Newark-on-Trent

“ From here a second ridge is developed parallel with the Lincoln Wold, and between the Wold and the Trent, the ground rising from Bottesford to Scunthorpe, reaching a height of 220 feet on the east bank of the Trent near Burton-on-Stather and thence descending by Alkborough to the Humber at Whitton. The Trent which, roughly speaking, from Newark, and actually from North Clifton to the Humber, bounds the county on the west, runs through a low country of but little interest, overlooked for miles from the height which is crowned by Lincoln Minster. ”

“ NEWARK, nū′ẽrk, or NEWARK-UPON-TRENT. A municipal borough and market-town of Nottinghamshire, England, on a navigable branch of the Trent, 16 miles southwest of Lincoln (Map: England, F 3) . Newark is one of the most important malting towns in England, and has flour mills, breweries, manufactu7res of agricultural implements and boilers, gypsum and limestone quarries, and a trade in corn, malt, and flour. The corn market is one of the largest in the kingdom. ”

“ The famous Raskolniki schismatics had a similar superstition to the Mahometan one mentioned above. They considered the divine image in man to reside in the beard.
DOLE IN CONSEQUENCE OF A DREAM.
At Newark-upon-Trent, a curious custom, founded upon the preservation of Alderman Clay and his family by a dream has prevailed since the days of Cromwell. On 11th March every year, penny-loaves are given away to every one who chooses to appear at the Town Hall and apply for them, in commemoration of the Alderman's deliverance, during the siege of Newark by the Parliamentary forces. ”

“ He proceeded to Southwell, and continued his march in the direction of the Trent; and he appears to have crossed that river at Fiskerton, which in the summer time is shallow, and easily fordable by men and horses. As Newark p. 180was preoccupied by the King’s army, Fiskerton was the only safe place near Southwell, where the earl’s forces could pass the Trent. After crossing the river, they took up a position on the elevated ground to the southward of, and overlooking, the little village of East Stoke, in Nottinghamshire. ”

“ There are two fine stone crosses at Newark: the market-place is a spacious square: the church is very large and handsome, with a very high steeple. [95]
90
A Prospect of Ad Pontem upon the Eminence. A Mile South on the Foss. Sep. 7. 1722.
W. Stukeley delin.
E. Kirkall sculp.
a. Old work Spring. b. the Foss c. a Tumulus RR. the Roman City.
From Newark the Foss passes by Queen’s Sconce, one of the great forts erected in the civil wars, and so along the Trent side by Stoke, famous for a battle, and an inn called the Red inn. ”

“ Iron ore is abundant—copper, lead, coal, and freestone are found in considerable quantities. Manufactures of iron, cotton, and leather, are carried on to a considerable amount.
Trenton is the capital of the state. It is situated on the Delaware river, and is on the great route of travel between New York and Philadelphia. It is celebrated as the scene of one of the most brilliant battles fought by the Americans during the revolution. Princeton is also noted for a battle.
Newark contains more inhabitants than any other town in the state, its population being about 11,000. ”

“ He had summoned the whole force of the south and west of England to join him in London, and he intended to appear himself at their head. He directed Norfolk, therefore, to observe the greatest caution; by all means to avoid a battle, unless with a certainty of victory; and “the chances of war being so uncertain,” he said, “many times devices meant for the best purpose turning to evil happs and notable misfortunes,” he advised that rather than there should be any risk incurred, the duke should fall back on the line of the Trent, fortify Newark and Nottingham, and wait on his own arrival ”

“ I was in Newark just in time to be too late for the morning train for Morristown. Newark is beautiful and eligible in location, and a thriving city; but it has only a few scraps of Revolutionary history, exclusively its own, for the entertainment of an inquirer. The village contained about one thousand inhabitants at that time. British, republicans, and Hessians were alternately billeted upon the people; and, being on the line of travel from New York to Brunswick and Trenton, its monotony was often broken by the passage of troops. ”

“ Fearon made several excursions into the state of New Jersey, situated opposite to that of New York, and on the southern side of the river Hudson. The valleys abound in black oaks, ash, palms, and poplar trees. Oak and hickory-nut trees grow in situations which are overflowed. The soil is not considered prolific. Newark is a manufacturing town, in this province, of considerable importance, and delightfully situated. It contains many excellent houses, and a population of about eight thousand persons, including slaves. ”

“ The land is clayey in many parts. A pleasant country; a variety of hill and valley; but not that richness which we had so long had under our eye: fields smaller; fewer sheep, [Pg 540] and those not so large, and so manifestly loaded with flesh. The roads always good. Newark is a town very much like Nottingham, having a very fine and spacious market-place; the buildings everywhere good; but it is in the villages that you find the depth of misery. ”

“ That the hand of man has desecrated it all those who knew its woodlands and waterways twenty-five or more years ago can readily testify, but one of its good points even man cannot reach, and that is its climate, for it is the coolest part of Newark. This in former times was unconsciously testified to by the drivers of the old horse cars, who were in the habit of shedding their coats upon arrival at the cemetery from the north, there to hide them among the bushes, and again resume them on the return trip to Second river. ”

“ The part over the channel is contrived to draw up, and on each side is a footway guarded by rails, and ornamented with lamps. Elizabeth Town and Newark, which you afterwards pass through in succession, are both of them cheerful lively looking places: neither of them is paved. Newark is built in a straggling manner, and has very much the appearance of a large English village: there is agreeable society in this town. ”

“ Abraham Pierson, their minister, who having in early life preached in Newark, England, gave that name to the new town. Their object seems to have been to establish a Puritan community, to be administered under the laws of God, by members of the church, on strictly democratic principles. The settlers laid out the town plat of Newark, with its spacious streets and parks as they now exist. During the revolution the town was successively occupied by the American and British troops, and was subject to incursions from New York. ”

“ Near the ruins a large old timber mill makes another landmark of these watery meadows, overlooked from the north by a bank bearing up the little church of Pyrford, with its faded wall paintings and like hints of antiquity.
Lying some two or three miles by sandy roads from Woking or from Byfleet stations, Newark is perhaps oftener visited by way of Ripley, a mile to the south, a pleasant village about a spacious green, where the “Talbot” and the “Anchor” have taken a new lease through the favour of cyclists. ”

“ Mary Magdalene, partly rebuilt in the time of Henry VI., and recently restored, is one of the largest and finest churches in the kingdom. Newark has a spacious market place, a town hall, grammar school, public charities, and a large trade in corn, coal, cattle, wool, and especially malt and flour. ”

“ So close to Jersey City that we were scarcely aware that it was separated from it by a few fields, we came to Newark, a great town of brick and wood houses, chimneys, factories, and churches, containing more than 120,000 people, and as we ran through the streets we got glimpses of some fine-looking buildings, of which we have nothing more to say. ”

“ We were offered our choice of several dingy rooms, but a glance at the time-worn furnishings and unattractive beds convinced us that if this were Newark's best hotel we did not care to spend the night in Newark. To the profound disgust of the landlady—nearly all hotels in England are managed by women—we took our car from the garage and sought more congenial quarters, leaving, I fear, anything but a pleasant impression behind us. We paused a few minutes at the castle, which is the principal object of antiquity in Newark. ”

“ The city occupies an area of about 181⁄2 square miles on a generally level plain. Toward the west, however, the ground rises, affording the beautiful sites of a popular residential district. Though Newark contains the homes of many business men of New York, it has distinct individuality as a manufacturing city, and many members of its industrial and commercial community find homes in the beautiful surrounding suburbs of the Oranges, Montclair, Caldwell, Irvington, and other places with which the city is connected by a network of electric railways. ”

“ The first perception of this startling fact, according to a newspaper account, came in a very strange, roundabout way to a man living on the outskirts of the vast area of made ground where the great city had spread over what was formerly the Newark meadows and Newark Bay. ”

“ It is uneven, and is rendered bumpy by the constant road bars. The country grows more hilly, and the towns are beginning to change character. Newark is an attractive little city, standing rather high. "Old Washington" has very old red brick houses, and St. ”

“ Here, as everywhere, are displayed the lavish deposits of the "Trenton gravel" as the railway passes under the streets, and even under the Delaware and Raritan Canal, to its depressed station alongside Assunpink Creek of Revolutionary memory, the chief part of the city spreading far to the northward. Trenton is as old as Philadelphia, its reputed founder being Mahlon Stacy, who came up from Burlington Friends' Meeting, while the settlement was named 212 for William Trent, an early Jersey law-maker. ”

“ Besides the churches, the most noteworthy buildings are the custom house, city hall, and several of the banks and insurance buildings. Newark has ample means of communication with New York, Philadelphia, and the surrounding country, railroad trains running to New York every few minutes through the day. The lines are the New Jersey, Newark and New York, Morris and Essex, Newark and Elizabeth, Paterson and Newark, Newark and Bloomfield, Newark and Hudson, Newark and Clinton, and Montclair railroads. ”

“ Historic Newark is presently reached and passed,—a busy, contented town, smiling through the sunshine and mist, and as it fades in the distance I remember that we are leaving Lincoln, with its glorious cathedral, to the southeast, and to the west Newstead Abbey, Annesley, Southwell, and Hucknall-Torkard,—places memorably associated with the poet Byron and dear to the heart of every lover of poetic literature. At Markham the country is exceedingly pretty, with woods and hills over which multitudes of rooks and starlings are in full career, dark, rapid, and garrulous. ”

“ It is a handsome city, with small parks and wide, shaded streets. It has a city-hall, court-house, public library and many churches, but its main feature is the 400 or more manufactories of brass and iron ware, hardware, machinery, trunks, saddlery, boots, shoes and hats. The city was settled by a Connecticut colony in 1666 and chartered as a city in 1836. Population 347,469.
Newark, O., county-seat of Licking County, lies on Licking River, 31 miles northeast of Columbus. It is a manufacturing city, turning out machinery, furnaces, safes, rope goods, steel rails, boilers, flour and glassware. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We expected to meet the steam-boat Queenstown at Newark, in order to proceed to Kingston, on the eastern extremity of Lake Ontario. We missed it, however, and were afterwards informed that it had been obliged to put in at another harbour on account of repairs. We were compelled, therefore, to remain three days at Newark. Newark is a regularly built town, with several handsome houses; it is situated at the outlet of the Niagara into Lake Ontario, between Fort George and Missagua. Fort Missagua is near the lake; Fort George lies south of Newark, and is in ruins. ”

“ Robert Treat, founder of Newark. Placed on Kinney building, on site of Robert Treat's home lot, at Broad and Market Sts., by Schoolmen's Club. Unveiled, Newark Day, Nov. 4, 1912.
John G. Shea, Catholic historian. Placed on St. Patrick's' Cathedral by Knights of Columbus, Columbus Day, 1912.
Camp Frelinghuysen, used by the Union volunteers in 1861. Set in boulder in Branch Brook Park nearly opposite Barringer High School, on west side of lake, for lack of suitable spot on actual site of original training quarters, which extended west of park from Lackawanna Railroad toward Bloomfield Ave. ”

“ Governor Simcoe was not long in discovering that Newark was not a suitable place for the capital of the Province. It was not central; and its proximity to the American Fort of Niagara, [Footnote: This fort was still occupied by British troops, but it was well understood that it would shortly be surrendered. The surrender took place under Jay's treaty on 1st June, 1796.] on the opposite bank of the river, was in itself a serious consideration. "The chief town of a Province," said he, "must not be placed within range of the guns of a hostile fort." ”