USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Newark > The history of Newark, New Jersey : being a narrative of its rise and progress, from the settlement in May, 1666, by emigrants from Connecticut to the present time, including a sketch of the press of Newark, from 1791 to 1878 > Part 30
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"THE BROAD SEAL WAR"-PENNINGTON AS SPEAKER. 289
attending the obtainment of whose certificates were matters of national knowledge. Then began what has passed into State and national history as " the Broad Seal War." It resulted, after a long and stormy debate, and the election of a compromise Speaker, in the acceptance of the clerk's proposition and, subsequently, in the seating and declaring duly elected of the five Democrats, Messrs. Philemon Dickerson, Peter D. Vroom, Daniel B. Ryall, William P. Cooper and Joseph Kille. The report of the committee declaring these gentlemen duly elected was sustained by a vote of 102 to 22.
President Fillmore offered Governor Pennington the governorship of the Territory of Minnesota, but he declined the offer. In 1858 he was elected to Congress from this District. It was the Thirty- fifth Congress-a body " big with the fate of Cæsar and of Rome." It convened in December, 1859, and, owing to the party distractions of the day, and the threatening aspect of affairs between the North and the South, it was two months before the House succeeded in organizing. The choice for Speaker finally fell upon Governor Pennington. He was a moderate man, and therefore acceptable to members of all shades of opinion. "It was universally conceded," says Judge Elmer in his "Reminiscences," "that for fairness and impartiality and for wise conciliation, he (Pennington) had no superior." For a man who had never before been in Congress and who was necessarily unfamiliar with its rules and practice, his success as Speaker was remarkable. The character of the man as a patriot and a statesman is fairly outlined in his remarks just before adjourn- ing the House, on March 4th, 1861. Said Speaker Pennington :
Gentlemen of the House of Representatives :--
We have arrived at the close of the Thirty-sixth Congress. During its progress scenes of an extraordinary character have been witnessed. Several States have seceded and all their mem- bers with one exception have left this House. No lover of his country can witness such an exhibition without feelings of the deepest anxiety. As your presiding officer, I have not felt it my duty to deviate from the established practice by entering into discussion on the floor, and the demands upon the time of the Chair are sufficient in its view without, and it is wise that the Speaker should not be cntangled in the conflicts of debate.
You will permit me therefore, before parting, to say publicly what is well known to many, if not all of you, that I have ever been, am now, and I trust ever shall remain, a devoted friend of the Union of the States, and favorable to any just and liberal compromise. The report of the Committee of Thirty-three of this House met my cordial approval, and I have never hesitated to declare my belief that a Convention of all the States to consider actual or supposed grievances was the proper and most available remedy. As a lover of the Union I declare my conviction that no tenable ground has been assigned for a dissolution of the ties which bind every American citizen to his country, and impartial history will so decide. My confidence in the American people is such that I believe no just complaint can exist long without a redress at their hands.
290
PATRIOTIC SENTIMENTS-DEATH AND CHARACTER.
There is always a remedy in the Union. With this view I shall declare my willingness to join in measures of compromise. I would do so because of the ancient ties that have bound us together under the institution framed by our fathers and under a Constitution signed by the immortal Washington. I would do so for the national honor is committed to the experience of free institutions. I would do so for the love I bcar for my countrymen in all parts of our beloved land, and especially so for the sake of that noble band of patriots in the border Southern States, who against great opposition have stood firm like rocks in the ocean for the peace and perpetuity of the Union.
Meanwhile, during the preceding November election, he ran a second time for Congress, but, to the consternation of his friends, who regarded him as invincible, and the pleased surprise of his opponents, he was defeated by a majority in the district of 394, in a total poll of 32,404 votes, his vanquisher being Mr. Nehemiah Perry, a gentleman who had been long and creditably identified with the manufacturing industries of Newark. Mr. Pennington died suddenly on Sunday morning, February 16th, 1862, full of years, full of honors, and full of the esteem and love of his fellow- citizens. His death was hastened, if not produced, by a large dose of morphine administered through the mistake of an apothecary. The event caused widespread sorrow, for the Governor was greatly admired by men of all parties and by "all sorts and conditions of men." He was of a very genial, kindly nature, and in person was a tall, manly, imposing figure-a "personage." He was about six feet two inches high, well proportioned, with regular features, full, pleasing eyes, and, altogether, of most winning address. One who in the local press had contributed largely to his defeat in November, 1860, wrote ere yet the clay of the departed Pennington was quite cold : "No more genial or kind-hearted man ever lived than Governor Pennington, nor one more true to his friends. His fine qualities of head and heart combined to render him a useful man, and we all feel that the world was better for his living in it." The news of his death fell upon the community "like the shock of an earthquake." The Bar of Essex County spoke of the deceased as one " distinguished for courtesy, dignity, high and courtly bearing ; for abhorrence of trick or sharp practice," and for "a jealousy of that personal honor which yields to the profession its lustre and perfume." At the funeral, which was very imposing and took place the Wednesday following his decease, Governor Olden, ex- Governor Dickerson and ex-Chancellors Halsted and Williamson served as pall-bearers.
29I
THEODORE FRELINGHUYSEN-HIS ANCESTORS.
THEODORE FRELINGHUYSEN, though not " native here and to the manner born," was, to the extent of the best and busiest years of his life, essentially a Newarker. He was born in Franklin Township, Somerset County, N. J., March 28th, 1787, of an ancestry distinguished for its piety and learning. The first of his race to settle in this country was Rev. Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen, or, as he sometimes wrote his signature, "Freylinghausen," who was born about the year 1691, in East Friesland, now a part of the Kingdom of Hanover .. In 1720 he came to this country, duly accredited as a missionary from Holland, and settled on the banks of the Raritan, a few miles west of New Brunswick. His grandson, General Frederick Frelinghuysen, was the father of Theodore. Frederick was intended for the ministry, but early developed a different desire. He was of a spirited nature, and, it is stated, was repelled from even full church communion by the rigid family rules and strictures to which he was subjected. He entered Princeton College and graduated in 1770; then studied law, and was duly admitted to the Bar. When but twenty-two years of age (1775), he was chosen a member of the Provincial Congress of New Jersey, and became a member of the Revolutionary Committee of Safety. In 1778 he was elected by joint ballot of the Legislature to repre- sent the State in the Continental Congress. He also served as captain of a volunteer artillery corps, and in this capacity partici. pated in the battle of Trenton. Tradition,-unfortified by any proof, however,-credits him with having fatally wounded the Hessian commander, Colonel Rahl. Frelinghuysen was also present at Monmouth and Springfield, rendering services of great value to his country's cause. After the war, in 1793, he was chosen to a seat in the United States Senate. This position he resigned because of domestic bereavements and, as he manfully declared, his inability to sustain himself in that generous and dignified style of living which he considered due the office. At the time of the Whiskey Insurrection in Western . Pennsylvania, President Washington commissioned him a Major-General, and gave him charge of the suppressing force. The Insurrection fortunately collapsed without bloodshed. General Frelinghuysen died April 13th, 1804-the same day of the same month in which he was born. " At the Bar he was eloquent, in the Senate he was wise, in the field of battle he was brave." "He left to his children the rich
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292
SETTLES AND MARRIES IN NEWARK-POLITICAL LIFE.
legacy of a life unsullied by a stain and adorned with numerous expressions of public usefulness and private beneficence."
Such was the ancestry of Theodore Frelinghuysen. In 1804 he graduated from Princeton College, and in 1808, after studying law with Richard Stockton, was admitted to the Bar. During the war of 1812 he raised and commanded a company of volunteers, showing that the martial spirit of the father had not degenerated in the son. Some four years before this he came to reside in Newark. It was then an attractive, bustling village; but it was not the attractiveness of Newark that drew the young lawyer here, but the comely face, graceful form, cultivated mind, and fascinating manners of a young lady of the town, Miss Charlotte Mercer, daughter of Archibald Mercer, Esq., a well-known and very highly esteemed citizen. The pair were married the year after young Frelinghuysen came here. His rise in public estimation and his success in his profession were rapid. In 1817 he was appointed Attorney-General of the State, and that, too, by a Legislature opposed to him politically. He held the position uninterruptedly until 1829, when he was elected a Senator of the United States. In politics he was a Whig. He advocated in the Senate, with great force and powerful eloquence, the just and lawful rights of the Indian aborigines, and opposed the carrying of the United States mail on Sunday. He strongly supported Henry Clay's resolution calling for a day of fasting and humiliation during the time of the cholera. In the tariff measures and compromise act of 1833 he acted throughout with Clay, for whom he had the strongest personal and political regard. Upon the expiration of his term, in March, 1835, he returned to Newark and resumed the practice of his profession. In the Spring of 1837 he was elected the second Mayor of Newark, and was re elected in . 1838. In March of the following year he was unanimously chosen Chancellor of the University of the City of New York, by the Council of that institution, and was formally installed June 5th. Upon the first day of May, 1844, Mr. Frelinghuysen, quite unex- pectedly to himself and his friends, was nominated by the Whig Convention at Baltimore for Vice-President on the ticket with Henry Clay. The ticket was regarded as an exceedingly strong one, but at the election in November, it was defeated by a large majority. Against 170 electoral votes cast for Polk and Dallas, the successful candidates of the Democratic party, Clay and Freling-
293
CLAY AND FRELINGHUYSEN.
huysen received only 105 .. "When the result was announced," says a biographer of Mr. Frelinghuysen, "it fell like a thunderbolt out of a cloudless sky," and "stalwart men were moved even to tears, and multitudes mourned over the event as if it had been the loss of some dear relative." In 1850 Mr. Frelinghuysen resigned his Chancellorship and became President of Rutgers College, New Brunswick, N. J., into which office he was formally inducted at the annual commencement, July 24th, of the year named. He died at the scene of his labors, on April 12th, 1862, in the 76th year of his age.
Theodore Frelinghuysen does not rank in American history as a very great or a very brilliant man, but he will always occupy a prominent niche as one of the very best and purest of American statesmen. Without being profoundly learned, he was a very able man ; without being always able to command attention as a great orator, he was, nevertheless, a man of most persuasive eloquence. Above all things, he was a sincere Christian, a man of deep piety and strong religious convictions. What Frelinghuysen stated as a matter of fact, was accepted by all as the very incarnation of truth. No man could stand higher in the esteem of his fellow-men than did Mr. Frelinghuysen. "There is not a man," said Daniel Webster, addressing a Whig meeting at Baltimore, in 1844, in advocacy of Clay and Frelinghuysen, " there is not a man of purer character, of more sober temperament, of more accessible manners, and of more firm, unbending, uncompromising principles, than Theodore Frelinghuysen ; and not only is he all this, but such is the ease of his manners, such the spotless purity of his life, such the sterling attributes of his character, that he has the regard, the fervent attachment and the endearing love of all who know him." About the same time, in a private letter not published until after Mr. Frelinghuysen's death, Henry Clay said: "No man stands higher in my estimation as a pure, upright and patriotic citizen. He always seemed self-poised, and bore himself uniformly with great ability and dignity." Edward Everett said of him, shortly after his death : " There was a classical finish in his language, and a certain sedate fervor, if I may so call it, in his language, which commanded the attention of his audience to a degree seldom sur- passed. As he spoke but rarely, he was always listened to with deference, and soon took rank with the foremost members of the
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294 HOW FRELINGIIUYSEN WAS ESTEEMED AT THE SOUTII.
body, at a time when the Senate of the United States contained some of the brightest names in our political history." At the South Mr. Frelinghuysen was esteemed as highly as at the North, as the following hitherto unpublished incident illustrates. As we have seen, the financial distress of 1837 greatly affected Newark business men. A then leading merchant of the city, still living, found on his hands a lot of new carriages, transferred to him by the maker for debt. With a view to disposing of them advantageously, the merchant sent them South, following them himself. He reached his destination and found a fair in operation near by. There he sought to dispose of his vehicles. In consequence of the opposition of rival dealers he experienced difficulty in selling them. Newark- made carriages were famous in the South, and a report was circulated by the rival dealers that those offered by the stranger never saw Newark. The Newark merchant was questioned on the subject. He was asked where he came from, if he lived in Newark, and who he knew there. " Everybody, almost," was the answer. " Do you know Senator Frelinghuysen ?" "Intimately," was the reply. The Newarker was then asked to describe him. He did so, and among other things said that no matter what business was on · hand, or how great the secular demand on his time might be, he would abandon everything on prayer-meeting night to attend it. . "That's him, exactly," said a leading Southerner, who had been appealed to as a sort of referee. "I recollect when I was in Con- gress with Mr. Frelinghuysen," the Southerner continued, "we never could get him to attend committee meetings or anything else, no matter how pressing the emergency, on prayer-meeting nights." The Newarker thus established his identity and the genuineness of his carriages as being of Newark make, and sold every one of them at handsome prices. To be a Newarker, was something in Southern esteem ; and to be intimate with Frelinghuysen, was to command the confidence of Southerners. One cause of the respect in which Mr. Frelinghuysen was held at the South, was the fact that he was not an Abolitionist, though a supporter of the Colonization Society.
JOHN S. DARCY was born in Hanover Township, Morris County, N. J., February 24th, 1788, and died in Newark October 22d, 1863, in the 76th year of his age. His father was a skillful surgeon, and, during the war of 1812, was attached to a New Jersey regiment on duty at Sandy Hook, his son, John S., being captain of a company
295
GENERAL JOHN S. DARCY-IDOLIZED BY THE POOR.
of the same regiment, which company the captain had raised him- self in Morris County. In 1832 the younger Darcy came to Newark and settled here. Like his father, he was a skillful physician, and soon obtained a lucrative and extended practice. He was chosen Major-General of the State Militia, a position he held until 1847, when he resigned. Soon afterwards he started with a company of thirty Newarkers for California, the gold fever being then at its height. After a terrible march, on which two of the party died from exhaustion and were buried by the wayside, the little band reached the head-waters of the Sacramento on October Ist. In January, 1851, Dr. Darcy returned to Newark and resumed the practice of his profession. In 1854, at the urgent solicitation of his party friends, he accepted the Democratic nomination for Congress, but was defeated by A. C. M. Pennington. Throughout the balance of his life, although a strong party man and one of the most active leaders of the local and State Democracy, Dr. Darcy rigidly refused all offers of official honors. Before coming to Newark he served as a member of the Legislature from Morris County, and during Andrew Jackson's Administration was United States Marshal for New Jersey. He continued in this office during Presi- dent Van Buren's Administration, and rendered exceedingly valu- able service in breaking up a band of land-pirates and wreckers, which had caused great annoyance and distress along the New Jersey coast. The doctor was twice married. For many years, up to the time of his death, he was President of the New Jersey Railroad Company, and in that position, as well as in his profession as a practicing physician, he excited in a remarkable degree the esteem and admiration of all kinds of people. Among the poor and laboring classes he was almost idolized. With them he was ever ready to share his time and his means. In this community his death was felt as a public calamity, and such, in fact, it was. In thousands of hearts, gladdened by him, Dr. Darcy is still held in most loving and affectionate remembrance.
For a resumption of our less personal and more general narrative, now drawing to a close, we turn to a new chapter, the final one of this work.
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CHAPTER IX.
1865 TO 1878.
Once More " The Piping Time of Peace"-A Tidal Wave of Prosperity-Marvelous Increase of Population, Manufactures and Wealth-Newark's Splendid Industrial Exhibit in 1872 -Origin, History and Character of the Exhibition Enterprise-What Horace Greeley, General Grant, Bishop Odenheimer and Others Said-Steam Engine Relic of 1753- America's First Steam Engine-The Schuyler Copper Mines-Josiah Hornblower-Finan- cial Institutions-A Romantic Reality in Facts and Figures-Rothschild's New World Rival-A Colossal Concern Created from Nothing-The Clark Thread Works-George A. Clark-Religious and Educational Institutions-Past, Present and Future-Analysis of Newark's Character-What Newark has done for American Institutions-Newark's Voice in the Councils of the State and Nation-Concluding Reflections.
W WITH the return of " the piping time of peace," came increased prosperity to Newark. Population, wealth and manufactures all strode rapidly forward. From 70,000 in 1864, the population took a bound in 1865 to 87,428-an increase in a single year of over 17,000. In 1861 there were manufactured here goods the value of which amounted to over $23,000,000, distributed about as follows : harness, $1,615,500; trunks and carpet bags, $1,106,500; carriage business, $1,622,164 ; shoe and leather goods, $1,082,075 ; hats, &c., $1,655,378 ; clothing and cloth goods, $3,457,452 ; India rubber, &c., $492,000 ; jewelry, $1,225,900; iron, brass, machinery, &c., $2, 191,250; building materials, &c., $794,840; furniture, &c., $897,410; manu- factured substances-lime, cement, varnish, zinc, chemicals, glue, &c., $980,500; articles of consumption, $1,974,394; aggregate, $23,364,413. This was with a population of 71,941. The war closed the South as a market in one direction, but opened it in another. Scores of factories and thousands of workmen were constantly kept busy supplying the Union armies with various sorts of accoutre- ments, small-arms, saddlery, harness, clothing, &c. Now that hostilities had ended, other markets opened up, and for nearly a decade of years the city continued to prosper. Population rose as with a flood-tide. From 87,428 in 1865, the figures swelled in 1870 to 105,542, and in 1875 to 123,310. The ratio of increase in wealth was the same. In 1870 the total products of Essex County,
NEWARK, FROM THE PASSAIC.
239 4060H
297
IMPOSING FIGURES-THE INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.
according to the United States census, amounted in value to about $52,000,000. There is ample warrant for asserting that this estimate was far below the real figures. Indeed, it has been published with- out question, that the total value of the industrial products of Newark alone amounted, in 1870, to $70,000,000. As regards products, Newark takes rank as the third city in the Union, some authorities claiming it to be the second. The total valuation of real and personal property, for the years beginning with 1865 and ending with 1872, show a steady increase. In 1865 the figures were $35,646,000; in 1866, $50,866,700; in 1870, $77,015,279; and in 1872, $97,330,341. In 1874 the city authorities taxed upon a real estate valuation of $78,574,390, and upon a personal estate valua- tion of $27,049,320-a total of $105,623,710. The real valuation of property in Newark, in 1870, was set down at $158,435,565.
The year 1872 is memorable in the industrial annals of the city. It witnessed the inauguration of an Industrial Exhibition the most remarkable, probably, in the world's history of the mechanical arts. This was an exhibition exclusively of articles manufactured in Newark, and is believed to have been the first of the kind ever established at any industrial centre in either the Old or the New World. The scheme had long been discussed among a few far- sighted business men, who realized in advance that the city had in its own varied handiwork ample material for an exhibition which would surprise none more completely than the mass of her own inhabitants, including a large number of her manufacturers. But the majority were skeptical of any good results accruing from it, and so several years passed before the idea crystallized into even an initial act. In the month of January, 1872, the project was revived, and this time was not discussed "in a hole and corner," but in the columns of the local press. Despite the determined opposition of a few leading manufacturers who regarded the scheme as Quixotic, and who thought it would be sure to result in loss of time and money, likewise in mortifying humiliation to all taking part in it, the agitation went on and gathered favor with the people at large and the most enterprising of the manufacturers and business men, a leading and most active spirit in the furtherance of the enterprise being Albert M. Holbrook, whose signal services were subsequently substantially recognized. At length, on April 3d, " a meeting of manufacturers and citizens in general " was held and the subject was
298
" A THOUSAND FORMS OF BEAUTY AND TASTE."
"more fully brought before them." The meeting was largely attended, was presided over by Mayor F. W. Ricord, and resulted in " the adoption of a resolution unanimously indorsing the propo- sition." Soon after a regular organization was effected with a Board of Managers, and thenceforward the plan gradually matured, until on the evening of the 20th of August the Exhibition was opened at the Rink on Washington street, with formal and interesting cere- monies, in presence of a large and thoroughly representative assemblage of citizens. Addresses suited to the occasion were delivered by the President of the Board of Managers, ex-Governor Marcus L. Ward, and General Theodore Runyon, both of whom referred in terms of pride to the very decided success of the enterprise. Of all sorts, nearly a thousand exhibitors were repre- sented, and the display of workmanship, both in the finer and the coarser branches of mechanical art, from a piece of rare and delicately wrought Etruscan jewelry to a giant steam-engine, was as rich and varied as it was interesting, instructive and unexpectedly flattering to the community. Citizens who considered themselves entirely familiar with Newark products confessed utter amaze- ment at the splendid character of the general exhibit spread before them "in a thousand forms of beauty and taste." The press, both of Newark and New York, teemed with praises of the Exhibition, and it was difficult now to find any one who had not always believed it would be as it proved, a grand success. The Exhibition kept open for fifty-two days. During that time it was visited by about 130,000 persons. These included people from every walk in life, from the President of the United States down to the humblest bread-winner. The attendances included not alone tens of thousands of Newark people, but visitors from every part of the State, from most parts of the United States and from many parts of Europe. On Monday evening, September 17th, the Exhibition was visited by the great American journalist, Horace Greeley, then a candidate for the Presidency. In the course of an interesting address delivered before the vast audience present, Mr. Greeley recurred to the first time he visited Newark, forty years before, the place being then "a smart, rather straggling but busy village (on week days) of about ten thousand inhabitants-one- twelfth of its present population-and bearing about the same characteristics it does now." The distinguished publicist marveled
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