Communipaw and Lafayette
Henry Hudson’s “Half Moon” anchored off Communipaw in 1609. In 1633 the Dutch West India Company built the first house occupied by “John the Laugher.” A small colony of Dutch houses and farms developed along the shore where water extended up to Phillip Street by the Liberty Science Center. In 1660 the first road connected the isolated hamlets of Communipaw with Bergen. In 1661 the first ferry to Manhattan was established. In the early 19th century Washington Irving visited Communipaw and noted the Dutch language and customs. His story “House of the Four Chimneys” is about the Van Horne house at Communipaw. The bay was filled in by the Jersey Central RR in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and a vast freight and industrial area was created. Inland, developers Keeney and Halladay laid out streets and lots, built mansions and marketed it as “Lafayette” a suburban community apart from noisy and crowded Jersey City. Tranquility did not last. By 1900 Lafayette businesses employed hundreds of workers. They included N.Y. Standard Watch Co., Whitlock Cordage, and American Type Founders, reportedly the world’s largest type foundry. Early 20th century African-American physicians George E. Cannon and Lena Edwards, important advocates for civil rights, lived and worked in Lafayette.
Marker is on Phillip Street, on the right when traveling west.
Courtesy hmdb.org
