CHAPTER XXIII.

NEWARK, MOTHER OF TOWNS-THE COURT HOUSE ELECTION SCANDAL—

A

LAW AND ORDER.

S Newark grew and waxed strong, the administration of the township's affairs became increasingly cumbersome because

of the wide area over which the population was distributed. So the partition of her domain began. Newark, mother of towns, was now to part with large stretches of her great acreage, and she, as well as the smaller townships thus created, was to benefit thereby.

Springfield Township was established in 1793, being set off from Newark and Elizabethtown, and comprehending what are now (1913) the townships of Springfield and New Providence, Millburn and a portion of Livingston. It took the ancient English name of the region.

Next, in 1798, was Caldwell, being set off from Acquackanonck, and including the present Caldwell and a portion of Livingston. This was the old "Horseneck" section of the county and was named after the heroic Parson Caldwell of Revolutionary fame.

Orange Township was the third. This partition came in 1806. The whole area covered by all the four Oranges grew steadily from the close of the War for Independence. The township of Newark showed its appreciation of that fact in 1798, when it decided that on one of the three days devoted to the annual election for members of the Legislature, the proceedings should be held in Orange. The name "Orange Dale," or "Newark Mountain," was used as early as 1782. The settlers were familiar with the name Orange, for Albany, N. Y., under the dominion of the Dutch, was known as "Fort Orange" and New York City was at one time "New Orange." In all probability the name was first given to the section west of Newark because of the popular enthusiasm over the deeds of William, Prince of Orange.

Bloomfield Township was formed in 1812, being named after Governor Bloomfield. It comprised a number of "neighborhoods,"

including Cranetown, now Montclair; Wardsesson Plain, Second River, Newtown, Morris Neighborhood and Stone House Plain. It included practically all of what is now Belleville.

Livingston Township was set off from Springfield and Caldwell in 1813.

In 1824 Clinton Township was established, Newark, Elizabeth, Orange and Union being drawn upon to make it. Four years later a portion of Clinton was annexed to Orange. The boundary line between Newark and Clinton was again altered in 1852, and still again in 1869.

Belleville Township was created in 1839, out of a generous section of what had previously been Bloomfield. The name, a combination of French words, means "Beautiful View."

Millburn Township was set off from Springfield in 1857. The name is of Scotch origin-the mill by the "burn," or spring.

South Orange Township came next, in 1861, being made up of portions of Clinton and Orange.

A year later Orange, Caldwell and Livingston were drawn on to make Fairmount Township, and the following year South Orange was increased by being given a part of Millburn. In the same year, 1863, the name of Fairmount was changed to West Orange, and the boundary lines altered. Simultaneously East Orange was created out of Orange. The fiftieth anniversary of its establishment was celebrated in mid-June, 1913.

Montclair Township was made up out of Bloomfield in 1869. The name was taken from the French, meaning "clear mount" or mountains.

The territory long known as Woodside was partitioned between Newark and Belleville in 1871. It had been a part of Belleville from the time that township was created until 1869, when it became a township, but two years later was absorbed by Newark. For a few years before its absorption it was known as Ridgewood.

Franklin Township was established in 1874, and the section known as Nutley was known until a generation ago as the "Nutley" Estate of Thomas W. Satterthwaite and his heirs.

Newark has, in the course of all these changes, and since, drawn back to itself small portions of its original area, acquiring parts of Clinton Township in 1869, 1897 and 1902; of Woodside, as already seen, in 1871, and Vailsburgh in 1905.

It was out of a generous slice of Clinton Township (so named in honor of De Witt Clinton, who at that time, 1835, was Governor of New York and was famed because of his energetic promotion of the Erie Canal project) that "Camptown," the present Irvington, was made. Just how it got the name of Camptown is not definitely known. Members of the Camp family, of the second generation of Newarkers, settled in the Irvington region, and it was very common in that day to give a locality the name of the dominant family, as the present Montclair was for many generations known as "Cranetown" because of the large sprinkling of the descendants of one of Newark's leading founders (Jasper Crane) who made their homes there. The theory that Camptown was so named because Washington once camped there has no standing in history, for Washington did not camp there, and if any of his soldiers. pitched their tents in that section it could only have been for a brief interval. The first theory is no doubt closest to the fact.

"Camptown Navy Yard," a phrase nearly a century old, seems to have had a facetious origin in the fact that periaugers were built in the so-called Vinegar Hill section between Irvington and South Orange, launched in Bound Creek (then much larger than the streamlet that now feeds Weequahic Park lake) and thus found their way to the bay. They are said to have been built for the New York trade, and carried freight and passengers. A small schooner, the "Enterprise," was built in Camptown in 1812, brought on wheels to the bay, and used for smuggling between Canadian and Maine ports during the War of 1812.

Bound Creek was for many decades before and a few years after the War for Independence a very useful and highly important means of shipment. Farm products were brought down from the countryside, from even as far away as Morristown, in ox-carts and loaded on the periaugers, near what is now the western edge of

Weequahic Park, and in the same way goods brought from New York on the periaugers were transported inland.

Irvington was so named in 1852, at a mass meeting, in response to a general feeling among the inhabitants that "Camptown" was hardly in keeping with the dignity and prosperity of their village. The works of Washington Irving, the creator of "Cockloft Hall," were then becoming very popular, and it was decided to honor him by giving the community his name. He was invited to attend the ceremonies but politely declined.

Jefferson Village was another Essex County settlement, originally a part of Newark. It got its name about 1800, when Thomas Jefferson had become the idol of the so-called plain people. It is now a part of Maplewood.

Lyons Farms and Connecticut Farms are noticed in one of the chapters on the War for Independence. Waverly is a comparatively modern name for a portion of Lyons Farms and the Weequahic region. All these sections were at one time part of Clinton Township. There was also Headleytown, a mile and a half east of Springfield. Connecticut Farms is about two miles and a

half west of Lyons Farms.

ESSEX COUNTY.

While Essex County was established as early as 1675 (as noted in previous chapters), definite boundaries were not fixed, the Assembly simply ruling that Newark and Elizabethtown should constitute a county. In 1682 an "act to erect County Courts" gives the old English name "Essex" to this county, and directs that court shall be held in Newark and in Elizabethtown. But it was not until 1710 that boundaries were first defined, as follows: "That the County of Essex shall begin at the mouth of the Raway River where it falls into the Sound, and so to run up the said Raway River to Robeson's Branch; thence west to the Division Line between the Eastern and Western Division [of New Jersey] * * * and so to follow the said Division Line to the Requaneck [Pequannock?] River, where it meets Passaick River; thence down

Passaick River to the Bay and Sound; thence down the Sound to where it began."

In 1741 a part of Essex was joined to Somerset County. On February 7, 1837, Passaic County was formed out of the northern part of Essex. On March 19, 1857, Union County was taken from the Southern portion. Townships were not formed in the New Jersey counties until 1692, when Essex was divided into three townships; first, Acquackanonck, and New Barbadoes, the latter comprising the settlements on the east side of the Passaic; second, Newark; third, Elizabethtown.

The first Essex County Court House was the original meeting house of the Newark settlers, in what is now Branford place. About 1700 a jail was built adjoining the meeting house, and the second story was used for court rooms. When the present First Presbyterian Church was completed, in 1791, the stone church on the west side of Broad street was vacated and the county courts held session there. By 1800 this court house had become inadequate. It was not large enough to meet the demands of so prosperous a county, besides, it was becoming dilapidated. The annual town meetings were held there, and the throngs that gathered seem to have used the structure roughly. The last town meeting held there seems to have been on April 14, 1806, when the following "Resolves" were adopted: "That the Township Committee be authorized to make good all damages done to the Court House at the time of holding Town Meetings therein, and to cause the same to be swept and cleaned after each meeting." The next year the minutes of the Township Committee do not locate the place of the annual town. meetings, nor in the year 1808. But the minutes of the year 1809 show that the annual meeting was held in "the Court house" at Broad and Walnut streets, on the site of the present Grace Episcopal Church, which brings us to an interesting episode in Newark's history.

THE "GREAT COURT HOUSE ELECTION."

When it was determined, in 1806, that the Court House would no longer meet the needs of the county, there arose a mighty discus