Excerpt from Satirical History of NEW JERSEY
NEW “ALL-TOO-TRUE-BLUE” (ALTERNATIVE) STATE HISTORIES
1776 – Washington Crosses the Rubicon
On a lark, “Gorgeous Georgie Porgie” Washington crossed the Rubicon in the winter of 1776. He knew once he did this he could not turn back – because the river was turning to ice and would have been too slippery to make the attempt.
1778 — Battle of Monmouth
During the heat of the Revolutionary slugfest (The Battle of Monmouth, to be more specific), Molly Pitcher pitched in to clean the cannon ramrod thingys (they are like giant pipe-stem cleaners, she said, and she was used to cleaning her husband’s pipe for him, and so knew exactly what to do).
Pitcher was embarrassed that her husband continued to use a “ramrod thingy” that hadn’t been sanitized for weeks, and took matters into her own hands.
The other soldiers called her a fussbudget, but there was no stopping her.
This picture of Pitcher, drawn by The Little Drummer Boy, was found on the back of the original Declaration of Independence
1787 – Statehood
New Jersey became a State in 1787, and remains the only State named for bovines (Texas once considered changing its name to Foghorn Longhorn, but that measure was narrowly defeated by obstructionists and traditionalists).
Besides beeves, New Jerseyites really like their baseball, and are proud of their heritage in that line. In 1790, they became the first State to sign a prospect (by the name of Bill O’Wright) to a major league “futures” contract.
1791 – Hamilton Builds First Industrial City in Paterson
Basically forgotten nowadays, Alexander Hamilton was pretty darn famous back in the late 18th Century. This was primarily due to his being a member of the pop combo Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds Wrap.
They had hit songs that even frosted wig-wearing dour old sourpusses such as John Adams would dance to, such as Don’t Pull Your Gun and Fallin’ in the Hudson.
This Hamilton fella eventually fell out of favor with the fickle hip crowd (when his hair fell out), and so turned his attention to getting rich by building factories. In fact, Hamilton built the first industrial city in New Jersey in 1791, naming it Paterson.
One of the first factories in Paterson manufactured comedians, turning out, among others, Lou Costello (grandfather of Elvis and partner of Bud Abbott).
This is that storied bastion of American ingenuity:
If you borrow a high-powered telescope from your friendly neighborhood astronomer, you might be able to make out Lou Costello looking forlornly out of one of the windows (shirking his work, as usual)
1804 – Hamilton and Burr Duel in Weehawken
Alexander Hamilton and Raymond “Old Ironsides” Burr got into a bit of a disagreement in 1804. They were both interested in the same gal, and this competition led to animosity, name-calling, and eventually a line was crossed that could not, without severe loss of reputation, be uncrossed.
So, the two agreed to a public arm-wrestling contest to be followed by a “sudden death” spelling bee if the former match proved to be too close to call.
After arm-wrestling each other to a draw, the spelling bee began. That failed, too, though, because sometimes the judges would use the British dictionary, and other times the good ol’ American (Webster) dictionary.
Frustrated, Hamilton and Burr gave that up and tried another tack. This was a harpsichord “duel,” staged in Weehawken (which is smaller than neighboring Hawken), where each tried to stump the other by naming a song his adversary couldn’t play. Hamilton successfully played Don’t Pull Your Gun (Burr didn’t know that Hamilton had actually written the song while a member of Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds Wrap). Likewise, Burr just as ably played the Stephen Foster song Slumber My Darling. This went on for quite some time, with pieces by J.S. Bach, W.A. Mozart, and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes stumping neither one of them, and amazing the onlookers.
Discovering a common interest, especially as to the last band named, the two patched up their differences and shuffled off to Buffalo (actually, New York City), and strolled down Wall Street, rejoicing in the beautiful day and congratulating themselves on their good fortune in living in a time prior to billboards and honking automobile drivers.
“Ironsides” Burr, Alex Hamilton, and Phil Schuyler on Wall Street. Check out the cat gent talking to the lady in the portable outhouse on the other side of the street. People did not consider this type of thing to be embarrassing back in those simple and innocent days of yore
1846 – First Baseball Game
The first baseball game was played in Hoboken in 1846. Neither the war with Mexico nor the California Gold Rush had started yet, so Americans had nothing better to do with their free time and pent-up energy than play baseball.
Just as the New York Giants and Jets play their games in New Jersey, so it was for the first baseball game, when the New York Knickerbockers squared off (or “diamoned off”) against the New York Nine there in Hoboken.
Trivia Alert!: The Hobo “ken” (kinfolks) of the residents of Hackensack founded the town, hence the name of the burg.
Here’s a picture of the game in full swing:
The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the New York Nine that day
1858 – Hadrosaurus Fossil Found
In 1858, a Hadrosaurus fossil was found in New Jersey, which touched off the modern pseudo-science of paleontology. Paleontology is the study of looking for and misidentifying dinosaur fossils.
This was not just a jawbone or a bit of a horn or something, but a nearly complete skeleton of this old guy that they found. Based on the dinosaur skeleton, a diorama was created, fancifully showing these critters growling and snarling and snapping at each other:
The Hadrosaurus is the official New Jersey state dinosaur. Fame often comes too late to be enjoyed by the subject.
1877 — Phonograph Invented
Colloquially known as a “record player,” the first tin-foil phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison, who was himself known as “the Wizard of Menlo Park.”
Thomas didn’t stop with that contraption and rest on his laurel bushes (presuming he even had any). In his hectic life, Edison received 1,093 patents. That’s an average of one per day for three years (or one per year for 1,093 years; or one per century for 109,300 years; or one for every 238 miles between the earth and the moon, or...oh, never mind).
Edison is also known for the surprising candor of his admission aphorism, “Genius is one percent perspiration and 99% stealing other people’s ideas.”
Here’s Edison recording his own voice, to prove that his device really works (some critics had maligned it, calling it a “phony graft”):
“Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy … now, what’s the next part? ... Oh, yeah … Was he?!? Answer me! … Oh …. never mind.”
1879 – Light Bulb Invented
Up until 1879, whenever people came up with a crackerjack idea or a whiz-bang invention, they would whoop and holler “Eureka!”
After Thomas Edison came up with the “incandescent light” (light bulb), though, it was light bulbs that appeared above people’s heads when they had a “Eureka” or “A-ha!” moment.
1911 — Standard Oil Split Up Into “Pieces Parts”
The mom and pop outfit Standard Oil Company of New Jersey was split into thirty-four smaller companies by the Supreme Court in 1911. The reason for this was that it was found that SOC had violated the SAA (Sherman Antitrust Act).
In layman’s terms, what this means is that Polite (Civil) War veteran and Appalachian Trail hiker William Tecumseh Sherman had been playing Monopoly with Henry Huddleston Rogers and the Rockefeller boys (the head honchos of SOC), and he didn’t trust them. He thought they cheated. It was an “antitrust” that he felt toward them.
Or maybe it wasn’t Billy Sherman, after all; it could have been the Sherman who used to hang out with Mr. Peabody; I’m not sure. You could look it up...
1937 – Hindenburg
The Hindenburg, an 800 foot long Dirblimpelin (combination dirigible, blimp, and zeppelin) hit a cell tower and fried its electronics in 1937.
And here’s the Hindenburg in happier times – the same place, Lakehurst, New Jersey, the year before the accident:
Sailors involved in the Navy’s acupuncture trials watch the copilots of the Dirblimpelin as they are about to “set sail”
1938 — Extraterrestrials Reported Near Princeton
Extraterrestrial monsters (AKA “aliens”) were reported in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey during H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast in 1938.
Actually, it was H.G.’s grandson Arson who did the radio broadcast, but H.G. wrote the book (which is more difficult to do, and more time-consuming, thus deserves more credit, that’s why I named him first). Arson became famous in his own right, though, becoming known in Hollywood circles (and squares) as “Citizen Cane” (because he walked with the aid of a cane).
Here’s a still shot from a Super-8 film shot by some kid in Grover’s Mill at the time of the alien attack:
“Cool! They just vaporized the schoolhouse!”
1973 - “Greetings from Asbury Park”
Beginning in 1973, Freehold’s Bruce Springsteen has put out album after album of easy listening elevator music. His first effort, almost rivaling Berry Manifold’s mellow sounds, was the friendly welcome to “his world” entitled Greetings from Asbury Park.
Produced by Steve Jobs and Jim Croce, the album contained such lullabys as “Blinded by the Light” (covered by Womanfred Woman’s Earth, Wind & Fire Band, hitting the top 1,000), “Growin’ Up”, “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?”, “For You”, “Spirit in the Night” and “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in New Orleans.”
. . .
Each Saturday and Tuesday an excerpt of one State’s (satirized) history will be posted here, in alphabetical order (from Alabama to Wyoming).
For “the rest of the story,” the (32-page) complete book “The New All-too-True-Blue History of New Jersey” is available here.
The regions of the U.S. have been combined into volumes, too; New Jersey is included in the volume The New All-too-True-Blue History of the American Northeast
You can listen to this excerpt here.
Blackbird Crow Raven is also the author of the book “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle”