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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
BLOOMFIELD, 3.2 miles (125 alt., 38,077 pop.), is an old settlement
that has developed as a modern residential and industrial extension of
Newark. Originally known as Wardsesson (Ind., crooked place), it got
its present name when a town meeting decided in 1796 to honor Joseph
Bloomfield, Revolutionary general and later Governor (1801-1812). The
general contributed heavily in that year to the construction of the FIRST
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, still standing on the green at Broad St. and Belleville Ave. It is a brownstone structure, with a brown wooden octagonal
belfry, stained-glass windows, and bell-shaped cupola. A trace of the original name can be found in WATSESSING PARK (L), at the southern end of
town, a unit of the Essex County Park System.
Montclair, Belleville, Glen Ridge, and Nutley have all been formed
from the 20 square miles that was once Bloomfield. The city's factories.
producing a wide variety of goods, have been built along its two railroad
lines; among them are a Westinghouse plant and a General Motors parts
unit.
BLOOMFIELD COLLEGE AND SEMINARY, facing the green at Broad,
Franklin and Liberty Sts., is a Presbyterian institution founded in 1810.
The city was not always friendly to education and educators, however.
Alexander Wilson (1766-1813), the great ornithologist, taught school in
Bloomfield in 1801 for $160 a year. Wilson then described his neighbors
as "canting and snivelling," and his work as "spirit-sinking and laborious." The DAVIS HOUSE (private), 409 Franklin St., built 1676, is a vine-covered, two-story, sandstone structure with a peaked roof and with
dormer windows on both sides of a gable over the double front door. With
the exception of a slope-roofed wooden porch, the rear is the duplicate of
the front. The Davis family came to this vicinity with Robert Treat's
group. During the Revolution it was the home of Caleb Davis and his son,
Joseph, both Continental soldiers. There is a story that Washington came
here once for a night's lodging but left when he found Benedict Arnold
had already established himself here. Historians, however, say that Washington came for entertainment and left when he found sick soldiers quartered in the home.
Bloomfield was the birthplace of Randolph Bourne, prominent pacifist,
author of Education and Living, and philosopher of the American youth
movement during the pre-World War literary renascence. Bourne died at
the age of 32 in 1918, leaving an unfulfilled future but a decisive influence on his contemporaries.
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