May 14, 1672: Representatives from five of the seven towns then in East New Jersey—Newark, Elizabethtown, Woodbridge, Piscataqua (today’s Piscataway) and Bergen (today’s Jersey City)—gathered in Elizabethtown, deposed appointed governor Philip Carteret and elected James Carteret, a “naive young man,” as “president of the country.” In the end, King James supported the governorship of Philip Carteret, who regained his office.
May 14, 1844: Delegates to a state Constitutional Convention met in Trenton. The convention finished its work on June 29 and submitted the new constitution to a popular referendum, which approved it on August 13. It was the second of three New Jersey state constitutions.
May 14, 1890: A statue of genius inventor Seth Boyden was unveiled in Newark’s Washington Park by Mayor Joseph Haynes. The “Essex Club,” a gentlemen’s riding club that provided an escort for the mayor that day, later joined the National Guard as the “Essex Troop,” which eventually became the core unit of the 102nd Cavalry, a military organization still active in the state’s National Guard.
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1918 Trenton native Private Needham Roberts, an African-American serving with the segregated 369th Infantry Regiment of the New York National Guard, which was assigned to the French Army, was badly wounded but continued to fight with his rifle, knife and hand grenades, killing 20 German soldiers. Roberts was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French army.
