| History of New Jersey |
|---|
 |
| Colonial period |
| American Revolution |
| Nineteenth century |
| Twentieth century |
| Twenty-first century |
New Jersey in the nineteenth century led the United States into the Industrial Revolution. The state sent soldiers, supplies and money to the wars of the period but was not the location of any battles.
| Census | Pop. | Note | %± |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1800 | 211,149 | — | |
| 1810 | 245,562 | 16.3% | |
| 1820 | 277,575 | 13.0% | |
| 1830 | 320,823 | 15.6% | |
| 1840 | 373,306 | 16.4% | |
| 1850 | 489,555 | 31.1% | |
| 1860 | 672,035 | 37.3% | |
| 1870 | 906,096 | 34.8% | |
| 1880 | 1,131,116 | 24.8% | |
| 1890 | 1,444,933 | 27.7% | |
| 1900 | 1,883,669 | 30.4% |
Population growth was steady across the state, and especially grew rapidly after 1840s when the cities began building up. furthermore after the 1840s, a steady flow of immigration from Europe, especially Germany, Ireland and Britain, gave a more cosmopolitan aura to urban areas. Rural areas prospered by the nearby presence of two rapidly growing metropolitan centers in New York City and Philadelphia which purchased more and better foods as farmers modernized their techniques and made heavy use of railways. [1] [2]
Augmented by new immigration from the Netherlands, the long-established Dutch areas grew and modernized especially in the Passaic Valley. Some remained in farming, but many others moved into textiles, construction, food industries and the professions. [3]
John Fea has explored the links between agrarianism, republican politics, and Presbyterian moral thought in New Jersey in the 1790-1820 period. Devout Presbyterians admired Jeffersonian democracy, especially Jefferson's emphasis on the virtuous farmer and their own devout belief that they were the chosen people of God. [4]
Princeton University, known as the College of New Jersey until 1896, was the intellectual center of the Presbyterian movement in the United States together with its neighboring Princeton Theological Seminary. The outstanding theologian was Charles Hodge (1797–1878) who spent his career at the Seminary and was the founder and editor for 45 years of the Biblical Repertory, later named the Princeton Review. He favored the Old School position, which was favorable toward ritual and hostile to revivalism. However he worked hard to prevent a schism in the church, as he held church unity to be more important than the particular factional beliefs. He also sought to hold the Presbyterian Church aloof from sectional strife regarding the expansion of slavery that led to the Civil War, though he insisted that the church must bear witness to Christian themes on political issues. [5]
The second version of the New Jersey State Constitution was written in 1844. The constitution provided the right of suffrage only to white males, removing it from women and non-white men. The right of suffrage had previously been awarded to those groups underneath the Original New Jersey State Constitution of 1776. Some of the important components of the second State Constitution include the separation of the powers of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The new constitution also provided a bill of rights. Underneath the constitution, the people had the right to elect the governor.
The economy of New Jersey was largely based on agriculture. However, crop failures and other agricultural problems plagued the settlers of New Jersey. Soil was becoming less fertile and worn out. However, New Jersey eventually funded an extensive effort that led to publication in the early 1850s of accurate agriculture-related surveys. Largely through the effort of George Hammell Cook, the publication of this survey helps to increase the state's involvement in agricultural research and direct support to farmers. [6] As agriculture became a less reliable source of income for New Jerseyans, many began turning towards more industrialized methods. Many immigrants increased the population of New Jersey greatly. Most of them came from Germany, Wales, and Ireland.
Paterson, New Jersey, a city founded by the Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures (SUM), was a leader in America's Industrial Revolution, harnessing energy from the 77-foot (23 m) high Great Falls of the Passaic River. The city became an important site for mills and other industries, including textiles, firearms, silk, and railroad locomotive manufacturing. As a result of its high silk production, it became nicknamed the "Silk City". In 1835, Samuel Colt began producing firearms in the city.
Thomas Edison, famous inventor, was born in 1847. He was called "the Wizard of Menlo Park" for his amazing inventions and improvements to other ideas. Over the course of his entire life, he was granted 1,093 patents. [7] He worked in Menlo Park. Of his most famous contributions included his design of the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, the kinetoscope, the stock ticker, the telegraph, the Dictaphone, the radio, the tattoo gun, and the telephone. He started the Motion Picture Patents Company. One of his famous sayings was, "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration".
The agricultural products from New Jersey usually were transported to larger markets in New York City and Philadelphia. In order to make such transporting of crops more profitable, newer transportation methods were devised. The first oceangoing steamboat went from Hoboken, New Jersey, around the southern tip of New Jersey, and ended in Philadelphia. Later, systems of canals were also built, the first of which is called the Morris Canal and ran from Jersey City, New Jersey, on the Hudson River, to Phillipsburg, New Jersey on the Delaware River. The Delaware and Raritan canal ran from New Brunswick, New Jersey on the Raritan River, and ends at Bordentown, New Jersey on the Delaware River.
Locomotion was also improved. In the 1820s, Hoboken inventor John Stevens built a 10-ton locomotive in England and transported it to New Jersey. Since it was too heavy to run on regular wooden tracks, his son, also by the name of John, started constructing iron railroads. By 1833, the Camden & Amboy railroad had been completed, allowing a 7-hour passage between Philadelphia and New York City. Throughout the 1800s, over a dozen companies were operating railroad lines. By the end of the century the shores of the Hudson River were dominated by rail infrastructure including passenger terminals, ferries slips, and freight operations owned by several competing railroads.
Historians have examined the emergence of the Second Party System at the state local levels. For example, Bruce Bendler argues that in New Jersey the same dramatic changes that were reshaping the rest of the country were especially pointed in that state in the 1820s. A new political system emerged by the end of the decade as voters polarized in support or opposition to Jackson. By the 1830s pro-Jackson Democrats and anti-Jackson Whigs had mobilize practically every adult male voter into their opposing coalitions thereby integrating politics at the local state and national levels Furthermore, the "Market Revolution" was well underway, as industrialization and upgraded transportation networks made the larger picture more important than the local economy, and entrepreneurs and politicians became leaders in speeding up the changes. For example, William N. Jeffers of Salem County, New Jersey, built his political success on leadership with the Jacksonian forces at the local level, while at the same time building his fortune with a bank charter and building a steam mill. [8]
Though no major battles were fought in New Jersey, soldiers and volunteers from New Jersey played an important part in the wars fought by the United States of America. During the Mexican–American War, a battalion of volunteers from New Jersey, in four companies, was active from September 1847 to July 1848. Philip Kearny, an officer who led a cavalry unit, followed General Winfield Scott and fought in the Battle of Contreras and Battle of Churubusco. After the war, Kearny made his home in the state of New Jersey. George B. McClellan was an important general during the Civil War, and was elected governor of New Jersey in 1877, serving in office from 1878 to 1881.
The Quaker population of New Jersey was especially intolerant of slavery. However, New Jersey ended up becoming the last of the northern states to abolish slavery by enacting legislation which caused the slow abolishment of slavery. Though New Jersey passed an act for the gradual abolition of slavery in 1804, it wasn't until 1830 that most blacks were free in the state. However, by the close of the Civil War, about a dozen African-Americans in New Jersey were still apprenticed freedmen. New Jersey at first refused to ratify the Constitutional Amendments that banned slavery. New Jersey was a major part of the extensive Underground Railroad system.
No battles took place within New Jersey throughout the course of the Civil War. However, over 88,000 soldiers from New Jersey were part of several infantry and cavalry regiments. In total, 31 regiments were created by New Jersey soldiers during this war, along with four militia regiments, three cavalry regiments, and five batteries of light artillery. 23,116 of those soldiers served in the Army of the Potomac. Soldiers from New Jersey fought generally in the Eastern theater of the Civil War [9] Over 6,000 soldiers from New Jersey were killed in the war. Philip Kearny, an officer from the Mexican–American War, led a brigade of New Jersey regiments under Brigadier General William B. Franklin. Kearny distinguished himself as a brilliant officer during the Peninsula Campaign, and was promoted to the position of major general.
New Jersey was one of the few states to vote for Stephen Douglas instead of Abraham Lincoln in the Presidential Election of 1860. The people of New Jersey also gave its electoral votes to George McClellan when he ran for president against Abraham Lincoln in the election of 1864, being the only free state that rejected Lincoln twice. McClellan later became the governor of New Jersey, from 1878 to 1881.
Many cities like Paterson, New Jersey and Camden, New Jersey grew extremely strong through the duration of the Civil War. They produced many necessities, including clothing and war materials like ammunition. These cities prospered through constant production even after the end of the war. Cities like those of Paterson and Camden became crucial to the Northern war effort. With the Union's ability to manufacture more supplies, the Union was able to defeat the Confederates and successfully conclude the war and reunite the country. [10]
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or the South, was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confederacy comprised eleven U.S. states that declared secession and warred against the United States during the American Civil War. The states were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
The 1864 United States presidential election was the 20th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 8, 1864. Near the end of the American Civil War, incumbent President Abraham Lincoln of the National Union Party easily defeated the Democratic nominee, former General George B. McClellan, by a wide margin of 212–21 in the electoral college, with 55% of the popular vote. For the election, the Republican Party and some Democrats created the National Union Party, especially to attract War Democrats.
Philip Kearny Jr. was a United States Army officer, notable for his leadership in the Mexican–American War and American Civil War. He served in French Emperor Napoleon III's Imperial Guard at the Battle of Solferino.
During the American Civil War, the United States of America (USA) was referred to as the Union, also known colloquially as the North, after eleven Southern slave states seceded to form the Confederate States of America (CSA), which was called the Confederacy, also known as the South. The name the "Union" arose from the declared goal of the United States, led by President Abraham Lincoln, of preserving the United States as a constitutional union.
William Dennison Jr. was a Whig and Republican politician from Ohio. He served as the 24th governor of Ohio and as U.S. Postmaster General in the Cabinet of President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War.
The Baltimore riot of 1861 was a civil conflict on Friday, April 19, 1861, on Pratt Street, in Baltimore, Maryland. It occurred between antiwar "Copperhead" Democrats and other Southern/Confederate sympathizers on one side, and on the other, members of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania state militia regiments en route to the national capital at Washington who had been called up for federal service. The fighting began at the President Street Station, spreading throughout President Street and subsequently to Howard Street, where it ended at the Camden Street Station. The riot produced the first deaths of Union volunteers by hostile action, although caused by civilians, in the American Civil War. Civilians among the attackers also were killed.
The history of what is now New Jersey begins at the end of the Younger Dryas, about 15,000 years ago. Native Americans moved into New town reversal of the Younger Dryas; before then an ice sheet hundreds of feet thick had made the area of northern New Jersey uninhabitable.
Joel Parker was an American attorney and Democratic Party politician who served two non-consecutive terms as the 20th governor of New Jersey from 1863 to 1866 and 1872 to 1875. As a Democratic governor during the American Civil War, Parker was one of the leading critics of the Abraham Lincoln administration's domestic and military policy, though he was generally a supporter of the Union war effort. In 1868 and 1876, he was nominated for President of the United States as a favorite son by New Jersey's party delegation.
The U.S. state of West Virginia was formed out of western Virginia and added to the Union as a direct result of the American Civil War, in which it became the only modern state to have declared its independence from the Confederacy. In the summer of 1861, Union troops, which included a number of newly formed Western Virginia regiments, under General George McClellan, drove off Confederate troops under General Robert E. Lee. This essentially freed Unionists in the northwestern counties of Virginia to form a functioning government of their own as a result of the Wheeling Convention. Before the admission of West Virginia as a state, the government in Wheeling formally claimed jurisdiction over all of Virginia, although from its creation it was firmly committed to the formation of a separate state.
During the American Civil War, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania played a critical role in the Union, providing a substantial supply of military personnel, equipment, and leadership to the Federal government. The state raised over 360,000 soldiers for the Federal armies. It served as a significant source of artillery guns, small arms, ammunition, armor for the new revolutionary style of ironclad types of gunboats for the rapidly expanding United States Navy, and food supplies. The Phoenixville Iron Company by itself produced well over 1,000 cannons, and the Frankford Arsenal was a major supply depot.
During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Maryland, a slave state, was one of the border states, straddling the South and North. Despite some popular support for the cause of the Confederate States of America, Maryland did not secede during the Civil War. Governor Thomas H. Hicks, despite his early sympathies for the South, helped prevent the state from seceding.
The state of Iowa played a significant role during the American Civil War in providing food, supplies, troops and officers for the Union army.
The state of New Jersey in the United States provided a source of troops, equipment and leaders for the Union during the American Civil War. Though no major battles were fought in New Jersey, soldiers and volunteers from New Jersey played an important part in the war, including Philip Kearny and George B. McClellan, who led the Army of the Potomac early in the Civil War and unsuccessfully ran for President of the United States in 1864 against his former commander-in-chief, Abraham Lincoln.
Slavery in New Jersey began in the early 17th century, when Dutch colonists trafficked African slaves for labor to develop the colony of New Netherland. After England took control of the colony in 1664, its colonists continued the importation of slaves from Africa. They also imported "seasoned" slaves from their colonies in the West Indies and enslaved Native Americans from the Carolinas.
During the American Civil War, the Ohio River port city of Cincinnati, Ohio, played a key role as a major source of supplies and troops for the Union Army. It also served as the headquarters for much of the war for the Department of the Ohio, which was charged with the defense of the region, as well as directing the army's offensives into Kentucky and Tennessee.
The history of slavery in Kentucky dates from the earliest permanent European settlements in the state, until the end of the Civil War. Kentucky was classified as the Upper South or a border state, and enslaved African Americans represented 24 percent by 1830, but declined to 19.5 percent by 1860 on the eve of the Civil War. The majority of enslaved people in Kentucky were concentrated in the cities of Louisville and Lexington, in the fertile Bluegrass Region as well the Jackson Purchase, both the largest hemp- and tobacco-producing areas in the state. In addition, many enslaved people lived in the Ohio River counties where they were most often used in skilled trades or as house servants. Few people lived in slavery in the mountainous regions of eastern and southeastern Kentucky. Those that did that were held in eastern and southeastern Kentucky served primarily as artisans and service workers in towns.
During the American Civil War, Philadelphia was an important source of troops, money, weapons, medical care, and supplies for the Union.
The New England state of Connecticut played an important role in the American Civil War, providing arms, equipment, technology, funds, supplies, and soldiers for the Union Army and the Union Navy. Several Connecticut politicians played significant roles in the Federal government and helped shape its policies during the war and the Reconstruction.
The present-day state of Nebraska was still a territory of the United States during the American Civil War. It did not achieve statehood until March 1867, two years after the war ended. Nevertheless, the Nebraska Territory contributed significantly to the Union war effort.
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