Bayley, James Roosevelt To Becton Dickinson and Company (New Jersey)

Bayley, James Roosevelt (b. Aug. 3,1814; d. Oct. 3, 1877). Roman Catholic bishop and founder of Seton Hall University. James Roosevelt Bayley was born in Manhattan to a prominent New York physician, Guy Carleton Bayley, and Grace Roosevelt, a member of a venerable Dutch family. Raised an Episcopalian, Bayley entered Amherst College in 1831 but stayed only two years, graduating instead from Washington (now Trinity) College, Hartford, Connecticut, in 1835. He determined to study for the Episcopalian ministry and was ordained in October 1840. Within a year, however, he had resigned from the ministry, convinced that Christian truth lay with the Roman Catholic Church. He was received into the Roman Catholic Church in April 1842.

Bayley’s conversion and subsequent ordination to the Catholic priesthood (in March 1844) alienated his family. He rose rapidly within his new communion, however, and served as a professor of rhetoric and vice president of Saint John’s College (later Fordham University); a pastor on Staten Island; secretary to Bishop Hughes of New York; and editor of the Freeman’s Journal. In 1853 when the Diocese of Newark was created—covering the whole of New Jersey—Bayley was namedits first bishop.

Battleship New Jersey.


Battleship New Jersey.

Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley.

Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley.

Bayley’s bishopric came at a time of exceptional challenges and exceptional growth. He ministered during a severe recession and, of course, the Civil War. Bayley’s achievements, however, matched his challenges. In nineteen years he expanded the diocese from 33 to 113 churches, built dozens of schools, and established a seminary and college, Seton Hall, which he named in honor of his aunt, Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (later canonized the first U.S.-born saint). In July 1872, Bayley was named archbishop of Baltimore and served there until his death.

Bayonne. 5.39-square-mile city in Hudson County. Bayonne’s earliest settlement dates back to 1646, when the Dutch West India Company granted Jacob J. Roy, a constable (or chief gunner), a patent for land located in New York Harbor on the peninsula surrounded by Newark Bay, New York Bay, and Kill van Kull. It became known as Constable Hook, or "gunner’s point.” It developed slowly during British colonial rule as a trading post called Bergen Neck, the southernmost tip of the township of Bergen in Bergen County. Residents prospered in oystering and shad fishing. During the Revolutionary War, British forces secured Bergen Neck Fort, renaming it Fort Delancey.

In 1840 the peninsula’s four villages of Salterville (Pamrapo), Centreville, Constable Hook, and Bergen Point became part of newly formed Hudson County. Mansions with docks and boathouses graced the shoreline, and tourists vacationed at the La Tourette Hotel. In 1861 the villages united as the township of Bayonne. The name was derived from the Bay-onia real estate venture "on the bays,” halted due to the Civil War. It appears to have no connection with Bayonne, France. Having outgrown township governance, the City of Bay-onne was incorporated on March 10,1869.

During the Civil War the railroad brought dramatic changes to Bayonne. The Central Railroad of New Jersey connected Bayonne northward to the Jersey City Railroad Terminal and southward to Elizabeth via a drawbridge over Newark Bay. In 1866 the Jersey Central Railroad built the Port Johnston Coal Docks at Constable Hook. John D. Rockefeller bought the Prentice Oil Refining Company in 1877 to establish the Standard Oil Company. Soon an extensive pipeline connected several petroleum oil refineries at Constable Hook with out-of-state oil fields. Tide Water Oil Company, Texaco, Humble Oil, Gulf Refining Company, and other industries took hold of the once rural community, now called the "Peninsula of Industry.” Heavy immigration from southern and central Europe followed and transformed Bayonne into a working-class community of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds.

Industrialization and location made Bay-onne a war-production center during World War II. The Bayonne Naval Base outfitted warships and shipped supplies to U.S. overseas bases. Companies such as Babcock and Wilcox, General Cable, ELCO Boat Works, and Maid-enform participated in the war effort. The refineries supplied vital petroleum products to service war equipment. In 1967 the Military Ocean Terminal, a significant military and cargo facility, succeeded the naval base. It closed in September 1999, except for the Coast Guard operations.

Container port operations and service industries form the base of the city’s economy today. The community is a mix of predominantly one-family and two-family homes, with scattered small apartment buildings. The First Federated Church, the city’s oldest congregation, started in 1828, is on the National and State Registers of Historic Places. The Bay-onne Bridge, completed in 1931, is the city’s signature structure. The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Transit System, opened in April 2000, connects Bayonne with other communities in Hudson and Bergen counties.

In 2000, the population of 61,842 was 79 percent white, 6 percent black, 4 percent Asian, and 18 percent Hispanic (Hispanics may be of any race). The median household income in 2000 was $41,566. For complete census figures, see chart, 129.

Bayonne Bridge. A steel arch vehicular bridge connects Bayonne to the Port Richmond section of Staten Island, New York. The Bayonne Bridge was designed by the Swiss-born engineer Othmar H. Ammann for the Port of New York Authority and was dedicated on November 14,1931. The arch spans 1,675 feet over the Kill van Kull, which connects Upper New York Bay to Newark Bay. This busy waterway is part of the main shipping channel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Hackensack and Passaic rivers and the inland ports of Newark and Elizabeth. The bridge has a midspan clearance of 150 feet to allow unobstructed navigation for tall oceangoing vessels. Chief engineer Ammann used a high-strength manganese alloy for the main arch ribs and rivets—the first use of this alloy in bridge construction. The bridge received the Annual Award of Merit as the "Most Beautiful Steel Bridge, Class A” from the American Institute of Steel Construction in 1931.

Bayonne Naval Base. The Bayonne Naval Base in New York Harbor developed from a joint project between the city of Bayonne and Central District, Inc., in 1935 for a maritime terminal at Constable Hook, the east side of Bayonne’s peninsula. The result was a filled-in island, connected with the peninsula by a narrow causeway, and the dredging of a wider navigable channel in the harbor. Although the project failed financially in 1939, it gained the attention of the U.S. Navy, which wanted to use the site to complement shipbuilding at the nearby Brooklyn Navy Yard. In early 1941, due to mounting concerns over the war in Europe, the Third Naval District chose the terminal for its Atlantic coast location because of its railway connections, appropriate water depth, berthing space for warships, and potential for expansion. The navy took possession of the "made-land" 160-acre site, and it was commissioned as the U.S. Naval Supply Depot on June 30,1942.

During World War II, the naval base became the world’s largest dry dock and played a significant role in the nation’s global defense program. Expansion of the base involved the construction of twenty storehouses and a repair yard for damaged ships on 390 acres. As the northeastern distribution center for the navy, it supported the Atlantic Reserve Fleet and outfitted six to thirteen ships daily. Service personnel and war materials were transported to North Africa, England, the Caribbean, and stateside training stations. After V-E Day, 85 percent of its shipment of provisions went to the Pacific and the Seventh Fleet. The base became Bayonne’s largest employer, with 4,500 civilian personnel in various defense operations. Its presence also encouraged home-front activities such as a Navy Mothers Club, USO, and a successful war-bond fund drive in the city.

After World War II, the Naval Supply Operational Center opened at the naval base to provide supplies for the Military Sea Transportation Service of the navy. Operations again escalated during the Korean War; it shipped supplies from other installations and worked on the reactivation of ships of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, including the USS New Jersey, decommissioned there in 1948. The navy upgraded the facility to a modernized Naval Supply Center in 1959. Goldsborough Village, a nine-building complex, provided housing for military personnel. Another overhaul of the naval base included installation of an automated handling system for supplies, the Uniform Automatic Data Processing System, and Naval Supply Corps School.

In 1967 the U.S. Army took over the naval base, with a civilian staff of approximately twenty-five hundred, and renamed it the Military Ocean Terminal, Bayonne (MOTBY). It reported to the Eastern Area Military Traffic Management and Terminal Service. MOTBY’s initial mission was to ship goods to personnel at European military bases for the Department of Defense and to assume port operations after the closing of the Brooklyn Army Terminal. During the Vietnam War, it sent food and clothing to overseas American fleets, and it shipped equipment to the Middle East during Operation Desert Storm, 1990-1992.

The Defense Department closed MOTBY, except for the Coast Guard operation, in September 1999, and the now 432-acre property reverted to the city of Bayonne for redevelopment.

The A.J. Meerwald, New Jersey's official tall ship.

The A.J. Meerwald, New Jersey’s official tall ship.

The Bay way Refinery.

The Bay way Refinery.

Bayshore Discovery Project. Established in 1988 as the Delaware Bay Schooner Project, this nonprofit organization promulgates conservation of the environment and the history andculture of New Jersey’s Bayshore region. Located on the Delaware Bay, the project uses the A. J. Meerwald, designated New Jersey’s official tall ship in 1998, as a floating classroom to educate visitors. It sails from April to November, allowing the public to experience navigation on New Jersey’s waters. This 1928 schooner, made of New Jersey cedar and pine, is a restored relic from the area’s once-booming oyster industry. In 2002 the organization was renamed the Bayshore Discovery Project.

Bayway refinery. Officially known as Tosco Bayway Refining Company, this complex, now owned by Phillips Petroleum Company, was built by Standard Oil in 1909. The jungle of pipe, towers, stacks, columns, and catwalks, situated improbably on both sides of the New Jersey Turnpike in Linden, is staggering to behold. Nearly 700 miles of pipes snake around the 1,300-acre complex.

Bayway, one of six oil refineries in New Jersey, cranks out 100 million barrels—4.2 billion gallons—of product a year. This is where the American petrochemical industry began, in the early 1920s, with the refinery’s production of isopropyl alcohol. A staggering array of fuel and other products is made here, everything from gasoline—Bayway produces enough gasoline to supply half the state’s daily needs— to jet fuel (pumped directly to Newark, JFK, and La Guardia airports), diesel fuel, home heating oil, propane, and even chewing gum base.

Beach Haven. 0.98-square-mile borough on the southern end of Long Beach Island in Ocean County. Beach Haven was founded as a resort in 1874 by a group of wealthy Philadelphia sportsmen who had hunted and fished the area for two decades. Among them were railroad men who sought to increase business for the new Tuckerton Railroad, which had been built on the mainland in 1871. The sea air and the absence of plant pollen so relieved her symptoms of hay fever that the daughter of the railroad’s president, A. Pharo, suggested calling it Beach Heaven, but Pharo settled for Beach Haven. The resort grew rapidly after a railroad bridge across Mana-hawkin Bay was built to the island in 1886. Beach Haven became an independent borough in 1890. Known today as the "Queen City,” it is the largest community on the island, with a 1998 estimated permanent population of 1,505 swelling to 30,000 in the summer. It has one amusement park and several motels and bar restaurants, but it is predominantly residential, with a sizable historic district of vintage Victorian cottages, a museum, a public library, a public grade school, and numerous bed-and-breakfast establishments.

The 2000 population of 1,278 was 99 percent white. The median household income in 2000 was $48,355.

Beachwood. 2.76-square-mile borough fronting the southern bank of the Toms River in Ocean County. Beachwood’s name derives from the fact that in the nineteenth century the beach was a dumping ground for charcoal, which had been hauled over a mule-powered wooden railway from burning pits in Lakehurst. Traces of charcoal were still evident many years later on the blackened sandy feet of bathers. Beachwood’s founding was unique: lots were given away in a 1914 subscription drive by the New York Tribune, and a cluster of tents and summer cottages soon arose. Many of the people who came and eventually became permanent residents were Irish and German immigrants from New York City. Developers catered to prospective buyers by providing a community clubhouse, pier, bathhouse, and even a place for temporary lodging while houses were under construction.

Municipal status was approved and Beach-wood was incorporated in 1917 by a handful of voters. The population, only forty in 1920, grew sharply in the 1970s during the housing boom in Ocean County. To better serve the increased population, the original commission form of government was scrapped for a mayor-council system.

In 2000, the population of 10,375 was 96 percent white and the median household income was $59,022. For complete census figures, see chart, 129.

Beaver. Castor canadensis, often referred to as nature’s engineer, is North America’s largest rodent. Adults range in weight from thirty to over seventy pounds and can live for twenty years. Their thick fur varies from brownish black to yellowish brown. Beavers were important to Native Americans for fur and food, and are of historical significance because the quest for their pelts by trappers resulted in the exploration of much of the North American continent. Beavers are vegetarians and eat one to two pounds of bark, leaves, twigs, grasses, sedge, or roots each day. They stockpile caches of branches for food during the winter months. Beavers live in family groups or colonies, consisting of two adults and their young of the current and preceding years. Some build traditional lodges and others live in dens dug under stream banks. Beaver lodges, dams and associated ponds, fallen trees, and other signs of beaver habitation can be observed in many areas of the state, including undeveloped sections of Sussex County in northwestern New Jersey and Atlantic and lower Burlington Counties in the Pinelands region. Today, more than one thousand beavers occupy suitable habitat throughout New Jersey.

Beck, Henry Charlton (b. May 26,1902; d. Jan. 16, 1965). Author, journalist, and folklorist. Henry Charlton Beck was born in Philadelphia, the son of Henry C. Beck, Sr. and Jennie Walsh Beck. The family moved to Haddonfield in 1911, where Beck grew up and graduated from Haddonfield High School in 1920. While working at the Camden Courier-Post in the 1920s, he developed an interest in New Jersey legends and folklore. His first book on the subject was Forgotten Towns of Southern New Jersey, published in 1936, and followed by several others on South Jersey and other parts of the state written during the next quarter-century. Most are still in print. Beck helped organize the New Jersey Folklore Society in 1945. In 1948 he was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church.

Becton Dickinson and Company. Organized in New York City in 1897 by salesman Maxwell Wilbur Becton and Fairleigh Stanton Dickinson, the company established a manufacturing facility for producing thermometers and hypodermic needles and syringes. It was incorporated in East Rutherford in 1907. During World War I the firm produced all-glass syringes, a significant improvement over the metal ones of the day. It also developed the ACE ("all cotton elastic”) brand bandage. Other innovative products included the first insulin syringe, the modern stethoscope, and disposable blood collection systems.

After the founders died, the company continued to expand internationally. It broadened its product line with innovations in sterile disposable products and diagnostic medical equipment. It became a publicly held corporation in 1962 and was first listed as a Fortune 500 company in 1970. It moved into its present headquarters in Franklin Lakes in 1986. Today, the company, known as BD, comprises three core businesses: BD Medical Systems, manufacturing syringes, surgical blades, and other medical devices; BD Clinical Laboratory Solutions, focusing on blood collection and diagnostic equipment for hospitals and laboratories; and BD Biosciences, a leader in manufacturing equipment for use in molecular and life science analysis.

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