Jersey City
And Its
Historic Sites

"Perhaps a remembrance of these things will prove a source of future pleasure".
"These who have insured their remembrance by their deserts."—Virgil.

CONTENTS

From the Minutes of the Literature Committee of the Woman's Club of Jersey City.

At a meeting of the Committee January 5th, 1898, one of the subjects for the day was "Jersey City's Old Landmarks." In the discussion that followed, Miss M. Louise Edge moved that Mrs. Eaton be requested to write a short history of Jersey City, to be published by the Club: the proceeds of which to be used to erect memorial tablets on historic sites of the Colonial and Revolutionary periods.

At the meeting of October 12th, 1898, Mrs. Eaton made the following report:

Madam Chairman and Ladies of the Literature Committee:

I take pleasure in reporting that in accordance with the request of this Committee embodied in the motion made by Miss M. Louise Edge upon January 5th, 1898, I have prepared the story of Jersey City. My authorities have been: Winfield's History of Hudson County, The Jersey City Journal's History of Jersey City, Colonial and City Records, Versteeg's Translation of the Deacons Accounts of the Bergen Church, Taylor's Annals of the Classis and Township of Bergen, and numerous descendants of the old colonial families,—the Van Reypens, Van Horns, Van Winkles, Sips, Newkirks and many others, to all of whom I am greatly indebted. Also to Dr. Brett, who has kindly assisted me with his great store of historic data.

I wish particularly to express my great indebtedness to Mr. C. C. Van Reypen, who, with his wonderful memory and knowledge of Bergen, has been of invaluable assistance to me.

Respectfully submitted,

Harriet Phillip Eaton

SHEYICHBI AND ITS PEOPLE.

Before the white race came to America, the locality now known as Jersey City, was occupied by a branch of the Minsi division of the Lenni Lenape Nation of the Red Men, and was called Sheyichbi. The whole of the present state of New Jersey belonged to the Lenape, and was occupied by bands bearing different names according to the special features of the locality, but all recognizing their unity as one people. Those who lived here, along the western shore of the New York Bay, extending to the sea, were known as the Wapings, or Pomptons, and were the first of the Lenape to meet the white man when Verrazano visited this harbor in 1524. Their last home was along the Raritan river. The name Lenni Lenape means "Men of our Nation," and they claimed to be the oldest nation and root of the great Algonkin stock, which, in its various divisions, with forty distinct dialects, occupied this continent from Hudson's Bay to South Carolina, and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi and the great plains, with the exception of a portion east of the Lakes where the Huron Iroquois dwelt. The other Algonkin nations were spoken of by them as "children," "Grandchildren," or "younger brothers," and to them was always accorded the respectful title of "grandfathers." Their traditions taught them that they came from Shinaki, the "Land of the Fir Trees," which was probably north of Lake Superior, and in their migrations they came upon the Cherokees, probably in the ninth or tenth century of our era, with whom they fought one hundred years for possession of the Ohio Valley. Finally the Cherokees went south and the Lenape eventually, in the eleventh or twelfth century, made their home in the mountainous region of the head waters of the Delaware river. Their hunting grounds included lands now in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. In 1758, New Jersey paid them $5,000 for their lands in this State.

They were called by the western nations Wapenachki,—"People of the Rising of the Sun." The name Delaware was given to them and one of their rivers, after Lord de la Ware, which they at first resented but accepted it after being told that he was a great "Brave." In character they were a noble spirited but gentle, kindly people, and all the early writers concur in testimony to their hospitality. Each family lived in its separate wigwam, a wattled hut with rounded top, thatched with mats woven of corn leaves, sweet flag, or bark of trees. These were built in groups and usually surrounded with palisades of small tree trunks firmly planted in the ground, sometimes two or three rows, interlaced, and from twenty to thirty feet in height. Their clothing was made of deer skin, soft and pliable and beautifully embroidered with wampum beads or dyed porcupine quills. In some of the arts they had attained great skill, excelling in dressing deer skins and in feather work; carved stone, made ornaments of shell and a rude pottery, some in the shape of animals. They recognized the value of the Trenton clays and Indian potters used them for centuries before the white men came. While their weapons and utensils were principally of stone, they also used copper, both native New Jersey ore and that brought from Lake Superior, which they deftly hammered into shape. Old mining holes and Indian tools have been found between Elizabethtown and New York. Bowls were carved from wood and from soap-stone, kettles were made of the latter which would hold from ten to twelve gallons. They used both vegetable and mineral paints and dyes; were very expert fishermen and hunters.

They were accurate in computing time and had some astronomical knowledge; women and children could give names to many of the stars, and their year began with the first moon after the February moon. The time for planting was calculated by the rising of Taurus in a certain quarter. To this constellation they gave the name of a mythical great horned beast. They had a word for year, and counted their ages and sequence of events by yearly periods, but recognized only twelve moons in the year. They kept a record of the years by adding a black bead of wampum for each year in a belt kept for the purpose. Their picture writing was scratched on stones or cut or painted on bark or wood. It was a record of current events, the past history of the nation, and in memory of famous men, events, and actions of note. They also recorded abstract ideas, as, when an Indian gave William Penn a drawing of the "Great Man" within a series of concentric circles as their idea of God. These picture writings were understood and could be read by the various branches of the Algonkin stock. Bunches of slender sticks notched or painted were also used as records.

In religion, they worshipped Light and its representatives, the Sun, Fire—"a special messenger to the Sun," the Four Winds—"Bringers of rain and sunshine," and Totemic Animals. "Light was the body or fountain of Deity," something "All Light, a Being in whom the earth and all things in it may be seen; a Great Man clothed with the day, yea, with the brightest day, a day of many years, yea, a day of everlasting continuance. From Him proceeded, in Him were, to Him returned all things, and the souls of all things." This was their faith taught by their Priests, called "Powow," meaning dreamer. They interpreted dreams and claimed to have visions which foretold future events. They believed in reincarnation and that the pure in heart might recall former lives. There were traces of the survival of Serpent worship among the people of this locality. Cast-off serpent skins were believed to have wonderful curative properties and supplications were offered to them. In 1683 Penn said there were ten divisions of the Lenape, numbering about six thousand souls, but they soon began to decrease from disease, massacres and migrations. The New Jersey Indians rapidly died out, Peter Kalm said,—"Smallpox had destroyed increditable numbers, but brandy had killed most of the Indians."

ARRIVAL OF THE DUTCH.

In the fall of 1609, Hendrik Hudson anchored the "Half Moon" off Communipaw, and the simple natives met him and said "Behold the Gods have come to visit us." Little they dreamed of the long sequence of evil results which would follow his coming and the introduction he gave them to "rum," the most potent destroyer of their race. When Hendrik Hudson anchored off Communipaw, where lower Jersey City now stands, it was largely salt marsh, and the heights above were crowned with heavy forests.

When he first came within Sandy Hook and gained his first view of Jersey shores he pronounced it a "very good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see." Later the country about Communipaw he thought "as pleasant a land as one need tread upon." He found an Indian village near the shore called Gemoenepa and another at Hackensack. It is said that Summit Avenue follows a part of the trail or path connecting the two villages. Hudson found the natives along the west shore, from Sandy Hook to Weehawken, friendly and generous; they brought him oysters, corn and fruits. Of the beauty of these people Verrezano, who visited New York Bay in 1524, was quite enthusiastic and declares of two chiefs that "they were more beautiful in form and feature than can possibly be described." He said that "the women greatly resemble the Antique, of the same form and beauty, very graceful, of fine countenance and pleasing appearance in manners and modesty." The early writers all unite in describing these people as "generous, giving away whatever they had," also as "being sumptuously clothed in embroidered deer skins wrought in damask figures," and that the women wore more ornamental clothing than the men.

Van Der Donck says that the "wampum with which a woman's skirt was embroidered was frequently worth from one to three hundred guilders." They wore, also, wampum embroidered caps and head bands, the latter worn across the forehead and tied behind in a "beau's knot." Many earrings and curiously wrought necklaces and bracelets, with various colored feathers in their hair were worn by both men and women. Wampum and "seawant" as it was also called, were the Indian terms for beads made from clam shells. By the primitive methods of the Indians the beads were difficult to make, being ground down on grooved stones, and pierced by a sharp splinter of flint fastened in one end of a reed, the other end being slowly revolved upon the right thigh while the bead to be pierced was held between the thumb and forefinger of the left hand. The beads were usually from 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch in length, and because of the difficulty of manufacture they became one of the most valuable Indian possessions and to a certain extent a standard of value. Long Island, called by the Indians Sewan-hackey—land of shells—which was inhabited by branches of the Lenni Lenape family was the great center of wampum manufacture. There were specialists who devoted their time to making wampum. It was largely used by all of the eastern Indians, not alone for embroidery and ornamentation, but in record belts which were used in their treaties. The two colors, white and purple, being wrought into figures which were mnemonic and enabled the "wampum keepers" to remember the words of the speech which were "talked into" the belt presented at the time. It was used in bunches of strings, strung in a certain manner, to represent the hereditary Chieftain name, and from the convenience of carrying it, it had become nearer to being a recognized currency than anything else of value among the Indians. Therefore it was used among the white colonists all along the coast, not only for the Indian trade but among themselves until late in the 18th century. They gave it a corresponding value to their own currency. At one time four black and eight white beads equalled a stiver, but in 1673 the Governor and Council of New Jersey decreed that henceforth three purple and six white wampum beads should equal one stiver or an English penny; twenty stivers, a guilder. As currency it was usually carried in strings, one hundred and fifty in a string, a "fathom of wampum" is often mentioned by early writers, and it was also used loose. The following list will show the value in "seewan" of the kinds of money mostly received by the Deacons of Bergen:

The Dutch early manufactured wampum at Hackensack, turning it upon a lathe; this manufacture was continued until late in this century.

During the French and English war the Delawares joined the French. In 1776 they joined the Federal cause and fought with us in the Revolutionary war. In their relations with Penn's colonists "they showed" to quote Dr. Brinton, "a sense of honor and regard for pledges equal at least to that of the white race." From 1782 to 1795 there was a bitter war between the white people and the Lenape owing to the desire of the whites to possess the Indian lands, which resulted in three cruel massacres of Christian Indians, and of the removal of the Lenape, first to Ohio, next to Kansas, and last to the Indian Territory. "In this long contest," as Dr. Brinton says, "the history of the relations of the white race with the Lenape is not one calculated to reflect glory upon the superior civilization and Christianity of the white race." In the war of 1863-65, one-half of the adult population of the Lenape officered by their own men were in the volunteer service of the United States. "No State in the Union furnished so many men for our armies from the same ratio of population as did the Lenape nation." The old men, women and children worked the farms and while the men were away fighting for the Union their white neighbors stole from them $20,000 worth of stock.

Of our Indian predecessors in this region the only trace remaining is in a few corrupted names of localities:

Hackensack, from Ackensack—low land.

Secaucus, from Siskakes or Sikakes—the place where the snake hides. The Indian name for Snake Hill, now transferred to the upland between Pinhorne Creek and Hackensack river.

Weehawken, from Awiehaken—at the end of (the Palisades.)

Hoboken, from Hopoghan Hackingh—the land of the tobacco pipe. At this point they procured the stone from which they carved their pipes. It was a piece of upland called by the Indians, an island with salt marsh lying between it and the Hill.

Harsimus, from Ahasimus, the meaning is now lost; it was another bit of upland lying south of Hopoghan.

Communipaw, from Gemoenepa, the meaning is not known.

Navesink—a good fishing place.

PAVONIA.

On July 12th, 1630, Mr. Michael Pauw, Burgomaster of Amsterdam and Lord of Achtienhover, near Utrecht, obtained through the Directors and Councillors of New Netherlands, a deed from the Indians to the land called Hopoghan Hackingh, this being the first deed recorded in New Netherlands. On November 22nd, of the same year, the same parties procured from the Indians a deed to Mr. Pauw of Ahasimus and Aresick (burying-ground), the peninsula later called Paulus Hook. These were the first conveyance by deed of any land in East Jersey. To these tracts Pauw gave the name Pavonia from the Latinized form of his own name, Pauw in the Dutch and Pavo in Latin meaning Peacock. When the first settlement was formed or the first house built is unknown. In May, 1633, Michael Poulaz or Paulusson, an officer in the service of the Company, was living at Pavonia. He probably occupied a hut on the Point which received from him the name of Paulus Hook. In the latter part of 1633, two houses thatched with reeds were built, one at Ahasimus, near what is now the corner of Fourth and Henderson streets, and the other at Communipaw. So far as is known these were the first regular buildings in this county.

Paulusson had charge of the trade with the Indians and was Superintendent of Pavonia. He was succeeded in 1634 by Jan Evertsen Bout, who selected the house at Communipaw for his home, and was the first white resident there; this farm which Bout leased after Pauw had sold his rights to the Company, was known as Bout's farm, and included all of the upland lying between Communipaw Creek, where the Abattoir stands, on the south, and the meadows where the engine house of the Central railroad stands, or Maple street, on the north. Later the Governor, General Kieft, and the Council gave him a patent for this farm. The house was burned in 1643. It was in commemoration of Jan Evertsen Bout that the circular hill and section of upland at the mouth of Mill Creek was named Jan de Lacher's (or John the Laugher's) Hook. In 1636 Cornelis Van Vorst became Superintendent of Pauw's property and lived in the house built by Pauw at Ahasimus. For several years there was trouble between the Company and Pauw, which was finally settled by the Company paying to Pauw 26,000 florins for his interest in Pavonia.

In February, 1643, about a thousand Indians fleeing from the Mohawks came to the Dutch for protection. They were encamped on the upland near the present intersection of Pine street and Johnston avenue. Here, on the night of February 25th, a party of Dutch soldiers, by order of Governor Kieft, murdered and brutally mutilated a large number of men, women and children. The sickening details of this massacre by white Christians cannot be surpassed by the records of savage races. This led to serious troubles; all the Indians united and for a year and a half made war upon the Dutch. They burned the house at Ahasimus in which the widow and family of Van Vorst lived. A portion of the farm-house built on the site of this first house was still in existence in 1895. Between 1649 and 1655, there were quite a number of patents for lands issued, principally to soldiers, at Communipaw, and as far down as the present town of Greenville, and there were quite a number of flourishing farms at Hoboken, Ahasimus, Paulus Hook and Communipaw. The land upon which they lived was known as Bouweries, and the outlying farms as plantations. At that time the land known as Kavans Point, below Communipaw, extended farther into the bay. Winfield states that "within the present century the waters of the bay have encroached over 200 feet, and that a cherry orchard once stood where fishermen now stake their nets."

In 1655, an Indian girl stole some peaches from a farm near the present site of Trinity Church, New York, and was shot by the farmer. On the night of September 15th, 1655, five hundred Indians made a night attack upon New Amsterdam, being repulsed, they crossed the river and set fire to every house in Pavonia. Twenty-eight farms and outlying plantations with crops and buildings were all destroyed. Of the settlers one hundred were killed, one hundred and fifty were taken prisoners and three hundred were left homeless. For five years the settlements were practically abandoned. According to the Indian laws the title to the lands was again vested in them by right of conquest. In 1658 the Indians made a new deed of the territory to the Dutch. The former settlers who were about to return to their farms asked for exemption from taxes that they might be able to put their farms in order. The petition was granted on condition of their building a fortified village. In February, 1660, a decree was issued ordering all farmers to move their houses into groups, that might be protected by palisades or stockades, from six to seven feet above the ground. Indian stockades always were of tree trunks, as are those of the Hudson Bay Company to this day. Probably the early Dutch were also, although the later stockades may have been of heavy plank.

COMMUNIPAW.

On September 8th, 1660, Jaques Cortelyou was ordered to survey Gemoenepa and lay it out into village lots. The village site fronted on the Bay, was two hundred feet deep and extended from what is now Communipaw avenue on the north to the Bay Shore House on the south. The Council ordered that the village should be stockaded, but there seems to have been numerous delays, for in June, 1663, Gerrit Gerritsen, Harman Smeeman and Dirck Claussen were appointed commissioners to fortify Gemoenepa. May 9th, 1661, Egbert Sandersen and Jan Theunissen, inhabitants of Midwout and Amersfoort, L. I., petitioned for leave to erect a saw-mill on a stream at Gemoenepa and move their families there and for a lot of land for each. The request was granted and probably they erected a mill below the Point of Rocks on the stream formerly called the Creek of the Woods and "Creek of the High Woodlands." In papers of 1671, the mill is mentioned as the "Mill of Hossemus;" probably from this mill the creek received its name of Mill Creek. Later Priors Mill was built upon this site and remained until removed and the creek filled in when the cut was made for the Pennsylvania railroad in 1837. In October, 1661, Sandersen asked permission to erect a saw-mill on Showhank Brook; this creek had its rise in an Indian spring in West Hoboken; it ran south until it reached the point where New York avenue crosses Palisade avenue; thence it turned down the hill through a wild ravine and emptied into Mill Creek. There was a saw-mill on this stream at the foot of the hill, until it was destroyed by fire in 1835.

The first legalized ferry across to Manhattan Island was established at the foot of Communipaw avenue when the village of Bergen was started in the fall of 1660 by William Jansen. The boats were periaugers, the old Spanish pirouge, pointed at both ends, with two masts, but no bowsprit. When horses and carriages were to be transported they were detached and lifted into the boat. The Governor General and Council fixed the rates. Jansen had much trouble, he claimed the exclusive right to transport people and goods to Nieu Amsterdam and objected to people crossing in their own boats. He complained to the authorities at Nieu Amsterdam and the people brought a counter charge against him for refusing to ferry people across; judgment was rendered January, 1663, that "the Sheriff must assist him in getting his pay and that he must do his duty or be discharged." He and his successors ran regular boats three times a week. In 1669 Governor Carteret issued a license to Peter Hetfelsen to run a ferry from Communipaw to New York with a list of the rates to be charged; all of which were payable in wampum. "Any person, letter, packett or message of public business, and the Governor and his family were to be carried free." Hetfelsen was succeeded in 1672 by John Tymensen under the same conditions. From that date there is no mention of the ferry until 1783 when Aaron Longstreet and Company advertised that "constant attendance was given by the boats at the ferry stairs, near the Exchange, at 3 p. m. to bring passengers to Communipaw where the Newark stage would be ready to convey them to Newark and thence by the Excellent New York and Philadelphia Running Machines in one day to Philadelphia."

The first road built in this county was from Communipaw to Bergen in the fall of 1660. It ran along the present Communipaw avenue to Summit avenue, then northerly along Summit avenue to Academy street; thence westerly to Bergen. It was called the "Off-fall" road, from the stream that ran from Tuers pond and fell over a ledge of rock at the present intersection of Grand street and Communipaw avenue. Until Grand street was extended across the marsh in 1848 the people from Communipaw and along to Bergen Point could only reach Jersey City by way of Bergen, and the Priors Mill road or Newark avenue; where Monticello avenue now is was a marsh until comparatively recent times. On November 24th, 1790, the Legislature appointed five commissioners to locate and build bridges across the Hackensack and Passaic and lay out a road four rods wide from the Newark Court House to Paulus Hook. They were authorized to raise by lottery £27,000, part of which was to aid in completing the road, part to build a bridge over the Raritan, and part in providing suitable buildings for the Legislature.