Chapter 2 Historical Context
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Chapter 2 HISTORICAL CONTEXT A. OVERVIEW: THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT of General George Washington. Some 13 years later, OF Paterson’s URBAN ARCHITECTURE Hamilton, by now U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, was AND LANDSCAPE among the driving forces behind the establishment of the S.U.M. Unusual for its time, the S.U.M. was a The City of Paterson is located in southeastern Passaic state-chartered corporation for manufacturing specifi- County with most of its area south of a great bend in cally exempt from county and local taxes.2 the Passaic River. This bend occurs where the Passaic cuts through the First Watchung Mountain, also known The area around the Great Falls prior to the creation locally as Garrett Mountain, a basaltic ridge stretching of Paterson was rural, agrarian and sparsely popu- some 48 miles southwest-to-northeast across northern lated. The Great Falls had been in the northern part of New Jersey. In Paterson, the initially northeasterly Acquackanonk Township in Essex County since the flowing Passaic, trapped west of the mountain, passes establishment of the township in 1693.3 A large part through the ridge and over the 77-foot-high Great of the township’s colonial population was Dutch or of Falls before turning southeast, flowing more gently Dutch descent, although there were also English and and heading for tidewater, ultimately emptying into a smattering of Scots-Irish. Rural Acquackanonk prior Newark Bay. Downtown Paterson, including the to the S.U.M. is illustrated by two maps produced dur- Dublin neighborhood, is located on the lower east- ing the American Revolution, Martin’s Plan General ern slope of Garrett Mountain between the ridge and des Operations de L’Armee Britannique of 1779 the river. Underlying this slope are layers of tilted (Figure 2.1) and Hills’s A Sketch of the Northern Parts sandstone and shale. The reddish-brown sandstone, of New Jersey of 1781 (Figure 2.2). Both illustrate commonly called brownstone, was quarried and used the prominent geographical features of Paterson – the as a building material. In the Dublin neighborhood, First Watchung Mountain, the bend in the Passaic the most prominent use of brownstone is St. John’s River, the location of the Great Falls – as well as a Roman Catholic Cathedral, dedicated in 1870.1 pattern of early roads. Prominent in Paterson is the Y-intersection of two roads, both headed from their The development of Paterson as a city is usually dated intersection north to crossings of the Passaic. The from 1791 when “Paterson town” was chartered by western of the roads corresponds with modern-day the State of New Jersey as a planned manufactur- Main Street, then the main road from Acquackonank ing center under the auspices of the Society for the village (later City of Passaic) to Pompton, passing Establishment of Useful Manufactures (S.U.M.). The along the east side of what would eventually become S.U.M. was attracted to the Great Falls as a virtually the South Dublin neighborhood. The more easterly unlimited source of waterpower for energizing the road corresponds roughly with modern-day Madison new technology of textile mills. Up to that time, the Avenue.4 Great Falls had been primarily thought of as a natural attraction, capturing the attention of tourists, includ- The history of Paterson’s early industrial develop- ing Alexander Hamilton who visited the falls during ment has been documented elsewhere.5 The S.U.M.’s the American Revolution in July 1778 in company plans were for their time technologically ambitious Page 2-1 HUNTER RESEARCH, INC. * Figure 2.1. Martin, Capitaine. Plan General des Operations de L’Armée Britannique contre les Rebelles dans L’Amerique depuis L’Arrivée des Troupes Hessoises. Project site indicated with an asterisk. 1779. Scale: 1 inch = 3 miles (approximately). Page 2-2 INTENSIVE-LEVEL ARCHITECTURAL SURVEY: SOUTH DUBLIN NEIGHBORHOOD, PATERSON, NEW JERSEY * Figure 2.2. Hills, John. A Sketch of the Northern Parts of New Jersey. 1781. Project site indicated with an asterisk. Scale: 1 inch = 2 miles (approximately). Source: Guthorn 1976. Page 2-3 HUNTER RESEARCH, INC. and capital-intensive, intended to bring into operation level skirting Garrett Mountain with the canal’s earth- one of America’s earliest cotton spinning mills. The en berm establishing what would become Dublin’s S.U.M. purchased the land that what would support southern edge. The Watson Map of the State of New downtown Paterson, started development of a planned Jersey of 1812 (Figure 2.3) and the Gordon Map of the industrial city, and then found that it had overextended State of New Jersey of 1833 (Figure 2.4) illustrate the its finances, in part due to mismanagement and in part transportation changes that occurred during the time due to underestimating costs. In 1797, the S.U.M. in which Paterson emerged from nascent industrial ceased cotton production for the first of several times village into a full-fledged and vibrant industrial town and then limped along until 1807 when the cotton on its way to becoming a leading American city. In mill burned leaving the organization with no income 1851, a new charter elevated Paterson from the status and relatively little in the way of financial assets. At of town to that of city, and by 1860 the city’s popula- this juncture, Roswell Colt, who had lived in Paterson tion was almost 20,000, making it the second most in the company of his father, Peter Colt, the S.U.M.’s populous city in New Jersey (only behind Jersey City superintendent of works, during the mid-1790s, began with a population of 29,000) and the forty-sixth most buying up S.U.M. shares at discount prices. Industrial populous city in the United States.8 growth was revived under the younger Colt’s guid- ance, in large part stimulated by the Embargo Act of The spectacular growth of Paterson placed pressure 1807 and the War of 1812, which limited competition on the community’s physical infrastructure. Historians from British textiles. Colt reinvigorated industrial have placed the greatest emphasis on the expansion of Paterson, expanded the raceway system and attracted the mills. Naturally, industrial activities concentrated investors in more than a dozen new mills by leasing along the raceways near the Great Falls since the water rights at generous terms. Colt also sold off lots mills were absolutely reliant on falling water to power to prospective residents – mill owners and workers machinery. Mill architecture took on a characteristic alike – mostly in an area that was soon known as form literally driven by the demands of producing and Paterson’s Dublin neighborhood. By the early 1830s, distributing mechanical energy. The distinctive, heav- Paterson had grown into an industrial town with a ily built, multi-story, timber-framed, masonry-walled population of over 9,000.6 mills centered on waterwheels that delivered power to rows of machines connected by vertical and horizontal Transportation improvements also aided Paterson’s shafts, gears and pulleys. The most efficient means to growth while shaping the landscape around the Dublin deliver power was upward and then down the long neighborhood. In 1816, the Paterson and Hamburg axes of the mills’ floors, resulting in tall, long and Turnpike Company extended its route southeastward relatively thin buildings. The S.U.M. and Roswell from Paterson to Hoboken via a wood-plank road Colt paid particular attention to mill architecture and following the modern-day route of Main Street in the layout of the raceways, establishing mill “leases” Paterson. This road was credited with reducing the logically arranged along a three-tier raceway system. travel time of freight between Paterson and New The industrial architecture and landscape at the heart York harbor from two days to one day.7 The turnpike of the Paterson city plan was not left to chance and is was followed a decade later by the Morris Canal, a hallmark of Paterson’s industrial heritage.9 completed in 1829 between Phillipsburg, New Jersey on the Delaware River and Newark, and eventually There has been somewhat less historical attention extended in the 1830s to Jersey City and the west side paid to how the S.U.M. and Colt planned for the of New York Harbor. In Paterson, the canal followed a development of the rest of Paterson to support the Page 2-4 INTENSIVE-LEVEL ARCHITECTURAL SURVEY: SOUTH DUBLIN NEIGHBORHOOD, PATERSON, NEW JERSEY * Figure 2.3. Watson, William. A Map of the State of New Jersey (detail). 1812. Project site indicated with an asterisk. Scale: 1 inch = 2 miles (approximately). Page 2-5 HUNTER RESEARCH, INC. * Figure 2.4. Gordon, Thomas. A Map of the State of New Jersey (detail). 1833. Project site indicated with an asterisk. Scale: 1 inch = 1.5 miles (approximately). Page 2-6 INTENSIVE-LEVEL ARCHITECTURAL SURVEY: SOUTH DUBLIN NEIGHBORHOOD, PATERSON, NEW JERSEY everyday needs of its population. In 1792 during the section of Mill and Oliver Streets, and proximity to very earliest days of the S.U.M., Alexander Hamilton the mills, since workers put in long hours and were engaged Pierre Charles L’Enfant, fresh from plan- not expected to walk long distances between home ning the new capital city of Washington, District of and work.11 Columbia. L’Enfant’s tenure with the S.U.M. lasted barely nine months, during which most of his efforts were engaged with making the raceway system a B. THE DUBLIN NEIGHBORHOOD reality, but he also seems to have sketched a town plan that consisted of radiating avenues, similar to Tradition has it that the Dublin neighborhood took that which he had planned for Washington.