History: Attempted Jail Break at New Brunswick (1871)

The 23 December 1871 edition of The Matawan Journal published an account of a recent attempted jail break at the Middlesex County jail in New Brunswick, as reported by the New York Sun.

The NY Sun on Tuesday published a statement that an attempt was made on Sunday night last to rescue Edwards, the Jamesburg bank robber, from the Middlesex jail, located at New Brunswick. A gang of men hired a wagon and drove to Perth Amboy; here they left the wagon and proceeded to New Brunswick. One of the men was disguised as a policeman and purported to be bringing a prisoner. It was after midnight when they reached the jail and the jailor opened the door, whereupon the party of eight ruffians, armed and masked, bound and gagged the jailor; and with a revolver pointed at his brains, demanded the keys of the prison. Edwards was up and ready for the "new departure" and the effort was made to unlock his cell, but none of the keys would fit. The gang then told the jailor to get up and unlock the door, and if he refused they would blow his brains out. At this juncture, Deputy Sheriff Applegate hearing the noise hurried down stairs, but being heard by the men, the door was held and he was unable to get down. He fired through the panels of the door and the men made a speedy escape. When last seen one of them seemed to have been injured, but none of the party was overtaken.

O The Humanities! How Long Before Rutgers Follows SUNY Albany's Lead?

Sharp cuts in state aid have caused the State University of New York at Albany to outright cut many of its humanities programs, according to The Huffington Post. Surely it won't be long before Rutgers University suffers the same fate, given the harsh budget cutting going on in Trenton. Maybe there will be no need for art, language, music, and the classics at the college level after Governor Christie's cuts to state aid ravage the public high schools?

New Jerseyans ought to think long and hard about the sort of society they want. See what Stanley Fish has to say about the battle to preserve the humanities in his NY Times opinion piece The Crisis of the Humanities Officially Arrives.

Cops in Crosswalk to Put Brakes on Violations to New Law

The NJ Office of the Attorney General has issued grants of $8,000 each to selected police departments across the state to begin a federally-funded summer enforcement program that aims to get NJ drivers to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, according to a state press release.

Drivers have been required to stop for pedestrians in NJ since 1 April 2010, as reported in this blog several months ago. We've had several deaths resulting from pedestrians struck in crosswalks over the years, so Aberdeen and Matawan residents should appreciate and support this new law.

Expect "Cops in Crosswalks" to begin in Red Bank, New Brunswick, and Piscataway very soon and run through September.

By the way, no one seems to mention which federal agency provided the funding for these state grants. When I searched "Cops in Crosswalks" on the US DOT website, the search engine asked: Did you mean "Corps in Crosswalk?"

A Little Twist & Shout at the Old Bay

The Hey Bulldog Band, a Beatles cover band, played recently at the Old Bay in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Looks like crowd and band alike had a great time. Check the band's YouTube channel for other videos of Hey Bulldog playing live gigs. And keep an eye on the New Brunswick Rocks website for upcoming events in that rockin' town. They have some sort of VIP club you might even want to join.

Borrow a Book, Peruse It, and Learn Some NJ History

Most of us don't have much time to read, yet we want to learn -- just not in heavy doses. If you're interested in sampling some bits and pieces of New Jersey history, the Matawan Aberdeen Public Library has a book that can introduce you to some of the important issues of New Jersey during the era of the Articles of Confederation.

"Experiment in Independence: New Jersey in the Critical Period 1781 - 1789", by Richard P McCormick (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1950) talks about some of the major issues that faced New Jersey residents and politicians after declaring independence from Britain. Here are a few examples of what you'll find in the book (and where you'll find it discussed)

• Was the state overly hasty at the outset of the Revolutionary War to call for the sale of all lands and personal property forfeited by loyalists? While £ 567,334 in much needed revenue was raised by the sale of Tory real estate and personal property in Middlesex and Monmouth Counties alone -- over forty percent of the total revenue from forfeitures in the state -- this happened during a period of serious deflation, prompting some to suggest it might have been better for the state to hold the properties until the economy stabilized. Read about the problems of reigning in national debt caused by the huge, unexpected costs of a major war -- sound familiar? (pp 25-39)
• Could elections be conducted and legislation formulated and approved so as to expose those secretly loyal to the Crown so their initiatives could be quashed before harming the state? Read about an era of mistrust and anger as the balance of power shifted in the state, within towns, and among neighbors. (pp 69-102)
• Was it wrong for the state government to shortchange those who equipped and fed the Continental Army when the troops were billeted in their area by devaluing the notes of obligation issued to pay those expenses? One Monmouth group "resolved unanimously that we use our utmost endeavours  to support the credit of the paper currency of this state, and to execute the law strictly against every person who shall, to our knowledge, attempt to depreciate it." Read about how the state was divided because northerners held most of these notes of obligation while southerners held little if any scrip. Find out who won the struggle over devaluation. (pp 158-185)
• Why did New Jersey support a strong centralized federal government? Read about New Jersey's position on the confederation of states. (pp 218-251)

The library now has Encyclopedia Brittanica. Click here and type in your card number to access this new resource.

Pedestrians Struck Monday by NJT at New Brunswick, Aberdeen-Matawan

Pedestrians were struck by New Jersey Transit trains on Monday 1 February, one just west of the Aberdeen-Matawan station and the other at the New Brunswick station. Train service on the North Jersey Coast Line was suspended at 6:15 am when a pedestrian was struck. About 8:15 am, a policeman was standing vigil near a tarped-covered corpse on the westbound embankment near an idled westbound train. Initial reports suggest that a man walked or jumped off the station platform at New Brunswick at 4:15 pm, apparently committing suicide. These incidents, along with Tuesday's problems with Amtrak equipment, have made commuting by train particularly difficult this week. I was jammed near the doors just outside the passenger compartment of my train car yesterday, along with a dozen others, in a space that normally would host two to four standing passengers on a really busy day. And Manhattan-bound passengers were diverted from NJT at Newark to take the PATH into the city. To be sure, none of the problems seem to have been caused by NJT and they did the best they could to make the commute as tolerable as possible.

UPDATE as of 6 February: Both of the train strikes now sound like suicides.

• APP identified the pedestrian near Matawan: Krishna Kumar, 45, of the Laurence Harbor section of Old Bridge, was killed at about 5:30 a.m. Monday when he stepped in front of a Long Branch-bound train near the borough's boundary with Aberdeen, according to NJ Transit.
• NJ.com identified the pedestrian at New Brunswick: Erik Carmelia, 21, of Eastampton Township in Burlington County, died when he was hit by a NJ Transit locomotive engine at the downtown New Brunswick train station shortly after 4 p.m. on Monday, said NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel.

Raritan River Crossings

The Alfred E Driscoll Bridge is a major artery on the commute from Central Jersey to New York. It can be raining or snowing on the north shore and dry on the south. It is an appropriate spot to consider the beginning of North Jersey, but many would disagree. It's all a matter of perspective.

If you are in Monmouth County, there aren't but so many ways to cross the Raritan by car -- you can go west on Route 18 to New Brunswick and head north on 1, or you can take the Victory Bridge on Route 35, or you can cross the mighty Driscoll.

Named after a former New Jersey governor, this bridge arches so high above the Raritan River that ships easily pass underneath it.

The Driscoll Bridge was widened in a huge construction project that recently ended but seemed to drag on for umpteen million years. Here's a December 2008 video of a vehicle crossing the bridge, but it is woefully unrepresentative of the current situation since a new traffic pattern began in May 2009. In December, there was only one northbound express lane crossing the bridge. See the far left lane that splits off? It bypassed the busy morning exits for Routes 287, 440, and 1/9. This May 2009 video takes you on a shaky ride across the bridge in that single lane. (Now you know what Jersey drivers are doing when they aren't on their cell phones.) A subsequent May 2009 video shows two lanes open on the bypass, with cones blocking a couple of other lanes which would soon be opened as well. Today, fully half the northbound lanes are included in that left lanes bypass, while those stuck in the right lanes during rush hour are typically just creeping along towards Woodbridge, Piscataway, or Staten Island. Stay to the left and take the bypass if you are heading for the NJ Turnpike or Metropark.

Have you ever been on a North Jersey Coast Line train and had to wait in the Amboys for a ship to clear the Raritan River Railroad Bridge? The railroad bridge is in a major shipping lane to the North River and beyond, so it has to open to let ships by. Here's an interesting perspective on the situation, next time you have to wait until the bridge is down and locked.

Terhune Park Namesake?

Can someone tell me for whom Terhune Park in Matawan is named? The park is located on South Street between Main and Broad Streets.


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I figure it is named for Edward Payson Terhune (c 1825 - 1907), New Jersey clergyman and author. He was born in New Brunswick, graduated from Rutgers and New Brunswick Seminary, and served in numerous clerical positions in New Jersey, Virginia, and in Italy.

In the late 1860s, Edward Terhune purchased the nearly 10 acres of land now known as Terhune Memorial Park - Sunnybank, which overlooks Pompton Lake in Wayne, NJ. The property served as the family's summer home for many years, revealing the occasional Revolutionary War relic to those who strolled its grounds. His son -- author, journalist, and dog breeder Albert Payson Terhune (1872-1942) -- made the property his permanent residence in 1912 and lived there until his death in 1942. His widow continued to care for the property, presumably until her death in 1964. At some point the property was transferred to Wayne Township, which administers the property today as a park.

David Lyell: Early Matawan Goldsmith, Politician

David Lyell, who was born in England in 1670 and worked as a goldsmith in London, bought into the East Jersey province as a proprietor in 1697. He arranged for a lot at the corner of Water and Gordon Streets in Perth Amboy, the capital of the province at the time, and in early 1699 set off for America with his wife Katherine Lorraine, daughter of Sir Thomas Lorraine of Kirkharle. They arrived through New York that spring and Lyell was declared a freeman of Perth Amboy in August 1699.

Lyell would have landed in troubled times soon enough. For when Queen Anne took power in England in 1702, she joined East and West Jersey under a unified council. Chapter XI The Union of the Jerseys in New Jersey as a Colony and as a State, by Francis Bazley Lee, suggests in 1902 high prose that Queen Anne made a huge mistake in choosing the colonial governor.

The governmental change, so auspiciously instituted, was threatened with dire disaster through the stupid personality of the appointing power and the weakness and cupidity of the appointee, Queen Anne was but ill advised, and this, combined with her willfulness, led to the selection of Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, whose manifold faults, in charity, may be charged to degeneracy.

Lord Cornbury was removed in 1708.

The Lyells lived periodically in their home in Perth Amboy but maintained permanent residence in New York City. He owned extensive properties in New Brunswick, Barnegat, Crosswicks, Wickatunk, et al.

Being a Scotch Quaker, Lyell attended services at the Topanemus Meeting House in Marlboro whenever he was at his New Jersey home. His association with this group troubled the Crown, though, causing his nomination to the New Jersey Council to be blocked when proposed by Governor Robert Hunter in 1711 and 1715. He was finally seated on the Council in 1716, at which point the Lyells relocated to his 300 acre plantation in Middletown Point. He continued to reside at Middletown Point and serve as Councillor until his death in 1725.

Lyell would have been one of the first two goldsmiths to settle and labor in New Jersey. Regretably, none of his work has survived. For further information, see Silversmiths of New Jersey (1700-1825) by Carl M Williams (Philadelphia: George S MacManus Co, 1949), pp 63-67, available at Matawan-Aberdeen Public Library (974.9 Wi).

Lyell was buried under a fine armorial tombstone at Topanemus Burial Ground in nearby Marlboro. Despite a crack across it, the ironstone tomb cover, created by a man known to researchers only as Old Elizabethtown Carver I, is held up by experts as one of the finest examples of American stone carving from the early 18th century. It was recovered from under jungle-like overgrowth and nearly a foot of dirt at the Topanemus Farm and relocated to St Peter's Episcopal Church in Freehold for preservation.

Lyell's widow is mentioned on pg 29 of New Aberdeen, or the Scotch Settlement of Monmouth County, New Jersey, by James Steen.

Lyell's son, Captain David Lyell, Jr, commanded his father's sloop The Monmouth out of Perth Amboy. His father's business took him to New England ports as well as Antigua and other foreign destinations.

Reverend Charles McKnight

The Reverend Charles McKnight was received by the Presbytery of New Brunswick in 1741 and was ordained a Presbyterian minister a year later. Born around 1710, Rev. McKnight was from a Scottish family that had planted in County Antrim, Ireland. He came to New Jersey around 1740 and worked in Cranbury with the Presbyterians. He was installed as minister for the Shrewsbury and Middletown Point congregations on 2 April 1767. The Reverend preached at the church in Mount Pleasant, which is present day Freneau in Aberdeen. Mount Pleasant Church was a precursor to the First Presbyterian Church of Matawan. He also served as a trustee at Nassau Hall, which later became Princeton University.

During the American Revolution, Rev. McKnight used the pulpit to speak out against the British. The Honorable J. T. Headley said of Rev. McKnight:

At the commencement of the dissatisfaction with the legislative acts of the mother country, he had been accustomed to express sentiments adverse to the crown, with a boldness that caused considerable dissension among his people.

Potter's American Monthly said years later his parishioners recalled "the fervid words and impassioned expressions of their pastor when he got on his favorite theme of the rights of the people, or was expressing his sympathy with those who were leading their countrymen towards national independence."

Rev. McKnight sent two sons to war. And to show the congregation his earnestness, even at an advanced age, Rev. McKnight himself joined the fighting. He received a head wound at the Battle of Princeton as General Hugh Mercer fell nearby.

According to "Presbyterians Pioneer at Matawan: 1682-1959:

• The Mount Pleasant Church and its green were being used regularly for patriotic meetings before and soon after the start of the Revolution -- meetings which had full support of the militant pastor.
• In retaliation for his activities, a British detachment assaulted the compound from several directions and after some sharp fighting in which men on both sides were killed or wounded, their aims were accomplished.
• The British burned down the church at Mount Pleasant and took the Reverend captive. Rev. McKnight was taken to New York, where he fell ill with pneumonia while incarcerated and died on New Year's Day 1778, soon after his release by the British.
  

His son, Dr. Charles McKnight, graduated Princeton in 1771, along with James Madison, Philip Freneau, et al. He served as a surgeon in the Continental Army, eventually being named Chief Physician of the Army and Surgeon General. You can see a picture of his surgical kit at the Smithsonian's The Price of Freedom: Americans at War website.

Township Blogging Research

I went to the Old Bridge Library on Sunday and checked out some research materials for this blog. No rest for the weary. I successfully defended my thesis last week, so I'm preparing some materials for future blog articles.

I picked up "New Jersey's Multiple Municipal Madness," by Alan J. Karcher. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998. It tells how we ended up with so many towns in this state. I'm reading a case study about South Amboy, which remained intact until 1838, when it began to spin off towns like East Brunswick, Monroe, Cranbury, Spotswood, Old Bridge, Sayreville, Helmetta, Jamesburg, South Brunswick, Milltown, South River, and who knows what else. The author talks about the politics and money behind most of these individual decisions to break off smaller and smaller jurisdictions. Lots of interesting stories in this book.

I also picked up "Afro-Americans in New Jersey: A Short History," by Giles R. Wright. Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, Department of State, 1988. It breaks up the story into readily researched time periods: prior to the first US census after the signing of the US Constitution (-1790); the first US census after the Civil War (1790-1870); the last census available when the book was written (1870-1910); pre-World War II (1910-1940); post-war and up to when the book was published (1940-1988). I've learned a lot already in just perusing the book. For example, did you know that of the 13,646 free blacks living in northern New Jersey in 1840, 2,180 of them lived in Monmouth County, the second largest population in that part of the state after Mercer County. Monmouth was fourth in its number of slaves in 1840 with 85 out of a total of 682 in the northern part of the state. The book is full of interesting stories, not just statistics.

I hope to feed some information from these books into occasional pieces for this blog. Stay tuned.

This evening I attended the Aberdeen Township Zoning Board meeting. It was actually sort of interesting, in a Let me build a 30 foot high garage in my yard sort of way. Or a I built my pool myself six years ago and forgot to pay for my building permit with the $100 I put in escrow, so can I get my $100 back and by the way I built my pool too big and I need some variances or I'll have to tear down my pool kind of way. Or an I need a 6 foot vinyl fence in my yard to keep people's headlights from shining into my house or My backyard is too small for the huge pool I want to install sort of good time. I recommend it. Try to schedule your visit for when the neighbors come to the meeting to submarine the plans. Things actually went rather smoothly, all in all. Most everyone got everything they wanted, and it was relatively painless. I still am not completely clear what memorialization means. Maybe someone can fill me in on the process? I recognized Maureen Camillary up there on the board. Everyone on the board seemed diligent and asked questions. No doubt there is lots of homework with this job, but members get to see the pictures and plans while we in the audience get only a verbal description. Oh, well.

No Direction Home

When I get off the PATH train at Newark during the evening rush, I head for the ramp that takes me down to Tracks 3 and 4 to catch a Northeast Corridor train to Metropark.

Unlike the photo, the ramp is always full of commuters heading for a local or express train to South Amboy, Long Branch, or Bay Head on the Jersey Shore or straight down the main line towards New Brunswick and Princeton. I'm used to the commute, though, and I bear up well in the bustling crowds. That's what makes a good New York City commuter.

When I am at the part of the ramp pictured, I can see one or two trains in the station with their doors open and the conductors looking at their watches. What are their trains' destinations? No clue. Some of the Long Branch trains have a sign on the side of the train saying where they are heading. Many of the Jersey Avenue trains heading to Metropark arrive with New York signs still on the side. Oops!

There is never a conductor at or anywhere near the bottom of the ramp. Never. Not even if there are open train doors there. An experienced conductor knows better than to stand in that location because he or she will be deluged with questions about the train's destination. Gosh, I wonder why? Maybe because there is no signage? You think?

Instead, NJ Transit has a pair of computer monitors with detailed computer information about the trains immediately due or currently in the station, and another pair of monitors with a bare-bones list of upcoming trains, their track numbers, and estimated times of arrival. Sounds good, except the bare-bones monitors are about forty feet from the bottom of the ramp in either direction, and the detailed monitors are twice that distance from the ramp, again in either direction. (For a while NJT was running ads on the monitors while the trains were in the station.)

So, when I reach the bottom of the ramp, I have a choice to make. I can check the paper schedule on the wall and miss my train. I can run down the platform, knock down some people, check the schedule on the monitor and miss the train. Or I can simply hop on a train and hope it is going where I want to go. BTW, asking a fellow passenger provokes the ultimate in anxiety.

NJ Transit has to put on its thinking caps and figure out a creative way to inform PATH customers about the trains in the station when they're coming down the ramp. That is a major stress in thousands of people's lives. We all want to get home as quickly as we can and want to take advantage of a train that happens to be in the station. But we don't want to gamble that it is going our way and find out otherwise on our way to who knows where.

Photo of ramp from Resurgence City: Photo Gallery 2.

Maya Angelou Highlights 80 Years of Rainbows

One of the best things about living in the New York City metro area is the wide array of cultural events available to us. This evening, my family and I attended an appearance by Maya Angelou at nearby Lincroft, New Jersey's Collins Arena at Brookdale College. The event at Monmouth County's community college was promoted by the New Brunswick Area Branch of the NAACP, the National Organization for Women (NOW), and the school itself, which issued one free ticket per student. The event's three thousand tickets sold out on 17 February and the arena was packed with onlookers

It's hard to summarize Ms Angelou's performance, which was at once down-to-earth in manner and profound in substance. She sat in a chair rather than stand behind a podium due to her knees. She spoke conversationally and forthrightly to the large crowd, but her charm allowed us to feel as if she was speaking to each of us individually.

She's seen the world she grew up in turned on its head, something that seemingly startles and amuses her. For example, she told of getting a police escort to an event in Arkansas, a state where as a child she had feared "the boys" when they were "patroling" African-American neighborhoods like hers on horseback looking for men to beat or kill. She recounted childhood memories of hiding her uncle, a store owner, in a potato bin to protect him from roving bands of policemen.

Ms Angelou said she loves to appear at community colleges because the students there recognize the importance of education and, despite the odds, are trying to make it happen. She pointed to the story of Terence, the north African slave, who was educated by his Roman master and eventually became a poet. A slave remains human despite his station in society, Terence said in one of his half dozen works that have survived. In essence, a man must assert his humanity and consider nothing beyond his reach or out of bounds.

Eighty years of life have taught Ms Angelou that each person has a chance to make a profound difference in the lives of untold numbers of people through a chain of getting and then giving in response and learning and then teaching in response. She says the people who take on this lifelong challenge of passing it on become rainbows for people suffering under life's storm clouds.

I must say, though, that those three thousand folks lost the spirit of the evening when they got into their cars and tried to leave the Brookdale campus. The 35 minutes I spent in vicious dog-eat-dog traffic snarls, mind games, and alternate merge violations were harrowing and utterly nerve-wracking. My daughter suggested it would have been better if the order of the proceedings had been reversed and Ms Angelou had instead stood on the side of the road to deliver her message of peace to the dueling drivers as we fought our way towards Phalanx Road and our blood pressures soared. Whatever Ms Angelou said was certainly lost on some folks.