PREFACE
OUT of a transient newspaper sketch grew this book. Eight years ago, while preparing for a leading New York journal a somewhat exhaustive article relating to the Old Burying Ground, where
" The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,"
the author had occasion to search for matter of a local historical character. This led to a double discovery first, that.no complete History of Newark existed there were merely a few sketches designed to. make other publications attractive, and an interesting but chiefly non-secular series of " Historical Discourses relating to the First Presbyterian Church," by Rev. J. F. Stearns, D. D.; second, that in the more than bi-century growth of the settlement, there were abundant materials with which to weave a volume, not alone interesting, but instructive and valuable. Subsequent years of labor on the press further revealed the need of such a work, and, in the ember months of 1875, the author resolved to supply the desideratum, so far as his abilities and opportunities would permit. The result is now in the hands of the reader.
The purpose of the author, upon starting out, was to gather in a convenient and permanent form a full and reliable epitome of the history of Newark, from its settlement in May, 1666, to the present time; to show what it was as a tender infant, struggling to survive " the thousand natural shocks " that infancy is heir to; what it was as an active, supple-limbed youth in the time of the learned and saintly Burr, the parent-president of Princeton College, Newark's fame-crowned nursling of 1747 '55; what it was when its soil was hallowed by the footsteps of Washington and his illustrious compatriots, and enriched with the blood of many " native here and to the manner born," in the years clustering around 1776; what it was half a century ago, when its population numbered about a thirteenth of what it now is; what its record has been in " times that tried men's souls," and in the "piping times of peace"; what it has done during two hundred and twelve years for the cause of civil and religious liberty the bed-rock foundation of American institutions; and, finally, to set forth most fully what Newark is now, in the year of grace, 1878. It is for the reader to judge how great or how little has been the success of the author in the direction described.
It is due to the History of Newark, and it is due to its author, that he should state here that he has had to pursue his labors under circumstances more than difficult sometimes positively disheartening. In the first place, the exacting demands of a steady connection with two daily newspapers compelled a most desultory prosecution of his task. Nominally, he has been engaged on the History two years and a half; actually, the time devoted to it was about seven months, of (say) ten hours a day. Besides, except as regards the Settlement of the Town, the old Town Book and Dr. Stearns' Discourses, the materials have been hard to obtain and exceedingly difficult to authenticate; frequently impossible, indeed, even when obtained. But, on second thought, these are matters, perhaps, in which the general reader is entirely unconcerned.
Regarding the early history of the place, the author deems it proper to state that there is in his pages no pretense of having obtained any new matter beyond what has already appeared in print, in one form or another. It is the reverse, however, with the later history of Newark for the period embracing the last hundred years or more, 'flic principal sources of information for the whole work are the Town Book, Stearns' Discourses, Whitehead's East Jersey, Gordon's New Jersey, Smith's New Jersey, Barber's Collections, New Jersey Historical Society Collections, The Long Bill in Chancery, Foster's New Jersey and the Rebellion, Wood's Newark Gazette, the Centinel of Freedom, the New Jersey Eagle, the Newark Daily Advertiser, the Newark Eagle, and the Newark Evening Journal. For valuable assistance in the preparation of the work, the acknowledgements of the author are due and are herewith tendered to Hon. Marcus L. Ward, the venerable Captain Daniel B. Bruen, Daniel T. Clark, Librarian of the New Jersey Historical Society; William E. Layton, Librarian of the Newark Library Association; A. M. Holbrook, Joseph Black and others.
Under even the most favorable circumstances, there would be errors in a work of this kind, and the author is gravely apprehensive that very many are to be met with in the History. At the same time, it is proper to say that the greatest pains possible have been taken to avoid these imperfections, and secure accuracy of dates and facts; but still, as has already been suggested, errors are sure to have crept in are sure to have stolen past every barrier that care and watchfulness could interpose. Assured at least of the prepossessing form in which the History is presented, it is allowable, perhaps, to paraphrase Pope and say,
" If to its share some minor errors fall, Look on its face and you'll forget them all."
J. A.
Newark, April, 1878.
CHAPTER I. 1666 TO 1667.
AS the mountain rock-spring is to the tiny rivulet, the rivulet to the purling brook, the brook to the sylvan stream, the stream to the broad bosomed and majestic river, and the river to the deep blue sea, so is an individual to a hamlet, a hamlet to a village, a village to a town, a town to a city, a city to a state, a state to a nation, a nation to the world. Each is a part of the grand whole.
The same, relatively, is true of history. The world's history is an aggregation of national histories, just as national histories are aggregated condensations of the histories of states, provinces, cities, counties and townships. American history, at least that which embraces the rise and progress of the old thirteen Colonies, may fairly be considered on the ab uno disce omnes principle. That is to say, the story of a part, at all events of an important part, is the story of the whole. To be still more explicit, he who writes the history of New York, New Jersey, or any of the eleven others of the original thirteen States, must, if he properly fulfils his task, write also and simultaneously, the history of the nation. The same rule applies to the purely local historian; so that in undertaking to prepare a history of Newark one has, perforce, to prepare in great measure a history not alone of the state but of the nation. In brief, then, the history of Newark is in no unimportant degree measurably the history of New Jersey and of the Republic.
Here the inquiry may be made, What is History? The answer comes from a most distinguished English historian: "History, at least in its state of ideal perfection," remarks the brilliant Macaulay, "is a compound of poetry and philosophy." The parts of the duty which properly belong to the historian are, according to this same celebrated writer: " To make the past present, to bring the distant near, to place us in the society of a great man, to invest with the reality of human flesh and blood, beings whom we are too much inclined to consider as personified qualities in an allegory, to call up our ancestors before us with all their peculiarities of language, manners and garb, to show us over their houses, to seat us at their tables, to rummage their old-fashioned wardrobes, and to explain the uses of their ponderous furniture."
