In the year 1879, Jersey City was a much different place than the Jersey City of today. The origins of Jersey City began in the 1600's, as small farmsteads that dotted the coastline among the sea grass.
During the American Revolutionary War, the area was in the hands of the British who controlled New York. After the war, Alexander Hamilton and other prominent New Yorkers attempted to develop the area, until shortly after the Civil War, the idea of uniting all of the towns of Hudson County east of the Hackensack River into one municipality was formed.
The consolidation began on March 17, 1870 and three years later the present outline of Jersey City was completed.
After the consolidation, Jersey City began it's rapid ascension to one of the leading cities of transportation and manufacturing with the construction of the New Jersey Railroad and Transportation terminal in 1859, which included the railroad terminal, docks, ferry houses, and piers.
Above: A drawing of Jersey City in 1870. The industrial revolution would radically change the city from a small township into a leading city of commerce in the years that followed.
In the late 1880's, three passenger railroad terminals opened in Jersey City next to the Hudson River, and tens of millions of immigrants passed through these stations as they made their way westward from Ellis Island into the United States.
The railroads transformed the geography of the city by creating several large freight rail yards, and these railroads would become the largest employer in Jersey City for the next fifty years.
Beginning in the 1870's large groups of German, Irish, and Italian immigrants found work at Colgate, the American Sugar Refinery or Dixon Ticonderoga manufacturing plants, and this trend would continue until the close of the Second World War.
More to come...