1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kearny

KEARNY, a town of Hudson county, New Jersey, U.S.A., between the Passaic and Hackensack rivers, adjoining Harrison, and connected with Newark by bridges over the Passaic. Pop. (1900), 10,896, of whom 3597 were foreign-born; (1910 census), 18,659. The New York & Greenwood Lake division of the Erie railroad has a station at Arlington, the principal village (in the N.W. part), which contains attractive residences of Newark, Jersey City and New York City business men. The town covers an area of about 7 sq. m., including a large tract of marsh-land. In Kearny are railway repair shops of the Pennsylvania system, and a large abattoir; and there are numerous manufactures. The value of the town’s factory products increased from $1,607,002 in 1900 to $4,427,904 in 1905, or 175.5%. Among its institutions are the State Soldiers’ Home, removed here from Newark in 1880, a Carnegie library, two Italian homes for orphans, and a Catholic Industrial School for boys.

The neck of land between the Passaic and the Hackensack rivers, for 7 m. N. from where they unite, was purchased from the proprietors of East Jersey and from the Indians by Captain William Sandford in 1668 and through Nathaniel Kingsland, sergeant-major of Barbadoes, received the name “New Barbadoes.” After the town under this name had been extended considerably to the northward, the town of Lodi was formed out of the S. portion in 1825, the town of Harrison was founded out of the S. portion of Lodi in 1840, and in 1867 a portion of Harrison was set apart as a township and named in honour of General Philip Kearny, a former resident. Kearny was incorporated as a town in 1895.