SIX mornings a week year-round, not counting vacations in the spring and fall, a small column of boys crossed over the Passaic on a low wooden span and headed into the town of Newark. In the lead strode an old Scotsman named Andrew Smith, whose farm east of the river provided them bed and board. … More The long finger of learning
LEAVING his Lombardy Street residence one pleasant day in 1859, William Whitehead may have headed for the stone bridge spanning Mill Brook, the stream that in his childhood marked the northern limit of the town of Newark. Crossing the ancient bridge he would have bent his course to the northeast, near the once sylvan shores … More Friends of early life
Hark! Hark! what sounds salute my ear? What means this thund’ring din I hear? Why roars the deep-mouth’d cannon? Why Does joy seem beaming in each eye Which look’d of late so sad? Why are Fredonia’s flags display’d? Why beat the drums? Why this parade? Why peal the bells? Why mirth abounding? While with … More The storm of war
VACATION memories for most American children are faded by October, but early Newark’s school-age population, generally speaking, enjoyed no summer break. In a period when planting and harvesting called many older students and probably some teachers to farm work, it was left to fall or spring to bring any lengthy respite from the summons of … More The seeds of industry
TRACES in the historical record such as are found for William A. Whitehead’s father are lacking for his mother. No letters, no images have surfaced, the nearest thing to a portrait being the briefest of sketches by a great-niece that simply reads: “Mrs. Abby Whitehead, a quiet lady tall, thin and stately.”1 If she was … More A quiet lady
AS the last-born of his father’s children, William A. Whitehead would have wished to learn from his older siblings, and his parents too, about circumstances that formed him, even though he did not experience them directly. For he well understood that the constituents of a family, no less than of a people or state, not … More In a country town
HOW was it that Christmas Day of 1829, just nine months after his departure from Havana for Key West and home, found William A. Whitehead back again, luxuriating in the pleasures of the Cuban countryside? Three of his published “Letters from Havana” are occupied with reminiscences of this return trip which, as he had “passed … More Brother in arms
