Page:History of Hudson County and of the Old Village of Bergen.djvu/53

Rh corner of Morgan and Greene Streets, and it was at this foundry that some of the first ironclads for the Civil War were fabricated later.

Fulton also had a dry dock. It appears to have had ample business, for by 1845 the water-front business had become sufficient to justify the building of a vessel, the "Dudley S. Gregory," constructed at Burlington expressly for Jersey City trade. Two years later, Jersey City celebrated the docking of its first Cunarder, the "Hibernia."

Bergen adhered to its agriculture and other old ways longer than the surrounding communities. Its inhabitants looked serenely down on Jersey City's accumulating factory chimneys and saw its increasing bustle and wealth without apparent desire to emulate it. Years after gas had made the streets below their height look like far-trailed strings of beads, they remained content with candles and sperm whale oil, and as late as 1858 there were only 60 gas consumers on the whole ridge.

Bit by bit its less restful constituent parts broke away, much as the offspring of the good old burghers themselves was breaking away from the good old customs. In 1837, Bergen County's opulent girth was sharply reduced by taking away enough to make Passaic County. In 1840 another legal operation set off the County of Hudson. Bergen Township was like a fine Dutch cheese exposed to busy mice. It was nibbled at from all sides. In 1841, two years after full rail traffic had been opened between New York and Philadelphia by the New Jersey Railroad and Transportation Company, Van Vorst Township was nibbled off. Another nibble in 1842 bit off the