, with formidable rows of teeth, coursed through the air, or preyed on the fish that swarmed in the waters, while the turkey placidly waxed fat with never a fear of Thanksgiving Day.

But of all the beasts and birds that were wont to make their home near the shores of this great lake, scarcely a member of their species now exists, and the only evidences that they once roamed the earth or air, are the infrequent fossil remains occasionally brought to light by modern ex- cavations. Of "Lake Passaic" itself, the only vestiges left behind are the beach marks made by its waves on the pebbly shores, and the ponds which still exist in the deeper depressions of the old lake basin, such as Pompton Lake, Crystal Lake, 4 and perhaps Franklin Lake. At the close of this period, as the Glacial Lakes5 disappeared they generally found their way to the ocean by the old valleys and river channels,6 and when these great bodies of water had gone the rivers shrank to something like their present size and into nearly their present.beds, which, how-

1 The tusk of a mastodon was found in the Trenton gravel, fourteen feet below the surface, in 1878. The remains of another were found more recently near Corona, Bergen county. Bones of the same huge beast have been found in a depression in a "fossil" glacier in Alaska- a glacier that has been stationary so long that it is covered four feet deep with earth in which forest trees are growing.

2 Remains of the reindeer have been found near Vincenttown.

3 Remains of all these animals have been found in the glacial drift in New Jersey.

4 Annual Report State Geologist, 1890, p. 60.

5 As evidence that the New Jersey lakes are all of glacial formation it is observed that the lakes of the State are confined to the Highland regions, generally in the " drift ; " there are no lakes in the State south of Budd's Lake, Morris county.

6 There is no channel in the Passaic river for a mile or two below the Falls; the river simply occupies a valley filled with glacial drift. The Writer distinctly recollects that while bathing in the Passaic river when a boy one day about thirty years ago, near the present Clay street bridge at Newark, the tide being unusually low and the water very clear, he saw a well defined channel in the bed of the river, near the middle, ten or twelve feet wide, with steep banks about two feet high; the channel of the old Mill brook was also distinctly visible, where it ran down the river bed and joined the river channel. These channels must have been worn down at a time when their banks were above water.

ever, are always, in the Northern hemisphere, cutting into their right banks, leaving the latter higher and steeper than their left shores.

After the period of vast floods already described, the earth began to rise once more, and New Jersey, which at this epoch did not extend south of a line drawn from Sandy Hook to Trenton, was slowly enlarged even beyond her present fair proportions, by the emergence from the sea of the beds of sand, marlyte, clay, shell limestone, compact limestone and green sand marl, which make up the southern counties, and which the jealous ocean is again seeking to reclaim as her own. There have been elevations and de- pressions of the earth's surface since the time when "Lake Passaic " poured its hundred square miles of water through its ruined glacial dam down into the valley of the Passaic, but there is every reason to believe that the Great Falls are to-day substantially as they were when that im- mense dam was burst asunder, and that the topography of the country about Paterson-of its hills, its valleys, its sand- hill terraces, its river, its principal water-courses-has undergone no change of note since that startling catas- trophe. 1

It was by all the countless changes that have been briefly hinted at rather than described, that the country was prepared for human habitation. The rocky slopes of the trap rock descending to the river bed above the Falls, the underlying strata of sandstone, gravel and "drift" be- low the Falls, and the sandy soil covering most of the site of the Paterson of to-day, all tend to assure for a large population the best drainage and the purest water-supply -two of the most essential requisites to health.

Nature is never at rest.

The transitions that have so often taken place in the past did not occur suddenly, by "some mighty convulsion of nature," as the favorite phase is. Nor should we conclude that such changes have ceased for all time, and that the surface of the earth is to remain as it is forever. Not so. The globe we live on is still undergoing alterations as vast, and with as far-reaching consequences in store, as any in by- gone epochs. "We live in a universc of change : nothing remains the same from one moment to another, and each

1 As already stated, geologists are substantially agreed that the last Glacial period ended from seven to ten thousand years ago. Through what length of time it continued is as yet largely a matter of conjecture. Some think fully a million years. The most conservative view is that of Prestwick (Geology, II., 533-4), who thinks 25,000 years would cover it. Dr. Wright believes (Man and the Glacial Period, 364) that "one hun- dred thousand years, or even less, might easily include both the slow coming on of the Glacial period and its rapid close." In an article in the Independent (New York) of November 10, 1892, Dr. Wright describes his discovery, in the Summer of 1892, of an ancient channel through which the waters of Lake Huron and its tributaries flowed via Lake Nipissing, Mattawan river and the Ottowa river into the St. Lawrence. This channel was formed after the Glacial era, and before the continent had subsided sufficiently to send the waters of the Great Lakes south- erly to form the present Niagara river. The most moderate estimate allows 7,000 to 7,500 years for the wearing back of the Niagara gorge to the Falls as they now are. Dr. Wright thinks the old channel via Lake Nipissing could have been formed in 2,000 or 2,500 years, and hence still believes that 10,000 years is enough to allow for the lapse of time since the disappearance of the continental ice sheet.

NEW JERSEY'S DEEPEST WELL.

recorded moment of time has its separate history."1 The current transformations are proceeding with a deliberation befitting their magnitude. Geologists may differ as to whether it was seven thousand or seventy thousand years since the last Glacier disappeared, and as to whether the history of the earth dates back twenty-two million or one hundred and fifteen million years. The earth's crust may be rising or falling but a few inches in a year. The Passaic Falls may be wearing away at the rate of only two or three inches in a century. But what are centuries in the history of a universe, or in the eyes of Him in whose sight a thousand years "are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night" ? As Haeckel well says : "From a strictly philosophical point of view, it makes no difference whether we hypothetically assume for these processes ten millions or ten thousand billions of years. Before us and behind us lies Eternity."2 As we stand and gaze upon that cataract and the volcanic rocks all about, seamed, and rent, and twisted, all telling of the wonderful power of the Creator, we feel what Bryant has so aptly expressed :

My beart is awed within me when I think Of the great miracle that still goes on, In silence, round me-the perpetual work Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed Forever.

Oh, there is not lost

One of earth's charms :. upon ber bosom yet, After the flight of untold centuries, The freshness of ber far beginning lies And yet shall lie.

ARTESIAN WELL AT THE PASSAIC ROLLING MILL, PATERSON.

The following is a tabular account of the specimens found in this well, with the depths at which they were taken, in feet. The boring began in September, 1879, and was continued until November, 1880:

DEPTH. DESCRIPTION OF MATERIALS.

65 feet .... Red sandstone, fine

II0 feet .... Red sandstone, coarse

182 feet .... Red sandstone, and a little shale

400 feet .... Red sandstone, shaly

404 feet .... Shale

430 feet .... Red sandstone, fine grained

540 feet .... Sandy shale, soft

540 feet .... Soft sbale

565 feet .... Soft shale

585 feet .... Soft shale 600 feet .... Hard sandstone

605 feet .... Soft shale 609 feet .... Soft shale 613 feet .... Soft sbale

1,170 feet .... Selenite, 2 X 1 x 1-16th in.

1,180 feet .... Fine quicksand, reddish

1,180 feet .... Fine quicksand, reddisb

1,180 feet .... Pyrites

I,370 feet .... Sandy rock, under quicksand

1,400 feet .... Dark red sandstone 1,400 feet .... Light red sandstone

1,415 feet .... Dark red sandstone

1 So wrote that eminent physicist, Prof. Josepb Henry, Director of the Smithsonian Institution, a month before his death, in 1878.

2 " History of Creation," New York, 1876, Vol. I., 129.

I,415 feet .... Light red sandstone

I,415 feet .... Fragments of red sandstone

1,540 feet .... Red sandstone, and a pebble of kaolin

1,700 feet .... Light red sandstone

1,830 feet .... Light red sandstone

1,830 feet .... Light red stone

2,000 feet .... Red shale

2,020 feet .... Light red sandstone

2,050 feet .... 2,100 feet .... Shaly sandstone

At this depth the attempt to bore through the red sandstone was abandoned, the water being altogether unfit for ordinary use, and the character and amount of the saline impurities giving little hope of suc- cess by going deeper. The fact that the rock salt of England, and of some of the other salt mines in Europe, is found in rocks of the same age as this, raises the question whether it may not also be found here. About the end of December, 1880, the tubing was drawn out of the well and the bore was stopped by a seed-bag below goo feet. The water then rose to within seventeen feet of the top. By putting down a pump forty feet into the well it has been made to yield 100 gallons of water a minute for five hours, without lowering the surface materially. This water bas been analyzed, and found to be slightly alkaline, agreeable to the taste, and to contain 13.54 grains of mineral matter to tbe gallon, and this mostly carbonates of lime and magnesia. Tbe analysis showed in a gallon (58,318 grains) :

2.15 grains of magnesia. 3.71 grains of lime. 1.15 grains of soda, with very little potash. 1.08 grains of chlorine. .55 grains of sulphuric acid. Not weighed, carbonic acid.

Tbe late Prof. Cook, State Geologist, assumed that these constituents are combined and exist in the water as :

4.51 grains of carbonate of magnesia, 5.95 grains of carbonate of lime,

1.78 grains of common salt, ·37 grains of carbonate of soda, .93 grains of sulphate of lime.

13.54

" These constituents," said Prof. Cook, " are not such as to make the water unwholesome for drinking or for household uses, and they will probably deposit in boilers as a sandy or muddy sediment, and the water can be used for supplying steam-boilers without danger or incon- venience." The well was begun with an eight-incb bore, and was cased with a six-inch tube down to 1120 fect, and tbe bore from that down to. 2100 feet was four and one-half inches.1

LIST OF MINERALS FOUND IN AND ABOUT PATERSON.

AMETHYST. (Quartz.) Silica-Little Falls.

ANALCITE. Hydrous silicate of sodium and aluminum .- Paterson.

AZURITE. Hydrous carbonate of copper .- Passaic Falls.

DATOLITE. Boro-silicate of calcium .- Paterson.

HEMATITE. Sesquioxide of iron .- Little Falls.

PECTOLITE. Pseudomorphs of quartz after this mineral occur in the quarries at Paterson.

PREHNITE. Silicate of aluminum and calcium .- Paterson, Little Falls and Browertown.

QUARTZ. Silica .- Little Falls (amethyst).

QUARTZ. Pseudomorphs of quartz after pectolite and other zeolites are reported by Josepb H. Hunt, M. D., as occurring in the quarries at Paterson.

STILBITE. Hydrous silicate of aluminum and calcium .- Little Falls and Paterson.2

Prof. R. S. Tarr, of the Geological Department of Cornell University, a recognized authority on mineralogy, at the request of the author of this History for a list of the minerals found in and about Paterson, has kindly written as follows :

1 Annual Report of State Geologist, 1880, pp. 163-5.

2 The foregoing list is from the Geological Survey, New Jersey. Fi- nal Report of the State Geologist, 1889, Vol. II., Part I., pp. 3-24 b.

HISTORY OF PATERSON.

" The following is, so far as I know, a complete list, but as I am acquainted with the region only in a general way, it may not be entirely correct. The list embraces all that are reported from there, but local collectors, wbo know every minute locality and are always on the watch, might be able to add some. Those marked * have been found in good cabinet specimens, possibly also the others."

*Amethyst *Chabazite Hornblende

*Quartz

* Analcite Chlorite *Laumontite *Prehnite

* Apophyllite *Datolite Limonite *Quartz pseudo-

Augite Epidote Magnetite morphs, after pec-

* Azurite Feldspar *Malachite tolite, stilbite, dato-

Biotite Hematite *Natrolite lite and apophyllite.

*Calcite *Heulandite *Pectolite

*Stilbite

Doubtless many of the list given by Prof. Tarr have been found no nearer Paterson than the trap rock at Bergen Hill. Possibly all of them may reward the diligent collector in the quarry and other rock excava- tions in and about Paterson.

The author has a distinct recollection of once finding, many years ago, Chalcopyrite (sulphide of copper and iron) under an overbanging mass of trap in the Valley of the Rocks.

Asbestus was found some years ago in digging a well on Totowa.

Lignite (mineral coal-carbon, bydrogen and oxygen) has been found on Higb Mountain, and probably elsewhere, in small, thin veins half an incb thick.

Quartz (milky crystals) has been found in many of the excavations in the trap rock in and about Paterson.

SOME SURVEYORS' BENCH-MARKS IN AND NEAR PATERSON. 1

CENTERVILLE .. . Elevation, 179.50 ft.

This bench-mark is on a small cut in a projecting stone, 4.6 feet above the ground, at the west end of the north abutment of the road bridge over the Morris Canal, I mile southwest of Centerville. Tbe point is in- dicated by an arrow-bead.

HAWTHORNE

Elevation, 42.83 ft.

A cross cut on the outside corner of the east end of the coping of the north abutment of the New York, Lake Erie and Western railroad bridge over the Passaic river.

LITTLE FALLS.

Elevation, 194.90 ft.

A cross cut on the nortbeast corner of the stone sill of the main front door of the Reformed Church.

LITTLE FALLS.

Elevation, 174.67 ft.

A cross cut on the stone coping at the end of the iron railing on the west side of the Passaic river, Morris Canal aqueduct.

MOUNTAIN VIEW

. Elevation, 175.74 ft.

A cross cut on the north corner of the west end of the coping of the circular wall at the north end of the west abutment of the aqueduct by which the Morris Canal crosses the Pompton river.

PATERSON.

. Elevation, 108.51 ft.

A cross cut on the south end of the sill of the Main street entrance of St. Boniface Church, at the southeast corner of Main and Slater streets. PATERSON. Elevation, 100.37 ft.

This bench-mark is a cross cut on the corner-stone at the northeast corner of the Passaic county court-house.

PATERSON.

Elevation, 89.92 ft. A cross cut on the east end of the sill of the main front door of the Market street M. E. Church.

PATERSON.

Elevation, 95.94 ft. A cross cut on the north end of the sill of the main entrance of the First Presbyterian Church.

PATERSON.

Elevation, 175.96 ft.

A cross cut on a projection in the lowest corner-stone at the southeast end of the west abutment of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western railroad bridge over the Morris Canal, between Little Falls and Paterson. RICHFIELD. . . Elevation, 182.56 ft.

A cross cut on tbe north end of the east abutment of the bridge over the Morris Canal. The point is at the end of the timber on which the bridge rests.

1 From Geological Survey, New Jersey. Final Report of the State Geologist, Vol. I. (1888), pp. 262-3.

OTHER ELEVATIONS IN AND NEAR PATERSON.1

Athenia. Rail at Erie station. 134.0

Bearfort Mountain, highest point in county. 1490.

Bloomingdale. Pequannock river at. 284.

Charlotteburgh. North rail at station 718.5

Clifton. Rail at Erie station 66.3

Cooper. Extreme west end of stone dam, outlet of lake. 624.0

Echo Lake. Top of boulder, 4 feet from corner fence of Brown's

Hotel 985.8

Great Notch, bencb on rock, west end of Notch 315.8

Great Notch, centre of road, back of the forks .. 303-7

Greenwood lake 618.

High Mountain, north of Paterson 879.

Hohokus. Erie track at station. . 197.5

Little Falls. Passaic river, above dam 158.

Little Falls. Passaic river, below Falls. I18.

Macopin lake. 890.

Morris Canal-Plane 11, near Bloomfield

176.5

66 " -- Lock 13, near Pompton 184.5

(The " seventeen-mile level " is between these two points.)

Newfoundland. South rail at railroad crossing east of station ... 774-7

Passaic. Rail at main railroad station, N. Y. L. E. & W. R. R .... 57.4 Passaic and Essex county line, post on Fairfield road near Singack. 190.3 Paterson. Erie track at Market street.

*Paterson-Morris Canal. 174.0

= -Garret Mountain-top of sandstone in quarry .. 406.2

-top of mountain above quarry. 506.4

-second crest.

523.5

* -Garret Rock 534.4

208.0

Pompton lake.

202.

Peckman river, at Stanley's mill pond. 191.6

Singac. Rail at crossing near station. 169.6

Smith's Mills. South rail at crossing. 440.2

*Wesel Mountain (U. S. Coast Survey Station, at Great Notch) ... 583.

ANALYSES OF TRAP ROCK. 2

High M't'n.

Bergen tunnel

Rocky Hill

Silica.

51.8

52.6

52.1

Protoxide of iron.

12.9

7.8

12.7

Alumina.

15.7

17.1

16.7

Magnesia

5-5

IO.I

3.2

Lime.

9.8

7.8

10.8

Soda.

1.4

1.3

2.3

Potasb.

0.3

0.9

0.8

Water.

2.8

I.9

I.4

100.2

99.5

100.0

Specific gravity. 2.94

2.94

The Higb Mountain rock analyzed is described as " a peculiar speci- men from the summit of the mountain, having the appearance of a gar- netiferous syenite."

The Bergen Hill specimen was "a grey rock, with a bluisb tinge of color, and forms the greater portion of the hill. The rock is hard, durable, of a very uniform grain, and is readily broken into blocks. The blocks of the Russ pavement are of this rock. It is composed of horn- blende and feldspar."

The Rocky Hill specimen analyzed was " very hard and tough; dark yellowish grey in color; crystalline in structure; weathers to a light grey color."

It will be observed that these specimens vary but little in composi- tion, although tbe High Mountain trap is extrusive, while the Bergen Hill

1 From Geology of New Jersey, 1868, pp. 831 et seqq., and Geological Survey, New Jersey, Final Report of the State Geologist (1888), Vol. I., p. 290. Barometric measurements are indicated by a *. These are taken from the former work. Mr. John T. Hilton, when City Surveyor of Paterson, ran some levels wbich indicated that the barometric height of Garret Rock, given here as 534 feet, was somewhere about 200 feet in excess of the actual height. The heights as given are compared with mean tide.

3 From Geology of New Jersey, 1868, pp. 215-17.

76.8

Pompton. Sill of Reformed Church

PALÆOLITHIC MAN IN NEW JERSEY.

and the Rocky Hill traps are intrusive. The average of a number of analyses would show more accurately the differences between the rocks. But, as stated before, the greatest difference is in the structure of the two classes of trap.

Native iron exists in trap rock, but only to a fraction of one per cent., so far as the specimens have been examined, and the particles are smaller than a pin's head .- See State Geologist's Reports for 1874, pp. 56-7; 1883, pp. 162-3. The attraction has been so strong on the west side of Garret Mountain, near the Notch, as to induce a considerable waste of time and labor in sinking "iron mines."

CHAPTER II. THE ABORIGINES.

The doomed Indian leaves behind no trace, To save his own or serve another race ; With his frail breath his power has passed away, His deeds, his thoughts, are buried with his clay. His heraldry is but a broken bow, His history but a tale of wrong and woe, His very name must be a blank.

-Sprague.

From the time that men began to think, they have been wont to speculate on the unsolved problems: Whence come we? What are we? Whither do we tend? The olden Rabbis spent centuries in overlaying the Pentateuch with an amazing mass of mysticism, as where they said in the Zohar:

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History of the city of Paterson and the County of Passaic, New Jersey, Part 4

Author: Nelson, William, 1847-1914 Publication date: 1901 Publisher: Paterson : Press Printing and Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 466

Author: Nelson, William, 1847-1914
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Paterson : Press Printing and Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 466