Paterson, NJ news and local guide

In 1791 Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, helped found the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures to harness the Great Falls of the Passaic River and free the country from dependence on British factories. The society founded Paterson, which became the cradle of the Industrial Revolution in the United States. The town was named for Governor William Paterson, a signer of the Constitution, who signed its charter in 1792. Pierre L'Enfant, who had drawn the first plans for Washington, D.C., was the society's first planner and proposed bringing the falls' power through a channel cut in the rock and an aqueduct. The directors thought he was too slow and over budget and replaced him with Peter Colt, whose simpler reservoir system brought water to the factories in 1794. When Colt's system developed problems, a plan resembling L'Enfant's was used after 1846. Paterson became a township on April 11, 1831, joined the new Passaic County on February 7, 1837, and was incorporated as a city on April 14, 1851, after a referendum that day. It was reincorporated on March 14, 1861. The 77-foot Great Falls and a system of raceways powered the city's mills until 1914, and the mill district grew to include dozens of factory buildings. Sources Wikipedia: Paterson, New Jersey