[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 143 (Wednesday, October 5, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 5, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
      SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 79--RELATIVE TO BELLEVILLE, NJ

  Mr. LAUTENBERG (for himself and Mr. Bradley) submitted the following 
concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the 
Judiciary:

                    Senate Concurrent Resolution 79

       Whereas, in 1753, Josiah Hornblower, an English engineer 
     who was an associate and rival of James Watt, assembled the 
     1st functioning steam engine in the Western Hemisphere in 
     Belleville, New Jersey, to pump water from the Schuyler 
     copper mines;
       Whereas, approximately 40 years after such assembly, the 
     1st steam engine made in the United States was manufactured 
     in a foundry in Belleville from designs by Josiah Hornblower;
       Whereas the designs were commissioned by Nicholas 
     Roosevelt, who was the great-uncle of Franklin Delano 
     Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt, to power the Polacca, which 
     was the 1st experimental steamboat in the United States;
       Whereas the Polacca negotiated the Passaic River on October 
     21, 1798, which was several years before Robert Fulton's 
     boat, Clermont, sailed the Hudson River;
       Whereas historians herald the invention of the steam engine 
     as the beginning of the industrial revolution;
       Whereas the presence of Josiah Hornblower in Belleville 
     brought many of the initiators of the industrial revolution 
     in the United States to Belleville;
       Whereas such individuals included members of the Rutgers 
     family, many of whom are buried in the cemetery of the old 
     Dutch Reformed Church in Belleville; and
       Whereas Belleville has a rightful claim to the title 
     ``Birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution'': Now, 
     therefore, be it
       Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives 
     concurring), That--
       (1) the Congress recognizes Belleville, New Jersey, as the 
     birthplace of the industrial revolution in the United States; 
     and
       (2) the President is authorized and requested to issue a 
     proclamation honoring Belleville as such birthplace.

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