Westward from Bergen Hill and the Palisades are the meadows which
stretch down to Newark Bay, and meandering through them to form it are
the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers. The name of Hackensack means, in
the original Indian dialect, the "lowlands," and it was given by them
also to the channel around Bergen Point, by which the waters of Newark
Bay reach New York harbor. This river drains the western slopes of the
Palisades. Passaic means "the valley," and the name seems to have
referred to the country through which that stream flows. The Passaic
River, which is ninety miles long, comes from the mountains of
Northern New Jersey and flows a tortuous course to Paterson, fifteen
miles northwest of Jersey City, where there is an admirable water
power which has created a manufacturing town of over one hundred
thousand people, having extensive silk and cotton mills and locomotive
factories. The river describes a curve, forming the boundary of the
city for more than nine miles, on all sides excepting the south, and
its rapids and falls descend seventy-two feet, the falls being a most
picturesque cataract with fifty feet perpendicular descent. The town
was named after Governor William Paterson of New Jersey, who signed
its incorporation act July 4, 1792, the manufacturing corporation
projecting it having been formed under the auspices of Alexander
Hamilton.
The Passaic flows onward past Newark nine miles west of Jersey City,
another extensive and prosperous manufacturing city of two hundred and
fifty thousand inhabitants, turning out goods of all kinds with an
annual value of over $100,000,000. This city spreads far across the
flat surface above Newark Bay and adjoining the Passaic, and to the
northward its suburbs run up into the attractive hills of Orange.
Market Street is a fine highway through the business section, while a
large area is covered by comfortable and handsome residences, among
which passes Broad Street, its finest avenue, one hundred and
thirty-two feet wide, shaded by majestic trees, bordered with many
ornamental buildings, and skirting three attractive parks embowered
with elms. Newark is a great iron and steel centre, makes fine
jewelry, good carriages and excellent leather, and also brews much
lager beer. Yet few would suppose it had a strictly Puritan origin. In
1666, hearing the praises of East Jersey, a body of discontented men
of Connecticut, headed by their pastor, Abraham Pierson, journeyed to
the Passaic meadows and bought these lands from the Hackensack Indians
"for one hundred and thirty pounds, twelve blankets and twelve guns."
In early life the pastor had preached at Newark in England, for which
he had quite an affection, and he gave the Jersey settlement its name.
When Philadelphia was founded, the fame of Newark spread down there as
a producer of excellent cider and seductive Jersey apple jack. Its
most famous son of modern times was General Phil Kearney.
Five miles beyond Newark the diminutive Elizabeth River flows down to
the Kills, and here is the city of Elizabeth, with fifty thousand
people, noted as one of the handsomest of the Jersey towns. Like
Newark and Paterson, it is really an outlying suburb of New York,
providing homes for much of the overflow of population, who rush into
the metropolis for business every morning, and back again every
evening. Under the name of Elizabethport it spreads down to the Arthur
Kill, and over there are most of its factories and extensive
coal-shipping piers. The original settlement dates from 1665, when it
was named in honor of Lady Elizabeth, wife of Sir George Carteret, one
of the grantees of East Jersey. The early inhabitants were largely
Puritans, and its chief establishment is the extensive works of the
Singer Sewing Machine Company. Here was founded the College of New
Jersey, afterwards removed to Princeton, and a tablet marking the
original site was unveiled in 1897. A few miles beyond, another little
river flows down to the Kills, first named after old Rahwack, the
Indian sachem whose tribe owned the land thereabouts, and here is
another thriving town, Rahway, which is noted for its carriages. At
Menlo Park, nearby, the electrical inventor, Thomas A. Edison,
sustained by New York capital, toiled for years in seclusion to
perfect his discoveries, and developed the germ that has grown to
such vast proportions. The "Wizard of Menlo Park" afterwards located
his chief laboratory and his home at Newark. Then, crossing what are
known as the "Short Hills" westward, past many villages, among them
Metuchen, once the domain of Metuching, the Indian "King of the
Rolling Land," we come to the Raritan River, thirty-one miles from
Jersey City.
Here debouches the Delaware and Raritan Canal at New Brunswick, a city
of twenty-five thousand people. The Raritan flows through the red
shales and sandstones of Central New Jersey, generally a
chocolate-colored stream, and goes off to form Raritan Bay, fifteen
miles below. Factories cluster on the New Brunswick lowlands along the
river and canal, but there is a handsome town built upon the higher
grounds, encircling the lower and older portions like a crescent. The
Dutch came here from the Hudson River early in the eighteenth century
and found a village which had been started by some fishermen from Long
Island. They organized the town, naming it in honor of the Ducal House
of Brunswick. Its most prominent feature is Rutgers College, housed in
red sandstone buildings upon attractive grounds, alongside the
railway, a venerated foundation of the Dutch Reformed Church,
originally chartered by King George III. as "Queen's College," but
afterwards receiving the name of Rutgers from a benefactor in 1826. It
has an important adjunct in the New Jersey Agricultural College.
There is also the Dutch Reformed Theological Seminary, the first
established in America, and dating from 1771, its main building, also
named from its chief benefactor, being Hertzog Hall. An early
traveller, visiting New Brunswick in 1748, described it as "a pretty
little town with four churches;" and these quaint buildings are still
there, the ancient Christ Church being surrounded with the graves of
the first settlers. Eighteen miles to the southeast the Revolutionary
battle of Monmouth was fought in June, 1778, and a monument
commemorates it at Freehold (Monmouth Court-house). Sir Henry Clinton,
having evacuated Philadelphia, was marching towards New Brunswick,
intending to embark on the Raritan for New York. Washington, coming
from Valley Forge in pursuit, gave him battle. The day was very hot,
and the result was an uncertainty, General Charles Lee's misconduct,
for which Washington reprimanded him on the field, preventing a
victory, and at night the British withdrew quietly. Lee was afterwards
court-martialed and suspended from command for a year. Monmouth was
the scene of "Molly Pitcher's" famous exploit. She was Mary Hays of
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, wife of John Hays, a soldier in the First
Pennsylvania Artillery. Molly was with the army, and engaged in
bringing water to the battery, which was behind a hedgerow, her
husband managing one of the cannon. The British made a charge, and a
shot killing him, the officers, having no one to manage the gun,
ordered it withdrawn. Molly saw her husband fall and heard the order;
dropping her bucket, she seized the rammer and served the gun with
skill and dexterity. Next morning General Greene presented her to
General Washington, who conferred upon her the office of Sergeant. She
afterwards lived at Carlisle Barracks, and died there in 1823.