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I    HlSTORYojTHUDSON  CoUNTY 

I  and  of  the 

Old  Village  g/^"  Bergen 


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History  of  Hudson  County 

and  of  the 

Old  Village  o/"  Bergen 


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The  founders  of  Bergen  erected  a  palisade 
of  logs  around  their  settlement  on  the  site 
of  what  is  now  Bergen  Square,  Jersey  City 


1(3)""  "m 


('^J/„/./„»i,...uivvvtVVvki) 


History  of  HUDSON    COUNTY 

and  of  the 

Old  Village  of  Bergen 


^  Being  a  brief  account  oi  th& 
fou7idation  and  growth  of  what 
is  now  Jersey  City  and  of  the 
many  advantages  now  offered 
the  inhabitants  thereof  in  the 
newly  constructed  buildiiig  of  the 
Trust  Company  o/'New  Jersey 


Issued  by 

The  TRUST  COMPANY  ^/NEW  JERSEY 

Jersey  City,  N.  J. 


^    /  ^  ^  /  «a 


(Copyright    192 1    by  the  Trust   Company  of  New   Jersey 

TSTs 


'Designed,    Engraved  and  'Printed  by    Bartlett    Orr    Press,    JA(ja/  York 

g)r.l.A654l31 


The  Old  Village  of  Bergen 
cyf  History  of  the  First  Settlement  in  New  Jersey 


HEN  the  first  representatives  of  the  Amsterdam 
^  Licensed  TradingWest  India  Company  built 
four  houses  on  Manhattan  Island  in  1610- 
1 6 1 2,  one  could  hardly  consider  the  territory 
crowded.  Those  ancestors  of  New  York  and 
New  Jersey,  however,  had  more  spacious  ideas 
than  are  held  by  their  apartment-dwelling  descendants.  The 
charter  of  the  Dutch  East  India  Company,  which  had  granted 
the  trading  monopoly  to  its  West  India  Company,  designated 
NewNetherland  as  comprising"the  unoccupied  region  between 
Virginia  and  Canada" — a  little  tract  that  must  forever  inspire 
pained  admiration  in  modern  real  estate  dealers.  It  was 
bounded  approximately  on  the  south  by  the  South  River,  as 
the  Dutch  called  the  stream  that  the  Enghsh  afterward  re- 
christened  the  Delaware.  And  because  the  Delaware  was 
South  River,  the  river  explored  by  Henry  Hudson  in  1609, 
which  first  was  called  Mauritius  River  in  honor  of  Maurice 
of  Nassau,  Prince  of  Orange,  came  to  be  referred  to  as  North 
River,  which  explains  why  we  today  call  it  Hudson  River  or 
North  River,  just  as  the  words  happen. 

Henry,  we   may  suspect,  always   had   remained  a  little 
disappointed,  if  not  indignant,  about  that  river.   He  had  no 


T^he  History  of  Hudson  County 


The  Coming  of  tie  K'hite  Men 

genuine  interest  in  rivers.  He  was  one  of  the  many  dreamers 
who  for  two  centuries  had  been  butting  against  the  coast  line, 
hoping  for  that  rainbow  thing,  a  passage  to  the  golden  East 
Indies.  But  the  steady-minded  Dutch  traders  who  followed 
him  thought  very  well  of  it.  They  saw  it  as  a  perfect  water 
highway  to  the  fur  country,  giving  them  almost  direct  access 
to  the  fur-trading  Indian  tribes  of  Canada,  whose  offerings 
passed  from  hand  to  hand  down  to  Albany,  while  all  along 
the  banks  could  be  gathered  the  almost  equally  rich  tribute 
from  the  fur  lands  of  Adirondaclcs  and  Catskills. 

Its  beauty,  too,  was  loved  by  the  Dutch.  Dutch  commercial 
instinct,  Dutch  thrift,  never  made  the  Dutchmen  dull  to  the 
good  art  of  living.  They  loved  the  straight  wild  cliffs  of 
the  Palisades.  They  loved  the  squall-darkened  broad  reach 
that  they  named  the  Tappan  Zee.  They  loved  the  sweet 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen 


Fro7Ji  the  Mural  by  Hoivard  Pyle,  Hudson  County  Court  Home 

tranquility  of  the  vastly  stretching  sea  meadows  at  its  mouth, 
where  flowed  the  rivers  Hackensack  and  Passaic,  the  deep 
sound  of  the  Kill  von  Kull,  and  many  pleasant  little  streams 
that  have  been  filled  in  long  ago  and  are  covered  now  by 
streets  and  towns. 

They  looked  out  from  their  New  Amsterdam,  and  despite 
all  ample  Manhattan  Island  north  of  them,  the  western  shore 
invited  prettily.  Its  river  mouths  and  undulating  sea-grass 
plains  and  shining  sleepy  coves  reminded  them  of  home. 
Men  who  had  come  so  far  were  not  men  to  sit  down  and  sink 
root  in  one  little  spot.  The  performances  of  Captains  Hen- 
drick  Christaen  and  Adrien  Blok  are  recommended  earnestly 
to  the  attention  of  those  who  imagine  that  the  Dutchman  is 
a  large  body  that  moves  slowly.  Adrien  Blok  sailed  from 
Holland  in  1614.   He  arrived  at  Manhattan  Island  in  1614. 


8  '^he  History  of  Hudson  County 


His  ship  was  destroyed  there  by  fire  in  1614  and  he  built 
himself  another  in  1 6 1 4.  Their  handful  of  men  built  those  four 
houses,  and  for  good  measure  a  fort,  Fort  Amsterdam,  on 
the  land  above  what  later  was  known  as  Castle  Garden,  and 
now  is  the  site  of  the  Aquarium.  They  sailed  up  the  North 
River  and  established  a  trading  post.  Fort  Orange,  on  an 
island  below  Albany.  They  sailed  through  Hell  Gate,  which 
even  now  is  no  place  for  timid  navigators,  though  it  is  not 
one -tenth  as  dangerous  as  it  was  then.  They  explored  the 
whole  great  Long  Island  Sound  to  Cape  Cod.  They  looked 
thoroughly  into  that  tract  which  afterward  became  the  Rhode 
Island  Plantations.  They  investigated  the  Connecticut  River. 
And  they  started  the  opening  up  of  New  Jersey  by  establishing 
atrading  poston  thewestsideof  the  North  Riveroppositelower 
Manhattan,  following  it  some  years  later  with  a  small  redoubt. 

They  might  have  left  records  as  romantic  as  the  narrative 
of  Captain  John  Smith,  for  they  explored  and  traded  every- 
where, from  Cape  Cod  to  the  Delaware.  But  they  were  not 
men  of  the  pen.  We  are  not  sure  even  of  their  exact  names. 
The  few  scattered  records  refer  with  generous  freedom  to 
Adrien  Blok,  Adrian  Block,  Hendrik  Christaen,  Hendrick 
Christianse  and  Hendrick  Christansen.  The  best  people  in 
that  time  were  more  than  liberal  in  spelling,  and  many  of  the 
most  important  official  documents  have  a  sprightly  way  of 
giving  two  or  more  quite  different  spellings  to  the  same  name. 

All  around  the  handful  of  Europeans  were  Indians.  Sea- 
coast  Indians  came  in  canoes  through  the  marsh  thorough- 
fares and  from  the  high  lands  beyond  the  Raritan.  Warrior 
Indians  came  down  the  river  in  war  canoes  from  their  forests, 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen 


From  an  Old  Print 


Prior^s  Mill,  located  near  ivhal  is  r.oiv  the  Corner  of  Fremont  Street  and  Railroad  Avenue 

where  they  were  well  accustomed  to  contest  the  hunting  rights 
with  other  tribes.  For  a  long  time  there  was  little  strife  between 
them  and  the  Dutch.  The  men  of  Holland  were  sharp  traders, 
but  they  were  not  robbers  or  tyrants.  From  the  very  first  they 
purchased  instead  of  taking,  and  so,  though  Indian  wars  finally 
came  into  even  their  quiet  history,  they  were  wars  not  caused 
by  attempt  to  snatch  lands  or  other  possessions  from  their 
savage  neighbors. 

They  left  the  Indians  to  live  their  own  free  life,  and  the 
red  men  were  well  satisfied  to  exchange  their  furs,  maize  and 
tobacco  for  the  strange  and  tempting  goods  that  had  been 
brought  across  the  great  salt  water.  The  Dutchmen  smoked 
their  long  pipes  in  peace,  cultivated  tulips  in  the  alien  soil, 
drank  their  aromatic  Hollands  in  taverns  that  were  Holland 


10 


Hhe  History  of  Hudson  County 


In  the  Old  Dutch  Days 

transplanted,  and  walked  forth  in  untroubled  dignity  with 
enormous  guns  to  shoot  the  wild  fowl  whose  wraithlike  flights 
filled  that  sky  which  now  is  filled  by  wraiths  of  smoke  from 
Sandy  Hook  to  the  Highlands  of  the  Hudson. 

During  the  next  fewyears  the  silence  of  their  bay  was  broken 
at  rare  intervals  by  a  cannonshot  below  the  narrows.  Then  all 
New  Amsterdam  gathered  at  the  Battery  and  watched  for  wide 
sails  over  a  wide  ship — a  ship  almost  as  wide  as  long,  but  in  all 
dimensions  so  small  that  we  of  today  would  think  it  no  small 
adventure  to  make  a  mere  coasting  voyage  on  her.  Out  of  the 
ship  would  come  arrivals  from  Holland  in  wide  breeches  and 
noble  Dutch  hats,  solid  as  the  Dutch  nation  itself 

The  passenger  lists  of  these  occasional  ships  could  find 
room  on  small  scraps  of  paper,  yet  the  pioneers  plainly  felt 
that  there  was  too  much  pressure  of  population,  for  only  a  few 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen 


II 


Fro7i:  the  Mural  by  Hoivard  Pyle,  Hudson  County  Court  Home 

years  after  Adrien  Blok  builtthe  first  four  dwellings  some  New 
Amsterdammers  moved  over  the  river.  They  selected  a  lovely 
wooded  ridge  that  looked  down  on  a  green,  water-cut  foreland 
and  temptinglyacross  at  the  little  Dutch  houses  of  Manhattan. 
Unfortunately  these  settlers  did  not  leave  a  precise  record, 
for  they  did  not  realize  that  they  were  making  history  by 
establishing  the  first  settlement  in  New  Jersey.  Therefore  we 
know  only  that  "sometime  between  1 6 1 7  and  1 620  settlements 
were  made  at  Bergen,  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Esopus  Indians 
and  at  Schenectady."  We  cannot  even  be  sure  that  these  first 
settlers  in  New  Jersey  were  Dutch.  "It  is  believed,"  says 
another  historian,  "that  the  first  European  settlement  within 
the  limits  of  New  Jersey  was  made  at  Bergen  about  161 8  by 
a  number  of  Danes  and  Norwegians  who  accompanied  the 
Dutch  to  the  New  Netherland." 


12 


I'he  History  of  Hudson  County 


Various  chronicles  allege  that  the  name  "Bergen"  was 
intended  by  these  people  of  Scandinavian  stock  to  perpetuate 
the  name  of  the  old  city  of  Bergen  in  Norway.  Others  maintain 
that  it  was  to  recall  Bergen  op  Zoom  in  Holland.  But  the 
word  "bergen"  also  means  "hills"  or  "mountains,"  and  thus 
would  have  been  an  obvious  title  for  the  Dutch  to  give  the 
ridge.  Most  of  the  names  of  early  land-holders  as  recorded  in 
the  deeds  of  the  succeeding  epoch  seem  indubitably  Dutch. 

The  Amsterdam  Licensed  Trading  West  India  Company 
did  not  succeed  in  extending  the  colonization  of  the  new 


old  Octagonal  Church 


Corner  of  Bergen  Avenue  and  Vroom  Street 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen  13 

country  very  largely,  and  really  energetic  efforts  were  lacking 
till  1 62 1 ,  when  powerful  and  rich  Hollanders  formed  the  great 
Dutch  West  I  ndia  Company.  1 1  was  of  the  semi-governmental 
form  then  common  in  companies  for  undertakings  over  seas, 
and  thus  had  the  wealth  and  power  of  the  States-General  of 
Holland  behind  it.  The  Licensed  Company  was  taken  over 
by  it,  and  ships  were  sent  to  all  parts  of  the  coast  from  Cape 
Cod  to  the  Delaware.  By  1623,  there  were  settlements  on 
Long  Island  and  at  Fort  Orange,  near  Albany,  while  New 
Amsterdam  on  Manhattan  Island  gained  rapidly  increasing 
importance  as  headquarters  for  the  Company  and  its  officers. 

In  1 629,  the  Company  granted  the  famous  charters  to  men 
who  would  undertake  to  found  settlements,  and  who  bore  the 
title  of  Patroon.  These  charters  conferred  exclusive  property 
in  large  tracts  of  land  (sixteen  miles  along  a  river  "and  as  far 
back  as  the  situation  of  the  occupiers  would  permit")  with  ex- 
tensive manorial  and  seigneural  rights.  In  return  the  Patroon 
bound  himself  to  place  at  least  fifty  settlers  on  the  land,  provide 
each  with  a  stocked  farm,  and  furnish  a  pastor  and  a  school- 
master. The  emigrants  were  bound  to  cultivate  the  land  for 
at  least  ten  years,  bring  all  their  grain  to  be  ground  at  the 
Patroon's  mill,  and  offer  him  first  opportunity  to  purchase 
their  crops. 

Various  directors  of  the  West  India  Company,  among 
them  Goodyn,  Bloemart,  Van  Renselaer  and  Pauuw,  obtained 
charters  as  Patroons,  and  sent  ships  with  agents  to  select  land 
and  make  settlements.  The  land  granted  to  Pauuw  was  Staten 
Island  and  a  large  tract  along  the  North  River  shore  opposite 
Manhattan  Island.  This  holding  along  the  river,  "Aharsimus 


14  T^he  History  of  Hudson  County 

and  Arresinck,  extending  along  the  River  Mauritius  and 
Island  Manhatta  on  the  east  side  and  the  island  Hobocan- 
hackingh  on  the  north"  became  the  Patroonship  of  Pavonia. 
The  name  is  said  to  have  been  based  on  the  Latin  equivalent 
for  the  Dutch  word  paaun,  meaning  peacock.  Michael  Pauuw, 
or  Pauw  as  some  records  have  it,  was  a  burgher  of  Amster- 
dam and  Baron  of  Achtienhoven  in  South  Holland.  Hobocan- 
hackinghjwhichwas  Indian  for"the  place  of  the  tobacco  pipe," 
later  became  known  as  Hoebuck,  and  is  so  referred  to  even  in 
Revolutionary  annals.  Today  it  is  Hoboken,  and  the  tidal 
streams  that  made  it  an  island  havebeen  long  covered  by  streets. 

After  a  few  years,  the  Company  sought  to  revoke  Pauuw's 
Patroonship  on  the  ground  of  non-fulfilment  of  contract;  but 
they  evidently  found  him  a  bird  rather  tougher  than  a  mere 
peacock,  for  the  records  show  that  they  had  to  buy  him  out, 
paying  him  26,000  florins,  or  about  1 10,000.  We  find  what 
look  like  echoes  of  that  old  dispute  when  we  search  through 
the  meager  history  of  the  period;  such  laudatory  remarks,  for 
instance,  as  that  "the  Boueries  and  Plantations  on  the  west 
side  of  the  river  were  in  prosperous  condition,"  and  such 
pessimistic  reports  as  "in  1633  there  were  only  two  houses  in 
Pavonia,  one  at  Communipau,  later  occupied  by  Jan  Evertsen 
Bout  (who  had  come  over  as  Pauuw's  representative),  and  one 
at  Ahasimus,  occupied  by  Cornells  Van  Vorst,"  who  was  suc- 
cessor to  Bout. 

In  that  same  year  of  1633,  Michael  Paulus  erected  a  hut 
on  a  shore  front  of  sand  hills  as  a  government  trading  post 
where  the  Indians  could  bring  their  product  by  canoe.  The 
place  became  known  as  Paulus  Hoeck.  Some  records  give  this 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen 


15 


Van  Wagenens  Cider  Press.  (Academy  Street,  west  of  Square) 

trader's  name  as  Paulaz,  others  call  him  Paulusen.  For  a  time 
the  Dutch  name  of  the  "Hoeck"  was  lost  entirely,  having 
been  changed  by  ready  spellers  to  "Powles's  Hook."  Then 
the  original  name  came  back,  and  that  part  of  the  shore  was 
so  known  long  after  Jersey  City  was  made  into  a  municipality. 
With  the  elimination  of  Patroon  Pauuw,  Paulus  Hoeck  was 
leased  in  1638  to  Abraham  Isaacsen  Verplanck.  The  sand 
, hills  covered  about  6^  acres,  and  they  became  popular  for 
tobacco  planting.  In  the  past  generations  there  has  been  so 


1 6  'The  History  of  Hudson  County 

much  filling  in  of  shore  front  that  the  site  of  Paulus'  trading 
post  is  more  than  a  thousand  feet  inland. 

Jan  Evertsen  Bout,  the  lone  house-holder  of  Communipau, 
got  a  lease  of  Communipau  from  the  Dutch  West  India 
Company  in  the  same  year,  1638.  His  yearly  rental  was  set 
as  "one  quarter  of  his  crops,  two  tuns  of  strong  beer  and  12 
capons."  Presumably  the  New  Amsterdam  representatives  of 
the  Company  knew  what  to  do  with  the  two  last  items.  In 
1 641,  Hobocan-hackingh,  or  Hoebuck,  was  leased  to  Aert 
Teunisen  Van  Putten  for  twelve  years,  for  a  rental  of  "the 
fourth  sheaf  with  which  God  Almighty  shall  favor  the  field." 
These,  and  a  Bouerie  in  the  Greenville  section  occupied  by 
Dirck  Straatmaker,  were  apparently  the  only  notable  settle- 
ments then  existing  in  the  large  tract  that  afterward  became 
the  township  of  Bergen. 

The  conveyances  of  the  lands  that  had  belonged  to  the 
Patroonship  of  Pavonia  were  made  by  Director- General 
William  Kieft.  It  is  a  melancholy  duty  to  say  that  William 
Kieft  lacked  that  equable  disposition  which  so  distinguished 
most  of  his  fellow  colonists.  His  zeal  for  the  interests  of  the 
Dutch  West  India  Company  was  perhaps  sincere  but  certainly 
injudicious.  When  he  went  so  far  as  to  demand  tribute  of 
maize,  furs  and  other  supplies  from  the  Indians,  with  threats 
of  force  if  they  refused,  they  responded  in  their  own  injudicious 
way  by  capturing  or  killing  cattle.  The  peaceful  intercourse 
of  the  past  ceased,  and  mischief  followed  on  mischief.  Finally 
Kieft  ordered  an  attack  on  an  Indian  encampment  behind 
Communipaw,  or  rather  Communipau,  as  it  was  called  till 
well  into  the  Nineteenth  Century.  The  order  was  obeyed  with 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen  17 

unhappy  punctuality.  According  to  the  records,  "eighty 
soldiers  on  the  night  of  February  27,  1643,  under  Sergeant 
Rodolph  attacked  the  sleeping  Indians  and  massacred  all." 
From  the  Raritan  to  the  Connecticut,  red  runners  carried  the 
news.  There  came  an  uprising  of  tribes  so  sudden  and  so 
terrible  that  almost  over  night  the  whole  territory  was  swept 
clear  of  white  men,  "not  a  house  was  left  standing  and  all 
Boueries  were  devastated." 

The  settlerswho  succeeded  in  escaping  madetheirmiserable 
way  into  New  Amsterdam  with  the  plaint:  "Every  place  is 
abandoned.  We  wretched  people  must  skulk  with  wives  and 
little  ones  that  are  still  left,  in  poverty  together  by  and  around 
the  Fort  at  New  Amsterdam." 

What  happened  thereafter  stands  as  a  good  memorial  to 
the  sober  sense  and  the  stout  intelligence  of  these  Dutchmen. 
In  their  misery,  with  the  fruits  of  years  of  hard  toil  gone  as 
in  a  whirlwind,  they  might  have  been  excused  for  giving  way 
to  rage  and  hate.  They  might,  as  did  many  other  pioneers 
in  similar  circumstances  elsewhere,  have  cried  for  a  war  of 
extermination.  They  did  not.  These  Holland  men  ran  true 
to  the  Holland  history  of  straight  thinking.  They  complained 
to  the  States-General  against  the  Director-General  (or  Gover- 
nor, to  use  a  common  term  for  his  office)  and  demanded  his 
removal. 

Holland  was  far  away,  Kieft  did  not  lack  friends,  and 
governments  move  slowly.  So  it  was  1646  before  there  was 
a  decision;  but  when  it  came,  it  was  the  best  that  could  have 
come,  for  the  man  who  arrived  in  1647  ^^  govern  the  Colony 
was  Petrus  Stuyvesant — Petrus  the  hot-headed,  Petrus  the 


Hhe  History  of  Hudson  County 


hot-hearted,  Petrus  who  in  his  person  exemplified  in  dramatic 
degree  all  that  obstinacy  side  by  side  with  tolerance,  that 
courage  mingled  with  liking  for  peaceful  ways,  that  shrewdness 
grained  with  a  deep  honesty  that  has  made  the  small  Dutch 
nation  a  power  in  the  world  to  be  reckoned  with,  both  in 
peace  and  war. 

The  great  Petrus  Stuyvesant — and  he  was  indeed  one  of 
the  greatest  of  the  men  who  had  come  into  the  New  World 

up  to  that  time — was  emphatically 
no  pacificist.  But  he  knew  when  to 
fight  and  when  not  to  fight.  Little 
by  little  he  restored  something  of 
the  old  good  relations,  until  settlers 
again  dared  to  enter  New  Jersey. 
For  ten  years  they  planted  and 
traded  in  peace.  Then  in  1654  the 
killing  of  an  Indian  girl  on  Man- 
hattan Island  caused  another  war. 
The  Indians  brought  it  home  to 
New  Amsterdam  itself.  On  the  New 
Jersey  side  they  swept  the  country 
almost  as  before.  "  Not  one  white  person  remained  in  Pa- 
vonia."  Twenty  Boueries  were  destroyed  and  three  hundred 
families  were  collected  in  the  Fort  on  Manhattan  Island. 

Governor  Stuyvesant  had  been  away  on  a  little  war  against 
the  Swedes  who  had  settled  along  the  South  River  (Delaware) 
in  defiance  of  Dutch  claims.  He  returned  quickly  and  again 
conciliated  the  Indians,  even  agreeing  to  pay  ransom  for  their 
prisoners  whom  they  held  at  Paulus  Hook.  Gradually  peace 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen  19 

returned,  but  there  was  not  the  old  feeling  of  security.  On 
January  18,  1656,  the  Director-General  (or  Governor  as  we 
shall  call  him  hereafter)  issued  an  Ordinance  commanding 
all  settlers  to  "concentrate  themselves  by  the  next  spring  in 
the  form  of  towns,  villages  and  hamlets  so  that  they  may  be 
more  effectually  protected,  maintained  and  defended  against 
all  assaults  and  attacks  of  the  barbarians."  To  enable  them 
to  restore  their  holdings,  another  Ordinance  exempted  them 
from  tithes  and  taxes  for  six  years  on  condition  that  they  obey 
the  concentration  order  by  establishing  villages  of  at  least 
twelve  families. 

The  Dutch  did  not  like  to  live  in  fear,  and  they  did  not 
like  to  live  huddled.  They  were  a  sociable  people  but  they 
wholly  lacked  the  timid  herd  instinct.  It  was  impossible  for 
them  to  look  over  the  rich  valleys  and  bottom  lands  and 
remain  content  in  close  settlements.  They  had  stout  bodies 
and  stout  weapons — two  arguments  generally  recognized  as 
excellent  for  acquiring  title  to  coveted  domain.  Yet  despite 
the  bitterness  of  two  Indian  wars,  they  still  preferred  more 
commonplace  methods  of  real  estate  transaction.  In  January 
30,  1658,  Governor  Stuyvesant  and  the  Council  of  New 
Netherland  acquired  by  purchase  from  the  Indians  a  tract  of 
land  lying  along  the  west  side  of  the  North  River.  This 
territory  was  signed  over  for  the  red  men  by  the  Indian  chiefs 
Therincques,Wawapehack,Seghkor,  Koghkenningh,  Bomo- 
kan,  Memiwockan,  Sames  and  Wewenatokwee  (which  pre- 
sumably was  a  casual  approximation  to  their  real  names  by 
the  honest  Dutch  scribes  and  notaries)  to  "the  noble  Lord 
Director-General  Pieter  Stuyvesant  and  Councill  of  New 


20  "The  History  of  Hudson  County 


'■'■There  Came  an  Uprising  of  Tribes" 
From  the  Lunette  by  C.  T.  Turner,  Hudson  County  Court  House 

Netherlandt."  It  is  described  as  "beginning  from  the  Great 
Klip  above  Wiehachan  and  from  there  right  through  the  land 
above  the  island  Sikakes  and  therefrom  thence  to  the  Kill 
von  Coll,  and  so  along  to  the  Constable  Hoeck,  and  from 
the  Constable  Hoeck  again  to  the  aforesaid  Klip  above 
Wiehachan." 

The  word  "Klip"  was  Dutch  for  "cliff."  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  explain  what  places  were  meant  by  Wiehachan 
and  Sikakes.  Merely  as  a  matter  of  superfluous  accuracy  we 
mention  apologetically  that  they  were  Weehawken  and 
Secaucus.  Secaucus  was  scarcely  an  island.  It  was  a  strip  of 
firm  land  surrounded  by  tidal  marsh.  For  some  reason  it  was 
highly  prized  by  planters.  Its  name  was  Indian  for  "place 
of  snakes"  and  it  and  Snake  Hill  or  Rattlesnake  Hill,  appear 
frequently  in  subsequent  land  transfers. 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen 


21 


Paying  for  the  Land 
Frotn  the  Lunette  by  C.  T.  Turner,  Hudson  County  Court  House 

For  the  territory  thus  sold,  which  included  all  the  land 
between  the  North  and  Hackensack  Rivers  and  the  Kill  von 
Kull,  the  Indians  received"8ofathoms  of  wampum,  2ofathoms 
of  cloth,  12  brass  kettles,  i  double  brass  kettle,  6  guns,  2 
blankets,and  one-half  barrel  of  strong  beer."  It  does  not  seem 
much;  but  wampum  was  good  Indian  money,  and  8o  fathoms 
is  480  feet,  and  480  feet  of  good  money  would  seem  not 
insignificant  even  today.  One  wonders,  however,  how  the 
tribes  divided  the  one  "double  brass  kettle"  and  who  drank 
the  beer.  In  1920,  this  territory  was  assessed  for  taxes  on  a 
valuation  of  1671,141,067.  It  seems  to  have  been  one  of 
those  excellent  transactions  that  permanently  satisfied  both 
parties  to  the  bargain. 

Despite  the  purchase,  the  concentration  orders  and  the 
remission  of  taxes  remained  in  force,  and  on  August  16, 1660, 


22  The  History  of  Hudson  County 

a  petition  for  farming  rights  was  granted  to  several  families 
on  condition  that,  first,  a  spot  must  be  selected  which  could 
be  defended  easily;  second,  each  settler  to  whom  land  was 
given  free  must  begin  to  build  his  house  within  six  weeks 
after  drawing  his  lot;  third,  there  must  be  at  least  one  soldier 
enlisted  from  each  house,  able  to  bear  arms  to  defend  the 
village. 

In  November  of  the  same  year  the  village  of  Bergen  was 
founded  "by  permission  of  Peter  Stuy  vesant,  Director-General, 
and  the  Council  of  New  Netherland,"  and  thus  Bergen, 
(described  as  being  "in  the  new  maize  land")  besides  being 
the  earliest  settlement  in  New  Jersey  also  holds  the  honor  of 
being  the  first  permanent  settlement  in  New  Jersey. 

The  site  of  the  original  village  is  marked  by  the  present 
Bergen  Square  and  the  four  blocks  surrounding  it,  the  bound- 
aries being  Newkirk  and  Vroom  Streets  north  and  south, 
Tuers  Avenue  east  and  Van  Reypen  Street  west.  There  were 
two  cross  roads,  and  they  are  still  represented  today  by  exist- 
ing streets.  The  present  Bergen  Avenue  was  the  road  to 
the  Kill  von  KuU  and  also  to  Bergen  Woods,  now  known  as 
North  Hudson.  Academy  Street  of  today  was  then  the 
Communipaw  road.  From  their  height  the  inhabitants  looked 
over  island-dotted  and  stream-divided  meadows  of  tall  sea- 
grass,  swarming  with  wild  fowl  andrichwith  fish.  Those  bright, 
unstained  expanses  gave  them  mighty  crops  of  salt  hay  for  no 
trouble  save  that  of  harvesting  it.  They  were  crops  that  could 
not  fail  so  long  as  the  tides  ran.  Everywhere  the  salt  tides  were 
the  Dutchman's  friend.  He  utilized  high  flood  to  bring  craft 
close  to  his  farms  for  easy  loading  or  unloading.  He  used  the 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen  23 

ebb  to  help  him  to  the  bay  and  so  to  market  at  New  Amsterdam. 
He  used  the  flood  to  help  him  home  again.  Indeed,  his  very 
land-roads  were  tidal;  for  the  lower  reaches  to  Paulus  Hook 
and  other  shores  were  often  under  sea  in  the  full-moon  tides. 
In  the  center  of  the  village,  which  was  in  the  form  of  a 
square  800  feet  long  on  each  side,  its  founders  established 
a  vacant  space,  recorded  as  being  160  by  225  feet.  In  great 
part  this  remains  as  today's  Bergen  Square.  Around  the  whole 
village  was  a  palisade  of  strong  logs,  with  openings  at  the 
two  cross  roads.  Daniel  Van  Winkle,  Bergen's  accomplished 
historian,  says  that  Tuers  Avenue  and  Idaho  Avenues  on  the 
east  and  west,  and  Newkirk  and  Vroom  Streets  on  the  north 
and  south,  mark  the  line  of  these  palisades.  In  the  evening, 
or  when  there  were  rumors  of  Indian  trouble,  the  cattle  were 
driven  in  and  the  openings  barred  by  heavy  gates.  The  farms 
expanded  throughout  the  surrounding  country,  and  were 
called  "Buytentuyn." 

On  September  5th,  166 1 ,  the  Director-General  and  Council, 
in  response  to  a  petition  by  the  inhabitants,  granted  the 
town  "an  Inferior  Court  of  justice  with  the  privilege  of  appeal 
to  the  Director-General  and  Council  of  New  Netherland,  to 
be  by  their  Honors  finally  disposed  of,  this  Court  to  consist 
of  one  Schoutwho  shall  convene  the  appointed  Schepens  and 
presideatthemeetings."  By  this  Ordinance,  Bergen  becamethe 
first  civic  government  to  be  establishedin  the  Colony.  The  first 
Schout  was  Tielman  Van  Vleck.  The  Schepens  were  Michael 
Jansen  (Vreeland),  Harman  Smeeman  and  Caspar  Stynmets. 

The  creation  of  this  Court  gave  Bergen  the  dignity  of  seat 
of  government  for  all  the  surrounding  country,  for  the  grant 


24 


T^he  History  of  Hudson  County 


of  1660  had  conveyed  to  the  inhabitants  "the  lands  with  the 
meadows  thereto  annexed  situated  on  the  west  side  of  the 
North  River  in  Pavonia,  in  the  same  manner  as  the  same  was 
by  us  purchased  of  the  Indians."  Thus  the  freeholders  of 
Bergen  held  all  of  what  is  now  known  as  Hudson  County. 
The  Schout  and  the  Schepens  soon  had  their  hands  full. 
The  placid  Dutchman  had  a  placid  way  of  insisting  stubbornly 


Second  Church,  Erected  Ijy^ 
Bergen  A'venue  and 
Vroom  Street 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen  25 

on  his  rights.  One  of  their  first  cases  was  that  of  WiUiam 
Jensen  or  Jansen  to  whom  they  had  granted  the  right  to 
operate  a  ferry  between  Bergen  and  the  Island  of  Manhattan, 
at  fixed  rates  for  daytime  and  fair  weather,  while  in  stormy 
weather  or  at  night  the  rates  were  to  be  "as  the  parties  might 
agree."  We  may  guess  that  there  were  deep  argviments 
between  the  ferryman  and  the  passengers  as  to  exactly  what 
constituted  stormy  weather.  That  the  parties  did  not  man- 
age to  "agree"  is  shown  by  his  strenuous  complaint  to  the 
Schout  and  Schepens  that  the  people  ferried  themselves  over, 
"much  to  his  loss  and  discomfort."  The  people,  however, 
made  so  plain  that  they  did  not  intend  to  let  the  ferryman 
monopolize  a  Httle  thing  Hke  the  North  River  that  the  Court 
formally  decreed  that  each  one  had  the  right  to  keep  and  use 
his  own  boat  or  "schuyt." 

Most  numerous  of  all  were  the  disputes  over  land  bounda- 
ries. The  government  grants  were  beautifully  vague,  and 
some  of  the  cases  must  have  made  the  official  heads  ache,  as 
for  instance,  in  the  case  of  title  such  as  Claus  Pietersen's, 
which  called  for  "138  acres  bounded  west  by  the  Bergen  Road 
and  north  by  Nicholas  the  baker,"  or  the  town  lot  deeded  to 
Adrien  Post  as  being  "on  the  corner  by  the  northwest  gate 
in  Bergen,  and  a  garden  on  the  northwest  side  of  the  town." 

There  were  other  famous  cases  that  shook  the  community. 
Their  records  have,  unhappily,  been  lost,  but  their  tenor  is 
'Uustrated  by  the  appeals  that  came  before  the  Council  in  after 
years.  One  was  the  great  hog  case  which  Captain  John  Berry 
carried  indignantly  to  the  Council  on  appeal  against  the  Schout, 
complaining  that  the  Schout  and  Schepens  had  "instituted 


26  T^he  History  of  Hudson  County 

actions  against  him  for  carrying  off  some  hogs  as  if  he  had 
obtained  them  in  a  scandalous  manner,  by  stealing"  whereas 
he  had  simply  taken  his  own  hogs  from  an  enclosure  where 
they  were  being  withheld  from  his  possession.  The  Schout 
informed  the  Council  that  the  Captain  had  not  been  charged 
with  stealing  but  simply  with  "inconsiderate  removal  of  the 
hogs."  The  Captain,  thus  pressed,  acknowledged  that  per- 
haps he  had  "rashly  removed  the  said  hogs."  The  Director- 
General  and  Council,  after  deep  deliberation,  solemnly  cleared 
Captain  Berry  of  the  suspicion  of  theft,  but  found  that  he 
"had  gone  too  far  in  inconsiderate  removal  of  the  hogs" — 
and  fined  him  one  hundred  guilders. 

The  surrounding  little  settlements  also  did  not  always 
agree  with  the  Schout  and  Schepens.  The  latter  had  to  com- 
plain in  1674  to  the  General  Council  that  the  inhabitants  of 
"the  dependent  hamlets  of  Gemoenepa,  Mingaghue  and 
Pemrepogh"  had  refused  to  carry  out  an  agreement  "res- 
pecting the  making  and  maintaining  of  a  certain  common 
fence  to  separate  the  heifers  from  the  milk  cows,  and  that 
they  also  refused  to  pay  their  quota  for  support  of  the 
Precentor  and  the  Schoolmaster." 

The  men  of  the  three  hamlets  were  so  indignant  that  they 
almost  issued  a  Declaration  of  Independence.  There  were 
great  ferriages  to  the  Fort  at  Manhattan  to  fight  it  out.  The 
Council  debated  and  decreed.  So  fierce  became  the  contest 
that  arbitrators  were  appointed  and  greater  debates  ensued. 
The  arbitrators  met  the  fate  of  all  arbitrators.  Gemoenepa, 
Mingaghue  and  Pemrepogh  did  not  Hke  their  decision,  and 
therefore  unanimously  called  it  no  decision  at  all.   Loureno 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen  27 


Andriese,  Samuel  Edsall  and  Dirk  Claesen  went  to  the  Fort 
on  behalf  of  the  hamlets  and  demanded  that  the  Schout  and 
Schepens  be  ordered  once  and  for  all  to  "leave  the  petitioners 
undisturbed  about  the  fence."  In  the  end  the  Council 
evidently  got  impatient,  for  it  issued  a  decree  ordering  the 
hamlets  to  attend  to  both  the  fence  and  the  quota,  and  to  do 
it  at  once.  The  records  do  not  show  if  they  did.  Knowing 
the  fine,  upstanding  firmness  of  the  race,  it  may  be  that  the 
cows  and  the  Precentor  and  the  Schoolmaster  passed  away 
from  old  age  with  the  matter  still  unsettled. 

Petrus  Stuyvesant  soon  had  more  serious  things  to  consider 
than  appeals  from  decisions  of  Schout  and  Schepens.  In  1664, 
Charles  II  of  England  in  his  large,  generous  way  granted  his 
brother,  the  Duke  of  York,  a  royal  charter  for  the  "whole 
region  from  the  west  bank  of  the  Connecticut  River  to  the 
east  shore  of  the  Delaware."  The  Duke,  without  pausing  for 
the  trivial  details  of  proving  title,  promptly  conveyed  to 
Lord  Berkeley  and  Sir  George  Carteret  all  the  territory  that 
now  is  New  Jersey.  The  early  voyages  of  the  Cabots  were 
the  foundation  of  the  EngHsh  claim.  The  small  fact  that  these 
voyages  were  made  in  1498  was  not  permitted  to  disturb  the 
legal  mind. 

Colonel  Richard  Nichols  with  three  ships  of  130  guns  and 
with  600  men  appeared  before  New  Amsterdam.  Everybody 
knows  how  brave  old  Petrus  wanted  to  blow  up  the  fort  and 
all  within  it  rather  than  to  surrender,  and  how  the  burgers 
declined  to  go  to  a  glorious  death. 

The  English  took  the  place  and  immediately  renamed  it 
New  York.  It  seems  to  have  been  the  most  important  change 


28 


like  History  of  Hudson  County 


The  Coming  of  the  Englhh 

that  they  made.  The  inhabitants  remained  Dutch  in  every- 
thing save  the  flag  that  flew  over  them,  and  they  accepted  that 
emblem  philosophically,  holding  fast  to  their  ways,  their  trade 
and  their  lands,  and  letting  emblems  be  emblems.  The  new 
rulers  were  more  concerned  with  keeping  the  Colony  than 
with  changing  it.  They  confirmed  all  the  old  grants,  or  most 
of  them. 

At  first  the  New  Jersey  territory  was  called  Nova  Cesarea, 
but  the  name  New  Jersey  soon  became  the  common  one. 
In  a  charter  granted  on  September  22,  1668,  by  Sir  Philip 
Carteret,  brother  of  Sir  George  and  Governor  of  the  new 
province,  he  confirmed  the  original  grants  to  "the  Towne  and 
the  Freeholders  of  Bergen  and  to  the  Villages  and  Plantations 
thereunto  belonging."  The  township  was  estimated  in  this 
deed  as  comprising  1 1,520  acres,  which  was  probably  a  mere 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen 


29 


From  the  Mural  by  HoivarJ  Pyle,  Hudson  County  Court  House 

guess  since  it  seems  to  have  been  too  little  by  half.  It  was 
about  sixteen  miles  long  and  four  miles  wide  "including  the 
said  Towne  of  Bergen,  Communipaw,  Ahassimus,  Minkacque, 
and  Pembrepock,  bounded  on  the  east,  south  and  west  by- 
New  York  and  Newark  Bays  and  the  Hackensack  River." 
By  the  conditions  of  the  charter  the  freeholders  were  bound 
to  pay  "to  the  Lords  Proprietors  and  their  successors  on 
every  twenty-fifth  day  of  March  fifteen  pounds  as  quit  rent 
forever."  The  boundaries  fixed  in  this  charter  remained 
unchanged  till  the  Act  of  Legislature  that  in  1 843  constituted 
a  new  County  of  Hudson. 

Among  other  confirmations  of  previous  grants  we  find  a 
record  of  a  deed  "to  Laurence  Andriessen  of  the  land  in  the 
tract  called  Minkacque  under  the  jurisdiction  of  Bergen,  north- 
east of  Lubert  Gilbertsen,  southwest  of  Derrick  Straetmaker, 


30  The  History  of  Hudson  County 

comprising  fifty  Dutch  Morgen(a  Dutch  land  measurement) 
for  a  quit  rent  of  one  penny  English  for  each  acre,"  and  a  con- 
firmation of  patent  to  "Isaacsen  Planck  for  a  neck  of  land 
called  Paulus  Hook  or  Aressechhonk,  west  of  Ahasimus." 

On  July  30, 1 673,  during  the  second  war  between  England 
and  Holland,  a  Dutch  fleet  took  New  York,  and  re-christened 
it  New  Orange.  Aside  from  changing  the  name  and  calling 
on  all  the  inhabitants  to  swear  allegiance,  which  they  did  with 
cheerful  good  will,  things  remained  as  they  had  been;  and  when 
the  peace  of  1674  definitely  turned  over  New  Netherland  to 
England,  the  colonists  changed  flags  again  unruffled  and — 
remained  Dutch.  The  record  of  the  Oath  of  Allegiance  to  the 
Dutch  government  enumerates  "78  inhabitants  of  Bergen  and 
dependencies,  of  whom  69  appeared  at  drum  beat."  A  report 
of  1680  describes  Bergen  as  "a  compact  town"  containing 
about  40  families. 

Gradually,  to  be  sure,  English  people  came  in.  New  York 
was  growing  into  a  great  town,  and  it  drew  merchants  and 
adventurers  from  all  parts,  becoming  indeed  so  metropolitan 
that  even  the  pirateis  of  the  seven  seas  esteemed  it  as  an 
excellent  market  for  their  plunder.  But  on  the  western  bank 
of  the  river  the  old  habits  of  Holland  remained  so  fixed  that 
we  still  find  characteristic  Dutch  traits,  Dutch  architecture, 
even  Dutch  customs  from  the  Hudson  to  the  Ramapos. 

In  1682,  the  Province  of  New  Jersey  was  divided  into  four 
Counties — Bergen,  Essex,  Middlesex  and  Monmouth;  and 
in  1693  ^^^^  County  was  divided  into  townships.  In  1714, 
an  Act  gave  a  new  charter  to  "The  Inhabitants  of  the  Town 
of  Bergen." 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen  31 


With  the  growth  of  population  Paulus  Hook  became  an 
important  place.  The  Van  Vorst  family  had  acquired  it  in 
1669,  and  it  remained  in  their  possession  till  well  into  the 
Nineteenth  Century.  It  was  the  natural  terminus  for  ferries 
to  New  York  and  stage  Hnes  had  been  estabhshed  early.  By 
1764,  Paulus  Hook  was  more  than  a  mere  ferry  landing.  It 
was  the  terminus  of  the  stage  routes  from  Philadelphia.  In 
the  New  York  Mercury  of  that  year  we  find  the  announce- 
ment that  "Sovereign  Sybrandt  informs  the  PubHc  he  has 
fitted  up  and  completed  in  the  neatest  Manner  a  new  and 
genteel  stage  Waggon  which  is  to  perform  two  Stages  in  every 
week  from  Philadelphia  to  New  York,  from  Philadelphia  to 
Trenton,  from  Trenton  to  Brunswick  and  from  Brunswick 
to  the  said  Sybrandt's  House  and  from  said  Sybrandt's  House 
by  the  new  and  lately  estabhshed  Post  Road  (on  Bergen 
which  is  now  generally  resorted  to  by  the  Populace,  who 
prefer  a  Passage  by  said  Place,  before  the  Danger  of  crossing 
the  Bay)  to  Powles's  Hook  opposite  to  New  York  where  it 
discharges  the  Passengers.  Each  single  person  only  paying 
at  the  Rate  of  Two  Pence  Half-Penny  per  mile  from  said 
Powles's  Hook  to  said  Sybrandt's  House  and  at  the  rate  of 
Two  Pence  per  Mile  after. — N.  B.  As  said  Sybrandt  now 
dwells  in  the  House  known  by  the  Sign  of  the  Roebuck 
which  House  he  has  now  finished  in  a  genteel  Manner  and 
has  laid  in  a  choice  Assortment  of  Wines  and  other  Liquors, 
where  Gentlemen  Passengers  and  others  may  at  all  Times  be 
assured  of  meeting  with  the  best  of  Entertainment." 

Michael  Cornelison  also  operated  a  stage  line  to  and  from 
Philadelphia  and  a  ferry  to  New  York.  He  had  a  tavern  on 


32 


T^he  History  of  Hudson  County 


¥ir%t  Voyage  of  the  Clermont y  l8oj 
From  the  Lunette  by  C.  T.  Turner,  Hudson  County  Court  House 

Paulus  Hook,  and  he  was  firm  with  passengers.  They  had  to 
arrive  from  New  York  the  day  before.  Between  sunset  and 
sunrise  CorneHson  considered  the  river  officially  closed. 

Paulus  Hook  also  had  a  race  track.  It  was  established  in 
1 769  by  Cornelius  Van  Vorst  and  it  was  pounded  democratic- 
ally by  the  hoofs  of  blooded  horses  belonging  to  New  York 
sports  and  by  the  larger  hoofs  of  the  corpulent  steeds  belong- 
ing to  the  country  side.  There  was  a  noble  race  in  1771, 
"round  the  course  at  Powles  Hook,  a  match  forThirty  Dollars 
between  Booby,  Mug  and  Quicksilver,  to  run  twice  around 
to  a  heat,  to  carry  catch  riders."  In  the  Bergen  woods,  the 
gentry  had  regular  fox  hunts  on  horseback  in  English  style. 

No  greater  things  excited  these  peaceful  people  till  the  time 
of  the  Revolution.  Then,  though  that  country  was  spared 
any  great  battles,  it  had  its  share  of  marches  and  counter- 
marches, skirmishes  and  alarms.   It  was  a  raiding  ground,  for 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of-  Bergen  33 


Waihin^on  and  His  Officers 
From  the  Lunette  by  C.  T.  Turner,  Hudson  County  Court  House 

it  was  rich  in  fat  cattle  and  plentiful  farm  produce,  and  as 
always  in  war,  the  non-belligerent  population  suffered  all  the 
hardships  without  any  of  the  glory.  It  appears  humorous  now 
to  read  the  wail  of  certain  burghers  who  were  stopped  by  a 
raiding  party  on  their  way  home  from  church  and  stripped  of 
their  breeches;  but  undoubtedly  it  seemed  a  bitter  thing  to 
the  owners.  There  were  more  serious  things,  too,  and  in 
plenty.  There  were  sudden  raids  at  night,  with  burnings  and 
killings,  or  at  the  least  with  plundering  that  left  homesteads 
stripped  bare  of  cattle  and  goods. 

After  Long  Island  was  evacuated  by  Washington's  troops 
and  it  was  decided  impossible  to  hold  New  York,  much  of  the 
artillery  and  stores  and  many  wounded  were  taken  to  the  New 
Jersey  shore  for  transportation  to  Newark.  An  account  dated 
"Paulus  Hook,  September  15,  1776,"  says:  "Last  night  the 
sick  were  ordered  to  Newark  in  the  Jersies,  but  most  of  them 


34  T^he  History  of  Hudson  County 

could  be  got  no  further  than  this  place  and  Hoebuck,  and  as 
there  is  but  one  house  at  each  of  these  places,  many  were 
obliged  to  lie  in  the  open,  whose  distress  when  I  walked  out 
at  daybreak  gave  me  a  livelier  idea  of  the  horror  of  war  than 
anything  I  ever  met  with  before.  About  8  a,  m,  3  large  ships 
came  to  sail  and  made  towards  the  Hook.  They  raked  the 
place  with  grape  and  killed  one  horse.  On  the  night  of  the 
17th,  the  garrison  tried  to  burn  the  ships  which  had  anchored 
3  miles  above.  They  grappled  the  Renown  of  50  guns  but 
failed.  She  cannonaded  us  again  later.  Colonel  Duyckinck 
this  morning  retired  to  Bergen  leaving  Colonel  Durkee  on  the 
Hook  with  300  men."  After  three  days'  cannonading  by 
ships,  the  Americans  withdrew  and  thereafter  the  British  held 
Paulus  Hook.  Bergen  remained  the  headquarters  of  the 
American  forces  till  it  too  was  evacuated. 

The  British  were  not  permitted  to  hold  even  the  Hook 
undisturbed.  American  parties  made  daring  raids  again  and 
again,  the  most  famous  of  these  being  known  as  the  Battle  of 
Paulus  Hook.  On  the  night  of  August  19,  1779,  Major  Lee 
(the  celebrated  Light  Horse  Harry  of  Revolutionary  annals) 
brought  his  men  across  the  Hackensack  and  through  enemy 
territory  along  a  perilous  causeway  through  the  swamps,  falling 
on  the  British  so  suddenly  and  fiercely  that  he  was  able  to 
carry  back  with  him  7  officers  and  100  privates. 

The  loyalist  I<iew  York  Gazette  of  August  28,  1780,  said: 
"General  Washington,  the  Marquis  de  la  Fayette,  Generals 
Greene  and  Wayne  with  many  other  Officers  and  a  large  body 
of  Rebels  have  been  in  the  vicinity  of  Bergen  for  some  days 
past.    They  have  taken  all  the  forage  from  the  Inhabitants  of 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen  35 


Columbia  Academy^  Northeast  Corner,  Bergen  Square 

that  Place  and  left  them  destitute  of  almost  everything  for 
their:present  and  Winter  Subsistence." 

The  editors  of  the  New  York  papers  may  be  excused.  They 
existed  by  grace  of  the  British  military  authorities,  and  the 
military  authorities  had  a  hard  time  explaining  why  all  their 
troops  and  warships  and  other  plentiful  means  could  neither 
force  a  passage  of  the  Hudson  past  West  Point  nor  break  that 
"pitiful  line  of  ragged  Rebels"  that  held  the  long  line  all  the 
way  from  the  Ramapos  to  the  upper  Hudson.  So  they  in- 
dulged themselves  in  the  thin  comfort  of  printing  sarcastic 
things  about  them.  The  Royal  Gazette^  published  by  the 
notorious  Rivington,  "printer  to  His  Majesty  in  New  York," 


36  T^he  History  of  Hudson  County 


was  particularly  martial  about  it,  and  it  was  this  journal  that 
delighted  its  readers  with  a  succession  of  verses  called  "The 
Cow  Chace"  in  which  the  Revolutionary  Generals  were  agree- 
ably pictured  as  rustics,  drunkards  and  dunces. 

"The  Cow  Chace"  based  on  a  raid  by  General  Anthony 
Wayne  on  a  British  block  house  at  Bull's  Ferry  near 
Hoboken,  was  the  work  of  a  young  British  officer  named 
Major  Andre.  If  he  was  a  little  crude  in  literary  etiquette 
and  a  very  poor  poet  indeed,  he  knew  how  to  die  as  a  brave  and 
honest  gentleman.  He  is  said  to  have  given  the  last  canto 
of  his  epic  to  the  editor  of  the  Royal  Gazette  on  the  day 
before  he  left  New  York  for  his  disastrous  conference  with 
Benedict  Arnold  at  West  Point.  The  final  verses  appeared 
in  the  edition  that  was  published  on  the  very  morning  when 
the  gay,  gallant  young  fellow  was  captured  : 

'^Tet  Bergen  cows  still  ruminate 
Unconscious  in  the  stall 
What  mighty  means  were  used  to  get 
And  lose  them  after  all. 

:;:         *         *  :i:         :^ 

And  now  I've  clos  d  my  epic  strain 
I  tremble  as  I  show  it, 
Lest  this  same  warrior-drover,  Wayne, 
Should  ever  catch  the  poet" 


The  Nineteenth  <3:W  Twentieth  Centuries 


HE  first  important  changes  in  Bergen  and  its 
surrounding  territory  were  brought  by  the 
development  of  transportation,  and  this  de- 
1^  velopment  was  due  chiefly  to  the  rapidly 
growing  business  between  New  York  and 
Philadelphia.  Stage  route  terminals  on  the 
North  River  meant  short  ferriage  as  against  the  bay  ferriage 
involved  in  the  alternative  New  Brunswick-Amboy-Staten 
Island  route.  The  thoughtful  ferrymen  of  Paulus  Hook 
did  not  permit  the  public  to  remain  bhnd  to  it.  Their  adver- 
tisements are  full  of  humane  warnings  against  the  "  Dangers 
of  the  Bay." 

It  was  not  a  trifling  consideration  in  the  days  before  steam, 
when  even  the  river  ferriage  was  an  adventure.  The  first  river 
ferries  were  rowing  skiffs  or,  more  simply,  canoes  of  hollowed 
soft  wood  logs.  The  river  was  no  more  tranquil  than  it  is  now 
and  its  width  was  far  greater,  for  today  there  are  parts  on  both 
shores  where  more  than  a  thousand  feet  have  been  filled  in. 
As  late  as  1 8 1 6,  the  mail  was  carried  across  in  rowboats,  and  we 
have  a  dramatic  narrative  of  a  twenty -four  hours'  battle  to 
rescue  a  mail  carrier  and  his  negro  boatman  from  the  ice-pack. 
Another  narrative,  not  so  well  authenticated,  but  so  pleasing 
that  it  ought  to  be  true,  is  that  of  a  Dutch  planter  and  his  wife 
who  were  in  mid-stream  when  "a  large  fish  leaped  into  their 
skiff"  and  knocked  a  hole  into  it.  With  admirable  intelligence 
the  honestly  built  wife  sat  on  the  critical  spot  and  by  virtue  of 


38 


'^he  History  of  Hudson  County 


her  many  and  vast  petticoats  defeated  the  river's  passionate 
attempt  to  sink  them. 

As  traffic  increased,  rowboats  were  supplemented,  though 
not  driven  out,  by  sailing  craft  of  a  type  known  as  periagua — 
a  word  presenting  such  difficulties  to  the  casual  spellers  of  the 
time  that  nearly  every  reference  in  early  print  enriches  us  with 
a  different  version  from  "peraga"  to  "pettiaugre."  They  were 
built  of  white-wood,  modeled  largely  on  the  plan  of  the  dug- 
out, and  in  time  were  made  large  enough  to  carry  horses  and 
carriages. 

Early  in  i  800  the  ferrymen  installed  "horse  boats"  pro- 
pelled by  horse-driven  machinery.  They  held  their  own  for 
many  years  after  the  Albany  Gazette  announced  that  "The 
North  River  Steam  Boat  (Robert  Fulton's  "Clermont")  will 
leave  Paulus  Hook  on  the  4th  of  September  (1807),  at  nine 
o'clock  in  the  evening.  Provisions,  good  berths,  and  accomo- 
dations are  furnished.    The  charge  for  each  passenger  is  as 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen 


39 


follows;  Newburgh,  fare  ^3,  time  14  hours;  Po'keepsie,  fare 
I4,  time  17  hours;  Esopus,  fare  $5,  time  20  hours;  Hudson, 
fare  $5^,  time  30  hours;  Albany,  fare  $7,  time  36  hours." 

John  Stevens  who  had  bought  Hoboken  in  1 804,  installed 
the  first  steam  ferry  in  the  world  in  181 1.  It  made  its  trial 
tripinSeptemberandranbetweenHobokenand  Barclay  Street, 
New  York,  but  before  long  the  horse  boat  was  reinstated. 
Similar  lack  of  success  attended  the  installation  of  the  steam 
ferries  "Jersey"  and  "York"  built  by  Robert  Fulton  for  the 
York  and  Jersey  Steam  Boat  Ferry  Company  and  put  into 
operation  in  18 12.  Although  an  enthusiastic  account  had  it 
that  "we  crossed  the  river  in  14  minutes  in  this  safe  machine," 
cynics  alleged  that  the  safe  machines  more  often  needed  an 
hour,  and  that  when  the  "York"  and  the  "  Jersey  "  met  in  mid- 
stream there  was  time  for  painfully  long  contemplation  before 
they  succeeded  in  passing. 

These  ferries  were  not  small.  Their  length  was  80  feet, 
only  20  less  than  that  of  the  "  Clermont"  which  was  considered 


One  of  the  Early  Sleam  Ferries 


40 


The  History  of  Hudson  County 


A  Stubborn  Competitor  of  Steam,  iSjO 

a  great  vessel.  There  were  two  hulls  braced  with  the  paddle- 
wheel  suspended  between,  and  with  a  deck  over  all  30  feet 
wide.  The  passengers  sat  in  the  open,  but  there  was  a  hold 
for  refuge  in  bad  weather. 

In  1 8 16,  the  company  had  succeeded  in  earning  only  one 
dividend  (of  five  per  cent),  which  explains  why  Philip  Howe 
who  leased  the  West  Hoboken  or  "  Weehawk"  ferry  in  182 1 
contented  himself  with  two  sailboats  and  a  horse  boat.  John 
Stevens  also  adhered  to  sail  and  horse  after  abandoning  his  first 
steam  terry,  and  did  not  try  steam  again  till  1822.  By  that 
time,  however, it  had  become  practical.  The  Canal  Street  ferry- 
boat "Pioneer,"  which  went  into  commission  in  1823,  had  a 
ladies'  cabin  warmed  with  open  fireplaces  and  was  lavishly 
decorated. 

In  land  transporation,  steam  met  similar  difficulties.  In 
1830,  Peter  Cooper's  locomotive  "Tom  Thumb,"  with  Peter 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen 


41 


One  of  the  Firs:  Steam  Trains,  iSjI 

Cooper  himself  in  charge,  was  sadly  defeated  by  a  stubbornly 
unprogressive  stage  proprietor  who  raced  it  with  a  single  horse 
hitched  to  the  same  kind  of  coach  that  was  drawn  by  the  loco- 
motive. All  the  stage  companies  in  the  land  spread  the  glad 
news.  They  also  told  with  infinite  joy  how  the  foolish  and 
heinously  dangerous  locomotives  showered  passengers  with 
flaming  wood  embers  so  that  they  had  to  protect  themselves 
with  hoisted  umbrellas  which,  alas!  caught  fire  themselves. 
Therefore  though  optimists  went  on  laying  rails,  the  stage 
business  continued  to  prosper  so  healthily  that  in  1 832  at  least 
twenty  stage  Hnes  were  crossing  Bergen  in  all  directions. 

In  that  year  the  Paterson  and  Hudson  Railroad  completed 
its  tracks  and  began  operation  with  a  rolling  stock  of  "three 
splendid  and  commodious  cars  each  capable  of  accommodating 
30  passengers,  drawn  by  fleet  and  gentle  horses."  Locomotives 
were  introduced  a  little  later,  but  with  excellent  caution  the 


42  The  History  of  Hudson  County 

company  announced  that  "the  steam  and  horse  cars  are  so  in- 
termixed that  passengers  may  make  their  selection  &  the  timid 
can  avail  themselves  of  the  latter  twice  a  day."  This  is  the 
road  that  was  absorbed  by  the  Erie  Railroad  and  served  as  its 
route  to  tide-water  till  the  Erie  Tunnel  was  pierced  in  1861. 

The  main  stage  route  to  Philadelphia  in  early  1 800  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  about  along  the  present  line  of  Grand, 
Warren,  York  and  Van  Vorst  Streets,  crossing  a  marsh  at  Mill 
Creek,  following  a  road  to  old  Prior's  Mill,  and  connecting 
with  the  Old  Mill  Road.  An  old  Eighteenth  Century  plank 
causeway  over  the  meadows  to  Newark  that  "trembled  under 
foot"  was  replaced  about  this  time  by  the  Newark  Turnpike. 
It  had  dangers  of  its  own.  The  records  show  that  the  great 
cedar  swamps  on  both  sides  had  to  be  burned  off  to  drive  out 
robbers. 

By  1 8 13,  four  stage  Hnes  were  in  hot  competition  for  the 
New  York-Philadelphia  business.  The  title  "stage-waggon" 
became  too  tame  for  these  fervid  rivals,  and  one  of  them  in- 
vented the  title  of  "machine."  Mightily  stirred  by  this  poetic 
imagery,  another  named  his  stages  "flying  machines."  From 
that  day  so  long  as  a  stage  survived,  every  self-respecting 
stage  driver  referred  to  himself  as  operating  a  flying  machine. 
The  fastest  flying  machine  of  1 8 13  left  New  York  at  i  p.  m. 
and  did  not  fly  into  Philadelphia  till  6  a.  m.  next  day. 

In  1 820  the  disintegration  of  Bergen  Township  began  with 
the  incorporation  of  the  City  of  Jersey,  re-incorporated  in 
1 829  as  Jersey  City.  Except  for  a  moderate  increase  in  popu- 
lation, the  teritory  in  that  period  was  little  difl^erent  from  its 
aspect  and  manner  in  the  old  days.  There  were  compararively 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen 


43 


Park^  Homestead.   (Vroom  Street  and  Bergen  A'venue) 

few  inhabitants  not  of  Dutch  descent,  and  Dutch  habit  and 
thought  were  dominant.  There  were  no  buildings  except  dwel- 
Hngs  and  farm  structures,  and  practically  all  the  dwellings 
were  of  the  stoutly  typical  long,  low,  comfortable  Dutch  style. 
From  their  ridge  the  Bergen  men,  looking  down  on  what  is 
now  lower  Jersey  City  with  crowded  factories  and  piers,  saw 
a  shore-land  that  still  was  largely  amphibious,  and  when  high 
tide  covered  the  marshes,  they  could  still  distinguish  the  three 
"islands"  that  originally  comprised  the  only  solid  land  in  that 
tract.  Paulus  Hook  was  the  same  pile  of  sand  as  in  the  begin- 
ning, with  little  except  fishermen's  huts  here  and  there  besides 


44 


The  History  of  Hudson  County 


the  race  track  and  ferries.  Northern  Jersey  City's  water-front 
was  practically  empty  save  for  a  ferry  house.  Hoboken's  Elysian 
Fields  held  unmarred  the  beauty  which  had  won  the  high- 
sounding  title,  and  a  single  little  tavern  sufficed  to  entertain 
holiday  makers  there.  The  placid  population  made  barely 
enough  employment  for  the  single  Court  at  Hackensack  and 
for  a  few  local  Dutch  justices  of  the  peace.  It  was  a  happy 
land  that  made  no  history. 

Steam  was  winning,  however,  and  soon  its  early  demands 
gave  a  great  impetus  to  the  mechanical  hand-crafts  that  it  was 
destined  to  destroy.  Jersey  City,  which  had  only  about  300 
inhabitants  at  the  time  of  its  incorporation  in  1820,  is  credited 
in  a  record  of  1 845  with  having  4000  population  at  that  date. 
Among  its  larger  industries  were  the  works  of  the  American 
Pottery  Company,  the  Jersey  City  Glass  Company  employing 
about  a  hundred  men,  a  famous  fireworks  establishment,  a 
candle  factory  and  many  shops  owned  by  individual  me- 
chanics. There  were  two  foundries.   One  was  Fulton's  at  the 


The  Monitor,  iSb. 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen  45 

corner  of  Morgan  and  Greene  Streets,  and  it  was  at  this 
foundry  that  some  of  the  first  ironclads  for  the  Civil  War 
were  fabricated  later. 

Fulton  also  had  a  dry  dock.  It  appears  to  have  had  ample 
business,  for  by  1 845  the  water-front  business  had  become 
sufficient  to  justify  the  building  of  a  vessel,  the  "Dudley  S, 
Gregory,"  constructed  at  Burlington  expressly  for  Jersey  City 
trade.  Two  years  later,  Jersey  City  celebrated  the  docking  of 
its  first  Cunarder,  the  "Hibernia." 

Bergen  adhered  to  its  agriculture  and  other  old  ways  longer 
than  the  surrounding  communities.  Its  inhabitants  looked 
serenely  down  on  Jersey  City's  accumulating  factory  chimneys 
and  saw  its  increasing  bustle  and  wealth  without  apparent 
desire  to  emulate  it.  Years  after  gas  had  made  the  streets 
below  their  height  look  like  far-trailed  strings  of  beads,  they 
remained  content  with  candles  and  sperm  whale  oil,  and  as 
late  as  1858  there  were  only  60  gas  consumers  on  the  whole 
ridge. 

Bit  by  bit  its  less  restful  constituent  parts  broke  away,  much 
as  the  offspring  of  the  good  old  burghers  themselves  was 
breaking  away  from  the  good  old  customs.  In  1837,  Bergen 
County's  opulent  girth  was  sharply  reduced  by  taking  away 
enough  to  make  Passaic  County.  In  1 840  another  legal  opera- 
tion set  off  the  County  of  Hudson.  Bergen  Township  was  like 
a  fine  Dutch  cheese  exposed  to  busy  mice.  It  was  nibbled  at 
from  all  sides.  In  1841,  two  years  after  full  rail  traffic  had 
been  opened  between  New  York  and  Philadelphia  by  the  New 
Jersey  Railroad  and  Transportation  Company,  Van  Vorst 
Township  was  nibbled  off.  Another  nibble  in  1 842  bit  off  the 


46 


T^he  History  of  Hudson  County 


Bergen  Square,  l8j2.   (From  an  Old  Print) 

part  north  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  and  made  North 
Bergen  from  which  Hudson  City  and  Hobolcen  were  set  off 
before  i860.  By  the  time  Bayonne  and  Greenville  had  been 
cut  out  of  Bergen,  it  was  in  much  the  same  condition  as  the  old 
families  whose  ancestral  plantations  had  been  reduced  by  suc- 
cessive street  encroachments  to  mere  town  lots.  When,  in 
1868,  a  new  charter  was  given  to  the  City  of  Bergen,  its  area 
had  decreased  in  inverse  ratio  to  its  wealth  and  real  estate 
valuations.  Finally,  on  March  17,  1870,  popular  vote  con- 
soHdated  Bergen,  Hudson  and  Jersey  City  into  the  Greater 
Jersey  City. 


T^he  Trust  Company  ^New  Jersey 


►  HiLE  workmen  were  excavating  at  Sip  and 
Bergen  Avenues  for  the  foundation  of  the 
new  eleven-story  building  of  the  Trust 
Company  of  New  Jersey,  they  unearthed 
an  ancient  well.  It  was  45  feet  deep,  reach- 
ing down  to  a  subterranean  stream.  The 
hollow  logs  that  formed  it  fell  apart  as  soon  as  they  were 
handled.  At  such  wells  the  early  Van  Vorsts,  Van  Homes, 
Van  Winkles  and  others  drew  the  water  for  the  houses  within 
the  old  palisades;  and  it  was  such  a  well,  with  troughs  for 
cattle  around  it,  that  was  dug  in  the  center  of  Bergen  Square 


Old  Dutch  Well 


48  T^he  History  of  Hudson  County 

by  order  of  the  Schout  and  Schepens  of  Bergen,  ratified  by 
the  Council  at  New  Amsterdam  on  February  9,  1662, 

If  these  men  of  1660  had  returned  to  Bergen  a  hundred 
years  later  they  would  have  found  no  marvelous  changes. 
Even  in  i860  they  would  have  found  much  that  was  un- 
changed, despite  steamships  and  railroads,  streets  lit  with  gas, 
and  busy  factories.  All  local  transport  still  was  done  with 
horses,  there  were  enough  cattle,  sheep,  pigs  and  goats  at  large 
to  keep  a  pound-keeper  fully  occupied,  the  salt  meadows  were 
lively  with  flights  of  duck  and  snipe,  and  sea  fish  and  sea  turtle 
still  were  being  taken  in  the  Hackensack  and  Passaic  Rivers, 
the  Kill  von  Kuil,  and  in  Newark  and  New  York  Bays. 

It  was  left  for  the  period  within  our  own  generation  to 
change  the  world  so  colossally  that  today  those  Dutch  ances- 
tors would  indeed  imagine  themselves  to  be  among  sorcery 
and  witchcraft.  Automobiles  flashwhere  they  plodded  behind 
oxen  and  fat  slow  horses.  Where  the  old  windmill  on  Paulus 
Hook  ground  corn  less  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  there  stand 
and  float  implements  of  commerce  whose  use  they  could 
not  comprehend.  Their  descendants  are  shot  in  electric 
trains  under  that  North  River  which  they  ferried  with 
labor  and  fear. 

Most  amazing  of  all,  however,  would  be  the  tall  buildings; 
and  it  would  be  almost  impossible  for  them  to  believe  that  the 
vastly  reared  piles  of  marble  and  granite  are  not  palaces  of 
their  High  Mightinesses  the  States  General  of  rich  Holland, 
but  simply  the  modern  successors  of  their  little  trading  posts 
under  trees  where,  with  scales  held  in  the  hand,  they  weighed 
furs  in  exchange  for  wampum. 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen  49 

They  would  not  know  what  to  make  of  a  modern  banking 
institution  with  mighty  steel  vaults;  for  wampum,  the  cur- 
rency of  sea  shells,  was  the  leading  medium  of  the  New 
Netherlands  during  more  of  a  century,  and  what  little  gold 
they  possessed  was  "  banked"  in  hiding  places  under  the  floors 
or  in  the  gardens. 

The  sea-shell  currency  was  known  by  the  Indian  names  of 
wampum  or  seawant.  The  first  Dutch  arrivals  found  it  in 
general  use  among  the  savages,  and  adopted  it  partly  from 
choice,  but  largely  from  necessity.  Dutch  currency  was  not 
only  scarce  and  precious,  but  it  was  unknown  to  the  Indians, 
and  thus  it  occurred  naturally  that  the  financial  system  of  the 
new  colony  estabhshed  itself  on  a  shell  basis  instead  of  a  gold 
basis. 

The  shells  were  of  a  special  kind  and  occurred  in  two  colors, 
black  and  white.  The  Indians  prized  the  black  shells  at  a  ratio 
about  double  that  of  the  white.  To  the  Dutch  traders  it  seemed 
immensely  like  making  money  by  magic  to  obtain  valuable 
furs  for  common  shells ;  but  as  commerce  grew,  it  happened 
inevitably  that  wampum  could  not  be  confined  to  trading  with 
the  Indians,  and  it  had  to  be  accepted  by  the  Dutch  in  dealings 
among  themselves. 

Soon  the  "easy  money"  revenged  itself  as  easy  money 
always  has  done.  Wampum  was  held  to  be  worth  a  stiver  for 
three  black  shells  or  for  six  white  ones,  and  as  twenty  stivers 
equaled  a  guilder  (about  40  cents)  it  encouraged  many  finan- 
ciers to  engage  in  the  business  of  fishing  industriously  for  the 
precious  shell-fish.  There  was  no  law  to  forbid  anybody  from 
thus  operating  a  submarine  mint;  and  even  if  we  repudiate 


50 


'^he  History  of  Hudson  County 


Washington  Irving's  libelous  insinuation  that  Director- 
General  Kieft  gave  grants  to  his  friends  to  rake  and  scrape 
every  shell-bed  from  the  Delaware  to  Cape  Cod,  it  remains 
undeniable  that  the  wampum  financial  system  became  fright- 
fully inflated. 

In  1690  there  must  have  been  almost  a  wampum  panic,  for 
the  Council  issued  a  Proclamation:  "Whereas  with  Great  Con- 
cern we  have  observed  both  Now  and  for  a  Long  Time  past 
the  Depreciation  and  Corruption  of  the  loose  seawant,  where- 
by occasion  is  given  for  repeated  Complaints  from  the  In- 
habitants that  they  can  not  go  with  such  seawant  to  the  Market, 
nor  yet  procure  for  themselves  any  Commodity,  not  even 
a  White  Loaf,  we  ordain  that  no  loose  seawant  shall  be  a 
Legal  Tender  except  the  same  be  strung  on  one  string:  that 
six  white  or  three  black  shall  pass  for  one  stiver;  and  of  base 
seawant,  shall  pass  eight  white  and  four  black  for  one  stiver." 


Tht  Old  and  Neiv  Hudson  County  Court  Houses,  Jeney  City 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen  51 

Today  wampum  seems  a  ludicrously  worthless  currency; 
but  centuries  after  wampum  had  vanished,  governments  and 
peoples  continued  to  dream  that  government  edicts  and  laws 
could  establish  values.  There  are  no  doubt  many  Bergen 
families  that  still  possess,  as  historical  souvenirs,  such  currency 
as  the  "shin-plasters"  that  were  issued  by  Jersey  City  in  1862. 
Such  money,  issued  by  Federal,  State  and  local  governments, 
was,  after  all,  simply  a  paper  form  of  wampum;  for,  though 
it  may  have  had  more  or  less  tangible  value  behind  it,  its  chief 
characteristic  was  the  value  that  had  been  given  it  by  edict. 

It  was  left  for  our  own  era  to  establish  a  financial  system 
founded  on  a  sound  basis.  How  sound  that  basis  is  was  proved 
when  the  great  war  broke  on  the  world.  This,  the  greatest 
economic  catastrophe  that  the  modern  human  structure  has 
known,  immeasurably  more  calamitous  than  any  other  that 
ever  occurred,  was  borne  by  the  financial  system  of  the  United 
States  almost  without  a  tremor. 

Integrity  of  asset  values  is  the  one  and  only  thing  which 
made  this  extraordinary  strength.  The  shock  has  been  so 
tremendous  that  it  tested  the  foundations  of  everything 
that  man  has  devised,  and  only  absolute  soundness  could 
resist  it.  But  even  had  there  been  no  catastrophe  of  war,  the 
integrity  of  our  modern  American  financial  system  has  been 
tested  in  our  time  in  a  manner  equally  searching. 

During  the  past  quarter  century  we  have  had  a  growth  of 
commerce  that  has  led  us  from  terms  of  thousands  of  dollars 
to  terms  of  millions,  and  from  terms  of  millions  to  terms  of 
many  millions  until  we  have  learned  to  contemplate  even  such 
gigantic  sums  as  billions.  There  could  be  no  better  illustration 


Bergen  and 
Lafayette  Branch 
Monti  cello  Avenue 
and  Brinkerhoff 
St  reel,  Jersey  City 


Hoboken  Branch  V\ 
12  and  14 
Hudson  Place 


Toivn  of  Union 
Branch 

Bergenline  A'venue 
and  Hackensack 
Plank  Road 
Toivn  of  Union 
N.J. 


People's  Safe 
Deposit  "Branch 
Central  A'venue 
and  Boivers  Street 
Jersey  City 


Branch  Offices  of  The    Trust  Company  of  New  Jersey 


'The  History  of  Hudson  County 


S'i 


of  this  great  change  and  growth  than  is  presented  in  the 
records  of  the  Trust  Company  of  New  Jersey.  It  is  only 
twenty-five  years  ago  since  four  men,  schoolmates  in  their 
youth,  A.  P.  Hexamer,  Henry  Mehl,  John  Mehl,  Jr.,  and 
William  C.  Heppenheimer  met  in  the  office  of  Russ  &  Hep- 
penheimer  and  organized  the  People's  Safe  Deposit  and  Trust 
Company.  That  was  in  the  spring  of  1896,  and  a  bank  was 
established  at  the  corner  of  Hutton  Street  and  Central 
Avenue,  Jersey  City,  as  Main  Office,  with  a  branch  in  the 
Town  of  Union.  The  venture  was  a  success  from  its  inception, 
as  is  evidenced  by  the  first  statement  issued  by  the  bank,  cover- 
ing the  nine  months  ending  December  31,  1896: 


Capital  SI00»000.00. 
PEOPLE'S 

Safe  Deposit  and  Trust  Company, 


COR.  CENTRIL  AVENUE  &  HUTTON  STREET, 
COR.   LEWIS  STREET  i.  PALISADE  AVENUE. 


OFFICERS: 

President,      •       .     WM.  C.  HEPPENHEIMER. 
Vice-President,  -        -        -  WM.  PETER. 

Treasurer.     -        .       .        .  JOHN  MEHL.  Jr. 

Secretary  and  Cashier,    -        -        WM.  T.  VIDAL. 

DIRECTORS  : 

Wm.  Petir,  Henrv  Bkauticam. 

Hemby  Mehl,  Rudolph  F.  Ra£E, 

Richard  Schlemm.  M.  D., 
John  Mehl,  Jr..  Alex.  P.  Hexamer, 

Wm.  C.  Heppenheimer,  Edward  Russ. 

[over] 


STATEMENT 

The  PEOPLE'S 

Safe  Deposit  and  Trust  Company, 

Jersey  City.  N.  J.  and  Town  of  Union,  N.  J. 
FOR  NINE  MONTHS  ENDING  DEC.  31  ST,  1896. 


RESOURCES. 

Cash  on  Hand  and  In  Bank,  -         $143,441.03 

Loans  and  Discounts,        ...       69,838.07 

nortgages, 9>,3>3-36 

U.  S.  Qov.  Bonds,     ....        90,046.87 
nuniclpal  Bonds,  ....     17,293.50 

Banking  House,  Furniture  and  Fixtures,  25,117.18 


$437.050-01 

LIABILITIES 

Capitai,      .  -  .  •  $100,000.00 

Deposits,         .  -  .  .       328,019.30 

Certified  Cliecks,  -  -  7,308.31 

Undivided  Profits  (E»penses&  Taxes  Palil),    1,722.40 


Jersey  city.  N.  J  , 
Jairatr;  l«.  I89r 


$437,050.01 

WM.  T.  VIDAL, 

SECRETARY  4  CASHIER. 


54  The  History  of  Hudson  County 

In  the  spring  of  the  year  1899,  the  same  group  of  business 
men  concluded  to  organize  a  trust  company  in  the  city  of 
Hoboken,  operating  as  a  branch  of  the  People's  Safe  Deposit 
and  Trust  Company  of  Jersey  City.  They  were  met  by  the 
law  of  1899,  then  on  its  final  passage  in  the  Legislature,  pre- 
venting the  operation  of  branches  which  theretofore  had  been 
permissible.  Nothing  daunted,  they  organized  the  Trust 
Company  of  New  Jersey  in  Hoboken,  which  also  was  suc- 
cessful from  the  start. 

In  1902,  the  Bergen  &  Lafayette  Trust  Company  was 
founded  in  the  Bergen  Section  of  Jersey  City,  and  in  1 9 1 1 ,  the 
Carteret  Trust  Company  was  organized  and  located  in  Journal 
Square  at  the  Summit  Avenue  tube  station,  Jersey  City.  Both 
these  companies  were  founded  by  the  same  men  as  the  other 
two,  and  were  similarly  successful. 

In  19 13,  the  Legislature  of  the  state  of  New  Jersey  passed 
an  act  permitting  the  consolidationof  trust  companies  and  their 
operation  as  branches  with  one  main  office.  In  accordance 
with  this  act,  on  the  20th  day  of  September,  19 13,  the 
People's  Safe  Deposit  and  Trust  Company  with  its  branch  in 
the  Town  of  Union,  the  Bergen  &  Lafayette  Trust  Company, 
and  the  Carteret  Trust  Company  all  went  out  of  existence  and 
were  taken  over  by  the  Trust  Company  of  New  Jersey,  with 
Hoboken  as  the  main  office.  Since  that  date  the  other  institu- 
tions have  been  operated  as  branches  under  the  names  of 
People's  SafeDepositBranch,Townof  Union  Branch,  Bergen 
&  Lafayette  Branch,  and  Carteret  Branch. 

The  following  gentlemen  formed  the  Board  of  Directors 
of  the   consolidation  which   had    thus   become   the  Trust 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen  SS 

Company  of  Newjersey :  F.  E.  Armbruster,  George  A.  Berger, 
Ernest  Biardot,  Chas.  A.  Coppinger, Walter  M.  Dear,  Robert 
R.  Debacher,  Lawrence  Fagan,  John  Ferguson,  Louis  Formon, 
Ephraim  De  Groff,  Joseph  Harrison,  Edward  V.  Hartford, 
Ernest  J.  Heppenheimer,  Robert  E.  Jennings,  Anthony  R. 
Kuser,  John  P.  Landrine,  Edward  P.  Meany,  Walter 
Meixner,  Wm.  L.  Pyle,  John  T.  Rowland,  Jr.,  C.  Howard 
Slater,  Edw.  H.  Schmidt,  Edward  J.  Schroeder,  Emil 
Schumann  and  J.  Hollis  Wells. 

The  assets  of  the  combined  institutions  at  the  date  of  their 
consohdation  on  September  20,  1913,  were  $17,656,778.78. 
On  June  30,  1921,  the  total  resources  of  the  Company  were 
I37.343.663.43. 

With  the  completion  of  the  new  building  at  Bergen  and  Sip 
Avenues,  Jersey  City,  it  was  decided  by  the  Board  of  Direc- 
tors to  move  the  main  office  there.  The  Hoboken  office  thus 
becomes  the  Hoboken  branch,  continuing  the  same  Hne  of 
business  as  heretofore. 


AfiV  Main  O^ice  Buiuiing,  Bergen  an  J  Sip  A-ienua,  Jo  ie\  Ql\ 


The  New  Building 
of  the  Trust  Company  ^New  Jersey 


d^owERiNG  from  the  crest  of  Bergen  Hill,  with 


command  of  view  that  includes  the  whole 
panorama  of  the  Island  of  Manhattan,  the 
Hudson  River,  the  great  harbor,  and  New 
Jersey  inland  to  Newark  and  the  Oranges, 
stands  the  new  building  of  the  Trust  Com- 
pany of  New  Jersey. 

Located  on  the  southwest  corner  of  Bergen  and  Sip  Ave- 
nues, Jersey  City,  it  has  a  situation  that  not  only  gives  it  the 
utmost  convenience  of  access  from  New  York  and  all  sur- 
rounding suburbs  and  towns,  but  that  also  makes  it  central 
to  all  the  business  activities  of  this  industrial  and  commercial 
New  Jersey  territory. 

Past  its  doors  go  the  principal  trolley  lines,  as  well  as 
jitney  and  bus  lines  that  radiate  through  Hudson  County. 
It  is  on  the  lines  of  the  Hudson  and  Manhattan  River  Tube 
trains,  and  branch  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad. 

Throughout  its  design  and  construction  there  has  been  a 
consistently  executed  plan  for  combining  the  most  complete 
modern  utility  and  comfort  with  the  greatest  beauty  attainable 
in  these  tall  structures  which  so  admirably  lend  themselves 
to  splendid  effects.  Its  architects,  Clinton  &  Russell,  have 
made  it  a  perfect  expression  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  style, 
attaining  height  and  magnitude  with  effortless  grace. 


58 


T^he  History  of  Hudson  County 


-**^  .^v^r 


The  Banking  Room 


The  building  is  of  eleven  stories  and  basement.  Of  these, 
the  basement,  besides  accommodating  a  part  set  aside  for  the 
mechanical  plant  that  serves  the  building,  contains  the  fully 
equipped  large  safe  deposit  and  storage  vaults  of  the  Trust 
Company  of  New  Jersey. 

The  banking  room  of  the  Main  Office  of  the  Trust  Com- 
pany is  on  the  first  floor,  the  entrance  to  the  offices  being 
on  Bergen  Avenue  and  the  entrance  to  the  bank  being  on 
the  corner.  These  premises  are  designed  not  only  to  give 
customers  all  modern  banking  conveniences,  but  to  provide 
them  with  surroundings  that  shall  satisfy  a  high  sense  of 
beauty.  The  decorative  scheme  is  in  the  rich  Italian  marble 
known  as  Botticini,  and  the  accompanying  details  are  worked 
out  in  bronze  and  mahogany  as  the  appropriate  metals  and 


and  of  the  Old  Village  of  Bergen 


59 


woods.  There  is  a  ceiling  in  plaster  with  finely  wrought 
decoration  in  flat  relief. 

The  upper  ten  stories  are  wholly  for  tenant  purposes,  there 
being  about  60,000  square  feet  of  space  for  offices.  They  are, 
of  course,  served  thoroughly  with  all  conveniences  of  the 
highly  modern  office  building. 

There  are  three  elevators,  and  they  are  of  the  high-speed 
traction  type,  thus  assuring  adequate  service  under  peak  load 
conditions.  The  completely  fire-proof  construction  is  sup- 
plemented with  two  flights  of  fire  stairs,  fire  stand-pipe,  hose 
connections,  and  many  exits. 

Besides  hot  and  cold  water,  steam  and  electricity,  the 
building  is  provided  with  a  system  of  pipes  that  convey 
hygienically  cooled  drinking  water  to  all  premises.  The  win- 
dow spaces  are  large,  and  plate-glass  panes  assure  clearness 
of  vision  as  well  as  good  appearance  within  and  without.  The 
tiling  and  plumbing,  as  well  as  all  other  accessories  for  daily 
convenience,  are  of  the  best  modern  sanitary  construction. 

Safe  Deposit  Faults 


BERGEN  AVENUE 


Typical  Floor  Plan,  Fourth  to  Tenth  Floon  inclusi-ve.  New  Mair  Office  Building  of 
The  Trust  Company  of  New  Jersey 


7>^^ Trust  Company  ^New  Jersey 

Bergen  and  Sip  Avenues  (Journal  Square) 
Jersey  City.  JA(\  J. 


Resources,  June  30,  1 92 1       .       .       $37»343»633.43 

HOBOKEN  BRANCH 

12  and  i^  Hudson  Place,  Hoboken 

PEOPLE'S  SAFE  DEPOSIT  BRANCH 

Central  Avenue  and  Bozvers  Street,  Jersey  City 

BERGEN  AND  LAFAYETTE  BRANCH 

Monticello  Avenue  and  Brinkerhoff'  Street,  Jersey  City 

TOWN  OF  UNION  BRANCH 

Bergenline  Avenue  and  Hackensack  Plank  Road,  Town  of  Union,  N.  J. 

OFFICERS 

William  C.  Heppenheimer,  President 

MAIN  OFFICE 

Edward  P.  Meany,  Fint  ^ice-president  Edwin  H.  Stratford,  Secretary  and  Treasurer 

Walter  Meixner,  SixtA  Vice-president  William  C.  Veit,  Assistant  Treasurer 

Henry  C.  Perley,  Comptroller 

PEOPLE'S  SAFE  DEPOSIT  BRANCH         BERGEN  AND  LAFAYETTE  BRANCH 
F.  E.  Armbruster,  Third  Vice-president  Joseph  Harrison,  Fourth  Vice-president 

_  TT   L      •      /f    •  T  John  T.  Minugh,   Assistant  Treasurer 

Eugene  Huberti,  Assistant  treasurer  J  °   ' 

HOBOKEN  BRANCH 
TOWN  OF  UNION  BRANCH        ^     ^  _     o   j  rr-     v 

George  A.  Berger,  Mcond  Vice-president 

Louis  Formon,  Fifth  Vice-president  EivizrA  A.  O'Toole 

Rudolph  Sievert,  Assistant  Treasurer  Assistant  Secretary  and  Assistant  Treasurer 


DIRECTORS 


F.  E.  Armbruster       ......  Third  Vice-preiident 

George  A.  Berger      ......  Second  f^ice-president 

Ernest  Biardot  .........  Retired 

Chas.  A.  Coppinger  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  D.  D.  S. 

Walter  M.  Dear         .  .  .  Treasurer  Evening  Journal  yissociation 

Robert  R.  Debacher  .  .  .  President  ffm.  Schimper  &  Company 

John  J.  Pagan  ......       President  Fagan  Iron  fVorks 

John  Ferguson  ......      President  F.  Ferguson  &  Son 

Louis  Formon  .......  FiJiA  ^ice-president 

Ephraim  De  GrofF     ........  Physician 

Joseph  Harrison  ......  Fourth  ^ice-president 

Edward  V.  Hartford  ....  President  Edward  V.  Hartford,  Inc. 

Ernest  J.  Heppenheimer      .  .    President  Colonial  Life  Insurance  Company 

Wm.  C.  Heppenheimer      .  ......  President 

Robert  E.  Jennings    ........  Capitalist 

Anthony  R.  Kuser,   President  South  Jersey  Gas,  Electric  and  Traction  Company 
John  P.  Landrine       ........        Hardivare 

Edward  P.  Meany      .......   First  Vice-president 

Henry  Mehl     .....  Treasurer  John  Alehl  &  Company 

Walter  Meixner         .......  Sixth  Vice-president 

Wm.   Peter       ....         President  fVm.  Peter  Brewing  Company 

Wm.  L.  Pyle ^Physician 

John  T.  Rowland,  Jr Architect 

C.  Howard  Slater Real  Estate 

Edw.  H.  Schmidt      .  .  .  .    E.  H.  Schmidt  Hygiene  Ice  Company 

Edward  J.  Schroeder  ....  Edtvard  Schroeder  Lamp  fVorks 

Emil  Schumann  ........       Real  Estate 

J.  HoUis  Wells Clinton  &  Russell 


Functions  of 
7>^^Trust  Company  of  New  Jersey 

This  Company  transacts  a  general  Trust  Company  and 
Banking  business,  and 

Receives  Savings  Deposits,  and  pays  interest  thereon,  at  the 
rate  of  4  per  cent  per  annum. 

Receives  deposits  subject  to  check,  as  in  a  bank,  payable  at 
sight  or  through  the  clearing  house,  allowing  interest  thereon 
at  the  rate  of  2  per  cent  ;  also  issues  certificates  of  deposits 
bearing  interest. 

Lends  money  on  approved  security. 

Acts  as  Trustee  under  any  mortgage  or  deed  of  trust,  or  for 
any  individual  who  desires  to  provide  for  members  of  his 
family  or  others. 

Acts  as  Executor,  Trustee,  Administrator,  Guardian,  Receiver, 
Committee,  Assignee  or  Registrar. 

Acts  as  Fiscal  or  Transfer  Agent  tbr  any  State,  municipality  or 
corporation. 

Accepts  securities  for  safe  keeping,  remitting  interest  and  divi- 
dends to  the  depositor. 

Acts  as  Agent  in  this  State  for  corporations  organized  under 
the  laws  of  the  State  of  New  Jersey. 

Rents  Safe  Deposit  Vaults  from  $5.00  upward. 

This  Company  makes  a  specialty  of  the  accounts  of  per- 
sons who,  through  lack  of  experience,  desire  assistance  and 
advice  in  the  management  of  their  investments. 


LIBRARY  OF  CONGRESS 


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