HACHETTE, LOUIS CHRISTOPHE FRANÇOIS (1800-1864), French publisher, was born at Rethel in the Ardennes on the 5th of May 1800. After studying three years at a normal school with the view of becoming a teacher, he was in 1822 on political grounds expelled from the seminary. He then studied law, but in 1826 he established in Paris a publishing business for the issue of works adapted to improve the system of school instruction, or to promote the general culture of the community. He published manuals in various departments of knowledge, dictionaries of modern and ancient languages, educational journals, and French, Latin and Greek classics annotated with great care by the most eminent authorities. Subsequently to 1850 he, in conjunction with other partners, published a cheap railway library, scientific and miscellaneous libraries, an illustrated library for the young, libraries of ancient literature, of modern foreign literature, and of modern foreign romance, a series of guide-books and a series of dictionaries of universal reference. In 1855 he also founded Le Journal pour tous, a publication with a circulation of 150,000 weekly. Hachette also manifested great interest in the formation of mutual friendly societies among the working classes, in the establishment of benevolent institutions, and in other questions relating to the amelioration of the poor, on which subjects he wrote various pamphlets; and he lent the weight of his influence towards a just settlement of the question of international literary copyright. He died on the 31st of July 1864.
HACHURE (French for “hatching”), the term for the conventional lines used in hill or mountain shading upon a map (q.v.) to indicate the slope of the surface, the depth of shading being greatest where the slope is steepest. The method is less accurate than that of contour lines, but gives an indication of the trend and extent of a range or mountain system, especially upon small-scale maps.
HACIENDA (O. Span, facienda, from the Latin, meaning “things to be done”), a Spanish term for a landed estate. It is commonly applied in Spanish America to a country estate, on which stock-raising, manufacturing or mining may be carried on, usually with a dwelling-house for the owner’s residence upon it. It is thus used loosely for a country house.
HACKBERRY, a name given to the fruit of Celtis occidentalis, belonging to the natural botanical order Ulmaceae, to which also belongs the elm (Ulmus). It is also known under the name of “sugar-berry,” “beaver-wood” and “nettle-tree.” The hackberry tree is of middle size, attaining from 60 to 80 ft. in height (though sometimes reaching 130 ft.), and with the aspect of an elm. The leaves are ovate in shape, with a very long taper point, rounded and usually very oblique at the base, usually glabrous above and soft-pubescent beneath. The soft filmy flowers appear early in the spring before the expansion of the leaves. The fruit is oblong, about half to three-quarters of an inch long, of a reddish or yellowish colour when young, turning to a dark purple in autumn. This tree is distributed through the deep shady forests bordering river banks from Canada (where it is very rare) to the southern states. The fruit has a sweetish and slightly astringent taste, and is largely eaten in the United States. The seeds contain an oil like that of almonds. The bark is tough and fibrous like hemp, and the wood is heavy, soft, fragile and coarse-grained, and is used for making fences and furniture. The root has been used as a dye for linens.
HACKENSACK, a town and the county-seat of Bergen county, New Jersey, U.S.A., on the Hackensack river, 13 m. N. of Jersey City. Pop. (1890), 6004; (1900), 9443, of whom 2009 were foreign-born and 515 were negroes; (1905) 11,098; (1910) 14,050. It is served by the New York, Susquehanna & Western, and the New Jersey & New York railways, both being controlled by the Erie Company; and indirectly by the West Shore (at Bogota, ½ m. S.E.). Electric lines connect Hackensack with Newark, Passaic and Paterson, and with New York ferries. The town extends from the low bank of the river W. to the top of a ridge, about 40 ft. higher up, from which there are good views to the S. and E. Hackensack is principally a residential town, though there are a number of manufacturing establishments in and near it. Silk and silk goods and wall-paper are the principal manufactures. In 1905 the value of the town’s factory product was $1,488,358, an increase of 90.3% since 1900. There are an historic mansion-house and an interesting old Dutch church, both erected during the 18th century; and a monument marks the grave of General Enoch Poor (1736-1780), an officer in the War of Independence, who was born at Andover, Mass., entered the Continental Army from New Hampshire, and took part in the campaign against Burgoyne, in the battle of Monmouth and in General Sullivan’s expedition against the Iroquois. Hackensack was settled by the Dutch about 1640, and was named after the Hackensack Indians, a division of the Unami Delawares, who lived in the valleys of the Hackensack and Passaic rivers, and whose best-known chief was Oritany, a friend of the whites. Hackensack is coextensive with the township of New Barbadoes, first incorporated with considerably larger territory in 1693.