USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Newark > Narratives of Newark (in New Jersey) from the days of its founding > Part 24
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Governor Leon Abbett made a personal inspection in June before signing the measure. Indignation was aroused and exhuming operations postponed till a more propitious time. Laborers were therefore set to work on March 10, 1887, at the point where Branford Place now enters Broad Street, and the remains of eight adults were found. The force was increased to 100 men on the following day and the bringing to surface of skeletons in whole or in part pro- voked the wrath of the First Presbyterian Church officials. Cortlandt Parker, secured as their counsel, applied to Chan- cellor Theodore Runyon for a temporary injunction, thus
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restraining further activities till argument was presented for permanent stay.
Mr. Parker was assisted by his son, R. Wayne Parker, and both pleaded from the viewpoint of sentiment, while Joseph Coult, Newark's attorney, declared that inasmuch as the Frog Pond was sold to individuals, the right by this pre- cedence was vested in the municipality to dispose of the tract in question upon terms most advantageous to the city. Mr. Parker, the father, suggested that in the event of transferring all the remains to Fairmount Cemetery, as planned, that a part of the inscription on the monument (if the city intended erecting one over the second burial place) should be:
In 1886 the city of Newark secured an act from the New Jersey ·Legis- lature that allowed it to forget its trust, boast of the indecency they had permitted and carry these bones to the place where they now lie.
Chancellor Runyon granted the prayer of the petitioners on April 11, 1887, and, acting for the city, Mr. Coult, ap- pealed to the Court of Appeals. Extended was the argument and voluminous the evidence. The case was reviewed from every angle. The opinion reversed Chancellor Runyon's injunction and the constitutionality of the legislative act upheld.
The ground was thoroughly searched, " as for hidden gold," Mayor Haynes said, and all the remains removed to Fair- mount Cemetery, where a crypt was opened ten feet below the surface and twenty feet square. Into this was placed 238 boxes, containing the bones. The cost of crypt and monument was $6,025.50, providing also for maintenance, and the entire expenditure amounted to $18,383.10.
The services of recommittal and dedication were held on December 19, 1889. Alderman Joseph R. Van Valen pre- sented the memorial to the city and was accepted by Mayor
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Haynes. General William Ward, as president of the Fair- mount Cemetery Association, then received the plot, pledg- ing permanent care. The Rev. David R. Frazer, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, pronounced the burial ser- vice and delivered the oration. The Rev. W. W. Boyd also made a prayer and the benediction was by Rev. William F. Findley. Voss' brass band played dirges and hymns during the service.
That section of the Burying Ground fronting on Plane Street was used by the Second Presbyterian parish. When the city took possession over 500 remains were transferred to
Ward he Died Jan'y 1773 Age
Junes Roch Aged 3 years and 6 Months Deresed August the 2.5 1720
Timothy Son of Aaron &. Darces win Aged s April
Fragments of Tombstones Found in Old Burying Ground
a plot south of Central Avenue and north of Yew Path in Rosedale Cemetery, Orange. Headstones were also removed and set in the enclosure.
Interments in the older part of the Burying Ground prac- tically ceased when the new edifice of the First Presbyterian Church was completed, about 1790, and provision made in its yard for the interment of its deceased members. The
Branch Brook Park, source of Newark's First Water Supply
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remains of persons of prominence, where possible, were re- interred in the new tract. Included in the list was the Rev. John Pruden, the third pastor.
Permission was given citizens in 1804 to build a school- house on a part of the old burial place, and the last interment, it is believed, was made in 1806.
The Town Committee, in its efforts to test popular senti- ment, adopted this resolution on April 13, 1829:
Resolved, That a committee be appointed to consider the feel- ings and wishes of the inhabitants of the township whose friends and relatives have been interred in the Old Burying Ground and have the remains re-interred in some other place at the town's expense with suitable monument.
Vigorously was the suggestion opposed, but a remedy for improving the disordered condition was not offered. In the early days it was not considered good taste to beautify burial tracts, so this may partly account for the neglect. A me- morial losing none of its interest through the years, recorded the demise of the town drummer, closely associated with the pioneer life. Always punctual and faithful in the discharge. of his duty, he lived to advanced age. The inscription placed upon his tombstone was:
Here Lyeth Interred the Body of Joseph Johnson, Son of Thomas and Eleanor Johnson, deceased, He died March 11th, 1733-4, In the 83d year of His Age.
The only known grave of a Signer of the Fundamental Agreement in Essex County is that of Nathaniel Wheeler, in the Old Burying Ground, Orange. He donated the land for the parish burial place about 1720.
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On the Holy Sabbath Day, in the interim of morning and afternoon services, when weather was fair, the people walked through the God's Acre, reading the inscriptions upon the quaint sandstone memorials and were thereby assisted in sustaining their spiritual strength, most desired of all blessings.
The spirit of the fathers dwells with us. We look hope- fully forward to an epoch when wars shall cease and the doctrine of the Brotherhood of Man is acknowledged the world over. This was a daily wish of the Puritans. Life was dear to them despite its hardships; their toil was for posterity.
Their day is done, the day of those who wrought a city out of a wilderness and into which was breathed pure religion. Civic duties they did not ignore. From the past we gain a sentiment for strengthening the civic structure, the founda- tions of which were solidly laid. Blessed is the tie that binds us to the saintly host long since resting from its labors.
CHAPTER LV
NEWARK'S WATER SYSTEM
O VER a century and a third did the people of Newark depend for its water supply upon the Frog Pond near the corner of Market and Broad Streets, wells opened here and there about town, the Mill Brook, Branch Brook, and other streams, springs and ponds. Of water, there was an abundance, but the paramount question of 1800 was an adaptable method of bringing it to the homes and factories.
At a special town meeting in 1802 a committee reported "that the encroachments on and about the 'Antient Water- ing Place' are wanton and without a shadow of right, that some of the trespassers emboldened by the remissness of the inhabitants openly avow their intention to maintain and defend not only their former encroachments, but thereafter to fence in the whole of the public grounds and set the town at defiance." In 1809 at the annual town meeting $1,575.50 was received in payment for these lands.
The Newark Aqueduct Company was incorporated in 1800 by General John Noble Cumming, Nathaniel Camp, Jesse Baldwin, Nathaniel Beach, Stephen Hayes, James Hedden, Jabez Parkhurst, David D. Crane, Joseph L. Bald- win, Luther Goble, Aaron Ross, John Burnet, and William Halsey.
It was the wonder of the age when trenches were opened and wooden mains laid through Broad and other streets. Queries were made as to the security of the pipes against flood and not a few viewed with alarm the plan of bringing water to the back doors of Newark homes. The first wells were driven in the valley now known as Branch Brook Park. About 1880 the lake was drained and pipes, gates and seventy- three wells and springs were discovered in the bottom.
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A twelve-inch main, considered of extraordinary size in 1800, was laid. The water was stored in a large reservoir, about forty feet long, thirty feet wide and fourteen feet deep, built on the property, known as the Quarry, in the vicinity of Eighth Avenue. Another reservoir was later located at South Orange Avenue and Springfield Avenue, on the prop- erty of William M. Aschenbach, where the flow of springs filled an enclosure 106 feet in length, thirty feet in width and about twelve feet in depth. The water was sent through the distributing pipe, crossing private property, and running underneath buildings on the east side of High Street, thence to Market Street and eastward.
When the city authorities in 1837 decided upon municipal ownership of its water supply a bill was presented to the Legislature and passed February 26, 1838, authorizing the Common Council to proceed with the erection of the plant and giving full powers for its maintenance. Lobbying was resorted to by those in charge of the Aqueduct Company's affairs, and an amendment making it obligatory for the Mayor and Common Council, before executing any work, to purchase the stock, works, privileges, etc., of the concern, was added, and of course, defeated the object of the measure.
Not till December 9, 1845, when, finding no other way out of the difficulty, and the authorities desiring to exercise con- trol of the water for fire protection, was the contract with the Aqueduct Company executed. Mayor Jesse Baldwin acted for the city, and William Wright, president, for the Aqueduct Company.
The latter was to maintain and keep in good repair all water pipes and reservoirs, and supply 80,000 gallons of water daily.
The city agreed to lay a ten-inch main in Broad Street, from Orange Street to Market Street, and smaller pipes from Market Street to Chestnut Street, and elsewhere about the city. A ten-inch main was to be laid also from the Court House on High Street, running along Market Street to Broad Street.
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The cost of the ten-inch pipe already laid, extending from the reservoir in the quarry, through Quarry and Broad Streets to Orange Street, was to be paid by the city and the pipes were to become its property, but the company retained the privilege of tapping them for service to its customers, ex- cepting the ones laid in Broad Street from Orange to Court Streets, and in Market Street, from the Court House to Broad Street, which were to be considered as feeders to supply the company's own parallel distributing line through connecting branches. The city further agreed to keep in good repair all hydrants and cisterns, to provide against unnecessary waste, and to supervise the closing of hydrants after their use at a fire.
Depending entirely upon the company's supply for fire defense, the city authorities, from time to time, expressed alarm over its inadequacy, though a clause in the contract stipulated that if the company failed to provide the supply of water guaranteed it would forfeit the right to use the pipes owned by the city, and it was also explicitly stated that the company was to "furnish a full and sufficient supply of water for the extinguishment of fires, and for washing, working, cleansing, and trying the fire engines, hose, and other apparatus used and to be used for the extinguishment of fires only."
Increasing population was really the cause of the defi- ciency. The Common Council appointed a special com- mittee on April 9, 1855, to make a thorough investigation. The report was not forthcoming, but the complaints of lack of water increased in number daily. Daniel Dodd, S. A Baldwin, D. W. Baldwin, E. C. Aber, and Richmond Ward comprised another committee appointed near the end of the year.
Exhaustive analysis of the problem was made. The Second River, wanted exclusively for mill sites, was not available, and the committee reported that the most adapt- able sources were in the system owned by the Aqueduct Company and the Passaic River at Belleville.
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Dr. William Kitchell, State Geologist, reported that the company's system had a maximum yield of two million gal- lons in twenty-four hours, and if the wells were enlarged, this would possibly be increased to a daily flow of three million gallons.
Newark's population in 1856 was about 50,000. This supply would, therefore, provide a daily maximum of sixty gallons per capita. An estimated cost of enlarging the works and laying new mains was figured at $230,000. Pas- saic River water, it was claimed by engineers, could be readily furnished with a maximum capacity of 16,000,000 gallons daily. The authorities decided upon another effort to secure legislative approval of city ownership of the water system as the most feasible solution of the problem. The Aqueduct Company, however, did not propose to have its prerogatives, enjoyed so remuneratively, calmly usurped, and secured another supplement to the act of 1800 on February 17, 1857, in which authority was granted the company to enter upon lands at will in search of water, to make use of springs or other sources, to afford a further supply to the city and to extend its operations in other directions.
The panic of 1857 caused a stoppage of all improvements. Negotiations, when the money market became more stable, were opened between the Aqueduct Company and the Common Council. Terms were finally agreed upon, and after three score years of successful operation, the plant was sold to the city for $150,000. Under an act of March, 1860, the Newark Aqueduct Board was created, the members being William S. Faitoute, Daniel Dodd, Thomas R. Wil- liams, Edward Doughty, Jacob Van Arsdale and Henry G. Darcy.
Within the city limits in 1860 there were 11,766 buildings, of which 10,212 were used as dwellings. Of this number 1,371 were patrons of the public water supply and 565 other buildings were also being served.
Receipts for the year from these subscribers were $15,338.46
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The item of street sprinkling, $1,160.53, brought the total resources to $16,498.99.
The first meeting of the new Aqueduct Board was held on March 29, 1860, when Mayor Bigelow was chosen president, Mr. Van Arsdale secretary, N. E. Pollard, superintendent, and George H. Bailey, of Jersey City, engineer.
The engineer at once declared against the primitive sys- tem inaugurated at the beginning of the century, which was entirely out of place in the busy era preceding the Civil War.
His investigations were made within fifty miles of the city and then a conference with the Morris Canal Company was recommended for the use of its water, supplied prin- cipally from Greenwood Lake and Long Pond.
An enabling act was passed by the Legislature on March 8, 1861, giving the city officials power "to devise a plan of furnishing a water supply commensurate with the present and future needs of the city." The long and exhaustive Civil War intervening, negotiations with the Morris Canal Com- pany were abandoned.
A new reservoir was created by scooping out the old pond adjoining the covered reservoir near the canal and raising and strengthening the banks. The reservoir above Branch Brook, near Orange Street, was built in 1865, and those on South Orange Avenue and at the Quarry were vacated. Water was scarce, and on July 1 a contract for five years was entered into by the city with the Morris Canal Company, the latter to furnish 300,000 gallons of water daily at the rate of $128 per million gallons.
Passaic River water was later used. An engine house of brick construction was erected on the west bank about one and a quarter miles north of Belleville. The supply of water was pumped through the main to the reservoir on the hills to the west, at a height of 225 feet above tidewater. The old system supplied 300,000 gallons of the 2,500,000 gallons daily distributed through the mains in 1870. Wells, cisterns and rain barrels contributed their share toward pro- viding homes with water. Typhoid fever was annually epi-
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demic in Newark soon after the river water was used. The State geologist in 1882 reported:
After the Passaic water is mixed with Paterson sewage and the smaller towns along the banks discharge their waste matter into the river, and the filth, impurities and waste from the numerous manufacturing establishments in those places is also mingled with the water, it cannot but be polluted and rendered undesirable for domestic use. In addition to this the whole sewerage system of Newark is poured into the river and some of it is carried by the flood tide up the stream.
Grave indeed was the situation at the end of the eighth decade. The East Jersey Water Company, of which Garrett A. Hobart of Paterson, vice-president of the United States in the first Mckinley administration, was the moving spirit, agreed to supply Newark with a water system, complete, for $6,000,000. It was proposed to build a dam in the Pequannock water-shed, erect reservoirs, store water in a region having a flow of 25,000,000 or 30,000,000 gallons, build a pipe line to the Belleville reservoir, and then turn the plant over to the city. The offer was accepted and the celebration of the new system it was expected would be held in the autumn of 1891. The colossal enter- prise, the most ambitious undertaking of Newark up to that time, was not ready, however. Each day in 1892 was named for turning on the water.
The telephone message came at last at 9.57 o'clock on the morning of January 12, to the City Hall, announcing that the water had just been turned on in the mains and was flowing along toward the Belleville reservoir. Engineer Herschel, of the East Jersey Water Company, released the water at the dam. The flow was then eight million gallons daily.
The total amount spent upon the system up to 1916 was about $21,234,000, the average daily capacity of the water-shed 50,000,000 gallons, the consumption 42,400,000 gallons and over 422 miles of mains were laid. There were
Newark Public Library, Washington and Broad Streets
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eight storage and distributing reservoirs and a pressure was maintained of from 100 to 160 pounds per square inch. The total holdings of the city at the watershed amounted to 25,000 acres.
Newark's water system is one of the best in the country. The watershed has an area guaranteeing purity and quan- tity by its very environment. Over thirty miles of pipe are required to connect the city mains with the watershed.
With the introduction of the water works, Modern Newark was also inaugurated. The old days were gone forever. The city burst forth in all the strength of a first- class city, and to-day this "Birmingham of America" is among the leaders of American municipalities.
CHAPTER LVI
A MODERN CITY
A LWAYS patriotic and intensely interested in the coun- try's welfare, Newark let loose all its pent-up enthu- siasm on the eve of the centennial of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Promptly as the midnight hour was tolled by the town clocks on July 3, 1876, the chimes in the steeples of St. Patrick's Cathedral and St. John's Church pealed forth in stirring music while the discharge of 100 rounds from the brass field piece, ringing of bells, and the blowing of factory whistles attested local pride in a nation second to none in the world in its fealty to the common cause of democracy.
The militia, firemen, police and civilians paraded about the streets early on the morning of the Fourth and com- memorative exercises were held in the First Baptist Church, where Cortlandt Parker, the city's foremost orator, delivered the historical address. A fireworks display closed the local remembrance of the day. From May 10 to November 10 the Centennial Exposition attracted thousands of visitors to Philadelphia.
Since then nearly all styles of architecture used in home, business and factory building have come into vogue. Labor- saving devices and steel construction have revolutionized building trade methods.
Paper currency issued during the trying days of the Civil War continued as the financial standard till 1879, when specie payment was resumed. The unstable finances caused a panic in 1873, fortunes were swept away and acute suffer- ing among the people followed. Silver pieces were very scarce during the decade of 1870. Women wore ten-cent coins as spangles on their bracelets and men proudly dis-
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played them, with initials engraved on one side, ground smooth as cuff buttons.
In 1888 the Newark Free Library was incorporated a public institution, when the Library Association, having served two score years, dissolved. The first Board of Trustees was composed of Mayor Joseph E. Haynes, Superintendent of Schools William M. Barringer, Edward H. Duryea, L. Spencer Goble, Fred H. Teese, James Peabody, and Samuel J. McDonald. The new building on Washington Street, opposite the northern end of Washington Park, was opened on March 14, 1901. A museum, incorporated in 1909, is an auxiliary of the institution.
The dedication of the statue of Seth Boyden, the noted inventor, was a memorable event on May 14, 1890. The memorial, prominently placed in Washington Park, is a con- stant reminder of Newark's gratitude to a noble character whose life and work produced a marked influence upon local industrial growth. The electrically operated. street cars over the Newark and West Orange line began running on February 1, 1892.
The modern office buildings and business houses were appearing in Newark at this period. The Prudential In- surance Company, on December 2, 1892, officially opened its new home with a house-warming, preceded by a parade of its employees through several streets. In 1890 the post- office building, unable to meet the demands of modern Newark, was removed to provide for the present structure at the corner of Board and Academy streets, which, however, was not completed till February 1, 1897.
Moving pictures, now daily entertaining millions of peo- ple, were introduced for the first time by Edison at his West Orange Laboratory on March 7, 1892.
Business was partly suspended on August 9, 1894, for the dedication of the statue erected in memory of Frederick T. Frelinghuysen in Military Park under the auspices of the Board of Trade. The service he rendered the country was in the offices of United States Senator, Attorney-
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General and Secretary of State. Karl Gerhart, the sculptor, was also the creator of the Boyden statue in Washington Park.
The New Jersey Historical Society observed its fiftieth anniversary at its headquarters, West Park Street, on May 16, 1895. Former President Benjamin Harrison, of Indian- apolis, Ind., delivered an address. The Society's building is the Mecca of students of New Jersey history, who find within its walls a veritable treasure-trove.
Purification of the Passaic River was agitated in 1896, re- sulting in the formation of the Passaic Valley Sewerage Com- mission which has undertaken the general plan of building an immense drain from Paterson to Newark and which will relieve the water-course, it is hoped, of the deleterious inatter.
The Park House, a landmark of the Nineteenth Century, was removed in 1901, a theatre erected in its stead, which in 1916 was succeeded by the Public Service building.
War was declared by the United States against Spain in April, 1898, for the freedom of Cuba, and a wave of patriot- ism swept over the land. Newark responded to the call for volunteers in its accustomed loyal manner. General Joseph W. Plume was commissioned a brigadier-general in the vol- unteer army by President Mckinley, and the First Regiment marched out of its armory on Monday morning, May 2, under command of Colonel Edward A. Campbell. The in- creasing crowd of cheering men and women along the route at Broad and Market streets numbered about 25,000. The train for the State Camp at Sea Girt was boarded at the Broad Street station of the Central Railroad. Later in the month the regiment was assigned to duty at Camp Alger, Virginia, near Washington. The war ended with the sur- render of Santiago by the Spaniards in July, and in September the Newark soldiers returned home and were mustered out of the United States service.
The assassination of President Mckinley at the Pan- American Exposition in Buffalo on September 6, 1901, by
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an anarchist, shocked the country and one week later, on September 14, his death occurred.
Grade crossing elimination of steam railroads was slowly (Mayor Henry M. Doremus charged tardily) progressing when on the morning of February 19, 1903, a trolley car crowded with young men and young women, all students at the Barringer High School, was struck by a locomotive of a Lackawanna express train at the Clifton Avenue crossing. The death list reported next day contained the names of nine promising youths and the injury of a score or more others.
Organized in 1882, the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion dedicated its new building on Halsey Street in 1903. The Young Women's Christian Association has a finely equipped building at 53 Washington Street. In 1904 the Shade Tree Commission was instituted and in 1905 Vails- burg was annexed to Newark.
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