1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Red Bank
RED BANK, a borough of Monmouth county, New Jersey, U.S.A., on an estuary known as Navesink river, at the head of navigation, about 6 m. W. of the Atlantic Ocean, and about 25 rn. S. of New York City. Pop. (1905) 6263; (1910) 7398. Red Bank is served by the Central of New Jersey and the Pennsylvania railways, and by steamboats to New York, and is connected with the neighbouring towns by electric lines. It is a residential suburb of New York City and a summer resort. In the winter ice-boating is a popular amusement, and Red Bank has fish and oyster industries of some importance.
The name Red Bank was applied to this locality as early as 1734, and in 1781 there were several buildings within the limits of the present borough. Red Bank was incorporated as a town in 1870 and became a borough in 1908. Near Red Bank was established in 1843 the North American phalanx, a Fourierite community, with a capital of about $8000 and 112 members, on about 673 acres; it was financially the most successful and the longest lived of the Fourierist phalansteries in America, but broke up in 1855 because of internal dissensions, following a fire which destroyed the mills.[1]
- ↑ The borough of Red Bank should be distinguished from a place of the same name in Gloucester county, New Jersey, about 6 m. below Camden, on the Delaware river, nearly opposite the mouth of the Schuylkill river, which was the site of Fort Mercer in the American War of Independence. Fort Mercer, with Fort Mifflin (nearly opposite it on an island in the Delaware), prevented the co-operation of the British navy with the army which had occupied Philadelphia in September. On the 22nd of October Fort Mercer, held by 600 men under Col. Christopher Greene (1737–1781), was unsuccessfully attacked by a force of about 2500 men, mostly Hessians, under Col. Carl Emil Kurt von Donop, the Hessians losing about 400 men, including Donop, who was mortally wounded. The British naval force was prevented by the “ Pennsylvania navy " under John Hazelwood (c. 1726–1800) from taking part in the attack; two British ships were destroyed; and the fire from the American vessels added to the discomfiture of the Hessians. On the 15th of November Fort Mifflin was destroyed after a five days' bombardment from batteries on the Pennsylvania shore and from British vessels in the rear; and on the 20th Fort Mercer was abandoned before Cornwallis's approach and was destroyed by the British. Philadelphia was then put in touch with Admiral Howe's fleet and with New York City. Near Red Bank a monument to Christopher Greene was erected in 1829.