USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Orange > The Mountain Society : a history of the First Presbyterian Church, Orange, N. J. organized about the year 1719 with an account of the earliest settlements in Newark > Part 15
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14. A small congregation of German Protes- tants, mostly Lutheran, was gathered four or five
252
UNION SCHOOLS.
years ago, meeting at first in the lecture-room of the First Church, and afterward in Washington Hall. It has now a regular service on the Sab- bath at Bodwell's Hall, under the ministry of Rev. Gottfried Schmidt.
In the Franklin school-house (Doddtown) a Union Sabbath-school is sustained, and also a weekly preaching service, at which the clergy of the different denominations officiate in turn. A similar service has for a year or two been held at the school-house on Valley street, near Williams- ville.
The Mission Sunday-school, established during the past year in Bodwell's Hall, where a weekly prayer-meeting is also held, is doing a useful work. It originated with members of the Second Church.
CHAPTER IX.
A VIEW OF ORANGE.
I "N 1834, Orange was described as a straggling vil- lage and post-town, extending about three miles along the turnpike from Newark toward Dover; con- taining two Presbyterian churches, one Episcopal, and one Methodist ; two taverns, ten stores, two saw- mills and a bark-mill, and from 200 to 230 dwell- ings, many of them very neat and commodious. A large trade was carried on in the manufacture of leather, shoes, and hats .* The population of the township in 1830 was 3,887. In 1850 it was 4,385. At this time it is supposed to be from eight to ten thousand. For the last ten years the immigration east of the mountain has been rapid, and every year increasing. Men of business in the large cities near, and persons seeking health, have found here the conditions of climate, scenery and situation de- sirable for a rural home. And since the tide began to set in this direction, it has had no check.
Gordon's Hist. New Jersey.
12
254
CLIMATE AND POSITION.
Orange has a geographical position which imparts to its climate some favorable peculiarities. While it is approached by the sea on the south-east, it is very seldom that winds come from that quarter, so that invalids for whom a sea atmosphere is too severe, find here a shelter from its influence within a few miles from the coast. The south winds are always bland, and those from the north-east, coming from the New England coast, have left the ocean at too great a distance to be sensibly affected by it. Hence persons suffering from pulmonary com- plaints often experience much benefit from a resi- dence here .*
The distance from Newark is from three to five miles ; from New York about twelve. With both places there is constant communication by the Morris and Essex railroad, and with the former, by lines of stages that are running nearly every hour of the day. From South to East Orange, within a distance of five miles, there are six railway stations, showing at once a large amount of travel, and the breadth of territory which the influx of population is filling up. The future Orange is projected upon a scale of extraordinary compass. And its outlines have been drawn, not on paper by the hand of speculation, but on the soil by actual settlement.
# See an article by Dr. Stephen Wickes, on the Medical Topog- raphy of Orange, in "Transactions of the N. J. State Medical So- ciety for 1859."
255
MOUNTAIN AND PLAIN.
Let a stranger take his position on Eagle Rock, or any point along the ridge of the mountain, and turn his eye in the direction of Newark. He will see an extended landscape beautified already by charming residences, while the sight of newly-opened streets, and foundations, frames and unfinished houses, will suggest to him that he sees yet but the fair outline of a picture which time is rapidly executing. If he now change his position to a point within the land- scape over which he has looked, and turn the eye backward to the mountain, he will see the straight line of an elevated horizon drawn on the western sky-a horizon so even and uniform as scarcely to be broken by a projecting tree-top or rocky spur- and from that a green slope descending to the east, upon which the homes of wealth and taste look smilingly out from their sylvan surroundings. The view in either direction is exceedingly pictur- esque. It is a question not yet settled between the inhabitants of the hill-side and their less elevated neighbors, which of the two is the more attractive and pleasing to the eye,-the mountain, or the plain. The former class have the advantage of a more ex- tended view, embracing West Bloomfield, Orange, Newark and its bay, Staten Island, and the roofs and steeples of New York.
The business of the place is mechanical, mercan- tile and manufacturing. The stores which line Main street carry on a large retail trade, while the
256
LLEWELLYN PARK.
hat and shoe shops, some of them employing several hundred hands, furnish a large supply for northern and southern markets .* The farms are disappear- ing, or becoming of little value for agricultural pur- poses. Year by year the old boundaries vanish, the field is converted into a garden, and the meadow to a lawn.
In no part of Orange is this transformation more conspicuous than in the grounds surrounding Llewellyn Park. The project of these grounds originated with our townsman, Llewellyn S. Has- kell, whose trans-atlantic prenomen is fitly associat- ed with the foreign blooms and shrubbery that he has caused to mingle with the native growth of the hill side. The park embraces fifty acres on the eastern slope of the mountain, around which are three hundred acres or more which that gentleman has purchased, to be occupied as rural residences under the rules of an association. The front en- trance to the grounds is on Valley street, about a mile from the North Orange depot. The inclosure " contains hills, dales and glens ; springs, streams and ponds; magnificent forest trees, innumerable ornamental trees, bushes, vines and flowers ; kiosks,
" "Although this village contains so small a population, there is upwards of $200,000 of capital employed in manufactures. There are ten schools and five hundred scholars, more or less receiving a free education, or at the expense of the State."-Specimen number of the Orange Journal, January 7, 1854.
257
PURCHASERS AND PRICES.
stone bridges and rustic seats ;"* winding foot-paths, avenues and carriage roads ; all together forming a landscape in which art and nature seem as rivals, and yet in harmonious alliance. The limits of our chapter forbid a detailed description. It belongs to the present historian of Orange to notice the begin- nings of this successful and much admired enter- prise. To the future the Park will be its own lim- ner. The grounds have already found purchasers, and six or eight beautiful dwellings, erected within the year past, furnish types of the model homes which are soon to be their happiest ornament. We have fancied, in travelling over these delightful grounds, which overlook the homes of Newark and New York, that it was from some such spot, with " the resounding shore " perhaps a little nearer, the author of The Minstrel made his appeal to the lover of city life :
" O how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms which Nature to her votary yields ;
* See a full description of the Park in the Orange Journal of June 6, 1857, by the editor. The present value of the lands, which Mr. Haskell obtained at prices ranging from $150 to $500 per acre, and which are purchased of him in building lots at the rate of $1000 to $1200 per acre, would have startled the old Indian proprietors, who, as we have seen, signed their quit-claim to the whole moun- tain side for "two guns, three coats, and thirteen cans of rum.". Desirable sites in the village are rated as high as $3000 per acre. Along Tremont Avenue, half-way to South Orange, $800 have been paid. To the men of twenty years ago these prices would have seemed fabulous, but the demand creates them.
258
EAGLE ROCK.
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields ; All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even ; All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, And all the dread magnificence of heaven- O how canst thou renounce and hope to be forgiven ?"
On the southern border of this tract, and now connected with it, are the grounds upon which a number of fine residences have been built by Daniel C. Otis. The entrance to them is from the turnpike road that forms their boundary on the south.
Just north of the Park is Eagle Rock, a point of the mountain which is much visited, and from which, in a clear afternoon, there is a very rich and exten- sive view, embracing New York, Staten Island and the waters that divide it from Newark, the roofs and steeples of the latter city in a south-easterly direc- tion, West Bloomfield to the north-west, and Orange spreading widely over the plain to the south-east. And here we may introduce a few lines from an anonymous poet, who is presumed to have drawn his inspiration from the spot, Orange being the sub- ject of his description.
" From hills that hide the western sky, And throw their shadows o'er the lea,
I downward turn the enamored eye, And see thee stretching toward the sea.
259
THE MINERAL SPRING.
On slope and knoll and spreading vale, On lawns that kiss the summer gale, In rustic ease or princely guise I see thy homes of beauty rise. I see the throng at close of day Escaping from the city's din, By stage or train, as best they may, And disappear those homes within : By stage or train, they little care, Who once have snuffed our mountain air."*
Within a hundred rods of Saint Mark's church, at the base of the mountain, the visitor is per- mitted a free ingress to the grounds which enclose the once celebrated Mineral Spring of Orange. He here finds himself in the presence of two con- spicuous mansions, owned and occupied by Messrs. Heckscher and Pillot. He will hardly resist the temptation to enter the premises, to which the pub- lic are generously admitted, nor will the beauties impressed upon his memory be soon obliterated. The chalybeate fountain shows no particular traces of its ancient ambition to attract the stranger. A little arbor, however, still marks the spot where the multitudes once sat, as around Bethesda, in the hope of healing. Around are groves and running waters, cascades and artificial ponds, fences of rustic work, elaborately plain, the foot-bridge that lightly spans the chasm, and the solid staircase hewn from the rock. Within the more private
Carrier's Address of the Orange Journal, 1859.
260
THE MOUNTAIN HOUSE.
grounds, where lawn and garden spread out to the eye a rich diversity of colors, forms and fruits, we shall not at present enter. The place has for the visitor a double interest, from the beauties it now exhibits and from its historic associations.
Pursuing the slope of the mountain southward, the eye passes over a tract known as Barrett's Park, owned by our townsman, Rev. B. F. Barrett, in which are seen the beginnings of another enter- prise of settlement. A road is now. opened through it, passing up the ravine and terminating on a ter- race of the hill which furnishes some attractive situations for the future settler. Still southward, between this and the Mountain House, are the elegant country seats of Dr. Lowell Mason and sons, the latter (Daniel and Lowell) constituting the firm of Mason Brothers, book publishers of New York. Passing others, the eye rests upon the Mountain House, built for a Water-Cure, but now used for a summer hotel. This fine establishment, with its forest of shade and its many alluring re- treats, is near the southern line of the township, in the vicinity of South Orange. Returning along the valley, we pass through the thickening settle- ment that is filling up the interval between North and South Orange, and in which the walls of a stone sanctuary have just been raised. This in- cipient village has till recently borne the names (from families residing in it) of Freemantown and
261
STREETS AND STREAMS.
Stetsonville. The name more lately adopted, and marked in the list of railway stations, is Orange Valley. The recent opening of Tremont avenue connects it eastwardly with Centre street, and by a more direct transit with Newark. Along this avenue, as it runs up the slope east of the val- ley, a number of mansions already appear.
In the eastern section of the village, on Harrison, Main, Prospect, and other streets, the progress of settlement, and of wealth and taste in the erection of buildings, is equally visible. The same is true of Day, High, Boyd, Scotland, and Centre streets. There are indeed few localities in or about the village to which the statement will not apply. In Dublin street and its neighborhood, where there is a centralized population of Irish, tenements are built to suit the local demand.
Half a mile north-east of the village, in the direction of Bloomfield, is Springdale Lake. This artificial reservoir, owned by Matthias Soverel, is fed by a liberal spring near its southern margin, and furnishes a copious supply of ice. Its waters are received by the Second river, which has its proper beginning in a pond just above, into which are emptied the Neshuine from the north, Wigwam brook from the west, and Parow's brook from the south. The first of these streams crosses the Dodd- town road a little east of the cemetery ; the second comes down by Williamsville, receiving on its
12*
262
ROSEDALE CEMETERY.
way a southern tributary whose sources lie in and around Llewellyn Park; the third is the stream already familiar to the reader, which crosses Main street by the Willow Hall Market. The stream formed by the three runs north-eastwardly into Bloomfield, where it spreads out into a shallow basin forming Watsessing lake.
Rosedale Cemetery lies to the north of Orange, a little less than a mile distant from Main street. It is approached from the south and south-east by Day and Washington streets. We take the follow- ing account of it from an article published in the specimen number of the Orange Journal, January 7,1854.
" The enterprise originated with a few gentlemen connected with the Second Presbyterian Church, all of whom are yet among its acting directors. Not long after the organization of this church, it was deemed expedient to provide some suitable place for a burying-ground, for the old yard was deemed too strait for the accommodation of our grow- ing population, and some difficulties were presented from the claims of the First Church, within whose bounds the old burying-ground lay. The prevailing ideas and fashions of the day, however, satisfied the mass of the congregation; and they would at this time have had some little yard,-two or three acres of flat ground near the church, where none would resort except from hard necessity or the
263
ROSEDALE CEMETERY.
urgencies of recent bereavement,-but for the efforts of three or four individuals. These gentlemen, with prudent forethought and commendable public spirit, determined to anticipate the wants of a rapidly growing community and the demands of a pro- gressive age, and, after having failed to secure the approval of their plan by the congregation, pro- ceeded to carry it forward on their own responsi- bility.
"They purchased at once on the most favorable terms a tract of ten acres, and obtained an act of the New Jersey Legislature incorporating them with ample powers and adequate securities against the encroachments of business enterprise. This act of incorporation was passed Nov. 13, 1840, and was among the first in our State for chartering ceme- teries. In the year 1843 another purchase was made, more than doubling the size of the Ceme- tery, and recently another, giving completeness to the site, as it embraces the whole of the continuous ground adapted to burying purposes, and offers a desirable opportunity for improving the avenues. The company now own about twenty acres, en- closed and laid out with judgment and taste, as the nature of the ground and convenience have sug- gested.
" Perhaps one-third of the whole tract has been already sold, or is in a state of readiness to be sold. The present price of lots is twenty dollars for an
264
THE ORANGE JOURNAL.
area of 320 square feet. No discrimination is made between citizens and strangers, all becoming mem- bers of the company by ownership of a lot, and all being entitled to the same privileges. The com- pany have never made, nor do they expect to make dividends, all their means being intended to be used in improving and ornamenting the Cemetery."
Such, in outline, are the topographical features of Orange. We may add that it occupies a moder- ate elevation with respect to the towns north and south of it, sending its waters to the north-east through Bloomfield toward the Passaic, and to the south through Clinton to the Rahway.
Among the institutions of Orange is a printing- press, which enjoys a liberal and increasing patron- age in local advertising and job-work, and from which is issued weekly the Orange Journal, edited and published by EDWARD GARDNER. A specimen number of this paper made its modest appearance before the public in January, 1854. The paper however was not regularly issued till the first of the following July, when the present editor assumed the charge of it. Its first volume dates from that time. With the beginning of 1856, it manifested progress by appearing in an enlarged and improved form, its six columns being expanded into seven, and also lengthened. Its sphere is of necessity limited by the proximity of the Newark and New York press, which pour their daily issues out upon
265
THE OLD ACADEMY.
us. Yet its successive numbers find their way in the track of the ex-resident to nearly all the States of the Union, not excepting the Pacific coast. The ordinary circulation is from five to six hundred copies. Special occasions bring out larger editions.
In noticing the schools of the village, we take the Old Academy as a starting-point. This insti- tution, born fifteen years before the century, and long distinguished by classical honors, had virtually descended from its preëminence even before the school act of 1838. From about that time (as we have noticed) it became the school of the Academy district. Having been continued many years as a common school, the building (then sixty years old) being inconvenient, and the ground too small to afford a yard for the recreation of the pupils, it was resolved by the district to sell the property and transfer the school to a better location. As the title was found defective, authority for the sale had to be sought of the Legislature, which was granted by a special act, in April, 1845. A sale was then made to John M. Lindsley, and a site purchased in Day street, on which another building was erected. The latter is yet occupied as a public school. The old house, still tenacious of existence, con- tinued to prolong its usefulness in the humble capacity of a shoe store. It is now used as a flour and feed store, ministering to bodily wants as it long ministered to those of the intellect. May its
266
FEMALE SEMINARY.
ancient walls long stand, and receive the grateful respect of man and beast ! Man is, however, less merciful than time ; and even this enduring monu- ment of the learning of a past age must yield in its turn to the inevitable changes which commerce is working in places historically sacred.
Among the private schools of a recent date, we may mention that established in the fall of 1847 by Rev. F. A. Adams, in the immediate vicinity of the Second Church. This was continued by Mr. Adams about five years, when a company of stockholders founded the Orange Female Semi- nary, of which he became the Principal. He re- signed the charge in 1856, and went to Newark, but returned in 1858 to Orange, where he is now conducting a private academy for boys, in Bod- well's Hall. His successors in the Seminary were the Misses Stebbins, who have been succeeded by Mrs. C. C. G. Abbott.
An academy for both sexes was established, and continued several years, in High street, by Rev. Joshua D. Berry, D. D. It was discontinued about two years since, and the building is now occupied as a private residence.
The classical school of Rev. S. S. Stocking, in the the neighborhood of St. Mark's Church, has been some years in operation, and continues to be well supported. This is a boarding and day school for boys. A similar institution in the vicinity of the
267
SCHOOLS.
Second Church, on Main street, is conducted by Rev. Philip C. Hay, D. D. There are two or three private female schools, of which that of the Misses Robinson, in Main street, near the First Church, has priority of age. Parochial schools are con- nected with St. Mark's Church (Episcopal) and St. John's Church (Roman Catholic). The interests of popular education are, however, associated mostly with the public schools of the village and township. Into these the children of the people flow; and while the want of a large, well-endowed and permanent institution of high order is felt by many of our citizens, it must afford to every one a sincere satisfaction that the schools of the State have been made what they are, and that the
people patronize them. Immense improvements have been made in the last twenty years in the arrangement and comfort of school-houses, in the qualifications of teachers, and in the methods of instruction. Considering how many of the best intellects of the land are now devoted to the sub- ject, we may confidently look for still farther pro- gress. Such are the benefits descending upon us, and the generations to come after us, from those men of wise forecast and self-devoting toil, who nourished the germs of our now-fruitful institu- tions.
But the school-room and the press are not, in free communities, the only educators of the people.
268
ORANGE LYCEUM.
Where a degree of intellectual activity is by these awakened, and has freedom to operate, the desire of improvement will commonly show itself in some form of literary association. The first movement of the kind in Orange was the establishment of the old Orange Library, of which the late Giles Man- deville had the care for many years. It comprised a small collection of books which belonged to the stockholders, and from which the people of the town were permitted to draw for a trifling sum. This library was useful in its day. Not a few of the men of a generation now gone had their read- ing taste improved, and their stock of ideas en- larged by it.
In 1832 was formed the Orange Lyceum, "for mutual improvement in knowledge and literature." It met weekly, its exercises consisting of " lectures, debates, recitations in some useful branch of science, letter-writing and composition, public reading and declamation." A collection of books was soon commenced, which were kept at Albert Pierson's school-room, where the Lyceum at first held its meetings. Mr. Pierson was its first President. He was then conducting a classical school. The meet- ings were subsequently held in the lecture-room of the First Church, and finally at Willow Hall. The Lyceum obtained a charter in 1842. A number of the intelligent business men of Orange owe much to the intellectual stimulus it furnished.
269
LIBRARY ASSOCIATION.
The public, however, ceasing to take interest in it, a new association was started in 1858. This, the present Library Association, has thus far been highly successful. Of the two rooms which it occupies in Bailey & Everitt's new building, one is a large and pleasantly furnished reading-room, and the other contains a library of about 1,500 volumes. These rooms, under the care of Charles Warbur- ton Brown, the librarian, are open every evening, except the Sabbath, and on Saturday afternoons. Through this Association, two annual courses of popular lectures have been given, which have re- ceived a liberal patronage. The large receipts from these lectures have put the Association in a condition to increase further its library, and to strengthen its foundations as one of the permanent and most useful institutions of Orange.
Such are the more noticeable features of our thriving village. For the truth of history, and in the hope of calling attention to them, we must speak of certain others, equally noticeable, and in- indicative of wants which its rapid growth is creating.
The first need is a municipal organization of the village, or, in lieu of this, some change in the civil administration of the township. In the judgment of many, the exigencies of the village call for the corporate powers of a borough. It can hardly be expected that local interests, which are every year
270
IMPROVEMENTS NEEDED.
assuming a greater magnitude, should be suitably regarded by the township authorities and a large proportion of their constituents. Many improve- ments are needed, which are not to be looked for at the hands of a town-meeting. The want of bet- ter side-walks has furnished a subject for much reasonable complaint on the part of both residents and strangers; and the very imperiousness of this want has, during the last year, induced many of our merchants and others to flag the walks that line their premises. In considerable portions of Main street, and in some of those that intersect it, the footman now finds the comfort of a plank, or of something broader and better, beneath his feet, and the continuity and connection of these com- forts are increasing. During the last summer, for the first time, two water-carts were seen passing up and down our principal thoroughfares, set in motion by private contributions, clarifying the dusty air, and relieving the housemaids of no little toil, by their showery discharges. Yet, a more liberal and permanent provision for sprinkling the streets is needed. Street-lamps are a further de- sideratum. This will doubtless be supplied ere long, now that the means are furnished by the Orange gas-works.
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