NEWARK, The largest city of New Jersey, a port of entry, and the county-seat of Essex County, eight miles west of New York: on the west bank of the Passaic River, which emp ties into Newark Bay three miles below the city proper, and on the Pennsylvania. the Lehigh Valley, the Lackawanna, the Erie, and the Cen tral of New :Jersey railroads (Map: New D 2).
The city occupies an area of abolit square miles on a generally level plain. Toward the west, however, the ground rises, affording the beautiful sites of a popular residential district. Though Newark contains the homes of many business men of New York, it has distinct in dividuality as a manufacturing city. and many members of its industrial and commercial com munity find homes in the beautiful surrounding suburbs of the Oranges, Montclair, Caldwell, Ir vington. and other places with which the city is connected by a network of electric railways. The streets are regularly laid nut. and the main avenues are broad and well paved with granite or asphalt, 137 miles of the total street mileage (231) being paved. Broad Street, the principal thoroughfare and business street, having a width which justifies its name, presents a handsome ap• pearanee. enhanced by the stately elm-trees in the parks that border it for a considerable distance. There are many public parks—Branch Brook. Mil itary (formerly the old training ground). Wash ington, Lincoln. East Side, and West Side: and statues of General Philip Kearny, Frederick T.
Frelinghuysen, and Seth Boyden, the inventor, a bronze bust of Abraham Coles, and a bronze In dian group. The finest edifices include the Feder al building, accommodating the custom house and post ollice; the Public Library, which cost $350, 000; the Prudential Life Insurance building. the high school, and the Peddie Memorial Church. The City Hospital, the German. Saint Michael's, Saint Barnabas, and Saint James hospitals, and the Essex County Ilospital for the Insane are among the more prominent charitable institutions. There are in the city nine public hospitals. four teen public homes, and four orphan asylums. has the Newark Academy, a well-known classical school of long standing. Saint Benedict's College, and the Newark Technical School, a city institution. The Public Library contains 80,000 volumes. Other libraries are the Board of Trade, Young Men's Catholic Association, County Law, High School, and State historical Society. The last-named institution has also an interesting collection of relics.
Newark is essentially an industrial centre, having long been noted for the extent and variety of its products, which, according to the census of 1900, were valued at $120,954,000. The more important manufactures include leather, ma chinery, foundry and machine-shop products. jew elry, saddlery, hardware, celluloid. spool cotton, boots and shoes, carriages, hats and caps, cloth ing. trunks, paper, varnish. chemicals, rubber, beer, and ale. The water frontage of the city ex tends along the Passaic River and Newark Bay for a distance of 101!, miles, and there is a large trade by river, as well as by rail.
The government is vested in a mayor, elected every two years, a unicameral council. and sub ordinate administrative officials appointed or elected as follows: By the mayor—city counsel, attorney and assistant, excise and assessment commissioners. trustees of the public library, and police justices: by the mayor with the consent of the conneil—police,fire.and health commissioners. city comptroller, auditor, and tax commisioners; by the conncil—treasurer. tax receiver, city clerk, and building inspector, and assistants; by popu lar vote—board of education, and hoard of street and water coil inissionurs. The annual expeudi ttu•es tor maintenance and operation are about $4,875,000, the principal items being $900.000 for schools, $425,000 for the pollee department (in c•lucding amounts for police courts, jails, reforma tories. etc.), $410,000 for interest on debt, $340, 000 for the water-works, $300,000 for the fire department, $215,000 for municipal lighting. $205,000 for charitable institutions, and $125.000 for street expenditures. The water-works, built at a cost of $6,000,000, are owned and operated by the municipality, the entire Yiyst cm DOW com prising about 300 miles of mains. There are nearly ISO miles of sewers. Newark has (1902) a bonded debt of $17,585,000, and an assessed property valuation (real and personal) of about $160.000.000.
Population. in 1810, 8008; 1830, 10,953: 1850, 38,894; 1860, 71,941 ; 1870, 105.059: 1880, 136, 508: 1890, 181.830; 1900, 246,070, including 71, 400 persons of foreign birth and 6700 of negro descent.
Newark was settled in 1666 by a party of thirty from Milford. Conn., led by Rohert Treat. In 1667 a company from Guilford and Branford, dissatisfied with the union of New Haven and Connecticut, came here under the leadership of Abraham Pierson. The settlement was strictly religious, the rights of full citizenship being re stricted to members of the Congregational Church. At first called Alillord. it was renamed in 1667 after Pierson's English home, Newark upon-Trent. It originally included a large part of the present Essex County, in which the towns of Belleville. Bloomfield, Clinton, Montclair, and the Oranges later grew up. In 1745-46 the Eng lish grantees of East Jersey attempted to invali date the Indian titles of the settlers. claiming that they alone could grant land. Riots ensued which were repressed with difficulty. Newark was chartered as a town in 1712; in 1777 it was occupied first by Washington. and then, along with all that section of New Jersey, by the Brit ish, who plundered the inhabitants and destroyed much property, The College of New Jersey, later Princeton t•niversity (q.v.). was located here from 1748 to 1756, In 1798 Newark received a second town charter, and in 1836 was incor porated as a city. In 18'36 oeeurred the most de structive tire in the city's history, and in 1837 the wide-spread business panic caused much dis tress. Consult: Atkinson, The History of New .V. (Newark. 1878) ; and Records) of the Town of Newark, 1666-1836 (Newark. 1864).