USA > New Jersey > Somerset County > Basking Ridge > The Presbyterian Church in Basking Ridge, N.J. : a historical discourse delivered by the pastor, Rev. John C. Rankin, D.D., August 11th, 1872 > Part 1
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 02685 2076
Gc 974.902 B29RN RANKIN, JOHN C. 1816-1900. THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN BASKING RIDGE, N. J.
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The Presbyterian Church
in Basking Ridge, N. J.
Press of MacCrellish & Quigley Co. Trenton, N. J.
Gen
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
IN
BASKING RIDGE, N. J.
A HISTORICAL DISCOURSE
DELIVERED BY THE PASTOR
REV. JOHN C. RANKIN, D. D.
AUGUST 11th, 1872.
WITH SUPPLEMENT MARCH 24th, 1892.
WITH REVIEW OF LATER HISTORY BY REV. LAUREN G. BENNETT.
1920
Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-2270
Church founded in early part of eighteenth century. This building erected in 1839.
Historical Discourse.
"REMEMBER THE DAYS OF OLD, CONSIDER THE YEARS OF MANY GENERATIONS : ASK THY FATHER AND HE WILL SHEW THEE; THY ELDERS AND THEY WILL TELL THEE."-Deut. 32 : 7.
The duty of learning from the history and experiences of the past is often presented in the Scriptures. It is as reasonable too as it is scriptural; and on its observance the progress of the human race largely depends. No picture is more beautiful, no exercise more profitable, than that of the "fathers and elders" instructing the young in the things which have come to pass. Without this every age would begin the world afresh, and the human family remain forever in its infancy.
Convinced, as I am; of the great importance of the study of history and of its intrinsic interest to the thoughtful mind, it is yet with no little misgiving that I attempt to lay before you a some- what detailed account of this church and congregation. . The strong conviction that something of the kind is due alike to our forefathers, to ourselves and to posterity has long rested on my mind; but the assurance that much time, expense and patient labor would be required in collecting and arranging such ma- terials as are available, long deterred me from the undertaking. Had the full tax in this respect been foreseen, this production had probably never been inflicted upon you. It is but proper, also, here to add that the most painful thing connected with these labors is the fact that, after all, the information obtained in regard to our early history is so incomplete. Still there is no little satis- faction in feeling that a faithful effort has been made; and that about all of our early history that can be rescued from oblivion is now discovered, and may be put in shape for easy preservation and reference. As the distance grows greater between the founders of our Zion and their descendants, the latter would never forgive us should we suffer the glimpses of light which at this day might be gathered to a focus entirely to vanish away.
As to the materials available for such a history, I am sorry to say that the Sessional Records (the first and most authentic
(3)
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source of information, to which we look most naturally ), as far as they were kept at all, prior to the settlement of Dr. Finley, 1795, have absolutely perished. His immediate predecessor was a physician as well as a preacher; and, according to tradition, kept his medical and ministerial accounts mingled up on the same pages of his day-book. Our lately departed friend, Dr. S. S. Doty, whose memory was very remarkable, has often told me that during his early life in the family of Judge Southard, his father- in-law, he had seen one of these old manuscript volumes lying about, out of which a leaf was now and then torn to wipe a razor ! Such a deed should render the perpetrator immortal, and can be pardoned only on the ground that the value of the record, like passing opportunity with the young, was unknown.
And yet, even if these volumes had been preserved and handed down to us, they would not have taken us back to the point where our greatest difficulty as well as our greatest anxiety lies, i. e., the origin of the church. And for the time they might have been supposed to cover, our loss is in some measure compensated by the fact that the Trustee book, for that period, is in our posses- sion. It bears on its cover the following inscription : "The Book of the Congregation of Bernardstown, A. D. 1763, 1815." This is the first and oldest of our church records now extant. The earliest date in this musty old volume is Nov. 12th, 1764; and though for many years thereafter the entries are very brief and very irregular, still, as will be seen in the sequel, they afford con- siderable light on this part of our subject. In going further back than this, we depend entirely on traditions and on outside records, mainly those of the New Jersey Historical Society, in Newark, and the minutes of the old mother synod of Philadelphia.
Among the floating statements as to our origin, that which assigns to us the greatest age is in the New Jersey Historical collections (new edition of 1852, page 442), and is in these words : "Baskingridge was early settled by Scotch Presbyterians and a log church erected about the year 1700." The next is in a "History of the Presbyterian Church of Madison, N. J.," drawn up some years ago by the Rev. Mr. Tuttle, then the pastor of that people. He says (pp. 10, II) : "The first church ever organized in what is now the County of Morris was the old Presbyterian church in Whippany, which was formed about 1718. . . . In Baskingridge, some Scotch Presbyterian families, who had settled
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there, were worshipping in a log meeting-house which they had erected a year or two previously." Where the data on which these statements rest are to be found I have not been able to discover. I am convinced, however, from evidence that will be presently adduced, that the first is entirely incorrect, and that the second, though not very far astray, yet gives us a few more years of ecclesiastical life than we can justly claim.
There could have been no church here, of course, before there were Christian inhabitants, and the earliest definite account of the settlement of this neighborhood (no doubt the true one) places it in A. D. 1717. If there were settlers here prior to that time they must have lived among the Indians, simply occupying, without owning, the land. For in that year "John Harrison, of Rockie Hill," who seems to have been a large dealer in real estate, bought of an Indian chief, whose name was Nowenoik, the whole tract which has ever constituted a large part of this congregation, in- cluding the site on which the church stands. Harrison's deed from the Indian chief is dated June 24th, 1717, and calls for about three thousand acres, bounded on the east by the Passaic river, on the south by the Dead river, on the west by Green brook, and on the north by Penn's brook, and a short line uniting it to the head- waters of Green brook, These two brooks rise very near each other on the northwest corner of the old Parsonage farm, now owned by Dr. Minnard, and flow, the one ( Penn's brook) into the Passaic river, through the farms of Messrs. Heath, Gidney, De- Coster and Cross; the other into Dead river, below Liberty Corner.
As early as A. D. 1701, Harrison had been appointed by the Governor and Proprietors of East New Jersey, then resident in England, to purchase the claims of the aboriginal owners to certain tracts of lands of which this must have been one, Though claiming to hold the entire State, by virtue of the King's grants, which they had purchased of the original receivers, still they thought it best to buy off these Indian claims; hence Harrison's transactions, which were very large.
He paid $50 for this three thousand acres, and the validity. of his title was recognized in all the subsequent changes. From his name, and the shape of the tract, it was long known and spoken of familiarly as "Harrison's Neck." The original deed of Nowenoik, and a map drawn about the same time, are on file in
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Newark, among the papers of the New Jersey Historical Society. No deed in the township, it is believed, runs farther back.
After the death of Harrison, his son Benjamin sold the whole purchase to Daniel Hollingshead and George Rissearick, who again sold one-half of their interest to Col. John Parker, of Am- boy, and James Alexander, of New York. By these four it was regularly surveyed in 1727, and laid out in lots or farms of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred acres each. These were drawn for, in lottery fashion, by the four joint owners at the spring term of the Supreme Court for 1728, held in Perth Amboy. The respective parties were then left to dispose of their lots on their own terms. James Alexander (the father of William Alex- ander-Lord Stirling) seems to have drawn what has since been known as "the Stirling property," some six or eight hundred acres, in beauty and fertility unsurpassed by any land in the township.
Up to the time of Harrison's purchase, therefore, there could have been no actual freeholders settled on this tract. There were, however, some scattered families in the vicinity occupying lands to which they had no legal title; a mode of settlement that has been more or less common ever since, in new parts of the country. In 1720 Cornelius Brees, of Staten Island, bought land of James Alexander, "on the east side of the north branch of Dead river, at the southwest corner of the Parker and Alexander purchase, said land being now in the occupation of James Pitney." James Pitney then, the first actual English settler whose name has been found, and who, as we shall see, was one of the original Trustees of this congregation, was living in this region, some- where near where Halsey Dunham now lives, one mile south from Liberty Corner, in 1720. So also was Henry Rolfe, whose name occurs in the same year, and one of whose family, probably his son Samuel, was another of our original Board of Trustees. Others, also, were probably here in the same way. Several com- plaints against "squatters" are found about this time. In 1729, a few years later, James Alexander directs his agent, Daniel Shoe- maker, to dispossess certain parties then occupying his lands, and give the right of possession to others. John Ayers is known to have settled in this county in 1717, probably somewhere on the Millstone river. In 1727 his son, Obadiah Ayers, is mentioned as having lands in this vicinty; the father, apparently, either having
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removed here himself or bought lands for his children in this neighborhood.
There were then actual settlers here as early as 1720, who subsequently were active and prominent in the movements of the church. Among these were Pitney, Rolfe, some of the Ayers family, perhaps, and probably others whose names are not given. In 1728 John Budd, an elder in the Presbyterian church, in Philadelphia, in writing to his agent here, speaks of "the hundred acres I lately gave away"; and in 1737 specific mention is made of his conveying one hundred acres (probably the same before alluded to) "for the use of a meeting-house."
Here we see then the source from which the old parsonage farm came, and at the same time that at least from 1720, or a little before, the elements which constituted our church and con- gregation at the beginning were gathering together in the neigh- borhood.
Precisely when and where they first assembled for worship cannot be determined. It is morally certain, however, that they were not long without some place, and the probability is that at least as early as 1725 there was a nucleus of praying men and women who came together somewhere near this spot, for the worship of Almighty God. At the same time that Harrison's purchase was being divided up and settled, Penn's agents and others were at work all around us in laying out and disposing of lands. Penn's Brook is a boundary line for Harrison, in 1717, and inasmuch as Basking Ridge was unquestionably the first religious centre of the neighborhood, this fact tends to give addi- tional plausibility to the statements above.
Passing now from these probabilities and conjectures, the first authentic date in our history is on the original deed of John Ayers, conveying a certoin plot of ground to Obadiah Ayers, Mordecai McKenne, James Pitney, George Pack, Samuel Rolfe, Daniel Morrice and Thomas Riggs. This document is dated February 8th, 1731, and conveys to said trustees one and one-half acres of land, "on or near the middle of which now stands a house built and intended for the exercising of religious worship in." This was, no doubt, the old log meeting-house of traditionary notoriety. One hundred and forty-one years ago it stood on this spot, with a thickly wooded grove around it. Whether it had been standing some little time before the deed was given (which
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is not improbable), or whether they had before worshipped in some other building-the school or session house which always preceded or accompanied the church in those early days; or whether there had been any public worship here anterior to that date, cannot be positively determined. In all probability, the first work of our sturdy ancestors as they began to form a com- munity her was the erection of a school-house, where some of them taught the children of their families in winter, and where the parents assembled for prayer before they had either church or minister. The known habits of the age, as well as the language of the deed, which speaks of "houses" as being on it at its date, point in this direction. The same circumstances that made this the religious centre, must also have made it the educational centre even earlier. The school or session house therefore probably went up from 1720 to 1725; the church soon followed, from 1725 to 1730, and was made secure to trustees as above, February 8th, 1731.
In 1733 the name of Basking Ridge first appears on the pages of our ecclesiastical records-( spelled uniformly in all early docu- ments as here written; which shows the purely English origin of the name, and that it grew out of the fact that the wild animals of the adjacent low lands were accustomed to bask on our beautiful ridge). There was as yet no church at Morristown. There was, in fact, no such town. That place was then known as West Hanover; and its scattered inhabitants had been con- nected in worship with Hanover up to this date. In the wide- spread congregation a disagreement arose about locating the church building and especially as to deciding the point by casting lots. The dispute became so earnest that a division of the con- gregation was threatened; to prevent which, if possible, the pastor, the Rev. Jno. Nutman, brought the matter before the Synod, for settlement. After repeated hearings, the Synod advises the West Hanover or Morristown people not to separate, but to continue their connection with Hanover, or, if any of them found it more convenient to worship at Basking Ridge "until they, as well as the said neighboring congregations, be more able to subsist of themselves separately." This was in September (2Ist), 1733, and shows that at that time a congregation, known to the Synod as not very well able to subsist of itself, was here and had doubtless been forming here for several years.
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The oldest grave-stone discovered in our yard is that of Henry Haines, who died June 9th, 1736; but there certainly must have been interments here before that date. Tradition says that the late Col. John Brees is known to have spoken of seeing a stone with the date 1719, though it cannot be found now.
The first minister of the gospel known to have labored here was the Rev. John Cross, who became a member of the Synod of Philadelphia in 1732, and seems to have begun his labors in that year. It is not known that he was ever installed as a regular pastor over this church, but it is certain that he preached here, with more or less regularity, from 1732 to 1741. He seems to have been rather a self-willed man, who followed his own course, without much regard to ecclesiastical law and order. On the next day after his reception as a member of Synod he withdrew from the meeting without permission, and was censured for his conduct. Three years later complaint was made to Synod against him by his Presbytery, "that he absented himself from their meetings and removed from one congregation to another without the concurrence of Presbytery." For this he was again censured, and admonished "to be no more chargeable with such irregu- larities for the future."
He was not here, therefore, all these years. The reason may have been that the congregation was still too weak to "subsist" alone, so that he was compelled to seek elsewhere for support. How much of his time was thus taken up, or how much was spent here, it is impossible now to determine. This whole region was now rapidly filling up with inhabitants, and, no doubt, as the size and strength of the congregation increased they gave him a better support, and he gave them more labor. After a time this became his permanent home. When the celebrated Geo. Whitfield visited this place November 5th, 1740, he stayed at Mr. Cross's house, two miles from Basking Ridge, probably the house owned by the late Judge Goltra, near Liberty Corner.
Whitfield speaks of a wonderful work of grace as then in progress, the first great revival, no doubt, that had occurred in this part of the country. As many as three hundred persons are said to have been awakened at one time under the preaching of Mr. Cross. "When I came to Basking Ridge," says Whitfield, "I found that Mr. Davenport had been preaching to the congrega- tion. It consisted of about three thousand people. In prayer
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I perceived my soul drawn out, and a stirring of affection among the people. I had not discoursed long, but in every part of the congregation somebody or other began to cry out, and almost all were melted to tears. At night also there was preaching to an immense audience in Mr. Cross's barn, when God was present in great power. One cried out, He is come, He is come; and could scarce sustain the discovery that Jesus made of himself to his soul. Others were so earnest for a like favor, that their eager cries compelled me to stop. Most of the people spent the re- mainder of the night in prayer and praise. Oh, it was a night much to be remembered! Next morning, I with pleasure took my leave of them, and rode agreeably in company with many children of God to New Brunswick, twenty-three miles from Basking Ridge."
Mr. Cross could not have continued to labor here much longer, as his successor came in 1741. The last mention of his name, in Presbytery or Synod, occurs in 1746; but the time of his death and the place of his burial are unknown. His death must have occurred between 1756 and 1750, as in this latter year, his wife, "Deborah Cross, widow," is mentioned as buying certain land from James Alexander. His grave, too, is probably in our yard, though marked with no stone, as this was the resting-place for the dead at that time, and he probably died at home. His farm, which embraced several hundred acres, was one of the finest sections of the township, and descended to his heirs. His deed to it was obtained in 1741. During his ministry, in 1737, the parsonage farm of 100 acres was given by Jno. Budd, of Philadelphia, though it is not probable that Mr. Cross ever occupied it.
Within the decade from 1730 to 1740 the population of this section of the county had greatly increased. The congregation too had, within this time, assumed definite shape and standing. It will be proper, therefore, at this point, to notice a little more particularly a few of the important families who were very prominent in our early history. Among these the first place is undoubtedly due to the Ayers family, whose progenitor, John Ayers, moved from Woodbridge, N. J., into Somerset County, in the same year that Harrison bought this tract from the Indian chief. He died in 1732, at the age of sixty-nine; but, if buried here, his grave is not to be found. He left seven sons, John, Thomas, Obadiah, Nathaniel, Benjamin, Moses, and Aaron, all
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of whom lived in this neighborhood and one of whom was the great grandfather of the late David Ayers, of this place. Most of these had large families, and together were the most numerous and influential of our ancestors. John gave the site of the church for a nominal consideration; Obadiah was the first-named trustee on the list; and for one hundred and twenty years the family lasted among us. But, alas, as with all things in this changing world, time has done its work with them. The very name has passed away from among us, though many of the descendants are doing good in other places. We owe them a debt of grati- tude which should never be forgotten.
Next to this was the family of the first preacher, who left one son (it is believed that Mr. Cross had more than one son) and two daughters. The son, Robert, was the father of eleven children, of whom the late James Cross was the youngest. Among them were eight sons and three daughters. Their descendants are very numerous and widely scattered, one of whom is the Rev. J. B. Cross, of Baltimore. Of the two daughters of the Rev. Jno. Cross, one married a McEowen, and was the grandmother of the late Alexander McEowen. The other married Daniel Cooper, and was the grandmother of William and Alexander Cooper, of Long Hill. The descendants of both the daughters, as well as of the son, have been very prominent and useful in the congregation. Mrs. Gertrude Cross (relict of James, grandson of Rev. John) has yet in her possession a treasured article of silver, marked "John and Deborah Cross."
About the same time (1732) came the Cauldwell, Carle, Cooper, Boyle and McEowen families to Long Hill; the Annin family to Liberty Corner ( formerly called Annin's Corner), and, to other parts of the congregation, the Riggs, Conkling, Alward, McCollum, Dayton, Doty, Boylan, Heath, Hall, Lindsley, Rickey, Lewis, Anderson and Hand families, into the particulars of whose history we have not time to enter, but all of whom became numerous and influential. Among these patriarchal ancestors was John Annin, great-grandfather to the late William; Solomon Boyle, great-grandfather to Augustus A., now living on the an- cestral farm; John Hall, great-grandfather to Samuel, lately removed from our vicinity; William Conkling, great-grandfather to Isaac, lately deceased; Henry Alward, great-grandfather to the late Jonathan; Daniel Cooper, great-grandfather to William
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and Alexander; Jacob Carle, grandfather to the late Daniel; Daniel Heath, grandfather to Mrs. Barclay Dunham; and John McCollum, believed to be the great-grandfather of our present elder, A. B. He died April 18th, 1760, at the venerable age of one hundred and three years. Another family worthy of par- ticular mention was that of Alexander Kirkpatrick, who came into this neighborhood in 1736, and settled on Mine Brook, on the farm lately owned by Henry Baird. In reaching that point, his company traveled on foot from Bound Brook over an Indian path -no road having yet been opened. On their way they saw a land tortoise in their path, and taking it to be a rattlesnake, they kept at a respectful distance by a circle through the woods. Mr. Kirkpatrick was a staunch Presbyterian, and for a hundred years his family stood prominent among us. His son David, who was twelve years old when his father came to this country, is said to have planted walnut trees on the Mine Brook Farm, out of which, some time previous to his death, he caused the boards to be sawed and laid up to dry, that were to be (and were) used in making his coffin. The late Rev. Jacob Kirkpatrick, D.D., of Ringoes, and his cousins, Walter and Hugh Kirkpatrick, whose remains lie in our yard, were the great-grandsons of the first settler, Alexander. Like many others, this honored name has passed from among us !
To finish these family notices, it may be stated here, though a little out of time, that in 1755 came the father of Henry Southard, when the son was but eight years old. The position and influence of this family in the neighborhood and in the nation for the next hundred years is too well known to require further notice. About the same time must have come the Guerin, the McMurtry and other families, whose descendants are yet with us. Such were some of the substantial materials occupying these beautiful hills originally, and gathered, most of them, into our first congregation by the Rev. Jno. Cross.
In 1742 Basking Ridge and Staten Island asked for the minis- terial services of Mr. Charles McKnight, the son of a Presby- terian clergyman in Ireland, and supposed to have come to this country, a young man, about the year 1740. He was taken under the care of the Presbytery of New Brunswick, June 28, 1741, and ordained on the 12th of October, of the next year. He probably served both congregations. Either for the excellence of his gifts,
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or from the scarcity of ministers, he seems to have been much in demand among the churches, as several other congregations desired his services at the same time. He remained here only about two years, and in the autumn of 1744 was installed pastor of Cranberry and Allentown. During the revolutionary struggle we find him preaching at Middletown Point, Shark River and Shrewsbury. He was captured and imprisoned for a time by the British, and soon after his release died, January Ist, 1778, having been a trustee of the College of New Jersey for more than twenty years. Of the churches to which he last ministered one became extinct, and the others were vacant, one thirty-two and the other forty years.
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