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DOCUMENTS
RELATING TO THE
COLONIAL HISTORY
OF THE
By Transter NOV 22 1917
STATE OF NEW JERSEY 1
VOLUME XXII.
MARRIAGE RECORDS, 1665-1800
EDITED, WITH AN HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION ON THE EARLY MARRIAGE LAWS OF NEW JERSEY, AND THE PRECEDENTS ON WHICHI TIIEV WERE FOUNDED,
BY WILLIAM NELSON.
,
PATERSON, N. J. : THE PRESS PRINTING AND PUBLISHING CO., 269 MAIN STREET. 1900.
76886
WITHDRAWN PREFACE. PUBLIC LIBRARY WASHINGTON, A D O.
It is not necessary to expatiate on the interest and import- ance of the contents of this volume. The lawyer will often turn to these marriage records to solve obscure questions of title to land. The historian will find here much information throwing light on obsolete laws and customs of the past. The student of sociology will discover many odd facts bearing on questions of race, heredity, social usages and other problems affecting the development of society. To the genealogist of course the book will be invaluable.
This work had its beginning in a resolve to print the man- uscript index, in the office of the Secretary of State at Trenton, to the marriage bonds on file, and the records of marriage li- censes, in that office. The origin of these bonds and of these licenses seemed to deserve explanation, out of which grew the Historical Introduction on the Early Marriage Law of New Jersey, which follows. In order to expand the volume to a suitable size it was concluded to add the other marriage rec- ords which will be found succeeding those in the Secretary of State's office.
These exhaust the extant marriage records prior to ISor, for the counties of Bergen, Hudson and Essex, so far as the editor has been able to learn. The early Dutch churches as a rule were scrupulously careful to keep and preserve in the church archives registers of baptisms and marriages. The churches of other denominations not only were not so particular, but when the records were made they were often regarded as the private property of the pastors, and were carried away by them on their removal to other charges.
The first Reformed (Dutch) church inPNew Jersey was Its marriage Vrecords that at Bergen, dating back to 1660. are well preserved, and are reproduced down to ISol, in
vi
PREFACE.
this volume. This was in ISoo the only church within the present Hudson county.
Bergen county had a number of churches in 1Soo, as fol- lows: Hackensack, established in 16S6 ; its marriage records are well kept and are given herewith. Schraalenburgh, 1724 ; printed here. Ponds (Oakland), 1710 ; records destroyed about ISSo, by fire. Paramus, 1725 ; no marriage records have been preserved before 1800. English Neighborhood (now Leonia), 1770 ; no records prior to 1812. There were two or three Lu- theran churches in the Saddle River valley, some of them dat- ing well back toward 1700, and there may be early marriage records kept by their pastors, but the editor has not been able to find them. There was a French Reformed church near Hackensack before 1700, but its records are not known to ex- ist.
In Essex county there were these churches previous to 1800, in the chronological order given : First Presbyterian, of New- ark, 1667; Reformed (Dutch), at Second River (Belleville), 1700; Orange Presbyterian, about 1719; Reformed (Dutch), at Fairfield, 1720; Trinity (Episcopal), of Newark, about 1743 ; Christ (Episcopal), Belleville, about 1755; Lyons Farms Baptist, 1769; Caldwell Presbyterian, abont 17So; Bloomfield Presbyterian, 1798. The writer has been unable to discover any marriage records of these churches except the in- complete registers of the Belleville Reformed church, and those of the Lyons Farms Baptist church. All the records of the First Presbyterian church existing at the time of the Revo- lution are understood to have been lost or destroyed in that troublous period, and the writer has been informed that the church possesses no marriage records earlier than 1850. The records of the Fairfield church are believed to have been de- stroyed in a fire which consumed the parsonage about 1875. The records of Trinity church in the eighteenth century were ex- amined some years since by the writer, who found them to be very fragmentary, with no marriage registers among them. The session records of the First Presbyterian church of Orange are understood to have been destroyed by fire in 1802. Those in existence begin January 30, 1803.
It is a monotonous history of disaster to church records thus
vii
PREFACE.
enumerated-"destroyed by fire," and emphasizes the import- ance of a work like this, which multiplies and so preserves such records beyond the chance of destruction. By a singular irony of fate, however, a large collection of copies of other church records, which had been procured during a long period of years by the editor with infinite labor and much expense, for a second volume like this, went the way of so many origin- als, in a single night, in the great Paterson fire, February S-9, 1902. If time and opportunity permit perhaps the effort to gather another volume of such material may be renewed. But vita brevis est !
In this connection the work of the Holland Society, in New York, and of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania is wor- thy of commendation. The former has caused copies to be made of all the records of the old Reformed Dutch churches in New Jersey, and has published those of the Hackensack and Schraalenburgh churches to ISoo. It is expected that others will follow. The latter Society, organized so late as 1892, has procured copies of the records of a large number of churches of various denominations in the southern part of New Jersey, and has them bound in stout quarto volumes, well indexed, which are preserved in the fireproof rooms of the Historical So- ciety of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. It is intended to pub- lish shortly the records of St. Mary's Church at Burlington, which dates back to 1704, and which numbered among its members many of the most prominent men in New Jersey, in the Provincial era. These records were copied for the New Jersey Historical Society, but for the purpose of publi- cation were placed at the disposal of the sister Pennsylvania Society.
The following records of New Jersey churches have been published :
Belleville Reformed (Dutch)-baptisms, births, marriages and membership, 1794-1827. Proceedings N. J. Historical Society, Third Series, I., 178-196 ; II., 65-72, 131-144, 177- 185.
Bergen Reformed (Dutch)-marriages, baptisms, deaths, 1665-1850. Winfield's Land Titles of Hudson County, I., 329-419. Sº. New York, 1872.
viii
PREFACE.
Elizabeth-Inscriptions on Tombstones and Monuments in the Burying Grounds of the First Presbyterian Church and St. John's Church, 1664-1892. New Haven, Conn., 1893. So Pp 355.
Hackensack Reformed ( Dutch) -marriages, baptisms, com- municants, officers, :686-1801. Collections Holland Society, Vol. I., pp. 349. So New York, 1891.
Hanover (now Whippany) Presbyterian Church-com- municants, marriages and baptisms, 1746-1796. Morristown, IS93. 8º Pp. 32.
Inscriptions on the Tombstones and Monuments in the Graveyards at Whippany and Hanover. Morristown, 1894. 8º Pp. 93.
Lyons Farms Baptist-proceedings, baptisms, marriages, 1769-1801. Proceedings N. J. Historical Society, Third Series, I., 162-177 ; II., 57-64, 119-130, 158-168.
Monmouth County-Tombstone Inscriptions Presbyterian Burying Ground, Middletown ; Hendrickson Burying Ground, Middletown ; Tallman Burying Ground on Pumpkin Point, Shrewsbury ; Baptist Church Burying Ground, Middletown ; Topanemus Burying Ground, Marlboro ; Christ Church (Epis- copal) Graveyard, Middletown; Golden Burying Ground, Middletown ; the Ancient Lippit or Taylor Burying Ground, Middletown ; the Hartshorne Burying Ground, Middletown- in the Town Book of Old Middletown, So [Freehold, 1883], pp. 39-53. The Quaker Records of Shrewsbury, 1674-1731, pp. 55-66 ; some baptisms, 1659-1738, pp. 66-70.
Old Tennent Church, Freehold-History of the Church, by the Rev. Frank R. Symmes. Freehold, 1897. 8º Pp. 144. Baptismal records, 1735-1760, and early burials in neighboring cemeteries, pp. 118-143.
Morristown-Bill of Mortality, being a register of all the deaths in the Presbyterian and Baptist congregations, 1768- 1806. Morristown, 1806. 8º Pp. 112 (actually 116).
Record of the First Presbyterian Church of Morristown. History and Records of the Trustees and Session, 1742-1882, pp. 240. 192, 168. Combined Registers, of births, marriages,
ix
PREFACE.
deaths and communicants, 1742-IS85, pp. 328. Morristown, 1SS1-1885. Large So.
Newton Township --. Friends' records of Marriages at Burl- ington, Salem, Newton (now in Camden county), Haddon- field, Chester (Moorestown), Evesham, and Woodbury Creek- particularly of members of Newton families-are given in Sketches of the First Immigrant Settlers of Newton Town- ship, Old Gloucester County, West New Jersey, by John Clement. Camden, IS77, pp. 387-411.
Orange Presbyterian-baptisms, 1756-62, 1765-1784. In History of the Oranges, by Stephen Wickes, M. D., Newark, IS92.
Passaic Reformed (Dutch), formerly the Acquackanonk- the records have been published in part in a parish periodical.
Paterson-History of the Old Dutch Church at Totowa (now the First Reformed, Paterson), 1755-1827. By Wil- liam Nelson. Baptismal Register (in the original Dutch), 1756-1SOS. Paterson, IS92. So Pp. 170.
Second Reformed-the registers, in substance, are given in a recent history of the church.
Preakness Reformed (Dutch)-the records of baptisms, IS31-1902 ; marriages, 1842-1902, deaths, IS37-1902, and tombstone inscriptions in neighboring burying grounds, pp. 252-315, in a History of the Church, by the pastor, the Rev. George W. Labaw. New York, 1902. So Pp. 344.
Schraalenburgh Reformed (Dutch)-Records of baptisms, marriages, communicants and officers, 1724-ISO1. Collec- tions Holland Society, Vol. H., pp. 387. So New York, IS91.
Church records of baptisms and marriages have a quasi- public character, especially as they are required by statute, and in view of this fact there has been legislation in some quarters making it the duty of the churches to provide safe receptacles for such records, to protect them against loss by fire, damp, or other exposure. In England, Ireland and Scotland the churches must either make such provision, or deposit their rec- ords in the Public Record Office, at London, Dublin or Edin- burgh, respectively. In Massachusetts, the Public Record
%
PREFACE.
Commissioner has been impressing on the church authorities the importance of protecting their records, with much success.
A word as to the Index to Marriage Bonds and Licenses. The bonds were printed blanks, which were filled in by the officers of the locality where the parties lived, so that there is no standard of handwriting by which the names can be deci- phered, and as for the signatures, no man is compelled to write his name legibly. So there may easily be errors in the index. Moreover, the chirography of the index itself is not exactly of the copperplate order, and so the difficulty of getting the names of the licensees correctly into print has been considera- ble. In cases of doubt reference was had to the originals, and the expert skill of Alexander HI. Rickey, the former Assistant Secretary of State, or of John R. B. Smith, the present Assist- ant Secretary, was called into requisition, and always placed at the editor's service with unfailing readiness and courtesy.
ERRATA.
The names printed as Stiles, from Cape May county, on pages 359-360, and 384-385, should be Stites.
There is an error in the foot-note on page 592. Susan Kean was a daughter of Philip Van Brugh Livingston, a broth- er of Governor William Livingston ; she was born April 5, 1759 ; married John Kean, September 27, 1786; he died in 1795. Governor Livingston's daughter Susannah was born 1748 or 1749; married Judge John Cleves Symmes, Septem- ber 10, 1794.
CONTENTS.
PREFACE
V THE EARLY MARRIAGE LAWS OF NEW JERSEY, AND THE PRECEDENTS ON WHICH THEY WERE FOUNDED :
I. INTRODUCTION. Primitive Marriage Customs, ix. Roman Marriage Law, ix. Ecclesiastical Regulation of Marriages, xii.
II. FORMATIVE INFLUENCES AS TO THE LAW OF MARRIAGE IN NEW JERSEY. I. The Dutch Law of Marriage, xviii. II. The Swedes, xxvii. III. Marriage Rites in England, xxxiv. IV. Scottish Marriages, xlviii. V. New England Marriage Customs, Ivii. VI. Friends' Marriage Customs, lxi. VII. Early New York and Pennsylvania Marriage Laws, Ixix.
III. MARRIAGE IN NEW JERSEY. The Sovereign Power in the Colony, lxxi. Marriage Licenses by Gov. Carteret, lxxvi. Earliest Marriage Laws in New Jersey, lxxviii. Some Early Divorces, Ixxix. Second Marriages, lxxxi. More Colonial Marriage Laws, lxxxiii. Some Burlington Marriages, 1680-1684, lxxxv. Protecting Unwary Maid- ens, lxxxvii. An Ante-Nuptial Contract, 1686, lxxxviii. A Mar- riage that was a Failure, xc. The Colonial Practice as to Marriage Licenses, xci. A Marriage License in 1695, xciii. Lord Cornbury's Instructions, xciv. The Laws of England Applicable to the Colo- nies, xciv. Some Peculiar Marriage Customs, xevi. A Word as to "Bundling," xeviii. The Marriage Act of 1719, xcviii. The Prac- tice Regarding Marriage Licenses, cv. Prof. Kalm's Description of the Practice, cvi. A Swedish Criticism, cviii. Hostility to the Mar- riage License System, cx. Objections of the Episcopal Clergy of New Jersey, cxii. Bishop White, of Pennsylvania, on Marriage Licenses, cxiii. Decay of the License System, cxvi. The Marriage Act of 1795, cxvi. Later Legislation, cxxi. Divorces by the Leg- islature, cxxiii. Divorces by the Court of Chancery, cxxiv.
INDEX TO MARRIAGE BONDS AND MARRIAGE RECORDS IN THE OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE AT TRENTON, 1 HACKENSACK REFORMED (DUTCH) CHURCH MARRIAGE RECORDS, 1695- 1800, 467
SCHRAALENBURGH REFORMED (DUTCH) CHURCH MARRIAGE RECORDS, 1724-1801, 1 515
xii
CONTENTS.
BERGEN COUNTY CLERK'S MARRIAGE RECORDS, 1795-1800, 553
BERGEN REFORMED (DUTCH) CHURCH MARRIAGE RECORDS, 1664-1801, 555
ESSEX COUNTY CLERK'S MARRIAGE RECORDS, 1795-1801, 582 LYONS FARMS BAPTIST CHURCH MARRIAGE RECORDS, 1795-1800, 599 SECOND RIVER REFORMED (DUTCH) CHURCH MARRIAGE RECORDS, 1730 - 1774, 1794-1800, - 605
CHRIST CHURCH, NEW BRUNSWICK, MARRIAGE RECORDS, 1758-1778, - 620
NEW BRUNSWICK REFORMED (DUTCH) CHURCH MARRIAGE RECORDS, 1794-1799, 625
MIDDLESEX COUNTY CLERK'S MARRIAGE RECORDS, 1795-1800, - 629
SCOTCH PLAINS BAPTIST CHURCH MARRIAGE RECORDS, 1758-1761, - 641
CHESTERFIELD (BURLINGTON COUNTY) FRIENDS' MONTHLY MEETING MARRIAGE RECORDS, 1686-1800, - 650
ILLUSTRATIONS
Fac simile of a Marriage Bond, 1768,
Front Fac simile of a Marriage Bond, 1772, - Opposite page 1
.
THE
EARLY MARRIAGE LAWS
OF
NEW JERSEY,
AND THE
INFLUENCES BEARING UPON THEIR FORMATION.
BY WILLIAM NELSON.
THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
I. INTRODUCTION. PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
The earliest writings in relation to marriage indicate that the bride was captured from another tribe, or was purchased, either by gifts to her tribe or her parents, or to herself.1 Under such customs there would be little or no ceremony accompany- ing the transaction, and the records are silent as to the exist- ence of any special forms. The Old Testament contains many accounts of marriages, but in no instance refers to any particu- lar usage that was observed. Homer shows that marriage was merely a matter of capture or purchase, without any cer- emony.2 From that wonderful collection of ancient folk- lore, the Arabian Nights, we get the same impression. The folk-lore of other peoples, ante-dating their historic period, is invariably silent as to the performance of any marriage ritual. This universal recognition of marriage without any fixed formula or ceremony, antedating, as it does, any existing municipal or canonical law on the subject, may be regarded as the universal common law of marriage, based upon the actual fact of continuous, publie cohabitation as husband and wife. As Grotius puts it : " We find Marriage (taken naturally) to be nothing else, but such co-habitation of a man with a woman, as placeth the Woman, as it were, under the eye (that is) under the safeguard of the Man."
ROMAN MARRIAGE LAW. For the evolution of the law in relation to marriage, we
1 The most recent investigations of anthropologists do not bear out the claim of M' Lennan (" Primitive Marriage ") that this was the universal, or even the most general, practice in prehistoric times, or among the most primitive peo- ples. or in all savage tribes. See " Ancient Society." by L. H Morgan. New York, 1875, Chap. V: Westermarek's " History of Marriage." London, 190). A discussion of this phase of the subject is, however, foreign to the purpose of this writing.
2 Homer's Iliad. Book ix.
B
ROMAN MARRIAGE LAW.
are accustomed to look to the Roman law, and its gradual de- velopment into the modern municipal, civil and canonical law of marriage.
Among the Romans no special ceremony was required to establish the relation. It was enough that a man and a woman, to whose union there was no legal impediment, from nearness of kin or from any other cause, lived together as hus- band and wife, giving themselves out as such : the law recog- nized the consent of the parties thus expressed as sufficient to constitute the legal obligation of matrimony. There were, however, formalities specially designed and frequently used for this object :
I. The confarreatio, a religious rite ;
2. The co-emptio, a higher form of civil marriage ; and
3 The usus, the lower form of civil marriage.
I. Confarreatio was solemnized in the presence of the Pon- tifex Maximus or the Flamen Dialis (priest of Jove) and ten witnesses. The pontiff offered a sacrifice of an ox, or of fruits, in the presence of the attending witnesses. The con- tracting parties were seated on the same sheepskin. Certain customary forms of words were uttered, and a salt cake of far or rice was presented as an offering, and tasted by the couple. From this the ceremony had its name, confarreatio, from far- reus, i. e., farreus panis, cake of meal or flour. This rice cake indicated the ancient food of Italy, and served as an emblem of their mystic union of mind and body. Or, it may be more correct to say that this was a trace of an ancient usage, by which the wife, partaking of the food of her husband's tribe, became adopted into the tribe, to some extent, while remaining under the tutelage or guardianship of her husband :1 as the Romans
1 When the Navajos [of Arizona and New Mexico] desire to marry. "they sit down on opposite sides of a basket, made to hold water. filled with atole or some other food, and partake of it. This simple proceeding makes them husband and wife." We have the like in the old Roman form of confarreatio marriage con- stituted by jointly eating a cake. These indications that the earliest marriage ceremony was simply a formal commencement of living together, imply a preced- ing time when the living together began informally .- Principles of Sociology, by Herbert Spencer. New York, 1880, I .. 633. "It is manifest that monogamy has long been growing innate in the civilized man "-Ibid., 704. But may not this communion in eating have had a ceremonial signification as a propitiatory sacri- fice to the tribal god?
xi
ROMAN MARRIAGE LAW.
expressed it, covenire in manum viri-to come under the hand of her husband. Her position was thus much the same, in fact, as later under the English common law.
2. Co-emptio was the solemn binding of the wedding couple to each other, by giving and taking a piece of money. The wife fulfilled the co-emption by purchasing, with three pieces of copper, a just introduction to her husband's house and household duties. Co-emptio was a sort of symbolic pur- chase of the wife by the husband, from the family to which she belonged, per æs et libram, in the presence of five witnesses, and a sixth as libripens, or balance-holder. The precise words and actions used in the co-emptio are not known, but doubt- less they resembled those used in the form of sale called man- cipatio. The effect of this ceremony was the same as in the confarreatio, in bringing the woman under the hand or power of the husband. This was the more frequent marriage custom among the Romans, and was still in use in the time of Gaius, but gradually disappeared.
3. Usus, the third and lowest form of marriage, was with- out any ceremony, being founded, as the word implies, on pre- scription, by the woman co-habiting with the man as her hus- band for a whole year, without having been absent from his house for three whole nights in succession. The uninterrupted possession of a wife for one year gave the husband the same rights he would have acquired at the outset if married with confarreatio or co-emptio. The privilege reserved to the wife of defeating the usus and avoiding the husband's power by a three nights' absence in each year was expressly granted by the Twelve Tables.1 From being thus constantly evaded usus gradually declined, and although Cicero alluded to it as still subsisting in his day, Gaius, two centuries later, describes it as obsolete.
The Roman principle was that the consent of the parties was required, not only for contracting marriage, but for con- tinuing it, and that hence it could be terminated at any time by
1 The existence of this marriage custom, and of the trinoctium. can hardly have dated back to the fifth century B. C., and this particular provision of the Twelve Tables is probably at least a century later. See La Storia di Roma, by Ettore Pais, Rome, 1893, Vol. I.
xii
ECCLESIASTICAL REGULATION OF MARRIAGES.
either party, by the simple announcement of the fact. In the case of the confarreatio, however, a religious rite, called diffar- eatio, was requisite to dissolve the obligation. The result was that the freer form of marriage was resorted to-what might be called the common law form-dispensing with all rites and ceremonies, and this prevailed in the time of Justinian. This practice, of course, did away with the husband's control over the person and property of his wife, and secured to her great independence as regards both.1
ECCLESIASTICAL REGULATION OF MARRIAGES.
While it is not unlikely that the Christian church looked with great disfavor upon the increasing laxity of the marriage relation in the Roman Empire, it does not appear that any at- tempt was made by the church to assert or to exercise any au- thority in the matter. "Marriage was celebrated in the presence of the priests," we are told, " and was confirmed by some oh- lation," in the first three centuries of the new era,2 but this was apparently a survival of the pagan custom. In the false de- cretals (said to be unknown to all the ancient fathers, to all the popes, and all the ecclesiastical authorities that wrote be- fore the ninth century), a letter attributed to Pope Evarestus relates to clandestine marriage, and several ceremonies con- nected with that "sacrament," all of which by no means agreed with the avowals of Evarestus.3 St. Ambrose, cir. 3So, held that "it is the actual consent of the parties, that makes mar- riage, though it were never consummated." Pope Nicholas,
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