Kearny Point History: 250 Years of American Reinvention
From Battleground to Innovation Campus: 250 Years of American History at Kearny Point
By Dominique Lueckenhoff, EVP Corporate Affairs, EHS & Sustainability, Hugo Neu Corporation
Kearny Point is a 134-acre waterfront peninsula in South Kearny, New Jersey, cradled between the Hackensack and Lower Passaic Rivers. Today it is a sustainable innovation campus owned by Hugo Neu Corporation. Over 250 years, the same ground has been a Revolutionary War landing site, a Morris Canal corridor, an Underground Railroad passage, the most productive warship yard on earth, and a first responder to September 11.
| Year | Chapter |
|---|---|
| 1668 | Chief Tantaqua of the Hackensack people sells the land to colonist Major William Sandford |
| 1755 | John Schuyler imports the first steam engine ever used in America to pump his copper mine |
| 1777 | British General Henry Clinton lands ~600 troops; the Battle of Second River follows |
| 1831 | The Morris Canal opens, its final eastern leg running across the peninsula |
| 1867 | The Township of Kearny is named for Civil War general Philip Kearny |
| 1917 | U.S. Steel’s Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company breaks ground |
| 1943 | The yard employs 52,000 and builds ships faster than any yard in the world |
| 1960s | Hugo Neu acquires the site; warships return to be dismantled and recycled |
| 2001 | Hugo Neu processes 250,000 tons of World Trade Center steel |
| 2012 | Hurricane Sandy submerges the campus; Hugo Neu chooses reinvention |
1777: The Revolution comes to New Barbadoes Neck
Before it was Kearny Point, the peninsula was New Barbadoes Neck, home to one of colonial America’s richest copper deposits. In September 1777, British General Henry Clinton made the Schuyler Mansion his field headquarters and landed roughly 600 troops here. American militiamen of the Second Essex Regiment held the advance at the Battle of Second River, scoring a direct hit on Clinton’s hilltop command post. A monument still stands in Branch Brook Park.
Coal, conscience, and the Morris Canal
Opened in 1831, the Morris Canal ran 107 miles from Phillipsburg to Jersey City — its final leg crossing Kearny Point, with mule-drawn boats hauling up to 70 tons of coal toward New York Harbor. Bridges along Central Avenue still span the channel that once flowed beneath.
The canal carried more than coal. One documented Underground Railroad route followed the Belleville Turnpike — the same road Clinton’s troops had marched — toward the Hudson, where abolitionists hired ferry and coal boats to carry freedom seekers across the water they called the River Jordan. By some estimates, 50,000 to 70,000 people made that passage through the Hudson County corridor.
1917–1948: The most productive shipyard on earth
In 1917, U.S. Steel’s Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company broke ground here, backed by $10 million — roughly $245 million today. World War II defined it:
- By 1943, the yard employed 52,000 workers, many of them women and workers of color entering industry for the first time
- On one day in May 1942, Kearny launched four destroyers in 50 minutes
- 69 of the 415 WWII-era destroyers built nationally came from Kearny
- Ships built here included the USS Juneau, lost near Guadalcanal with the five Sullivan Brothers, and the USS Kearny, torpedoed in October 1941 — an attack Hitler cited in his declaration of war
The yard closed in 1948. The story didn’t end; it transformed.
The ships come home — and answer a national call
In the early 1960s, Hugo Neu Corporation acquired the site. Berths that once launched warships now received them at end of life to be dismantled and recycled — among the first, the USS Enterprise (CV-6), the most decorated American ship of WWII.
After September 11, 2001, Hugo Neu voluntarily processed most of the steel recovered from the World Trade Center — 250,000 tons — barged along the same waterways that had linked this peninsula to the harbor for centuries.
2012 to today: Sandy, and the choice to reimagine
Hurricane Sandy put the entire campus under four to five feet of water and cost more than $100 million in lost revenues. Many regional owners rebuilt the same warehouses. Hugo Neu chose reinvention.
The answer was Kearny Point: a 134-acre sustainable innovation campus that has hosted more than 200 businesses. The waterfront that once launched destroyers now supports media studios, energy efficiency retrofits, heavy-duty vehicle fast charging, carbon-negative biochar, nanoplastics treatment, fusion power technology, and clean-trades workforce reentry training — alongside 800 kW of on-site solar and a complete green street. Inside Building 78, the original shipyard crane hook still hangs.
Why this matters for NJ250
New Jersey’s 1777 motto is Liberty and Prosperity. As the state marks 250 years of independence, the invitation is to tell stories beyond monuments and battlefields — stories about places where commerce, labor, sacrifice, and reinvention intersect.
Revolution. Evolution. Reinvention. Those are the chapters of this peninsula’s story, and of America’s. The rivers are the throughline. The ground is the story.
Kearny Point is one of those places. But so is yours. Wherever you stand, look down and ask what the ground has witnessed.