Keeping track: railroad vestiges lead to a storied past

It's not all that unusual to run across railroad tracks while wandering around New Jersey. With a few thousand miles of track laid over the past 185 years or so, any trip within the state is bound to have you hearing the "clunk-a-clunk-a" of tires over tracks, or traveling beneath a railroad overpass.

However, when you see tracks that look like this:

you stop and take a look. And when you run into them at two different locations over the course of a couple of weeks, you get curious. The first occurrence was in Hightstown, where the stones and rails were placed near North Main Street downtown. The second was within a 15 minute drive, at historic Dey Farm in Monroe Township. Connecting rails were pulled away years ago, leaving these two segments as utter curiosities. The stone is virtually the same as the sleepers we've seen on old Morris Canal planes, though with gaps in between rather than in abutting blocks, making us wonder when the now-common wooden railroad ties came into vogue. And where did this railroad go?

We'd stumbled on vestiges of the Camden and Amboy, the first railroad built in New Jersey, incorporated in 1830 and chartered on February 15, 1831. How old is it? It's so old that the first train that rode the tracks was pulled by horses.

The Monroe stretch is pretty short
and offers new homeowners
the frustrating reality that while they live
near the railroad, it'll get them nowhere.

The Camden and Amboy was the realization of the ambition of John Stevens, who we know from his earlier forays into steamboats, namely the establishment of the first regular steam ferry service between Hoboken and Manhattan. While he successfully laid a small bit of track on his own property to run a British-built engine, it was left to his sons Robert and Edwin to take the concept to a larger scale.

The first stretch of the railroad linked Bordentown through Jamesburg to South Amboy via horse-drawn cars. Rails were spiked down onto granite sleeper stones reportedly produced by inmates at New York's Sing Sing Prison. Only when shipments were late did Robert Stevens consider laying the rails on squared-off wooden crossbeams, creating a more reliable bed that prompted him to replace all of the granite with wood. Stevens was also responsible for the development of the "T" shaped track and railroad spikes we're accustomed to; used together, they provided a smoother ride overall.

As workers continued laying track, the Stevens brothers purchased their first locomotive, the John Bull, from a Newcastle, England manufacturer. In a situation that's familiar to anyone who's bought Ikea furniture, the engine arrived in several pieces and without instructions for assembly, leaving railroad mechanic Isaac Dripps to reason it out though he'd never seen a locomotive before.

It would be another two years before the engine would serve the line, but Robert Stevens cannily made a test run in November 1831 to give select New Jersey legislators and other dignitaries a chance to enjoy the new technology. This, perhaps, was an early taste of the outsize influence the company would have over government officials in its most powerful years; at one point years later, pundits would jokingly refer to New Jersey as the "State of Camden and Amboy."

In fact, the C&A secured a monopoly on transportation across the state's waist, merging with the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company by a 1831 act of the Legislature that created "the Joint Companies." Passengers would travel by rail, while the canal would handle freight shipments from Bordentown to New Brunswick. The new company agreed to pay the state a $30,000 annual franchise fee that effectively financed government operations. By 1834, the railroad finally reached the breadth of the state between its namesake cities, later buying out rivals to extend its chokehold.

The history of New Jersey's railroad industry is long, complex and loaded with intrigue that would confound J.R. Ewing (consider, for example, Hopewell's frog war). Ultimately, the C&A was bought out by the larger, more powerful Pennsylvania Railroad in its quest to control New Jersey's transportation system, but it had already made its mark as a true pioneer.

Have you seen other portions of the C&A?

John Fitch: a man with a head of steam

New Jersey was fertile ground for the development of the steamboat industry, whether in Nicholas Roosevelt's side-mounted propulsion wheel or Cornelius Vanderbilt's ferry operations between New York and New Brunswick. And, of course, there was John Stevens, who established the first steam ferry operations between Hoboken and Manhattan.

One man, however, beat the rest of them to the punch, however imperfectly. In 1787 John Fitch proved that a boat could be propelled by steam engine, using a series of interconnected oars to row through the water.

Why, then, do we hear so little about Fitch and much more about Robert Fulton and his steamboat Clermont?

Fitch, as it turns out, is a classic case of a creative mind whose personality appears to have gotten in the way of his success. Born in Connecticut in 1743, he had little formal education but studied astronomy, math and geometry on his own as he tried to forge a work life that suited his interests. He attempted an apprenticeship as a clockmaker without much success before eventually making it to Trenton as a silversmith, losing his business during the British occupation of the city in 1776. He briefly served as a gunsmith to the New Jersey militia after losing his commission in a dispute, and also provided beer and other supplies to troops at Valley Forge. By the end of the war, he was surveying land in the territory that eventually became Ohio, where he was captured by Native Americans and turned over to the British.

Following his release from captivity, Fitch came back east to Pennsylvania to work on his ideas for a steam-powered boat. Collaborating with clockmaker Henry Voigt, he developed a proper steam engine and installed it on a boat outfitted with mechanized oars on port and starboard sides. Hoping to get funding or an endorsement from the federal government, he invited members of the Constitutional Convention to the 1787 demonstration on the Delaware. Many attended and were impressed as the boat moved forward an a slow but respectable three miles an hour. However, no backing was forthcoming.

Why is John Fitch not known as the inventor of the steamboat? There seem to be a few factors at play here. First, his invention came at a particularly inauspicious time in the development of the legal system in the United States. The Federal patent office had yet to be created, leaving intellectual property protection to the individual states. That meant an arduous trek to the capitols of all of the states, or at least those where competition or theft of his idea was most likely. He brought a working model of the boat, hoping to impress the legislatures and the scientific community with the genius of his design.

Perhaps more telling, he doesn't seem to have had the right personality. He was either a bad salesperson, or maybe he just rubbed people the wrong way. During his 1786 tour, he got less than encouraging feedback from Philadelphia's American Philosophical Society, where Benjamin Franklin held sway. The Virginia legislature was unimpressed, favoring the design of its native son inventor James Rumsey, who'd already secured George Washington's endorsement. The only place where he seems to have gained some sway is New Jersey, which granted him an exclusive 14-year franchise to build and operate steamboats. That endorsement in hand, he built the full-sized boat the Constitutional Convention observed in 1787.

Fitch is commemorated not far from
Trenton's minor league ballpark.

By 1788, Fitch had received patents from Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia and had attracted sufficient financing to build a new boat that ran the route between Philadelphia and Burlington. Two years later, a third boat was running between Trenton, Burlington, Bordentown, Wilmington and Philadelphia, a route that appears to have made as little sense to potential customers then as it might today. He may have created mechanically-sound equipment, but he seems not to have had a very strong understanding of market forces or customer demand. Stagecoaches could still reach his destinations faster, despite the steamboats' improved speed of eight miles an hour. Rather than seeing his craft as viable transportation, many viewed it as a curiosity or a stunt. His company was soon out of business.

When Fitch finally received his federal patent in 1791, he was infuriated to learn that Rumsey's design had been recognized by the patent office as well. Rather than getting the patent for the steamboat concept, it was for the particular design, as was Rumsey's, leading Fitch's investors to abandon him for other opportunities. Additional attempts to secure funding -- this time in Europe -- and demonstrate his newly-conceived steamboat innovations met with indifference, further angering him. Giving up hope on the steamboat, he headed west to Kentucky in 1796, apparently hoping for a better reception there.

He got none and died within months of his arrival, some say of poor health, others say of worse. According to some reports, he struck a deal with a tavern operator to provide him with room, board and a pint of whiskey a day in return for a few hundred acres of land. He planned to drink himself to death. When that didn't work, he committed suicide with an overdose of opium. He's buried in Beardstown, Kentucky, his grave marked with a modest military stone that notes his Revolutionary War service. He was moved there from his original pauper's plot through the actions of the John Fitch chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Some sources claim that Fitch endured bipolar disorder, that his emotional extremes fueled both his creativity and the less admirable personality traits that drove away investors. What is known is that inventing is a difficult trade, with people of many temperaments and similar ideas often competing for the ultimate prize. It's possible that if Fitch had possessed Fulton's ability to make steam travel more economically viable, he'd have been better able to capitalize on the technology.

Fitch's onetime hometown of Trenton recognizes what many of his contemporaries may not have: his genius and perseverance. The first of two memorial boulders was placed at the site of the Old Wharf along the Delaware in Fitch's name in 1921, with the nearby highway rechristened John Fitch Way from the site to Assunpink Creek.

From copper mine to steamboat, the New Jersey ventures of Nicholas Roosevelt

When inclement weather forces us Hidden New Jerseyans to curtail travel, we often turn to other means of exploration. The reference books and histories we've picked up over the years aren't quite those roadside markers we stop to check out on county roads, but they've got some unexpected gems, nonetheless.

One of my new favorites is the New Jersey Almanac Tercentenary Edition published by the Trenton Evening Times in 1964 to commemorate the state's 300th anniversary. Besides giving an illuminating look at life in the Garden State 50 years ago, it contains lists upon lists of interesting tidbits like two-sentence bios of notable New Jerseyans, brief descriptions of towns and cities, and a year-by-year guide to events of importance.

It's an entry in that last category that caught my eye during a recent snowstorm. The big event for the year 1794 is: "Nicholas Roosevelt made first steam engine ever built entirely in America at his shop "Soho" in Belleville."

Roosevelt? As in Teddy Roosevelt and FDR? The New York Roosevelts?

Absolutely. Nicholas Roosevelt was not only the cousin (several generations back) of both Presidents Roosevelt, you could say he was one of New Jersey's first industrialists.

Born in New York in 1767, Roosevelt's first foray into New Jersey was in the early 1790s, when he became linked to what, even then, was thought of as the old Schuyler Mine in North Arlington. Originating in 1719 when an enslaved worker on Arent Schuyler's farm found a copper nugget on the property, the mine closed in 1772 after a disastrous fire. Roosevelt and partners formed the New Jersey Copper Mine Association in 1793 to restart mining operations at the site, a venture that ultimately failed.

Though the mine was a disappointment, it was the stepping stone into New Jersey that led to Roosevelt's greater acclaim. Purchasing land in Second River (now Belleville), he built a foundry, smelter and machine shop to build steam engines. Dubbed Soho after a similar enterprise in Birmingham, England, the shop became known as one of the nation's top foundries, supplying engines for notable clients like the Philadelphia Waterworks. The business took a severe financial hit, however, when a government contract to supply rolled copper for warships was cancelled.

Among those taking note of the quality of Soho's engines was transportation engineer John Stevens. Already experimenting with steam-driven boats, he and his partner Robert Livingston commissioned Soho in 1797 to build an engine for the Polacca, a craft with a stern-mounted propeller. Roosevelt was already familiar with self-propelled boats, having experimented with spring-driven paddleboat technology as a youth. When the Polacca proved to be much slower than anticipated, Roosevelt advocated the use of a side-mounted wheel, but Livingston refused to consider the concept.

Roosevelt had, indeed, come up with a solution so workable that it was later adopted by Robert Fulton. You might recognize that name: he's the engineer who's usually linked most directly with the successful development of the steamboat. I've seen a few different accounts of how this came to be, but the most interesting one is that Livingston suggested the side-mounted wheel to Fulton without telling him where the idea had originated. And according to a website citing sources at the FDR Library and Museum, some Roosevelt family members continue to claim that Nicholas was the true inventor of the steamboat.

It's not clear exactly when Roosevelt left New Jersey for good, but by 1810 he'd entered into a partnership with Fulton and Livingston to run a steamboat down the Mississippi River. He died in Skaneateles, NY in 1854, his contributions to steam powered technology now largely forgotten while other inventors continue to enjoy acclaim.

I just wonder what other gems are hiding in the Tercentenary Almanac, just waiting to be unearthed.

Ghosts of Turnpike service areas, silent on the Newark Bay Extension

Drive eastbound on the Turnpike's Newark Bay extension, and as you approach Exit 14B for Liberty State Park, you might notice the road widens somewhat briefly on both sides. It's almost as if the road's a big snake that's swallowed a mouse but hasn't yet digested it. In recent years, the widenings have been filled with construction equipment and materials for the construction work being done on the Vincent Casciano Bridge over Newark Bay. Every time I pass them, I get this nagging feeling that the spots were once small service areas many, many years ago.

Turns out they were.

Details are rather scant, but it seems that the pair were named for John Stevens (eastbound) and Peter Stuyvesant (westbound), two personalities with connections to the Hudson County area.

Stevens, of course, is the name of a notable early New Jersey family with roots in Perth Amboy. The first famous John Stevens was born in 1715 and served in the Continental Congress. His son John was as an officer in the Continental Army and later did duty as state treasurer. The younger man's greater fame, however, came through his contributions to transportation, particularly using steam power. His craft Phoenix became the first steamship to sail the open ocean when it traveled from Hoboken to Philadelphia in 1809. More famously, he established the first steam ferry service between Hoboken and New York City in 1811.

A few years later, Stevens and several partners were awarded the nation's first railroad charter, establishing the New Jersey Railroad. Predictably, he experimented with steam-driven trains at his Castle Point estate in Hoboken. After his death, the property passed to his son Edwin, who later bequeathed the land and a million dollars for establishment of an institution of learning, now Stevens Institute of Technology.

Peter Stuyvesant, well, he's probably a bit better known, but more commonly associated with New York. In the days when the Dutch West Indies Company ran Manhattan and surrounding areas as a business, Stuyvesant was sent to essentially clean house as director general of New Netherlands. His immediate predecessors had both mismanaged the colony and turned a blind eye toward some rather, well, permissive behavior.

Stuyvesant's tenure was a mixed bag. On the positive side, he negotiated disputes with the Lenape, fostered education and is credited with many reforms that encouraged a more family-oriented environment in the colony. Unfortunately, he also squelched religious freedom in a community that had long advocated tolerance; his actions against houses of worship other than the Dutch Reformed Church were ultimately rescinded by Dutch West Indies Company directors.

I was a bit confused as to why he warranted a Turnpike service area, until I read that he opened the land west of Manhattan for settlement. Some consider him to be a founder of Jersey City, crediting him with overseeing the formation of the village of Bergen, now the location of the city's Bergen Square.

Back on the Turnpike, the Stevens and Stuyvesant service areas were closed in the early 1970s. I haven't uncovered a reason why, but I'd conjecture that they were either too small or too disruptive to the flow of traffic rushing toward or from the Holland Tunnel. Drivers can get their last (or first) taste of lower-priced New Jersey gasoline closer to the Tunnel, so perhaps the Turnpike options were priced out of existence in during the oil crisis of 1973. Your guess is as good as mine.