A History of Millburn Township eBook A History of Millburn Township »» by Marian Meisner Jointly published by the Millburn/Short Hills Historical Society and the Millburn Free Public Library. Copyright, July 5, 2002. file:///c|/ebook/main.htm9/3/2004 6:40:37 PM content TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Before the Beginning - Millburn in Geological Times II. The First Inhabitants of Millburn III. The Country Before Settlement IV. The First English Settlements in Jersey V. The Indian Deeds VI. The First Millburn Settlers and How They Lived VII. I See by the Papers VIII. The War Comes to Millburn IX. The War Leaves Millburn and Many Loose Ends are Gathered Up X. The Mills of Millburn XI. The Years Between the Revolution and the Coming of the Railroad XII. The Coming of the Railroad XIII. 1857-1870 XIV. The Short Hills and Wyoming Developments XV. The History of Millburn Public Schools XVI. A History of Independent Schools XVII. Millburn's Churches XVIII. Growing Up file:///c|/ebook/toc.htm (1 of 2)9/3/2004 6:40:37 PM content XIX. Changing Times XX. Millburn Township Becomes a Centenarian XXI. 1958-1976 file:///c|/ebook/toc.htm (2 of 2)9/3/2004 6:40:37 PM content Contents CHAPTER I. BEFORE THE BEGINNING Chpt. 1 MILLBURN IN GEOLOGICAL TIMES Chpt. 2 Chpt. 3 The twelve square miles of earth which were bound together on March 20, Chpt. 4 1857, by the Legislature of the State of New Jersey, to form a body politic, thenceforth to be known as the Township of Millburn, is a fractional part of the Chpt. 5 County of Essex, and a still smaller fragment of the State which gave it birth, Chpt. 6 but the political entity which came into being just a little more than a hundred Chpt. 7 years ago, was founded in a region many times a million years old, whose Chpt. 8 geological processes were important enough for scientists to have given to it its own name, "The Newark Group". In fact, one of the grand divisions of time, Chpt. 9 the Triassic period, of the Mesozoic Era, in which the bed rocks of Millburn and Chpt. 10 the Watchung systems were founded, is often parenthetically called "Newark Chpt. 11 Time". The peculiar rock formations of this area, sandstone, shale, and traprock are found, naturally, in a few places elsewhere, but no where more Chpt. 12 clearly recognizable than here. Chpt. 13 Chpt. 14 Time for the geologists is divided into six eras. The first era began untold Chpt. 15 millions of years ago, but the Newark Period was only between 35 and 45 Chpt. 16 millions of years ago, comparatively recently say the geologists, with all sorts of authenticated evidence around for knowing eyes to see. The year 1976 is Chpt. 17 part of the Post Glacial or Recent Era, which began almost yesterday in the Chpt. 18 longterm thinking of the scientists, but the hills of Millburn Township are very Chpt. 19 old with their flowing, rounded tops worn down by the forces of erosion through the ages. Chpt. 20 Chpt. 21 New Jersey, 166 miles long by 57 miles wide at its widest portion, is part of the Atlantic Slope of North America. The Atlantic Slope is divided into two parts, Home the Appalachian Province, and the Coastal Plain. The boundary between the two provinces runs obliquely across the State from Trenton through New Brunswick to Raritan Bay. The easternmost division of the Appalachian Print Province is the Piedmont Plateau or Plain, which slopes gently southeastward from the base of the Appalachian Mountains to sea level at Newark. The first Watchung Mountains rise from the Plain, achieving their greatest height of 879 feet near Paterson, and their lowest of about 450 feet near Somerville. Millburn has its own "mountain", a tree-covered slope rising from its bed of traprock to a height of 550 feet. This upward thrusting pile of rock brings to an abrupt end the gentle hills which have meandered on their southwesterly journey from the Palisades of the Hudson River. In part of the short time occupied by recorded history, the summit of the escarpment which marks that Millburn terminal has been known affectionately, if somewhat incorrectly, historically speaking, as "Washington Rock", and now tamed and civilized, bears a lookout from which an expansive view may be had of the plains which lie beneath it extending to the towers of Manhattan twenty miles away. file:///c|/ebook/I.htm (1 of 5)9/3/2004 6:40:38 PM content Two miles southwest of Millburn, near Summit, the hills again move on their way. What great cataclysm of nature tore the gap in these traprock ridges is now only a matter of conjecture. All of the State north of tie line drawn from Trenton to Newark Bay rests on solid bedrock with its covering of soil, varying from a few inches to many feet. In many hilly sections the bare rock appears at the surface. It is not easy to realize that many of the materials forming the bedrock were brought in by the Gulf of Mexico, which in the Paleozoic Era flowed northward across the Continent, across Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New England. To appreciate such a fact one must project himself back to a time when our shore line extended many miles farther east than it does now, and between us and the Atlantic Ocean on the northwest and southeast rose two other large land masses ?the lost lands of Appalachia and Acadia, the greater part of which has long since been drowned by the waters of the Atlantic, but during those long ago years played an important part in the history of our land. They bore the brunt of the attack by the elements, and from them was washed tremendous quantities of materials to build a new world. It seems in reading the pages of Geology that nothing in those dim and far off days was ever done moderately. When it rained, it was a deluge; when the sun shone, it shone so fiercely that the land became a desert; when the seas came in they moved ruthlessly across the earth; and when the cold came, the ice sheets moved upon the land hundreds of feet thick. The whole geology of New Jersey is the story of a constant battle between land and water. Repeatedly large portions of the State and sometimes the whole State were submerged beneath the sea. Then in another cycle, the land rose high above the water only to be engulfed in another era. Sometimes the land gained a little advantage in the huge masses of mud and sand and other sediment left by the water. In other times, the water carried away all the softer and lighter materials built up by former seas. The water cut deep channels and wide valleys as it swirled across the plain. Probably Millburn lay buried beneath the sea during most of the early eras until the Fourth ? the Triassic period of the Mesozoic Era when the characteristic rock of this region was formed. Some widespread earth movement affected the eastern region, as a result of which the old lands of Appalachia and Acadia were broadly uplifted, and a series of basins formed between them. The Piedmont Region formed one basin. In the basin, sand, gravel, and mud, washed down from the higher regions of the northwest and southeast, began to accumulate. Some of the sediments, particularly their red color, so characteristic of New Jersey now, indicate a hot, dry, climate where torrential rains fell at intervals carrying debris with them. Fossil remains, found in great file:///c|/ebook/I.htm (2 of 5)9/3/2004 6:40:38 PM content numbers, point to landlocked bays which rose and fell to various levels. At last a time came when the basins were filled with sediment; the old lands to the southeast and northwest sank, never to rise again, and the waters disappeared. The broad mud flats extended across the Piedmont Plain. Across these flats the giant reptiles, creatures of mud and slime, walked, leaving behind them forever imprinted, their many footprints, which are in some places nearby still perfectly preserved. Slabs measuring 1700 square feet from a quarry near Towaco in Morris County, show foot prints of 12 different species, and are now preserved in the Rutgers University Museum in New Brunswick. A restoration of the skeleton of a giant Hadrosaurus is mounted in the State Museum at Trenton. The later period of deposit was also a time of great volcanic activity, and into the mass of drying mud, sand, and gravel volcanoes deep beneath the surface spewed their hot melted rock or lava, extruding it between the accumulated layers of mud and sand. In time, and under pressure, mud and sand become shale and sandstone, and the rapidly cooling lava, interbedded with those other materials, to form eventually thick sheets of shale, sandstone, and the dark blue or black basalt, known as traprock, which is found today in the quarries of this vicinity. But the long days of creation were not completed. In that distant time, an ancient river, now thought to be the Hudson, diverted from its channel by a slow process of erosion, turned southeast across the buried Palisades ridge at Sparkhill, New York, and cut its raging course 475 feet below the present surface across New Jersey, and finally forced its way through a gap, the Hobart Gap, at Short Hills, to the sea.