USA > New Jersey > Sussex County > Hardyston > Hardyston memorial : a history of the township and the North Presbyterian Church, Hardyston, Sussex County, New Jersey > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15
HARDYSTON MEMORIAL.
Library of the Theological Seminary,
PRINCETON, N. J.
Presented by
Division
· LLULL
Section
560
Shelf.
.......
Number
6422
Presented to Theological Seminary Princeton New Jersey. by A. a. Hames
.
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library
http://www.archive.org/details/hardystonmemor00hain
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, HAMBURG, N. J. 1869-1881.
HARDYSTON MEMORIAL.
A HISTORY OF THE TOWNSHIP
-AND THE-
NORTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,
HARDYSTON, SUSSEX COUNTY,
NEW JERSEY.
BY ALANSON A. HAINES, PASTOR.
NEWTON, N. J. NEW JERSEY HERALD PRINT. 1888.
COPYRIGHTED.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER. PAGE.
I. INDIAN INHABITANTS AND PIONEER SETTLERS -
7
II. SOME EARLY SETTLERS AND THEIR FAMILIES - 25
III. EARLY FAMILIES CONTINUED 48
IV. REVOLUTIONARY TIMES - 1
69
V. IRON MANUFACTURE - -
- 81
VI. HAMBURG AND SOME OF ITS PEOPLE - 95
VII. THE SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND ; HAMBURG AND PATERSON TURNPIKE ROAD ; CUSTOMS AND LOCAL HISTORY -
- 108
VIII. MEXICAN AND CIVIL WARS -
- 122
IX. EARLY CHURCHES - 130
X. NORTH HARDYSTON AND HAMBURG PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES 1
- - 146
XI. MINISTRY OF DR. FAIRCHILD AND MR. CAMPBELL 152
XII. NORTH CHURCHI CONTINUED, AND HISTORY OF OTHIER CHURCHES IN HARDYSTON - - 160
XIII. REGISTER OF NORTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHI - 174
PREFACE.
The purpose in preparing this volume has been to place in durable form such incidents of history belonging to the Town and the North Church of Hardyston as might be of interest to those now living, as well as of value for future reference. The work is necessarily imperfect, for only what is remembered can be re- corded, and many things deserving of notice have passed from memory. It is a matter of regret that the effort was not sooner made. Our aged people have been rapidly passing away and much that might have been gathered even twenty years ago is lost. With gleanings from all available sources it is believed that the main facts of local history have been secured and are truth- fully presented.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to kind friends for the generous aid they have given in the compilation of the work.
CHAPTER I. INDIAN INHABITANTS AND FIRST SETTLERS.
When the first settlers came to these regions they found them already in possession of a race of men known to us as the American Indians, whose origin has given rise to much discussion among civilized people. Some have thought them indigenous to the land, and others that they emigrated from the old world over both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, or came down by way of Green- land, or by Behring straits to Alaska. They have peculiarities which mark them as a distinct race. Their features and habits were such that they cannot be allied with any other type of men, but remain separate by themselves. Had adventerous crews or stranded ships brought their progenitors here, hundreds and even thousands of years ago, resemblances could have been traced to the inhabitants of the old world, whether they came from eastern Asia, western Europe, or Africa.
That they had been very numerous, we judge from their sepulchers which are often invaded by the spade of the excavator. Where the plow turns the soil, we find every year, the stone implements and flint arrow-heads of a prehistoric age. These are the principal Indian relics that remain to us. They are so abundant and are found in so many localities as to prove the number and general diffusion of the old inhabitants. These stone implements are of great variety and some of exquisite finish. They are made of honestone, jasper, chalcedony and flint. They are adapted to warlike, hunting and fishing purposes, as well as to the requirements of common life. There are arrow and lance heads, axes, some of which are grooved for handles, knives, hammer stones, pestals and mortars. The chisels and gouges were used in peeling bark from trees, and shaping the wood for purposes in which it was employed. Their pipes were of various forms,
5
HARDYSTON MEMORIAL.
beantifully polished, the bore being true, and they were fitted to a wooden stem which was ornamented.
The mound builders were evidently a more cultivated people who subsisted largely upon the products of the soil. The modern Indians, when first discovered, were to some extent agricultural. They protected their villages by stockades and ditches, and were expert in many industrial pursuits. Their mats and baskets, their fishing nets and feather cloaks, have long disappeared. They had ornaments and beads, and belts decorated with wampum, made with great skill and perseverance.
It has been customary to speak of the Indian as the untutored savage. The habits of the Indians were different from our own, but suited to the forest life they led. From the narrations of those who lived with them, as the boys captured and adopted into their tribes and afterwards released, we may believe that their lodges were abodes of happiness and, according to their primitive tastes, even of comfort. To suppose that they were so inferior to white men as to have no refinement of sentiment and attraction in character and bearing, would be a great mistake. They were without a written language, but by certain marks and pictured signs could convey news of victories and losses, and the numbers of their own forces and of their enemies on a campaign. They had their legends in poetic form, which they committed to memory and handed down from generation to generation, and sang around their fires. But they had no Homer to gather these legends and clothe them in immortal verse, and tell of some Indian Achilles or Hector of undying fame.
The language of the Delawares was said, by those who under- stood and could appreciate it, to have been poetie and beautiful. Their young braves were handsome. Their old chiefs were venerable in appearance. The young were tall, erect, and moved with grace- fulness. They were agile and skillful in capturing the game with which the woods abounded and upon which they largely fed. The fish were abundant in the streams and lakes, and were taken with bone hooks, or speared at night, when they were attracted to the water's surface by the waving of flaming torches. The whites learned lessons in hunting and fishing from the Indians, and made
9
INDIAN INHABITANTS A'ID FIRST SETTLERS.
good use of the wood craft they derived from them. Our baskets of oak splints are some of them still made upon their old patterns. The Indians raised corn, pumpkins, squashes, beans, and other vegetables, around their lodges. These were cultivated by their squaws and the smaller boys, while the men prided themselves on their prowess as hunters and trappers. They planted orchards of apple, plum and cherry trees. In my boyhood there were Indian orchards still bearing fruit in old age, and some of their descendants may still be found, where a native specimen stands by itself without mixture with those of European origin. Fifty years ago there were in this neighborhood several flats called " plum bottoms," that produced the red Indian fruit in great profusion. The Indians had several varieties of cherries. The berries were mostly growing wild, although the red raspberries seems to have been planted and cultivated by them. The government of the Indians may be described as simple and patriarchal, and the chiefs exercised their authority for the good of all the tribe. The sentiment of exact justice prevailed, and harmony and good feeling were preserved.
The Lenni-Lenapi, called Delawares, from living in the regions adjoining the Delaware River, are the Indians with whom onr immediate territory had the most to do. In many respects they are the most interesting of the Indian tribes known to us, from their historical legends and their intercourse with the early settlers. If the historian Palfrey gives a correct view of the Indians of New England, our Delawares were vastly their superiors. Their language has been pronounced the most ex- pressive of all the Indian tongues. They claimed to have been the earliest comers of all the Algonquin tribes, and were called the grandfathers of the nations. They were naturally of a peaceful disposition, and often the arbitrators between the tribes at war.
One remarkable tradition of the Lenni-Lenapi survives, and we may regard it as their traditional account of the subjugation and expulsion of the race known to us as the " Mound Builders," whose gigantic works extend along the entire length of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and are found at points in the Middle States.
10
HARDYSTON MEMORIAL.
" Hundreds of years ago," they said, "they resided in a far away country toward the West. As they journeyed toward the sun, they found the country east of the Mississippi possessed by a people, the Allegewi, who had many large towns. A great war ensued, in which the Allegewi were defeated and fled down the Mississippi, and the Lenni-Lenapi occupied their country in common with the Iroquois, or Six Nations, who had followed them from the far West."
They had three divisions or great clans, known by their em- blems of the wolf, the turtle, and the turkey, which are still distin- guished and held by the little surviving remnant now in the far off Indian Territory.
Previous to the coming of white men the Delawares had greatly decreased in numbers, and many a village fire had gone out never to be re-lighted. Great wars had thinned the ranks of their braves and spread desolation through their forest homes. Diseases, some of which had been introduced by Europeans, spread among them and swept away many thousands. These epidemies were beyond the power of their simple remedies to cheek. The weakness of the Indians, and the naturally peace- ful and inoffensive disposition of the Delawares, were favorable to the settlement of Northern New Jersey. They manifested a friendly disposition toward the new comers. With their own numbers small and the land so wide, they were less jealous of intrusion than if they had been more numerons and re- quired the whole country for their own occupation. They made liberal grants of land in exchange for very trifling sums. The early settlers purchased of them sites for their homes, and built their eabins without much fear; they pursued game on the Indian hunting grounds, and fished in their waters, visited them in their villages, and received their visits in return.
The Missionary, David Brainerd, from 1742 to the elose of his labors, passed among them in his long tours unmolested. The Dutch settlers were living in amity with them at their first settle- ment upon the upper Delaware as far back as 1680, when they journeyed inland from the Hudson River. We have some accounts of the massaere of. whites and torture of captives, but they were
11
INDIAN INHABITANTS AND FIRST SETTLERS.
not usual, and the atrocities of King Phillip's war in New Eng- land, found no counterpart in the conflicts of very early times along our border. Our ancestors suffered most from Indian depredations during the old French war, when the Indians were invited to massacre and plunder by the emissaries of a civilized nation. So, too, during the Revolutionary war, the British officers employed Indians in their murderous work, and disguised Tories led them in marauding expeditions. That the improper conduct of the whites sometimes provoked to retaliation and bloodshed, does not fix any special ferocity upon those whose soil was invaded, and who, as the whites multiplied, might well be alarmed lest their homes should soon be entirely lost to them. We read that, in 1774, an unprovoked invasion of the Indian country was made by a party of land hunters. Without cause the Delaware Chief, Bald Eagle, was killed, scalped, and his body set adrift in his own canoe on the river. The celebrated chief Logan, whose family had been ruthlessly murdered, led on parties of the Delawares and Shawnees to terrible reprisals. The Indians were said to have been revengeful, but how were the whites ? Tom Quick, called the Indian slayer, and avenger of the Delaware, was said to have slain ninety-nine of them in revenge for his father's death, and to have only regretted that he could not make the number an even hundred.
The great superiority of the white man was in the possession of the axe and the rifle. The woodman's axe found no competitor among their stone hatchets. A white man could clear his ground, cut and hew his logs and build his cabin-a more enduring structure-in shorter time than they could ent their poles and roof their wigwams. Firearms were deadly instruments against the Indians. In the chase they gave the white man the superiority in killing game, which grew scarcer with the greater slaughter of animals. In battle the Indians had little hope of success if victory must be won against firearms with only bow and spear. They learned, however, to make their attacks and draw the white man's fire, and then rush upon him before he could reload, and overcome him by force of numbers. The whites in emergency learned to hold their fire, and often by
12
HARDYSTON MEMORIAL.
merely pointing at the Indians kept them at bay. We read of the Indian atrocities which are on record, but we have not the full statement of the more frequent acts of injustice and cruelty, perpetrated by the whites upon the Indians. They were doomed to pass away when the first settlers were permanently established, and the process began when our fathers landed and followed their trails along the streams and over the hills. We tread upon their graves and plow among their bones, but have lost the story of their lives.
The Indian population among our Sussex hills was sparse at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and became more so as many withdrew into the Susquehanna country, or passed on into Ohio, abandoning many of their settlements. Yet there were seattered communities and a few families that long remained, and traces of their blood may be seen in the complexion and features of some of the mixed race vet living among us. The Indians often tamely submitted to oppression with a forbearance white men never exercised, although they would nourish revenge and sometimes rise in resistance and strike back deadly blows.
Edsall says in his Sussex County Centennial Address : " No difficulties with the red men are of record before 1755, or have been handed down by tradition. The settlers purchased their lands and dealt equitably with the Indians and were accorded privileges of hunting and fishing." Although in general on good terms with the aborigines, the settlers felt the necessity of guarding against treachery, and took precautions against hostile surprises. They placed their houses in proximity, and cut loop- holes for musketry in the log walls. Sometimes they stockaded about their homes. Women and boys, as well as men, were practiced in the use of the rifle, and often exercised their skill effectively against wild beasts, as well as in preparation for the Indians.
In very early times Sussex county was a favorite hunting ground for the Indians, and was mostly covered with a dense forest. As by war and pestilence the tribes diminished in numbers, the game multiplied for the survivors, who found here all that delights the heart of the red hunter. Among
13
INDIAN INHABITANTS AND FIRST SETTLERS.
the birds were geese, ducks, wild turkeys, pigeons, partridges and quail. The deer were so plentiful as to furnish a common supply of Indian food. Fish abounded in the lakes and streams, and were taken with bone hooks or in nets. Oposum, otters and beavers were often killed. The beavers were particularly hunted for their furs, and after white men came, the beaver skin became a great article of commerce.
The first white settlers were greatly troubled by beasts of prey. Panthers, bears, wildeats and wolves, dwelt in the woods, and often prowled around the settlers' homes, killing sheep and calves, and even threatening men. Hunters were compelled to keep their fires burning all night when they bivouaced on the mountains. Wolf scalps or heads were nailed on the outside of many a cabin, a pleasing exhibition of the hunter's success in the chase after these ravagers. The destruction caused by a single wolf, or a pair of wolves, for they generally went in pairs, in one night among a flock of sheep would be fearful. The old wolves became exceedingly eunning to escape pursuit or to avoid the traps set for them, and the she wolves when they had young were the fiercest and most ravenous.
The American gray wolf was nearly four feet long, with a bushy tail of eighteen or twenty inches. Some overgrown speci- mens might have been even larger. Although about the same height and length as the European wolf, the American was more muscular and had more powerful jaws. The general color was a grey, with some much lighter than others.
Sometimes a great hunt would be organized for the destruc- tion of a single wolf, which had broken into some sheep fold. The hunters surrounded a large distriet, or a mountain side, within which they supposed the wolf was lurking, and then came in eloser and closer until he was found. Wolves are afraid of fire, and of the human eye, and seldom attack men. Large bounties were paid for killing wolves. In 1730 the New Jersey Legislature passed " An aet to encourage the killing of wolves and panthers." A reward of twenty shillings was paid for every wolf's head to the slayer; five shillings for every whelp of a wolf that cannot prey ; and for every panther fifteen shillings.
In 1751 an amendment to this act was passed. The preamble
·
14
HARDYSTON MEMORIAL.
says, " Whereas it is found by experience that said act is not a sufficient encouragement for the killing of wolves," and the amendment provided, that "the further sum of forty shillings shall be paid for every wolf killed, and five shillings for every whelp of a wolf, over and above the allowance in the first act."
December, 1807, the flock of Thomas Lawrence, of Ham- burg, was invaded by wolves and a number of sheep killed.
As late as 1820 twenty dollars were paid for a wolf's scalp ; and boys who could handle a gun received two dollars for each of the wild cat's heads they brought to the Justice of the Peace. The " Squire " cut off the ears and gave the slayer a certificate entitling him to draw his money. Wolves were on Snufftown mountain in the recollection of men now living who can recall their howling at night.
Black bears were formerly quite numerous. They seldom attacked a man, but when standing on the defensive, would tear the dogs with their claws when they ventured near enough to be caught, or squeeze them to death with their paws. They would sometimes come into the corn fields and devour the green corn. With their sharp claws they could very quickly climb the largest trees. Bears meat was highly esteemed by the settlers.
In 1818 Peter Shafer killed a bear and three cubs in a clump of trees, not far from the big rock, in the Wallkill, below the Haines House. Near 1823 two bears were killed in the vicinity of Monroe Corner and the meat was divided among the families. Still later a bear was discovered on the James Scott place in the early morning by a man who was very much frightened at seeing him emerge from a hollow. The man ran back and gave the alarm. Scott's boys and others joined in the pursuit but were un- successful. The latest bear killed in these parts was found in Wawayanda mountain about 1860, and his skin was made into a lap robe.
Deer were so plentiful in olden time that they formed a common food for the Indians. Fifty years ago they were killed upon the mountain about Oak Ridge. A herd of deer was also hunted on the Blue mountain on the line of the Hamburg and Milford turnpike road within a much more recent period. Very
15
INDIAN INHABITANTS AND FIRST SETTLERS.
frequently they would come down from Pike county, and swim the Delaware, or cross upon the ice to reach our Sussex mountains. In 1836 vension was eaten from a deer, shot within a few miles of Hamburg.
The Indians had much skill in smoking and dressing for preservation the skins of the animals they slew, and especially in preparing the buck-skin of which to a large extent their clothing was made. The furs of different animals were spread in their wigwams, or covered the dried grass of which their beds were made.
The most venomous serpents were the rattlesnakes. These abounded in some localities and were objects of dread. Yet it is wonderful, that in proportion to their numbers and power for mischief, these reptiles destroyed so few of the lives of the early settlers.
The men sometimes stripped bark from young white ash trees and tied it about their legs when they went upon surveying parties, or were working in places where they were much exposed. The rattlesnakes, it is said, would avoid the white ash, and if they did strike, their fangs could not penetrate beyond the bark.
Immigrant families as they went through the woods in search of their new homes sometimes drove before them their swine, who were very ravenous in devouring the snakes, and because of the fat under their skin, suffered very little when they were bitten.
The Indian dwellings were huts, called wigwams. The frame was made by driving poles into the ground and bending them over until they came together at the top. They were bound in their places by cords of hemp or thongs of leather. Stakes were driven to form the sides, and the roof was of bark.
The early settlers had very primitive structures, but these were great improvements upon those of the Indians. They felled trees and scored them for the walls of their cabins, using often the bark of chestnut trees for roofing. Afterwards shingles were split out of red oak trees, or pines when they could be found ; but for want of nails, slabs were frequently substituted. The doors were hung without iron hinges, and the window, if any, was unglazed. One room constituted the house.
16
HARDYSTON MEMORIAL.
After a little time the capacity of their dwellings was doubled, by putting a second house close by, and near enough to have' one roof cover botli, leaving a passage-way between. Sometimes this was wide enough for the storing of the farm implements or even the running in of a wagon. The doors ;being opposite, the access was easy from one room to another. These were called double houses and saddle-bag houses. My grandmother described them as common in her youth. In such a house lived Peter Coulter, and the Rutans, and the Perry family towards Vernon sixty or seventy years ago. John McCoy lived in such a house on the bank of the Papakating creek. There were no saw mills. here at the erection of the earliest frame houses, and all the sawed lumber had to be hauled from a distance of many miles.
The last log house in the village of Hamburg was the Sant Sidman house, with two rooms and two chimneys, standing near the site of Colonel Kemble's barn.
The Indians cracked their corn in mortars with a pestle. The mortars were sometimes made of stone but more frequently of some hard wood which would not split. For this they chose the gum tree or sweet balsam. Acquackanunek was so called by then, meaning the place of gum blocks. The pestle or pounder was of stone, which varied in length and weight. The whites were often obliged to do as the Indians before they had mills. Some old families have the stone pounders which were in use a hundred years ago by their ancestors, and which they received from the Indians.
Previous to 1700 families of Hugenots, driven from France upon the revocation of the edict of Nantz, and exiled from Holland, had settled on the Hudson at the mouth of the Wallkill at Esopus, or Kingston. By penetrating into the country they reached the mouth of the Navarsink where another colony was formed. The name they gave the river testifies to the nationality of the settlers who conferred it, and who where once inhabitants of Navarre in France. So too, the name of our principal stream, the Wallkill river, which was named by the Holland settlers after the river Waal in the Low Lands. So Wallabout bay, Brooklyn Navy Yard, was named from the Waaloons, farmers from Holland. The
17
INDIAN INHABITANTS AND FIRST SETTLERS.
Navasink Colony sent some of its families over the Kittatinny mountain to find their homes in our part of the Wallkill Valley. Then from Kingston, by a more direct route following up the Wallkill, families of Huguenots and Hollanders strayed into this vicinity where they established themselves.
The French and Dutch names still linger here, and are borne by some of our families. Of these some retain the original spelling and pronunciation, and others may be recognized in some- what corrupted form. Thus we find names of French origin testifying to their Huguenot descent ; among whom we may place La Fountain, Ballou, Chardavoyne, Bevier, L'Hommedieu, Roy, &c.
In a letter written from Quebec by M. de Denonville to the French Minister, dated 16th Nov., 1686, the writer says: "The same man from Manat told me that within a short time fifty or sixty men, Huguenots, arrived there from the Island of St. Christopher and Martinique, who are establishing themselves at Manat and its envirous. I know that some have arrived at Boston from France. There again, are people to operate as Banditti," [Documentary Ilistory N. Y. 1: 225.] Some of these were an- cestors of our people.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.