Walnut

Looking north, along Morris Canal,from Newark and Walnut

Glen Ridge

From Bloomfield's First Baptist Church historical website:
When Bloomfield seceded from Newark in 1812, Glen Ridge was a section "on the hill" composed mostly of farms and woodlands with the exception of a thriving industrial area along the Toney's brook in the Glen. For most of the nineteenth century, three water-powered mills produced lumber, calico, pasteboard boxes and brass fittings. A Cooper, a sandstone quarry and mine were nearby. With the arrival of the Newark and Bloomfield Railroad in 1856 and the New York, Montclair and Greenwood Lake Railroad in 1872, Glen Ridge began its transition to a suburban residential community. Stately homes slowly replaced orchards and wooded fields.

Residents "on the hill" became unhappy with their representation on the Bloomfield Council. In spite of repeated requests to Bloomfield officials, roads remained unpaved, water and sewer systems were nonexistent, and schools were miles away. In early 1895, the stage was set for succession. Several men met on the third floor of the Robert Rudd's home on Ridgewood Avenue. They marked out the boundaries of a 1.45 square mile area to secede from Bloomfield. At the February 12, 1895 election, the decision to secede passed by only twenty-three votes. Robert Rudd was elected the first mayor of Glen Ridge.

If you're reading this today (Feb. 16th), head on up the hill for tonight's slide presentation: "When We were Bloomfield."

Belleville Ave

Oakum

Lackawanna Plaza home of C. W. Powers, owner of Oakum Factory in Watsessing. In modern times, the fibrous material used in oakum is derived from virgin hemp or jute. The fibers are impregnated with tar or a tar-like substance, traditionally pine tar (also called 'Stockholm tar'), an amber-colored pitch made from pine sap. Petroleum byproducts can be utilized for a tar-like substance that can also be used for modern oakum. White oakum is made from untarred material.

Early Houses

We do not know that there was a house built in all this region before 1695. John Baldwin, Sr., in 1670, was to have one extra acre, by vote of the town, added to his "second division, of upland" for "his staying on his place the first summer." This seems a special inducement for him to remain somewhere on the outlands of the Newark tract, whether within or without the present Bloomfield.
Thomas Davis had "liberty to set up a saw mill" in the summer of 1695. It has been supposed that this was the saw mill on a site near the pond above Wheeler’s paper mill, in Montclair. The existence of a saw mill points to coming houses. Thomas Pierson’s "fence" appears below Watseson Hill in 1695. Anthony Olive’s house, on the border of Orange, near Wigwam Brook, makes its appearance in 1712, and the same year a saw mill, near or on "Bushie Plain Brook," which brook crossed the road "from the town to the mountain."

The first authentic dates of dwelling-houses are two,— the house of David Dodd, afterwards occupied by his son, Amos Dodd, still bearing in the corner-stone the initials of himself and wife, "NOUM 10, 1719, D.S.D." (Nov. 10, 1719, Daniel Sarah Dodd), the present dwelling-house (1884) of Chester Gilbert; and a dwelling-house of Abraham Van Geisen, on the east bank of Third River, near "Canoe Swamp." There was also a "mill lately built" (a grist mill, probably) in 1720 on the Third River, on Capt. John Morris’ plantation, and also a dwelling of one Vannevklor, near Toney’s Brook, in 1724. Among other ancient houses without authentic dates are the following: the Joseph Davis mansion, opposite the Baptist Church, supposed to have been built before the Revolution; the Abraham Cadmus house, on Montgomery Street; the Moses Farrand house, below Watseson Hill, Washington’s temporary quarters (now an inglorious unused cider mill, with honorable bullet scars in the old shell); the Thomas Cadmus house, on Washington Street, since known as Washington’s headquarters; the old house far down on Belleville Avenue; the Ephraim Morris house, removed some years since from the grounds of Mr. Thomas; and the old Crane houses, in Montclair.
A good number of these ancient houses were built of stone, for in 1721 the freestone began to be quarried for the market. The chimney and the big oven built outside the house indicated the Holland family.
Samuel Ward’s mill (a woolen mill) was in existence in 1725; and George Harrison’s saw mill, at Montgomery, either in 1728 or in 1740.
With mills to saw and a mill to grind and a mill to card the wool, and abundance of field-stone or even quarry-stone, the houses multiplied henceforth.

Early Roads

"A highway is to pass through" the lands of Elizabeth Ward (Ogden), and of Elizabeth Morris "near" and "by" the Second River in 1675.

There is a "third going over," supposed to be a third crossing or ford of Second River, on Thomas Pierson’s land about 1678. A north and south highway bounds Matthew Camfield’s land on the Third River, next to Benjamin Baldwin, in 1698.

A highway is to pass through Elizabeth Ward’s (Ogden’s) land "by the Third River," which land adjoins Samuel Plum’s land by the "Ocquekanunc lyne" by the great river, in 1679.

These points in roads indicate rough wagon tracks, during the first early years of settlement, northwest towards Watseson, through the present centre of the town towards the "Morris plantation," and northwards from the Newark village through the present Belleville to the Acquackanonck line.

The road to the present centre of the town from the Newark settlement undoubtedly bent northeastward to pass around "mill brook swamp." It then found its way past "sunfish pond," over "Watseson Hill" to the Second River, to the plain between that river and the Third River and to hands on the Third River farther north.

In 1675 the east and west line of Aaron Blatchley’s land, "by the first branch of ye second river," is a highway. This is, no doubt, a rough road from the Newark settlement westward to the lands of Crane, Huntinton, Kitchell and Blotchley, in the upper part of the present Montclair. Surveyors are chosen in town-meeting, on Dec. 12, 1681, "to lay out highways as far as the Mountains if need be, and Passages to all Lands." An east and west highway lies along the south side of Matthew Camfield’s land, "by the mountain path," next Thomas Huntington, in 1698. A road from the town to the mountain crosses "Bushie Plain Brook" near a saw-mill in 1712.

These signify, no doubt, the early road or roads from the settlement to "Newark Mountains," as Orange was at first called.

A road from Stephen Morris’ mill, "up the hill," as the hill "will alow," was laid out in 1762. This is, no doubt, the Bay Lane road, and it indicates that the old Cranetown roads, from "Isaac Dodd’s corner" and from the Caleb Davis house, and the road westward on Watseson Plain to the mountains, were already in existence.

The Earliest Names

Owners of land are found in the southern part of the Bloomfield region within nine years after the Newark settlement.
In 1675, Stephen Davis, Robert Lyman, Hans Albert, Jonathan Sergeant and Matthew Camfield have land "in the mill-brook swamps," northwest of the Newark settlement, in the region along the present Morris Canal.
In 1679, Samuel Ward and John Gardner and Jabez Rogers have land at the mouth of the Second River.
John Ward, dish-turner, Elizabeth Ward (Ogden), Elizabeth Morris, John Ward, Sr., Samuel Harrison, Edward Ball and Thomas Pierson have land from 1675 to 1679 at or near the Second River.
Samuel Dodd takes land in 1678—79 "on Watseson," and Daniel Dodd, Thomas Richards and Thomas Pierson near or on "Watseson plane" or "on Watseson Hill;" and at about the same time Benjamin Baldwin at Watseson Hill and Second River.
Jasper Craine, Thomas Huntinton, Samuel Kitchell and Aaron Blachley are owners of land "at the head of the Second River," "in the branches of the Second River," "by the first branch of the Second River." In 1775, Robert Lyman, John Baldwin, Sr., Richard Harrison, Samuel Swaine, John Catlin, Hannah Freeman, Thomas Johnson, Anthony Oliff, "at the mountain," probably on the borders of the present Orange and Montclair.
Elizabeth Ward and Samuel Plum locate lands also on the Third River in 1679, and Samuel Plum "by the Ocquekanunc lyne."

We do not know that there was a house built in all the region before 1695, but these were the inhabitants in the sense of land-owners who used the tracts as wild lands or woodlands or grazing lands. There are at the least about sixty of them definitely known in the general territory extending from the present Orange border to the Acquackanonck line from the mountain to the Passaic.
Towards the end of the first quarter of the new century houses begin to appear.

The Puritan Colony

The principal early population, however, was a portion of the Newark colony. The New England colonists were neither petty settlers of a little village nor were they great handed proprietors. They aimed at the possession of a large tract, but their purpose was a division into small plots for equal citizens. Many of those who established, themselves on a "home lot" in the first village, and took up a meadow lot in the salt marshes, took up also an "out-lot" or a "mountain lot" in the northern and western part of the town. Their children found their way to these lands and became the first out-settlers. Once past the swamps behind the Newark hill, they pitched on the Watseson lands or on the Second River sites, and followed the fenceless wagon tracks which forked to the mountains.

The Dutch Movement

[Note: Most of the previous posts have been taken from Rev. Charles E. Knox's Detailed Bloomfield Township, Chapter LXVIII in the book: HISTORY OF ESSEX AND HUDSON COUNTIES, NEW JERSEY.
Compiled by William H. Shaw. Everts & Peck, Philadelphia, 1884. We've added appropriate illustrations that are in the public Domain, It can be read sequentially starting with the post of 1/4/12]

The period of the early history may be considered as extending from the year of settlement on the Passaic to the times of the Revolution.

The Holland colony at Bergen flowed northward to Hackensack, then westward to Acquackanonck (Passaic), and thence still westward over the mountain, and southward into the Newark colony. The strongest Dutch settlement within the region which became Bloomfield was "Second River." The northeast portion of the township was filled with Dutch farmers. That portion became known in more recent times as Franklin, and fell within the boundaries of Belleville. The northwest settlements became Stone House Plains and Speertown.

The Dutch purchase at Acquackanonck was from the Indians in 1679, and from the proprietors in 1684. The lands laid out in strips for farms ran parallel with the northern boundary of Bloomfield, and the migration swept over the boundary and possessed the northern part of the town. The northern end of Horseneck was filled almost exclusively with Holland people down to about 1800, and their reactionary southeast movement gave the township of Bloomfield some of its best citizens. At length the Holland blood was mixed with the Puritan, and the Holland families are now found in all parts of the town.

Some of the oldest names are Speer or Spier, Thomason, Arent, Vreelandt, Uriansen, Van Siles, Francisco, Kiper, Cadmus, Garrabrant, Van Riper, Jerolemon, Low and Kidney.

Vincent is a very old name of French Huguenot extraction, but at first was associated with the Hollanders.

Their church was established at Second River in 1727, and another Reformed Dutch Church was built at Stone House Plains on the opening of the present century, 1801.