By Leonard A. Luizzi Here are some of the topics discussed below. If you want to know more, then please read on.
A while back, a maker of foreign cars put out a series of radio commercials consisting of local historical tidbits. Of course, we think the best one was: . "Did you know the first game of baseball was played in Hoboken, NJ?" Well, of course everyone here knew that fact already. It's Hoboken, not Cooperstown, where you look to find the birthplace of baseball. And not just baseball, because Hoboken has another first for football. It's the birthplace of a famous Ivy League rivalry, where, in 1876, Yale played Princeton for the first time in New Jersey. The game was played in Hoboken's St. George's Cricket Grounds, and Yale beat Princeton 2 touchdowns to none. Princeton chose Hoboken for all its "home games" during the years 1877-1887, playing against such teams as Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Wesleyan, and the hometown favorite, Stevens Tech. The site of St. George's Cricket Grounds is still being used for football, but now it's the location of Hoboken High School's Veterans Field. Another favorite sport in Hoboken was yachting. The New York Yacht Club had its first clubhouse at the foot of 10th Street, in the old Elysian Fields, on land donated by the Stevens Family in 1845. The old building stayed in Hoboken until 1940 when it was floated to Glen Cove, Long Island. It then went to Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, and, from there, to Newport, RI. Who knows? Maybe some day it will return to its original home in Hoboken. The first Commodore of the New York Yacht club was John Cox Stevens, whose yacht, "America", made history in 1851. There was a race off the Isle of Wight in the English Channel. Stevens won, and came home with a silver cup that was to become quite famous. It's called "The America's Cup", and yachtsmen from all over the world still compete to win it. Hoboken has always been a leader in transportation. In 1815, the New Jersey State Legislature granted the rights for a railroad, which became the first railroad charter in America. It was granted to Colonel John Stevens, for a run from Trenton to New Brunswick. Stevens conducted a successful prototype run in 1825 on the "Green" (what is now Newark and Hudson Streets). He constructed a circular track and ran the first steam locomotive with a multi-tumbler boiler engine. Meanwhile, Stevens' son, Robert L Stevens, is credit with inventing the "T-rail", which is still used by all railroads today. Education has always been important in the history of Hoboken, and, once again. the Stevens family was at the forefront. They chartered Stevens Tech in 1870, which became the first college of technology in the U.S., and they started the first kindergarten in the State of New Jersey at the Hoboken Academy, which stood on the northeast corner of 5th Street and Willow Ave. Another school was founded by Martha Bayard Stevens and some other dedicated citizens of Hoboken. She was the widow of Edwin A Stevens, founder of Stevens Institute, and her group formed the Industrial Education Association of New Jersey, commonly known as the "Industrial School, for "the development of the hands of school children, as well as the minds." The school was founded in the summer of 1885 and served the youth of Hoboken for over 110 years. We also had New Jersey's first Catholic school. Our Lady of Grace Grammar School opened in September of 1864, and, when it closed in June of 1999, it was the oldest Catholic school in the state. Hoboken was also a leader in heath care. Saint Mary Hospital was founded in 1863 as the first Catholic hospital in our state, and it is now the oldest continuously-run hospital in New Jersey, with 141 years of community service. St Mary has a new building campaign in place, with the goal of serving not just Hoboken, but all of north Hudson County as well. Hoboken was once a major port for travel to Europe, and millions of soldiers passed through Hoboken on their way to the fronts of World War I, and back again. However another "first" occurred after the war was over. Woodrow Wilson was the first American President to make a state visit to Europe, when he sailed from Hoboken on December 4, 1918 to attend the Versailles Peace Conference. Here are a few of the inventions that were made in Hoboken: In 1903, an Italian immigrant named Italo Machiony invented the wafer that became the ice cream cone. In 1913, the zipper was perfected by a Swedish engineer named Gideon Sandbank. In 1964, freeze-dried coffee was invented at Maxwell House's Hoboken plant. 
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