Dates in Newark History

1800 - 1899

November 1, 1800 - The first water company is chartered (73 wells and springs supply water)

1801 - Jewelry was manufactured by "Epaphras Hinsdale"

January 31, 1803 - The Female Charitable Society is organized

1804 - The town plot contains 844 houses, 207 mechanics shops, five public buildings, 3 lumber yards, four quarries, eight churches, nine clergymen, ten physicians, eight one farms, fourteen lawyers, sixteen school teachers, thirty four merchants and five druggists.

January 1804 - The Newark Lyceum Society for Literary Improvement is organized.

February 15, 1804 -An act of the Legislature provides that all children of slave parents born after July 4 of this year, shall be free leaving 16 male and 15 female slaves.

May 1, 1804 - The Newark Banking and Insurance Company is organized.

May 22, 1804 - A tornado tears down the Dutch Reformed Church at Second River (Belleville)

December 25, 1804 - The Republican Herald publishes

February 24. 1806 - The Newark and Pompton Turnpike is opened with Toll gates at Newark, Montclair, Singac and other places.

1806 - The Springfield and Newark Turnpike, now Springfield Ave. is opened.

1806 - Newark is noted for its cider, quarries, manufacturing of carriages, coaches, lace and shoes. Nearly one-third of its inhabitants, were constantly employed in the manufacturing of shoes.

1807 - The Sentinel of Freedom received a letter from a Newark resident complaining about a strange malady that was striking the town. The letter went on to complain about stagnant pools and the dead animals that were decomposing and emitting poisonous vapors. The letter writer stated that blame for this was the local slaughterhouses that used the streets as garbage receptacles.

November 27, 1807 - The Modern Spectatora weekly periodical is published

1810 - Population 8008

April 1810 - The Newark Mutual Assurance Company (The Newark Fire Insurance Company) begins business.

1811 - The Essex County Court House is erected at the Northeast corner of Broad and Walnut Streets, the site of the present day Grace Episcopal Church.

1811 - William and Andrew Rankin bring Hat making to Newark.

February 11, 1811 - The Newark and Morris Turnpike is incorporated.

1812 - During the War of 1812, a draft of every seventh man was made. A volunteer company of riflemen was formed and commanded by Theodore Frelinghuysen.

June, 1814 - New Jersey troops depart for Staten Island to do patrol duty at Fort Richmond.

1815 - Under the provisions of an Act to authorize the inhabitants of the Township of Newark to build or purchase a poor house, the farm of Aaron Johnson was purchased, and in 1818 five acres of land adjoining were added to this farm. This property was known as the "Poor House Farm".

December 1818 - Seth Boyden erects a patent leather factory

1820 - Population 6507

July 28, 1820 - The New Jersey Eagle is published

July 4, 1826 - Seth Boyden discovers the process of making malleable iron

February 26, 1827 - The Newark Lodge, No. 7 Masonic is organized

December 16, 1830 - The first boat on the Morris Canal passes through town

1832 - Cholera Epidemic

1832 - Whaling Company incorporated.

March 1, 1832 - The Daily Advertiser is published

November 13, 1833 - Newark Sealing and Manufacturing Company is incorporated

1834 - Newark is made a port of entry.

March 17, 1834 - The first Saint Patrick's day is celebrated

June 14, 1834 - Cedar Street is born

July 11, 1834 - An anti-abolition riot occurs in Newark, The Fourth Presbyterian Church is wrecked inside and the windows smashed by a mob of 1000 men.

September 1, 1834 - The New Jersey Railroad and Transportation Co (Penn RR) is opened

1835 - 10,542 free white Americans, 6,000 Irish, 1,000 English and Scotch, 300 Germans and 358 free colored people in town

January 29, 1835 - The Morris and Essex RR receives its charter.

June 2, 1835 - A counterfeiting plant in the cellar of the last house on the Newark and Belleville road is uncovered.

August 15, 1835 - The Court House is burned down

1836 - A tax is passed on the owning of dogs. Male dogs were taxed at $2.00 for one and $5.00 for each additional one. Female dogs were taxed at $10.00 for one and $2.00 for each additional one. Collarless dogs and dogs that attacked people or other animals could be killed on sight.

1836 - Streets of Newark were lighted with oil lamps.

1836 - A school system for the poor children is established.

July 11, 1836 - The NJRR takes its guest on an excursion to the end of the line in New Brunswick

August 24, 1836 - The cornerstone for the new Court House at Springfield and Market is laid

October 27, 1836 - A great fire consumes almost the entire block on the south side of Market Street, east of Broad, breaking out in a German boarding house.

November 19, 1836 - The Morris and Essex RR is opened to Orange

1837 - Persons in charge of vaults and burial grounds were required to furnish the city clerk with monthly lists of interments.

1837 - Morris Canal opens.

1838 - In 1838 a whole party of Essex Co. residents moved by covered wagon to Ottawa Co., Ohio.

January 1, 1838 - The Morris and Essex RR is opened to Morristown

February 10, 1838 - The Newark Museum is burned down

1840 - Smallpox Reappears

1844 - Mount Pleasant Cemetery is incorporated

January 31, 1845 - The Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company is organized

February 27, 1845 - The New Jersey Historical Society is organized

May 14, 1846 - The first fire hydrants are installed

December 25, 1846 - The Newark Gas Light Co commenced the manufacture of gas for city streets

1848-49 - Influx of German Political fugitives following the collapse of the Revolution of the Grand Duchy of Baden

February 21, 1848 - Library Hall is dedicated, on Market Street near Halsey

March 28, 1848 - Protestant Foster Home is established

February 9, 1849 - The Newark Orphan Asylum is incorporated

1849-50 - Cholera claim 148 in Newark

1851 - Present school system is established

1852 - A resolution was adopted to widen, deepen, and enclose one of the city's larger streams. This was supposed to begin to eliminate Newark's problems with sewage. The resolution was abandoned upon complaints from neighborhood residents Shortly thereafter work began on the city's first sewer, which was completed in 1853.

1853 - An unusually heavy downpour left many cellars of the Down Neck residents flooded for several days. This due to the watery subsoil of the region.

1853-54 - Market Building over Morris Canal is erected, the second story was used for Council Chamber, Committee Rooms, fire alarm bell, and east end of department for police station and city prison.

1853 - First street is paved using round stones.

March 10, 1853 - St. Mary's Orphan Asylum is incorporated

1854 - Cholera Epidemic

May 27, 1854 - The first YMCA is organized

January 7, 1855 - Old High School building becomes the Girls Industrial School

February 9, 1855 - Fairmount Cemetery is incorporated

March 6, 1855 - Woodland Cemetery is incorporated as West Newark Cemetery

April 5, 1855 - The Children's Aid Society is incorporated.

April 21, 1855 - The Green Street German American School opens

1857 - 2,464 dogs were killed that year in the Dog Scare. A bounty was placed on unmuzzled dogs which were caught, brought to the dog pounds and killed.

1857 - The Newark Daily Mercury on the installation of sewers:
"No local improvements have been made since the organization of the city government which have been more successful or more valuable to the best interests of the community. The general health of the city has been improved by the partial or entire removal of sources of disease. Hundreds of building advantages of a good and sufficient drainage, which a few years since were comparatively worthless for the want of it....Our public streets, which were a floating sea of mud, upon which scows might sail, or a frozen mass of ruts, are now transformed into magnificent avenues paved and graded throughout, beautiful at all times. We are no longer in fear that every heavy rain will fill the cellars of a portion of our city, begetting disease and death, for a system of sewerage has been planned, and successfully carried out, which drains thoroughly the surface water of the city."

March 16, 1857 - The Howard Savings Institution is incorporated

April 14, 1857 - The steamboat Belleville begins trips between Newark and Belleville

March 19, 1858 - Newark Board of Health is established consisting of the Mayor, the members of the Common Council Committee on Public Health and the health Physician.

April 25, 1858 - The New Jersey Freie Zeitung (newspaper) is established

September 14, 1859 - The Arion Singing Society is organized

May 30, 1861 - The First Brigade leaves for Washington

1861 - Steam fire engines are introduced

May 13, 1862 - The United States Hospital for wounded soldiers is opened at the foot of Centre Street.

1864 - St. Peter's Orphan Asylum is founded

April 24, 1865 - The Lincoln funeral train passes through Newark

July 4, 1866 - The New Jersey Home for Disabled Soldiers is opened on Seventh Avenue

February 13, 1867 - St. Barnabas' Hospital is incorporated

February 27, 1868 - The German Hospital is incorporated

January 15, 1868 - The New Jersey State Association Base Ball Players in organized

May 10, 1868 - The Boys' Lodging House and Children's Aid Society is organized

1869 - St. Vincent's Academy is founded

September, 1871 - The Woman's Christian Association is formed

March 9, 1871 - St. Michael's Hospital is incorporated, opened in 1865

1872 - Newark Industrial Exhibition

April 18, 1872 - The Home for the Friendless is organized

May 18, 1872 - The Newark Sunday Call is published

August 1872 - The Essex County Hospital at 63 Camden Street is founded

February 18, 1875 - The Prudential Insurance Company of America is founded

July, 1879 - Salvage Corps organized

1882 - Newark City Hospital at 116 Fairmount Avenue is opened. Until this time the district physicians and the dispensary provided the only municipally sponsored medical services available to the poor.

March 25, 1882 - St. Benedict's College is charted

1883 - Newark Evening News established

1885 - The Newark Technical School is established

1886 - The old burying ground is given over for public purposes and bones of settlers are removed to Fairmount Cemetery

January 21, 1887 - The city resolves that provision be made at once for the removal of the bodies buried in the Old Burying Ground to some suitable location. Branford Place crosses the area that once was the burying ground between Broad and Washington and Market and William. The bones and headstones were removed to Fairmount Cemetery where a metal monument marks the spot of their re-interment, stones and all

1887 - The Hebrew Orphan Asylum is opened at 232 Mulberry Street

March 1887 - The Newark District Telegraph Co is established

May 9, 1888 - The Free Public Library is organized

December 29, 1888 - The digging up of the remains of the bodies in the Old Burying Ground between Broad and Halsey streets, now crossed by Branford place, is in progress, 60 men are at work and already four pine boxes of bones are ready for Fairmount Cemetery

1889 - The Gottfried Krueger Home for Aged Men is organized

1892 - First of "new" Prudential buildings erected.

April 1893 - The Newark Ledger is established

May 2, 1898 - First Regiment New Jersey Volunteers for Spanish-American War left Newark for Sea Girt, returned home September 26.

February 1, 1899 - Barringer High School is opened