Newspaper accounts from the spring of 1855 suggest that the City of Hoboken’s first election season was just as lively as the debate over the city charter had been.
In fact, prior to the charter vote, the opponents of the charter had begun arranging an “oyster and champagne jollification” to celebrate the charter’s defeat. But when a majority of the public voted to ratify it, the party was called off.
Upon learning of the cancelled plans, Jersey City’s Daily Sentinel chided the charter’s former opponents, saying, “Oh, disappointed fogies, know you not that Young America is awake, and now is stalking through the streets of the City of Hoboken.”
But the charter’s opponents would prove to be more resilient than the Sentinel‘s editors thought.
In preparation for the April 10 election that would determine the city’s first representatives, the former opponents of the charter organized into the Democratic Ticket and unanimously chose Township Committee Chairman Cornelius V. Clickener as their mayoral candidate.
Clickener was the head of a New York City pharmaceutical firm that manufactured “Clickener’s Sugar-Coated Pills,” a popular cathartic of the day.
The supporters of the charter organized a Union Ticket, welcoming both Whigs and Democrats. The four other Township Committee members – Charles Chamberlain, John W. Haring, Joseph W. Stickler and Abraham Stout – joined up, and Haring was selected as the ticket’s candidate for treasurer. Their mayoral candidate was Capt. Benjamin S. Taylor.
Back to the polls
On Tuesday, Apr. 10, 1855 – less than two weeks after the city voted in favor of incorporation as a city – Hoboken’s citizens returned to the polls to elect their new leaders.
The result was startling: the Democratic Ticket, which was composed largely of former opponents of the charter, swept nearly every race. The ticket won every key executive position in addition to two-thirds of the City Council. Only the Third Ward voted Union. In fact, the Third Ward was the only one in which Capt. Taylor captured a majority of the votes for mayor.
In all, 638 voters turned out, electing Cornelius V. Clickener as the City of Hoboken’s first mayor by a margin of 38 votes.
Also voted into office by the Democratic sweep that year were Franklin B. Carpenter as a councilman for the First Ward and George W. Morton as treasurer.
Carpenter would later be elected mayor in 1857 – following Clickener’s successful bid for the Senate seat of Moses B. Bramhall, who had played a key role in the passage of the charter act at Trenton – and again in 1859. Morton would serve one term as mayor in between Carpenter’s two non-consecutive terms.
Taking care of business
The Township Committee held its final meeting on May 5, 1855, and the new mayor and City Council took over the business of the city two days later.
The New York Daily Times of Apr. 30 reported that “Mayor Clickener intends to make Hoboken a respectable city. He is reputed to have the energy and good judgment necessary to accomplish that undertaking.”
Indeed, in his first address to the citizens of Hoboken, Clickener laid out a tough plan to clean up the city’s image. He pledged to push for excise laws for liquor sales and to set up a day and night police force that would be “sufficient in numbers to insure the public tranquility and the preservation of order at all times.”
Though Clickener would have trouble obtaining adequate funds for the city’s school system – he called the mere $2,500 allocated “ill-judged parsimony” – he would be successful in pushing through a measure authorizing the paving of Hoboken’s streets. The controversial measure led to increased taxes for property owners, but it also helped property values skyrocket.
Hoboken’s legacy
Though Hoboken has undergone many changes in the 150 years since it became a city, one thing that has not changed is its character.
Historian William H. Shaw claimed in 1884 that no city was home to a public that was as active in local politics as in Hoboken. The statement could just as easily apply to today.
The common thread leading from the city’s incorporation to its sesquicentennial this year is a pride in Hoboken held by its residents, and a belief that it can become even greater.
“Who can doubt that the promise which Hobokenites foresaw … has been largely fulfilled,” wrote historian Daniel Van Winkle in 1924. “And that all that has hitherto been added to the development of the region is small compared with what the future has in store.”
Historical documentation for this three-part column was graciously provided by the following: City Clerk James Farina and his staff, the Hoboken Public Library, Jim Hans, whose book “100 Hoboken Firsts” is published by the Hoboken Historical Museum, the Congressman Frank J. Guarini Library, the New Jersey State Library in Trenton, and the staff of the New Jersey Room in the Jersey City Public Library.
Christopher Zinsli can be reached at gateway@hudsonreporter.com. To read past columns from this year-long series, visit www.hobokenreporter.com.