Kilmer, Joyce (b. Dec. 6,1886; d. July 30, 1918). Poet, journalist, and soldier. Alfred Joyce Kilmer is best known for penning the lines "I think that I shall never see/A poem as lovely as a tree.” Born in New Brunswick to Frederick Barnett Kilmer, a chemist, and Annie Ellen Kilburn, a composer and minor poet, Kilmer felt a close affinity with the Irish community’s spirit and literature, and often spoke of himself as being half-Irish (although his own ancestry was principally English and German). Kilmer studied at Rutgers University and subsequently Columbia University. After graduating with an A.B. in 1908, he married Aline Murray, a poet and stepdaughter of Henry Mills Auden, Harper’s Monthly Magazine editor, and they had four children together. For immediate financial support, Kilmer taught Latin to high school students in Morristown.
Seeking work closer to New York’s literary scene, Kilmer began writing for magazines as a reviewer and editor. He worked on the Standard Dictionary between 1909 and 1912, preparing new definitions and revising current ones for the upcoming edition. During this period, Kilmer started writing poetry, culminating in his first book, Summer of Love (1911). In 1912, he became literary editor for Churchman, an Episcopalian magazine, and then with the New York Times in the Sunday magazine and book review divisions.
Joyce Kilmer enlisted in the army during World War I, where he rose to the rank of sergeant before being killed in 1918.
His immense success with "Trees” came in 1913. The poem was first published in the highly regarded Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, which was also publishing the work of Robert Frost and Ezra Pound. Generally regarded as excessively sentimental, "Trees” never won critical acclaim. Nevertheless, the public embraced Kilmer and his poetry. His renown was solidified with his second volume, Trees and Other Poems (1914), along with his numerous and lively journalistic essays, interviews, and poetry lectures. He later wrote The Circus and Other Essays (1916) and Literature in the Making, by Some of Its Makers (1917), a collection of interviews with famous writers of the era. Returning to verse in 1917, Kilmer published his last major collection, Main Street, and Other Poems.
In 1913, his daughter was stricken with infantile paralysis, which moved Kilmer to renounce his Episcopal faith. He became an ardent Catholic, writing "Easter Week” in support of the Irish Easter Week Rebellion of 1916, and "The Cathedral of Rheims.” Kilmer’s commitment to Catholicism can also be seen in The Courage of Enlightenment:An Address (1917) and Dreams andImages: An Anthology of Catholic Poets (1917), which he edited.
Stirred by the sinking of the Lusitania, Kilmer wrote the poem "The White Ships and the Red” for the New York Times, but he longed to support the U.S. war effort more directly. Too eager to undergo officer training, he enlisted as a private and quickly rose to the rank of sergeant in the 165th Infantry. While scouting for entrenched German machine gun nests near the Ourcq river in France, he was killed by a bullet to the head on July 30,1918. To reward his valor, Kilmer was buried alongside officers and was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government.
Kilpatrick, Hugh Judson (b. Jan. 14, 1836; d. Dec. 4, 1881). Soldier. Hugh Judson Kilpatrick was born near Deckertown and graduated from West Point in 1861. He was named lieutenant colonel of the Second New York Cavalry, and rose to brigadier general in June 1863. By the end of the Civil War in 1865 he was a full major general of volunteers, one of only two native-born New Jerseyans to reach that rank. Kilpatrick’s rapid rise in rank was due mostly to his native aggressiveness. He was nicknamed "Little Kil” and "Kill-Cavalry” because of the way his men wore out their horses. He was also reported to be a braggart and a womanizer. Kilpatrick was largely responsible for the attack that resulted in the death of Brig. Gen. Elon Farnsworth at Gettysburg, and then in February 1864 led a disastrous raid on Richmond that resulted in the death of Col. Ulric Dahlgren. In April 1864 Ulysses S. Grant sent him to William Tecum-seh Sherman’s army in Georgia for the rest of the war. Sherman said of him, "I know that Kil-patrick is a hell of a damned fool, but I want just that sort of man to command my cavalry.” After the war Kilpatrick embarked on a tumultuous career in politics. He died while serving as U.S. minister to Chile in 1881.
King’s College. In 1936 Percy Crawford (1902-1960) purchased property in Belmar for a Bible college and missionary training institute. King’s College formally opened its doors two years later. Crawford had emerged as one of the most innovative fundamentalist ministers and religious radio broadcasters of the 1930s. He led evangelistic youth rallies all along the East Coast, directed a teen conference center in the Poconos, and reached thousands through his Young People’s Church of the Air program. In 1941, for tax reasons, he moved King’s College to an estate outside of New Castle, Delaware.
Kingsley, Sidney (b. Oct. 22,1906; d. Mar. 20,1995). Playwright. Sidney Kingsley was born Sidney Kirshner in New York City, the son of Robert and Sophie Kirshner. He graduated from Cornell University in 1928 and married actress Madge Evans in 1939. His plays included the Pulitzer Prize-winning Men in White (1933), Dead End (1935), The Patriots (1943), Detective Story (1949), and Darkness at Noon (1951). He also worked briefly as a film scriptwriter. Appointed by Gov. Brendan T. Byrne, Kingsley served as the first chairman for the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission (1976-1980), which has been highly successful in attracting the film and television industries to New Jersey. Until his death, Kingsley owned an eighteenth-century home in Oakland, New Jersey.
Kingston. An unincorporated village bisected by the Old King’s Highway, now Route 27 Franklin Township (Somerset County) and South Brunswick Township (Middlesex County). Settled in 1683, the village became a crossroads for travel between Philadelphia and New York City due to its location on the Millstone River. During the American Revolution, troops led by George Washington marched through Kingston after the Battle of Princeton and later en route to the Battle of Monmouth. Construction of the Delaware and Raritan Canal in 1834 and a railroad spur from the main line brought increased commercial activity to the area. One of the first commercial uses of the telegraph was at Kingston. Lock number 8 is the halfway point on the forty-four-mile main Delaware and Raritan Canal. Today, the lock tender’s house and the telegraph-toll house stand on the towpath side of the canal near bridge number 16. A quarry began operation in 1872 and continues today. The Withington Estate (Heathcote Farm) Historic Site, Kingston Village Historic District, the Kingston Mill Historic District (Princeton Township), and the Lake Carnegie Historic District (Princeton Township) and Rockingham State Historic Site help preserve the village as rural residential.
Kingwood. 36-square-mile township in Hunterdon County bounded on the north by Alexandria Township, on the east by Franklin Township, the south by Delaware Township, and the west by the Delaware River. The civil history of Kingwood Township dates from 1749 when it was formed out of Bethlehem Township. In 1845 part of Kingwood was cut off to Franklin Township; again in 1876 a portion of the township was ceded to Milford Borough.
Early settlers included the Bray family, whose son, Daniel, led the effort to secure all of the Durham boats on the Delaware as far up as the Lehigh River in Pennsylvania for the famous crossing of the Delaware and subsequent victory for Gen. George Washington’s army at Trenton in 1776. Kingwood’s early colonial mills were located mainly in the Milltown section, which was along the scenic Lockatong Creek, an excellent millstream that races down the steep stone outcroppings to the Delaware River. Today Kingwood’s business ventures are mainly agricultural in nature. Farms and single-family residences predominate.
The 2000 population was 3,782 people; 98 percent of the residents is white. The 2000 median household income was $71,551.
Kinnan, Mary Lewis (b. Aug. 22,1763; d. Mar. 12, 1848). Indian captive. Mary Lewis was born in New Jersey just as the French and Indian War was ending. After her marriage she moved to the West Virginia frontier, where in 1791 she was taken captive by a Shawnee band. After her three years of captivity she wrote (in 1795) a brief account notable for its neutral, if not sympathetic, depiction of native lifestyle. Lewis drew parallels between the suffering of Native Americans and that of contemporary Christian women. In recent decades her story has been recognized as an early feminist statement, as well as an important contribution to narratives of captivity.
Kinnelon. 18.4-square-mile borough in Morris County. Kinnelon was set off from Pequannock Township in 1921. Located on the eastern rim of the Highlands and on the Pequannock River, it is mountainous, and, while heavily developed, it contains notable open spaces. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the iron industry was important, and included Charlotteburg Furnace. In 1883, the Kinney family established a large estate, Kinnelon, from which the town later took its name. In the early twentieth century the estate was transformed into a luxury real estate development, Smoke Rise, noted for its large, upscale homes. The development occupies a large portion of the township. Other lake communities, including Fayson Lakes, followed, along with considerable suburban growth after World War II. Today the borough is primarily a residential area for middle- and upper-income families. Among the borough’s open spaces are Silas Condict Park (265 acres) and Pyramid Mountain Natural Historical Area, which covers over 1,400 acres and includes two significant glacial erratics, Tripod Rock and Bear Rock.
In 2000, the population of 9,365 was 96 percent white. The median household income in 2000 was $105,991.
Kinsey, Alfred Charles (b. June 23, 1894; d. Aug. 25,1956). Entomologist and sex researcher. Alfred Charles Kinsey was born in Hoboken. His career as the most important collector of human sex histories was inspired by bitter memories of his troubled adolescence. He was the precocious son of Alfred Seguine Kinsey, a professor of engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology who insisted that his son follow his example in all things, and Sarah Ann Charles, whose submissive piety provided no relief from paternal domination. In revolt against his father’s worldview, Kinsey left New Jersey after his second year at Stevens to pursue a career in biology at Bowdoin College (B.A. 1916) and Harvard University (Ph.D. 1919). He became world famous as a professor at Indiana University by applying the research methods that he developed to study the evolution of gall wasps to the study of human sexual behavior. "The Kinsey Reports”—Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (i953)—challenged traditional religious values by documenting stark contrasts between human actions and professed values, and provided Kinsey with a bully pulpit to express his anger over the suffering caused by sexual repression. Kinsey married Clara McMillen, a graduate student in chemistry at Indiana University, on June 3, 1921. They had four children and enjoyed a successful partnership that helped to legitimize Kinsey’s research interests.
Dr. Charles J. Kipp.
Kipp, Charles John (b. Oct. 22, 1838; d. Jan. 13, 1911). Surgeon. Founder of the charitable Newark Eye and Ear Infirmary in 1880, Charles John Kipp was known as one of the foremost oculists in America, and a dexterous surgeon. Born in Germany, Kipp graduated from the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1861. He was a Civil War battlefield surgeon and medical director of the Freed-man’s Bureau of Indiana. He was president of many organizations, including the Society for the Relief of Widows and Orphans of Medical Men of New Jersey (1882), the Medical Society of New Jersey (1886), the American Oph-thalmological Society (1907), and the American Otolaryngological Society (1908). Kipp was instrumental in founding Babies’ Hospital in Newark (1869) and the New Jersey Sanatorium for Tuberculous Diseases at Glen Gardner that opened in 1907.
Kittatinny Region. The Kittatinny Region is part of the Valley and Ridge Province in northwestern New Jersey. Kittatinny Mountain is underlain by very resistant sandstone and conglomerate, and contains the highest point in the state (High Point, at 1,803 feet).
The thirty-six-mile-long ridge in New Jersey continues northward as Shawangunk Mountain in New York, and southward as Blue Mountain in Pennsylvania. Kittatinny Valley is ten to thirteen miles wide and is located between Kittatinny Mountain on the west and the New Jersey Highlands on the east. The valley is underlain by less-resistant shale and limestone. The region was glaciated and is noted for its scenic views, especially at the Delaware Water Gap.
Knights of Labor. The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor was founded in Philadelphia in 1869 by nine tailors who were former members of a local garment cutters’ association. Led by Uriah S. Stephens, the Knights of Labor began life as a secret organization but evolved into one of national significance, and in 1881 discarded its cloak of secrecy to better pursue its grand plan of building labor solidarity. The Knights, unlike many other labor organizations, welcomed all industrial workers, including women, African Americans, and even employers in what was to be a union of both skilled and unskilled workers; only lawyers, stockbrokers, bankers, doctors, professional gamblers, and liquor manufacturers were excluded. This sense of solidarity was reflected in its motto: "An injury to one is an injury to all.”
The Knights sought legislative and educational means to effect change and became a champion of the eight-hour workday, equal pay for the sexes, nationalization of the railroad and telegraph industries, the formation of cooperatives, creation of a national bureau of labor statistics, and the implementation of a graduated income tax. The organization was also a staunch opponent of child and convict labor. With regard to labor agitation, the Knights favored boycotts and arbitration over strikes, although its members conceded that strikes were sometimes necessary. Indeed, despite this tendency for compromise over confrontation, the Knights actively engaged in industrial action and won important labor victories in the 1880s. These successes included strikes against the Union Pacific in 1884 and the Wabash Railroad the following year. Under the leadership of Terence V. Powderly, the Knights reached the zenith of their popularity by 1886, when the organization claimed a total membership of 702,000.
New Jersey, with its strong industrial, immigrant, and urban character, figured prominently in the Knights’ history. In 1873 Trenton stonecutters organized one of the first Knights locals outside of Philadelphia, and thereafter the state’s industrial communities, including Newark, Paterson, and Trenton, were home to a number of union members. By 1887, the Knights of Labor included between 13 percent and 15 percent of manufacturing workers in the Garden State. Two events in 1886, however, marked a turn in the fortunes of the Knights: first, its failure in the Missouri Pacific strike; and second, its association (at least in the public’s mind) with the Haymarket riot in Chicago. The Knights lost significant prestige and the schism between inclusive unionism and craft unionism widened.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the cohesion and influence of the Knights had waned. Suffering from internal fac-tionalization, mismanagement, the loss of strikes, and growing competition from Samuel Gompers’s powerful craft union, the American Federation of Labor, the Knights’ membership shrank to just 100,000 in 1890. Within the next decade it faded from the landscape of American labor.
Despite its gradual disappearance, the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor succeeded in advancing the cause of labor in crucial ways both in New Jersey and on the national stage. It wielded substantial influence and, for a time, served as a real check to the power of industry in America’s Gilded Age. Most importantly, it fostered cohesion among vastly disparate groups of workers, and, in so doing, promoted a new vision of labor solidarity.
Knowlton. 25.40-square-mile semi-rural township in Warren County. Originally known as Knoll-Town because of the numerous limestone knolls or outcroppings scattered throughout the area, Knowlton was separated from Oxford Township in 1764. Major villages and settlements include Ramsayburg, Delaware or Delaware Station, Columbia, Hainsville (formerly Sodom), and Warrington.
Early settlers relied at first on ferries to get across the Delaware River to neighboring Pennsylvania and later on pedestrian, railroad, and highway bridges. The old covered bridge from Columbia to Portland, Pennsylvania, survived Delaware floods in 1903 and 1936 but succumbed in 1955, totally destroyed by the floodwaters of Hurricane Diane. The Warrington stone bridge is listed on the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places along with the octagon-shaped schoolhouse (in use between 1835 and 1874). The Delaware Post Office structure, built in 1854, is the oldest post office in New Jersey on its original site. The nineteenth-century cluster of mining villages in a rustic atmosphere prevail today; its citizens enjoy the simple country ambiance of yesteryear while earning their livelihood elsewhere. According to the year 2000 census the population of 2,977 was 97 percent white. The median household (2000) income was $63,409. For complete census figures, see chart, 133.
Know-Nothings. The origin of the popular name for individuals loosely united in opposition to immigration and Catholicism comes from a story told about the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner. When asked about their organization, members of this secret society would respond, "I know nothing.” In the 1840s and 1850s, at a time when the old party organizations were fragmenting under the pressure of the slavery issue, Know-Nothings generally belonged to fraternal organizations, such as the Order of United Americans, the Order of United American Mechanics, and the Order of Junior Mechanics. Politically, they constituted the American party, also known as the American Republican party, which had a branch in each of New Jersey’s counties by 1844. Like the party, the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner—a society so secret that its 1854 by-laws do not even mention its name—was dedicated to ensuring that only native-born Protestants were elected to office. A New Jerseyan, Charles Deshler of New Brunswick, served as national corresponding secretary.
The formation of the American party was a response to the tremendous increase in the number of foreign-born immigrants, particularly in cities of the Northeast. In New Jersey, where that number doubled between 1850 and i860, the immigrants were primarily Irish and German, and many of them were Catholic. An attack by Know-Nothings on Saint Mary’s Church in Elizabeth in the early 1850s was averted only by the quick thinking of the pastor. The September 5, i854, attack on Saint Mary’s Church in Newark was the result of conflict between members of the American party, who were parading in celebration of the anniversary of the first session of the Continental Congress, and workers from the Halsey and Taylor factory on Shipman Street, who were mostly Irish and German immigrants. Animosity had simmered since the previous March, when the three fire brigades closest to the factory had ignored an alarm there, allegedly because the brigades were essentially Protestant clubs. In the street, the hurling of taunts by the factory workers turned into rock throwing, and the marchers, whether on impulse or following a plan, attacked the church. At the end of the riot, the church lay in ruins, one Irishman was dead, and another lay mortally wounded.
The Know-Nothings enjoyed some political success in New Jersey. A member of the American party was elected to the state assembly in i845. By the fall of i853, a state council of the American party had been organized in New Jersey. In i855 Know-Nothing candidates won the mayorship of Trenton, a seat in the state senate, and six seats in the assembly. The political zenith of the Know-Nothings in New Jersey came in i856, when William A. Newell, a candidate of the "Opposition” party—composed of Republicans, former Whigs, and American party members, all opposed to the Democrats—was elected governor, and the party took four seats in the senate and fifteen in the assembly. In the i857 elections they took three senate seats. Soon after, the party fell into decline, and by 1860 it was extinct at the state and national levels.
Kollock, Shepard (b. Sept. 1750; d. July 28, 1839). Printer, soldier, and local official. Shepard Kollock was born in Lewes, Delaware, and learned the printer’s trade from his uncle William Goddard of Philadelphia. In i770 Kollock went to the West Indies for his health and worked there as a printer, but returned to America to serve in the army during the Revolutionary War, rising to first lieutenant. He married Susan Arnett in 1777 and together they had eight children. Kollock resigned from the military in i779 and opened a printing shop in Chatham. He began publishing the New Jersey Journal that year, espousing revolutionary fervor. He secured necessary cloth and other rag material to make paper from the army in nearby Morristown and subsequently maintained his own paper mill on the Rahway River. After the war he moved to New Brunswick and then Elizabeth, and for a time ran a satellite press in New York City. Many of Kollock’s imprints were religious in nature. He was active in his profession until i8i8. Kollock was an aide to two New Jersey governors, postmaster of Elizabeth from i820 to 1829, and a judge of the court of common pleas of Essex County for thirty-five years.
