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."