Hail, Newark! Hail!
Two hundred years plus fifty
Is to you but growing time!
And you have grown!!!
How you have grown
Is wonderfully shown
In what you are to-day,
Not counting what you may
Become if but a mite
Of all your promised greatness
Is fulfilled
As it is billed
To do
For you!
Hail, Newark! Hail!
New Jersey’s biggest and her best,
Her fairest and her liveliest,
Like wine and women,
You improve with age,
And all the ways and means
Of velvet and of jeans,
Of brain and brawn engage
To make you greater still,
Until,
Beyond the pale
Of earthly progress,
On the spirit gale
Is borne the glory cheer:
Hail, Newark! Hail!!!!
Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines (shown above), a life-sized painted wood figure attributed to Thomas J. White, entered the collections of the Newark Museum in 1924. For decades it stood outside the Jabez Fearey cigar store on Market Street.
“Colonel Bill” Lampton (“Colonel” was an honorary title bestowed by the governor of Kentucky) published light pieces and satirical verses in various newspapers and magazines. During the 250th anniversary year his contributions graced the pages of The Newarker, whose February 1916 edition featured this bit of “humoresque versification.”
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