Paterson New Jersey History & Facts

Paterson is the largest city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, United States.As of the 2020 United States Census, its population was 159,732, rendering it New Jersey's third-most-populous city.

Paterson is known as the "Silk City" for its dominant role in silk production during the latter half of the 19th century.It has since evolved into a major destination for Hispanic immigrants as well as for immigrants from Turkey, the Arab world, and South Asia. Paterson has the nation's second-largest per capita Muslim population,and between 75 and 100 languages are spoken in Paterson, many of them Arabic dialects.

The area of Paterson was inhabited by the Algonquian-speaking Native American Acquackanonk tribe of the Lenape, also known as the Delaware Indians. The land was known as the Lenapehoking. The Dutch claimed the land as New Netherlands, followed by the British as the Province of New Jersey.

In 1791, Alexander Hamilton (1755/57–1804), first United States Secretary of the Treasury, helped found the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures (S.U.M.), which helped encourage the harnessing of energy from the Great Falls of the Passaic River to secure economic independence from British manufacturers. The society founded Paterson, which became the cradle of the industrial revolution in America. Paterson was named for William Paterson, statesman, signer of the Constitution and Governor of New Jersey, who signed the 1792 charter that established the Town of Paterson.

Architect, engineer, and city planner Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant (1754–1825), who had earlier developed the initial plans for Washington, D.C., was the first planner for the S.U.M. project.His plan proposed to harness the power of the Great Falls through a channel in the rock and an aqueduct. The society's directors felt he was taking too long and was over budget, and he was replaced by Peter Colt, who used a less complicated reservoir system to get the water flowing to factories in 1794. Eventually, Colt's system developed some problems and a scheme resembling L'Enfant's original plan was used after 1846.

Paterson was originally formed as a township from portions of Acquackanonk Township on April 11, 1831, while the area was still part of Essex County. It became part of the newly created Passaic County on February 7, 1837, and was incorporated as a city on April 14, 1851, based on the results of a referendum held that day. The city was reincorporated on March 14, 1861.

The 77-foot (23 m) high Great Falls and a system of water raceways that harnessed the falls' power provided power for the mills in the area until 1914 and fostered growth of the city.The district originally included dozens of mill buildings and other manufacturing structures associated with the textile industry and, later, the firearms, silk, and railroad locomotive manufacturing industries.

Famous Peoples From Paterson New Jersey

Jimmie Adams

In 1921, Adams starred in two-reel comedies for Educational Pictures and Al Christie. The slightly built, pencil-mustached Adams has been described by historian Kalton C. Lahue as "a poor man's Charley Chase." Like Chase, and unlike the other comics at Educational, Adams favored situational comedy over slapstick.

He briefly replaced Mack Sennett comic Harry McCoy in the cartoon-inspired Hall Room Boys series (produced by Harry Cohn and Jack Cohn, later of Columbia Pictures). By 1924, Adams was back with Educational.

Promotion from 1922 with photos of Jack White (center) and Mermaid Comedies "Players" Don Barclay, Jack Lloyd, Lige Conley, Jimmie Adams and Elinor Lynn
Christie hired Adams for six comedies released in 1926 and 1927. The Christie comedies were more polite and less extreme than the slam-bang comedies of other studios, but Christie's soft-pedal comedy style did find an audience. Star comedians Jimmie Adams, Bobby Vernon, Lige Conley, Neal Burns, and Billy Dooley constituted a lineup that was no threat to Hal Roach, but nevertheless entertained millions with a style than neither Roach or Mack Sennett could or would provide.

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