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.