History Of Newark, New Jersey
Newark, New Jersey, was founded in 1666 by Connecticut Puritans led by Robert Treat from the New Haven Colony. The New Haven colonists had been forced out of power for sheltering the judges who had fled to the New Haven Colony after sentencing Charles I of England to death. It was the third settlement founded in New Jersey, after Bergen Township (later dissolved into Hudson County) and Elizabethtown (modern-day Elizabeth).
They sought to establish a colony with strict church rules similar to the one they had established in Milford, Connecticut. Treat wanted to name the community "Milford." Another settler Abraham Pierson said the community reflecting the new task at hand should be named "New Ark" or "New Work." The name was shortened to Newark.
References to the name "New Ark" are found in preserved letters written by historical figures such as James McHenry dated as late as 1787.
Treat and the party bought the property on the Passaic River from the Hackensack Indians by exchanging gunpowder, one hundred bars of lead, twenty axes, twenty coats, guns, pistols, swords, kettles, blankets, knives, beer, and ten pairs of breeches. The total control of the community by the Church continued until 1733 when Josiah Ogden harvested wheat on a Sunday following a lengthy rainstorm and was disciplined by the Church for Sabbath breaking. He left the church and corresponded with Episcopalian missionaries, who arrived to build a church in 1746 and broke up the Puritan theocracy.
Read more about History Of Newark, New Jersey: Industrial Era To World War II, Post-World War II Era, 1967 Newark Riots, After The Riots
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history and/or jersey:
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)
“vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous
picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall,”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)