BY JAMES L. O’NEILL, ELIZABETH, N. J. The territory now occupied by Elizabeth, N. J., was formerly the abode of savage tribes unknown to fame; whence they came and how long they had dwelt on these shores are questions that neither authentic history nor plausible tradition pretends to answer. They have since passed away without memorial. It was on Sunday, the 6th day of September, 1609, that the eye of the stranger from the old world first saw this site. Three days before, a two-masted schooner called the _Half Moon_, under the command of the renowned Henry Hudson, cast anchor in Sandy Hook bay. The adventurous craft was manned by twenty men, Dutch and English, in the service of the East India Company. Their design was to explore a passage to China and the Indies by the northwest. On Sunday, the 6th, John Coleman and four other men were sent out in a boat to explore the harbor, sailing through the narrows that they found. The narrow river through which they sailed was the Kills between Bergen Point and Staten Island and the open sea was Newark bay. The site of the town that bordered on the bay was, of course, in full view. These five men are believed to have been the first European discoverers of this particular spot. Coleman was slain the same day, on his return, by the treacherous arrow of one of the natives. It is not at all unlikely that Coleman was an Irishman, as his name bears the Celtic tone, and as there is nothing to verify it to the contrary. The most distinguished man of Irish descent who identified himself completely with this old city was the Rev. James Caldwell, the eighth pastor of the First Presbyterian church. The Rev. Mr. Caldwell was a Virginian. His father, John Caldwell, came to this country with four sisters and his wife and several children, from the County Antrim, Ireland—what year is unknown to the writer. He settled first at Chestnut Level, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. Soon after, he removed to the new settlements in the southern part of Virginia and located on Cub creek, a branch of the Staunton river, in what is now known as Charlotte county. Here in the wilderness, James, the subject of this sketch, the youngest of seven children, was born in April, 1734. The place was generally known as the Caldwell Settlement or Cub Creek. A daughter of one of his brothers, also born here, was the mother of the Hon. John Caldwell Calhoun of South Carolina, the well-known senator and leading statesman of the South.