Leroy Williams was 23 years old and had only been in Vietnam for about two weeks when he died on Oct. 3, 1965. He was from Newark and his body was brought back and buried in Woodland Cemetery without even a gravestone. The site became covered over with weeds and a growing forest eventually took […]
Everyday is Veterans’ Day for Michael Perrone, weather permitting. Perrone, the president of the Belleville Historical Society and a mason whose family owns Perrone Mason Contractors in Bloomfield, has for more than 20 years been painstakingly cleaning, throughout northern Jersey, the soiled gravestones and memorials of veterans killed in action. He does this because he […]
BELLEVILLE, NJ — In step with the town’s history, the Belleville Historical Society held a Lunar New Year celebration to welcome the Year of the Rabbit at the Belleville Public Library. The first Chinese community in this part of the United States was not in New York City, but in Belleville. Before there was a […]
BELLEVILLE, NJ — On Veterans Day on Nov. 11, the Belleville Historical Society incorporated a new organization that is specifically dedicated to the cleaning and restoration of military and veteran memorials. During the past seven years, the group has cleaned and restored more than 50 memorials throughout north Jersey, ranging in size from modest stone […]
BELLEVILLE / NUTLEY, NJ — The Belleville Historical Society celebrated National Ice Cream Day again with free ice cream visits to the Belleville Public Library on Friday, July 17, and Kingsland Manor in Nutley on Sunday, July 17 — once again served from a classic Good Humor ice cream bike. At Kingsland Manor, a recently […]
BELLEVILLE, NJ — A traditional Chinese festival, Qingming, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day in English, was commemorated by scores of visitors at the Chinese monument in the cemetery of the former Belleville Dutch Reformed Church, now Iglesia La Senda Antigua, on Saturday, April 9. This event has been organized by the Belleville Historical Society and […]
BELLEVILLE, NJ — In commemoration of Vietnam Veterans Memorial Day on March 29, the Belleville Historical Society produced a short video tribute to the 11 young men from Belleville who lost their lives during the war. To view the video, visit https://youtu.be/MLNn2tMNIys. During the past two years, the historical society has restored to their original […]
BELLEVILLE / NUTLEY, NJ — Sept. 11, 2001, showed both the worst and best of humanity. The worst is obvious — even 20 years later everyone remembers the fear, pain and anger that was caused by those hateful individuals, the terrorists, who ultimately set off a chain of world events that led to even more […]
BELLEVILLE, NJ — The Belleville Historical Society’s July 4th ceremony went off with a bang as Belleville residents gathered at 11 a.m. at the old Belleville Dutch Reformed Church cemetery at Main and Rutger Street for the annual event to watch Revolutionary War reenactors fire muskets and cannon at the historic site. Participants in the […]
BELLEVILLE, NJ — Belleville is now officially a Purple Heart town, after the Belleville Town Council approved a resolution at its June 7 meeting. The Military Order of the Purple Heart Chapter 366 relocated from Clifton to Belleville and is headquartered at American Legion Post 105. The Belleville Historical Society recently built and donated a […]