Old Belleville N.J.

WHEREAS, based on the historic fact that in 1753, Josiah Hornblower, an English engineer and associate - and friend - of James Watt, set up the first functioning steam engine in the Western Hemisphere in Belleville, New Jersey, to pump water from the Schuyler copper mines, and

WHEREAS, some 40 years later, the first steam engine to be built in the Untied States of America was made in Belleville foundry, commissioned by Nicholas Roosevelt (great-uncle of both Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt) to power the first experimental steamboat in America, The Polaca, which negotiated the Passaic River on October 21, 1798, several years before Robert Fulton's Clermont sailed the Hudson; and

WHEREAS, since the invention of the steam engine is considered by historians to be the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and because the presence of Hornblower in Belleville brought to the town many of the creators of the American industry - including members of the Rutgers family, many of whom are buried in Belleville, in the cemetery of the old Dutch Reformed Church - we consider that Belleville has a rightful claim to the title Birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution; and

WHEREAS, these historic facts were gathered and correlated for their historical significance by the Belleville Times, official newspaper of Belleville Township; which first proposed the formal recognition of Belleville's place in history;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JIM FLORIO, Governor of the State of New Jersey, do hereby recognize

BELLEVILLE

New Jersey, as the Birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution, I urge the U.S. Congress to record the same honor to this New Jersey community.

GIVEN, under my hand and the Great Seal
of the State of New Jersey, this
twenty-fifth day of March in the
year of Our Lord one thousand nine
hundred ninety-two and of the
Independence of the United States,

Governor Jim Florio

Sources

State of New Jersey Executive Department

The Belleville Times, Aug. 13, 1992