NO stranger to the place, or to history, a Newark newspaper correspondent ascended to the third story of that city’s Library Hall, where beneath the façade’s stone crenellations was lodged the library of the New Jersey Historical Society.
On his visit the writer lingered, momentarily, before two of several pictures that hung about the walls: one portrayed a jaunty Colonel Peter Schuyler, the other a young-looking, sanguine Aaron Burr.1
Both men were natives of the area, and both rose to wide renown. Schuyler had quelled a mutiny of colonial New Jersey troops by paying their wages from his own account. Burr’s Continental Army service was equally distinguished, although later exploits darkened his reputation. He was enjoying the fruits, when this portrait was made, of a first foray into national politics, representing the state of New York in the U.S. Senate.
Our visitor knew less about these portraits than we do now. Of Schuyler’s likeness he observed merely that it was “the only one known to exist,”2 and the Burr (“by whom painted is not known”) was simply “a picture of considerable merit.”3 He was unequipped to detect, beneath the painting of Schuyler, what X-rays have shown to be at least one other picture, or to recognize on the Burr canvas the work of no less a master than Gilbert Stuart. Perhaps their juxtaposition wasn’t coincidental. Burr won his Senate seat by defeating a relative of Schuyler’s, the father-in-law of Alexander Hamilton. The future vice-president’s slaying of Hamilton on a New Jersey dueling ground had had its roots in that electoral contest.
The writer moved immediately to an inspection of other framed objects, items “more to our taste, and possessing greater interest….” His attention settled upon three documents illustrative of New Jersey’s colonial past. First, there were the “Fundamental Constitutions” of 1683, intended by the English Proprietors to give them more control than the rules then operating in their province of East New Jersey (a reform “which the Jerseymen of that day, ‘not given to change,’ did not think it advisable to accept”).4 Next, a copy of the 1701 surrender of government to the Crown, signed by eight of the Proprietors residing in the province.5 Then came a magnificent 1674 patent for lands that included New Jersey, given to James, Duke of York, on a parchment “ornamented with an engraved portrait of the Monarch himself….”6
The author of this glimpse into the Society library looked over several other “manuscript treasures”: papers of colonial and Revolutionary figures, and miscellaneous documents of both East and West Jersey constituting “a mine of historical lore to reward the student of our annals.” There were copies of nearly every printed work pertaining to state history, including some very rare ones; published documents and historical publications of other states; even books printed in Europe long before the lands called New Jersey had the name.
In the Newark Daily Advertiser, and in all other newspapers of the time, anonymous dispatches and cryptically signed letters from readers were the rule, to which this unsigned column, entitled “An Hour in the Historical Library,” was no exception. But its preservation inside one of William A. Whitehead’s many scrapbooks of clippings makes it plain that the nameless narrator was Whitehead himself, the Historical Society’s own veteran Corresponding Secretary. This pretended pilgrimage to a sanctuary already so familiar to him had a particular purpose, even if not revealed until the end.7
Whitehead’s article celebrated the altruism of those who had gathered and stored up the Society’s treasures. The collectors of these “mementoes of men who have long since left the stage,” material regarded by others as “nought but rubbish,” had in fact “rescued from destruction … the true sources of our knowledge of the past.” They were, in the words of an old essayist, mankind’s “silent benefactors.”8 With these expressions of gratitude, it’s true that Whitehead silently credited his own immense labors: he even referred in passing to two important publications of “Mr. Whitehead’s,” issued by the Society. But his encomium made no mention of the arduous, sometimes less than principled path by which the collections came to be placed in Newark’s Library Hall.
Rev. Daniel V. McLean, a Monmouth County minister and among the earliest proponents of a historical society for New Jersey, had considered the formation of a library its “first object,”9 and at the formal organization of the Society in early 1845 Thomas Gordon of Trenton was named its first Librarian,10 his responsibilities enshrined in the by-laws. These included the care and cataloguing not only of books, pamphlets and manuscripts but of minerals, “natural curiosities,” medals and coins.11
In its first circular letter to the people of the state, the executive committee of the Society dedicated itself to liberating historical materials from “the dust and darkness of private repositories,” securing them “from the corrosions of time, and the danger of destruction by accidents,” and placing them where “future historians and annalists of our state may find them concentrated for their use!”12 But these ambitions were attended by no plan, or even a hint of where materials might eventually be deposited.
The by-laws did offer clarity as to the timetable and location of Society meetings. Members were to convene on the third Thursday of January, and the first Thursdays of May, September and November “at such places as the Society may from time to time designate.” Every January, when annual reports were read and elections held for officers and the executive committee, they would meet in the state capital of Trenton.13
The original constitution of the Society had but nine short articles. Changes or supplementary articles would be considered, provided they were introduced in writing at a previous regular meeting.14 Accordingly, another of the Society’s originators, Rev. Nicholas Murray of Elizabethtown, gave notice in September 1845 of a constitutional amendment designating Newark, the state’s largest city, as the place of deposit for its collections.15
In November, the amendment was discussed, then withdrawn, and a resolution approved in its place: “That for the present, the Library and depository of the Society be at Newark.”16
In January, Thomas Gordon, nominally the Librarian, told the first annual meeting that the Society’s books and papers were “as yet in the hands of the Corresponding Secretary,” Mr. Whitehead.17 The collections, meanwhile, were growing by the week. During its first year of existence, the Society had obtained copies of colonial and state laws and legislative journals from cooperative New Jersey officials. Other state historical societies had forwarded their publications. Private citizens had made “liberal and generous contributions” of books, pamphlets and “manuscripts, originals & copies,” numbering more than five hundred.18
It was proposed to seek space for the library in a state government building, a motion that was approved once tempered with words offered by Whitehead: “should the Society eventually conclude to locate it at Trenton.” On the grounds that it would be unjust to decide the matter “without due notice” to the members, he offered a further resolution, that no action on a permanent location be taken for a year. Perhaps indicative of the Society’s respect for its most tireless collector, the motion passed unanimously.19
In November 1846, a new amendment to the constitution was introduced that read: “The Library and depositories of the Society shall be at ––.” What filled that blank would, it was hoped, be clear after the next January gathering in Trenton.20
Conscious that superior numbers would be needed to decide the question in favor of one place or another, party leaders began to marshal their forces. In Newark, the New Jersey Rail Road gave members the option to travel to and from the meeting at half the normal price. The State Gazette of Trenton, pointing out this arrangement and the likelihood of “a large attendance from East Jersey,” urged the presence of members from all quarters of the state.21
After committee reports, sundry resolutions and the president’s annual address were behind them, members assembled in the state capital set about deciding how to complete the unfinished amendment. The proceedings began, predictably, with competing motions to fill the lacuna: one member moved the name of Newark, another that of Trenton.22 Discussion of each city’s relative merits began in mid-afternoon and carried on into the evening, and the spokesmen for each displayed, in the words of the Trenton Plaindealer, “something of the zeal with which the seven cities of Greece claimed the honor of having given birth to Homer.” But early demonstrations of “courtesy and deference” yielded more and more to “invidious comparisons and selfish considerations,” threatening that, as Bishop George W. Doane lamented, “the evanescent concerns of the Present” would subsume “the great claims of the Past and the Future….”23 With no prospect of a decision about the amendment, and the departure of many who had traveled to the meeting from a distance, it was finally agreed to postpone the question for another year.24
It would not be allowed to rest that long: near the end of the marathon meeting, jurist William A. Duer of Morristown submitted yet another amendment, locating the “Library and Cabinet of the Society” in Newark.25
In a body devoted to New Jersey’s history, many were surely tempted to account for the disagreement by evoking the historical, if contested, boundary and deep-seated differences between East Jersey and West: the metropolitan, competitive, jostling Jersey east of the line, versus the agrarian, communitarian, conciliatory Jersey on the western side. But it was doubted whether this divide over the library’s location really perpetuated that pattern, or whether it needed to.
The editor of the State Gazette, decidedly for Trenton, called the recent “pitched battle” a contest between “the Practical and the Sentimental.” The Practical party, favoring Newark, comprised the state’s “young, thrifty, business-doing men,” for whom Trenton failed every test of logic and arithmetic: “it had no numbers–to calculate its money worth, and there were no dollars or cents about it.” On the Trenton side scholars, statesmen and men of the cloth were “not ashamed to put themselves under the banner of Sentiment.” Aligned with Bishop Doane, they “sought nothing for themselves, but to preserve the history of generations passed away for the instruction of generations yet unborn.” The Society’s library, they believed, should be “the common property of Jerseymen,” belonging like the state capital “to no section….”26
A letter-writer to the Newark Advertiser saw the heated discussions as forging the “one thing which New Jersey has always needed,” the “state-personality; the sentiment of oneness,” nothing less than a “dignified self-assurance of sovereign independence.” After all, he wrote, “Men do not contend for that which they care nothing about.” Whether the library ended up in Trenton or in Newark, it was mainly to the Historical Society that the state must look “for the cherishing of a united state-feeling.”27
Conflicting temperaments–and volatile tempers–must have accounted for at least some of the strife. Many, with Bishop Doane, wished above all for a “harmonious settlement” of the library question, and like him were acutely aware that “Mr. Whitehead’s services depended on the decision….”28
The Society’s collections, which were effectively in the Corresponding Secretary’s care for two years, had continued to increase. Whitehead, at the May 1847 meeting in Newark, pressed for a permanent site to be determined, and for someone to be named who could devote to the library “the requisite time and attention.” But after passionate debate on Judge Duer’s new amendment, neither of these essential steps was taken. With few members present from Trenton and the southern part of the state, a majority voted to convene a special meeting in New Brunswick in a month’s time, “the location of the Library and Cabinet of the Society” to be the first order of business.29
This apparent gesture of conciliation obscured the fact that events and resentments were driving the Newark and Trenton factions farther apart. The start of the year had seen formation of the Newark Library Association, viewed by many as a natural complement to the Historical Society and a compelling reason for its eventual location in Newark. Whitehead was a co-founder of the Library Association and, as its first secretary, would extend to the Historical Society a formal offer of space, rent-free, in Library Hall.
Resistance to Newark hardened around a belief that the Society’s officers had kept those in West Jersey from full participation in its affairs, and had in fact erased from the record all memory of the initial meeting, convened in Trenton by Rev. McLean, which few from Newark were able to attend. Non-Newarkers having been the originators of the Society, those who were absent from the late meeting in Newark “had good reason to believe that their presence was not desired,” said the State Gazette.30 The belief must have been real, for despite the Gazette’s admonition to turn up in New Brunswick on 25 June–“the Eastern members,” it warned, “will of course be there”–there was little representation from Trenton and the south, and Judge Duer’s constitutional amendment locating the library in Newark was adopted by a lopsided 29-6 vote.31
Not satisfied that the cause was lost, Daniel McLean orchestrated a rebellion at the next annual meeting. He enlisted a powerful ally, former Senator Garret D. Wall of Burlington,32 to propose in September that the Society be prevented from incurring any expense “with reference to a permanent location of its Library” until it again met in Trenton. The resolution passed. Wall also introduced a constitutional amendment to replace the one adopted in June, changing the site of the library from Newark to the capital.33
In the summer and fall of 1847, Whitehead as Acting Librarian moved the Society’s collections to temporary quarters in the Essex County courthouse, where they were arranged so as to be “referred to conveniently by the members.” In his report to the January 1848 meeting, he counted approximately 650 books, 300 pamphlets and 800 manuscripts, “originals & copies,” most of which could “for the first time be said to be accessible,” although the books remained “in different hands at various places.”34
When debate ended on Garret Wall’s amendment to locate the library permanently in Trenton, it failed by three votes.35 The “meagre majority” loyal to Newark “might easily have been overcome,” in the view of the State Gazette, had interest among Trentonians not “very much cooled…. Henceforth this will cease to be a state society, and its operations will be confined very much if not altogether within the sectional sphere, which its most active members have assigned it.”36
The year before, McLean had written to Senator Wall that even among “the Eastern members” there was considerable dissatisfaction with the choice of Newark, and a “determination to withdraw from the Society….” A note Whitehead received from the Treasurer a month after the defeat of Wall’s amendment, with the names of thirteen men who “decline to be considered members,” may support that assertion: at least four were residents of East Jersey towns.37
At the May 1848 meeting in Newark, it was announced that a room in Library Hall would soon be ready to receive the Society’s collections. A sum of $200 was allocated for “fixtures and appurtenances,” and Whitehead at last surrendered the care of the library to a permanent Librarian.38
The battle over its location had ended, but the bitterness remained. When the Society next assembled in Trenton, the report of the executive committee urged members “to forget that an imaginary line was ever drawn” between the Jerseys, “to remember that from the Hudson to the Delaware, and from Carpenter’s Point to Cape May we are all Jerseymen, equally interested in the past and prospective history of the state.”39
The Gazette, however, grew more entrenched and suspicious of what had become “a mere provincial society” headquartered in a “border city.” Renewing the charge that Easterners and particularly Newarkers had suppressed the truth of the Society’s origins, the paper compelled an answer from Whitehead, who stated in the Daily Advertiser that the allegation had no basis in fact.40
Undoubtedly Whitehead was among those members feeling great satisfaction on meeting for the first time in Library Hall, “in their own commodious and well arranged apartment.” The library now contained upwards of a thousand bound volumes, and a catalog of the complete collection was underway.41
The Society’s mission to rescue New Jersey’s history had made rapid advances, chiefly through Whitehead’s initiative and perseverance. As one of those whom the old essayist heralded as “silent benefactors of mankind,” he had helped to prevent the loss of many “true sources of our knowledge of the past.” But he had also seen illustrated a warning of the same essayist, that next to all the injuries of time and all the caprices of collectors, there was a danger “more injurious to historical pursuits, that party-feeling which has frequently annihilated the memorials of their adversaries.”42
Copyright © 2023-2025 Gregory J. Guderian
[1] “An hour in the Historical Library,” Newark (N.J.) daily advertiser 27 February 1860 2:1-2.
[2] One of the first paintings acquired by the Society, the Schuyler portrait was the gift of Arent Henry Schuyler, a descendant, and was presented at the May 1847 meeting. “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 28 May 1847 2:1; Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society (hereafter “Proceedings”) [ser. 1] 2:2 (1847) 71. For the New York World, William A. Whitehead penned a more studied description of this image “of the old warrior, representing him in his military coat, with his left hand jauntily thrust into the bosom of his ample waistcoat, and his right gracefully resting on his hip. His hair is shown unpowdered, and cut closely, the fashion differing but little from that of the present day. His round face, small, and I should judge, twinkling eyes, drooping nose, and burly figure, indicating a man of humor, who loved good fare, and could enjoy the jokes prompted thereby.” It’s difficult to know precisely what Whitehead saw, as the eighteenth-century portrait was overpainted around the time of his description, and that picture overpainted in turn about fifty years later. “From New Jersey,” The world (New York, N.Y.) 3 September 1860 2:4; “Camera lays ghost of Schuyler picture,” Newark (N.J.) evening news 1 November 1924 2X:7; Bernard Rabin, Newark 15 June 1964, to Robert M. Lunny, New Jersey Historical Society museum accessions file 1847.1.
[3] “Several artists,” on the painting’s discovery in 1847, had ascribed it to Gilbert Stuart, a judgment now generally accepted. Datable to ca. 1794, when Burr was approaching 40, it was presented to the Society in 1854. “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 19 May 1854 2:6; Proceedings [ser. 1] 7:3 (1854) 89; 10:2 (1865) 50; David A. Hayes, “Portrait of Aaron Burr,” Proceedings [ser. 1] 10:3-4 (1866) 170-172; John E. Stillwell, The history of the Burr portraits. Their origin, their dispersal and their reassemblage (s.l. 1928) 8-10.
[4] Deputy Governor Gawen Lawrie “exhibited at once his wisdom and prudence,” Whitehead wrote, “by taking no steps to put the new code in operation….” G. P., “Glimpses of the past in New Jersey. No. XIV–Governor Lawrie,” Newark daily advertiser 29 April 1842 2:1. Cf. William A. Whitehead, East Jersey under the Proprietary governments: a narrative of events connected with the settlement and progress of the province, until the surrender of the government to the Crown in 1702 [1703] (Collections of the New Jersey Historical Society, 1.) ([New York] 18461) 100-102, 204-206, (Newark 18752) 133-134, 310-313. The Fundamental Constitutions were printed in full as “Form of Government for East Jersey” in William A. Whitehead, ed. Documents relating to the colonial history of the State of New Jersey. 1. 1631-1687 (Archives of the State of New Jersey [hereafter “NJA”], ser. 1, 1. Newark 1880) 395-411. The copy in the New Jersey Historical Society was a donation from J. Kearny Warren. “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 28 May 1847 2:1.
[5] The text of this instrument of surrender was published in William A. Whitehead, ed. Documents relating to the colonial history of the State of New Jersey. 2. 1687-1703 (NJA, ser. 1, 2. Newark 1881) 387-390.
[6] A copy made for John Fenwick, this patent of Charles II was “beautifully engrossed on parchment, not only having an engraved portrait of the King, encircled by the letter C of his name, but also an ornamental engraved border surrounding the whole document.” William A. Whitehead, ed. Documents relating to the colonial history of the State of New Jersey. 1. 1631-1687 (NJA, ser. 1, 1. Newark 1880) 3-8.
[7] Found in one of five unnumbered octavo volumes at the New Jersey Historical Society, the clipping is signed “W A W” at the bottom in ink, and in Whitehead’s handwritten index it is entitled “An hour in the New Jersey Historical Society Library by W. A. W.” SB 94 in Manuscript Group 1494, Scrapbook Collection, New Jersey Historical Society. The article concludes with an appeal for subscriptions to the Society’s fund to secure fire-proof quarters for its collections, “a matter in which the whole State is interested”; that campaign will be taken up in the next of these articles.
[8] Whitehead was recalling “True sources of secret history” by popular essayist Isaac D’Israeli, the father of future prime minister Benjamin Disraeli. I. D’Israeli, A second series of curiosities of literature: consisting of researches in literary, biographical, and political history; of critical and philosophical inquiries; and of secret history (3 vols. London 18231. Hereafter “D’Israeli, A second series of curiosities”) 3:210-239 (3:217 contains the reference).
[9] “New-Jersey Historical Society,” The Monmouth inquirer (Freehold, N.J.) 13 February 1845 2:4; “New Jersey Historical Society,” Monmouth Democrat (Freehold, N.J.) 20 February 1845 2:6.
[10] Thomas Gordon was among the Society’s first officers, elected Librarian on 27 February 1845 and reelected the following 15 January. “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 28 February 1845 2:4, 17 January 1846 2:1-2; Proceedings [ser. 1] 1:1 (1845) 2, 1:3 (1845-1846) 119. Half a century later William Nelson, having no personal recollection of Gordon, wrote that “as the library was located in Newark, and he was advanced in years, he could give the duties of the office little or no personal attention, and he retired in 1847.” “Fifty years of historical work in New Jersey,” Proceedings ser. 2, 13:4 (1895) (201-338) 251, reprinted separately as Semi-centennial celebration of the founding of the New Jersey Historical Society, at Newark, N. J., May 16, 1895 (Collections of the New Jersey Historical Society, 8. Newark 1900) (15-152) 65-66. Evidence points to the identification of this Thomas Gordon with the surveyor of that name, who with state funding produced a valuable 1828 map of New Jersey; he died in 1848. The Librarian’s position went unfilled, with Whitehead serving in an acting capacity, from January 1847 until Samuel H. Pennington’s election on 25 May 1848. “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 23 January 1847 2:2; Proceedings [ser. 1] 3:2 (1848) 60.
[11] Constitution and by-laws of the New-Jersey Historical Society. With the circular of the Executive Committee [Founded February 27th, 1845.] (New-Jersey: Press of the Historical Society, 1845. Hereafter “Constitution and by-laws.”) 9-10.
[12] Constitution and by-laws 15. For more about the circular letter, see my previous post 052–Field work.
[13] Constitution and by-laws 7. The November meeting was eliminated and the May meeting moved to the fourth Thursday, and fixed in Newark, by an amendment to the by-laws approved in January 1847. “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 23 January 1847 2:1; Proceedings [ser. 1] 2:2 (1847) 54.
[14] Constitution and by-laws 6.
[15] “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 6 September 1845 2:2; Proceedings [ser. 1] 1:2 (1845) 68.
[16] Recorded as opposed, both to “the claims of Trenton” and to “a postponement of the question,” Whitehead and others advocated “a decision, and in favor of Newark.” The amended resolution passed after rejection of a motion “to make the Corresponding Secretary the depositary.” “The New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 8 November 1845 2:1-2; Proceedings [ser. 1] 1:3 (1845-1846) 99.
[17] Gordon’s report appears as a single sentence in the handwritten minutes, and is omitted from newspaper accounts and from the Society’s own printed Proceedings. Minutes, Manuscript Group 1258, New Jersey Historical Society Records, Box A1 (hereafter Minutes), 15 January 1846.
[18] “First annual report of the Executive Committee of the New Jersey Historical Society presented January 15, 1846,” in Minutes, 15 January 1846. Abbreviated versions of this report appeared in print, in e.g. “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 17 January 1846 2:1-2, and Proceedings [ser. 1] 1:3 (1845-1846) 115-116.
[19] “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 17 January 1846 2:1-2; Minutes, 15 January 1846; Proceedings [ser. 1] 1:3 (1845-1846) 117-118. From the Advertiser report it appears that the first of these resolutions was fiercely debated. Opponents sensed it would mean a premature commitment to locate the library in Trenton, and contended that “the question of permanent location should not be agitated now in the infancy of the Society.”
[20] “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 7 November 1846 2:3; Proceedings [ser. 1] 2:1 (1846) 4. Pursuant to passage of a resolution introduced by Whitehead, this meeting also appointed a committee to consider changes to the by-laws, “to make them conform to the change in the business arrangements” expected from the impending decision on the library’s location. Whitehead was one of six named to the committee.
[21] Newark daily advertiser 7 January 1847 3:2, 12 January 1847 2:2; “New Jersey Historical Society,” State gazette (Trenton, N.J.) 14 January 1847 3:3; “State historical society,” State gazette 21 January 1847 2:2. On the 20th, the eve of the Trenton gathering, the Daily Advertiser gave the meeting–with the discounted fare–special notice, moving the Society’s paid announcement “from its usual position” among the other advertisements to the page of news and opinion. Newark daily advertiser 20 January 1847 2:4. The railroad offered a reduced fare to members traveling from Trenton for the May meeting in Newark, and half-price travel from Newark to Trenton the following year. Newark daily advertiser 26 May 1847 2:2, 15 January 1848 2:2.
[22] State gazette 22 January 1847 2:4; Newark daily advertiser 22 January 1847 2:1, 23 January 1847 2:2; Proceedings [ser. 1] 2:2 (1847) 55. There is some uncertainty about who made the motion to insert Newark, Nicholas Murray of Elizabethtown or Judge William A. Duer of Morristown. See “Errata,” Newark daily advertiser 25 January 1847 2:3. Dr. John Maclean of Princeton introduced the resolution in favor of Trenton. Speakers on the two sides included, for Trenton, Maclean, Garret D. Wall, Daniel V. McLean, Robert Stockton Field and Samuel Miller; for Newark, Duer, Murray, Charles King, William A. Whitehead, Joseph P. Bradley and Frederick Frelinghuysen.
[23] “New Jersey Historical Society,” The plaindealer (Trenton, N.J.) 22 January 1847 2:5.
[24] The postponement was itself controversial, passing by a 21-19 vote of the members who remained. The debate is summarized in “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 23 January 1847 2:2. “The turbulence created by the Newark members” at this meeting, jeered Trenton’s State Gazette at a later date, “came very near attracting the attention of our police.” “N. J. Historical Society,” State gazette 29 June 1847 3:1.
[25] “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 23 January 1847 2:2; Proceedings [ser. 1] 2:2 (1847) 55-56.
[26] “An interesting conflict,” State gazette 25 January 1847 2:1.
[27] Cæsariensis, “Jerseyism,” Newark daily advertiser 2 February 1847 2:1.
[28] G. W. Doane, Riverside [Burlington, N.J.] 22 January 1847, to Wm. A. Whitehead, printed in “The New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 26 January 1847 2:4.
[29] “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 28 May 1847 2:1-3; “New Jersey Historical Society,” State gazette 2 June 1847 1:4; Proceedings [ser. 1] 2:2 (1847) 70, 72-73.
[30] Agitation arose within the Society’s first year, and endured for the rest of the decade, over which of two Trenton meetings should be considered the founding one–that on 6 February 1845, which a winter storm blocked most of the Newark and East Jersey contingent from attending, or the much larger gathering three weeks later, at which a constitution was adopted and leaders were chosen. For these meetings see my previous posts 049–Try, try again and 050–Meetings of minds. In January 1846, Recording Secretary Joseph P. Bradley, Corresponding Secretary Whitehead and Executive Committee chairman McLean were instructed, on a resolution advanced by McLean, to scrutinize the minutes “with the view of supplying any deficiencies” with regard to the earlier meeting. McLean reported that no alteration of the minutes was needed, but recommended to the Publications Committee that it consider recording some further details of the Society’s origins. Newark daily advertiser 17 January 1846 2:1, 9 May 1846 2:1; Proceedings [ser. 1] 1:3 (1845-1846) 118, 129. After the January 1847 meeting, the State Gazette claimed that, from the outset, it had been the Society’s practice to withhold information, preventing “the proper publication in West Jersey, of the reports of its proceedings.” Bradley refuted the charge in a note to the Advertiser. “Meeting of the N. J. Historical Society,” State gazette 22 January 1847 2:4; Newark daily advertiser 23 January 1847 2:2-3. But after the May meeting the Gazette went further, accusing “the Newark men” of distorting history: “when the records, in order to give these men an undue prominence, pervert the truth, suppress facts, and suggest fictions, then men who have joined the Society for the purpose of preserving historical truth, may well be disgusted.” “New Jersey Historical Society,” State gazette 2 June 1847 2:1. Two years later, the Gazette’s editor, James T. Sherman, implied that the secretaries at the time, Bradley and Whitehead, had blocked any change in the records that would have given the leaders of the first Trenton meeting their due; Whitehead replied that that meeting was reported in the minutes, and on the first page of the printed Proceedings. “The Historical Society,” State gazette 17 April 1849 2:1-2; Wm. A. Whitehead, “New Jersey Historical Society. A card,” Newark daily advertiser 27 April 1849 2:3. Sherman would not relent, however, and further alleged that the text of Rev. McLean’s call to the 6 February meeting was replaced in the Advertiser by another, with several Newark signatures printed above McLean’s. He also noted that the Proceedings made only a passing reference to the first meeting, even giving the wrong date for it. Whitehead did not respond to these latter charges, but invited members to examine the journals for themselves, stating that it was for the Society, not for the secretaries, to make any corrections to the record. James T. Sherman, “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 15 May 1849 2:3; “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 19 May 1849 2:1; Proceedings [ser. 1] 4:1 (1849) 4-5. Whitehead and Bradley had, indeed, opposed changes in 1846, suggesting “the greater propriety of leaving it to some disinterested enquirer, at some future time, to compile an independent historical sketch of the Society”; current members, they believed, “hardly require to be informed who have fostered its interests thus far….” Proceedings [ser. 1] 4:1 (1849) 4-5 note. In September 1849, Sherman’s allegations were referred to the Society’s Publications Committee, which opted not to pursue the matter, and no further action was taken. “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 15 September 1849 2:4, 21 January 1850 2:6; Proceedings [ser. 1] 4:3 (1849) 104-105, 4:4 (1850) 145.
[31] “N. J. Historical Society,” State gazette 21 June 1847 2:3; “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 26 June 1847 2:1; Proceedings [ser. 1] 2:3 (1847) 91-93.
[32] Although Wall’s views on the library were not entirely known, he certainly shared McLean’s irritation at the “overbearing spirit on the part of the Newark gentlemen….” D. V. McLean, Freehold, N.J., 30 August 1847, to Garret D. Wall, Garret D. Wall Papers, 1785-1870, MC 1003, Box 2, Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University. The State Gazette, meanwhile, had continued to militate for Trenton, passing on a warning from two active but unnamed members (“It would be very improper in us to offer such an intimation in our own behalf…”) that the Newark faction persisted “at the risk either of dividing the Society into two, or of driving from it, the West Jersey members.” “New Jersey Historical Society,” State gazette 5 August 1847 2:1.
[33] Attendance at the September meeting in Freehold was sparse, Whitehead among those “unavoidably” absent. Newark daily advertiser 17 September 1847 2:2, 20 September 1847 2:4; Proceedings [ser. 1] 2:4 (1847) 147-148 and note.
[34] Newark daily advertiser 21 January 1848 2:1, 27 January 1848 1:4; Proceedings [ser. 1] 3:1 (1848) 2.
[35] Newark daily advertiser 27 January 1848 1:5; Proceedings [ser. 1] 3:1 (1848) 5-6.
[36] State gazette 21 January 1848 2:1. More than a year earlier, a well-meaning member had proposed that local historical associations be formed in all counties, communicating their findings to the New Jersey Historical Society in an annual report. “In most cases,” argued the Executive Committee in opposing the plan, “the time and attention devoted to the County Associations, would be just so much withdrawn from the State Society, and … it will not be difficult to predict the effect.” That stance may have helped to widen the breach between the pro- and anti-Newark parties. “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 23 January 1847 2:1; Proceedings 2:2 (1847) 52-53.
[37] James Ross, Newark 28 February 1848, to W. A. Whitehead, Manuscript Group 1258, New Jersey Historical Society Records, Box L7/1. Two of the names were among the first to be enrolled as members: Rev. Samuel I. Prime of Newark and Rev. David Magie of Elizabethtown. George P. Macculloch and Gabriel H. Ford of Morristown were elected at the September 1845 and January 1848 meetings respectively. Proceedings [ser. 1] 1:1 (1845) 29, 1:2 (1845) 80, 3:1 (1848) 20. None of the four appears on an 1899 listing of original members. Members of the New Jersey Historical Society. May 1st, 1899 (n.p. [1899]) 26-27.
[38] “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 27 May 1848 2:3; Proceedings [ser. 1] 3:2 (1848) 59. In his role as Secretary of the Newark Library Association, Whitehead notified the President of the Historical Society by letter that the room for the library would be “ready for occupation in the course of a few weeks; and also that the Hall is now prepared for the use of the Society at its meetings or for the delivery of lectures &c before it.” The text of the letter, dated 10 May 1848, was entered into the manuscript record of the May meeting. Minutes, 25 May 1848.
[39] The report continued in a harsher vein: “We must not count him a Jerseyman who withholds a sentence he can contribute to its true history, or to that of its distinguished sons, because upon any given subject his historical brethren may not be able, consistently, to gratify his wishes. This would be like a son visiting the constructive injuries of his brethren upon his venerable mother.” “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 22 January 1849 2:4; Proceedings [ser. 1] 3:4 (1849) 162.
[40] “The Historical Society,” State gazette 17 April 1849 2:1-2; Wm. A. Whitehead, “New Jersey Historical Society. A card,” Newark daily advertiser 27 April 1849 2:3. See also note 30 above.
[41] “New Jersey Historical Society,” Newark daily advertiser 19 May 1849 2:1; Proceedings [ser. 1] 4:1 (1849) 1-2.
[42] D’Israeli, A second series of curiosities 3:218.
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