Hackensack River

“ Electric lines connect Hackensack with Newark, Passaic and Paterson, and with New York ferries. The town extends from the low bank of the river W. to the top of a ridge, about 40 ft. higher up, from which there are good views to the S. and E. Hackensack is principally a residential town, though there are a number of manufacturing establishments in and near it. Silk and silk goods and wall-paper are the principal manufactures. ”

“ The petition of intervention of Jersey City adopts the allegations of the complaint and shows that within its territorial limits it has much shore land on Newark Bay and the Hackensack river, which is a continuation of the bay, and that it owns lands on these waterfronts, on which it has expended large sums for the construction of wharves and other improvements. ”

“ The nobler river is, however, destined to become the Path of Commerce, the trail of the great white Foot of Civilization, while the little Hackensack, punctuated here and there with history of the Colonials and with midnight escapes and sorties, winding by old sandstone houses with ancient roofs, still keeps reticence, a lovely inaccessibility. Screened [Pg 148] by maples, green hemlocks and alders in some haunts, in others she is a broad tranquil sheet of green crystal or a copper sunset path that leads into vine-hung bowers or spreads out into bare flats where the reeds rear tasseled heads. ”

“ And be it enacted, That the bridges across the Hackensack river shall be so constructed as that one part thereof shall not be less than thirty feet over, to draw for the free passage of such vessels with standing masts as shall from time to lime have occasion to pass up and down the said river; and the said draws shall be so constructed, for the safe passage of vessels with standing masts, with piles, piers, and platforms on each side of the draws of the said bridges, as are in the bridges which are already built over the Hackensack river, for the free navigation of vessels through the same ”

“ People who like to dream geologic dreams of the figures and forms that moved in the long night of ancient Chaos are fond of tracing out some connection between the Hudson River and its neighbor, the woodland winding Hackensack. Not much narrower than the Tiber, and certainly wider than the little trickles that are left of the classic rivers of Greece, it has little personality for the general inhabitants of New York or New Jersey. ”

“ That day he crossed the river, and at the end of a car-line beyond Hackensack, walked for a half-hour. It was thus that Morning found his hill. Just a lifted corner of a broad meadow, with a mixed company of fine trees atop. He bought it before dusk. The dairyman’s farmhouse was a quarter-mile distant; the road, a hundred and fifty yards from the crest of the hill, with trees thinly intervening. The south was open to even wider fields; in the far distance to the west across the meadows, the sky was sharpened by a low ribbon of woods and hill-land. ”

“ But some of them may have seen you.”
“What’s the plan of campaign?” asked Patsy, as they crossed in a ferryboat to Hoboken.
“That will develop as we go on,” replied Nick. “Here’s a street car that will take us across the meadows—or as far as we want to go.”
The Hackensack meadows cover a very wide expanse in New Jersey, a little way back from the bay and Hudson River. They are called “meadows.” Really, they are marshes over most of their extent, and duck shooting and fishing are the uses most people make of them. ”

“ The West Shore railway, which has come up through the Hackensack Valley from Jersey City, emerges high on the western hills and runs gradually down to the river bank, so that the Hudson above has a railway on either shore. Alongside the Point, the Croton River flows in, the Reservoir being about six miles up that stream. It was off Teller's Point the British sloop "Vulture" anchored, when she brought André up from New York for his interview with Arnold. ”

“ These four elements regulate natural drainage. Each must present favorable conditions, or deadly waters will accumulate on the surface or in hidden strata. No plan of artificial drainage can be completely successful unless based on a thorough comprehension of the natural drainage system of the area under treatment. The region above the Palisades on the Hudson furnishes excellent illustration of these statements. The plateau fronts the river eastward with a bluff 300 feet high, and westward slopes gently to the Hackensack Valley. ”

“ WASHINGTON MARCHES DOWN THE RIVER ROAD. November 21, 1776, General Washington and the troops from Fort Lee left Hackensack by the Pollifly road, crossed over to the old Paramus road and reached the bridge at Acquackanonk (now the town of Passaic) about noon. Crossing there the bridge was destroyed to delay the pursuing British under Cornwallis. On the 22d Washington and 3,500 or more troops left Acquackanonk for Newark. The forces were divided, some going over the hill to Bloomfield, the others keeping down the River road and thus entering Newark. ”

“ Another good run is to start from Englewood, running direct to Hackensack—that is, as direct as the road will permit. The road-bed is good all the way. On reaching Hackensack, run southward through the town; then turn westward, and run out through Dundee to Paterson. From Paterson the road is in more or less good condition out towards Tuxedo, running through Ridgewood Junction, Ridgewood, Hohokus, Allendale, Ramseys, to Sufferns. Proceeding thence towards Tuxedo, or turning eastward and running through Tallmans, Monsey, Spring Valley, Nanuet, Clarksville, and West Nyack, to Nyack. ”

“ Just look at that yard of paint your old tub scraped off!"
"Such a careless lot shouldn't be trusted alone on the mighty deep," chuckled thin John Hackett, or "Hatchet," as he was sometimes called by the boys.
"I think you will admit, Nat, that you took a big risk in running right in front of us," expostulated Bob.
"Admit nothing," snapped Nat. "Next time, you'd better be more careful, or an awful lot of trouble will suddenly spring up. If this river isn't wide enough, you'd better put out a danger flag for the benefit of the canal-boats." ”

“ For a dozen miles beyond the Fox River end of the canal the river, as I have before said, is dredged out through the swamp like a big ditch. The artificial banks of sand and peat which line it are generally well grown with mare's-tail, beautiful clumps of wild roses, purple vetch, great beds of sensitive ferns, and masses of Pennsylvania anemone, while the pools are decked with water-anemone. Nature is doing her best to hide the deformities wrought by man. The valley is generally about a mile in width, ridges of wooded knolls hemming in the broad expanse of reeds and rice and willow clumps. ”

“ It would be pleasant to believe that this means that the natural and unassisted river system is going to continue to serve human needs in the future as it has served them heretofore—that after cleaning up the network of streams and ensuring against their repollution and the desecration of their landscape, men will be able to leave them respectfully alone to run down toward the Chesapeake Bay as they have run during and before human memory. ”

“ The north branch, 350 miles long, rises in Schuyler Lake in central New York; the west branch, 250 miles long, in the Alleghany Mountains. The two unite at Northumberland, Pa., and the river flows south to Harrisburg, southeast into Maryland and, after a further course of 150 miles, into the northern end of Chesapeake Bay. It is a shallow stream, much broken by rapids. In the spring immense quantities of lumber are floated down. ”

“ In our noble Hudson the construction of dams has not been so disastrous to its fishery, and although the shad formerly ascended to Glens Falls, and even to Saratoga Lake, their spawning grounds are now confined to beds in the river's course between Hudson and the Troy dam. ”

“ The northern mountainous section, which is not specially profitable for agriculture and other purposes, is particularly useful in furnishing sources of water supply. The many large cities in the northern part of the state draw their water from the upper parts of the Hackensack, Passaic, and Raritan basins. ”

“ It is still a tempting scheme, to tap the main artery of America, and allow modern vessels of burden to make the circuit between the lakes and the gulf. The Fox River is reasonably tractable, although this season the stage of water above Berlin has been hardly high enough to float a flat-boat. But the Wisconsin remains, despite the hundreds of wing-dams which line her shores, a fickle jade upon whom no reliance whatever can be placed. The current and the sand-banks shift about at their sweet will over a broad valley, and the pilot of one season would scarcely recognize the stream another. ”

“ The existence of tide-lands in the intersecting water in no respect affects the result. For illustration, in the measurement of a body of water like Long Island sound, when the Connecticut river is met the line of survey does not follow up that river to Hartford because the tide is felt at that place, but it crosses the mouth of the river from headland to headland. So, too, the measurement of Chesapeake bay does not include the Potomac river up to Washington because the tide is felt at the site of the capital. ”

“ The waters of these baby fountains are swollen by contributions from the streams, ponds, and lakes of the Adirondack wilderness, until along the banks of Fishing Brook, a tributary of the Hudson, the water is utilized at the first saw-mill. A few miles lower down the forests are vexed by the axe of the lumbermen, and logs are floated down the river one hundred miles to Glens Falls, where the State Dam and Great Boom are located. Half a million logs have been gathered there in a single spring. ”

“ I suppose that we stood into the river over the falling tide for five miles or more. Then Heidrek took to his oars, finding that he was chased in earnest, and Hakon did so likewise at once. It was a beautiful river, wide and clear, with great, green hills on either side, and thick forests at their feet. But never a boat on its waters, or man on its shores did we see. Only from each hilltop the smoke of the war beacons rose and eddied. ”

“ Three days later the rear crew ran into the head of the pond above Reed's dam. To every one's surprise, Orde called a halt on the work and announced a holiday.
Now, holidays are unknown on drive. Barely is time allowed for eating and sleeping. Nevertheless, all that day the men lay about in complete idleness, smoking, talking, sleeping in the warm sun. The river, silenced by the closed sluice-gates, slept also. The pond filled with logs. From above, the current, aided by a fair wind, was driving down still other logs—the forerunners of the little drive astern. ”

“ Crossing Hazel Creek, a small stream skirting the lower part of the place and emptying into the Rappahannock, the ground becomes very level, stretching out into a broad plateau, and traversed by the Bowling Green turnpike, running half a mile back from the river, and the Fredericksburg and Richmond railroad still further back. ”

“ A sloop, licensed and enrolled according to the navigation laws of the United States, broke and injured the dam, and thereupon an action was brought for damages by the company. The owners of the sloop set up that the river was a public and common navigable creek 'in the nature of a highway,' in which the tides had always flowed and reflowed, and in which there was and of right ought to be a common and public way for all the citizens of the state of Delaware and of the United States, with sloops and other vessels to navigate at all times of the year at their free will and pleasure ”

“ In terms of the overall good of the people of the metropolis and the Basin and the country, the water situation at Washington now and during the near future hardly bears a desperate enough aspect to warrant the sacrifice of much of the main flowing river to a reservoir which, like the freshwater estuary, could not be meshed with upstream needs but would serve only the urban areas at and below the Fall Line. ”

“ The United States contends that Nebraska's equitable share of natural flow water should be limited to that which is in fact being diverted and used by any or all of the designated canals within the specified limitations in acre-feet and second-feet. It is said that these provisions of the proposed decree are the operative provisions which determine the amount of natural flow to be passed into the Whalen-Tri-State Dam section of the river. ”

“ Whenever land can be reclaimed for agriculture or grazing on the flanks of the mountains and in the protected valleys and parks, it is done, so that the district has extensive irrigation canals, in some parts diverting practically all the available flow of water in the streams. This is particularly the case with the Upper Arkansas River, such diversion of the headwaters 464 in Colorado having robbed the river of its water to such a degree that the people of Kansas, whither it flows on its route to the Mississippi, are greatly annoyed and have protracted litigation about it. ”

“ Where it falls into the sea it is fully a mile broad; at Harrisburg it is nearly of the same breadth, and from three to five feet deep. There are seven falls in this river, which, with the numerous islands and rocks, render it navigable only for a few miles by large vessels.
The River Potomac rises on the north-west side of the Alleghany Mountains, and after running a north-east course of sixty miles to Cumberland, is joined eighteen miles below, by a branch coming from the south-west. ”