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ELMER'S HISTORY
CUMBERLAND COUNTY
NEW JERSEY
1
Lot #: 0224
ĐẠO
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The Armand Champa Library
Part I November 17, 1994
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Presented by:
Auctions by Bowers and Merena, Inc. Box 1224 Wolfeboro, New Hampshire
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General-Para E4647
3
1085,
A. J. Hand
HISTORY
OF THE
arly
ettlement and
rontess
OF
umberland
ounty,
NEW JERSEY ;
AND OF THE
CURRENCY
OF THIS AND THE ADJOINING COLONIES.
BY
LUCIUS Q. C. ELMER.
BRIDGETON, N. J .: GEORGE F. NIXON, PUBLISHER. 1869.
Entered according to the Act of Congress in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine, by
GEORGE F. NIXON,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of New Jersey.
PREFACE.
THESE sketches of the early history of Cumberland County were prepared a few years ago for the columns of a newspaper. Many of the facts detailed, relating to the first settlers and proprietors, came to the knowledge of the writer in the course of a somewhat protracted career as a lawyer. Although of no great importance, it has been thought they were worth preserving in a more perma- nent and accessible form. Having been born in Bridgeton, when it contained only three hundred inhabitants, and always resided there, he has witnessed, and had the opportunity of minutely stating, its growth into a city of no mean importance.
The chapter giving a history of the money of account and of circulation, in this and the adjoining colonies, from their begin- nings to a recent date, it is believed embraces facts not to be found in any of our histories, which were fast passing into oblivion, but which are too curious and instructive to be entirely lost.
BRIDGETON, May, 1869.
EARLY HISTORY
OF
CUMBERLAND COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY SETTLERS AND PROPRIETORS.
CUMBERLAND COUNTY was set off from the county of Salem, and erected into a new county, by an act of assembly passed January 19, 1747-8. The Duke of Cumberland, who had not long before gained the victory of Culloden, and thereby established the house of Hanover permanently on the throne of Great Britain, was the great hero of the day, and the new county was named after him.
The first settlers of this part of West Jersey were probably Dutch and Swedes. Gabriel Thomas, a Friend, who lived for a few years in Pennsylvania, on his return to England in 1698, published an account of that province and of West New Jersey. Describing the rivers, he names Prince Maurice River, " where the Swedes used to kill the geese in great numbers for their feathers only, leaving their carcasses behind them." Quite a number of Swedes settled in the neighborhood of this river, and engaged in hunting and cut- ting lumber, without, however, obtaining a title to the soil, until some of them purchased of the English. About the year 1743, a Swedish church was built on the east side of Maurice River, nearly opposite Buckshootem, where missionaries were accustomed to preach until after the Revolution. The graveyard with a few stones still remains. Many of the Swedish names have been con- tinued in the neighborhood.
A few of the New Haven people, who as early as 1641 made a settlement on the creek called by the Dutch Varcken's Kill (now Salem Creek), may have wandered into the limits of Cumberland,
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FIRST SETTLERS AND PROPRIETORS.
and thus become the pioneers of the considerable number, who about fifty years later came from Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Long Island.
The Indians do not appear to have been numerous, consisting mostly of wandering tribes, having no permanent settlements, and no principal sachem or chief. There was a considerable tribe which generally resided in Stow Creek and Greenwich, where many of their stone hatchets and other relics have been found. At the place still called Indian Fields, about a mile northeast of Bridgeton, they had a settlement before 1697, the place being refer- red to by that name in a survey of that date. Another contempo- raneous survey referred to a settlement on the Cohansey, in Upper Hopewell, about a quarter of a mile below the mill known as Seeley's Mill. There was also a settlement on the west side of the same river, just above Bridgeton, on the property now belonging to the iron and nail works; and the tradition is that an Indian chief was buried, or, as some accounts say, placed in a box or coffin, on the limbs of a tree, on the point of land opposite North Street, since from that tradition called " Coffin Point." Other places of settle- ment or occasional places of resort are known to have existed near Fairton, and on Maurice River.
Fenwick purchased the land of these, and to the fair and reason- ble treatment they received from the Friends, who were the first English settlers, may probably be ascribed the absence of those desolating wars which prevailed in New England. But this cir- cumstance has prevented much notice being taken of the aborigines in the early accounts of West Jersey. James Daniels, a minister among the Friends, whose father settled in the forks of Stow Creek, near the place now called Canton, in Salem County, in 1690, when he was about five years old, learned the Indian language, and says in his memoirs, "the white people were few, and the natives a mul- titude; they were a sober, grave, and temperate people, and used no manner of oath in their speech; but as the country grew older the people grew worse, and had corrupted the natives in their morals, teaching them bad words, and the excessive use of strong drink." Thomas, in his account of West Jersey before referred to, says "the Dutch and Swedes inform us that they greatly decreased in numbers to what they were when they came into this country, and the Indians themselves say that two of them die to every one Christian that comes in here." The minutes of the justices and
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FIRST SETTLERS AND PROPRIETORS.
freeholders of Cumberland County for the year 1754, state that a charge of £4, 3s. 4d. was brought by Deerfield Township, for taking care of an old Indian who died in said precinct, which was allowed. At a conference held by commissioners appointed by the legislature with the Indians in 1758, one Robert Kecot claimed " the township of Deerfield, in the county of Cumberland, where the Presbyterian meeting-house stands, and also the tracts of James Wasse, Joseph Peck, and Stephen Chesup." After this, all the Indian claims were fully paid for and relinquished. A few of the descendants of these original inhabitants lingered within the county until after the Revolution, earning their subsistence princi- pally by making baskets. Soon after the commencement of the present century they had all removed or died.
All vacant lands being-according to the law of Great Britain- vested in the crown, and it being the established principle of Euro- pean law that countries uninhabited, or inhabited only by savages, became the property of the nation taking possession, King Charles II. granted all that territory, called by the Dutch New Nether- lands, including part of the State of New York, and all New Jersey, to his brother, the Duke of York, afterwards James II., March 12, 1663-4. The duke conveyed New Jersey to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, June 24, 1664. In 1672, the Dutch reconquered the province; but in 1673 it was restored, and new grants were executed. Berkley, in 1673, conveyed his half to John Fenwick, and shortly afterwards Fenwick conveyed nine-tenth parts of his half to William Penn, Gawen Lawrie, and Nicholas Lucas, in trust for the creditors of Edward Billing. The above- named persons had all become followers of George Fox, and were then called Quakers, adopting themselves the name of Friends. Fenwick had been a member of a church of Independents, whereof John Goodwin was the pastor. He held a commission as major of cavalry, which Johnson, in his History of Salem, says was written in Cromwell's own hand.
In 1676, the province was divided, Fenwick, Penn, Lawrie, and Lucas becoming proprietors of the half called West Jersey. Bil- ling-who was a London merchant-having failed, his nine-tenths, held by Penn and others, was conveyed to his creditors and others in hundredth parts, or, as the deeds made in England set it forth, in nineteenth parts of ninety hundredth parts, so that a full pro- prietary interest came to be reckoned a hundredth part. Lesser
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FIRST SETTLERS AND PROPRIETORS.
parts of the hundredths, or a definite number of acres therein, were also frequently conveyed to individuals. Fenwick, and Eldridge, and Warner, to whom he executed a long lease in England, for the purpose of raising money, were recognized as owning ten proprie- taries, or one-tenth of the province. It would seem that each par- ticular hundredth was at first in some way designated, and the respective owners drew lots for their several shares; but this designation was never fully carried out, and it is not known how the parts were owned. Fenwick's ten proprietaries, however, were all considered to be contained in what was called the Salem tenth, extending from Berkeley River (now Oldman's Creek) to a creek a little east of the Cohansey, originally called the Tweed, which, having a wide mouth where it empties into the Delaware, was sup- posed to be a stream commencing far up to the north, but which proved to be confined to the marsh, and has since been called Back Creek.
Fenwick came into the Delaware in June, 1675, with his family and servants, consisting of two daughters and their husbands, one unmarried daughter, and two servants. His wife remained in Eng- land, and never came to America. Edward Champney, one of his sons-in-law, brought with him three servants, one of whom was Mark Reeve, who settled at Greenwich, and built a house not far from the Cohansey, near the house where John Sheppard long lived. The servants, as is remarked by Smith, in his History of New Jersey, being accustomed to work, and willing to encounter the hardships and privations incident to the settlement of a new country, succeeded much better than their masters. Mark Reeve, among others, became a considerable proprietor, and is still repre- sented by numerous respectable descendants.
So far as is now known, the Dutch and Swedes never took any steps to secure a permanent title to the land upon which they set- tled, and did not even take deeds from the Indians. Whatever title they may have claimed as the first settlers and improvers, was ignored by the English, although there is reason to believe they were, in many cases, permitted to become purchasers at the usual price for the unimproved land. A few names apparently not English are found among the early freeholders.
Penn and the other legal proprietors of West Jersey, in 1676, signed an agreement the original of which, well engrossed on vellum, in a bound quarto volume, is preserved in the land office
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FIRST SETTLERS AND PROPRIETORS.
at Burlington, regulating the government and the mode of dis- posing of the lands. It provided for dividing the territory into tenths, originally intended to take the place of counties, and the tenths were to be divided into hundredths. Fenwick did not sign this agreement, but assumed to act independently of the other proprietors, which was the occasion of much contention. Salem, however, was always recognized as one of the tenths, and Fenwick, or his grantees, as the owners of ten proprietaries. During part of his life he claimed to be sole or chief proprietor of the moiety of New Jersey, and established his government at the place he called New Salem, now the city of Salem. He appointed a Secretary and Surveyor General, the latter being at first Richard Hancock, who came over with him. In 1678 James Nevill was appointed Secretary, and his son-in-law, Samuel Hedge, Surveyor General, Hancock having favored the claims of the other proprie- tors, and acted under them.
In 1682 Fenwick conveyed all his interest in New Jersey to William Penn, except the part which was called Fenwick's colony, containing, as was supposed, 150,000 acres. When he died in the latter part of 1683, he appointed Penn and others his executors, giving them "full power to lett, sett, sell and dispose" of his whole estate, for the paying of his debts and improving his estate, for his heirs during their non age. By virtue of the aforesaid deed and will, Penn and the other executors made conveyances of large parcels of land, besides what Fenwick had himself conveyed, by virtue of which surveys were made, and under which the titles are held.
There seems to have been for several years after Fenwick's arrival, a constant conflict between him and the Assembly, which at length occasioned his deed to Penn in 1682. In May, 1683, he appeared himself as a member of the Assembly, and it was then enacted as a law that the lands and marsh or meadow formerly laid out for Salem Town bounds, by agreement of John Fenwick and the people of Salem Liberty, shall stand and be forever to and for the only use of the freeholders and inhabitants of said town. It was then agreed nem. con., "only John Fenwick excepted his tenth, which he said then at that time was not under the same circumstances, but now freely consenteth thereunto," that the con- cessions agreed on in 1676, should be the fundamentals and ground of the government of West Jersey.
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FIRST SETTLERS AND PROPRIETORS.
This assent, however, does not seem to have been understood by Fenwick as hindering him from disposing of his land, without regard to the agreements or concessions or laws. His will, an ancient copy of which is before me, dated August 7, 1683, made on his sick bed at Fenwick's Grove, professes to dispose of large manors and tracts of land to his grand-children. It contains this clause : "Item : I give and bequeath to my three grand-children and their heirs male forever, all that tract of land laying near the river heretofore called .Cohansey, which I will have hereafter called Cæsaria River, and which is known by the name of the Town Neck; and my will is that it, together with the land on the other side which is called Shrewsbury Neck, and other the lands thereunto belong- ing, which is contained in my Indian purchase, and so up the bay to the mouth of Monmouth River (Alloway's Creek was then so called), and up Monmouth River to the head or farthest branch thereof, and so in a straight line to the head of Cæsaria River, all which I will to be called the manor of Cæsaria, and that there shall be a city erected, and marshes and land allowed as my exe- cutors shall see convenient, which I empower them to do and to name the land ; further, my will is that out of the residue of the land and marshes shall be divided equally among my said heirs, and that Fenwick's dividend shall join to the town and Bacon's Creek, where, my will is, there shall be a house erected and called the Manor house, for keeping of courts." This manor, it will be seen, embraced the present townships of Greenwich, Hopewell, Cohansey and Stow Creek in Cumberland, Lower Alloway's Creek, and part of Upper Alloway's Creek Townships in Salem ; but, like many other magnificent projects, it was never carried out. None of his grants or devises of specific parcels of land, except Salem Town, have been recognized as valid; and no titles under them are good, unless regular surveys have been made and recorded, or such a length of actual possession has been had as to bar a rival claimant.
Directly after Fenwick's arrival, he provided for laying out a neck of land for a town at Cohansey, one-half for the chief proprietor (him- self), and one-half for the purchasers, the lots to be sixteen acres each. The town thus projected was called by the settlers Green- wich, although it continued for many years to be also called Cohan- sey. A memorial of the proprietors of East and West Jersey to the crown, dated in 1701, prays that the port of Perth Amboy, in East
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FIRST SETTLERS AND PROPRIETORS.
Jersey, and the ports of Burlington and Cohansey, in West Jersey, may be established ports of those respective provinces forever. An act of the Assembly of West Jersey, in 1695, recites that a conside- rable number of people are settled on or about Cohansey, alias Cæsaria River, within the county of Salem, and enacts that there shall be two fairs kept yearly at the town of Greenwich at Co- hansey aforesaid ; the first on the 24th and 25th days of April, and the second on the 16th and 17th days of October. These fairs were continued and were largely attended until 1765, when a law was enacted reciting that fairs in the town of Greenwich had been found inconvenient and unnecessary, and that therefore no fairs should be hereafter held there. Ebenezer Miller, a Friend, who resided at Greenwich, was a member of the Assembly this year, and doubt- less procured this act. By this time fairs had become much less important than they had been, by the increase of regular retail stores, whose proprietors were anxious to get rid of the fairs. One of the provisions of the original concessions and agreements of the freeholders of West Jersey was that the streets in cities, towns, and villages should not be under one hundred feet wide. In pur- suance of this, a street was laid out at Greenwich, from the wharf to where the Presbyterian church was afterwards built, of that width, but by whom is not known. It is quite probable that Fen- wick himself visited the place in his barge, which he particularly mentions in his will; but it does not appear that he sold any lots there. His will provides "that Martha Smith, my Xtian friend, to have two lots of land at Cohansey, at the town intended on the river Cæsaria."*
* The following extract from an interesting account of the Ewing family, printed only for the use of the family, will give us a very good idea of the situation and habits of a well-to-do pious Presbyterian family in the county of Cumberland, about the middle of the eighteenth century. It is a part of the biography of the wife of Maskell Ewing, who married Mary Pagett, in 1743.
"His wife was a woman of plain manners, though lady-like, and very sensible. She was remarkable for her powers as a housekeeper. With the exception of her husband's Sunday-coat, which was the one that had served at his wedding, and which lasted for a good part of after life, she had on hand the making of his and their children's garments from the flax and the wool. All the bedding and house linen must be made, and geese kept to find materials for beds ; some thousand weight of cheese to be prepared annually for market ; poultry and calves to be raised ; gardening to be done ; the work of butchering-time to be attended to (this included the putting up of pork and salt meat to last the whole year, besides sau- sages for winter, and the making of candles) ; herbs to be gathered and dried, and
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FIRST SETTLERS AND PROPRIETORS.
Penn and the executors of Fenwick made several conveyances of sixteen acre lots on the east side of the street; one to Mark Reeve, describes him as of Cæsaria River, and is dated August 9, 1686. It contains the lot at the corner near the wharf, on which he had built a house. In December of the same year Reeve, in consideration of £80, conveyed it to Joseph Browne, late of Phila- delphia, "reserving to himself and his heirs a free egress and re- gress to and from a certain piece of ground, containing 24 square feet, where the said Mark Reeve's wife lies buried." Browne con- veyed it to Chalkley, a Friend, in 1738, and he to John Butler. Butler conveyed it to Thomas Mulford, and he to William Conover, who conveyed it to John Sheppard, December 16, 1760, in whose family it has remained ever since. No survey under the proprie- tors appears to have been recorded for this lot. Chalkley, in 1739, laid a survey on half an acre adjoining it, including the wharf, and in 1743 another for 152 acres, thus making up a sixteen acre lot.
One Zachariah Barrow possessed a farm held under Fenwick con- siderably further north, on the east side of the street, above the Friends' school-house, and by his will made in 1725 devised it " for the benefit of a free school for the town of Greenwich forever." In 1749, just after Cumberland County was established, to perfect the title-no survey having been before recorded-Ebenezer Miller pro- cured a survey to be duly laid on this farm to himself and two others, attorneys duly constituted by the town of Greenwich, and they exe- cuted a conveyance to David Sheppard, subject to a yearly rent of thirteen pounds, for the use of a free school to the inhabitants of the town of Greenwich, within certain bounds set forth in the deed. From this and other circumstances, it is known that Greenwich was made a township at an early day, and probably with the bounda-
ointments compounded ; besides all the ordinary house-work of washing, ironing, patching, darning, knitting, scrubbing, baking, cooking, and many other avoca- tions, which a farmer's wife now-a-days would be apt to think entirely out of her line. And all this without any ' help,' other than that afforded by her own little daughters, as they became able ; and for the first twenty-two years, with a baby always to be nursed. This afforded no time for any reading but the best ; but many a good book she contrived to read by laying it on her lap, whilst her hands plied the knitting-needles, or to hear read by the husband or one of the children, while she and the rest spent the evening in sewing. On the Sabbath, a folio Flavel, the Institutes of Calvin, and, above all, the Bible, were the treasures in which her soul delighted."
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FIRST SETTLERS AND PROPRIETORS. .
ries contained in the deed. The act establishing the county divides it into six townships, the bounds of Greenwich containing conside- rably more territory than is described in the deed. In New Eng- land what we call townships are usually called towns. The reserved rent continues to be paid, and by a decree of the Court of Chancery, to and for the benefit of the public schools within the bounds of the town, as described in the deed.
Fenwick's will, before quoted, mentions a creek called Bacon's Creek. There is still extant a deed from two Indians to John Nicholls of Nicholls Hartford, near Cohansey, dated 25th of 4th month (June of the old style), 1683, whereby, in consideration of one blanket, one double handful of powder, two bars of lead, three pennyworths of paint, one hoe, one axe, one looking-glass, one pair of scissors, one shirt, and one breech cloth, they sell and convey to him a parcel of land containing, by estimation, one hundred acres, beginning at a tree near the creek called the Great Tree Creek, and bounding on Cohansey River and land of Henry Jennings, George Hazlewood, and Samuel Bacon, who are believed to have been of the early Baptist settlers. This deed was approved by Richard Grey and James Nevill, in accordance with a law passed the same year, which forbade the purchase of land from Indians without their sanction. A somewhat similar deed is in the possession of the Bacon family. Whether a title was also obtained by survey under the proprietors is unknown. Unless there was, the legal title of the present possessors rests upon the possession, and not upon the Indian deeds.
Before the Revolutionary War it can hardly be said that there were any towns in the county. Greenwich was the place of most business up to the beginning of the present century. The stores there contained the largest assortment of goods. A young lady who visited Bridgeton in 1786, mentions, in a journal which has been preserved, going to Greenwich “ to get her broken watch crys- tal replaced, but the man had not received any from Philadelphia as he expected." She mentions going to Wood and Sheppard's store to get a few trifles. They transacted so large a business as to make it worth while to have bonds printed payable to them. The river forming an excellent harbor, vessels traded direct to the West Indies and other places ; but as New York overshadowed Perth Amboy, so Philadelphia overshadowed Greenwich or Cohan- sie. There was a regular ferry kept up over the river, and much
...
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FIRST SETTLERS AND PROPRIETORS.
intercourse between Fairfield and Greenwich. In 1767, after John Sheppard came there, a law was passed establishing the ferry, and in pursuance of its provisions, he bound himself to keep good and sufficient boats, fit for ferrying travellers and carriages for 999 years, and to keep and amend the roads, and bound his property to make good his agreement. About 1810, and again in 1820, efforts were made to have a draw-bridge built at the expense of the county ; but this project was strenuously resisted by those living on the river above, and being defeated, caused much rejoicing. For several years a horse-boat was in constant use ; but as other towns grew, and capital increased, Greenwich lost its relative importance, and the ferry had but little business, so that in 1838 Mr. Sheppard, in consideration of paying $300, was released from his engage- ment. Like other parts of the county, it has since greatly im- proved, but it is now only the depot of a rich agricultural region in its immediate neighborhood .*
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