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Neighborhood Guides > Hoboken > History
History
Early and Colonial History
Hoboken was originally an island, surrounded by the Hudson River on the east and tidal lands at the foot of the New Jersey Palisades on the west. It was a seasonal campsite of the Lenni Lenape. Later called Delaware Indian, this collection of tribes is believed to have lived for more than 2800 years on lands around and in-between the Hudson and Delaware Rivers. The first European to discover the area was Henry Hudson, an Englishman sailing for the Dutch East India Company, who anchored his ship the Halve Maen (Half Moon) at Weehawken Cove on October 2, 1609, establishing a Dutch claim. The United New Netherlands Company was created to manage this new territory and in June of 1623, New Netherlands became a Dutch province. In 1630, Michael Pauw, a burgemeester of Amsterdam and a director of the West India Company, received a land grant as patroon on the condition that he would plant a colony of not fewer than fifty persons within four years on the west bank of what had been named the North River. Three Lenape sold the land that is was to become Hoboken (and part of Jersey City) for 80 fathoms (146 m) of wampum, 20 fathoms (37 m) of cloth, 12 kettles, six guns, two blankets, one double kettle and half a barrel of beer. These transactions, variously dated as July 12, 1630 and November 22, 1630, represent the earliest known conveyance for the area. Pauw (whose Latinized name is Pavonia) neglected to settle the land and he was obliged to sell his holdings back to the Company in 1633. It was later acquired by Hendrick Van Vorst, who leased part the land to Aert Van Putten, a farmer. In 1643, north of what would be later known as Castle Point, Van Putten built a house and a brewery, North America’s first. It's not known whether Van Putten stayed after the Dutch ordered all residents of Pavonia (as the colony was known) were ordered back to New Amsterdam after a series Indian raids and Dutch reprisals. Deteriorating relations with the Lenape, its isolation as an island, or relatively long distance from New Amsterdam may have discouraged more settlement. In 1664, the English took possession of New Amsterdam with little or no resistance, and finally, in 1674 the area became part of East Jersey. The province was divided into four administrative districts in 1675, and Hoboken became part of Bergen (which it remained until the creation of Hudson in 1840). English-speaking settlers (some re-locating from New England) interspersed with the Dutch, but it remained scarcely populated and agrarian. Eventually, the land came into the possession of William Bayard, who originally supported the revolutionary cause, but became a Loyalist Tory after the fall of New York in 1776 when the city and surrounding areas, including the west bank of the North River, were occupied by the British. At the end of the Revolutionary War, Bayard’s land was confiscated by the Revolutionary Government of New Jersey. In 1784, the land described as "William Bayard's farm at Hoebuck" was bought at auction by Colonel John Stevens for 18,360 pounds sterling, then about $90,000.
The Nineteenth Century
In the early 1800s, Colonel John Stevens developed the waterfront as a resort for Manhattanites, a lucrative source of income, which he may have used for testing his many mechanical inventions. On October 11, 1811 Stevens' ship the Juliana, began operation as the world's first steam-powered ferry with service was between Manhattan and Hoboken. In 1825, he designed and built a steam locomotive capable of hauling several passenger cars at his estate. In 1832, Sybil's Cave opened as an attraction serving spring water, and after 1841 became a legend, when Edgar Allan Poe wrote a story about an event that took place there. (In the late 1880s, when the water was found to be contaminated, it was shut and in the 1930s, filled with concrete.)
Passenger Ferry Slips in front of railways station.
The Hudson river during the 1880s, offshore from Hoboken and Jersey City.
Before his death in 1838, Stevens founded The Hoboken Land Improvement Company, which during the mid- and late-19th century was managed by his heirs and laid out a regular system of streets, blocks and lots, constructed housing, and developed manufacturing sites. In general, the housing consisted of masonry row houses of three to five stories, some of which survive to the present day, as does the street grid. The advantages of Hoboken as a shipping port and industrial center became apparent. Hoboken was originally formed as a township on April 13, 1840, from portions of Lodi Township, in conjunction with the creation of Hudson County. As the town grew in population and employment, many of Hoboken's residents saw a need to incorporate as a full-fledged city, and in a public vote on March 27, 1855 ratified an act of the state legislature, and the City of Hoboken was born. [3] In the subsequent election, Cornelius V. Clickener became Hoboken's first mayor. On March 15, 1859, the Township of Weehawken was created from portions of Hoboken and North Bergen Township.[4] In 1870, based on a bequest from Edwin A. Stevens, Stevens Institute of Technology was founded at Castle Point, site of the Stevens family's former estate. By the late 1800s, great shipping lines were using Hoboken as a terminal port, and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad (later the Erie Lackawanna Railroad] developed a railroad terminal at the waterfront. It was also during this time that German immigrants became the predominant population group in the city, at least partially due to its being a major destination port of the Hamburg America Line. In addition to the primary industry of shipbuilding, Hoboken became home to Keuffel and Esser's three-story factory and in 1884, to Tietjan and Lang Drydock (later Todd Shipyards). Well-known companies that developed a major presence in Hoboken after the turn-of the-century included Maxwell House, Lipton Tea, and Hostess.
Birthplace of Baseball
In 1845, the Knickerbocker Club of New York City began using Elysian Fields in Hoboken to play baseball due to the lack of suitable grounds on Manhattan. In 1846, the Knickerbockers played the New York Nine on these grounds in the first organized game between two clubs. By the 1850s, several Manhattan-based members of the National Association of Base Ball Players were using the grounds as their home field.
Early baseball game played at Elysian Fields, Hoboken (Currier & Ives lithograph).
In 1865 the grounds hosted a championship match between the Mutual Club of New York and the Atlantic Club of Brooklyn that was attended by an estimated 20,000 fans and captured in the Currier & Ives lithograph "The American National Game of Base Ball".
With the construction of two significant baseball parks enclosed by fences in Brooklyn, enabling promoters there to charge admission to games, the prominence of Elysian Fields began to diminish. In 1868 the leading Manhattan club, Mutual, shifted its home games to the Union Grounds in Brooklyn. In 1880, the founders of the New York Metropolitans and New York Giants finally succeeded in siting a ballpark in Manhattan that became known as the Polo Grounds. Hoboken, though, rather than Cooperstown, New York, can fairly claim to be the birthplace of baseball. A plaque, and baseball diamond street pavings at 11th and Washington streets commemorates the event.
"Heaven, Hell or Hoboken."
When the USA decided to enter World War I the Hamburg-American Line piers in Hoboken (and New Orleans) were taken under emminent domain. Federal control of the port and anti-German sentiment led to part of the city being placed under martial law, and many Germans were forcibly moved to Ellis Island or left the city altogether. Hoboken became the major point of embarkation and more than three million soldiers, known as "doughboys", passed through the city. Their hope for an early return led to the slogan, "Heaven, Hell or Hoboken... by Christmas."
Interwar Years
Following the war, Italians, mostly stemming from the Adriatic port city of Molfetta, became the city's major ethnic group, with the Irish also having a strong presence. While the city experienced the Depression, jobs in the ships yards and factories were still available. The city's population grew, and the "tenements" were full. Middle-European Jews, mostly German-speaking, also made their way to the city and established small businesses.
Post World War II
The war provided a shot in the arm for Hoboken as the many industries located in the city were crucial to the war effort. As men went off to battle, more women were hired in the factories, some (most notably, Todd Shipyards), offering classes and other incentives to them. Though some returning service men took advantage of GI housing bills, many with strong ethnic and familial ties chose to stay in town. During the fifties, the economy was still driven by Todd Shipyards, Maxwell House, Lipton Tea, Hostess and Bethlehem Steel and companies with big plants still not inclined to invest in huge infrastructure elsewhere. Unions were powerful and the pay was good. By the sixties, though, things began to disintegrate: turn-of-the century housing started to look shabby and feel crowded, ship-building was cheaper overseas, and single-story plants surrounded by parking lots made manufacturing and distribution more economical than old brick buildings on congested urban streets. The city appeared to be in the throes of inexorable decline as industries sought (what had been) greener pastures, port operations shifted to larger facilities on Newark Bay, and the car, truck and plane displaced the railroad and ship as the transportation modes of choice in the United States. Many Hobokenites headed to the suburbs, often the close-by ones in Bergen and Passaic Counties, and real-estate values declined. Hoboken sank from its earlier incarnation as a lively port town into a rundown condition and was often included in lists with other New Jersey towns cities experiencing the same phenomenon, such as Paterson, Elizabeth, Camden, and neighboring Jersey City. The old economic underpinnings were gone and nothing new seemed to be on the horizon. Attempts were made to stabilize the population by demolishing the so-called slums along River Street and build subsidized middle-income housing at Marineview Plaza, and in midtown, at Church Towers. Heaps of long uncollected garbage and roving packs of semi-wild dogs were not un-common sights. Though the city had seen better days, Hoboken was never abandoned. New infusions of immigrants, most notably Puerto Ricans, kept the storefronts open with small businesses and housing stock from being abandoned, but there wasn't much work to be had. Washington Street, commonly called "the avenue", was never boarded up, and the tightly-knit neighborhoods remained home to many who were still proud of their city. Stevens stayed a premiere technology school, Maxwell House kept chugging away, and Bethlehem Steel still housed sailors who were dry-docked on it's piers. Italian-Americans and other came back to the "old neighborhood" to shop for delicastessen. Some streets were "iffy", but most were not pulled in at night.
Pre-/Post-Millennium
During the late 1970s and 1980s, the city witnessed a surprising speculation spree, fueled by transplanted New Yorkers and others who bought many turn-of-the-century brownstones in neighborhoods the still solid middle and working class population had kept intact and by local and out-of-town real-estate investors who bought up late 19th apartment houses often considered to be tenements. Hoboken experienced a wave of fires, some of which proved to be arson. Applied Housing, a real-estate investment firm, took advantage of US government incentives to renovate "sub-standard" housing and receive subsidized rental payments (commonly know as Section-8), which enabled some low-income, dis-placed, and disabled residents to move within town. Hoboken attracted artists, musicians, upwardly-mobile commuters (known as yuppies), and "bohemian types" with close ties to New York who valued the aesthetics of Hoboken's residential, civic and commercial architecture, relatively (compared to Lower Manhattan) cheaper rents, and quick, cheap (30 cents at the time) train hop away. Maxwells opened and Hoboken became a "hip" place to live. Amid this social upheaval, so-called "newcomers" displaced some of the "old-timers" in the eastern half of the city.
This gentrification resembled that of parts of Brooklyn and downtown Jersey City and Manhattan's East Village, (and to a lesser degree, Soho and Tribeca, which previously had not been residential). The initial presence of artists and young people changed the perception of the place such that others who would not have considered moving there before perceived it as an interesting, safe, exciting, and eventually, desirable. The process continued as many suburbanites, transplanted Americans, internationals, and immigrants (most focused on opportunities in NY/NJ region and proximity to Manhattan) began to make the "Jersey" side of the Hudson their home, and the "real-estate boom" of the era encouraged many to seek investment opportunities. Empty lots were built on, tenements became condominiums. Re-zoning encouraged new construction on former industrial sites on the waterfront and the traditionally more impoverished low-lying west side of the city where, in concert with Hudson-Bergen Light Rail and NJ State land-use policy, transit villages are now being promoted.
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