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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
Dutch traders were the first settlers of Passaic (Indian, peaceful valley). In 1678 Hartman Michielsen sailed up Passaic River from Manhattan, purchased Menehenicke Island, now Pulaski Park, from the Lenni Lenape Indians, and established a fur trading post. In 1685 Michielsen, together with his three brothers and ten others from Communipaw (Jersey City), acquired the extensive Acquackanonk Patent. Other Dutch adventurers followed the "Fourteen Farmers of the Acquackanonk."
During the Revolutionary War, Passaic, then known as Acquackanonk Bridge, was occupied by Washington's troops, retreating from the British. Lord Cornwallis and the British Army later entered the village. After the war Passaic continued its slow, steady growth as an important river port and agricultural center.
When the railroads began after 1830 to push their way through the Passaic valley, shipping and farming gradually gave way before industrial undertakings. The Dutch, Irish, and the few German families that had settled the area as farmers were followed by Slavic immigrants, attracted by the rising industry. In 1854 its name was changed to Passaic after the river around which its life centered. Six years after Passaic was chartered as a city (1873), the first trickle of immigrants from Central Europe began. George B. Waterhouse, head of a concern of manufacturers of shoddy, brought seven Hungarian immigrants to Passaic from Castle Garden, the Ellis Island of that day. In 1890, the year the Botany Worsted Mills were established, Polish families started to arrive in a steady stream that eventually made them the predominant national group in the city's population.
What newspapers called the first labor riot in the city's history took place on May 5, 1906, during construction of the Passaic Herald building. The police and fire departments, aided by citizens, fought with striking members of an excavators' union. About one-third of the strikers were wounded, and many were arrested.
Organization of textile labor was long delayed by the Wool Council, official employment agency for the five largest manufacturers, and by a city ordinance that prohibited meetings without a permit. January 1926, however, saw the beginning of a textile workers' strike, destined to attain national importance because of the issue of civil liberties involved. It was precipitated by the discharge of a workers' committee that was asking the restoration of a 10 percent pay cut at the Botany Mills and spread to other mills until some 15,000 workers were out.
A year of strife followed, marked at times by police attempts to suppress public meetings as illegal. This brought liberal and radical leaders from all over the country to the scene to protest the restrictions on free speech. Several arrests followed. Norman Thomas, later Socialist candidate for President of the United States, was hauled down from the crotch of a tree from where he had attempted to address a meeting. He was arrested, but the case was never prosecuted. Ultimately the United Textile Workers took over the strike. The mill owners finally agreed to union recognition, and to arbitration. The union did not hold its strength during the ensuing decade, but under the Textile Workers Organizing Committee (formed 1936) a new unionization drive began.
During prohibition bootleggers and hijackers battled constantly for control of the Passaic area. So extensive were the operations that it was only mildly exciting to the citizenry when a pipe line was discovered under Passaic River conveying molasses from Wallington, on the opposite shore. In Passaic, the molasses was manufactured into alcohol and then pumped back to Wallington.
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