Woodside, the North End of Newark, N.J.: Its History, Legends and Ghost Stories Gathered from the Records and the Older Inhabitants Now LivingHine, C. G. (Charles Gilbert)
History
Woodside, the North End of Newark, N.J.: Its History, Legends and Ghost Stories Gathered from the Records and the Older Inhabitants Now Living
Hine, C. G. (Charles Gilbert)
Hine, C. C. (Charles Cole), 1825-1897; Woodside (Newark, N.J.) -- History
Apparently the next use to which the point was put was for the
transshipping of freight, for we are told that rather more than fifty
years ago this was a landing where vessels unloaded coal and other
commodities which those from the back country, even so far as
Bloomfield, were wont to cart home by way of the Division road and
Murphy’s lane.
About 1855 our old Point House, which some say was built 150 years ago,
was owned by George Jackson, who manufactured fireworks here, while his
brother Charles followed the same trade in a small building just north.
He is said to have paid $400 for the property. About once in so often
the fireworks factory would explode, and it made such a nuisance of
itself because of these irregular excursions heavenward that Mr. Gould,
who lived just across the way, purchased the property in order to quiet
his nerves.
From fireworks to firewater sounds like an easy transition, and so we
come to the Holt regime. The Holts and a brother of Mrs. Holt, Ed.
Moorehouse, lived in the King house (which we have passed without
knowing it, and to which we shall go back shortly) and some time before
1865 removed to the Point House, and here again was trouble for the
neighbors, for while this was not a regular tavern, it would appear that
a certain black bottle was part of its furniture, and that that black
bottle was a magnet which no servant girl of the time and region could
resist. Now a drunken cook is not generally regarded as any great
addition to the family menage, as I am informed. It was no small
undertaking to find a cook who would go so far into the country as this
region then was, and when found, to have her almost immediately go
astray via the Point House, was considered highly provoking.
The Holts made their own root beer, and there is a story to the effect
that while a party of well known Newarkers was in the place one day a
keg of this same beer, which stood on the bar, exploded and deluged the
visitors with a combination of liquid sassafras and wintergreen that was
shocking to see and worse to bear, and it is recorded that those
inundated failed to discover a funny side to the experience.
THE FLOATING PALACE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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