Newark is incorporated as a city: “Though Newark was technically still only a township in the early 1830s, ‘city’ problems—crime, poverty, housing shortages, general filth—had already surfaced alongside the extraordinary population growth. According to an 1836 report from the State Temperance Society, in the preceding 18 months, 517 people had been committed to the Newark Jail…. The report pointed to alcohol as the cause of people’s problems. Newark was obviously home to a substantial number of troubled families: a little over 20 percent of the men arrested were charged with ‘beating and abusing their wives and children.’”

– Brad Tuttle, How Newark Became Newark