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.

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."