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THE average American citizen knows less about Newark than he does about any other point of equal interest in the United States.

This statement will take the average American citizen by surprise, and the mere fact that it will, is, in some sense, proof of its correctness. He does not even know that Newark possesses any interest. His first impulse is to pish at such a statement. He will demand to know what there is worthy of the average American citizen's attention in a little suburban city-or village, if it is a village-he is not entirely certain even on that pointnine or ten miles from the great American metropolis, and used principally as an out-of-town residence for New-Yorkers. This being the extent and accuracy of his information about Newark, no wonder that he pishes at my statement. That was, in fact, very nearly my own idea of Newark two weeks previous to the moment at which I am penning this article. I knew that one or two pleasant writers made it their home, and that General Phil Kearny's chateau was somewhere in the vicinity; and the fact that Newark held in its bosom Marion Harlan, Miss Douglas, and the editor of the NORTHERN MONTHLY, was sufficient to make the town interesting to a degree.

But, when it is known that Newark is a city of about one hundred thousand inhabitants, and therefore the tenth city of the Union in population; that it is the third city of the Union in manufacturing importance; that it is the chief city of the State of New-Jersey; that its manufactories are about eight hundred in number, employing a capital of ten or eleven millions of dollars, and turning out annually manufactures to the value of twenty-one millions; that it has a most interesting local history, running through two centuries of time; and that it is physically one of the most beautiful spots the eye ever rested on-our average American citizen may well begin to question whether he is altogether authorized in pishing at the opening sentence of this paper. He may think it possibly worth while not to pass the present pages by as giving promise only of dullness. He may conclude that it will be time well employed if he shall listen for an hour to the desultory gossip about Newark here offered.

Two hundred years ago, Newark was settled by a number of Puritan families from the "land of wooden nutmegs." It is unnecessary to enter into an explanation of the precise nature of the disturbances that had arisen in the New-Haven and Connecticut colonies, as they were called, leading some of their most prominent men to look about for a new field of action, where they could pursue the even tenor of their simple lives without hinderance. The same spirit animated these worthy men in settling here that inspired the breasts of the pilgrim fathers who landed at Plymouth Rock long before-the spirit of religious freedom. Religion was the foundation-stone of Newark. When the settlement was made, it was first called merely "Our Town on Passaick River," but subsequently it was baptized New-Ark. A pleasing fancy accredits this name to a poetic idea—that in this New Ark the families who sought it were to find a refuge not unlike that which Noah found in the ark of Scripture; and it is entirely possible that such a conceit may have passed through the minds of some among the original settlers; but the direct derivation of the name is from Newark, in England, with which town the minister of this congregation, and the leading man in their temporal as well as spiritual concerns, at one time in his life had to do.

During the first half-century following the discovery of the country by Hendrik Hudson, the Dutch settlers had occupied a no more extensive portion of New-Jersey than the peninsula lying

between the Hudson and Hackensack rivers. Until 1665, no white man yet dwelt in the broad domain lying west of the Hackensack, and called by the Dutch "Achter Col." The Indians held undisturbed possession. Yet that some thought had been turned to the region by the then inhabitants of the country is clear enough from the records. In 1661, the Dutch authorities had given permission to a company of honest men," as they were termed, living on Long Island, to visit this domain, with the apparent purpose of seeing whether it would please them, in which case they intended to "sit downe ther to make a plantation." But it is probable that these "honest men," unlike the good Puritans who shortly after purchased New-Ark from the Indians, did not wish to pay the dusky lords of the wilderness an honest price for the privilege of "sitting downe;" the Indians drove them away, and nothing came of their purpose of "making a plantation." But, in November of the same year, old Hard-Koppig Peter Stuyvesant, Governor of New-Amsterdam, received a letter. The receiving of a letter, in those days, was no unimportant matter at any time, even for a governor. But this letter was from Milford, in the land of those haters and hated of the Dutch, the Yankees, and from this letter came Newark ultimately. Peter the Headstrong learned from it that there were men in the New-Haven colony who wanted to settle in the back-lands of "Achter Col." It was from the goose-quill of the deputy governor of that colony, and talked about "a Companie of Considerable that came into N. E. that they might serve God wth a pure conscience and enjoy such liberties and priueledges both Ciuill and Ecclesiasticall as might best advantage unto, and strengthen them in the end and worke aforesaid, wch also through the mercy of God they have enjoyed for more than twentie yeares together; and the Lord haueing blessed them wth posterities so that their numbers are encreased & they being desirous to p'uide for their posterities so as their outward comfortable subsistence and their soulles welfare might in the use of suitable means thorough the blessing of the Almighty be attained." The propositions of this letter were in the main agreed to, but there were some slight restrictions of a political character which the New-Haven people did not like, and so the proposed settlement was delayed. But matters continued to grow so much worse with the little colonies that in a few

* Matthew Gilbert.

months the subject was again taken up, and at last, in 1666, the settlement of Newark was made.

The influence of its early settlers upon the character of a future town was perhaps never more forcibly illustrated than in the case of Newark. The seed those early Puritans sowed is fruitful to this day. So far as relates to the material prosperity of Newark -its great manufactories, its wealth, its architectural pride-the intellectual activity of the present generation, as has been sug gested by the historian par excellence of New-Jersey,* is no doubt the grand agent; but the "firm substratum of religion and morality" was laid two hundred years ago. It is not too much to say, I am convinced, that there is no sizable city, or even village, in the whole land that is so orderly, so moral, so void of the worst haunts of vice elsewhere customary, as is Newark. There is not a confessed house of ill-fame in the city. Neither is there a single gambling-hell. The police force is a small one-not quite one officer for every thousand inhabitants; but there is a police force of Public Opinion that wields a weapon more powerful than the practical policeman's locust-one whose somewhat "apostolic blows and knocks" there is no withstanding. The wretch who dares to open a sink of sin in Newark is pounced upon sans ceremonie, and his race is run almost before he has left the goal. In other ways, the fact is illustrated that the stern morality of the old settlers lives its deathless life in the present generation. The Christian Sabbath is held in the profoundest reverence; a sacred stillness broods over the town; no petty shops are open; no horse-cars tinkle their bells through the shaded streets; the profane locomotive shrieks not. There is even very little private riding or driving in the smoothly graded thoroughfares, so strongly does public opinion set against the practice. Seventyfive churches lift their spires skyward, and on Sunday their bells resound in many-toned music on the quiet air; the voice of prayer and praise arises heavenward from every quarter of the town; the people almost all gather under the consecrated roofs.

With those old settlers who "began to plant"-to use their own quaint term-two hundred years ago, and planted other seed than that which brought them yearly harvest, their church was

* William A. Whitehead, to whom I am mainly indebted for my acquaintance with Newark's early history.

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