Cornelius Van Vorst
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2025}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Cornelius Van Vorst
| image = Cornelius Van Vorst (1822-1906) circa 1860.jpg
| birth_place = Jersey City, New Jersey
| death_date = November 19, 1906
| death_place = Milford, Delaware
| residence = Jersey City, New Jersey
| office = Mayor of Jersey City
| order = 12th
| term_start = 1860
| term_end = 1862
| predecessor = Dudley S. Gregory
| successor = John B. Romar
| party =
| religion =
| spouse = Sophia Phillips
| children =
| website =
}}
Cornelius Van Vorst (March 7, 1822 – November 19, 1906) was the twelfth Mayor of Jersey City, serving from 1860 to 1862.Winfield p.289
Biography
Cornelius and his family founded and laid out the street grid for Van Vorst Township, which was incorporated in 1841 and was dissolved when it was annexed by Jersey City in 1851. He also donated land for a town square style park that became Van Vorst Park.{{cite web|url=https://njcu.libguides.com/vanvorsttownship|title=Van Vorst Township (1841-1851)|website=njcu.libguides.com|accessdate=February 7, 2025}}
From 1854 to 1874, the kitchen step of the Van Vorst Mansion was known to be the slab of marble that was originally the base of the statue of King George III that was toppled by the Sons of Liberty at Bowling Green in New York. After the statue had been torn down in 1776, the slab made its way across the Hudson River and was reused in Paulus Hook as the gravestone of a Major John Smith of the Royal Highlands Regiment, the Black Watch, in 1783. When Smith's grave site was leveled in 1804, the slab became a stone step at two successive mansions with the latter being the Van Vorst Mansion in 1854. In 1874, Van Vorst donated the stone to the New York Historical Society. The mansion was sold later that year to Dr. Benjamin Edge whose family resided there for many years. In 1925, it was sold at auction by Nelson J.H. Edge and replaced by the Wayne Court Apartments around 1927.{{cite news | title = The Statue That Was Made Into Bullets | newspaper = The New York Times | date = 1901-07-21 | page = SM6 | url = https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1901/07/21/119079124.pdf }}{{cite web|url=https://njcu.libguides.com/vanvorst3|title=Van Vorst Mansion (Wayne St.)|website=njcu.libguides.com|accessdate=February 7, 2025}}
Van Vorst also constructed the Barrow Mansion, a twin to the Van Vorst Mansion, between 1835 and 1837. Dr. William Barrow, a New York City physician, bought the mansion after marrying Van Vorst's sister Eliza. The two mansions were separated by only a lawn for many years. After the death of Dr. Barrow and his wife Eliza, the YMCA purchased the mansion in 1890 and added a gymnasium and rifle range in the basement. In 1897, St. Matthew's German Evangelical Lutheran Church bought the mansion for use as a parish house and replaced the rifle range with a two-lane bowling alley. In 1898, it built a church on the former lawn between the two mansions. In 1984, the Barrow Mansion Development Corporation was founded to renovate the mansion and now operates it as a community center.{{Cite web|url=https://njcu.libguides.com/barrow|title=Barrow Mansion|website=njcu.libguides.com|accessdate=February 7, 2025}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/vann-vanvorhis.html Political Graveyard]
{{JrsyCtyMayors}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Van Vorst, Cornelius}}
Category:Mayors of Jersey City, New Jersey
Category:19th-century mayors of places in New Jersey
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