The basement of a Newark church was secured for a midwinter festival (see copy of poster); we were snowed under, and with difficulty reached our firesides.
An auction of choice engravings and Prang’s chromos was attempted in the third story of a desolate building in Newark near the Market one Saturday night. Few people attended the sale and none purchased the pictures. At a similar attempt in Belleville chromos to the value of $1.25 were sold and, on counting the cash, it was found to be thirty-seven cents short.
THE RETREAT FROM BELLEVILLE.
“Moscow to Napoleon was a trifle compared to our retreat from Belleville that wintry night. Silently we carried our goods through that long-drawn-out village. Looked at through the mist of time this appears like a trifling incident, but then the giant Despair loomed above us, and it was only the splendid courage of Mr. Hine and his indomitable energy and perseverance which kept us going. Family interests he sacrificed for the common weal. To every objection there came but one reply: ‘I have enlisted for the war, and until a permanent building is erected my doors will stand open.’”
“They did stand open for eighteen months, or until January 3, 1869, when the second building erected for church and Sunday school purposes in Woodside opened its doors—the Woodside Presbyterian Church—St. John’s Church having been opened some months previous.” (Here ends Mr. Swinnerton’s very interesting paper).
THE ERIE RAILROAD.
One of the advertised inducements to settlers in Woodside was direct railroad connection with New York. The Erie had leased the Paterson, Newark & New York Railroad, which was opened in 1868 and connected with the Newark & Hudson Railroad to Jersey City, also leased to the Erie. This promised blessing was slow in coming, for at least three years elapsed before the New York connection was made, and in the meantime those whose business called them to the greater city must take the occasional horse car or walk to the D., L. & W. (which in those days stood for “Delay, Linger and Wait”).
The Erie has ever been to a Woodsider as a red rag to a bull. The extremely limited service of the “Newark Branch” and the absolute indifference of the management toward the convenience of travelers have been so pronounced as always to give the impression that the road regarded passengers as a necessary evil, to be endured but not encouraged and, as a result, hundreds in the old days turned from it in disgust and went elsewhere. It is safe to say that the Erie was the chief factor in holding the growth of this section in check, while to-day its foul breath blackens the heavens and desecrates the landscape as its engines vomit vast clouds of smudgy soft coal smoke with a villainous impudence that can nowhere be equaled. The Erie is the only railroad with more than one stop in Newark that charges more to one station than to another, and no other gives so little or so poor service. Such is its uniqueness.