Cohanzick Zoo. Founded in 1934 and located in Bridgeton, Cohanzick Zoo is the oldest zoo in New Jersey and the only one municipally owned. Citizens started the zoo because they wanted to exhibit their own herd of deer, which were wandering through the city. It has grown to include more than two hundred birds and animals. Named for the Cohanzick Indians who once lived in the area, the zoo is situated in a natural setting in Bridgeton’s 1,100-acre city park with the Cohansey River winding through its paved pathways.
The zoo was greatly expanded during the 1970s and 1980s with the addition of bears, lions, primates, and zebras. A walk-through aviary and exhibits of North and South American animals were added during the mid-1990s. A primate complex and educational center were added in 2002. Reindeer, white tigers, peregrine falcons, golden eagles, Asiatic bears, white-headed gibbons, and a coat-imundi are some of the featured animals. Two cougar cubs were acquired for a new habitat.
Dr. Henry L. Coit at one of the "Baby Keep Well” stations he established to encourage mothers to bring healthy babies for periodic checkups, Newark.
Cohen, Julius Henry (b. 1873; d. Oct. 3,1950). Lawyer and counsel for the Port Authority. Julius Cohen was the son of Henry and Elizabeth Wolf Cohen. He graduated from New York University in 1895 and was admitted to the bar a year later. In 1917 he was made counsel to the New York-New Jersey Harbor Development Commission. The lack of cooperation between New York and New Jersey was hurting the business community, which urged Cohen to find a way to develop a unified port. Cohen conceived and wrote the legislation that led in 1921 to the formation of the Port of New York Authority, the first interstate agency created under a clause of the Constitution permitting compacts between the states. Its area of jurisdiction was the "Port District,”a bistate region of fifteen hundred square miles centered on the Statue of Liberty. The authority could buy, build, lease, or operate transportation facilities in the region, including bridges, tunnels, seaports, and airports. It was allowed to issue bonds or charge user fees, but could not tax or pledge either state’s credit. Later, Cohen designed and defended the bond indentures of the agency, which enabled its work to be done.
Coit, Henry Leber (b. Mar. 16,1854; d. Mar.16,1917). Pediatrician and public health advocate. Born in Peapack, Henry Coit was the son of John Summerfield Coit and Ellen Neafie. In 1876 he graduated from the College of Pharmacy in New York, and in 1886 he received his M.D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons (associated with Columbia University). Also in 1886 he married Emma Gwinnel of Newark, with whom he had five children. The death of his youngest son prompted him to specialize in the new field of pediatrics. In 1892 he began a crusade to require that milk meet higher standards of purity. In 1896, with the aid of Newark citizens, he founded the Babies Hospital of Newark, and in 1910 he became the organizer and first president of the New Jersey Pediatric Society. In 1953 the American Public Health Association honored Coit by naming him to their Master List of Pioneers of Public Health for his contributions to the improvement of milk sanitation. The Henry L. Coit Papers are in the National Library of Medicine in Maryland.
Colby, Everett (b. Dec. 10, 1874; d. June 19, 1943). Lawyer, political reformer, andbusiness-man. Everett Colby was born in Milwaukee and educated at the Browning School, Brown University, and New York Law School. Admitted to the bar, he practiced in New Jersey, and became active in Essex County politics. In 1905 he was elected to the state assembly, where he served three years. Refused a party nomination to the state senate because of his independence, Colby fought a public campaign for the nomination and won it and then the office. His action stimulated the "New Idea” movement (for progressive reforms) in the GOP, which induced a similar reform strain in the Democratic party; the two developments paved the way for the election of Woodrow Wilson as governor. In the senate Colby supported Wilson’s reform legislation of 1911, and in 1912 he went with Theodore Roosevelt and the Bull Moose party. In 1913 he campaigned unsuccessfully for governor on the Bull Moose ticket.
Cole, Archer (b. 1917; d. June 18, 1994).Labor leader and political activist. The son of a Brooklyn furrier, Archer Cole devoted fifty years to New Jersey’s labor movement. He attended Brooklyn public schools and graduated from City College in 1941. Cole’s progressive political orientation led him into the leftist United Electrical Workers of America (UE) in the late 1930s. He held several UE posts—shop steward, business representative, and organization director for New Jersey—during the 1940s. Cole later married Phyllis Salvato and moved to Roselle, New Jersey.
Cole joined the International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE) in 1956 after the merger of UE District 4 with the IUE. He was blacklisted by then IUE President Jim Carey for refusing to incriminate UE members at the House of Un-American Activities Committee hearings held in Newark in 1956. Returning to the IUE in 1969, Cole served as international representative, secretary-treasurer, and president of IUE District 3 from 1970 to 1984. He was appointed to Gov. Brendan Byrne’s Economic Recovery Commission in 1977 and framed New Jersey’s Unemployment Insurance Improvement Act of 1984. Cole also taught courses on labor at Rutgers University. In 1982 Cole was appointed IUE director of organization. From 1984 to 1994 Cole was the president of the 200,000-member New Jersey Industrial Union Council.
Postcard showing the Colgate-Palmolive building in Jersey City, c. 1920.
Cole, Schotz, Meisel, Forman, and Leonard. This law firm was founded in 1928 by David Cole, noted labor arbitrator and mediator, and Mendon Morrill, one of New Jersey’s foremost trial attorneys. Today Cole Schotz has a staff of eighty-five lawyers and ranks among the largest firms in the state. Founding member David Cole served as director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and counseled every president from Harry S Truman to Gerald R. Ford regarding national labor issues. Cofounder Mendon Morrill served as a judge of the U.S. District Court. Former partner Leonard I. Garth also served on the U.S. District Court and currently serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The firm’s national client base consists of private, public, and not-for-profit corporations, including Fortune 500 companies as well as partnerships and individuals. Having grown in size and diversity of practice in order to meet the changing needs of its clients, the firm is now organized into nine major departments: bankruptcy, corporate, corporate finance, employment, environmental, health care, litigation, real estate, and tax and estate planning.
Colgate, William (b. Jan. 25,1783; d. Mar. 25, 1857). Manufacturer and philanthropist. William Colgate was born in England, the son of Robert and Sarah (Bowles). The family emigrated to the United States, where he married Mary Gilbert in 1811; they had three children. Colgate learned soap and candle making, starting his own company in New York City in 1806. In 1820, he moved the company to Jersey City. It survives today as Colgate-Palmolive, a $9 billion household, oral, and personal care company with research and development facilities located in Piscataway and Morristown. Colgate, whose innovations transformed the soap industry, was a philanthropist and a devout Baptist, donating a tenth of his earnings to his church.
Colgate-Palmolive. Founded in New York City in 1806 by William Colgate, the household products manufacturing firm originally produced soap, starch, and candles at a factory on Dutch Street. In 1820 the firm, then known as William Colgate and Company, expanded its manufacturing operation to Paulus Hook (now Jersey City). This facility, one of the largest of its type in the United States, produced the company’s two main products, Pearl starch and Windsor toilet soap. The Dutch Street manufacturing facilities were relocated to Jersey City in 1847, and after the founder’s death in 1857 the firm became known as Colgate and Company.
Although the starch factory was destroyed by fire in 1866 (ending production of that commodity), the company soon introduced new products, including perfumed soap, perfumes, and toothpaste in jars (1873). In 1896 the first formal research laboratory opened in Jersey City, under the direction of Dr. Martin H. Ittner, a leading innovator in the field of industrial chemistry. During the same year the firm introduced Colgate Ribbon Dental Cream, which was packaged in a collapsible tube. By the company’s centennial in 1906, it was producing 160 different types of toilet soap, over 600 varieties of perfume, and a host of different laundry soaps.
In 1908, a giant clock nearly forty feet in diameter made its appearance over the Jersey City factory. Octagonal in shape, the clock proved to be an effective advertisement for Octagon soap, one of the firm’s leading products. In 1924 the clock was replaced by an even larger model, with Jersey City mayor Frank Hague officiating at the opening ceremony. The firm established overseas subsidiaries in Australia, Europe, Canada, and Latin America between 1914 and 1933, and a 1928 merger with a former competitor resulted in the creation of Colgate-Palmolive-Peet, with headquarters in Jersey City. Although the new firm was originally run by the former Palmo-live management, the Colgate family regained control following the 1929 stock market crash.
The company took its present name in 1953, and in 1962 opened a seventy-five-acre Worldwide Research and Development Division (now the Global Technology Center) adjacent to Rutgers University’s Piscataway campus. In 1974 the center expanded to include a corporate data center, and in recent years the corporation has continued to expand through acquisitions, including Vipont Pharmaceutical (makers of Viadent toothpaste and topical salves) in 1989 and the Murphy-Phoenix Company (makers of Murphy’s Oil Soap) in 1991. The firm’s biggest acquisition came in 1992 when it purchased the Mennen Company for $670 million. Incorporated in 1892, Mennen had been founded by pharmacist Gerhard Mennen in Newark in 1897, and had a long history of manufacturing operations in both Newark (since 1894) and Morristown (beginning in 1953). Despite fierce competition from rivals such as Proctor and Gamble, the corporation continues to be the leading producer of a wide variety of household and personal care products and holds a major share of the market for these products both at home and abroad.
College of New Jersey. Trenton State College became the College of New Jersey in 1996, 141 years after it was founded in downtown Trenton with fifteen students as the New Jersey Normal School. The school moved several miles away to Ewing Township in the early 1930s after changing its name to the State Teachers College and State Normal School at Trenton. It added a bachelor’s degree program at that time. The school grew steadily, offering secondary degree programs and dropping the "Normal School” from its name. By 1940 the college campus had grown to 185 acres; today it encompasses 250 acres. In 1968 the college became a multipurpose institution, no longer only training teachers. By that time, its master’s degree programs were twenty-one years old. In 2002 it reorganized into seven schools: School of Art, Media, and Music; School of Education; School of Engineering; School of Business; School of Science; School of Culture and Society; and School of Nursing. In 2002 the college had 338 full-time faculty members and just under 7,000 students in day and evening programs, and was involved in a major facilities building operation.
College of Saint Elizabeth. In 1899 the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth founded the College of Saint Elizabeth in Morristown as New Jersey’s first permanent four-year liberal arts college for women. The founders included Mother Mary Xavier Mehegan and Sister Pauline Kelligar, the first president. The current president is Sister Francis Raftery. The campus features a Shakespeare Garden and a greenhouse, the Greek Theatre, tennis courts, indoor pool, and television production and distance learning studios. The continuing education program, begun in 1970, today includes Weekend College, continuing studies, and nursing in the coeducational adult undergraduate degree programs. The coeducational graduate program, approved in 1993, offers seven master’s degrees and various professional certificates. The college’s Center for Theological and Spiritual Development is a regional center for developing Catholic lay leadership. The Holocaust Education Resource Center trains teachers and holds Holocaust remembrance and education programs for students and the community. Special programs and activities for the undergraduate women’s college include an honors program, leadership program, Hispanic leadership program, the Riordan Volunteer Center, and campus ministry. Having graduated more than ten thousand students, the college celebrated its centennial in 1999. Its present enrollment of 1,810 students is the largest in its history.
The College of Saint Elizabeth, Morristown.
Collier, Peter Fenelon (b. Dec. 12,1846;d. Apr. 24, 1909). Publisher and sportsman. Born in County Carlow, Ireland, the son of Robert Collier and Catherine Fenelon, Peter Collier emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1866. He married Katherine Dunn in 1873.
Collier entered the business world as a salesman of Catholic books. In 1877 he started his own business in New York, specializing in the publishing of Bibles and the classics. He sold them to the public on an installment plan. The business expanded, and he soon had branch offices all over the country. In 1888 he started to publish a weekly magazine called Once A Week. In 1896, as the circulation grew, he changed the name to Collier’s Weekly. Publication was suspended in 1956.
In 1904 Collier bought a large tract of land in Marlboro Township, which he named Rest Hill and used as a summer residence. He was already well known in Monmouth County for having introduced the sport of foxhunting to the area.
Collier, Robert J. (b. 1876; d. Nov. 8,1918).Publisher, editor, and aviation pioneer. The son of publisher Peter Fenelon Collier, Robert Collier was a sport enthusiast who purchased a Wright biplane in 1909, and turned the polo field at his Marlboro estate, Rest Hill, in Monmouth County into New Jersey’s first private airfield. As president of the Aero Club of America in 1911, Collier donated a trophy (renamed for him after his death) that is displayed at the National Air and Space Museum and continues to be a distinguished aeronautical award. In 1927, Collier’s widow, Sarah, donated Rest Hill to the Sisters of the Good Shepherd who opened the Collier School, later to become Collier Services.
Collin, Nicholas (b. Aug. 2,1746; d. Oct. 7, 1831). Clergyman. Born in Fundbo, Sweden, the son of a Lutheran clergyman, Nicholas Collin graduated from the University of Uppsala with a theology degree in 1768. He was ordained by the Lutheran Consistory in the same year and appointed as the assistant rector of the Swedish Lutheran church in Raccoon, New Jersey, a parish within the Swedish Lutheran mission to the Delaware Valley. Three years later, he became rector of this congregation and the neighboring Lutheran parish at Penns Neck, Salem County. He held this position until 1786 when the mission ceased operations. Most of the Swedish churches affiliated with the newly formed Protestant Episcopal Church. Collin was then appointed pastor of the Gloria Dei Church in Philadelphia, where he spent the rest of his ministerial career.
Though he never quite adjusted to the religiously diverse South Jersey countryside, Collin was influential in improving the rural congregations under his care. In 1786, he presided over the construction of a magnificent new church structure at Raccoon (now Trinity Episcopal Church of Swedesboro), which still stands today. Collin also became an influential member of the Philadelphia scientific community. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1789 and made several contributions in natural philosophy and botany.
Collingswood. 1.83-square-mile borough in western Camden County, situated between the Cooper River and Newton Creek. Settled by Quakers in the seventeenth century, the community, which was primarily agrarian, grew slowly during the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth centuries. Proximity to Camden and Philadelphia and the completion of the Camden and Atlantic Railroad to Atlantic City spurred residential growth and led the community to split from Haddon Township and incorporate as a borough in 1888. Philadelphia financier and philanthropist Edward Collings Knight, a descendant of the early family of settlers from which the community takes its name, fostered the rapid growth of the town by his gift of sixty-five acres for a landscaped park. Knight Park is still the picturesque hub of this predominantly residential borough’s recreational and cultural activities.
A modern station on the Port Authority Transit Corporation (PATCO) rapid transit line provides an undeniable economic benefit in maintaining the borough’s mix of 82 percent residential, 13 percent commercial, and 4 percent apartments. In 2000 the population of 14,326 was 86 percent white and 7 percent black. The median household income was$43,175. For complete census figures, see chart, 130.
Collins, Isaac (b. Feb. 16, 1746; d. Mar. 21, 1817). Printer. Isaac Collins was born near Centreville, Delaware. He was the son of an English Quaker, Charles Collins, who had immigrated to America to start a new life as a farmer, and Sarah Hammond, a native of nearby Chester County, Pennsylvania. In 1761, Collins apprenticed with James Adams of Wilmington, Delaware’s first printer, and in 1766 with William Rind in Williamsburg, Virginia. As a master printer, Collins opened his own shop in Burlington in 1770; in 1778,he moved it to Trenton. With support from the state legislature, he established the first permanent newspaper in the state, the New-Jersey Gazette, in 1777, in which he staunchly defended freedom of the press. His most ambitious undertaking was the production of the King James Bible, the second quarto edition to have been published in America. Collins secured state contracts to print various editions of Votes and Proceedings of the General Assembly and other government publications. In addition, he issued almanacs, books, pamphlets, broadsides, and ephemera. In 1796, Collins moved to New York City, where his printing career ended. Collins married twice: Rachel Budd in 1771 and after her death, Deborah Smith, a widow, in 1809.
Isaac Collins.
Colombians. The Colombian population in New Jersey grew significantly in the 1990s. The Bergen County towns of Englewood and Hackensack are home to the state’s largest Colombian communities. Colombian businesses, including everything from music stores to restaurants, thrive there. Colombia Independence Day festivals in both towns draw thousands of visitors each summer. About five thousand people from the small Colombian coffee-producing town of Montenegro now live in Morristown. These enterprising immigrants have raised enough funds over the years to send fire trucks and ambulances to their former hometown.
According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 65,000 New Jersey residents reported Colombian ancestry, up from 56,000 in 1990. Leaders of the ethnic community, however, estimate that well over 150,000 persons of Colombian descent reside in New Jersey, a number that includes many who have overstayed tourist visas and live in the United States illegally. Some come in pursuit of better job opportunities, but most have fled the four-decades-old civil war in Colombia. Members of the Colombian-American community who are more established in the United States are turning their attention to community involvement. Many municipal, county, and state Hispanic political and civic organizations are headed by Colombians.
