Bradley, Joseph (b. Mar. 14, 1813; d. Jan. 22, 1892). Attorney and U.S. Supreme Court justice. Born near Albany, New York, the eldest of twelve children, Joseph Bradley spent his early years as part of a typical, large, rural farm family, filled with "plowing… clearing land and burning wood… and peddling charcoal.” He abandoned his plans to become a grocer when a former teacher arranged for him to attend Rutgers College, from which he graduated in 1835. Described as "a desperately serious young man,” Bradley decided to study law, largely with himself as the instructor. Rigorous in his preparation, he studied admiralty and Roman law, as well as the origins and contents of British common law. He passed the bar in 1839, and for the next thirty years centered his life and legal career in Newark.
Joseph Bradley.
He married Mary Horn blower, the daughter of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s chief justice, worked as an actuary and legislative correspondent, and slowly built up a successful law practice by specializing in patent, corporate, and commercial law. As was true of Abraham Lincoln and many other members of the newly formed Republican party, Bradley saw no inconsistency in supporting the demise of slavery and the survival of the federal Union, while at the same time contemplating little change in racial attitudes toward blacks.
By 1869-1870, Bradley had gathered support from a broad spectrum of state politicians for nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Although not one of U. S. Grant’s original choices for the two seats open in 1869, the president ultimately appointed him in February 1870. He served for almost twenty-two years.
Bradley had one of the strongest intellects on the Court. He brought added strength to his decisions through practical experience in the business world and his interests in math, natural science, and philosophy. But he was equally at home exploring the commerce clause, expounding on a fair rate of return for a railroad, or discussing the incredibly intricate issues of patent litigation, an area on which he often spoke for the Court.
Bradley was an outstanding technician of the law, but in areas such as civil rights (areas that now seem more important than interstate commerce), with his own understandable but still unfortunate biases against women and blacks, on occasion he was unable to transcend the limits of his own time, something that a truly great jurist must be able to do. See, for example, his opinions in Bradwell v.Illinois (1873), or his decision for the Court in the Civil Rights cases (1883). On the other hand, in Boyd v. United States, Bradley explored the scope of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution, arguing that "illegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing… by slight deviations from legal modes of procedure….It is the duty of courts to be watchful for the constitutional rights of the citizen, and against any stealthy encroachments thereon.”
The second New Jersey resident to sit on the High Court, upon his death, Bradley was accurately described as "a man of profound and varied learning, legal acumen, and moral rectitude.” Whether that is sufficient to make him great depends on the perspective each generation takes on its legal past.
Bradley Beach. 1. o-square-mile borough located between Ocean Grove and Avon-by-the-Sea in Monmouth County. In 1870 William Bradner and James A. Bradley purchased the seventy-four-acre Brown farm located south of Duck Pond (now Fletcher Lake). This purchase formed the nucleus of a community named in honor of Bradley, the founder of Asbury Park. Incorporated as a borough in 1893 when it separated from Neptune Township, Bradley Beach was further enlarged in 1908, when a special local election annexed a small eastern portion of Neptune City.
As with other self-contained Shore communities, the beach is one of the major attractions for summer tourists. Bradley Beach has the reported distinction of having been, in the late 1920s, the first resort in the nation to charge admission to fenced-in public beaches. Recent neighborhood renovations include the replacement of the wooden boardwalk with bricks, the construction of a Victorian-style band gazebo, and the restoration of an art deco water fountain. Other changes include Victorian streetlights and sidewalk bricks on Main Street and a refurbishing of the Borough Square.
The borough has a mix of single-family houses, townhouses, and apartment complexes, with commercial and service buildings along State Highway 71. There are 3,132 housing units in the borough, with 835 (26.7 percent) of them available for seasonal use. In 2000, the population of 4,793 was 88 percent white and 13 percent Hispanic (Hispanics may be of any race). The median household income in 2000
Brainerd, David (b. Apr. 20, 1718; d. Oct. 9, 1747) and John Brainerd (b. Feb. 28,1720; d. Mar. 18, 1781). Presbyterian clergymen and Indian missionaries. David and John were born in Haddam, Connecticut, to Hezekiah and Dorothy Brainerd. They were orphaned in their teenage years. In 1739 David enrolled at Yale College and was an active campus proponent of the evangelical spirit associated with the widespread revival known as the First Great Awakening. He was eventually expelled from the college for reputedly saying that a tutor had "no more grace than a chair.” David was eventually ordained by the Presbytery of New York and appointed as a missionary of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SSPCK). He ministered to American Indians in several states, but his greatest achievement occurred in a community of Delaware Indians at Cross week sung (Crosswicks), New Jersey. He led a religious revival there and baptized thirty-eight converts with whom he formed a community of Christians at Bethel, near Cranbury. David’s journal, which described his activities among the Indians, was published in 1746 by his colleague and mentor, the Rev. Jonathan Edwards of Northampton, Massachusetts. One year later, he died of complications related to tuberculosis.
John Brainerd, a 1746 graduate of Yale, continued his brother’s ministry. He served as an SSPCK-appointed missionary to the Indians who resided on the newly formed Brotherton reservation in Burlington County. He preached regularly in Presbyterian churches throughout the state, served as a chaplain in the Seven Years’ War, and settled down as the minister of the Deerfield (New Jersey) Presbyterian Church, where he remained until his death.
Branchburg. 20.2-square-mile township in Somerset County. Bounded on three sides by the North and South branches of the Rari-tan River (whence its name), Branchburg was settled by the Dutch about 1700. It remained part of Bridgewater Township until April 5, 1845. Early communities in the township date back to the 1800s. North Branch was laid out in 1844; the Dutch Reformed Church dates from 1827. Neshanic Station, another early attempt at municipal planning, dates from the 1870s. Across the South Branch from Neshanic in Hillsborough Township, Neshanic Station was a depot on the Central and Lehigh Valley railroads, which built passenger and freight stations there in the late nineteenth century. Half the village burned to the ground in a 1910 fire. An unusual parabolic truss bridge at Elm Street, built in 1896, is one of only two in the state. Still semirural after decades of development, Branchburg is home to Raritan Valley Community College, a two-year college in North Branch. Farms stand cheek by jowl with housing developments and industrial parks astride the Raritan Valley Line of New Jersey Transit.
In 2000, the population of 14,566 was 90 percent white. The median household income in 2000 was $96,864. For complete census figures, see chart, 130.
Branchville. 0.6-square-mile borough in western Sussex County. Branchville was set off from Frankford Township in 1898. Located on Culver Brook, a branch of the Paulinskill, by the early nineteenth century it became an important milling center for the surrounding agricultural district. Mills processed lumber, wool, and grain. The Sussex Railroad reached the village in 1869, which led to the construction of creameries. In 1893, one of the first hydroelectric generating plants in the state was constructed here; the plant now serves as an antiques shop. The Garris Center, operated by the Culver Brook Restoration Foundation, is a local museum and theater. Culver’s Lake, to the west, was a notable nineteenth-century summer resort and is now a major lake community.
In 2000, the population of 845 was 98 percent white. The median household income in 2000 was $45,855. For complete census figures, see chart, 130.
Brandle, Theodore (b.1884; d. 1949). Labor leader. Once the czar of construction labor in northern New Jersey, Theodore Brandle achieved his share of successes in union organizing and a great deal of unwelcome notoriety. He playeda significant part in the development of downtown Jersey City, especially the Journal Square area, and in the building of the Pulaski Skyway. Brandle was a close friend and political ally of Jersey City’s mayor Frank Hague and owed much of his career to Hague’s patronage. In the end, however, Hague deserted Brandle.
Brandle was an ironworker in 1920, and because of his connections he rose quickly to become the business agent of Jersey City’s Iron Workers Local. In 1928 he was made president of the Iron League of New Jersey (an employers and manufacturers group) and simultaneously served as president of the New Jersey State Building Trades Council (NJSBTC). His involvement on both the employee and employer sides of the construction business was tailor-made for the charges of collusion that eventually led to his downfall. In 1932 Brandle was convicted of income tax fraud, among other charges, which led to a steady decline in his fortunes. Hague repudiated him, and the Iron Workers Union ousted him from its membership. He was also forced to resign from the NJSBTC. Although he vowed a comeback, his career was essentially finished by the mid-1930s.
Robert C. Nelson Brattain, Walter H. (b. Feb. 10, 1902; d.Oct. 13,1987). Physicist and inventor. Walter H. Brattain was born in Amoy, China, the son of Ross R. and Ottilie Houser Brattain. He received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1928. Brattain joined Bell Labs in 1929 and transferred to its new Murray Hill campus in 1944. Together with John Bardeen and William Shockley, Brattain invented the transistor, the fundamental device underlying all modern solid-state electronics, in 1947. The three men shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956.
Brearly, David (b. June 11, 1745; d. Aug. 16, 1790). Lawyer, Revolutionary War officer, and chief justice of New Jersey. David Brearly was the son of David Brearly, Sr., who farmed near Trenton, and Mary Clark. His early educational path is unknown. Upon completing legal studies, Brearly practiced in Allentown. He was appointed Monmouth County surrogate in 1768 and 1771.
Brearly entered active militia service as a captain on October 28, 1775, and rose to the rank of colonel in less than a year. He joined the New Jersey Brigade of the Continental Army, was commissioned lieutenant colonel on November 28, 1776, and fought in the battles and skirmishes of the New Jersey-Pennsylvania campaigns of 1777-1778; he also served with his brigade in the Sullivan Indian expedition of 1779.
Brearly resigned from the army on August 4, 1779, after the state legislature elected him chief justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey earlier that summer. He lost an election for governor the following year. As chief justice, Brearly delivered the court’s opinion in Holmes v. Walton (1780) that overturned New Jersey laws requiring six-man juries on grounds that such laws contradicted the state constitution, which required jury trials, and state tradition, which held that there should be twelve jurymen. The case established the important precedent of judicial review, that organic law is superior to statute law, and influenced the shaping of U.S. constitutional law.
A delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Brearly helped to sponsor the New Jersey Plan; he opposed proportionate representation. He chaired the committee on postponed matters and overall had a moderating influence on the convention. He served as a boundary commissioner and a presidential elector. He died shortly after assuming an appointment to the U.S. District Court for New Jersey.
Brecht, George (b. 1926). Artist. New York City-born George Brecht is considered by many to be the father of American Conceptual art. While working as a chemist at Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick and living in nearby Metuchen, he attended John Cage’s course in musical composition at the New School of Social Research. There, he conceived compositions to be performed by chance using automobiles (Motor Vehicle Sundown Event, 1959) and radios (Candle Piece for Radios, 1959) as instruments. These compositions were printed on cards, which Brecht mailed to friends and acquaintances with no explanation. Some recipients collected the cards, others executed the performances using personal interpretations. Also in the late 1950s, Brecht made interactive artworks that were games: boxes with compartments filled with small, commonplace found objects that viewers could rearrange and even remove, and game cards on which the viewer made up the rules. In 1962-1963, George Maciunus appropriated many of Brecht’s ideas about art when he founded and named Fluxus—an art movement dedicated to deemphasizing art as a fine object and making it more conceptual and a function of everyday living. Brecht currently lives in Cologne, Germany.
Brendan T. Byrne State Forest.Originally known as Lebanon State Forest, the forest was renamed in honor of former governor Byrne in 2002. This 34,644-acre state forest in Burlington County surrounds the site of the former Lebanon Glass Works. Established in 1851, the Glass Works was once a thriving industrial complex. It was abandoned in 1867 after the surrounding forest (used to fuel the furnace) was depleted. State acquisition of the land began in 1908, and many of the evergreen stands that remain today were planted during the Great Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Also within the forest is Whites bog Village, a former cranberry- and blueberry-producing company town founded in the 1870s. Once one of the biggest cranberry farms in the state, Whites bog was the birthplace of the commercial high bush blueberry.
Brennan, William J., Jr. (b. Apr. 25,1906; d. July 24, 1997). Attorney, justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, and U.S. Supreme Court justice. An Irish emigrant, William J. Brennan’s father became an activist for organized labor in his adopted city of Newark, where later he was repeatedly elected to that city’s highest governing board. He encouraged his eldest son to gain a college education, and in 1928 Brennan graduated from the Wharton School. Three years later, having had to rely on both odd jobs and a scholarship to acquire the necessary funds, he received a degree from Harvard Law School. Although his father died before Brennan completed law school, he had passed on to his son a strong sense of fairness as well as an abiding commitment to human dignity. Both traits would dominate Justice Brennan’s jurisprudence.
As a young attorney, Brennan joined one of the more prominent Newark law firms, Pitney, Hardin, and Skinner. Within seven years (1938) he had become a partner in the firm. During World War II, he served in the army and specialized in resolution of labor issues that resulted from the transformation to a wartime production economy. Upon his return to Newark, Brennan became a name partner in his law firm, just in time to join in supporting the efforts for constitutional reform that culminated in the adoption of New Jersey’s third—and still current—constitution.
By 1949, in spite of being a staunch Democrat, Brennan was appointed to a newly transformed Superior Court by Gov. Alfred Driscoll.
As a judge, Brennan worked with the new chief justice of New Jersey, Alfred Vanderbilt. Indeed, he became a trusted associate of this well-known jurist, and after just one year on the bench, Brennan was elevated to the appellate division. By 1951, again with Vanderbilt’s enthusiastic support, Brennan had joined him as a member of the state supreme court. Although Brennan occasionally disagreed with his chief, his considerable human warmth and personal charm always prevented any rupture between them. In 1956 President Dwight D. Eisenhower indicated that he wanted to select a Democrat, preferably one on a state’s highest court, as well as a Roman Catholic to the U.S. Supreme Court. Brennan, who had already come to the attention of the Justice Department, was the candidate from the right party with the right background at the right time. Appointed by President Eisenhower in October 1956, he finally received Senate confirmation in March 1957. "I suspect,” observed New Jersey governor Robert Meyner who, like Vanderbilt, strongly supported Brennan’s appointment, that "his opinions will not be quite as middle of the road as some Republicans seem to think.” Brennan served on the High Court for more than thirty-four years, and his judicial output well demonstrated the accuracy of Meyner’s prediction. With remarkable consistency, he interpreted the Constitution as a charter reflecting the "sparkling vision of the human dignity of every individual.” Perhaps his chief and dear friend Earl Warren best described New Jersey’s greatest contribution to the U.S. Supreme Court when he noted that Brennan’s "belief in the dignity of human beings—all human beings—is unbounded. He also believes that without such dignity men cannot be free.”
Bresci, Gaetano (b. Nov. 24, 1869; d. May 22,1901). Silk mill worker and anarchist. Born in Coiano, a village in Tuscany, Gaetano Bresci, at age eleven, was apprenticed to a silk textile mill in nearby Prato where rapid industrialization had transformed cottage artisans into a turbulent proletariat. Many of these workers espoused anarchism, earning the enmity of the increasingly repressive Italian state. Bresci, too, was drawn to the ideology.
In 1895 he was arrested in a sweep of anarchists and imprisoned without a trial. After his release in 1896, he found no lasting employment and emigrated to Paterson, New Jersey, arriving on January 29, 1898. Paterson was no random choice. As the largest producer of silk textiles in the United States, it harbored many Italian immigrants, and anarchists, among its polyglot workforce. About 350 to 500 Italians were dues-paying members of several anarchist clubs. The largest was the Societa per il Diritto all ‘Esistenza (Society for the Right to Existence). It published a newspaper, and its members debated, sometimes bitterly, how to achieve a society regulated only by humanity’s unfettered goodness. The moderates backed a policy of persuasion, but a violent minority believed only in the gun: Italian anarchists between 1894 and 1898 assassinated three European heads of state.
Bresci found work at the Hamil and Booth silk mill, for $14 a week, and he took a room at Bertoldi’s Hotel, on Straight Street, for eighty cents a day, full board. A week later he joined the Society for the Right to Existence. Bresci was a handsome man, always elegantly dressed. By June 1898 he was living with Sophie Knieland (or Neil). Their daughter, Maddalena, was born in March 1899.
His seemed the ideal immigrant experience, but inwardly he nursed a mounting anger. In May 1898 Gen. Bava Beccaris had ordered his troops in Milan to fire upon a peaceful workers’ demonstration, killing 80 and wounding 450. When the king decorated Beccaris for his action, Bresci decided on revenge. He withdrew from anarchist activities, bought a gun, and practiced firing it. He departed for Italy on May 17,1900, and by July 29 he was in the city of Monza, where King Um-berto was to attend an athletic competition in the city stadium. That afternoon, when the king’s carriage approached the grandstand, Bresci dashed forth and shot him dead. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on August 29, 1900. On May 22, 1901, he was found dead in his cell, an apparent suicide.
Clearly, Bresci’s activities in Paterson left little mark in New Jersey history. His bold, quixotic act was the high point of the anarchist movement in Paterson, and also its death knell. Anarchism withered away, its adherents clinging to outdated memories of exclusion in Italy, where, in fact, by 1900 leftist parties had gained 95 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. In Paterson, the anarchists were isolated by language and philosophy from American workers who were embracing unionism, not a utopian transformation of society.
Brewer, Prosper (b. Jan. 3,1897; d. 1981).Politician, labor leader, detective. Prosper Brewer was the first African American ward chairman in Newark. In 1917, in response to the exclusion of blacks from organized labor, he led a strike of black dockworkers at Port Newark that ended with a wage increase. Later a detective in the Essex County prosecutor’s office in Newark, Brewer served as the powerful chairman of the Republican Third Ward Club from 1941 to 1951.
Breweries. The earliest breweries in New Jersey were established by the Dutch in the 1600s. During the colonial era ale, porter, and stout were imported from Britain, but malt liquor was produced locally to save the cost of transatlantic transport. Colonial mansions often incorporated brew houses within their compounds. Cider and applejack were produced as agricultural products by cider mills throughout the countryside, and Newark became a producer of both as well. The Newark brewery of John N. Cumming, established in 1805 andtaken over in 1831 by Thomas Morton, was subsequently bought out by the Scottish malt seller Peter Ballantine, together with Erastus Paterson, in 1840. Ballantine, who was born in Ayrshire, had moved to Newark from Albany, New York, where he had established a brewery in 1833. The plant was relocated along the Passaic River at Front Street in 1850, and became P. Ballantine and Son in 1857. After Prohibition, the Ballantine brewery was sold to Badenhausen Brothers, who kept the Ballantine name and concentrated on producing light ale—one million barrels per year.
The influx of German immigrants into Newark, Jersey City, and Hoboken by the middle of the nineteenth century increased the demand for beer of fine quality and variety. Several German immigrants established breweries in Newark. In addition to P. Ballantine and Son, numbering among the five largest breweries were those of Joseph Hensler, who began working for Lorenz and Jacquillard in 1850 and founded his own brewery in i860; Christian Feigenspan, who founded a brewery in i875 and was the originator of the trademark initials "P.O.N.,” or "Pride of Newark”; Gottfried Krueger (whose brewery became the first to market beer in aluminum cans in June 1935); and the Keidermeyer Brewery. By i943, Ballantine had absorbed the Feigenspan brewery.
Outside of Newark, the Peter Breidt City Brewery occupied a plant built in 1885 on Pearl Street in Elizabeth, which produced beer, ale, andporter. In Hudson County, many breweries were located along the Palisades ridge in Jersey City Heights, overlooking Hoboken, where beer gardens were plentiful. The William Peter Brewery Company in Union City, built in i887, replaced the former Peter’s Palisade Brewery, by i883 the largest brewer of lager beer in the area. It encompassed six buildings, including the i887 brewhouse, a two-story refrigeration building, two stockhouses, a bottling department, and stables. Also part of the complex were workers’ dwellings and a plant supervisor’s house. During the years of national Prohibition (1919-1933), this and other breweries that were able to remain in business sustained themselves by making 3-2 beer (3.2 percent alcohol) as well as other, nonalcoholic beverages.
Beer was traditionally sold on draught from barrels, delivered by horse-drawn carts, and later on trucks, when it was packaged in bottles and cans. The brewing industry in New Jersey had a distinctly German cultural influence, with the proceedings of the trade association conducted in German for many years, and beer gardens flourishing, especially in the Hudson County area. New Jersey’s output of malt liquors rose steadily, as the following figures indicate: from a value of $1,425,000 in i860 to $4,502,000 in 1880, $14,386,00 in 1900, $20,184,000 in 1910, to $26,148,000 on the eve of Prohibition. It had become the fourth-largest industry in Newark, and made New Jersey’s the seventh-largest output in the nation.
By 1951, when Anheuser-Busch opened a brewery in Newark, many of the city’s breweries had gone out of business. Three decades later there were only three major breweries in the state: Anheuser-Busch, Rheingold, and Pabst. This triumvirate, however, was short lived. In 1982 the Rheingold Brewery in Orange closed down, followed one year later by the Pabst Brewery in Newark. The Anheuser-Busch plant is still active today, producing ten million barrels of beer ayear, including Budweiser and Bud Lite, the two most popular beers in the United States.
In the 1990s, microbreweries (breweries producing fewer than i5,000 barrels of beer annually) and brewpubs (restaurants or bars brewing beer for their patrons’ consumption) began to appear throughout the state. Today New Jersey has over a dozen brewpubs and about half a dozen microbreweries.
Brick. 26.4-square-mile township in Ocean County. The early history of Brick dates back to the American Indians who camped along the shores of the Manasquan and Metedeconk rivers, Barnegat Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean. Attracted by the virgin woodlands, the first European settlers arrived around 1742 to develop the charcoal and iron industries as well as commercial centers. On February 15, 1850, the New Jersey state legislature created Brick
Township from sections of Howell and Dover townships. It is named for Joseph W. Brick, owner of Bergen Iron Works. The township was then sparsely populated and made up of several small villages, with an economy based on agriculture, fishing, and commerce. In the i900s land developers arrived and created resort communities like Riviera Beach, Breton Woods, Shore Acres, and Normandy Beach. Today Brick Township is a bedroom community and commercial center. There are fifty-three miles of waterfront property including three ocean beaches, a river beach, several private community beaches, and twenty-six marinas supporting a resort industry.
In 2000, the population of 76,119 was 96 percent white. The median household income in 2000 was $52,092.
Brick making. Brick was first produced in New Jersey in the late seventeenth century. Woodbridge and Burlington were two early centers for its manufacture. Although many colonial brick houses in New Jersey are said to be made from Dutch or English brick imported to the colonies, this is generally unsubstantiated. In the eighteenth century, southwestern New Jersey was home to an unusual brick-building tradition. Prominent local Quakers built patterned brick houses, which sported gable ends decorated with glazed brick, sometimes recording the initials of the couple who built the house or the year it was completed.
New Jersey manufacturers made all major varieties of brick: common, face, enameled, glazed, firebrick, and paving. Clays suitable for the manufacture of brick are found at many locations in the state. Nineteen of twenty-one counties had brickworks in i9i2. Major centers of brick production included Little Ferry, Sayreville, South River, Trenton, and Woodbridge. In the first decade of the twentieth century, there were over ninety brick manufacturers in the state. The largest producer was the Sayre and Fisher Company, established in i850. The Sayre and Fisher plant, located in Sayreville, ran along two miles of the Rari-tan River. It remained in operation until i970 and at its height produced 62 million bricks per year. Suburbanization and rising property values led to the demise of New Jersey’s brick-making industry in the mid-twentieth century.
