The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1908-12-04
MOST OF NEWARK
INVOLVED IN SUIT
OVER EARLY GRANT
Test Case in Chancery Concerns
Titles to Essex Property
Worth Millions.

The title of ownership of 90 per cent
ark, and many thousands of acres, rep
r~esenting millions of dollars, in the cit
les of East Orange and Orange, and
lying between Newark and Elizabeth,
all of which was embraced in the city
lines when Newark was a cluster of
houses about the First Presbyterian
Church, two hundred years ago, is UNI
der discussion in a test case Chancery
suit, which came up today before Vice
Chancellor Stevens.
The suit goes back past the time
when George the Third of England
ruled New Jersey and hostile Indians
pitched their tents on the banks of the
Passaic, to the primer of American his
tory when the King of Britain gave
away the State. with a sweep of his
pen, to the original proprietors, the
mobiles, Berkeley and carteret.
The suit is brought by Theophile
We'll, of PAS Eighteenth street, Brook
Ign, and is directed against the Trinity
Episcopal Church, at one time owner
of about one-fifth of the land comprised
in the city's present boundaries.
In a bill filed by Isaac Fleischmann,
his son-in-law, Mr.. We'll declares that
he is the owner of three lots in Orange
street, at Eleventh street, worth So, 500.
upon which he was promised a mort
| gage of $4,000 by the City Trust Com
many IN enpAitinn fhnf the fff1a vtog
found TO be without flaw. An %investi-
cation by the trust company's attorney.
Judge Charles F. Herr, resulted in its
declining to make the loan because, it
alleged, the title resposed in the defend
ant church. The present suit was
brought to quiet the title, and the bill
calls upon the defendants to show their
interest.
The answer goes back to the creation
of the royal province, to prove the
right of the church to the property and
tells the following tale:
The Original Deeds.
The proprietors. who obtained their
rights from the crown, on December 10,
1896, decided to four trustees of the
struggling colony along the Passaic and
Newark bay from which rose the city
of Newark. an immense tract of land
lying between the present site of Eliza
beth and the Orange mountains, These
were John j. Curtis, John Treat, Theo-
philus Pierson and Robert Young. They
were to hold the land in trust for the
colonists about the First Presbyterian
Church.
Sixty-four years later, in 1860, David
Young, the only surviving son of any
of the four. being about to die of old
age, and wishing to preserve intact for
the colony the title to the land rapidly
becoming valuable, decided to the First
Presbyterian Church, Of this city, the
entire tract, with the exception of sun
dry parcels which had been SOLE by the
trustees. The deed is dated March IS,
1860, and contains the line, 'the same
being the thirty-third year of the
reign of his majesty, King George the
Second"
For ffty-four years, through the
troublous times of the Revolutionary
War, until February 8, 1904, the First
Church held the deed of the dead Rob-
ert Young without even going to the
trouble to have it recorded. On that
date, however, it was formally entered
upon the records of the State.
Five Churches Divided Land.
During this time and until the year
1926. when the deed next came into the
public eye, the First Presbyterian
Church sold much of its holdings. But
II retained nearly all of the lane upon
which the present city of Newark was
built until that year when, actuated by
generous motives toward other churches
which were rising around it, it petit
toned the Legislature to allow 1t to
divide the big tract with the Second
and Third Presbyterian churches and
the Trinity Episcopal Church, of this
city, and the Orange Presbyterian
Church. The authority was granted
and the five churches divided the land.
Trinity Church and the Orange church
received, among other tracts, 200 acres
of lane in what is now known as the
Roseville section, then farm land.
The deeds to the other four churches
contained the provision that the land
should be held in fec simple forever
for the support of the gospel in the
said congregations and religious So
cieties and for no other purpose what
ever"
In 1892 Trinity Church needed q new
steeple. Had that new steeple never
been bought. declares Mr.. Fleischmann,
the present suit would not exist. The
church had to raise the one for the
steeple. and to do this it sold fourteen
acres in the Roseville section for $237.
Those fourteen acres now comprise
the four city blocks bounded by He'd
den place, Orange street, Roseville ave-
nue. and Seventh avenue. But the
church was bound by the original
grant to hold the lands forever. so it
evolved one of the cleverest subter-
fuges ever placed on record in the am
nails of Jersey law practise.
RANAnT EMnAINO