Yale University Library

39002002936566

The "Makings" of
The Lincoln Association
of Jersey City

By WiUiam B. Rkfc«rd«n»

I

£53.3

'1 'give thef? Books,
for. tie founding of a. College in IhifJSoIotLyri

•YAiLE-^mvEissainnf- - ILIlIBIB^ISy •

Presented by the Author

V\V*

Abraham Lincoln and "Thad." A popular picture in certain Jersey City homes in Civil Wartimes.

The "Makings" of
The Lincoln Association
of Jersey City

&&

A Souvenir of the Dinner at the Carteret Club Commemo
rating the One Hundred and Tenth Anniversary
of the Birth of Abraham Lincoln

By William H. Richardson

The Jersey City Printing Company
1919

XLi

Officers of the Lincoln Association
o£ Jersey City, 1919
President . . Robert A. Alberts, 123 Jewett Ave., Jersey City
1st Vice President . Wilbur E. Mallalieu, 38 Bentley Ave., Jersey City
2nd Vice President . C. C. Wilson, Lincoln High School, Jersey City
Treasurer . . Otto H. Lohsen, 238a Academy St., Jersey City
Historian . . . John H. Ward, 34 Kensington Ave., Jersey City
Secretary . . . James W. Gopsill, 381 Fairmount Ave., Jersey City

Executive Committee, 1919
Judge John A. Blair, Union League Club, Jersey City
Charles F. Case, The Fairmount, Jersey City
Gen. Wm. C. Heppenheimer, 291 Montgomery St., Jersey City
Hon. Marshall Van Winkle, 100 Glenwood Ave., Jersey City
Col. George T. Vickers, 22 Duncan Ave., Jersey City
George C. Warren, Jr., 94 Kensington Ave., Jersey City
William H. Richardson, 250 Union St., Jersey City
James B. Throckmorton, 51 Glenwood Ave., Jersey City
Dr. W. F. Randolph, 67 Kensington Ave., Jersey City
Clarence M. Owens, 1 5 Clifton Terrace, Weehawken
George J. McEwan, Summit Ave. and De Mott St., West Hoboken
Willis J. Tuers, 21 Park St., Jersey City

&
.<

Committee on Publication
Hon. Marshall Van Winkle, John H. Ward, Col. George T. Vickers

V_ I.

OS

The Activities of the Lincoln Association,1867-1919

In the lines below, is compiled a list of the functions celebrated
by the Lincoln Association from the earliest records available, down to
the present time. It is subject, of course, to verification.

1867. Feb. 12.

April
May

15.

Sept. 5.
Oct. 3.

1868.

Nov.Dec. Feb.

7.
24. 6.

Annual Dinners :
Date
1868. Feb. 12.
1869. Feb. 12.
1870. Feb. 12.
1871. Feb. 12.
1872. Feb. 12.
1873. Feb. 12.
1874. Feb. 12.
1875. Feb. 12.
1876. Feb. 12.
1877. Feb. 12.
1878. Feb. 12.
1879. Feb. 12.
1880. Feb. 12.
1881. Feb. 11.
1882. Feb. 12.
1883. Feb. 12.
1884. Feb. 12.
1885. Feb. 12.
1886. Feb. 12.
1887. Feb. 11.

Zschau's Union House. Foundation. David W.
Weiss, Benjamin Russell, Earl P. Lane, Prof.
Charles Knowles, Charles Baker, Dietrich Kuhn,
Peter Kolb, Charles A. Zschau.
Zschau's Union House. Memorial and patriotic
observance.
Zschau's Union House. Organization. President,
David W. Weiss; Vice President, Benjamin
Russell; Secretary, Wm. B. Dunning; treasurer,
Earl P- Lane; steward, Charles A. Zschau.
Zschau's Union House. Presentation of album
to President Weiss.
Zschau's Union House. Theme, the Emancipation
Proclamation.
Zschau's Union House. Social evening.
Library Hall. Largely attended Ball.
Zschau's Union House. Presentation of Watch
to Secretary Dunning.

Given at
Taylor's Hotel.
Cooper's Hall
(no data)
Zschau's Union House.
Zschau's Union House.
Zschau's Union House.
Zschau's Union House.
Zschau's Union House.
Zschau's Union House.
Philadelphia Hotel.
Continental Hotel.
Philadelphia Hotel.
Taylor's Hotel.
Taylor's Hotel.
Taylor's Hotel.
Taylor's Hotel.
Taylor's Hotel.
Taylor's Hotel.
Taylor's Hotel.
Taylor's Hotel.

President
David W. Weiss
David W. Weiss.
David W. Weiss.
David W. Weiss.
David W. Weiss.
David W. Weiss.
David W. Weiss.
David W. Weiss.
David W. Weiss.
David W. Weiss.
David W. Weiss.
Maj. David A. Peloubet.
Maj. David A. Peloubet.
James Gopsill.
James Gopsill.
James Gopsill.
James Gopsill.
John W. Pangborn.
John W. Pangborn.
John W. Pangborn.

Date

Given at

President

1888.

Feb.

13.

Taylor's Hotel.

Hon. Gilbert Collins
1889.
Feb.
12.
Taylor's Hotel.
Maj. Z. K. Pangborn.
1890.
Feb.
13.
Taylor's Hotel.
Flavel McGee.
1891.
Feb.
12.
Taylor's Hotel.
John A. Blair.
1892.
Feb.
12.
Taylor's Hotel.
John A .Walker.
1893.
Feb.
13.
Hotel Washington
Charles F. Case.
1894.
Feb.
12.
Hotel Washington.
Col. Asa W. Dickinson.
1895.
Feb.
12.
Taylor's Hotel.
John M. Jones.
1896.
Feb.
12.
Taylor's Hotel.
Simeon H. Smith.
1897.
Feb.
12.
Taylor's Hotel.
Henry M. Nevius.
1898.
Feb.
12.
Taylor's Hotel.
Col. Chas. W. Fuller
1899.
Feb.
13.
Taylor's Hotel.
Col. Sheffield Phelps.
1900.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
Joseph A. Dear.
1901.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
George F. Perkins.
1902.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
E. B. Bacon.
1903.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
A. J. Newbury.
1904.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
Harry Louderbough
1905.
Feb.
13.
Jersey City Club.
Edmund Wilson.
1906.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
Charles W. Parker.
1907.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
James S. Erwin.
1908.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
Dr. Henry Spence.
1909.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
Marshall Van Winkle.
The 1 909 function — the Centenary Dinner — was unusually bril
liant and memorab
le.
1910.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
Dr. Ulamor Allen.
1911.
Feb.
13.
Jersey City Club.
Dr. Henry Snyder.
1912.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
David R. Daly.
1913.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
Dr. GordonK. Dickinson.
1914.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
James B. Vredenburgh
1915.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
Jus. Francis J. Swayze
1916.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
Col. Austen Colgate.
1917.
Feb.
12.
Jersey City Club.
Geo. C. Warren, Jr.
1918.
Feb.
12.
Carteret Club.
Col. Geo. T. Vickers.
1919.
Feb.
12.
Carteret Club.
Robert A. Alberts.
Secretaries.
Wm.
B. Dunning.
from
1867 to 1877.
John W. Herbert, Jr.
from
1878 to 1884.
Geon
ge J-
Medole.
from
1885 to 1892.
Thomas Milburn Gopsill.
from
1893 to 1903.
Robert B.
Gray.
from
1904 to 1912.
Robert A.
Alberts.
from
1913 to 1918.
James W. Gopsill.
from
1919
Treasurers
Earl P Lane.
from
1867 to 1868.
Marmaduke Tilden.
from
1885 to 1904.
Otto H. Lohsen.
from
1905
A Few Words From a Pleased Committee

This little book owes its publication to two men, President Robert
A. Alberts and Mr. William H. Richardson. The first suggestion that
a little book showing the genesis of our Lincoln Association would be
the best souvenir of our Victory Dinner came from Mr. Alberts ; and
his suggestion at once became a concrete plan when he stated that Mr.
Richardson was the man to write the book. Our Committee on Pub
lication was appointed to supervise the work; but our labor has been
very slight indeed. When we read the proof submitted by Mr. Richard
son, we found a well done and finished piece of work.
As this little book is read by our members, we are sure they will
appreciate Mr. Richardson's industry and good judgment in the selection
and arrangement of his material. His flowing narrative will be especially
interesting to our older members; and our younger members will learn
from the vivid pictures of local conditions in this little book much that
they should know about the events of those older days when our country
was at a great crisis comparable only with the great crisis that we have
just passed. Mr. Richardson is entitled to the thanks of our Association
for his well done labor of love; and it is our great pleasure to preface
this little book with these few words of acknowledgment and to sincerely
thank him in the name of the Lincoln Association.
The Committee also gratefully acknowledges the courtesy of
one of our members, Mr. E. F. Chilton, of the Standard Engraving
Company, New York, who has taken personal interest in the production
of the full page engravings with which this souvenir is embellished.
MARSHALL VAN WINKLE, Chairman
GEORGE T. VICKERS
JOHN H. WARD
Committee on Publication.

The "Makings" of the Lincoln Association

According to the literature of the Lincoln Association of Jersey
City, we are contemplating this evening, the "fifty-fourth Annual Ban
quet" of this time-honored organization. One would think that in
more than half a century of forensic endeavor, with all the wealth of
mental culture that has been concentrated upon the life of Abraham
Lincoln and the lessons to be drawn from it,
there would hardly be a phase left that
had a shade of novelty in it. However,
it has seemed to me that a story of the
times of Abraham Lincoln, and about the
people of Jersey City who believed in him
— as well as about some who did not —
would be of interest, and might be help
ful in another great crisis in human history.
For we do forget. So I have chosen for
the title of the story "The 'Makings' of the
Lincoln Association," in which I want to
present as vivid a picture as possible of
the conditions under which the Lincoln
ideal was nurtured in Jersey City.
Just where to start the story is very
difficult to say. Jersey City was chartered
February 22, 1838; her first mayor, and
her first citizen for a long, long lifetime,
was born in Connecticut, and was eminent
in the work of the American Colonization
Society. Dudley S. Gregory's acquaintance with the principles that
Abraham Lincoln was going to die for, was more than theoretical that
far back. The politics of the time were already effervescing with the
oratory of the Anti-Slavery Societies. Henry D. Holt had started his
Jersey; City Advertiser and Bergen Republican in 1 838, and was printing
stories now and then about the iniquitous commerce in the blacks, and for
years his voice and pen were active in the cause which came to a climax
a little more than a score of years later.

Hon. Dudley S. Gregory

It will be pertinent to refer to the decidedly forward program of
the forty-six members of the Particular Baptist Church of Jersey City
and Harsimus, who withdrew from that select institution in 1842, to
found a new Baptist Church with this covenant: "A slave-holder,
or one who traffics in human flesh, is not a fit member for a Gospel
Church; it would be sinful for one to sit down and commune with him."
Then there was a little company of CongregationaUsts who worshipped
at the southeast corner of Grove Street and Railroad Avenue, on part of
what is J. W. Greene's present building site, most all of them so far
as we can give locality to family names, originating in New England,
who were exponents of the ideas of Wm. Lloyd Garrison. So it may
be readily seen that The Foundation Company which later merged
into the Lincoln Association was here as long as Jersey City.
Without filling in pages of testimony to support the argument,
I may say briefly that the cult did not grow any less feeble in Jersey
City than anywhere else. Coming rapidly down the years to the time
of those famous debates with Douglas, we find in the Telegraph, the
local democratic newspaper, the following singularly unprophetic intro
duction of Abraham Lincoln: "Lincoln, who should thereafter be
known as the brainless Bob O'Link of the Prairies * * * has
succeeded in making a Jay of himself and his chattering will be ap
preciated accordingly." Well, history somehow has vindicated the
champion of human rights and liberties!
Speaking of Douglas' reference to Lincoln's having started life
in a grocery, the same local authority solemnly informs us that "in
Illinois as in many other parts of the west, 'grocery' is synonymous with
'groggery.' " Other issues of about the same era tell us that Wm.
Lloyd Garrison was an "abolitionist and atheist" — how smoothly that
alliterative allusion must have slid from the Telegraphic pen! Fred
Douglass was always referred to as a "nigger;" a gentleman, afterward
slightly renowned in American journalism, was commonly called the
"arch-nigger of the Tribune." Here is a little jingle published January
19, 1857, to help the cause along:
"Othello is the negro race,
Iago is their Greeley!
And if the darkies follow him
He'll bamboozle them ginteelley!"
Perhaps the reason Iago put it over was that the "darkies" couldn't
or wouldn't read the Telegraph and be led to avert the bamboozlement.
Prominent exponents of the New Thought in democracy — Wright,
Phillips, Higginson, Foster, Tappan, Garrison, et al. — were editorially

consigned "to cells in the lunatic asylum where they should be locked
until satan should come to escort them to Brimstonedom."
Henry D. Holt's paper then was known as the Sentinel; he was
its "black republican" editor and he was a man of whom we can well
be proud when we recount the hot times in the old town of three score
years ago ; when the Telegraph was jammed with utterances of incon
ceivable rankness. "That eminent humbug, the learned blacksmith, one
of the most impudent meddlers in the Union," gets his one day, also;
Horace Greeley, William H. Seward and John Brown were burned in
effigy by certain Princeton students in 1 859, and the pleasantry was
deliciously commented upon. On another occasion the editor labels and
lambasts his political opposites, as "Abolitionists, Atheists, Deists, Infidels
and other advocates of idiotic schemes of disunion, anarchy and treason."
When John Brown's raid and its tragic consequences got into the
Telegraph, it featured that side of the story that somebody or bodies in
Jersey City must have wanted to read : the offer of South Carolinians who
wanted John Brown hung with a home-grown cotton rope; the anxiety of
Mrs. Mahala Doyle to bathe her hands in his blood, and her sending a
halter woven by her slaves for his execution. A Unitarian church was
then located at the southeast corner of Montgomery and Grove Streets ; its
minister was Rev. O. B. Frothingham. He was quite as radical in his views
as the Telegraph — only from another angle — and once Mr. Frothingham
said some things in a public address which prompted the following
comment in the newspaper: "Mr. Frothingham came to us from a
witch-burning region, but we had hoped that the pure union atmosphere
(!) of Jersey City might lead him to forsake the error of his ways.
* * * The Black Republican Preacher wishes to free any and
every nigger even at the expense of the church, the Constitution, the
Union, and even the lives and property of every white man in the country
who dares to differ with him in opinion. Thank God there is room
in our State Lunatic Asylum for such crazy fanatics." The "Frothy-
ham" church was set on fire about that time and the Unitarians had
very excellent reasons for believing that it was of incendiary origin;
the Telegraph sought, on the other hand, to prove a "copperhead" alibi,
with the same success that Lady Macbeth did, for protesting too much.
There was a "recognition" of the Bethesda Baptist Anti-Slavery
and Free Mission Church on July 11, 1858, and the Telegraph reports
that "the sentiments preached there would be quite appropriate in an
assembly of Black Republicans, but out of place in a pulpit on the
Lord's Day. It appears to have become the fashion of late with preachers
7

to close their bibles and devote their time to the temporal welfare of
niggers and nigger lovers."
Father J. Kelly, Pastor of St. Peter's, 82 Grand St., had an
advertisement in the Telegraph of September 3, 1857, certifying to the
fact that "Elizabeth Daniel had not been married to the mulatto John
Bravvery and that the rumor against Thomas Doyle and his wife, and
which unfortunately has exposed them to the peril of their lives is false."
Henry Ward Beecher lectured in Metropolitan Hall, December
15, 1858, for the benefit of the Firemen's Fund; the Telegraph charac
terized the lecture as "savoring somewhat of niggerism" — which is
probably just what it did if Henry Ward Beecher's faculties were
functioning properly in 1858. These are but a few more instances
to prove the need of the coming Lincoln Association, at least !
The 1860 Before the Lincoln campaign of 1 860, the Telegraph was suc-
Campaign ceeded — and superseded in capacity for scurrility — by the American
Standard, why so named one may well wonder if he should ever take
occasion to peruse its files. In that campaign it supported John Bell
of Tennessee for President, and Edward Everett of Massachusetts
for Vice-President — with the tremendously important historical effect
of contributing to the election of Abraham Lincoln. That result, how
ever, owed little of its importance to this State; the Standard un
graciously showed its feelings in a long editorial in which it lauded
"New Jersey: faithful among the faithless, she alone of all the free
states has been mindful of the advice of Washington and has arrayed
herself against the geographical and sectional party his prescience fore
saw." Perhaps we may find a claim in that sentence that may reasonably
connect us with the Father of our Country, too. Right underneath that
same editorial it publishes a reprint from the Churchman of New York,
reviewing and applauding the scriptural arguments for the institution of
slavery. Passing over the months of the excessively vituperative campaign
which resulted in the election of Lincoln, and contemplating his journey
to Washington for inauguration, doubtless there are some present
to-night who will recall his reception in Jersey City when he passed
through here on February 21, 1861. One of the papers was unkind
enough to recall the tenor of New Jersey's voting when commenting
upon the stupendous crowds gathered to greet the President-elect. Mr.
Lincoln had come over from New York on the new ferryboat Jackson
under special command of Commodore Woolsey, superintendent of the
ferry. Dodworth's Celebrated Cotillion Band, a famous musical aggre-

gation of the day, was on board and discoursed appropriate music.
When the boat was in the middle of the river Aldmn. Hardenbergh
made a neat speech, which was reported in full, while Mr. Lincoln
is said to have replied in "a few apt words," which were not printed
in full. In the throng on the Jackson, Mr. Lincoln recognized and chat
ted with Hon. D. S. Gregory, who had been his colleague in Congress.
A pleasing incident is recorded of his having stooped over to kiss
"the infant daughter of the late T. L. Smith," and saying as he did
so, "we cheerfully welcome the little lambs." I have often wondered
who and where the infant daughter of the late T. L. Smith is now
and whether she had infant daughters to whom she could tell the
pretty story!
When the Presidential party arrived at the station there was an _
ovation. Judge William L. Dayton welcomed Mr. Lincoln to New Lincoln s
Jersey with a very able address, and to that Mr. Lincoln replied, Jers ^ J
together with some remarks that did not get into print: "Ladies and
Gentlemen of the State of New Jersey: I shall only very briefly thank
you for the very warm and kind reception you have given me, and
I shall try to make myself heard if possible. Not that I thank you
personally for the reception, but only as the temporary representative of
a great nation. I have been met in the same way all through my journey,
and as I had often to do in other places, I am sure you will not feel
dissatisfied with me for merely greeting you with a sincere farewell for
the present. You have met me through your own kind and valued
friend Judge Dayton, a man who is an honor to any State in this great
Union, and who has said enough to include my own response if I had
not uttered a word. Most heartily do I endorse every sentiment he
has expressed; and I sincerely trust you will find me everything which
the present interest of the country demands."
It was rather a modest speech for the man who had crossed swords
with the giant Douglas ! As he closed his brief acknowledgment,
Mr. Lincoln's attention was directed to the balconies of the station,
crowded with elegantly dressed ladies, "an unbroken array of the youth,
beauty and intelligence of Jersey City." So he expressed his admiration
of the spectacle and put a graceful period to his talk by a playful
allusion to a familiar political topic of the day, avowing his readiness
to recommend compromises with women ; but with men — never !
Presently the party was ushered into the special train for the
South. The locomotive William Pennington drew it, ornate with

flags and bunting; Abraham Condit was the engineer; a son of Super
intendent Woodruff was the honorary stoker. The car of honor was
a new one but recently finished in the New Jersey Railroad car shops,
and beautifully furnished and upholstered by Earle & Co. of this city.
A notable feature was its luxurious sofas. Before reaching Washington
the news of a threatened attempt upon Mr. Lincoln's life caused a
diversion in his journey by a more circuitous route, and that furnished
no end of ribaldry in unfriendly newspapers. The Standard gloated
for years over the Scotch cap and cloak in which he was alleged to
have been disguised from Harrisburg to Washington.
When Lincoln was inaugurated the Standard professed itself bored
at being compelled to perform a professional duty in publishing a docu
ment which "as a literary production was unworthy many a schoolboy,
while as an interesting effort it has nothing to rescue it from mediocrity."
Such was the monumental pronouncement, rendered after elaborate analy
sis and discussion, upon the great inaugural address, which in most men's
minds to-day ranks as the most profound presentation of the momentous
issues ever advanced. What a sight for the ages! Lincoln standing
there before the Capitol, surrounded by enemies, unafraid, and yet
pleading with all the fervor of his masterly logic that they should know
what they were about to do. And after they had gone out from that
presence, with the pleading climax of his peroration sounding in their
ears, they chose to forget what he said about "the mystic chords of
memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every
living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land."
In the lines written before this I have endeavored to develop the
idea that there were in Jersey City certain groups of citizenship, rather
diminutive, perhaps, that came into existence as the logical reaction
against the wrongs that might be laid to differences of political opinion.
History has shown us, however, how these wrongs struck at the heart
of the Nation, and how, in the progress of events the proponents of these
divergent views became arrayed on one side or the other until the vortex
of the Civil War engulfed them. The idea of a war to settle these
differences was then an unbelievable thing ; early in 1 86 1 the local paper
commented complacently upon the "secession cockades" that certain
gentlemen, names not given, wore in their hats upon Jersey City's
streets : nobody prepared for war as the way to discourage their decorating
themselves. But the moment came when dealing academically with
slavery and secession was done away with forever.
The President's proclamation declaring the Southern states in
rebellion and calling for 75,000 militia from loyal states was published

[Coz(r/i?£;y ,F?*« Public Library\

The Massachusetts 6th Entraining in Jersey City, April 18th, 1861

here April 15, 1861. Several other interesting news items were pub
lished in the same issue of the paper. A coasting schooner had come
up the river and anchored off the city, somewhere near the foot of
Essex Street. A palmetto flag flew from her mast-head. Some soot-
stained patriots from the Dummer glassworks saw the objectionable
emblem and rowed out to the schooner. The clump, clump, of their
iron nailed shoes across the deck awakened the captain, and he was
given the choice of hauling down the ensign and breaking out Old
Glory in its place, or having his boat sunk. He saved his ship.
At the close of an enthusiastic Union meeting in the Hudson
House, the crowd swept up the street and jeered and booed before
the newspaper office, 23 and 25 Montgomery Street, and then went
to the homes of its publishers for the same sort of a serenade, because
the sheet had maligned the Government and the proprietors would not
put up our flag. I know the names of two — Henry D. Holt and C.
H. Dummer — who assisted in the festivities of the evening.
On April 1 8th, the Massachusetts volunteers, 1 ,000 strong were
entrained at lower Montgomery Street to the rhythm of martial music,
the cheer of loyal songs, the flutter of countless flags; they passed on
into history: the next day, the anniver
sary of Lexington, occured the tragedy
at Baltimore. They were the first of
many, many more thousands, to start on
that Great Adventure, the magnitude of
which none could dream and the end of
which none could foresee. And 55
years afterward on June 21, 1916,
those of our own circle of friend
ships, the old Fourth and the Signal
Corps marched no less proudly down
the same street, were embarked at
almost the same spot, and were swept
away into the mist that cleared away
presently and revealed our part in the
greatest adventure in all human history.
By a strange co-ordination of news incidents, the account of these
soldier sons of Pilgrim fathers was printed immediately above a few
line notice telling of the unanimous calling to the First Congregational
Church of John Milton Holmes. Without reflecting upon other churches
in the town, it may be said that the incident was of very great moment

Rev. John Milton Holmes

Lincoln Reading the Emancipation Proclamation to His Cabinet
(The original of this picture hung in the Tabernacle for many years)
to Jersey City. He preached a sermon the Sunday night after the
Baltimore affair that stirred the town to its depths, and it was given
the very unusual attention of being published in full in the Courier
and Advertiser "at the request of hearers who were electrified and
delighted by its noble sentiments and splendid delivery." It is beautiful
reading to-day, and the magnificent work done by this splendid soldier
of the Cross in Jersey City in the few years of his intensive devotion
should be known and acclaimed by every school child.
With great emphasis, therefore, I beg to present the name of
John Milton Holmes as one who helped prodigiously to make the
Lincoln Association possible. We cannot read the newspapers, both
kinds, if you please, without being gripped by the sublimity of his
devotion to the Lincoln ideal ; and by the time that the Tabernacle,
"with a flag pole for its steeple and the Union emblem for its weather
vane," was dedicated, two years later, the people of Jersey City were
pretty well accustomed to the brand of politics preached by its minister.
He believed in Lincoln. "Every citizen who failed to uphold the honor
of the flag was an abettor of treason and should suffer the penalty due
to his crime;" that was an oft repeated declaration to the great audiences
he attracted. So we have the two partisans. To one Lincoln meant a
bloody war and a wicked waste of human life, and an interference
with the inherent rights of the people ; to the other Lincoln meant an ideal
of human freedom, Union in a great Nation that should be one and
indivisible. Both believed utterly in their principles. It is hardly
necessary to comment upon that branch of the Lincoln Association

:

that was always in session at the Tab
ernacle, and attended by loyal people
from other congregations, including their
"Yankee" preachers, for example, Rev.
W. H. Parmly of the Baptist Church,
the clergymen of the M. E. Church, and
others. "The President's opinion that slavery
is the cause of the war" was regarded
by the Standard of December 3, 1862,
"as a fundamental error," and he was
solemnly adjured to make "well directed
efforts to save our tottering nation." I
have gone through the files of the local
paper pretty thoroughly, for I should really
like to discover what sort of well-directed
efforts, what constructive thoughts it might
have advanced, in the way of winning the
war, if there was any such purpose bound
Rev. Wheelock H. Parmly up ^ fa progranl Qf saving tne nation.
Henry Ward Beecher would not have to explain to any fairly well
informed audience what his program was during the Civil War, yet he
was arraigned in Jersey City as one who "professes to be a Christian and
yet invokes God and Christ to carry on butchery for the sake of humanity.
Impious fool!" Nor would Wendell Phillips have difficulty in convinc
ing any one of his war-time beliefs, yet he was pilloried here as the "arch-
agitator who according to his own admission has been laboring twenty
years to dissolve the Union." Neither will it harm the reputation
of Dr. George B. Cheever, to quote an editorial opinion about him as
the "reverend, fanatical, hypocritical, treason-breeding Cheever
* * * who envenomed our atmosphere of loyalty by his foul breath,
this sainted preacher of discord and the higher law, who prostituted
the high purposes of an ambassador of the truth of Christ."
Probably only a few of my gray-haired readers will recall the
stirring scenes enacted in the Tabernacle, that historic building at the
corner of York and Henderson Streets. I want to allude to one of
them at this juncture, because it so completely illustrates the state
of the public mind at a most critical period in the life of Lincoln. The
annual meeting of the First Congregational Society was on the point
of adjournment on March 26, 1 863, when Hon. D. S. Gregory arose
to ask the approval of the society to action already taken by the Building

Committee in granting permission to use the almost finished auditorium
of the Tabernacle for the definite purpose of forming a Union League.
The local papers indicate that the approval was voted, for the The Union
following advertisement appeared for the next few days: "One People, League
One Country, One Destiny. The loyal people of Jersey City without rounded
distinction of Party are invited to attend a meeting to be held in the
new Tabernacle, corner York and Henderson Streets, on Monday
evening, March 30, 1863, at half past seven o'clock, for the purpose
of expressing their devotion to the Constitution and the Union of the
United States, and their firm determination to uphold the authority of
the Government and enforce the laws. Addresses by Hon. James T.
Brady, Hon. James Wadsworth, Wm. Allen Butler, Esqr., and E.
M. Dickerson, Esqr. Seats reserved for ladies. A patriotic ode will
be sung, accompanied by the organ."
Well, the meeting was held, according to schedule. The only
thing that stops me from printing in full the Standard's account of
what it called "A Republican League Meeting" is the fear of the
committee that will have to audit the printer's bill. It was rich, from
one end to the other. Curiosity to see and hear James T. Brady, "the
captured copperhead;" a copious display of rockets and other fireworks;
the packing of the meeting with members of the M. E. Conference
then in session in the city; the presence of a gallery full of ladies "guarded
at each door by one of their number of the 'strong minded persuasion.' "
Whatever the reasons the great auditorium was jammed, at any rate.
Alexander H. Wallis called the meeting to order, and nominated
Hon. Dudley S. Gregory for chairman. Then Mr. Gregory led the
way to the platform, followed by Ephraim Marsh, Esq., H. M. Trap-
hagen, Peter Bentley, Robt. Gilchrist, E. M. Dickerson, Esq., of Pater-
son, Revs. R. L. Dashiell (Trinity M. E.), John Milton Holmes
and Wheelock H. Parmly. Wm. C. Traphagen was appointed Secre
tary. Rev. Mr. Dashiell opened the meeting with an eloquent prayer.
Then Mr. Holmes was called upon to explain the object of the meeting
— which he did by blandly reading a clipping from the New York
Express, in which the Unionists, Abolitionists, the CongregationaUsts,
etc., were just shot to pieces with copperhead rhetoric.
Mr. Holmes submitted for adoption by the meeting, a set of
resolutions declaring for the manifestation of the highest patriotism
at this time. He quoted Whitefield about there being no sect in
Heaven, and so "we come together to-night to consecrate this house to
the God of our fathers, standing on one platform to crush out rebellion.

Peter Bentley

As to the cry of peace, when the last rebel is driven into the Gulf of
Mexico, then we can thank God for peace." Notwithstanding the
Standard said no question was put, and no action was taken upon the
resolutions, they were adopted. The Loyal League was formed, for the
Standard published a number of ribald references to the organization
later. The meeting must have been a most uproarious one. Mr. Dicker-
son was interrupted in his speech when he quoted a letter from Charles
ton, S. C, dated some four months before the war, predicting a northern
and a southern confederacy. The interrupter wanted the name of the
writer and in the confusion of hisses and cheers, a cry was raised, "put
him out!" And he did get put out. Further turmoil was caused by
another "conscientious objector" when James T. Brady, afterward
one of the most famous criminal lawyers in America, started to speak.
William Harney got up, and in his big voice, demanded that that seces
sionist be removed before Mr. Brady began. But Mr. Harney froze the
genial current of the obnoxious soul, and then Mr. Brady went through
with that classical address of his, clear to the climax when he declared
that "by the strength and power of the great Author of the universe
the Union must and shall be preserved."

Since the Civil War, we have at least learned to estimate at The Peak
something like their true value the battle of Gettysburg and the surrender of the
of Vicksburg. Of course this could not be computed at the time, but War
on July 4, 1 863, they certainly added a little more spirit to the civic
celebration of Independence Day, which was officially appointed by
Common Council for the Tabernacle. A National salute at sunrise
of 35 guns by the Hudson County Artillery, a general house to house
decoration with flags, and the ringing of church and fire-bells, marked
the day outside; in the Tabernacle, the celebration started at 12.30
with Mayor Romar presiding. Alderman Gafney, Rev. Dr. Parmly
and Rev. John Milton Holmes participated in the exercises. Dudley
S. Gregory, Jr., led the patriotic singing; A. S. Hatch read the Declara
tion of Independence and Rev. Sam. B. Bell of the Reformed Dutch
Church made a spirited patriotic address.
But the import of the tremendous news from Gettysburg and
Vicksburg commenced to sink in in the next few days and so another
town celebration was appointed for that. The Times of July 6th, 7th
and 8th fairly reeked with the news of victory, and it was decided
to congregate in the Tabernacle for public thanksgiving for the turn
in the fortunes of our armies. There was something said in print at
the time, about the reasons why there had been no opportunity for such
a celebration before ; and that did not set well with the Standard. How
ever, Peter Bentley presided over the meeting appointed for July 8th,
in gratitude for the "affluence of joyful tidings." Rev. John Milton
Holmes, Rev. Sam B. Bell, Joseph Hoxie were among the speakers ;
the Standard says that Horace Greeley made "a few congratulatory
remarks;" while the New York World which was not what you might
call friendly to H. G., said this of his eloquence: "The great
blow which General Grant has struck against the rebellion at Vicksburg
was celebrated last night by a still mightier 'blow' in Jersey City."
The program of exercises, the Standard said, was forced down the
people's throats !
Out on the streets that Wednesday night, there was some time,
too. Down in Washington Square they were firing a salute of 1 00
guns ; the bells of the city were rung from 6 to 7 P. M. ; Colgate's
soap works, Taylor's Hotel, Black's trunk factory, the ferry house,
and many other business places were gorgeously illuminated ; Dodworth's
Celebrated Cotillion Band played at the City Hall until 8.30, when
it was time to go to the Tabernacle and contribute to the enthusiasm
of that function. But to find out about it you must go to the Times,
not the Standard.

An Among the decorations in this room to-night is a tattered flag,
Historic and it is a high privilege for us to contemplate it in connection with
Flag the narrative we have just been discussing. When the story of Gettys
burg and Vicksburg came, Mr. Holmes thought the Tabernacle ought
to have a flag as a proper adjunct to its celebration, so he started out
with a subscription list and got these names upon it : Rev. John Milton
Holmes, $5; P. L. Snyder, $5; A. S. Hatch, $5; Winslow Ames,
$2 ; William Spaulding Taylor, $ 1 ; E. H. Adams, $ 1 ; Thomas H.
Bouden, $1; S. C. M. Allen, $3; M. S. Douglass, $1; Thomas
Potter, Jr., $5; D. S. Gregory, Jr., $5; William A. Durrie, $3;
J. M. Goddard, $1 ; Henry D. Holt, $1 ; Philo H. Prindle, $1 ;
A. M. Clerihew, $1; cash, 50 cents; William Harney, $1; Mr.
Merriman, 50 cents; S. A. Frost, $1 ; Noyes P- Dennison, $1 ; Charles
H. Johnson, $2; Mrs. C. H. Shaw, $1; Mrs. N. M. Shaw, $1 ;
Mr. Cander, $1 ; Homer Brooks, $1 ; Peter H. Kline, $1 ; W. W.
Ingersoll, $1 ; William H. Duryea, $1 ; John B. Moffat, $1 ; George
Kingsland, $1.50; Chauncey Holt, $1. Then there was another
name on the list (which I know) marked "payment refused." The
flag money amounted to $57.50.
Most of these names have disappeared from Jersey City history —
but the Lincoln Association may well honor them to-night, as we think
upon that patriotic roster of splendid citizens who were loyal in darker
days than these, and dwell upon what they endured in the times when
union and abolition were not quite as "fashionable" doctrines as they
became later on. The flag was not ready for the big civic night of
July 8th, so it was not dedicated until the next night. After preliminary
devotional exercises in the church, the congregation repaired to the street ;
Mr. Holmes mounted an extemporized platform and gave a classical
address on "The Flag." Then as every eye was fixed upon it, this very
flag above us to-night, was slowly hoisted into place; a cannon boomed,
and the audience broke into cheers for Meade, Grant and President
Lincoln, and three times three for the Union. This banner was one of
the most cherished relics of the Tabernacle and was always in evidence
at the countless functions afterward held in that historic edifice. After
the dispersion of the Tabernacle people the flag has been in the custody
of the Free Public Library, whose courtesy in loaning it for this
occasion is most gratefully acknowledged.
Draft The synchronism of the "invasion of the north" and what is com-
Riot monly known as the "draft riots" of July 13, 14 and 15, 1863, has
Days been pretty well established, I believe. Terrible as they were, they were
18

0tyUiM^C-ej(j rh-rfu^ ctxa^ASJ^s rfr M^ /Hur*e6*s£tj

c4-l$l^ *F-t>-o
/ <n*
/ Oi)

Pd

The Subscribers to the Tabernacle Flag, 1863

Chauncey Holt.

really intended as part of a much more pretentious demonstration which
the events of Gettysburg interfered with. In Jersey City, according
to the Standard everything was quiet; just a
few boys prowling around burning stables;
the "nigger" population was so terrified that
they left their homes and took refuge for days,
old men and women and little babies, in
Currie's woods, and the woods fringing the
heights of the city; two companies of the
74th New York stopped over in Jersey
City for several days ; a gun-boat and a cutter,
armed with howitzers and with marines
aboard, dropped anchor off Secor's ship
yard, where monitors were being built ; a mob
surrounded the Tabernacle and threatened to
burn it down if some fugitive blacks said to be secreted in the top of
the building were not turned over to them (Chauncey Holt placed his
axle-handle souvenir of the defense in the Free Public Library many
years afterward) ; Pastor Holmes was on the roof with a pile of bricks
before him, promising the mob some droppings from the sanctuary if
they did not disperse. But generally speaking, the town, according to
the Standard, "continues quiet, without any fear that the peace will
be disturbed!" A certain gentleman who was a candidate for an important civic
position a little less than two years later advertised his reasons for
deserving the votes of his fellows, and incidentally illuminated the subject
for us: "The people will not readily forget one who has acted as
their friend in so important a matter as the draft, and who has faithfully
striven, in season and out, early and late, to keep them with their
families." He was elected on that platform in 1865; people have dis
appeared from social life in 1 9 1 8 for a great deal less than that !
It is difficult indeed to imagine how such a pandering to the taste
of a clientele, whether real or supposed, could be tolerated. With
the growing enormity of the victory in the two great campaigns in
mind, and the surprising manifestation of power against the lawlessness
of the metropolitan mob as a new inspiration, the Standard's psychology
takes a curious tack. On July 25, 1863, with a circus performance
imminent, it prints the following pleasant notice: "The Two Clowns.
— Two clowns, Dan Rice and Abe Lincoln receive for their services
the same salary, $25,000 a year. While the latter furnishes nothing
20

but a few stale jokes, unintelligible speeches and useless proclamations,
Dan gives the benefit of his name to a large establishment, the use of
his beautiful horse, Excelsior, and his educated mules, etc." Whether
that bit of editorial courtesy ever helped Dan, I do not know, but a
press ticket to a circus looks like a high price to pay for it.
When the time came, a few months later, to write up the story
of the exercises incident to the dedication of the National Cemetery
at Gettysburg, we do not have to imagine that there was no expression
of any indication of immortality in the address which is now on the
tongue of every schoolboy in the land. Edward Everett's oration,
of course, was the thing "that was listened to with marked attention,"
and he said a great deal which it would hurt the Standard to print,
so abstracts of it only were published. Lincoln wisely wrote; he could
not be condensed; and so, what it calls his "dedicatory speech" was
printed in full.
All through the campaign of 1 864, the Standard voiced the same
bitter animosity. It grew frantic in July, 1 864, over the terms addressed
"To whom it may concern" in that famous Niagara conference. The
basis of a total abolition of slavery was preposterous, as Mr. Lincoln
would discover when he scanned the election returns on November 8th.
It published the names of two New Jersey newspapers whose editors, Kind
it reported, had been arrested for publishing articles antagonistic to the Words
draft — Mr. Winton of the Bergen County Democrat at Hackensack, in '64
and O. C. Cone of the Somerset Messenger. And then it reprinted the
article attributed to the Bergen County Democrat: "Let the press speak
out in opposition to this merciless conscription, which has no other end
than to secure the election of Abraham Lincoln for another term of four
years or for life. There's no pretext now that the administration are
at all desirous of restoring the Union and the Constitution. Why then
should the people be dragged from their homes at the beck of a tyrant
and a usurper, to murder and destroy those with whom they should
be at peace?" That was the way the bolsheviki of 55 years ago talked
about the President !
When Lincoln was re-nominated the Standard condensed the story
of the historic Baltimore convention into a few lines like this:
"A. Lincoln, Esq., father of his country, vice Geo. Washington, de
ceased, has accepted the nomination. The acceptance was accompanied
by the usual 'I am reminded of a story,' which is, of course, too stupid
to bear repetition." All through the summer and fall of '64, its readers
were regaled by diatribes of inconceivable depravity; the President
21

and his cabinet were referred to as "Abraham the fanatic and his 'Red
Republican' maniacs smeared all over with the blood of the innocent;"
stories telling of outrages alleged to have been perpetrated by negro
soldiers, with the scenario usually laid in some stately old Southern
home, with the few remaining women as the victims, were dished up.
They were not very wholesome narratives, but they were recommended
to Mr. Lincoln as sources of "new material for his obscene jokes."
That splendidly self-sacrificing group of men known as the Christian
Commission was sneered at in this wise: "Where their conversation is
once upon God and eternity it is a thousand times on abolition and
Abe Lincoln." John Milton Holmes was one of the "C. C." men meant
by the Standard. He had spent three months with Sherman's army, and
was never well again, as the result of the privations he endured.
Another series of articles was intended to show how the President
had "attempted to make the public treasury pay a personal bill of
$2,500." As the bill involved White House crockery, and as Mr.
Lincoln was not charged with any particular measure of success in
the attempt, we may well wonder what the Standard would have done
if he had actually gotten away with it! Here is a choice bit of verse,
only one stanza of three, printed on October 21, 1 864, under the title,
"Lincoln, the widow maker and Hell's outrider:"
"We are coming, flatboat tyrant, in mourning goods and tears;
To hear your stories and your jokes, we trust no more for years!
We are coming, widow maker, from prairie home and glen,
A half a million widows of slowly murdered men.
We are coming, sadly coming, as the world can plainly see.
Not to save the Union, but the contraband to free!"
And here is another choice specimen from the Standard's anthology
of campaign poetry:
"There is an old man of Sangamon
Who has furnished us battle and famine;
His war for the nigger grows bigger and bigger —
Poor, deluded, old man of Sangamon!"
There was a Lincoln torchlight parade in Paterson on October
27, '64, and the Jersey City "Lincoln Club" was in the line. The
Standard learns that "the president of the club was arrested and put
under bonds for having committed an aggravated assault upon a young
man. He is a fit representative of the party to which he belongs."
Don't you wonder the Lincoln Clubbers didn't commit a few murders!
Perhaps the original of the button I am permitted to reproduce from

the Free Public Library museum was worn at that
Paterson party. Dr. Gordon K. Dickinson could not
verify that, but he does verify the fact that it was worn
by a very staunch Lincoln man by the name of W. L.
Dickinson, all honor to him! "Vote for Lincoln, if you
want war taxes, starvation, abolition and a dissevered
Union," was the final adjuration just the day before a Lincoln '64 Campaign
1 .• Button.
efection. A coarse joke was perpetrated upon a loyal out-of-town newspaper
for printing the following sonnet addressed to "Abraham Lincoln."
It reads, apparently, like a very high tribute to the President:
Lincoln! be firm and fear not; bigot men
In vain assail thee with their senseless word:
Nor heed the slaves to party and their lies
Conveying censure. The historians pen —
Oh, wand of magic! shall destroy the sneers,
Laughter and carping of the would-be wise,
Not in the future shall their voice be heard
In making up its judgment on these years.
Second to few patriots in esteem,
And sorer tried than many thou hast been;
Now few the stars that through the darkness gleam,
And not as yet are signs of daylight seen —
Soon stars shall come, and when these pass away,
Shall gleam the light that marks thy coming, glorious day!
5. Oldcheap.
The Standard chortled over the thing: Why, the name of the
author should have been enough. What a sell ! And sold cheap, too !
Anybody of ordinary intelligence should have seen the story in the
initials of the first lines! Still, even the best intended effort sometimes
fails, in war as well as in poetry: S. Oldcheap didn't intend to be, but
he turned out a fair prophet after all.
Now that we have suggested some depths of the depravity of
that campaign, let us turn for a moment to contemplate some of the
high spots of that turbulent period. Standing out with the brilliancy
of an illuminated cross against the darkness of night, is the report of
a convention of Congregational ministers in the Tabernacle on Sep
tember 21, 1 864. A newspaper was handed the moderator while the
session was on ; he held up his hand to get the silence and attention of News of
the assemblage and then he read the glorious news of Sheridan's victory Sheridan's
over Early. The audience broke into tumultuous applause, and gradually Victory
a voice, then others and others, caught up the swing of "Praise God
from whom all blessings flow!" Shortly afterward, the conference
23

formulated and adopted unanimously a set of five resolutions calling
upon their people to go to the polls next November 8th, and make the
decision that will be "final and fatal to the hopes of traitors in arms
and of conspirators in political councils." Mr. Holmes preached two
red-hot sermons shortly thereafter on the subject of the election. He
was not exactly an exponent of the theory that ministers should play
neutrality in politics; "our actions now should be such that we might
relate to our children's children that we fought with Grant or Sherman
in the Union War ; or that in the great election of 1 864, when the
Peace Democracy were plotting with the Rebels and a man named
McClellan was carrying their flag, we did what we could to help
the boys in front of Richmond and deposited in the sacred ark of freedom
a ballot for the Nation's life."
There was a great "Union Rally" held on November 1, 1864.
The Times tells us that "the Tabernacle, besides being decorated with
the fair forms and bright eyes of the Union ladies, was appropriately
dressed with National flags and beautiful flowers." The speakers
were General Cary of Ohio, Walter Rutherford, Esq., L. E. Chit
tenden, and John Milton Holmes. Master Hendershott "of drumming
fame" called the meeting to attention with the long roll, and John
Owen Rouse made a stirring speech when he nominated Mr. Holmes as
chairman of the meeting. The Union Glee Club, under the leadership
of Col. Dudley S. Gregory sang appropriate music. And the people
decided that when crossing a stream it was the better policy not to swap
horses. One might believe that in the common cause of ministering to
the necessities of the families of soldiers at the front, or to the widows
and orphans of those who had made the supreme sacrifice, there might
be at least some slight forgetfulness of animosities. But such was not
the case. The Standard was still the mouthpiece of those who carried
the bitterness of their unfriendliness to the policies of the Lincoln admin
istration, to the extent of embarrassing the efforts made in the winters
of '63, '64 and '65, toward uniting and co-ordinating the local relief
organizations. There were enough people to agree that one general
organization was the correct principle, and a course of lectures the first
winter brought in the snug sum of $2,000. The popular lecture was
then the finest type of diversion, and the Tabernacle, having the largest
auditorium, was thronged with the best people every night of these
functions. The Standard inveighed against the plan as well as the lecturers:
Grace Greenwood's was a mere abolition harangue teeming with negroes
24

from beginning to end; Dr. A. A. Willetts evidently tickled the Standard
with his lecture on "Woman," and he said his ideal woman was the
one mentioned in the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs, but the
Standard thought she couldn't have been a nigger, and it couldn't
understand how, in these days of woolly heads and niggerites, a man
could get through an hour's oration without using up the nigger element
pretty effectually; Edmund Kirke came from Boston, "which is at
once the home of philanthropy, the hub of the universe and the hotbed
of abolition," and his address had certainly made him amenable to
the indignation of our people ! As a matter of course, the money raised
by such methods was tainted.
James Gopsill answered the rather plain
and offensive suggestions of the Standard
about the expense account, by printing a
detailed financial statement, and in the
winter of '64 and '65, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd
and 6th Ward funds were raised by direct
popular subscription, while the 4th and
5 th Ward funds were! raised through
another course of popular lectures in the
Tabernacle. Grace Greenwood, Dr. E.
H. Chapin, Edwin W. Whipple, Bayard
Taylor, Dr. J. G. Holland and George
W. Curtis were among the lecturers, and
I fancy they must have said some things
that were not pleasant reading for the
copperheads, for the Standard cut them
dead. One lecture in the course, however,
was by Charles D. Deshler, once an
editor on the Standard, and later "Military
Agent from New Jersey." He was given
a fulsome column of praise in his old
paper. Leonard J. Gordon was the organ
ist at many of these lectures. As a new
comer in Jersey City I did not know, until too late, how deep was his
reverence for Lincoln, nor why his pocket copy of Lincoln letters and
speeches was the book from which we must read aloud as we rested
awhile on our tramps together through Currie's Woods.
Election day, 1864, came on November 8th. The Standard
that day editorially proclaimed what evidently it would have us believe
was the reverse of what was happening then, in this rather remarkable

Leonard J. Gordon in 1862.

An 1864
Elysium

utterance: "If General McClellan is elected, speech will be free,
opinion will be free, the press will be free. Men will no longer be
subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment for political opinions;
and the doors of the political jails, bastiles and dungeons will be thrown
wide open. His election will bring an end to drafts, conscriptions,
mutual slaughters, debts and taxation." But that happy moment has not
arrived, even yet. Instead, came the "dark brown taste of the morning
after." In an obscure column — remote from the spread head and the
glowing news of victorious Democracy (in Hudson County) — is the
matter-of-fact announcement that "Abra
ham Lincoln is without doubt elected
President of the United States." The
Standard and its clientele in Jersey City
undoubtedly looked for the defeat of Lin
coln ; and have you ever stopped to think
what might have happened to the makings
of the Lincoln Association in that case?
And you would have a hard time to
discover from the Standard of the inaugu
ration period that Abraham Lincoln even
figured in the exercises of Saturday, March
4, 1865. An editorial column and a
half was filled \vith a screed headed
"Andy Johnson;" it consisted of some
home-made stew, amplified with a most
villainous reprint from the Herald. The
Herald reported Johnson's speech as nine
teen minutes in length, and printed it in
short, disjointed sentences, interspersed
with dashes ; and in case that failed to
convey the impression intended, the news
paper remarked, "it is charitable to say
that his condition was such that he was
unfit to make a speech. He evidently did not shun Bourbon County
on his way here." The Standard piously commented: "We devoutly
pray that Heaven in its mercy will preserve the life of Abraham Lincoln
during the next four years, if only to relieve the republic from the remote
possibility of Andy Johnson's becoming the chief officer of the nation.
Heaven preserve us from this further, deeper, unspeakable ingnominy."
In the same spirit of religious observance, the paper printed in
its issue of the next Friday the following

Gilbert Collins about 1865.

Inauguration Hymn.

All hail the power of Abrams name My proclamation has gone forth,
Let white folks prostrate fall; The wheel again must turn,
Bring forth the colored gentleman, To take the boobies of the north
And make him lord of all. "To whom it may concern."
Let white folks no more lift their heads, Let Constitution and the rights
Nor dare his acts reprove — Of slates no more be known,
Of mighty Lincoln — Abram first, — For we have made the Sambo race
who freed the ones we love. Superior to our own.
Stand by and heed the chieftain's cry — For this we've fought, for this we've
"More men we want than that:" prayed,
Said he to pompous General Fry, The nation's life have given.
"Where will you come out at?" Lord, send the white folks all to hell,
The niggers all to Heaven.
And, Lord, when thou art done with earth,
Give to our chosen band
Of woolly heads — sweet scented race —
A place at Thy right hand.
S  .
We have to turn to the Times for any real news account of the
inauguration at all, as well as for the publication of another immortal
Lincolnian classic — his last inaugural address — closing with this great
sentence: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with
firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to
finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wound, to care for
him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphans,
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among
ourselves and with all nations."
The news of the fall of Richmond caused great jubilation in the
town, and the Times must have felt good when its editor wrote, "we
are sorry for the Standard and its friends" — and there were quite a
few of 'em in Jersey City. Secretary Stanton's glad news was published
on Monday, April 10, 1865, and immediately the peace celebration The
broke loose. Uncle Billy, proprietor of the People's Union newsstand. Surrender
climbed to the loft of the First Presbyterian Church and clanged its in 1865
bell. Col. Gregory got the 1 865 version of a jazz band together
and soon a long procession rambled through the streets singing the
songs of the day. They stopped at John Milton Holmes' residence,
and he made them one of his famous speeches; then J. Brinton Smith
spoke to them, and finally. Major Pangborn. In the evening "the
illuminations showed one glorious outburst of enthusiasm." All the
fire apparatus was paraded, and I rather fancy Empire Hook and Ladder,
"including Uncle Dan," must have picked up the editors of both papers.

PROCLAMATION! Glorious Newsl

And his whole Army Captured!
THE QUESTION OF
"iif hiidiidt"
SETTLED FOREVER.
The Glarious OLD UNIOIV already restored
and Peace and Prosperity within our grasp.
GOD BE PRAISED!
Our Citizens are requested to
ILIUMINATE
PRIVATE AND PUBLIC buildings
TO-NIGHT,
in honor of the Glorious News received
this morning. ORESTES CLEVELAND,
Monday, April 10, '56. Mayor.
From the Original document preserver! in the Free Public Lib

for both dwell lovingly upon certain entertainment thereunto apper
taining. The Times must have been particularly tickled for it declared
that "from the unanimity with which all entered into the spirit of the
occasion, it would seem that there were no copperheads now resident
in Jersey City."
On another page is a reproduction of a "flyer" which was dis
tributed from house to house in that hour of jubilation. The original
is probably the only copy in existence, and it was presented by Miss
M. Louise Edge to the Free Public Library from whose collection we
have been privileged to reproduce it. A curious thing about the circular
is the date — the original shows the year as '56 instead of '65. Perhaps
the printer might be excused for a little thing like that under the
circumstances. Another feature of the composition, too, that will attract
attention is that reference to the question of self-government being
settled forever. On that same day the editor of the Standard was
polishing up the following literary gem: "The President is in a great
measure subject to the wishes of the radical faction, who will consent
to nothing but rapine, violence and devastation, the continuation of
bloodshed and murder, the utter subjugation of the South and the final
reduction of the seceded States to the condition of conquered territories."
Anything to help the cause along!
The shouting and the tumult over the surrender had barely died The
away before the news of the assassination of the President was spread Catas-
before the world. Certainly, in the face of such a catastrophe we might trophe
look for some mitigation of the flood of contumely. And in a measure
this was noticeable — for a few days. A psychological change did
appear in the copperhead papers, and the Standard re-acted like the
rest. Its column rules were "upset" on the inside pages so as to stripe
those two pages and divide the columns with black lines about one-
eighth of an inch broad. That is, all those two pages were in mourning,
except a space about 1 0 inches deep at the top of the first two columns
on page 3 ; they displayed a circus advertisement, with cuts of prancing
horses and fuzzily dressed lady performers, and it made the mourning
look like a joke. Mayor Cleveland got himself much disliked by the
circus people for refusing a license to the show ; he told them that the
people of Jersey City were going to frame their conduct with some
solemnity at such a time, and they really didn't need a circus to help out.
Then the Standard printed "personals," in which the subscribers
declared they had never said they were glad the President was shot,
as had been charged by other wicked people, who were particularly

called upon to desist from spreading such a slander. On April 25th,
it reprinted a scathing article from the Times of April 22nd, entitled
"Who were the Accessories?" Major Pangborn had written the original
editorial, and had named by name who some of them were, and
by very broad suggestion, who some others were. With a peculiarly
holy hurt, the Standard reprinted the Major's article under a new head,
"Alas, for the Rarity of Christian Charity!" To him it ascribed this
sinful lack of this greatest virtue. Here are a few specimens of its diction :
"For months past, as all men know, there have been in the loyal
north scores of crafty men, reckless demagogues, whose almost sole
employment has been the personal, base, unscrupulous abuse and de
nunciation of President Lincoln. * * * They have paused at no
lie however monstrous, have stuck at no lie however base, have scrupled
at using no means however vile, to malign, traduce, and make him hated.
Here in Jersey City as elsewhere these men have denounced Abraham Lin
coln as a usurper, a tyrant, an oath-breaker, a false, bad man * * *
have applied to him the vilest epithets which they could coin. * * *
Read the speech of Hon. (?) A. Jackson Rogers, M. C. of this State,
the harangues of Chauncey Burr, James W. Wall, and their associates,
or the daily diatribes and vile slanders of the Trenton American, the
Newark Journal and the American Standard * * * and let the
impartial judgment of history decide if our arraignment of these criminals
is just." Other newspaper references told of "the wife of a certain gentle
man, an ex-dancing master resident here, who, when she heard of the
shocking news gave vent to her gratification by indulging in a dance."
Another man, a traveler on a suburban train, made some offensive remarks
about the dead President, and his companion in the same seat arose,
remarking at the same time that he did not wish to be within hearing
of such language. The other passengers, a little less polished, started
for the offender to throw him out of the window, but at the critical
moment the car jumped the track!
Almost as soon as the assassination of the President became known The
in Jersey City, Mayor Cleveland called a meeting of the citizens, and Civic
they assembled in the Council Chamber of the City Hall that Saturday Obser-
evening, April 1 5th. A committee of "citizens and members of Common vance
Council from each ward was appointed, consisting of A. O. Zabriskie,
F. B. Betts, B. G. Clark and Alderman Wm. Clarke from the 1st
ward ; Job Male, John H. Lyon, Alexander Wilson and Alderman
John McBride, from the 2nd ward; Cornelius Van Vorst, Menzies R.

Case, Joseph McCoy and Alder
man R. K. Terry from the 3rd
ward; John Van Vorst, John H.
Smyth, Daniel L. Reeve and Alder
man J. W. Pangborn from the 4th
ward; Charles H. O'Neill, Herbert
R. Clark, James Gopsill and Alder
man A. A. Gaddis from the 5 th
ward; A. S. Jewell, W. Moore,
Isaac Houston and Alderman Pat
rick Duff represented the 6th ward.
Major Z. K. Pangborn, M. R.
Case, A. S. Jewell, Hon. D. S.
Gregory and Hon. J. R. Worten-
dyke were the committee appointed
for drafting appropriate resolutions.
In the last of the six paragraphs of
its patriotic expression, it was de
cided to hold the civic meeting in
the Tabernacle the next afternoon.
To this, practically every church in
the city sent representatives. Rev.
Dr. Imbrie presided; Rev. Dr.
Parmly offered prayer; and many
others of the local clergy spoke to the vast audience. Rev. Dr. Harkness
was particularly emphatic in demanding the stern execution of the law
and condign punishment of the traitors. When he solemnly ejaculated,
"God bless Andrew Johnson, President of the United States," there
was an "Amen" from every part of the house — and, incidentally, the
invocation was a finer thing than the disgusting comment of the Standard
about "Andy" Johnson's inauguration and his daily conduct ever since.
Mr. Holmes conducted a memorial service in the evening, preaching
from the text, " Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over
this Jordan," and from the people who heard that address, and from an
intimate study of the life and services of that great preacher and his
devotion to the loftiest public ideals, I can well believe that his discourse
was of the finest and deepest inspiration. The Times published a very
complete account of this great meeting in the Tabernacle. The Standard,
pleading other demands upon its space — without mentioning the circus
advertisement — disposes of it in an inch and a half, twelve lines, as a
matter-of-fact.

Isaac Houston.

The body of the martyred President, on the way to its last resting
place, arrived in Jersey City at 1 0 o'clock on Monday morning, April
24, 1865. The funeral train was made up of nine cars, and when
it rolled into the station a great concourse of citizens were assembled.
Municipal delegations from Jersey City, Hudson City, Hoboken, Bergen,
Bayonne and Greenville were present. One witness of the scene tells
us of the elaborate decorations of the station, in diagonal patterns of
black and white, and the inscriptions "Be still, and know that I am
God," and "A Nation's Heart was Struck, April 15, 1865" at the
east and west ends of the building, respectively. The ferryhouse bore
the motto "George Washington, the Father; Abraham Lincoln, the
Saviour, of his Country." Minute guns were fired by the Hudson
County Artillery and from the Cunarders docked nearby; the church
bells were tolled.
The guard of honor and other officials first alighted from the
train and were greeted by delegations from here. A number of German
singing societies were arranged along the platforms, and while the coffin
was being removed from the funeral car, they sang "Integer Vitae."
Then ten stalwart veterans raised the casket to their shoulders and bore
it down along the north platform, toward the eastern end of the building,
then up along the south platform and out at the western entrance of
the depot to the hearse which awaited on Hudson Street.
The hearse was drawn by six iron-gray horses, each horse led
by a groom in mourning and flanked by the guard of honor; the pro
cession moved through the crowded streets to the slip, where the new
boat, the Jersey City was waiting. David T. Valentine's "Lincoln
Obsequies in the City of New York" has preserved two very interesting
pictures which I have borrowed for this story of mine. One of them
shows the Jersey City dressed in her folds of crepe, her flags at half
mast, with the draped funeral car on the deck. The other shows the
arrival of the party at the "Jersey City Ferry" at Desbrosses Street,
New York. Mr. Heck drew my attention to the fact that one Jersey
City man at least was honored in Mr. Valentine's book — Brigadier-
General John G. Ramsey, whose name was in the list of the guard
of honor, which had accompanied the remains from Washington. Hon.
Chauncey M. Depew — then Secretary of State of New York — was in
Jersey City that morning, representing Governor Fenton who was un
avoidably absent, to receive the body in the name of the Empire State,
and to escort it across the Hudson to the city. Mr. Depew is one of
the few survivors of the long official reception list.

The Jersey City Ferry, DesbrosBcs Street Terminal. New York, Showing the Funeral Procession Organizing, April 24, 1865.

On previous pages I have referred to an incident of deep historic Old
significance, the meeting that was really the founding of the Union Bergen
League in New Jersey, in the Tabernacle on March 30, 1 863. Of Lincoln-
that organization and its reaction in Jersey City proper, there is practically ians
nothing on record in the papers of the time, beyond certain frivolous
comments in the Standard. But I have been fortunate in being the
beneficiary of the good-will of Theodore F. Merseles, who thought
when he was clearing out his attic treasures before moving from town,
that I would be interested in a little black book he had found. Well,
I was. The book turned out to be the minutes of Bergen Council,
No 125, Union League of America, covering a period from November
9, 1864 to March 5, 1867. The serial number of the organization
is interesting as showing how popular Unionism had become since
March 30, 1 863, and I have often wondered how many people there
were left in these times who could look "back of beyond" and visualize the
circumstances in Bergen that gave rise to the meetings that are so
curiously and quaintly preserved because a friend remembered his friend's
infirmity for antiquities of this sort. As a local historical document,
it is of the highest value and unsurpassed interest.
It will hardly be necessary to explain what party these Bergen
Union Leaguers belonged to. The records of the very first meeting
set down in the book impart the flavor: "Resolved, that during this
Winter, this Council will furnish to the citizens of Bergen and vicinity,
a course of first—class political lectures on their duty as American citizens
to the end that at the next election this glorious little town (the brightest
spot in this desert of New Jersey) , instead of giving but 200 majority
for the Union candidates shall at the Spring election, give more than
twice that against such men" as the three they unblushingly mention
by name, but whose names are not essential to complete the sentiment.
So there you have a pretty picture of Bergen, and what some of its
citizens thought of some other of its citizens — who, after all, might
have been quite as reputable, too — as sketched only three of four blocks
from the Carteret Club, 55 years ago.
One of the customs of the secretary was to record the offering
in the hat at each meeting; at this particular meeting the sum was $5.65,
"two bad fifty-cent stamps included." Perhaps some wicked copper
head sneaked in under the tent! A gentleman named Chancellor W.
Chace was secretary for a long while, and he has invested his pages
with the spark of a thing called life. He was a most careless speller —
like George Washington — and in one instance he seems to excuse him-
35

self by signing as "secty with a sore thumb." But I am grateful to
him and to the other secretaries because they have enabled me in 1919
to tie up to the Lincoln Association so many who "were reported worthy
to become members of this council." Hundreds of names are recorded, of
men who have undergone the scrutiny of this patriotic group of Unionists,
who were doing their bit in the tremendous job of crystallizing the Lincoln-
ian idea. The book abounds with references that reveal the strong Union
spirit of this group of men of Bergen, and at this point we can display the
record of one historical meeting, on April 18, 1865, when E. C.
Bramhall, Major Henry Gaines and James Freeman were appointed
a committee to draft resolutions on the death of Lincoln. These
resolutions embody some pretty plain talk about those responsible for
the assassination, and about the political background of the day:
"Whereas, by a sudden and awful visitation of Divine Providence,
Abraham Lincoln, President of these United States, has been stricken
down by the hand of an assassin with an atrocity of conception and
a fiendishness of purpose unparalleled in the history of nations ; therefore,
"Resolved, that in this great national calamity we members of the
Union League of America do recognize the hand of God to whose will and
before whose name we would ever submissively and reverently bow.
"Resolved, that in the carefully planned murder of our beloved
Chief, and in the attempted murder of his Secretary of State, we but
witness deeper and more damning evidence of the fiendish spirit which
has inaugurated, animated and controlled the attempt to destroy the
life of the Nation.
"Resolved, that by this afflicting dispensation we are solemnly
warned to no longer trifle with our self-respect, disgrace our manhood,
and imperil our liberties by any sympathy or leniency towards the
leaders of this accursed dead rebellion.
"Resolved, that in the death of Abraham Lincoln we are called
to mourn the loss of our chosen leader, an honest man, a pure patriot
and a martyr to the cause of civil liberty, human freedom and human
progress. "Resolved, that we will give to Andrew Johnson, now President
of the United States, our cordial and unwavering support in his efforts
to prosecute the great work which has fallen upon him, to a successful
issue. "Resolved, that as an emblem of our sorrow we will wear the
distinctive badge of mourning for thirty days."
As Bergen Council, Union League of America, grew and pros
pered it took up its quarters in Library Hall. They indulged in their

pleasant diversion of inculcating the duties of American citizenship there
one night — Tuesday, September 30, 1 867 — or perhaps with the purpose
of doing some social welfare work. They called in Rev. F. Lummis,
a Greenville Methodist minister, to speak for them, and the Standard
goes nutty over his oratory, "if such disgusting and disconnected remarks
as he uttered and his fanatic manner of delivery can be called oratory.
His ravings were confined to abuse of President Johnson, the elevation
of the negro, the depreciation of the whole white race, and an outrageous
and shameful attack upon our German citizens." I guess it must have
been interesting! The Standard continues: "Had any man given
utterance to such abuse of Abraham Lincoln as this fanatic did of Presi
dent Johnson, he would have been instantly lynched on the spot where he
stood, and Rev. F. Lummis would doubtless have either sided in or
encouraged the act — but his wild harangue was apparently received
with the greatest favor!" Isn't that quaintly humorous!
By another strange bit of the good fortune that comes to an
antiquarian once every long while, I was given a program of the exercises
of a "Meeting in Bergen, April 19, 1865, in Commemoration of the
Death and Burial of Abraham Lincoln." The copy is probably the
only one in existence, and it has its value as a souvenir of an occasion
of most solemn import to the world and at the same time of identifying
those who were proud to honor "the late President of the United States."
It came to me from R. W. Woodward, whose father was A. A.
Woodward, one of the councilmanic committee in charge of the affair.
The senior Mr. Woodward was elected to membership in Bergen Council,
No. 125, November 29, 1864.
These commemorative gatherings were held all over the country
on April 19, 1865, between the hours of 1 1 and 3. It is well worth
remembering that the date is commemorative of the Battle of Lexington,
when "embattled farmers" projected the astounding idea of opposing
trained soldiery in defense of their liberties: the war we have just ended
was won because idealists like them still lived in America.
Most of the names on that program are on the roster of Bergen
Council. Perhaps some of my readers may need to be informed that
in those days the town of Bergen was a separate municipality with
a Board of Councilmen and a President, then John Hilton; and a
Town Clerk, then Charles Keenan. President Lincoln was assassinated
on Good Friday night, April 1 4, 1 865 ; the citizens of Bergen assembled
in town meeting on Monday night, April 1 7th, to arrange for the services
for the following Wednesday. It must have been an embarrassing thing

The Town
Mourns

MEETING IN BERGEN,
.A^DRIX. 19, 1865,
IN COMMEMORATION OF THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF
ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES;
PRESIDENT,
Dr. J. M. COBNELISON.
VICE-PRESIDENTS,
JOHN HILTON. E. B. WAKEMAN
HENKY FITCH. CAPT A ST JOHN,
J. G. PARKKR, M. $ ALLISON
MARSHAL— (i VREELAND
ORDER OF EXERCISES- Commencing at 2i P. M.
Opening Hyum 
Prayer  Rev. Dr. Taylor
Address  Rev. E. W. French
Ode  By School Children
Address  Rev. S. Y. Monroo
Address  A. A. Hardenburg, Esq
Doxology  Old Hundred
Closing Prayer  ,  Rev Mr. DuryeiA
Benediction  Rev. Mr. Monroe
N. B. — The meeting will be held on the "rounds of
A. Bonnell, on Park Place. If it ryins, the meeting
will bo in the Presbyterian Church.
The Fire Department, the Council, and Roard of
Education, will.convene at the Town Hall, at 7 o'clock.
COUNCIL CUMMTI'IbK
JOHN HILTON, K I.. SMITH. ii -VAN Hois v.
mm' WAiui.
HENRY FITCH, HARBISON I Rl.( K. \\ ALTEK STORM.
ShCfJ.ND W.MIl>
A. L. MACDUFF, GAURET VUEKI.AJnD. X. B. WAKEMAN
THIRD WABII
WW..KEENY. J. 1! CLEVELANP, A A. WOODWARD
By order of the Committee of Arrangements,
JOHN HILTON, Chairman.

to communicate, but town clerk Keenan
had to inform the Council that up to the
previous Saturday the town was without
a flag to display upon the Town Hall,
and that it had lacked the proper material
for draping the councilmanic chambers.
Then A. A. Hardenbergh, "at the bank,"
had come to the rescue by advancing
$ 1 30, which the Council promptly and
unanimously voted to reimburse to Mr.
Hardenbergh, with thanks of the Council.
At that meeting, there were present
John Hilton and Councilmen Bowkei,
Hardenbergh, Hutchings, Smith and G.
Van Horn: absent Brinkerhoff and J. C.
Van Horn. The formal reading of the
call for the meeting, signed by A. A.
Hardenbergh and Garret Van Horn, and
reciting the circumstances of the tragedy
and asking for a citizen's meeting, being
concluded, a committee from the council
was appointed, consisting of Councilmen
Hutchings from Columbia ward; Smith
from Franklin ward; Hardenbergh from
Communipaw ward ; and Garret Van Horn. The Board of Education
was requested to dismiss the schools, in order that the children might
participate in the ceremonies. A committee of citizens was also ap
pointed by John Hilton to escort the body of the President across the
river when it passed through here on the way west. This committee
consisted of John M. Cornelison, Hartman Van Wagenen, Cornelius
C. Van Reypen, Edgar B. Wakeman, Capt. E. C. Hopper, George
Gifford, Mindert Van Horn, Jeremiah D. Cleveland and Wm. Keeny.
April 19, 1865, in Bergen was a day of "balmy, vernal sunshine;
the beauty of the loveliest day of opening Springtime was about us;
but the shadow of the wings of the angel of death seemed to darken
all the land." Commerce was everywhere silent; the Times notes with
especial pleasure that all liquor saloons were closed ; all places of public
resort were deserted ; the whole neighborhood was sombre in habiliments
of woe. The commemoration services were inaugurated by a procession

John Hilton

?afa|rff^

1 ^FlnillEP A H^PHPIRi)

a^c^^^^*

that started at Prospect Hall at the western side of the junction of
Jewett, Storms and Fairmount Avenues, just south of the present residence
of James E. Pope, at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and then
marched to the grounds of Alex. Bonnell on Park Street. There were
1,100 school children in the procession ; and every time I pass what
they used to call "Aleck Bonnell's orchard," I like to think of that
stately building which our friend John T. Rowland has designed as
the Lincoln High School, as a fit and beautiful memorial with which
Jersey City has perpetuated that meeting of those who first honored
Lincoln there.
Of course no real civic function in those times would be complete
¦without the firemen, so all the Bergen companies were out in full force
and uniform. The firemen, as well as the school children, wore special
mourning badges, and I have one of each of these, doubtless the only
ones now extant. Then there were the councilmanic committee, the

Board of Education, and citizens in general, altogether some 3,000
people, not counting the school children. A pavilion had been erected,
and. advancing to the front of the platform, Marshal Garret Vreeland
announced Dr. John M. Cornelison as president, and John Hilton,
Henry Fitch, John G. Parker, E. B. Wakeman, A. P. St. John and
M. S. Allison as vice-presidents of the meeting. The council committee,
consisting of John Hilton, R. L. Smith, Garret Van Horn, Henry
Fitch, Harrison Price, Walter Storm, A. L. MacDuff, Garret Vreeland,
E. B. Wakeman, Wm. Keeny, J. B. Cleveland and A. A. Woodward
had seats reserved for them inside the railing.
First the audience sang Cowper's
hymn, "God moves in a Mysterious
Way;" Abraham Speer led them
out there under the budding trees.
Then Rev. Dr. B. C. Taylor of
Bergen Reformed Church offered a
prayer. Rev. E. W. French of the
First Presbyterian Church of Bergen
followed with an address, of finely
phrased patriotic spirit. The school
children sang "America" next. Rev.
S. Y. Monroe followed with an ad
dress which kept the audience "con
stantly beaming sympathy with the
tenderness, courage, hopefulness, and
piety of the martyred President."
A. A. Hardenbergh was the last
speaker, and he gave an address which
was noted as dealing masterfully with
the spirit of the occasion and the char
acter of the man for whom they had
come there to mourn. The concluding
prayer was offered by Rev. W. R. Duryea of the Lafayette Reformed
Church; in his petition he returned especial thankfulness for the fact of
Andrew Johnson because he would punish the traitors who had per
petrated the murder of the President. Then with the audience standing,
the Doxology was sung by the audience, and the Benediction pro
nounced by Rev. Mr. Monroe.
The Bergen Town Council minutes have saved a very nice little
note of this meeting for us: the entire cost of the commemoration service

Rev. B. C. Taylor

was $500. The bills were ordered paid, and then a resolution was
passed, testifying to the efficiency of John Hilton and his committee
in organizing and carrying out the purposes of the meeting in such
dignified and capable a manner. This was ordered spread in full
upon the minutes.
And before we leave Lincoln High School grounds again —
should it not be an inspiration to those of this generation who have
the high privilege and opportunity to sit within the classic bounds of
Aleck. Bonnell's orchard, to recall that fine gathering in 1 865 ? The
whole town had turned out to honor the memory of a man who had
certain advanced notions about human liberty and national life; and
in all the years ever since in Jersey City the Lincoln Association
has nobly kept those ideals before the people of its own times, as no other
institution has done.

The New Another potential factor in crystallizing the Lincoln Association
England that was to be, has been pointed out with especial directness by those
Societies of our political fellow-citizens who did not like the New Englanders.
It is rather difficult for us of this generation to visualize anything like
a friendly feeling in remarks like those printed in the local newspapers,
and to which I have already referred at some length. "The fact is
that Yankee blood is not pure; it is more than half nigger," said the
Telegraph in 1857. The New Englanders had come to Jersey City
a score ot years before the Civil War and brought their New England
ideals with them, ideals which might be said in all candor to be some
what opposed to those of the Telegraph and its brand of kultur.
How important a part these Yankees played in the making of
the Lincoln sentiment in Jersey City may be surmised by a
casual reading of the biographical sketches in various local historical
and biographical publications. Men from New England filled our
pulpits, taught our schools, healed our sick, kept our stores, and in
fluenced our political destinies. By the middle '50's there were enough
of these New Englanders in our midst who were touched by that age-
old weakness, home-longing, to organize a New England Society of
Jersey City. At the centre of the movement was a young man named
Alfrederick Smith Hatch; he came here from Burlington, Vermont,
and was first a clerk in, and in 1 857, cashier of the Bank of Jersey City,
then located on part of the site now occupied by our Federal Building.
In passing, it will not be without interest to observe that his income was
published in the Government tax list of 1864 as $75,000. Mr. Hatch

as a young man was given to a devotion to what he believed to be
high-principled things. One of them was a native abhorrence of the
institution of slavery. About the same time Lincoln's name was men
tioned — just barely mentioned — in connection with Douglas' in those
debates, Mr. Hatch got into a local row on the same question; the
Telegraph let him off with something like this: "Much is to be allowed
for the extravagant assertions of a man of Mr. Hatch's peculiarly
excitable temperament and strong anti-slavery feeling."
Mr. Hatch was organizer, speaker, treasurer, and general utility
man for the New England Society of Jersey City, now a forgotten,
unknown institution. Somewhere in a Jersey City attic stored away
in an old trunk, I have no doubt there is a bunch of dinner-cards,
or newspaper clippings, or something from which that torn-out page of
our local history may be reconstructed. The first dinner of the Society
was held on Forefathers' Day, December 22, 1857, in Lyceum Hall,
and eight years afterward (at the dinner of 1865) one of the speakers,
growing reminiscent, lets us into the secret of a turbulent scene at the
original dinner when somebody who had been invited to eat, started
to fight, "but one of our New England brethren, Mr. P  boldly
stepped into the arena and unhorsed him at the first encounter." There
is a very broad insinuation that the trouble arose over the elaborate
divergence of political views held by the forensic combatants.
If I came from Vermont, instead of Pennsylvania, to Jersey City,
I think I should never cease to remind this town of what it owed to
its Green Mountain ancestry. First and foremost was Wm. L. Dick
inson, who came here from the University of Vermont, to found a
select school for boys in the Lyceum building in 1 839, and who
became the father of our educational system, as well as of an interesting
family. He, too, was one of the New England Society folk who did
not have far to go when Lincolnian platforms were to be reached.
Dr. Wheelock H. Parmly, Rev. Hiram Mattison, Rev. John Hanlon
— all Vermonters — were great spiritual lights in their day and generation,
and their names appear at many a function of the New England Society.
The newspaper literature of the second annual dinner of the
Society, in 1 859, gives us some of the names of people who were active
participants: David Gould, president, 48 Essex St; W. L. Dickinson,
158 Wayne St; H. C. Dickinson, 234 York St.; A. S. Hatch,
treasurer, 52 Grand St. ; Joel C. Lane, 45 Grand St. ; E. H. Rockwell,
secretary, 228 York St. ; W. H. Talcott, 6 1 Grand St. ; Samuel L.
Pearson, 1 79 Grand St. ; Harvey Fisk, 254 South 5th St. The New

Englanders had plenty else to do in Jersey City for the next few years —
and this is one of my reasons for elaborating upon the theme of a New
England Society before the Lincoln Association — and they announced
that their celebration for 1 865 would be held in Taylor's Hotel, and
open to all those "residents of Jersey City honored by birth in New
England or born of New England parentage. * * * Their
Society had been honored by the maledictions of secessionists and cop
perheads; now that the principles they stood for had been so signally

\X . L. Dickinson and his family about 1856.
(The boy in short skirts was later president of the Lincoln Association.)
vindicated they proposed to resume their annual dinners which had been
suspended since 1860." I can find but a few names mentioned as
among the throng who attended it. Rev. Dr. Parmly, Rev. Dr. Mattison,
Rev. John Milton Holmes, Jacob Weart, S. B. Ransom, A. S. Hatch
and Miss Sarah Gould were among the speakers. Wm. E. Pearson,
J. W. Pangborn, S. B. Ransom and D. S. Gregory, Jr., were on the
committee that year.
The "special correspondent" of the Times dated a letter from a
place called Bergen, late in 1 865, in which the startling news is suggested
that the Yankees had not only taken Jersey City, but that hilltop
44

stronghold of the Dutch as well. For there was a New England
Society of Bergen in 1 865, that met that year for its repast of pumpkin
pie, doughnuts, walnuts and roast turkey, at the residence of its vice-
president, E. Bliss. The gallant Major Henry Gaines responded to
the toast "The Daughters of New England;" E. Bliss, "New England
Homes on Bergen Hill;" T. H. Bennet, "Yankee Enterprise;" and
others. From the reports of its dinners in later years, I glean the names
of John G. Parker, president; A. A. Woodward, vice-president; R.
B. Seymour, secretary; Henry Gaines, treasurer; Col. G. W. Thorne,
revenue collector for this district; E. B. Wakeman, Edw. Doolittle,
A. G. Avery, J. M. Barrows, Charles Butrie, Captain Howe, T. J.
Kimball. A great many of these New England names have now faded
from Jersey City history, too, but the men who bore them were here long
enough to play a splendid part in the dramatic events of their generation.
It seems impossible to separate their allegiance as New Englanders from
the cause for which Lincoln's life was lived ; and I am sure we can
all pay our tribute from "this distant shore of time" to their superb
loyalty in the city of their adoption in those dark days of the war.
Now one might presume, even if he were not gifted with extra- Reconstruc-
ordinary powers of imagination, that the reconstruction period should tion Days
have witnessed a wholesale abandonment of the old vituperative spirit.
The assassination of the President was followed by a wave of horror
and repugnance ; those who directly or indirectly, nearly or remotely,
aided or abetted or condoned the crime should have turned over a
new page in their history. But did they? We can not begin to com
prehend such an alignment of our own people in those years, but most
of us of to-day know a little about a certain national psychology.
For a generation before the Civil War, as I have pointed out,
unbridled license of speech and absolute intolerance with others' political
opinions were rampant; the dogma of State's Rights and all its corollary
heresies had obsessed the political factors of the nation. But do you
suppose for one minute that people's souls were converted by the tragedy
of that Good Friday night of 1 865 ? One does not dispossess himself
of the teachings, traditions and training of a lifetime quite so easily
as he does of his worn out underwear. Unrepentant, unabashed, un
ashamed the ancient policies of obstructionism and destruction were pur
sued to a nauseating degree. And the fiery Major Pangborn pilloried
them with his splendid powers of invective and scorn. The period
of the "bloody shirt" was on, and the newspaper history and the oratory
of the Lincoln Association blazes with it.

June 1, 1865, was appointed by President Johnson as a Lincoln
Memorial and Fast Day. The big observance of the day was naturally
where the biggest crowd could be gathered, in the Tabernacle. Mr.
Holmes was at his best, and the Times applauded him tremendously
the next day for it. In it he told many anecdotes about Lincoln, one
of them related to him by a widow in Jersey City with two sons, one
mortally wounded and the other badly hurt at Gettysburg. The mother
tried in vain to have one of the boys sent home to her, but she could
not secure his discharge; so she finally went to Washington and did
the amazing thing of reaching the President and getting a note from him
like this: "Let Edwin F. P  . named in my note on the other
half of this sheet be discharged — A. Lincoln." The widow showed
Mr. Holmes the letter and told him how "he spoke to me as though
I had been his mother." I should like to know who "Edwin F.
P  " was, and the mother who was so honored.
Now just to show the contrast, here was the Standard's reaction.
Lincoln was not so very long dead in June, 1 865 ; the Standard was
running a number of intended-to-be facetious articles entitled "Spelling
Lessons for Youth." In one of the lists of words, "T-a-b-e-r-n-a-c-1-e,
a large hall much used for political elocution," was the funny crack at
the place where Mr. Holmes had paid his tribute to the great President.
The following October 9th, Anne E. Dickinson gave a lecture for the
benefit of the Children's Home there. Her subject was rather suggestive
of what would happen when you chucked a match into a gunpowder
can: "The Record of the Democratic Party during the Rebellion."
And it happened. She opened her address with a reference to the
"exigencies which called a woman from her wonted sphere to enter
the loathsome charnel house of the democratic party." In a long account
of the lecture, or harangue as the Standard called it, the lecturer was
alluded to as "Gentle Anna," "a gentleman of the female persuasion,"
"a fair pythoness; words of bitterness crawled from her red and beautiful
lips like foul spiders crawling from the blushing petals of a rose." And
so on, "We say nothing," concluded the Standard, "of the questionable
taste of turning the pulpit into the stump, further than that the fact of
our Saviour having been cradled in a manger is no reason why a church
edifice should be transmogrified into a stable."
The civic side of the Fourth of July celebration was arranged for
the Tabernacle that year ( 1 865 ) . Arrangements had been made by
Alderman McBride for the function, and the whole affair was written
up by the editor of the Standard beforehand — but it didn't happen at
all. In their minute book may still be seen the provision made by the

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trustees that the permission was to be re
voked if the orator was not acceptable
to them. The Times said that the Munici
pal celebration consisted of a procession
by Mayor Cleveland and Alderman Gaf-
ney. The CongregationaUsts were still
choice, it seems, about their reputation as
Lincolnians.

From this perspective of years, I think
it may be stated without fear of success
ful contradiction that the most forceful
character in Jersey City for the largest
part of his life here was Major Z. K.
Pangborn. His contribution to the public
life of his times was a civic asset that no
man can truly measure. He came here
shortly before the Civil War closed, I
have been informed by David R. Daly, at
Maior Zebina Kellogg Pangborn , i ¦ f T T r~v Tl c /-.
the instance ot Hon. Dudley o. Liregory,
and his immediate identification with the Times meant the co-ordination
of his unique talents as a newspaper man with high opportunity for
public service.
Mighty few people appreciate his real greatness; they remember
the closing years of his life with much more vividness than they do
his dauntless, virile young manhood; and when the real historian of
Jersey City comes, I well know whom he will honor. He had a most
intense detestation of anything opposed to the spirit of the Union and
a regard for Lincoln that transcended veneration. Through the courtesy
of Mr. Geo. H. Blake, I am able to present a very tangible and in
teresting souvenir of his association with affairs Lincolnian: he was one
of the committee of arrangements for the first Lincoln inaugural ball
in 1861. The Major's likes and dislikes were always open; that was his
character. And he could wither an opponent with irony, or curl him
up with the scorn of his logic. For example, he disliked Dickens, for
some reason, although "chawming Chawles' " reputation managed to
survive that; and he made fun of Matthew Arnold when that philosopher
came to Jersey City. He had rather pronounced aversions in certain
sectarian directions, which he was never careful to conceal. These
things seem humorous, perhaps, but when you see them recorded in
4S

his diary — the Times, and then the Journal — day after day, year after
year, you get a splendid estimate of his sterling purposes and the
openness, vigor and earnestness he used in effecting them. So, when
the time came that he could use his extraordinary intellectual equipment
to such an end he joined — he was, in a large measure — the Lincoln
Association.

I have gone through a great many column miles of the history of The Year
Jersey City, as her contemporary newspapers have written it ; I hope of the
I have succeeded in conveying the inpression by the few samples of Founding
local color printed on previous pages that there was urgent need of a
Lincoln Association in 1865, the year apparently indicated by the
present literature of the Association as that of its founding. But I
regret to say that I can find no documentary evidence of the organization
of the Lincoln Association or of its doings earlier than February 12,
1867, and I quote no less an authority for the statement that that was
the date of its founding, than Major Z. K. Pangborn himself.
In the third number of the newly established Journal, on May 4,
1 867, the story of its permanent organization was printed, and the date
of the previous February 1 2th was specifically named ; further con
firmation of this is supplied in another story in the Journal, the following
December, in these words: "The Association was formed on Feb
ruary 12th last (1867), the anniversary of the birthday of Abraham
Lincoln, by eight gentlemen who met socially and, after a discussion
of the subject, voted to organize as a Lincoln Association which should
commemorate the birthday of the lamented President and in other ways
seek to cherish the memory of his virtues and public services. Since
that date regular monthly meetings have been held, and occasional
extra meetings, all of which have been pleasant and profitable." At
that time (December 24, 1867), the Association numbered forty-three
members. The meeting for permanent organization above referred to was
held at Zschau's Union House, 1 46 Newark Avenue, on May 3, 1 867.
The following officers were elected: President, David W. Weiss;
vice-president, Benjamin Russell; secretary, William B. Dunning;
treasurer, Earl P- Lane ; steward, Charles A. Zschau. At that meeting
the following new members were elected: Hon. James Gopsill, Maj.
Z. K. Pangborn, Capt. Charles H. Laning, Dr. Adolphus Kirsten, Dr.
Selnow, William W. Ward, Louis Tetens, James C. Orr, John W.
Pangborn, Henry T. Lee, George H. Whipple, Allen T. Waterman,
and Prof. Charles Larwell. 411

Judge Stephen Quaife

From other sources I have gleaned the
names of the little, yet memorable, com
pany which met at Zschau's on February
12, 1867, for what people then thought
was the first formal celebration by a
Lincoln Association: David W. Weiss,
Benjamin Russell, Earl P. Lane, Prof.
Charles Knowles, Charles Baker, Dietrich
Kuhn, Peter Kolb, and C. A. Zschau.
Mr. Kolb contributed some German songs
to the festivity of that historic occasion.
If this present publication will call forth
any authentic records of any earlier meet
ings, I am sure the historian of the Lincoln
Association will be proud to add them to
his archives.
There was a meeting of the Association
April 15, 1867, attended by about 100
persons, whose names were not considered
important enough by the reporter for the
Times to get into print, save that of Judge
Stephen Quaife, whose singing procured for him that distinction.
Then came the organization meeting of May 3rd. In its report of the
semi-annual meeting of September 5, 1 867, the Journal informs us that
this gathering was held in "their rooms at Zschau's, Newark Avenue."
The event of that evening was the presentation to the president, D.
W. Weiss, Esq., of an elegant photograph album containing the like
nesses of all the members of the Association. The presentation speech
was made by Major Pangborn, at the request of the members. Has
anybody who reads this ever seen that album? Brief speeches were
also made by Capt. A. S. Cloke, Benj. Van Riper, Benjamin Russell,
W. W. Ward, Earl P. Lane, Dr. Adolphus Kirsten, Capt. William
B. Dunning and others. Mr. Larwell's excellent singing was commented
upon in the paper, and so was the generous collation where "the wines
flowed freely."
At the next meeting, on October 3, 1867, the proceedings were
along the line of commemorating the emancipation proclamation. The
company gathered at Zschau's, as usual. Benjamin Van Riper made
an eloquent speech, in the course of which he recited T. Buchanan
Read's "Sheridan's Ride;" then Capt. Albert S. Cloke, one of "Little
Phil's" troopers, gave some personal reminiscences of the great cavalry

leader. Other speakers were Allen T. Waterman, William W. Ward,
Capt. Wm. B. Dunning and Joseph Acton. Benjamin Russell gives
an interesting bit of background for having made a red-hot speech
denouncing the "treason" of Andrew Johnson. Professors Larwell
and Knowles rendered musical selections, and Messrs. Waters and
Zschau told some Lincoln stories. The Journal does not state what
was the hour when Carl turned out the lights, but it must have been
on the morning after. On Thursday, November 7th, there was another
informal meeting "and the proceedings were, as usual, interesting." Judge
Hough, Mr. Steele, Captain Cloke and Benjamin Van Riper were the
speakers. One may naturally be prepared by
these reports of late hours and probable
convivialities for the announcement of that
famous ball by the Lincoln Association.
The Lincolnians' ladies were included in
that function, which was held on Christ
mas eve, 1 867, in Library Hall, that class
ical building yet standing at the corner of
Summit Avenue and Grand Street. Dod-
worth's band furnished the superb music;
at 1 0 o'clock they played the opening
march "Grand Entree, Lincoln" and at
5 in the morning they wound up with
"Home, Sweet Home." For some
reason, individual toilettes were not
described, although we are assured
that the beautiful ladies and their dresses were most bewitching.
It seems curious that the Journal found it necessary to incorporate
in its story of the dance the statement that no liquor was sold or
obtainable on the premises or nearby. Champagne, of course, did
not count, for another sentence tells us that that was served at the supper,
free for those who chose to use it, just like ice water. Mr. Green was
the capable caterer. Benjamin Van Riper was floor manager; he was
assisted by William W. Ward, Joseph Acton, and James C. Orr. The
reception committee was William B. Dunning, C. A. Zschau, and E.
P. Lane. Some of these days, I hope to find one of the orders of
dancing which some sweet Jersey City girl may have laid away with
a little faded flower in memory of that glorious night!
On Thursday, February 6, 1 868, the Association held their
regular monthly, as well as the annual, meeting of members at their
51

Library Hall.

rooms at Zschau's. The Journal was so excited over a distinction
paid to Capt. Dunning that it overlooked such unimportant details as
telling us of the progress of the big dinner or who was elected to the
officiate of the Association. The Captain was made the recipient
of a heavy hunting case gold watch bearing this inscription: "From
the Lincoln Association of Jersey City to their Secretary, William B.
Dunning, February 6, 1868." The Journal continues: "The pre
sentation was followed by certain agreeable exercises — bibulous, gus
tatory and social. We congratulate our associate upon having been thus
watched to some purpose. We have always found him on time and have
no doubt he will be as much so as ever. The only possible objection we
could have to the affair being a slight apprehension that he may be
induced to run on tick, which is not according to the Evening Journal's
rules of procedure."
That Great For some weeks of December and January, 1867-8, the Journal
Dinner of gives us many illuminating suggestions as to the prospects for the forth-
'68 coming function, which was referred to, quite as a matter of course,
as the first real Lincoln dinner. Dear only knows how many Lincoln
dinners had been absorbed on all sorts of occasions that offered excuse
for congregating, but this was to be the great dinner. There were
300 tickets issued at $5 each; there were to be wonders of cuisine;
a feast of reason and a flow of soul such as Jersey City had never
before contemplated. Four sets of committees were at work: In
vitation — Albert S. Cloke, Z. K. Pangborn, Daniel McLeod, Joseph
Acton and Adolphus Kirsten. Reception — Benjamin Russell, James
Gopsill, William B. Dunning, John Ramsey, and LeRoy Schermerhorn.
Banquet — Benjamin Van Riper, William W. Ward, Earl P- Lane,
Jacob M. Merseles and Charles H. Laning. Music — Dudley S.
Gregory, Jr., P- Bethune Steele, Edward Reimal, Charles A. Zschau,
John Hough and Theodore Baker. Sentiments — David W. Weiss,
Charles Larwell, James Doxey, James C. Orr and Eugene Knowles.
It took several issues of the Journal, commencing with Tuesday,
February 1 3, 1 868, to tell the wonders of this, the first great banquet
of the Lincoln Association of Jersey City. There were 1 3 formal
toasts. David W. Weiss presided with becoming dignity and suavity;
Col. Gregory's Glee Club made the banquet hall ring with their patriotic
songs ; the 7 1 st Regiment band rendered superb selections. Altogether
the report is spread out over a dozen columns, and certainly no one
could question the fact that the Lincoln Association had arrived then !
Rev. Dr. H. A. Cordo of the North Baptist Church invoked Divine

blessing on the sumptuous meal, and then they were all off for an hour
and a half.
Secretary William B. Dunning read the letters and telegrams
received from distinguished men who might have been guests; such
folk as Robert T. Lincoln, Schuyler Colfax, Henry Wilson, Secretary
Edwin M. Stanton, Lieutenant-General W. T. Sherman, John A.
Logan and many other notables who were cheered to the echo as their
messages were read to the company. The report tells us that although
it was the design to exclude all strictly political matters, "we noticed
that every allusion to General Grant called out the heartiest cheers."
The General was elected President the following November.
With a fine reminiscent sense, the governors of the 3 7th annual ban
quet in 1 902 reprinted that remarkable list of toasts responded to in 1 868,
in the dinner souvenir of that year, and the printer started it off in bold-
'face type "24 years ago;" it should have been "34 years ago" — but the
blunder isn't so flagrant, considering the thing they intended to per
petuate. In passing, a couple of other curious slips are noticed in going
through these old records. For example, there were two "21st annual
banquets;" one in 1886, and another in 1887; there was no 23rd,
perhaps for that reason; they jumped from the 22d in 1888 to the
24th in 1 889. The 1 3 toasts of 1 868 were inaugurated by Major
Pangborn: "To the memory of Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday
we commemorate:" then came Hon. John Davidson of Elizabeth,
on "George Washington;" Hon. Dudley S. Gregory on "The President
of the United States" — and I think there was perhaps a bit of a "frost"
right there; at any rate, Mr. Gregory talked quite a bit about his having
lived during the lives of every one of them since the second, and not so
much about Mr. Johnson. Charles H. Wehle of Hoboken responded
to "The Congress;" Jacob Weart, Esq., to "The Judiciary;" Hon.
Benjamin Buckley, of Paterson, to "The State of New Jersey," Col.
J. N. Coyne to "The Army." There was no one to respond to "The
Navy." Benjamin Van Riper, Esq. was most eloquent about "The
Emancipation Proclamation;" "The Press" was handled pleasantly
by Joseph A. Dear, then connected with the Times. One of the really
big oratorical events of the evening was James Gopsill's response to
"Jersey City — cosmopolitan in its character, Dutch in its origin, Yankee
in its growth." Mr. Gopsill's speech seems to have pioneered along
pretty fine lines, and such abstracts of his address as are preserved
help us to a belief that the Jersey City of 5 1 years ago must have had
some very neighborly people in it. He was one of the great men of

that generation, and his speeches on all such occasions ring with the
finest type of patriotism.
I wonder what happened in 1 869 ! There were two dinners on
February 12, that year, one held in Cooper's Hall, with 150 present,
and presided over by Mr. Weiss. The "Jersey City" toast asked the
question "when shall we see the day when we shall hail the city and
County of Hudson?" A cane, a pair of white kid gloves and a
pocket handkerchief presented to Capt. Benjamin Richardson at Lincoln's
inauguration were shown at the dinner. That function I am considering
the orthodox one, because it shows Mr. Weiss was there. The other
was smaller, 50 being present, and it was held at Zschau's. Capt.
Dunning was reported as its president. The current reports repeat the
facts about the eight originals, two years before, and add that they
solemnly bound themselves to observe the Lincoln celebration every
year for life, and to enjoin the observance upon those who came
after them. Isn't it an exquisite recollection for us tonight, ourselves as
the inheritors of that fine, patriotic compact away back there across the
mists of half a century !

Looking to The story of the Lincoln Association in all its eventful years
the Future since that famous first night would hardly fit the title printed at the
beginning of this essay; and so I leave with you this narrative of those
strenuous days, and their action and reaction, their turmoil and com
motion, in which were shaped men of such great mold. We are now
confronting a time of transcendent import in the history of the world;
somehow, it seems to me, it ought to be a splendid spiritual stimulus
to us whose manhood has been lived in this generation, to be better
fitted for our part in the new reconstruction, by believing in the ideals
of Abraham Lincoln with all our hearts. Men of our own blood,
of our own firesides and friendships, have crossed the seas and faced
the din and carnage of the most awful war of all time, some have given
"the last full measure of devotion" — with no other impulse than the
common right of peoples to live in liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
So long as there is a spot on God's green earth that is not safe for
democracy there will be reason for the perpetuation of this great impelling
force which has grown out of "The 'Makings' of the Lincoln
Association."

YALE UNIVERSITY

a390_02 002936566b