DENIZENS of Perth Amboy in the late summer of 1830 could have had a glimpse, at about 6 o’clock one evening, of a most peculiar passerby, but only if they looked skyward. There floated the young balloonist Charles F. Durant, drifting on a straight but swiftly descending course toward the far shore of the Raritan … More 090–Ascension
NEAR a bend in the Raritan River now crossed by hundreds of thousands of motorists every day, there was once little to disturb the routine movements of birds, beasts and tides except an occasional transit by raft or canoe. Here the river was met by what, in the imagination of William A. Whitehead, served as … More 079–Travelling facilities
DURING the first decades that swift stages traversed the breadth of northern New Jersey, whose roads while judged by an early commentator “not so good” were nonetheless “absolutely turnpiked,” an ever swelling tide of travelers made for Schooley’s Mountain, one of the earliest leisure destinations in the United States.1 As European colonizers became aware of … More 071–Royal retreat
WHITE as a catechumen’s robe, St. Paul’s Church gleams against the blue vault of the Key West sky. Just steps from the sanctuary doors passes a spectacle decidedly less pure: the all-hours procession up and down Duval Street. The distance between church and promenade, sacred and profane, seems at once negligible and immense. This incarnation of … More 066–Accessions of much worth
CONVENING in January 1846 at the place of its birth to celebrate the New Jersey Historical Society’s first year, members could look back with satisfaction, and look expectantly ahead. They reviewed the Society’s achievements over the past eleven months, chose officers for the year to come–a formality, as the incumbents were re-elected without exception and … More 052–Field work
SUNDRY and sustained attachments bound William A. Whitehead early to the nation’s commercial capital. They were established just after the Revolutionary War and well before his birth, upon his father’s arrival as a young immigrant from the Caribbean. A furniture-maker’s apprentice turned promising craftsman, then cashier in Wall Street’s most enduring financial institution, the elder … More 044–Barrow Street
JOHN James Audubon, always lavish in his prose, bestowed on the fabled sunsets of the Florida Keys a description as rapturous as any ever written.1 After he’d beheld such a spectacle from the deck of the revenue cutter Marion, now resting at anchor in “the beautiful harbour of Key West,” the tireless naturalist briefly savored … More 041–The collectors (part 1)
GIRLS and young women peopled William Whitehead’s childhood, connections kept up when his family moved to Perth Amboy in 1823. The youngest child of his parents, William was the only son to relocate with them. Following the sudden death of a half-sister, a nomination to West Point secured for him was forfeited, and the promise … More 037–The parting hour
FROM the age of twenty-one, William Whitehead found his responsibilities lay some distance from Perth Amboy, yet return visits still breathed into him a kind of twofold vitality. As he mused upon the stories and sites making up this once proud city’s past, he also roamed through the gardens and groves where some of his … More 036–Pleasures, plants and palaces
EAST New Jersey’s seat of government was, in the earliest records, referred to as the Town of Perth, New Perth, Perth Town or Perth tout court before it acquired the surname Ambo or Amboy, from an indigenous word for the locality.1 The first element of the combination linked the settlement to Scotland, a country then … More 035–Renaissance man