April 7 Meeting

This year our annual dinner meeting was held in the Garden Restaurant, where we celebrated the 150th anniversary year of the existence of the Union County Historical Society. More than forty members and friends were present and enjoyed a pleasant afternoon of conversation with new and old friends. The Society was formed in 1869 by several prominent residents of Elizabeth, shortly after the end of the Civil War. Our membership has included many well-known persons, including Mary Alward, Henry Crane, Warren Dix, Edward J. Grassman, A. L. Johnson, Callahan J. McCarthy, C. Godfrey Poggi, and Thomas Williams, among others. Through the years there have been many meeting rooms, such as the Court House, First Presbyterian Church, and old St. John’s Parsonage.

Elizabethtown Under Siege, 1778–1781

Our guest speaker was Joanne Rajoppi, Clerk of Union County and our vice-president. Her topic was “Elizabethtown Under Siege,” a presentation on the hardships and problems faced by residents of Elizabethtown during the American Revolution, when British and Hessian forces occupied Staten Island, only five hundred feet across the Arthur Kill. She told us about frequent raids in both directions and of fires set to destroy supplies stored in the Academy by the Presbyterian Church for the American army. We heard how some of the women challenged the flames of the burning building to save barrels of flour from destruction.

May Meeting

The meeting of May 19 will be held in the Hanson House at 2 PM, and its main subject will be the awarding of some minor financial assistance to four senior students of the high schools of Union County. The recipients will be selected by the Awards Committee of the Society from the number of student applicants who meet our award rules. All of the high schools in Union County will be informed of this award, but it is up to the students to apply. We hope to see a good turn-out of the members.

March 3 Meeting

The March meeting was held as scheduled in the Hanson House with a large number of members and guests in attendance, even though the weather was threatening to bring rain and snow storms. Some financial matters were discussed in the pre-agenda executive board meeting, with action to be determined later. During the meeting of the membership, there were a few announcements of coming events, after which the speaker for the afternoon was introduced, Aimee Fernandez-Puente of the Elizabeth Public Library, Supervisor of the Local History and Special Collections Department.

She gave a very interesting and informative talk about the resources available in the library, with emphasis on its security and safety. This emphasis increased after it was discovered that some items had mysteriously disappeared. She brought with her a few items from the vast collection and carefully held them up for us to see. She also explained that some files, such as those of the Elizabeth Daily Journal, have been and will continue to be transferred to electronic recording, thus saving wear and tear on delicate originals.

Pictures From Our Files

Here we have a picture of Elizabeth in 1856 that shows the intersection of two railroads crossing near the center of the town. This same area was replaced about forty-five years later by the famous Arches of Elizabeth. In the image are two locomotives awaiting permission to advance through the crossing, which was controlled by an official near the guard house in the center of the intersection.

The train on the left belongs to the Central Railroad of New Jersey, renamed from the Elizabethtown & Somerville Railroad in 1849, whose first day of operation was January 1, 1839, shown passing through Morris Avenue. The train on the right is a Pennsylvania Railroad train, originally organized as the Camden & Amboy in 1830. A very unlikely sight today is two men on horseback waiting to cross while cows are being driven down Broad Street, with smoke and steam filling the sky.

Over the Back Fence

We have heard that the weather was so warm that the Easter Bunny did not have to wear his snowsuit.