The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1902-01-14
New Jersey First in MANY Things.

New Jersey First in Many Things
The first of January has fixed value
! in individual and general history. The
curious man who turns to the record Of
Jersey events will be surprised to learn
several facts which, when strung on the
thread of narrative, are positive revela-
ton to Jerseymen, because of the state s
claim to initiative in some of the greatest
things in the worlds history.
In their chronological order it is discov-
cred that Daniel Leeds, the progenitor of
the famous Leeds family in Atlantic coun-
ty, was in 1887 the author of the first al
manac published in this country. The
first of January the next year saw the first
ferry established across the Delaware river
between Camden and Philadelphia. On
January 6, 1888, the first message over
wire by the dot and dash system was sent
by Alfred Vail, at Speedwell, which said:
ga patient waiter is no loser"
The first steam engine used on this side
of the Atlantic ocean was built in the old
Belleville copper mines outside of New
ark, in 1853, by Josiah Hornblower, and
this fact is rendered doubly valuable to
historical students because it was some
years before Watt began to experiment
with his teakettle.
In inventions that have had their infiu-
ence on the entire world New Jersey has
led, even in the present time, and no bet
ter evidence of that is an examination of
the list of the great inventions of Thomas
Edison of this state. His electrical in
ventions have come to this state as nat
ural sequence of the spirit that has al
ways prevailed. This is apparent when
the facts are considered that John Fitch,
the inventor of steamboats,, was Trenton
workman, who manufactured arms TO
the patriots and developed his invention
and tested it in Jersey waters, running
from Trenton to Philadelphia.
John Stevens, of Hoboken, in 1902,
constructed the first steamboats, driven
by single and double screw propellers
Robert L. Stevens, mere lad, in 1909,
designed and constructed the first steam
boat, the Phoenix. The machinery for the
first steamboat to cross the Atlantic,
which was the Savannah, was manufac-
tured at the Vail works, at Speedwell, in
Morris county, in 1917. Hoboken not on
ly gets the honor for the first steamboat,
but the first locomotive that was used for
passenger traffic was made there in 1925.
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experiments with the electromagnetic
telegraph were made by Alfred Vail in
connection with Samuel F. B. Morse ac-
cording to the new methods of Professor
Henry, of Princeton College.
James Wilson Marshall, of this state.
was the discoverer of gold in California,
but it did not benefit him while living,
but secured a monument for him many
years after he was dead.
The first bank for the issue of coin was
established in Camden under an act of the
Legislature.
The first man to build house on the
site of the present city of Cincinnati was
John G. Symmes, the son-in-law of Gov
ernor Livingstone of this state.
New Jersey established the first medi-
cal society in America This was in 1896 |
This was before the term doctor was ap- |
piled to the profession.
1t was the late Governor William A. |
Newell who invented much Of the life |
saving apparatus and perfected the SER
vice. The first lighthouse along the At
lantic coast, or any other. coast in this
country, was established at Sandy Hook |
before the Revolutionary war, and sus-
tanned by subscription of New York mer-
chants.