Indian History

The early Indian history is connected with the general purchases of the Newark colony. Few native names have been preserved as specially connected with this portion of the tract— hardly more than Yauntakah as the name of Third River, Wachung as the mountain, and Watseson, Wattseson or Watsessing, the crooked stream. The Hackensacks continued numerous for some years.

Outbreaks were sometimes feared, as in the time of King Philip’s war in Connecticut in 1783, but no disturbance occurred here. As the natives were a peaceable tribe and their lands were honestly purchased, they quietly withdrew. The last one left the region for Canada in 1761.
[Benjamin West's painting (in 1771) of William Penn's 1682 treaty with the Lenape]

1859 Bloomfield

Cranetown

"Cranetown "by popular designation became after 1812, West Bloomfield, but was incorporated as Montclair in 1868. The incorporation took away another third of the original Bloomfield, on its western side. The line between Bloomfield and Montclair was located as follows:

"Beginning at a point in the centre of the stone arch bridge over the stream crossing the road west of and near to the residence of Henry Stucky, on the Orange line; thence, front said starting-point in a straight line, about north thirty-one degrees five minutes east, to a point in Passaic County line, which point is five hundred feet west, on said county line, from the centre of the road running in front of the residence of Cornelius Van Houten."

The present township of Bloomfield is four and a half miles long, by an average breadth of one and three-quarter miles. (For statistics of square miles, population, etc. see the end of this historical sketch.)

The township of Acquackanonck lies on the north, Belleville and Newark on the east, Newark and Orange on the south, and Montclair on the west.

Belleville

(Photo: Branchbrook Park)
This line crossed the mountain to the upper Passaic and so recognized either the provincial division of Newark or the aspiration of the Newark settlers for further territory. The division continued until Bloomfield had received its name in 1796, and until within three months of the time when Second River took the name of Belleville, on July 4, 1797. (The division wits discontinued on April 10, 1797.)

Belleville became a separate township in 1839. It took from the township of Bloomfield about one-third of its territory, and established the line between them as follows:

From the great boiling spring at the corner of the township of Orange "northerly on a straight line to a point on the northerly side of the old road leading from the village of Bloomfield to Newark, midway between the dwelling-houses of Charles R. Akers and Nicholas Coughlin; thence on a straight line to the northwest corner of the roads nearest to and north of the bridge across Randolph’s pond; thence on a straight line to the northwest corner of the roads leading to Franklinville and Morris’s Mill, near Peter Groshong’s dwelling-house; thence along the west aide of the road leading to Franklinville to the division line between said Groshong and lands late of Abraham Pake, deceased; thence, westwardly along said division line and the northern line of lands of Stephen Morris, to the centre of the Morris Canal; thence, along the middle of said canal northwardly, to the southern line of land of Christopher Mandeville, thence along said Mandeville’s line to the western line of said road, to the corner of the road leading from Franklinville, to Stone House plains; thence northwardly on a straight course to a point in the eastern line of the road near the late dwelling-house of Garret P. Jacobus, deceased, where the line of Acquackanonck township, in the county of Passaic, crosses said road."

Internal Divisions

The benevolent care of the poor was the occasion of the first internal division of the Newark township. The "inhabitants of Second River and the Body of Newark" acted separately "in all affairs rebating to the Poor" for fifty-three years. The line of division established, was in part the line which afterwards divided Belleville from Bloomfield. The description given in 1748-44 is as follows:

"Beginning at Passaik River at the Gully near the house of Doctor Pigot, thence northwest to Second River, thence up the same to the Saw Mill belonging to George Harrison, thence a direct line to the north east corner of the Plantation of Stephen Morris, thence to the Notch in the mountain, leaving William Crane’s house to the southward thence on a direct line to Stephen Van Sile’s Bars, and Abraham Francisco’s to the Northward of said line; and it was agreed that all on the Northward of said lines should be esteemed Inhabitants of Second River, and all on the Southward of the Body of Newark."

Southern Line

The southern line of Bloomfield was established in 1806, when the township of Newark was divided by its own authority into three wards,— the Newark Ward, the Orange Ward and the Bloomfield Ward. The Orange Ward became that same year the township of Orange and the Bloomfield Ward became the township of Bloomfield in 1812. The line between the Orange and the Bloomfield Wards was established in 1806, as follows:

"Beginning at the Green Island in Passaik River, and running from thence to the Boiling Spring on lands of Phinehas Baldwin, dec’d., and from thence to the Bridge at the Slough between the houses of Jonathan Baldwin and Elihu Pierson, and from thence to the bridge near Martin Richards’, and from thence to Turkey Eagle Rock, on the top of the first Mountain; which we agree shall be the line between the Bloomfield Ward anti the wards of Newark and Orange."

Original Boundaries

The purchase from the Indians in 1666 did not define a west line. The corrected deed of sale in 1677—78 specifies "that it is meant, agreed and intended that their bounds shall reach or goe to the top of the said Great Mountaine and that Wee, the said Indians, will marke out the same."
The Town Patent or Charter was not given till 1718, and has a complete boundary. It specifies the land "Purchased from ye Indians, now known by ye name Name of Newarke, Bounded easterly by a great creek that runs from Hackingsack Bay, through ye Salt Meadow Called by the Indians Wequahick, and now Known by ye Name of Bound Creek, and continuing from the head of ye Said Creek to the head of a Cove to a Markt Tree; from thence it Extended Westerly upon a Straight Line, by Computation Seven Miles be the Same more or Less, to the End or foot of the Great Mountain, and to the Ridge thereof, called by the Indians Wachung, Near where Runs a branch of Rahway River; from thence extending on a Northerly Course along the Ridge of the Said Mountain to a heap of Stones, Erected to Ascertain the Boundary between the s’d Town of Newark and the Town of Achquickatnunck; front thence Running a South-east course by Achquickatnunck Bound Line to where the brook or Rivalet Called by the Indians Yantokah, but now Known by the Naune of the Third River, Emptieth itself into Pasayack River, and from thence Continuing Down along by the said Pasaiack River and Hacklngsack Bay to the mouth of the said Bound Creek." (East Jersey Records, liber A A A, folio 145.)

This gives us the west and north and east line of what became afterwards Bloomfield.(click on map to enlarge) For one hundred and thirty years, however, before Bloomfield received its name the territory was identified with the Newark township, and it was not until one hundred and forty-six years from the first settlement that it received a separate town charter.

Earlier and Later Outlines

The tongue of land bounded by the curve in the Passaic River was originally divided between the Puritan and the Dutch colonies. The mountain was the ridge of the tongue. The whole breadth of the middle and the southern portions was Newark, and its settlement proceeded from the "town on the Passaic." The smaller portion of the tract— the tip of the tongue— was Acquackanonck, and its settlement proceeded from the Bergen colony, through Hackensack and through the nearer Indian village of Acquackanonck (Passaic), at the head of navigation. The line between the two was the original line of the Newark colony in 1666. The eastern line at that time was defined to be the "Pesayac River," and to reach northward "to the Third River above the town," and the northern boundary "from thence upon a northwest line to the mountaine."

The mountain was the west line of the Newark colony, or the Newark town proper.

The purchase from the Indians in 1666 did not define a west line. The corrected deed of sale in 1677—78 specifies "that it is meant, agreed and intended that their bounds shall reach or goe to the top of the said Great Mountaine and that Wee, the said Indians, will marke out the same."

More on General Bloomfield

The next year Gen. Bloomfield paid the town a visit with a military escort, in formal recognition of the honor done him. The civil township, however, was not erected until 1812, when it included the territory from the crest of the mountain to the Passaic River.

The Bloomfields were of the old colony of Woodbridge. Moses Bloomfield, M.D., the father of Gen. Bloomfield, was "an influential member of the Legislature, and of the Provincial Congress before the Revolution."

Joseph Bloomfield was captain in the Third Regiment of the New Jersey Regulars in 1776. The regiment, commanded by Col. Elias Dayton, was sent that year to support the Northern army in Canada, but it was diverted from Albany to the Mohawk valley. Capt. Bloomeld brought Lady Johnston, of Johnstown Hall, as a prisoner to Albany. The regiment went on to the German Flats and to Fort Stanwix (Rome, N.Y.), to which place Capt. Bloomfield returned from Albany, bringing the news of the Declaration of Independence. He was made major in December, 1776, and was present in the battles of Brandywine and Monmouth, and resigned his commission in 1778 to accept the clerkship of the Assembly. In 1783 he was attorney-general of the State, and was re-elected to that office in 1788. In 1794 he was general of militia, and took part in the suppression of the "whiskey insurrection" in Pennsylvania. He was Governor and also chancellor of New Jersey in 1801, and from 1803 to 1812. In the war of 1812 he was appointed a brigadier-general. He died in 1825, and was buried in Burlington, where he had resided for many years.

General Joseph Bloomfield

Gen. Bloomfield, who had come into notice during the Revolutionary war, was now recognized throughout the State as a rising man. His public services and personal popularity directed attention to him at the critical time. His name was chosen, and the honor tendered was acknowledged in circumstances alike creditable to the people and to him. The choice was the act of the Presbyterian congregation then worshiping for some time in "the Joseph Davis house;" and inasmuch as the people were then beginning the erection of a house of worship, a white marble tablet, with the inscription, "Bloomfield, 1796," was set in the brown free-stone tower, to mark the beginning of a new township.

The Third River

If a native name was to be selected, Wataeson or Watsesing should have been chosen. This Indian name is said to mean crooked or elbow-like, and to have been applied to Third River, the principal stream of the present town, which is very crooked throughout its course, and which makes a large elbow near the centre of the town.

A History of Bloomfield

HISTORY OF ESSEX AND HUDSON COUNTIES, NEW JERSEY.
Compiled by William H. Shaw. Everts & Peck, Philadelphia. 1884.
This Chapter on Bloomfield was written By Rev. Charles E. Knox

BLOOMFIELD took its name, in 1796, from Gen. Joseph Bloomfield, afterwards Governor and chancellor of New Jersey. Local names had become attached previously to separate settlements during the slow growth of a hundred years. "Second River" was designated by the Newark Town Council as a district of Newark in 1743—44 for that portion of the late Bloomfield now known as Belleville. "Cranetown became a popular name for the western portion towards the mountains at about the same early time "Watseson Plain" and "Wattseson Hill" were the hill and the plain in the southern part. "Newtown" was applied to the straggling settlement eastwards well down the present Belleville Avenue. The "Morris Plantation" had drifted into "Morris’s Mill" or the "Morris Neighborhood." The "Stone House Plain" for the northern end appears as early as 1695. "Crab Orchard," as colloquial for land then covered by crab-apple trees north of the old church, and "Hopewell" as an invention of the young men for the same region, had died a natural death.