USA > New Jersey > Passaic County > Passaic > The Passaic valley, New Jersey, in three centuries.. Vol. 1 > Part 24
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ated by him and, after his death, by his son John. It has been claimed that this was the first papermill of its kind in the United States. Several other papermills have been established since that time below the Campbell plant. Hat factories of various kinds were scattered along the Rah- way River. Fifty years and more ago Israel D. Condit, who lived at Milburn, when it was just emerging from its hamlet state, until his death a few years ago, at the age of ninety-two, was largely engaged in the hat manufacture at Milburn. He was a public benefactor in his day and fore- most in all efforts to aid the community in which he lived. He largely assisted in the erection of the. Episcopal Church at Milburn and was prominent in the es- tablishment of a cemetery at this place.
A COUNTRY TAVERN.
There are three villages and ham-
lets in Milburn Township : Milburn, Short Hills, and Wyo- mning. The village of Milburn extends on both sides of the Rahway River from the railroad to Springfield. It has two churches, an Episcopalian and a Baptist. The manufac- turing interests of this locality have almost wholly disap- peared. It is still a village of enterprise and progress.
Wyoming is a thriving hamlet with large possibilities. It is of very recent date, and is fed by immigrations from the cities of families of moderate means who have sought country homes.
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SHORT HILLS
Short Hills is a very remarkable locality, entirely resi- dential in its character. It is the result of the fertile brain of Stewart Hartshorne, the proprietor of the famous Haris- horne rollers. He appreciated the location of the broken terraces, the ending of the First Mountain, and determined to utilize the land for the formation of a most unique set- tlement. It was to consist entirely of residences-no stores, nor factories, nor any erection of any kind were to be permitted to mar the symmetry of his plau. He accord- ingly purchased a plot of several hundred acres, admirably located for his pur- pose, in one mass, of the proportions ex- aetly needed to ar- complish his plan. This was plotted and laid out in building sites. Ten- ants and purchasers were invited to set- tle there. Their wishes as to the AN OLD HOUSE. kind of erection they desired were respected and the quantity of land needed was sold or rented on the most advantageous terms, but scrutiny of an exhaustive character was used in the selec- tion of proposing residents. The consequence of the sys- tem rigidly carried out by Mr. Hartshorne has been the gathering together in this beautiful spot of the completest and most elegant residences ever brought into one locality of such an extent, and the grouping of inhabitants rarely, if ever, found in a village of this kind. It is an ideal project, never before so fully accomplished nor carried out to such a
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satisfactory result. Homes so commodious, with every ap- pliance for all demands for securing health and obtaining ease, so elegant in their architecture, so practically orna- mental, can not be found elsewhere. No community with higher, better characteristics was ever gathered together in the same locality. Several similar attempts have been made in this country, but they have proved unsuccess- ful. It is due to the good judgment of its founder that this has been so eminently successful.
Short Hills is historically connected with the Revolution. It was near here that the battle of Springfield was fought. The results of that conflict were far reaching in their in- fluence in the future of the struggling colonists. It was during a memorable crisis of the war, when all hearts were filled with sad forebodings. Washington and his famished, ragged army were encamped at Morristown, and a powder mill was established there. It was of the utmost impor- tance to the British, if possible, to secure the capture of the one and the destruction of the other. Several attempts had been made by the enemy to secure both of these objects, but they had signally failed. A full force was sent out from New York under the command of experienced veteran officers with high hopes of success.
Alarm was given by beacon and signal cannon from an eminence to the west of the present village of Short Hills. The minutemen swarmed to the rescue from their homes. General Maxwell, a Jerseyman, was in the command of the regular troops, the invaders were driven back with loss, and the attempt was never renewed. Brutal outrage and unnecessary devastation marked every step of the advance of the British; farm houses were burned, farms pillaged, women insulted, and a scene of outrage spreading all along their course. Mrs. Caldwell, the wife of the Rev. James
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ORANGE AND THE MOUNTAIN SOCIETY
Caldwell, then quartermaster as well as chaplain in the patriot army, was shot while standing at an upper win- dow with an infant in her arms. The Presbyterian Church at Springfield was destroyed.
It was at this battle that occurred the incident, so often related, of how Caldwell, when the soldiers ran short of wad- ding, rushed into the church, came out with his arms full of the old-fashioned hymn books, then in universal use in the Presbyterian Churches, and, distributing the leaves among the troops, eried out: " Give 'em Watts, boys!"
Orange can not, properly, be claimed to be within the bounds of the Passaic Valley, but it is too important a local- ity not to receive some mention. Like all the rest of Essex County it formed in the carly history of the colony a part of Newark, and was settled by immigrants from that town. The exact time when these first settlers came there can not be definitely determined, but it may be readily approxi- mated by the time of the formation of the " Mountain So- ciety."
The first care of these conscientions Puritans, after secur- ing a resting place for their families, was to rear the church and by its side the school house, wherever they went. If the date of the establishment of the church can be ascer- tained it is entirely safe to record the beginning of the set- tlement. But undoubtedly the immigration into Orange was a gradual one, not involving at first any great number of settlers. The restless activities of the Anglo-Saxons in- pelled them to migrations from place to place. Now fields invited, more fertile land encouraged, and fairer skies beck- oned them on from their residences. Adventurous souls were found among these men from Connecticut. So they left, perhaps, comfortable homes and braved the untried dangers of an unbroken wilderness. The young men who
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THE PASSAIC VALLEY
had assumed the responsibilities of wife and children sought a lodgment where there was a broader field for their families, where more acres could be granted, to be divided among the sons and daughters to be born to them; and so they went out into the broad, beautiful Valley of Orange, and with characteristic energy and industry they reared their humble homes and cleared the land and prepared for the future. The Wards, the Piersons, the Harrisons, the Williamses, and the Condits came and spread themselves all through this portion of the country and honestly bought from the aborigines.
The Mountain Society was established probably about 1719. In that year a deed for twenty acres was made by Thomas Gardner to Samuel Freeman, Samuel Pierson, Matthew Williams, and Samuel Wheeler, and the Society at the Mountain was associated with them. A meeting house was erected by the settlers at the mountain, and a separate and distinet community was gathered together. In 1702 the proprietors surrendered the right of government to Queen Anne, but reserved the title to all land within the Prov- ince, and the crown disclaimed " all right to the province of New Jersey other than the government and owns the soil and quit-rents, &c., to belong to the general proprie- tors." A few years later the proprietors made demands on these settlers for payment for the lands they held, with the results described elsewhere.
This Mountain Society was composed of one hundred and one persons from Newark, and around their dwellings and the church they erected grew a larger settlement where clustered the high hopes of the founders. The church was their tabernacle in the wilderness. It is represented to-day by the First Presbyterian Church of Orange, the parent of the many religious organizations of the Presbyterian de-
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ORANGE WARD AND TOWNSHIP
nomination of Christians in and around Orange. The old deed made by Thomas Gardner is preserved with pious care among the archives of the parent church.
Orange was one of the three original wards into which Newark was divided, as has already been mentioned, and once contained a much larger extent of country than is now within its borders. East, West, and South Orange have
THE ORANGE ORPHAN HOME.
been taken from it. it was created an independent town- ship on the 27th of November, 1806. This is the descrip- tion of the territory included within the bounds of the new township as established by the act :
Beginning at a spring called the Boiling Spring, on the land of Stephen D. Day, running thence in a straight line southwardly to the bridge in the highway near David Peek's; thence running southwardly in a straight line to a bridge in the highway near Sayres Roberts in Camptown; thence southwardly in a straight line to Elizabeth township in the line of Springfield township; thence along the line of the same to Caldwell township; thence along the line of said township to a point in the first mountain, called Stephen Crane's notch; thenee Southwardly
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to Turkey Eagle rock; thence Eastwardly to a bridge on the highway near Phineas Crane's; thence Eastwardly to a bridge on the highway between the house of Silas Dod and Nathaniel Dod; thence in a straight line to the Boiling Spring, the place of Beginning.
Different localities within the bounds of this territory were called at first by the names of the families who were resident there. Thus the vicinity of Saint Mark's Church was called Williamstown, afterward Tory Corner. Part of the eastern side of East Orange was known as Pecktown. A settlement between East Orange and Bloomfield received the name of Dodtown. The Freemans gave the title of Freemantown to South Orange.
The name Orange is traced to a joke. At a meeting of the people it was suggested that the locality should be named Orangedale. The suggestion, though made as a jest, was accepted, but for several years the word Orange was coupled with another until at last the matter was set- tled in the act of incorporation, which styled the township by its present name. It is now a city, being incorporated as such on the 3d of April, 1872, by the name of the City of Orange.
Its surface is almost one unbroken level plain, inter- sected by some small rivulets, but by no important stream.
Sixty years ago it was a long, straggling town of about five hundred inhabitants, its dwellings mostly small and in- significant in their architecture, the abodes of sturdy, in- dependent people, who spoke and thought for themselves, conscientious in their lives, tenacious of their rights, and religious in their modes of action. The village then extended nearly from the western boundary of Newark westward for about three miles. The inhabitants were an industrious, fru- gal race, a large majority of them being small shoemakers, who had learned that trade and manufactured boots and
417
THE CITY OF ORANGE
shoes in a small way for the larger manufacturers of New- ark. This mode, however, ceased long since, and the atten- tion of the citizens of Orange has been turned in other di- rections. The manufacture of hats has been a very impor- tant industry in this thriving city.
The whole character of the town has been practically changed during the last half century. A new element has made its way into this region. While it has in a very great measure dominated by the sheer force of its push and en- terprise the public affairs of the community it has not an- tagonized the representatives of the old settlers, who have been properly recognized.
Orange is a progressive town. The new comers have in- terjeeted a spirit of enterprise and awakened the staid representatives of the old element of population into an ap- preciation of the possibilities of the locality. Elegant churches, school houses, a public library, and a music hall now adorn the streets. It had a population in 1900 of 21,741.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE COUNTY OF HUDSON
UDSON COUNTY lies directly south of Bergen, which forms its northeriy boundary. The Passaic River and Newark Bay separate it from Essex and ITion on the west, while its southern point lies opposite Staten Island and is washed by the waters of New York harbor. It is the most populous county in the State, having about three hundred and eighty-six thousand inhab- itants. It contains the townships of Harrison, North Bergen, Weehawken, and Guttenberg, the towns of West Hoboken, Union, Kearney, West New York, and East Newark, the borough of Secaucus, and the cities of Jersey City, Hoboken, and Bayonne.
The first municipality within the limits of New Jersey was erected by order of Director-General Stuyvesant and his council on September 5, 1661, and christened " The Vil- lage of Bergen." The origin of the name " Bergen " rests in some doubt. Some writers confidently claim it to have been derived from " Bergen," the capital of Norway, while others as confidently assert it to have been derived from Bergen op Zoom, an important town on the River Scheldt, in Holland. The evidence, however, seems to favor those who claim the name to have been derived from the Holland town.
During the seven years following the christening new set-
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THE PASSAIC VALLEY
tlers rapidly purchased and located on lands outside of the " Village " limits. These, with a view to more effectually protecting themselves from the savages, asked that they might be annexed to the main settlement. Accordingly, on April 7, 1668, Governor Philip Carteret and his council, of East New Jersey, granted to the settlers of Bergen (then comprising some forty families) a charter under the cor- porate name of " The Towne and Corporation of Bergen." This new " Towne " comprised the present County of Hud- son as far west as the Hackensack River. The line on the north, as described in the charter, started "at Mordavis meadow, ly- ing upon the west side of Hudson's River; from thence to run upon a N. W. lyne by a Three rail fence that is now standing to a place called Espatin [The Hill] and from thence to a little creek [Bellman's Creek] sur- CHARLES I. rounding N. N. W. till it comes unto the river Hackensack [Indian name for ' Low- land '], containing in breadth, from the top of the Hill, 1} miles or 120 chains." During the next sixteen years new settlements sprang up north of Bergen, but in matters of government these were termed " out lands " or " precincts," without any corporate power whatever, and subject to the jurisdiction of the authorities of the " Towne."
1
421
FORMATION OF COUNTIES
As population increased courts became necessary; and as all the colonial officials were Englishmen, and many Eng- lish immigrants had settled in the colony, it was natural that they should desire the adoption of the English system of county government. On the 7th of March, 1682, the provincial Legislature passed, and Deputy Governor Rud- yard approved, an act under which New Jersey was divided into four counties: Bergen, Essex, Middlesex, and Mon- month. Bergen County, as then defined, contained " all the settlements between Hudson's River and the Hackensack River, beginning at Constable's Hook and so to extend to the uppermost bounds of the Province, northward between the said rivers with the seat of government at the town of Bergen." Essex County comprised " all the settlements be- tween the west side of the Hackensack River and the part- ing line between Woodbridge and Elizabethtown, and north- ward io the utmost bounds of the Province." By this di- vision the greater part of the present County of Bergen as well as a part of Hudson fell within the limits of Essex.
On the 20 of January, 1709-10, an act was passed and ap- proved directing a redivision. By the terms of this act the boundaries of Bergen County were fixed as follows:
Beginning at Constable's Hook, so up along the bay to Hudson's River, to the partition point between New Jersey and the Province of New York; thenee along the line and the line between East and West New Jersey to the Pequan- nock and Passaic Rivers; thence down the Pequannock and Passaic Rivers to the sound; and so following the sound to Constable's Hook where it begins.
In the northwestern part of the county, as above de- seribed, was included the County of Passaic, and on the 22d of February, 1840, all that part of it lying south of the original north bounds of the " Town and Corporation of Ber- gen," together with a considerable area of territory west of the Hackensack River known as Now Barbadoes Neck, were,
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by legislative enactment, erected into the County of Hudson. A part of this was annexed to Bergen County in 1852, leav- ing the boundaries of Bergen and Hudson Counties as they are to-day.
The first division of the counties of the State into town- ships was made pursuant to two acts of the colonial assem-
N. 110.
J. 129.
N. 42.
N. 99.
N.103.
Y.4,1.
2. 98.
J. 97.
P. 108.
157.
155.
255
149.
J. 96.
H. 107.
154.
284
156.
153.
148.
N: 95.
N. 106
165.
152.
116.
14%.
4. 94.
N. 105.
159.
150
161.
1. 93.
N. 114.
/77.
15%.
164.
Nº 115.
163.
167
285.
W. 32.
N°. 224.
162
286.
160.
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168
256.
M.287.
N.241.
N.33.
BERGEN AND BUYTEN TUYN IN 1660.
bly, one approved in September, 1692, and the other in Octo- ber, 1693. The reasons for this division were set forth in the preamble to the second of the above mentioned acts, as follows :
WHEREAS several things is to be done by the inhabitants of towns, hamlets tribes, or divisions within each county, as chusing of deputies, constables &c., tax- ing and collecting of several rates for publick uses and the making orders amongst themselves respectively about swine, fences &c.
WHEREAS, a great many settlements are not reckoned within any such town
M. 100.
166.
158.
/13.
Nº 109.
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OLD BERGEN COUNTY
or division, nor the bounds of the reputed towns ascertained, by means thereof the respective constables know not their districts, and many other inconveniences arising from them, and forasmuch as the act made in Sept 1692, for dividing the several counties and townships, the time for the returns of the said divisions, being too short and the method of dividing by county meetings inconvenient. Therefore be it enacted, etc.
Under these acts Bergen County ( then inehiding the pres- ent Counties of Bergen and Hud- son) was divided into three town- ships: Hackensack, New Barba-
does, and Bergen. Of these Hackensack comprised "all the land betwixt the Hacken- sack River and Hudson's River, that extends from the corporation town bounds of HOBOKEN IN 1770. Bergen to the partition line of the Province." New Bar- badoes comprised " all the land on Passaic River, above the third river, and from the mouth of the said third river north- west to the partition line of the Province, including also all the land in New Barbadoes neck, betwixt Hackensack and Passaic rivers, and thence to the partition line of the Prov-
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ince." Bergen comprised that part of Hudson County now lying east of the Hackensack River.
Out of Bergen Township were carved Jersey City, January 28, 1820; Van Vorst Township. March 11, 1841; North Ber- gen Township, February 10, 1843; Hudson Township, March 4, 1852; Bayonne Township, February 16, 1861; Union Town- ship, February 28, 1861; the Town of West Hoboken, Febru- ary 28, 1861 ; and Greenville Township, March 18, 1863. Har- rison Township was taken from Lodi, Bergen County, Febru- ary 22, 1840, and out of North Bergen were created Hoboken Town- ship, March 1, 1841, and the City of Hobo- ken, March 28, 1855. Wee- hawken Town- HAMILTON-BURR DUELLING GROUND: WEEHAWKEN. ship, famous as a duelling ground in times gone by, was organized from Hoboken, March 15, 1859; the Town of Union was created from Union, March 29, 1864; Kearney was formed from Har- rison, March 14, 1867, and made a " town " March 23, 1898; and the City of Bayonne was incorporated March 10, 1869. Guttenberg Township was formed from Union, April 1, 1878, and on March 21, 1898, the remainder of Union was ab- sorbed by the Township of West New York. The Town of East Newark was created in 1898, and the Borough of
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SETTLEMENT OF HUDSON COUNTY
Secauens was organized from North Bergen, March 12, 1900. Van Vorst and Greenville have both been absorbed by other unicipalities, though the latter locality retains its name.
The county is watered chietly by the Hackensack River, which flows along the northwestern border of North Ber- gen Township and thence southward into Newark Bay. Along this river are extensive meadows, which, between Jersey City and Newark, have been partially improved and utilized for manufacturing, railroad, and kindred purposes. To the northward lies the " Island " of Secanens, a strip of upland surrounded by marsh and devoted to agriculture and truck gardening.
The Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Lehigh Valley, and the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western all traverse the county from east to west, while the Erie and West Shore lines run northward and north- westerly.
The pioneers of Hudson County were largely immigrants from Holland or descendants of the early settlers of Man- hattan and Long Islands. The rest were English, French, Germans, and Scandinavians. Under the stimulus of the bill of " Freedoms and Exemptions " Michael Pauw, then bergomaster of Amsterdam, was impelled, for speculative purposes no doubt, to obtain from the director-general of New Netherland, in 1630, grants of two large tracts, one called " Hoboken Hacking " ( Land of the tobacco pipe) and the other " Ahasimus." Both of these tracts were parts of what is now JJersey City. These grants bore date, respect- ively, July 13 and November 22, 1630. The grantee gave one place the name of " Pavonia."
Panw failed to comply with the conditions set forth in his deeds and was obliged, after three years of controversy with the West India Company, to convey his " plantations "
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back to that company. Michael Panlesen, an official of the company, was placed in charge of them as superintendent. It is said he built and occupied a hut at Paulus Hook early in 1633. If so, it was the first building of any kind erected in either Bergen or Hudson County. Later in the same year the com- pany bnilt two more houses : one at Communipaw, afterward pu r- chased by Jan Evertse Bout, the other at Ahasi- mus (now Jersey City, east of the Hill), later pnr- chased by Cor- nelins Van Vorst. Jan Evertse Bout succeeded Mich- ael Panlesen as superintendent of the Pauw planta- tion June 17, 1634, with head- quarters at Com- KIEFT'S MODE OF PUNISHMENT. munipaw, then the capital of the Pavonia colony. He was suc- ceeded in June, 1636, by Cornelius Van Vorst, with head- quarters at Ahasimus, where he kept " open house " and en- tertained the New Amsterdam officials in style.
In 1641 Myndert Myndertse, of Amsterdam, (bearing the ponderons title of " Van Der Heer Nedderhorst,") obtained
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THE BERGEN PLANTATIONS
a grant of all the country behind (west of) Achter Kull ( Newark Bay), and from thence North to Tappan, including part of what is now Bergen and Hudson Counties. Aecom- panied by a number of soldiers, Myndertse occupied his pur- chase, established a camp, and proceeded to civilize the In- dians by military methods. It is needless to say that he failed. He soon abandoned the perilous undertaking of founding a colony, returned to Holland, and the title to this grant was forfeited.
Early in 1638 William Kieft became director-general of New Netherland, and on the first day of May following granted to Abraham Isaacson Planck ( Verplanck) a patent for Panlus Hook ( now lower Jersey City).
There were now two " plantations " at Bergen, those of Planck and Van Vorst. Parts of these, however, had been leased to, and were then occupied by, Claes Jansen Van Purmerend, Direk Straatmaker, Barent stansen, Jan Cor- nelissen Buys, Jan Evertsen Carsbon, Michael Jansen, Jacob Stoffelsen, Aert Tennisen Van Putten, Egbert Wontersen, Garret Direkse Blauw, and Cornelius Ariessen. Van Putten had also leased and located on a farm at Hoboken. All these, with their families and servants, constituted a thriv- ing settlement. The existence of the settlement of Bergen was now imperiled by the acts of Governor Kieft, whose idea of government was based mainly upon the principle that the governor should get all he could out of the governed. His treatment of the Indians soon incited their distrust and hatred of the whites. The savages, for the first time, began to show symptoms of open hostility. Captain JJan Petersen de Vries, a distinguished navigator, who was then engaged in the difficult task of trying to found a colony at Tappan, songhi every means in his power to conciliate the Indians,
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