From fireworks to firewater sounds like an easy transition, and so we come to the Holt regime. The Holts and a brother of Mrs. Holt, Ed. Moorehouse, lived in the King house (which we have passed without knowing it, and to which we shall go back shortly) and some time before 1865 removed to the Point House, and here again was trouble for the neighbors, for while this was not a regular tavern, it would appear that a certain black bottle was part of its furniture, and that that black bottle was a magnet which no servant girl of the time and region could resist. Now a drunken cook is not generally regarded as any great addition to the family menage, as I am informed. It was no small undertaking to find a cook who would go so far into the country as this region then was, and when found, to have her almost immediately go astray via the Point House, was considered highly provoking.
The Holts made their own root beer, and there is a story to the effect that while a party of well known Newarkers was in the place one day a keg of this same beer, which stood on the bar, exploded and deluged the visitors with a combination of liquid sassafras and wintergreen that was shocking to see and worse to bear, and it is recorded that those inundated failed to discover a funny side to the experience.
THE FLOATING PALACE.
The “Floating Palace”, kept by Ed. Holt, appears to have been a laudable effort on his part to benefit his friends and neighbors by catering to those who frequented the river. This was a boat anchored in the middle of the stream, which was reached by customers in small boats. It appears to be commonly thought that Ed. had a government license, but no local permit to retail liquor, and the boat was supposed to overcome the difficulty by straddling the county line. But one who knew Ed. well and knew the kind of a place he kept tells me that he sold nothing stronger than beer, and endeavored in every way to keep the boat of such a character that respectable parties could stop for refreshment, and that he was ably seconded in this by his Scotch-Irish wife, whose influence was all for good. Under more favorable circumstances Ed. Holt might have developed into a leading citizen. He was a man of character and of very temperate habits himself; a carpenter by trade, he always refused to employ men who were habitual drinkers.
For a short time there was a second floating palace anchored in Dead Man’s bend, nearly opposite the lower end of Green Island, which was thoroughly disreputable, and it is probable that the reputation of this was unjustly extended to Holt’s place, for many people are to-day of the opinion that the latter was not as clean as it might have been. The Floating Palace burned to the water’s edge while Ed. Holt was still proprietor, and the experiment was not tried again.
The Point House was long known to oarsmen as the training ground of some of the famed scullers of the world. Captain Chris. Van Emburgh, mariner, was one of the noted characters who frequented the place; he was an old Passaic river skipper and came originally from its eastern bank.
Quite within the memory of those who are now beginning to be numbered with the older inhabitants, the place was one of the picturesque features of the river. Here were benches placed beneath the graceful willows which adorned the banks of the point; it was a good vantage ground from which to view the boat races when the local Tritons were trying their powers of endurance against outside barbarians. There were boats to let here, as full many a lover knew. But as the river became more and more foul such diversions ceased, and to-day the Point House stands shorn of all its old time attractions.
OLD BLACK TOM.
Old Black Tom was a well known, and many times damned, neighbor of the Point House. This was a large rock which lay almost in the middle of the channel, which at this point came close in to the western shore; at low water it was just covered, and one of the amusements of the boys was to step on the rock from a boat, when the person so doing had the appearance of walking on the water. But what was not so amusing, at least to the river men, was for a boat to run on the rock when the tide was falling. The canal boats which carried bricks or coal above frequently fell victims and, as every one knows how earnestly a rusty canaler talks when excited, there is no need to attempt a reproduction here.
It seemed natural to step from Green Island to the Point House and now, having disposed of the latter, we shall go back as far as the Gully road.