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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
The history of Elizabeth, oldest English settlement of the State, began in 1664, when the English ended Dutch control of New Netherland. In that year three Long Islanders, John Baily, Daniel Denton, and Luke Watson, received written license from the new English Deputy Governor of New York, Richard Nicolls, and bought from the Indians for the customary quantity of coats, gunpowder, and kettles a large tract extending from Raritan River to Newark Bay.
Farming operations were scarcely a year old when Philip Carteret arrived as the first English Governor of New Jersey. For his capital he picked a spot in the territory of the Long Island emigrants and named it Elizabethtown in honor of the wife of his cousin, Sir George Carteret. Sir George and Lord John Berkeley were at that time the sole Proprietors of all New Jersey.
In Elizabethtown Carteret compromised with the 8o Associates on division of the land. Houses were built by joint effort; so was a church, put up on the Broad Street site now occupied by the graveyard of the First Presbyterian Church.
In 1668 Governor Carteret summoned the first general assembly to his new capital. Two years later the Province was in turmoil over a dispute that has not yet been settled. The original settlers had obtained license to buy Indian lands from Colonel Nicolls, and they refused to pay annual quitrents to Carteret. Carteret, unable to maintain authority, went to England and returned with a compromise that kept peace for a time. Eventually control of all lands passed to an organization known as the Proprietors of East New Jersey. When the Proprietors attempted to revive the collection of quitrents, the inhabitants promptly retorted that they had bought their property from the Indians and owed not a cent to the Proprietors or anyone else. In 1745 the controversy landed in Chancery Court; land riots followed, and the suit, interrupted by the French and Indian Wars and the Revolution, was never settled.
The Proprietors, with a flair for mismanagement, transferred the capital to Perth Amboy in 1686, thinking that this village was destined for greater things than Elizabethtown. But Elizabethtown withstood the shock and in 1740 obtained from George II a charter as the "Free Borough and town of Elizabeth," which called for a borough hall and a courthouse. These were built on the site of the present Union County Courthouse. A second charter was granted by the State legislature in 1789, and a city charter was issued in 1855 and amended in 1863.
Elizabeth's industry developed along characteristic Colonial lines. By 1670 a merchant had established his shop; and six years later a brewer, William Looker, began catering to the powerful thirsts aroused by daylong work in the fields and woods. Mills were established for the production of lumber and meal. Good grazing promoted the raising of sheep, swine, and cattle, which were shipped to New York. The tanning industry received an early start and by 1687 Elizabethtown was shipping leather to all of the Colonies. Ships of 30 and 40 tons sailed up the Elizabeth River as far as Broad Street. Soon Elizabeth was building its own vessels for pursuing whales, abundant off the Jersey coast.
The Revolution halted Elizabeth's development. The city was an important point in Washington's New Jersey maneuvers; it was, in fact, the Achilles' heel in his defenses against the British in New York and Staten Island across the Kill from Elizabeth. Time and again the British from Staten Island made quick thrusts into the city, burning and pillaging. The year 1780 was a particularly bad one for the village, marked by major encounters at nearby Connecticut Farms (now Union) and Springfield, and a series of minor skirmishes through the countryside.
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