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LOWER GREEN, OR MILITARY COMMON, NEWARK, N. J.

This beautiful Public Ground is situated in the northern part of Broad street. The Episcopal Church is seen on the left of the engraving.

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trary character of church and state in England, and annexed himself to the party then called moderate Presbyterians. He was an old man when the colony settled Newark, and appears to have been eminent for his learning, wisdom, and piety. His salary was fixed at £30.

Arrangements for the "meeting-house" having been completed, the town meeting next appointed Henry Lyon to keep a tavern, for the entertainment of travellers and strangers, and instructed him "to prepare for it as soon as he can." At the same meeting, in the year 1668, Robert Treat and Sergeant Richard Harrison were appointed to erect a "grist-mill on the brook at the north end of the town;" setting apart the second and sixth days of the week as grinding days. John Rockwell, of Elizabethtown, was at the same time voted a member of the community, upon condition" of his moving here forthwith, and maintaining his present or other sufficient boat, for the use of the town."

Robert Treat and Jasper Crane were chosen the first magistrates, in 1668, and representatives to the first assembly of New Jersey, convened at Elizabethtown, 26th May of the same year; by which the first state-tax (£12 sterling, of which the proportion of Newark was 40 shillings) was laid.* Mr. Treat was also chosen first recorder, or town-clerk; and after a residence here of many years, returned to Connecticut, where he became governor, and died. The town also established a court of judicature, holding annually one session, on the last Wednesday of February, and another on the second Wednesday of September; having cognizance of all causes within its limits. On the 24th May, 1669, the first selectmen, five in number, were chosen. The number was subsequently increased to seven, who continued to administer affairs until 1736, when the present township officers were created by law. And in this year Indian hostility appears to have displayed itself in petty robberies and depredations, the increase of which, in 1675, induced the townsmen to fortify their church, as a place of refuge, in case of general attack; and to take proper measures of watch and ward.

About this period the Rev. Mr. Pierson had become so infirm, that the town made out a call to his son, Abraham Pierson, Jun., to become his colleague. He had been educated at Cambridge, and was distinguished for his talents and accomplishments, but had neither the meekness nor prudence of his father. He continued here only a few years after his father's death, which occurred in 1680, but removed to Killingworth, Conn., where he died in 1708. His reputation for learning was so high, that he was chosen the first president of the College of Connecticut, (now Yale College,) on its institution in 1701. Mr. Pierson was succeeded in the pas

This assembly consisted of seven in council, besides the governor, and ten burgesses; two from Bergen, two from Newark, two from Elizabethtown, two from Woodbridge, and two from Middletown and Shrewsbury.

toral office at Newark by Mr. John Prudden, who finally relinquished it, after serving twelve or thirteen years, in favor of Mr. Jabez Wakeman, a young man of distinguished attainments. Mr. W. died in 1704, and was succeeded by Mr. Nathaniel Bowers.

The year 1676 was distinguished by the establishment of the first school; and the selectmen "agreed with Mr. John Catlin to instruct their children and servants in as much English reading, writing, and arithmetic as he could teach." Mr. Catlin was also chosen attorney for the town, and appears to have been the first lawyer settled here. About the same time, measures were taken to invite mechanics to the place. The first shoemaker appears to have been Samuel Whitehead, of Elizabethtown, who was formally admitted a member of the community, on condition of his supplying it with shoes. The first tannery was established in 1698, at the "swamp or watering-place."

The town appears to have been early celebrated for its cider. Gov. Carteret writes to the proprietors in England, in 1682:-" At Newark are made great quantities of cider, exceeding any we can have from New England, Rhode Island, or Long Island," which is the first mention we find of this famous article. The governor also speaks of the place at this time, as a compact town of about one hundred families, and that it is the only place in the province provided with a settled preacher, following no other employment. The town appears also to have obtained the character abroad of being an unhealthy place, subject to fever and agues and intermittents, which is supposed to have retarded its growth. During the ministry of Mr. Bowers, a new and larger church was agreed upon The walls were put up in 1708, a few steps north of the first building on the same lot. This was a heavy undertaking, much beyond the means of the people. Although the place had been settled forty years, it is said that when the walls were knee high, the whole population, men, women, and children, "could have sat upon them.' The interior was not entirely finished within thirty years. It is said to have been the most elegant edifice at that time in the colony.

On the 23d October, 1676, a warrant, was granted by the governor, for 200 acres of land and meadow, for parsonage-ground, and also for so much as was necessary for landing-places, school-house, town-house, market-place, &c.; and in 1696, a patent from the proprietaries to the town covered all the lots, in various parts of the township, called "Parsonage Lands;" which have been since divided, with some difficulty and contention, among five churches, viz.: three of the Presbyterian, and the Episcopal, at Newark, and the First Presbyterian church at Orange.

The London Church Missionary Society, about the year 1732, sent out a number of missionaries, some of whom settled at Elizabethtown, and other places in the neighborhood of Newark, where they occasionally preached. This gave rise to serious contentions among the colonists on the subject of church government. In this

town a few of the leading individuals declared themselves dissatisfied with the Presbyterian form, and in favor of the Episcopal mode, as practised in South Britain. During this controversy, which occurred under the ministry of Mr. Joseph Webb, the immediate successor of Mr. Bowers, the present Episcopal church was instituted. The church appears to have originated in 1734, with Col. Josiah Ogden and others, who took occasion to leave the Presbyterians, in consequence of the rigor with which he was treated for saving his grain in a wet harvest on the Sabbath. The present church edifice was built in 1808, on the site of the original building.

Mr. Webb was dismissed in 1736. The Presbyterian church then called the Rev. Aaron Burr, the father of the late Vice President of the United States, who was subsequently born in the town. Mr. Burr was distinguished as an eminent scholar and divine, and enjoyed reputation abroad as well as at home. He established a Latin school soon after his settlement here, and the town in his time, we are told, "flourished exceedingly in trade, manufactures, and agriculture; growing in wealth, population, and respectability, far beyond any thing which it had before attained."

In 1721, the first freestone was quarried for market; and this article, celebrated for its excellent quality, has long been a subject of export.

During the years 1745, '6, and '7, a great excitement existed in the vicinity, arising out of contentions between the settlers and the English proprietors concerning the title to the lands. The settlers held under their Indian title, and refused to recognise any other. In 1745 and '6, there were two great riots at Newark, in each of which the jail was broken open by large mobs, and the prisoners held by suits in favor of the English proprietors set at liberty. The same parties liberated other prisoners for the same cause, at Elizabethtown and Somerville.

In the year 1746, the College of New Jersey (now located at Princeton) was instituted at Elizabethtown, under the presidency of Jonathan Dickenson, who is reported to have been an eminent scholar. Mr. D. died the next year, and the trustees then confided the students to the care of Mr. Burr, at Newark, who thus became the second president of the college. Here the institution continued to flourish for eight years, at the expiration of which period the trustees determined to locate it permanently at Princeton. After much controversy between the trustees and the congregation, Mr. Burr's pastoral relation was dissolved in the winter of 1755, and in the October following he removed to Princeton with the college, where he died in September, 1767. The congregation continued without a pastor until 1759, when they united in a call to the Rev. Alexander McWhorter. Mr. McWhorter preached his first sermon here on the 28th June of that year, and continued to preside over the church, with an intermission of one or two years, until his death in 1807-a period of nearly half a century. It would hardly be just to the memory of this estimable and eminent man, not to add that his labors, as a minister and a citizen, contributed largely to the character and increase of the town. He stood foremost among the men who adorned the American church during the latter part of the last century, which is no mean praise. A marble slab in the wall at the right of the pulpit in the church, which was built chiefly through his instrumentality, worthily commemorates his worth, and the gratitude of the people for whom and with whom he labored. In 1765 the first public library was established.

At the commencement of the revolutionary war, the town was much divided upon

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