Today in New Jersey history:
March 7, 1843: Alfred Bellard was born in Hull England. Bellard emigrated to Hudson City, (now part of Jersey City) New Jersey with his family in the early 1850s and was a carpenter’s apprentice when he enlisted in the Fifth New Jersey Volunteer Infantry in 1861. Wounded at Chancellorsville in 1863, Bellard was transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps for the rest of his three year enlistment. He died in 1891. Although his life was unremarkable, Bellard is remembered for his 1880s unpublished illustrated memoir, which was purchased in an antique shop in 1962 and published in 1975 as Gone for a Soldier: The Civil War Memoirs of Alfred Bellard. It is a classic of the genre.
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March 7, 1877: Walter Kidde was born in Hoboken. Kidde graduated from Stevens Institute and, in 1900, founded Walter Kidde & Company. The business began as a construction company on the Passaic River in Belleville and participated in the building of Newark and Kearny ship yards and the Pulaski Skyway. The Kidde company transitioned into manufacturing fire suppression systems and equipment and received huge government contracts during WWII. Kidde died of a heart attack in 1943. The Walter Kidde Dinosaur Park in Roseland was named in his honor.
