The Adventures of the Honorable Jacob G. Post

April 29th, 2025

About 2 weeks ago (it always takes me so long to get around to doing things I want to do, bweh), I went down a bit of a rabbit hole where I learned so much about the life and times of a one Jacob G. Post, justice of the peace in the town of Bloomfield, New Jersey from 1899-1904. I guess I'm becoming the "interesting things I found in old newspapers" girlie, given that's been more or less the theme of all of my scraps posts so far lol.

It all began in the newspapers collection of Ohio Memory, a project of the Ohio History Connection (formerly Ohio Historical Society... I honestly really don't like the name change). I wanted to see if I could find anything weird, spooky, supernatural, or otherwise just interesting in some old timey Ohio newspapers, hoping to find weird homegrown stories, but what I quickly stumbled upon instead was a strange tale from out of state! After a search for the word "monster" in the archive of the Alliance Daily Review, I found a monstrous battle recounted on July 13th, 1903:

BATTLE WITH MOSQUITO
New Jersey Judge Fights Bitter Duel Which is Without a Peer in History of Chivalry

Loud war cries and much shedding of blood marked the battle between Recorder Jacob G. Post, of Bloomfield, N.J., and a monster mosquito of the Orange Mountain species. The recorder had held court all day and he slept like a log until shortly after midnight. Then he was awakened by a loud, strident, insistent yell of:
"Him-m-m-m-m!"

So vicious was the slogan, so significant of a raging blood thirst, that the recorder trembled as he awoke, struck a light and began to search for an intruder. He found no one. Then he thought that perhaps some passing late drinker had amused himself by blowing one of the fiendish revolving bicycle whistles. He looked out of the window, but saw no one in the street. As he turned toward his bed a fierce, winged monster with a long bill like the blade of a swordfish flew at him. It was a robust Orange Mountain petroleum-nourished mosquito, mighty of wing and of a most atrocious disposition.

The recorder smashed at the monster with a heavy cane and missed him. With a yell of delight the thing darted at him again. Once more the recorder made a mighty lunge at his assailant, but again he missed. The bird of prey retreated to a shadowy corner of the room and got ready for another attack. Evidently he was up on baseball tactics, for as the recorder swung a high blow that would have batted him away far beyond Hobokus the creature swooped downward and planted his bill in one of the smaller arteries of the calf of the recorder’s right leg.

His honor dropped the stick and with a mighty swat of his right hand laid the monster sprawling on the rug. It measured nearly three inches from tip to tip—the mosquito, not the rug.

The recorder’s wound bled so profusely that he sent for Dr. F.G. Shoul, who treated the cut with antiseptic dressing, and after some time succeeded in stopping the flow. The mosquito was the largest ever seen in the neighborhood of Bloomfield.

A battle with a giant monstrous mosquito?!? This story was definitely too good to be true, it stank of yellow journalistic sensationalism and exaggeration, but I wanted to believe goddammit!! Or, well, I wanted to at least see if this story was totally made up, or if it was blown out of proportion based on some earlier, less sensationalist telling. Also, why is a mosquito-battle from New Jersey being reported on in Ohio? Also, also, what on earth is a "robust Orange Mountain petroleum-nourish mosquito"?

The first thing I did was just google the phrase "orange mountain mosquito," thinking it was a subspecies or something. Nothing really came up, other than this very vivid painting formerly for sale on an auction site, and supposedly from 1901 (only 2 years earlier than Jacob G. Post's battle was printed!), titled "Mosquito on Orange Mountain." Other than that, nothing.

Then, just to confirm the reality of the story, I wanted to make sure that Jacob G. Post was a real person, and he was! I found a record of him on a genealogical site, a Jacob Gould Post of Bloomfield, NJ, whose profession was listed as "harness maker" (not judge or justice of the peace, or recorder (which turns out is just an old-fashioned term for a judge in a civil court)), but their source for that was censuses from 1870 and 1880, decades earlier than the battle with the buzzing bogey. This is also when I found out he lived from 1842 to 1904.

Then went to the Library of Congress's digital newspaper collection! I did learn that mosquitos were on the mind of seemingly everyone in New Jersey in the early 20th century. ...But, unfortunately, the LoC has zero newspapers archived from Essex county, the county that Bloomfield is in (and Newark?? That's like one of the largest cities in New Jersey guys come on!!). So then I tried to find out where I could peruse Bloomfield newspapers, and the website of the State Library of New Jersey recommended Fulton History, a delightfully old web design'd site seemingly run by one guy that has 57,255,105 old newspapers published in New York state and environs in a searchable digital archive??? Oh my God??? Genuinely, I'd like to send so much love to Tom, webmaster and archivist at Old Fulton NY Post Cards, his site is a real labor of love, and seemingly the only online source for a lot of this stuff! It's people like Tom that keep history alive, really appreciate the dedication. Please check his site out!!

At first, I searched "mosquito" in Fulton History, which was very much not the move. Then, I realized I ought to search "Jacob G. Post," and after sifting through a few scans of newspapers, I found it! A chronologically earlier and much less sensational version of the Jacob G. Post mosquito story (from the Paterson Morning Call, May 1903, a full 2 months before it was printed in Alliance):

Mosquito Chewed Artery in Twain

Newark, May 22—Recorder Jacob G. Post of Bloomfield is suffering from an injury to his leg, received in some unaccountable manner early yesterday morning. Mr. Post awoke in much pain, and was surprised to find that a vein in his right leg had been severed. Mr. Post bled considerably before Dr. Frederick G. Shoul who was summoned, was able to stop the flow.

How he received the wound is a mystery, but Mr. Post himself declares that it was undoubtedly the work of one or more of the many mosquitoes which have descended upon the town from the Orange mountains the past few nights.

So it wasn't an "Orange Mountain mosquito" as in a special kind of mosquito from Orange Mountain, New Jersey (which is a real place!), it just means a mosquito (or more than one!) that happens to have come down from Orange mountain! This version of events seems pretty likely to have really happened. No fantastical battle with a giant mosquito, sadly enough :(. However, the mysterious bleeding is still pretty freaky! I imagine I'd be pretty freaked out if I woke up in the middle of the night to my leg bleeding uncontrollably too!

I also tried to use Fulton History to find an earlier instance of the same sensationalized version that was printed in Alliance (since it was clearly copied from elsewhere and reprinted), and while I'm not sure that it is the source of the sensationalized version, I did find an earlier instance in the June 18, 1903 Waterbury Evening Democrat, out of Waterbury, Connecticut (it was part of a feature of "News from the Suburban Towns").

It turns out, however, that this mystery bleeding and likely mosquito bite isn't the only weird encounter the honorable Jacob G. Post had experienced! From the August 26, 1901 New York Morning Telegraph:

"KNOCKER" SCARED RECORDER
Pet Dog Crawled Into the Man's Sleeping Room and Was Stepped On.

A species of animal called Knocker badly scared Record Jacob G. Post at his home in Bloomfield, N.J., early yesterday morning. It was about 2 o'clock when he was awakened by the groans of something a short distance from his bed.

The recorder lay still and listened, but then it all became still. He looked across the room and saw two glaring objects that looked like balls of fire.

The recorder was frightened, he admits, but arose to light the gas and had walked part way across the room when he stepped on something that was soft.

There was a yell from the recorder, and a deep growl from the thing on the floor, and then a long body shot past his feet.

[...] (Unfortunately, the ending of the clipping is cut off on the scan on Fulton History)

Personally speaking, I think I'd be able to identify my own dog, even at night... and it's not like dogs have fiery orbs for eyes! But, I have to admit, it is pretty funny that the two instances of supernatural happenings related to Jacob G. Post are both cases of misidentification and things being blown out of proportion.

And, well, that's the end of the strange happenings and adventures of Jacob G. Post! However, from perusing the rest of the search results on Fulton History, I did learn lots more about the guy! Jacob Gould Post, born 1842, a harness-maker at least at the time of 1880, first appears in Fulton History as the signatory of an 1886 letter to the judges of Essex county, New Jersey encouraging leniency to a one Thomas A. Dowling, then in the county jail (I don't know why he was in there to be honest, I haven't looked into it yet) (Paterson Weekly Call, May 27, 1886). By 1892, he was Justice of the Peace, and he was still Justice of the Peace in 1893, and there are regular ads in The Bloomfield Citizen for an auction and real estate business he seems to have co-ran on the side. Somehow he lost his position as Justice of the Peace, because he had to run for it again in 1899, and then he was Justice of the Peace (or recorder, both terms get used in the newspapers with regards to him, it's honestly a bit unclear) until his death in 1904. Some highlights:

There's so much about a person that you can glean from their brief mentions and moments in old newspapers. Some of this really felt unimportant, like an update about where Judge Post's wife was going to be on a certain weekend. But these newspapers were the main mode of communicating information at the time! We don't think anything about similar things being put out on someone's social media, definitely even more intimate and revealing things. But anyway, I just loved going down this rabbit hole with Jacob G. Post. Going by at least that last bit, where he dismissed the little girl's arrest, he seems pretty alright for a gilded age judge, all things considered! I just hope he found better ways to deal with those robust Orange Mountain mosquitos!