The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1892-06-29
AN old JERSEY VILLAGE
Wanaque's Two Hundredth
Anniversary Slips by
Without Shout or
Cheer.
AN ANCIENT SETTLERS STORIES.
low the Slumbering Town Has
Been Awakened-lls Iron and
Paper Industries.

'ohoNUS Aao oAlO"Cu U hubhiClIu dEc
and its two hundre 9TH anniversary slip
by without a thought of firing a gun,
raising a flag or shoe ing off a mouth.
Wanaqu@'s antiquity is unquesttoned.
The place is found on the oldest maps of
The State, ant although the name has
since been changed from Whinockie, as
!. Was then written on the map. little else
mas undergone any change until last
year. Many years ago wheu the Midland
RaIlroad took a slant from Pompton
Pains, and, instead of going up the
~PeQuannock Valley, chose the valley OF
the Wanaque river, great things were pre-
diced for Wanaque, and au additions
house was built near the shanty which
the company put up for a railroad sta
ton.
Before the era of railroad communica-
tiou the place was merely n sDoJ on the
map without a store, a hotel or black
smith shop. No accession Of prosperity
followed the Introduction of the railroad.
POlnpton .IuEctiOn was create as u shop
station. n Il roundhouse was built there
10 the great disappointment OF Waua-
qGeans. Before the railroad era Wanaque
wa just plain WhinockIe md was noled
only for Its trout streams, its high noun
tains. fertile valleys aud its charcoal iu-
du<try. Since the day the railroad came
through, raiiI Dad brakemen. conductors,
engineers Il fireineh have been added to
its products. Wanaqne boys took To rail
roading wonderfully. and now they are
to be found i'll blue uniforms or i'll over
ais and jumpers. no5 only on the Green
wood Lake load, but upou liues all over
the country.
AS IT is TODAY
Enough of old Wanaque for the pres
ent. 1t is an Interesting subject aud I
will come back to it in my letter further
along. or Wanaque Of today there Is
much to lie said. The toWp1et has sud
deuly sprung INFO activity and is booming
tremendously. Astounding ImLrove-
ments are going on, ald it did uut re-
quire several first class funerals, or even
one, 10 effect the change. l. was all
Lone 10y The Wanaque River PAPER Com
pany In less than u year. Eight
new houses are going up and two
have been finished and occupied
since the paptr mill grew up by
the side of the beautiful river.
One day in The spring Of 1891 MIR.
Ronert Carter steppel from a train at the
ri,ketv oid staten, and u few days later
the inhabitants learned that he was
about TO build a big paper mill on the
bank of the river, just west or the turn
pike bridge. The foundation was Dsgun
witniu q few days, and then the massive
bIick walls We're ruu up. A spur was
laid from the railroad track above the
bridge, aud soou the machinery began to
arrive. 1t was the latest type OF paper
making machinery, and now Wanaque
has one of the best appointed paper mills
in the world.
A paper mill does not require the SER
vices of us many workmeu al some in
dustries of less magnitude. but this mill
has given a quick and sir1ng impetus TO
the place AMI will no doubt bring other
manufacturers to Wanaque. A better
location cannot be found in this State for
-. -rr az" - sci .r sY,rY pn 49, IL
water.
wANAouE IRON MINE.
Another established INDUSTRY which
promises we'll for Wanaque IS the iron
mine on the east Of the valley. 1t is called
the WanaQue mine. and Is ownei by tile
Midvale Mining Company OF New York.
The mine was reopened in April, 1890,
after being Idle for u long while. IL con-
sists OF three shafts on the vein. the deep
EFT shaft feing about one hundred aud
thirty feet down. The vein is from ten
to twenty feet wide. but is mixeh with
considerable Improbable rock. The ore
is extremely hard and full of sulphur. 1t
is a most compact ore OF bright, s.eeIy
lustre, and yields over fifty per cent. or
metallic iron. The company recently
erected two immen -efurnaces for Roasting
the ore to rid it OF its sulphur, but owing
to some fault If construction tIey have
not been put in use, and IL is SAID mat
they Will lave to be rebuilt. II Is pro-
posed to crush. concentrate and roast the
ore before shipping it to market. Twen-
ty-five men are now employed a. the mine
und when the full process IS car led
on 1t will give work TO over one hundred.
There is no hotel In Wanaque now, but
as Wanaque aud Midvate are practically
one and the same the hostelry at MIDI
vale is sufficient for all needs. The dis
lance between WanAque station and That
at MidvaIe Is only eignt-tenths Of "a mile,
80 s-,~ 49,, -. ~ S1nnAr Nv.
quaint old store in Wanaque Is closed and
Il hotel IL going up on tile site. The other
new buildings going up are all snbstan-
tlal frame dwellings with granite founda-
lions.
A COL
| had a talk recently with the Oldest
citizen OF Wauaque, and he lried to give
me ar idea of what Wanaque was sixty
FIVE years ago. His nume is David
kunouse, md he and his aged wife live in
n cottage near the railroad tt ack aud just
north of the bridge. The old man is
quite bright for one who has entered
uIon his eighty-third summer. aud his
recollection OF things which happeued in
his youth IL, to say the least, Abnormal.
David has been a mining pruspector all
his lite, Gnd a1 IL consequence has not ac-
cumulaLed much OF this WORLDS wealth.
Still, he lives comfortably, aud his de-
cliping years are being smoothed as
much rs possible. He has dreams of
riches, however, AND they are expected to
come from the Development of a gold
mlue, upon which he holds a Lease, sub
iecI TO renewal for twenty-one
years. He says that when he was
q boy he di-covered the mMe while set
ting rabbit traps, which III those days
WAS not regarded as such a reprehensiDle
practice as it is DOW, He saw II big Hat
stone WINCH he thought would make u
good dead fall. ana picking 1t up found
that it covered a hole in the ground. A
lad who was with MIN entered the hole
and said that iC was some kind Of II mine.
They covered up the hole aud David
thought nothing more of IL for many
years. About forty years ago he was III
the same place again and concluded TO
examine the mine. He found 1t eight or
ten feet deep and just large enough to
enable n man 10 sit at the bottom and
work, On IL shelf cut in the side of the
shat he found u cruclble aud II of
touls utd in mining. Then he remem-
bered u tradition about an Engiishmanw who
visited " auaqu many years before he
was born AID was engaged in some nys-
terious operation which took him to The
hills every day. The Englishman went
WAY one day and never came back, and
David putting this and that together
{. me to the conclusion that he mine was
III result of bis wock. He covered uu
ne mine AGAIN and let 1t rest for twenty
% rs more, when Que day he spoke of 1t
o a neishbor Inc they concluded to