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Show DESTROYOLD HOUSE This Ancient Building Erected Before the Revolution. Saw Continental Troops Both In Vlc-tory Vlc-tory and Defeat Is Given Over to Wreckers Newark Suburb ' Needs Site for Playground. Newark, N. J. One of 'ihe 'Most ancient landmarks in the Vicinity of Newark, N .J., has been ruthlessly destroyed by a wrecking company. It was a house in the suburb o Irving-ton, Irving-ton, which was old when Washington led his little army past it in his retreat re-treat to Morristown, pressed closely by the enemy. Repulsed at Springfield, Spring-field, three miles away, the Hessians and British redcoats fled past It on their retreat to New York. It served as a hiding place for the muskets of the patriots when the British temporarily tem-porarily were in possession of the neighborhood. This was learned seventy-five years later when the building build-ing was converted from a shop into a dwelling house. A . number of old flint-lock muskets were found hidden away beneath its eaves. Originally it was a sawmill, erected some time prior to 1700 by the early Dutch settlers. It stood upon the bank of the Elizabeth river, and derived de-rived its motive power from a wheel turned by the waters of thafstream. The site was one of the first places selected by Dutch and English Immigrants Immi-grants for a settlement. It Is mentioned men-tioned in a will dated 1589, made by one John Brown, sr., in which he bequeaths be-queaths the property to his three sons. This document was executed only sixty-nine years after the landing land-ing of the first important group oi settlers on the banks of the Hudson. Hud-son. The old building was associated with a1 famous New York achievement. achieve-ment. Ten years before the Civil war one of the wonders of New York city was the Crystal Palace, occupying occupy-ing a site on Sixth avenue between Fortieth and Forty-second streets. It was constructed almost entirely oi glass, after the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London. In the London structure it was necessary, when the sun was strong, to put up canvas shades to temper the glare and heat. The New York architect determined to correct this defect. They learned that Cyrus W. Durand, who made his headquarters in this old building at , Irvington, had discovered a process of enamelling clear glass by a vitrified vitri-fied coating, so as to make it resem- " n p, i r' vsi- x'-m -f i Landmark Over 200 Years Old. ble ground glass. . The enamel gave the glass translucency, but hot transparency. trans-parency. So all of the fifteen thousand thou-sand panes of glass were sent to this small shop to be enamelled before s they were fitted into their iron frames ln the palace. For many years this shop was tc Newark what Llewellyn Park is to Orange. Between 1806 and I860 the building was tho laboratory, as well as the factory of Mr. Durand, who was a great mechanical genius. He was an expert in twenty-four different trades. He invented the geometrical lathe now used in the engraving of bank notes. Another of his inventions inven-tions equally lngenius but of no practical prac-tical utility, was the "grammation," a machine in which a sentence can be placed by a process of analytical , subdivision each part of speech in . that sentence is clearly distinguished. The plot on which the building stood for over 200 years was wanted for a recreation center. Accordingly the Irvington officials sold it to a . wrecking company for $55. Several prominent citizens protested, urging that it be preserved as a museum for the local relics, which abound in the neighborhood, but their protest was ineffectual. |