The Meadowlands History Project

Welcome!

    Designed to celebrate the rich and colorful history – and history makers – that define the Meadowlands communities, the History Blog will visit local museums and historical sites, spotlight notable residents and highlight some of the more unusual happenings in the Meadowlands of yesterday and today.

   It will build on the NJMC’s Oral History Project, created as part of our 40th Anniversary celebration, and will provide links to a wide range of local history programs, sites and events.

   To publicize a historical event or meeting, or to suggest a story or contribute to the Oral History Project, please email the NJMC’s Brian Aberback here.

Teterboro Vintage Aircraft Show Next Month!

Informative Article on Little Ferry Brick-making

Kevin Wright, local historian extraordinaire, has an informative article in the Wayne Patch on Little Ferry's old brickyards.

Mehrhof Pond, a well-known local birding site, was created from a pit that provided the clay for bricks, and the pond itself was named for the brickmaking Mehrhof brothers.

Writes Wright: "Representing a combined capital investment of $265,000, ten brickyards operating along the Hackensack River employed traditional methods of production. With the exception of the Mehrhof Brick Company, all used wood fuel to bake raw bricks in scove-kilns. 'Soft-mud' brick machines produced over 60 million units of common building brick, a 90% increase over the previous year."

The link is here.

An earlier post on the Mehrhof brick operation is here.

A link to an illustration of a scove-kiln is here; site has other historical brick-making info.

Rutherford 'Red tail'

Thought we'd repost this item from 2009, to coincide with the opening of the new George Lucas flick "Red Tail," about the Tuskegee Airmen.

Calvin J. Spann, who grew up in Rutherford,  served with the famed Tuskegee Airmen during World War II.
From 1943 to 1946, 1st Lt. Spann served in the U.S. Army Air Force, 332nd Fighter Group, 100th Squadron, as part of the famed Tuskegee Airmen -- the first-ever group of black Army pilots. 

Spann was among an elite group of Tuskegee Airmen who escorted B-17 bombers and reconnaissance  planes over Nazi Germany during World War. Spann flew 26 combat missions.

In a phone interview from his home in Texas, Spann said: "My growing up in Rutherford inspired me to be a Tuskegee Airman. Planes from Teterboro Airport took off right over my house.

 "I was able to do everything any young man in high school did, and when I got into the Air Corps and they said they didn't think I could learn to fly, I thought that was preposterous. I'd been doing everything everyone else was doing all my life, and it really stuck with me. That was my experience growing up in Rutherford."

A recent story on Spann from The Record is here.

Spann, who heard Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his "I have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C, in August 1963, also attended the inauguration of President Obama.

 "If I were to compare the two events, I'd say the Inauguration was greater," said Spann. "The atmosphere was something --everyone was friendly. And this time I had an invitation -- and a seat close to the podium with the big shots."

 Spann is a member of the New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame in Teterboro and a recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal.

 More on the Tuskegee Airmen here.

Spann's "My Space" page is here. The photo above is from that page.

Great Story on Unearthing the Meadowlands' Ancient History

Environmental Reporter Jim O'Neill of The Record has a fascinating article in today's editions about scientists' efforts to research the Meadowlands' ancient history -- thousands of years' worth of history -- by drilling deep in the marsh.

Link is here.

What in the Meadowlands: Answered

We saw these in a display case in the Little Ferry Public Library. They are called "Clay Babies," from old days when Little Ferry was a brickmaking capital of the East Coast.

As the exhibit explains, " Clay Babies are unique formations made whenever water seeps through the banks of clay that line the clay pits.

"When water meets an obstruction (such as a grain of sand), lime precipitates out and forms weird shapes.

"Geologists call these 'concretions.' They are light gray in color and feel chalky when they are rubbed."

What in the Meadowlands?

We came across the above objects in a display case in the Little Ferry Public Library.

Do you know what they are?

Answer tomorrow.

Come Together for a Good Time and Good Cause

   Beatles Faux Sale, a Beatles tribute band, and The Glimmer Twins, a Rolling Stones tribute band, will perform a benefit/awareness concert for the Meadowlands Museum on Saturday, May 21, at 8 p.m.

   The concert will take place at the Williams Center for the Arts, 1 Williams Plaza, Rutherford. Proceeds will benefit the Museum’s public programming and capital improvement projects, including plans to install a desparately-needed new roof.

   The Meadowlands Museum – celebrating its 50^th anniversary this year – was created to document the cultural, social and economic history of the Meadowlands area.

   The museum is housed in a historic Dutch style farmhouse in Rutherford and chronicles life in the Meadowlands over the past 200 years. Its permanent collection of more than 17,000 items includes a photo archive, textiles, clothing, children’s toys and games, diaries, and household items.

   Concert tickets are $40, $35 and $25. Tickets are available at Rutherford Music Exchange, 39 Park Ave.; Sweetest Sound Music, 350 Ridge Road, Lyndhurst; B&C  Auto Service, 27 Union Ave., Rutherford; and at the Meadowlands Museum, 91 Crane Ave., Rutherford. The concert is sponsored by the South Bergenite newspaper.

   Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday and 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. It is recommended that visitors call the museum before visiting. Group and school tours are available by request. Admission is free; donations are appreciated.

   For more information on the benefit concert or the Meadowlands Museum, call 201-935-1175, email meadowlandsmuseum@verizon.net or visit www.meadowlandsmuseum.com.

Digging Up History

If you've walked through DeKorte Park's Lyndhurst Nature Reserve and come across the recently groomed plots of dirt in the photo above, you've probably wondered what they are.

Wonder no more.

Sue Lewicki of the Meadowlands Environment Center says: "These are our practice archaeological dig pits for our field trip program entitled 'Peek at the Past.'  Students are introduced to Meadowlands history through maps and artifact study. 

"We have a collection of artifacts from early 20th century in the Science Building, but, weather permitting, students are also introduced to proper dig techniques (it’s a lot more “scraping” than digging) and we used the gridded pits to organize teams in unearthing their own specimens.  

"We never really are sure what contributions people have shoved in the soil recently, but occasionally the student haul up something that we didn’t plant and that’s genuinely been in the load of soil (who knows where it came from) for a long time – the 1950s Mountain Dew bottle with the hillbilly was my favorite ('It’ll Tickle Yore Innards' – they just don’t write catch phrases like that anymore)." 

Come Together for a Good Time and Good Cause

   Beatles Faux Sale, a Beatles tribute band, and The Glimmer Twins, a Rolling Stones tribute band, will perform a benefit/awareness concert for the Meadowlands Museum on Saturday, May 21, at 8 p.m.

   The concert will take place at the Williams Center for the Arts, 1 Williams Plaza, Rutherford. Proceeds will benefit the Museum’s public programming and capital improvement projects, including plans to install a desparately-needed new roof.

   The Meadowlands Museum – celebrating its 50^th anniversary this year – was created to document the cultural, social and economic history of the Meadowlands area.

   The museum is housed in a historic Dutch style farmhouse in Rutherford and chronicles life in the Meadowlands over the past 200 years. Its permanent collection of more than 17,000 items includes a photo archive, textiles, clothing, children’s toys and games, diaries, and household items.

   Concert tickets are $40, $35 and $25. Tickets are available at Rutherford Music Exchange, 39 Park Ave.; Sweetest Sound Music, 350 Ridge Road, Lyndhurst; B&C  Auto Service, 27 Union Ave., Rutherford; and at the Meadowlands Museum, 91 Crane Ave., Rutherford. The concert is sponsored by the South Bergenite newspaper.

   Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday and 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. It is recommended that visitors call the museum before visiting. Group and school tours are available by request. Admission is free; donations are appreciated.

   For more information on the benefit concert or the Meadowlands Museum, call 201-935-1175, email meadowlandsmuseum@verizon.net or visit www.meadowlandsmuseum.com.

Snake Hill: The Once Prodigious Rock of Secaucus

  
    Rising 150 feet from Laurel Hill County Park in Secaucus and abutting the eastern spur of the New Jersey Turnpike, Snake Hill is a common sight for Secaucus residents and those passing through town on the Turnpike.

   Officially known as Laurel Hill, the rock formation’s summit offers spectacular views of Laurel Hill Park.

  Just as impressive is Snake Hill’s fascinating history as the one-time home to Hudson County’s most notorious institutions, including the County’s Almshouse, Penitentiary, Asylum and Tuberculosis Sanatorium.

Snake Hill 1948

   Hudson County purchased Snake Hill in 1855. At the time the rock jutted 200 feet into the sky, and its base area consisted of 25 acres of rugged open space.

   As legend goes, early Dutch settlers found the rock infested with  numerous snakes as long as 15 feet. They named the area “slagenberg,” Dutch for Snake Hill. L. E. Travis, editor of the Bayonne Evening News, reported in the late 1870s that, upon sailing the Hackensack River near Snake Hill, “for not less than a quarter mile of shoreline, the steep bank was a mass of hissing, squirming, villainous water snakes.”

   The County Almshouse was constructed in 1863 to provide a home to the feeblest of the region’s residents. A penitentiary followed in 1870. The asylum was built in 1873 with accommodations for 140 patients. A county general hospital, a tuberculosis sanatorium, a boy’s camp and churches were soon added to the sprawling base of the hill.

   A report produced in 1873 noted that 427 people were housed in the almshouse at a cost of $89 per person per year. A new almshouse was built later and the original facility came to serve as an infirmary. The number of residents at the Almshouse increased to 689 by 1913, with the per capita cost of care soaring to $150 per year.

Click "Continue Reading ..." below for more on the history of Snake Hill