Page:EB1911 - Volume 19.djvu/480

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NEWARK
  

in 1660. He was fined £4000 by Cromwell’s “Act of Grace” in 1654. In 1661 he was created Lord Newark, and received a pension of £500 per annum. He died in 1682. The title became extinct in 1790.


NEWARK (Newark-upon-Trent), a market town and municipal borough in the Newark parliamentary division of Nottinghamshire, England. Pop. (1901) 14,992. It lies in a flat, fertile lowland near the junction of the river Devon with the Trent, but actually on the Devon. By means of a canal 11/2 m. in length it is connected with the Trent navigation. It is 120 m. N.N.W. from London by the Great Northern railway, and is on the Melton Mowbray joint branch of that company and the London & North-Western, and on the Nottingham & Lincoln branch of the Midland railway. The church of St Mary Magdalene, one of the largest and finest parish churches of England, is specially notable for the beauty of the tower and of the octagonal spire (223 ft. high) by which it is surmounted. The central piers of the old church, dating from the 11th or 12th century, remain, and the lower part of the tower is a fine example of Early English when at its best. The upper parts of the tower and spire are Decorated, completed about 1350; the nave dates from between 1384 and 1393, and the chancel from 1489. The sanctuary is bounded on the south and north by two chantry chapels, the former of which has on one of its panels a remarkable painting from the “Dance of Death.” There are a few old monuments, and an exceedingly fine brass of the 14th century. The castle, supposed to have been founded by Egbert, king of the West Saxons, was partly rebuilt and greatly extended by Alexander, consecrated bishop of Lincoln in 1123, who established at it a mint. It rises picturesquely from the river, and from its position and great strength was for a long time known as the “key of the North.” Of the original Norman stronghold the most important remains are the gate-house, a crypt and the lofty rectangular tower at the south-west angle. The building seems to have been reconstructed in the early part of the 13th century. In the reign of Edward III. it was used as a state prison. During the Great Rebellion it was garrisoned for Charles I., and endured three sieges. Its dismantling was begun in 1646, immediately after the surrender of the king. There is a very beautiful and interesting cross (the “Beaumond” cross) of the latter part of the 15th century in good preservation in the town. A grammar and song school was founded in the reign of Henry VIII., and endowed by Archdeacon Magnus, and there are other considerable charities. The other principal public buildings are the town-hall in the Grecian style (erected in 1774), the corn exchange (1848), the Stock library and Middleton newsroom (1828), the mechanics’ institution (1836), a free library and a fine hospital (1881). There is a large trade in malt, coal, corn and cattle. There are iron and brass foundries, boiler-works, agricultural implement manufactories and breweries. Gypsum and limestone are obtained in the neighbourhood, and plaster of Paris is extensively manufactured. The town is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area 1931 acres.

Newark (Newerca, Nouwerk) owed its origin, possibly in Roman times, to its position on the great road called the Fosse Way, in the valley of the Trent. In a document which purports to be a charter of 664 Newark is mentioned as having been granted to the abbey of Peterborough by Wulfhere. In the reign of Edward the Confessor it belonged to Godiva, who granted it to the monastery of Stow, and it remained in the hands of the bishops of Lincoln until the reign of Edward VI. The castle was erected by Bishop Alexander in 1123, and the bridge about the same time. Under Stephen a mint was established. There were burgesses in Newark at the time of the Domesday Survey, and in the reign of Edward III. there is evidence that it had long been a borough by prescription. It was incorporated under an alderman and twelve assistants in 1549, and the charter was confirmed and extended by Elizabeth. Charles I., owing to the increasing commercial prosperity of the town, reincorporated it under a mayor and aldermen, and this charter, except for a temporary surrender under James II., has continued the governing charter of the corporation. Newark returned two representatives to parliament from 1673 until 1885. A weekly market on Wednesdays, and a fair on the eve, day and morrow of the Invention of the Holy Cross, granted to the bishop of Lincoln by John, are still held; another fair at St Mary Magdalene and the four preceding days was granted by Henry III., and is probably represented by the fair now held on the 14th of May. A market for corn and cattle is still held on Wednesdays, and another on Tuesdays for fat stock has been added.


NEWARK, the largest city of New Jersey, U.S.A., a port of entry, and the county-seat of Essex county, on the Passaic river and Newark Bay, about 8 m. W. of New York City. Pop. (1890) 181,830; (1900) 246,070, of whom 71,363 were foreign-born, and 6694 were negroes; (1910 census), 347,469. Of the total foreign-born population in 1900 (48,329 of whom had been in the United States at least ten years), 25,139 were from Germany, 12,792 from Ireland, 8537 from Italy, 5874 from England, 5511 from Russia and 4074 from Austria. Of the total population, 143,306 were of foreign parentage on both sides, 56,404 German, 30,261 Irish, 13,068 Italian, 8951 English and 8531 Russian. Newark is served by the Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley, the Erie, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western and the Central of New Jersey railways, and by steamboats engaged in coastwise and river commerce. By electric lines it is connected with most of the cities and towns within a radius of 20 m., including Jersey City, Paterson and the residential suburbs, among which are the Oranges, Montclair, Bloomfield, Glen Ridge, Belleville and Nutley. It has a frontage on the river and bay[1] of 101/2 m., and a total area of 23·4 sq. m. The site is generally level, but the ground rises toward the western part. Broad Street, 120 ft., and Market Street, 90 ft. wide, the principal thoroughfares, intersect. The most prominent public buildings are the City Hall, completed in 1906; County Court-House, designed by Cass Gilbert (b. 1859), with sculpture by Andrew O’Connor and decorations by Howard Pyle, Will H. Low, Kenyon Cox, H. O. Walker, C. Y. Turner, F. D. Millet, George W. Maynard and Edwin H. Blashfield; United States Government Building; Public Library, finished in 1901, and City Hospital. There is a Roman Catholic Cathedral, and the city is the see of a Roman Catholic and of a Protestant Episcopal bishop. The Prudential Life Insurance Company and the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company have fine office buildings. Many of the older buildings are of a brown sandstone, quarried in or near the city. In Military Park is a monument to Major-General Philip Kearny (1815–1862), and in Washington Park is a monument to Seth Boyden (1785–1870), a Newark inventor of malleable iron, of machinery for making nails, and of improvements in the steam-locomotive. Newark has also a monument to Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen (1817–1885), secretary of state in the cabinet of President Chester A. Arthur, and to Abraham Coles (1813–1891), a poet and physician, both of whom lived here. On the banks of the Passaic is a house having as a part of its walls the old walls of Cockloft Hall, in which Washington Irving frequently sojourned, and of which he gave a charming description in Salmagundi. In the vicinity are the remains of Peterborough, the home of Colonel Peter Schuyler (1710–1762), who served against the French in 1746–48 and in the French and Indian War. At the corner of Broad and William streets stood until 1835 the parsonage in which Aaron Burr was born.

In 1910 Newark had 658 acres in public parks, of which 637 acres were under the administration of the Essex County Park Commission. To Washington, Military and Lincoln parks, the older ones near the heart of the city, there have been added Branch Brook (277 acres), Weequahic (265·8 acres), West Side (23 acres), and East Side (12·5 acres) parks. The principal cemeteries are Mount Pleasant, overlooking the Passaic in the northern part of the city, and Fairmount in the western part; about 1894 the remains of the early settlers were removed from the Old

  1. The river channel before improvement had a navigable depth of 7 ft. at mean low water; the depth was increased to about 10 ft. by the Federal government before 1902; in 1907 further improvement was authorized by Congress, the channel to be made 300 ft. wide and 16 ft. deep.