NOTHING on earth’s surface is older than the New Jersey Highlands, which William A. Whitehead must have seen for the first time when just a boy. As an adult, revisiting the ageless landscape with his half-brother, he could contemplate its scenery with more seasoned eyes and mind.1 What most pleased the 20-year-old on his return … More His father’s business
LITTLE is known of the writings from William A. Whitehead’s youth, but a generous amount survives from his early twenties, chiefly through a book of travel narratives in his own hand. This volume is the second of at least two, none other having come to light. Whitehead gave the work a grandiose name, Memorandums of Peregrinations … More Road trip
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 Accessions of much worth
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 Barrow Street
A course of solid reading was pursued to advantage, and whatever works of a lighter character were indulged in, they were always read critically, their errors noticed, and their beauties and moral teachings marked. My library was not yet of much account, but … the works of reference I possessed were constantly referred to, so … More White gold
NEAR the end of 1915, workers for the Public Service Railway Company took up positions at the junction of Newark’s Broad and Market Streets, and began to count. On a single weekday, from before dawn until after dusk, observers at each corner tallied all pedestrians stepping off the curb or turning, all passengers on streetcars … More Four Corners
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
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
IT was mid-May, and winter had yielded finally to spring. Perth Amboy’s proliferation of trees shimmered in the unbroken warmth, while every garden put on its most daring scents and colors. In harmony with the outdoors the Whitehead home was a place of merriment, most of all on the twin anniversary of the 12th, when … More What’s in a name
An attractive presence 