Health & Fitness
The Light Horse of Paulus Hook. Ever wonder where that name came from?
Our area is steeped in history. If you know what to look for you can find it everywhere. Read about Light Horse Harry and his house on the Hudson.
In the Paulus Hook section of Downtown Jersey City, there is a great high end restaurant called the Light Horse. The name is a historical reference to a house and a man who once occupied the Paulus Hook area. Hoboken and Jersey City are rich with history and in the nooks and crannies you can see it if you just look a little closer. Read and enjoy the history of this area. . . . .
From Historic Houses of New Jersey by W. Jay Mills, 1902
British commanders, too, frequently stopped there when it was not in the possession of the Americans; and the poor miller and his wife could not have ground their flour with much pleasure, owing to the thought that some foraging expedition might be nearing their dwelling to steal the fruit of their labor before it could be safely secreted.
After the Revolution the “mill house” became a great winter-time rendezvous for the lads and lassies of Bergen Town, who came to skate on the frozen mill-stream. About the wide fireplace in the living-room the Mercelis family, relations of Jacob Prior, and then owners of the mill, passed many a jug of hot milk and many a delft plate piled high with “kockjes” or jumbles to companies of merry guests.
The boys of the thinly settled Paulus Hook also made many excursions there in both winter and summer. In the latter season the luscious apples in the orchard of the adjoining farm proved a great attraction. This farm was then owned by Aaron Vanderbilt, a first cousin of the father of William H. Vanderbilt, “Old Commodore Vanderbilt,” who founded the world-renowned Vanderbilt fortune, and who was then running his new steamboat “Bellona” from New York to Brunswick; where connecting post-chaises took passengers to Trenton and Philadelphia.
Aaron Vanderbilt is said to have had a very irascible temper, aggravated no doubt by the frequent robberies of his fine “Baldwins” and “Monmouth Reds,” and many were the wild chases he gave the urchins of his day, which, tradition almost laughingly says, resulted in his catching “neerie a one.” Every fall-time after futile attempts at punishment be vowed vengeance on the boys when he caught them skating there the next winter; but when the winter came he had always fortunately forgotten bout his past injuries, and allowed them to skate in peace.
“The Vice-President’s steamboat Nautilus will leave New York every day (Sundays excepted) from Whitehall Wharf, at eleven o’clock A.M. From her the passengers will be received without delay into the superior list-sailing steamboat Bellona, Capt. Vanderbilt, for New Brunswick, from thence in Post chaises to Trenton, where they lodge, and arrive next morning at ten o’clock in Philadelphia, with the commodious and fast sailing steamboat, Philadelphia, Capt. Jenkins.”
One of the young ladies, who climbed the heights of Parnassus as well as the heights of Bergen (as in Jersey City Heights - All of this area down to the Hook was known as the Bergen Woods. See my previous historical article on Bergen House), wrote in a farewell to Jersey, published about this time, a stanza on the meadow skating-pond, which began:
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The calling of the flooded Jersey meadows a lake is rather a bold stretch of the imagination, but the poetic license of the time gave a very wide latitude to all sentimental writers, and the young lady in question wanted to do honor to the town whose “sweet vesper bells” and “fair groves” she was on the verge of leaving forever.
The mill itself was destroyed in 1838, but the dwelling which had sheltered so many American and British officers, notably the dark-faced young Lee, “the pet of the army,” on the dawn of his great military success, stood until the year 1880, when Benjamin Mills, then its owner, began the improvement of the section of the city included in the Mills map.
Information provided by Donna Antonucci
Prudential Castle Point Realty
201-240-6832
donna@donnaantonucci.com
www.hobokenrealestatemonitor.com