Paterson, New Jersey, USA
1844 - Paterson

Paterson was formed from Acquackanock in 1831. Its population in 1840 was 7,598. The village of Paterson, the seat of justice for Passaic county, is on the Passaic river, 13 miles N. or Newark, and 17 from New York. The town plot lies partly on both sides of the river, and covers 36 square miles. It is represented by a mayor, recorder, common council &c. This flourishing manufacturing town was established by a society incorporated in 1791, with a capital of $1,000,000, which owed its origin to the exertions of Alexander Hamilton.

The general object of the company was to lay the foundation of a great emporium of manufactures. The prominent purpose of the society was the manufacture of cotton cloths. At this period the great improvements introduced in the cotton manufacture by Arkwright were but little known even in Europe, and in this country scarcely any cotton had been spun by machinery.*

The act of incorporation gave a city charter with jurisdiction over a tract of six square miles. The society was organized at New Brunswick in Nov. 1791, and the following gentlemen appointed as its board of directors, viz: William Duer, John Dewhurst, Benjamin Walker, Nicholas Low, Royal Flint, Elisha Boudinot, John Bayard, John Neilson, Archibald Mercer, Thoas Lowring, George Lewis, More Furman and Alexander M'Comb. Having been duly organized, the society, in May, 1792, decided up on the great falls of the Passaic as the site of their proposed operations, and named it Paterson, in honor of Gov. William Paterson, who had signed their charter. There were then not over ten houses here...

* The first cotton spun by machinery in America was at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Dec. 1790, by Samuel Slater, an English emigrant, who may be properly styled "the parent of the American cotton manufacture."

HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY by JOHN W. BARBER and HENRY HOWE, 1844

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