Among Mr. Hine’s papers is a note to the effect that about 1822 a Sunday school was carried on in Woodside (for how long he could not ascertain) in the house of Mr. Joseph Johns, on Murphy’s lane. This was an old stone house containing two rooms on the ground floor, in one of which, about fifteen feet square, the Sunday school was held. The house stood at the lower end of Murphy’s lane, very near Second river. It was torn down during the winter of 1886. Mr. Hine says:—
“Mr. Johns himself does not appear to have been exactly a saint, but his wife, Peggy, was a woman of exceptionally fine character and a devoted Christian. She died thirty-three years ago (this was written by Mr. Hine in 1887), and those who were children during her later years speak of their visits to her house as among the bright spots in their child life. From the best information I can obtain, it was she who gathered the children of the neighborhood together for Sunday instruction, but I learn also of students from a seminary in Bloomfield who came down there to teach, and who also established a school in Franklin; they called it Pobishon. Whether that was an Indian name of the region or merely a local title, I do not know, but children from Belleville used to go to both schools.
“I have not been able to find out whether this ancient Woodside school was divided in classes or taught in a body by the person conducting it; but the exercises were simple and now and then a tract would be given to a child, who in those early days, set great store by the simple gift. I only know of two persons now living who attended this school of sixty-five or more years ago: they are Mr. Henry Stimis, who lives on the River road in Woodside and his sister Eliza, who are well known to many of us. Mr. William Wauters, who was a cousin of Mrs. Peggy Johns, has for many years, and until recently, been a resident of Woodside, and is the father of two former faithful workers in this school, the Misses Lizzie and Lucy Wauters.”
In view of the fact that the first Sunday school in Newark was held in 1814 (Daily Advertiser, Oct. 27, ’83.) it speaks well for this country region that one was held here only eight years later.
AN EASY WAY TO DIVIDE EVEN.
As nearly as I can gather from current remark, Mr. Joseph Johns was a remarkably fine specimen of an awful example for a temperance lecture—certainly that appears to be the impression he left behind among the neighbors. A story still survives which indicates that Mr. Johns was also somewhat original in his method of doing things.
It seems that he once had a sum of money in shape like a parcel of bills of tempting thickness, and Mrs. Johns, believing that it would be rather more safe in her possession than in his, tried to persuade him to give it up, but, failing in this, she firmly insisted that half of the amount belonged to her, and that he should at least divide. To this proposition he agreed and, taking the package to the chopping block, with one whack of an axe he cut it in two and handed one bundle to his wife, saying “there’s your half”.
When he came to and realized the destruction he had wrought, he was at great pains to paste the bills together again, and in this condition they were put into circulation. For some years it was a common thing to find some of “old Johns’s money” among change received at the Belleville stores.
WAUTERS—WAUTERSE.
Beyond the Johns house stood the dwelling of William T. Wauters—Wauterse, as his Dutch forefathers spelled it. The house is shown on the map of 1849, but could not have been erected a great while before that date.