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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
Hand-in-hand with prosperity went an escape from religious scrutiny, and the town supported three of the finest taverns in the country. Possibly attracted by a carefree society group, the exiled Frenchman, Talleyrand, visited Newark in 1794 and stayed at what was later the David Ailing House on the corner of Broad and Fair Streets. The length of his stay is uncertain but it is likely that while in Newark he devoted much time to study and writing. In the next decade Tom Moore, the Irish poet, was entertained by the Ogden family, and Washington Irving was inspired to write the Salmagundi papers by many gay evenings at old Cockloft Hall, the Kemble Mansion, which stood on the corner of Mt. Pleasant Avenue and Gouverneur Street.
Finance, commerce and industry quickened the conversion of Newark from a sprawling agricultural village into an important business center. The first bank, the Newark Banking and Insurance Company, was organized in 1804, and six years later the Newark Fire Insurance Company wrote the first of millions of Newark policies. One of the Newark companies established in this period has preserved from its earliest days a yarn to the effect that when an Elizabeth woman, who was insured for $500, fell critically ill, the officers became alarmed lest the company expire with her. Accordingly, the president had the best local doctor attend her and sat at her bedside himself until she recovered.
After the War of 1812, new industries pushed Newark into the position of New Jersey's leading city, which it has held ever since. In two decades the manufacture of jewelry, begun by Epaphras Hinsdale in 1801, had become a leading occupation; Seth Boyden's work in patent leather gave tremendous impetus to the leather trade; and by 1831 hat making and brewing occupied large numbers of workmen.
Transportation developments began to link the growing city with the rest of the eastern seaboard. One of the State's earliest railroads-the New Jersey Railroad and Transportation Company-began operation in 1834 from Newark to Jersey City, while the Morris Canal, completed to Phillipsburg three years earlier, provided an outlet for Newark's products in Pennsylvania and the west.
In 1836 Newark was incorporated as a city with William Halsey as its first mayor. The population of nearly 20,000 was no longer exclusively of Puritan gentry; the growth of industry had resulted in the formation of 16 trade societies, chiefly among plasterers, bricklayers, and corset makers. By 1836 they were bidding for political power as labor organizations.
For two decades following the panic of 1837 economic progress was slow, but this period witnessed an increased interest in social reform and entertainment. Criminals were better treated and the mentally ill were regarded less as offenders against decent society. In 1848 a theater inaugurated a long history of romantic and tragic drama in Newark. By 1855 Germans had settled Newark in large numbers, and their Saengerfests made the city one of the national centers of German music.
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