USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Newark > A History of the city of Newark, New Jersey : embracing practically two and a half centuries, 1666-1913, Volume I > Part 7
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Hauns Albers, a German or Dutchman, who came with the others from Milford, and who may either have been originally one of the Dutch settlers in and around New York or may have come under Puritan influence during the stay of the Pilgrims in the Nether- lands, where there were many German refugees.
As for the rest, the family names of most of them survive in Newark to-day. Many were related, some by blood and others by marriage. They were thus bound together in one large family by the closest of human ties, those of kinship and of religion.
None of the settlers came directly from England to Newark, although nearly all were born in the old country. Every one of the forty-two counties of England contributed to the great Puritan exodus, but it is probable "that two-thirds of the American people who can trace their ancestry to New England might follow it back to the East Anglian shires of the mother country.2
BIOGRAPHIES OF THE LEADING MEN.
ROBERT TREAT --- No better understanding of the character of the Newark founders is to be had than by a perusal of short biographies of some of the leaders, and there is none that stands out through all the records in such sharp and striking relief as Robert Treat, the master mind of the colony from the beginning and for about six years thereafter.
He was born in England, came to the New Haven Colony when a young man, and settled in Milford, after a brief stay in Wethersfield. He is believed to have been well educated and his father was a man of mark in New England before him. He had two wives, and the first was Jane, daughter of Edward Tapp, one of the "seven pillars" of the Milford church. We all like to believe one story told of her as showing her a woman of some wit as well as decision. It tells how Treat, while beseeching her to marry him, drew her down upon his lap, when she said: "Robert, have done with that; I had rather be Treated than trotted."3 He held many posi-
2 Lambert's Hist. Coll. New Haven, p. 137.
" Lambert's Hist. Coll. New Haven, p. 137.
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tions of trust in the New Haven Colony, and was a magistrate at the time the Crown was striving to capture the regicides Goffe and Whalley, who were in hiding there. Treat warned the people not to harbor the regicides, as was his duty, but it is believed that he assisted in protecting them, nevertheless.
He was virtually the pathfinder for the settlers of Newark, as we have seen. He forsaw the necessity of the immigration, years before it actually came, and he was the leader in the early negotiations with the Dutch as well as with the English later. He was Newark's first town magistrate and, as the first recorder or town clerk, was the first keeper of the Town Minute Book. He and Jasper Crane are believed to have had more to do with the admirable laying out of the original town plat, to which we are indebted for the superb breadth of Broad street and the three triangular parks with which its course is relieved, than to anyone else. Their responsibility for this work can not be determined by actual fact and is rather the impression gathered by local engi- neers and surveyors whose business it has been to search all avail- able records and other material to locate road lines, boundaries, etc.
Treat was one of the town's two first representatives to the General Assembly. His title of Captain, from the very beginning of the colonization movement, signified that he was the temporal leader of the little flock, before it had a spiritual one. He was Newark's Miles Standish, for while war did not come to the little settlement, had there been fighting with the Indians or with white foes, Treat would undoubtedly have been the people's tower of strength in time of battle, and for all such contingencies he and his lieutenants prepared with great deliberation and care. Treat was active in military affairs while a young man in New Haven Colony. He took part in a campaign against the Dutch.
When the settlement was well organized, Treat returned to Connecticut, in 1672, leaving two sons and as many daughters behind him. He was almost immediately made magistrate of the Province and was also appointed as major of militia. At one time
ROBERT TREAT
THE DOMINANT SPIRIT IN THE SETTLEMENT OF NEWARK IN 1666 CHOSE THIS SITE FOR HIS, HOME" IN RECOGNITION OF HIS SERVICES "THE NEIGHBOURS FROM MILFORD FREELY GAVE WAY THAT CAPTAIN ROBERT TREAT SHOULD CHUSE EIGHT ACRES FOR HIS HOME LOTT."
HE WAS TOWN MAGISTRATE, THE FIRST TOWN CLERK, ONE OF THE TWO DEPUTIES TO THE PROVINCIAL ASSEMBLY, AND IN THE GENERAL AFFAIRS OF THE YOUNG SETTLEMENT'S FOUNDATION BECAME A TRUSTED LEADER IN 1672 HE RETURNED TO CONNECTICUT AND LATER WON HONOUR ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE IN KING PHILIP'S WAR. HE WAS GOVERNOR FOR THIRTEEN YEARS AND WAS ONE OF THAT DAUNTLESS COMPANY WHO REFUSED TO SURRENDER THE COLONY'S CHARTER AND CONCEALED IT IN THE CHARTER OAK. IN A LARGE DEGREE IT WAS HIS WISDOM IN COUNSEL AND FORCEFULNESS IN ADMINISTRATION THAT MADE THE "TOWN ON THE PESAYACK" THE WORTHY FORERUNNER OF THE GREATER NEWARK ERECTED BY THE SCHOOLMEN'S CLUB ASSISTED BY THE PUPILS OF THE NEWARK PUBLIC SCHOOLS NEWARK DAY. NOVEMBER 4, 1912
THE TREAT TABLET, AT BROAD AND MARKET STREETS Erected 1913
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he headed a small squad of what we would call light cavalry, going to the relief of settlers attacked by the Indians. In 1675 he com- manded the Connecticut militia in the epoch-making battle of Bloody Brook, in which the power of the red man in New England was broken forever, and before which the very existence of the New England colonies may be said to have hung in the balance.
After a long march through deep snow and in intense cold, the Indian stronghold was found, on a hill in a marsh. It was a village, strongly palisaded and further protected with a deep ditch or moat. A tree was felled across the moat at the front of the village and at the portal. Across this the white men dashed with great valor, but were shot down until the ditch about the tree was filled with bodies of the dead and dying. For a long time the odds were against the white men. Major Treat and his men, bringing up the rear of the little army, arrived on the field near dusk. He sent part of his force into the main attack at the felled tree-trunk and with the rest set out to reconnoiter the sides and rear of the village. They found a weak spot in the palisades and forced their way through, attacking the savages with great spirit from the rear. This demonstration demoralized the Indians and they were quickly crushed between the two forces of militia. Tradition says that Treat was the last to leave the village, and that he received a bullet through his hat.
Treat and his men were hailed as heroes upon their return home and the grateful people accorded him rapid preferment after that. He was governor of Connecticut at the time of the historic visit of Sir Edmund Andros to demand the charter of the Province, and he sat in the assembly room at Hartford on that memorable day and evening when Andros, on behalf of the Crown, strove to wrest the precious document from the people. While the delibera- tions were in process and the charter lay upon the table, it grew dark and candles were brought. The weather was warm and the windows were open. A cloak was thrown into the room and the gust it created extinguished the lights. When the candles were re-lit the charter was gone, to rest securely in "Charter Oak" until
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it was no longer in danger. Just what part Treat played in this historic event we shall probably never know; but that he was deep in the plot we can have no doubt. He was deputy governor or governor of Connecticut for thirty-two years. He died in 1710 in his eighty-fifth year.
"Few men have sustained a fairer character or rendered the public more important services. He was an excellent military officer ; a man of singular courage and resolution, tempered with caution and prudence. His administration of government was with wisdom, firmness and integrity. He was esteemed courageous, wise and pious. He was exceedingly beloved and venerated by the people in general, and especially at Milford where he resided." +
The service rendered by Robert Treat as the chief founder has never been adequately recognized by the Newarkers of any genera- tion since the first. They bestowed upon him the best that they had, when they conceded to him the unique privilege of selecting his home lot and one additional lot in advance of all others, the first to be eight acres instead of six as were those of the other settlers. That ground is worth millions to-day. It was a splendid gift, even at the time it was given. The city of Newark to-day can scarcely retain its self respect without erecting some handsome tribute to his memory. Treat's home lot was the southeast corner of Market and Broad streets, extending down Broad below the present First Presbyterian Church, and through the block to Mulberry street and up Market to the corner. His second lot was on the south side of Market, east of Washington. The Newark Schoolmen's Club, in 1912, unveiled a tablet in his honor on the Kinney Building, which stands on the corner of the Treat home lot. The money for the tablet was gathered in penny contributions from the chil- dren of the Newark public schools. The additional lot granted him was "for his expense with the Indians about purchasing."
THE REV. ABRAHAM PIERSON-While Robert Treat saw to it that the foundations of the settlement were laid deep and upon a sure and lasting earthly basis, it was Pastor Pierson who devised
' Lambert's Hist. Coll. New Haven, pp. 100, 137.
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and created the spiritual framework of this, the last Puritan the- ocracy. Treat was forty-one when Newark was begun, while Pastor Pierson was over fifty. He had had the advantages of a splendid education, for that day. Treat was a devout man, but intensely practical withal and with much of the genius of an engi- neer and remarkable in his skill as an organizer. Pastor Pierson was a power in the Puritan church, even in England, and was known throughout all of the New World where Puritan doctrines took root. He was a man of means for the times. His estate, when he came to Newark, was rated at £644, the largest among the settlers except that of Robert Treat, whose estate was fixed at £660. They were the wealthiest among the founders as well as the most influential.
Pastor Pierson was born in Yorkshire, England, and was a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was in college with the great John Milton, and the companionship of men of such majestic mentality undoubtedly made its impress upon Pierson's whole life. He was a man of deep religious feeling and of high thinking. He was of the manner of men from whom martyrs, in his day and in other times, have been made, although it was not written in the book of fate that he should die a violent death for his faith. Ile strove with all the power that was in him to spread the Puritan doctrines. He is believed to have been ordained to preach before leaving England, at Newark-on-Trent. . After preaching for a few years in his native country, he came to Boston. In 1640 he organized a church among the people of Lynn, Massa- chusetts, and removed with his congregation to Long Island, to where Southampton now is. Four years later he again moved, with part of his flock, and several families from Wethersfield, to Branford, called by the Indians Totoket. After a pastorate there of over twenty years he departed with his people to Newark, reorganizing the church to meet the conditions of the new land, constructing the spiritual bulwarks of this new "Kingdom of God on Earth" with infinite care and with an enthusiasm that would indicate he almost felt that at last a way had been found to
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build up a community in this naughty world where sin could not enter in.
He was a man of erudition, and at his death had a library of four hundred and forty volumes, valued at one hundred and forty pounds; beyond a doubt the largest in both East and West Jersey at the time. Many of these books he bequeathed to his son, Abraham Pierson, Jr., who became the first president of Yale College, and there are good reasons for believing that some of these volumes from the old Newark pastor's library found their way from the son's hand into the little collection that made up the foundation of the present great library of Yale University.
Abraham Pierson was aglow with the missionary spirit and he strove with high-born zeal to lift the natives of the new country out of savagery. At the instance of the Commissioners for the United Colonies of New England "for carrying on and promoting the Gospel of Christ in New England," Pierson prepared a cate- chism in the language of one of the dominant tribes of Connecticut and New Haven colonies, which was long used by the missionaries, and which he himself used in preaching to the red men. It was printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1658, by Samuel Green, and was antedated only a few years by the celebrated Indian catechism of John Eliot, "Apostle to the Indians," used among the Indians of Massachusetts.
There are but two known copies of the Pierson catechism in existence, both of different imprints, although possessing no varia- tions except in the title page. One is in the British Museum and the other in the New York Free Public Library. Both were printed by Green. This work is believed to have been the first by an author living in either the Connecticut or New Haven colonies and printed in this country. A reprint of the original is in the New Jersey Historical Society's library.
On one occasion at least, when an agreement was to be made between the Indians and the Colony of New Haven, Pastor Pierson, with his converted Indians, performed important service in the capacity of interpreters. Pierson served with the Connecticut troops in the hostilities against the Dutch, as chaplain.
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Pastor Pierson was a man of great influence throughout the entire New Haven Colony, by reason of his sincere and aggressive Christianity, which was in entire keeping with the Puritan spirit of the times; and because of his scholarship and his personal char- aeter he was known throughout New England as a "godly, learned man," and Cotton Mather said of him in his quaint fashion, "wherever he came he shone." He died in 1678 and was laid to rest in the old Newark Burying Ground. Many generations ago, over a century before the bones of the settlers were removed to Fairmount Cemetery, all trace of Pastor Pierson's grave had been lost-but one of many melancholy illustrations of the indifference of succeeding generations to the memory and achievements of their forbears who made their comfort and well-being possible.
JASPER CRANE-After Robert Treat and Pastor Pierson, Jasper Crane was the most forceful and useful man among the town builders. He was one of the oldest men in the entire group of colonists and was over sixty when he came here. He was born in Hampshire, England, and could trace his family back to the fourteenth century. He was one of the founders of the New Haven Colony and signed the first agreement to that end that was drawn up. Ile was one of the small company that signed the oath of fidelity at the formal organization of the Colony's government. He was a member of the general court of the Colony, together with Robert Treat. He was a magistrate in New Haven and, after removing to Branford in 1652, was chosen a magistrate there. He was deeply concerned in the removal to New Jersey, and it is significant evidence of his influence among the Branford group that he heads the list-even preceding Pastor Pierson-among those who signed the "fundamental agreement." His name was also first in the list of signers to the agreement for the organiza- tion of the First Church in Newark. Jasper Crane and Robert Treat were the first magistrates of the town. The former was a surveyor as well as a merchant and is believed to have been actively interested in the laying out of the original New Haven plot, locating grants, establishing division lines and settling dis-
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putes over land titles. He undoubtedly had much to do, together with Robert Treat, in the layout of Newark's town plot, fixing street lines, lot boundaries, etc. He owned large tracts of land in and around New Haven.
Jasper Crane foresaw, like Treat, the inevitable departure from New England of the members of their particular Puritan per- suasion, and he was a member of the New Haven Company that strove to establish a trading post and settlement on the Delaware in 1642, whose representatives were persecuted and driven out by the Dutch. He was one of the founders of Branford, as well as of New Haven and of Newark. He was one of the first deputies from Branford to the general court of electors, in 1653. He was one of the four magistrates for the whole colony of New Haven from 1658 to 1663, by appointment. His house lot in New Haven was at the corner of Elm and Orange streets, where the church of St. Thomas now stands. Oddly enough, his home lot in Newark, was at the corner of what are now Market and High streets, occupied to-day by St. Paul's Episcopal Church. Besides, he took up land at the head of Mill Brook, near the southern end of what is Branch Brook Park, purchased a large tract in what was called Barbadoes Neck (West Hudson) from the Kingsland family, and, with three other Newark settlers, acquired the land in the centre of what is now Montclair. He bought other properties in what is now Essex county. He had a numerous progeny, and so many Cranes made their homes on the land at the head of Second River, in what is now Montclair, that the neighborhood became known as Cranetown.
Jasper Crane was one of the first individuals to appreciate the value of New Jersey real estate, as the above paragraph shows. He regretted bitterly the failure of the New Haven Company's venture on the Delaware, "whereby," he said, "the gospel might have been published to the natives and much good done, not only to the colonies at present but to posterity.""
" Rev. Charles E. Knox, in Shaw's "History of Essex and Hudson Counties," p. 890.
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He was first on the list of deputies to the New Jersey General Assembly for a number of years. After the return of Treat to Connecticut, Crane was the first citizen, after the pastor. He, with Treat and others, represented the town at the solemn ceremonies upon Divident Hill, described in the preceding chapter. He was moderator of town meeting on a number of occasions. He was looked up to for his fair dealing. In those days barter played an important part in all business life, and the settlers often paid off their obligations to the town with goods. In 1670, as the Town Minute Book shows, Jasper Crane's half bushel measure was made the standard.
He was made a member of various important committees, including two appointed to confer with those of other communities in the province upon the advisability of sending petitions and protests to the Crown against the exactions of the Proprietors. With others he represented the town in the negotiations with the Dutch for the ownership of the New Barbadoes tract between the Hackensack and Passaic rivers. For fourteen years he was almost incessantly active in the town's behalf, when his strength began to fail him, and his three sons-John, Azariah and Jasper, Jr.,- took his place in helping, with vigor and success, to work out the town's destinies. Jasper Crane may be spoken of as a typical Newark founder. Deeply religious, and fearless in following out the dictates of his conscience in his religious life, he was a skillful and far-sighted town builder, working ceaselessly for the prosperity of the community and at the same time having proper care for the welfare of his family.
DEACON LAWRENCE WARD-Of the four founders of the name of Ward, Deacon Lawrence Ward was the most influential in the community's upbuilding. He was a ship carpenter by trade and came from England about 1634. He was one of those inter- ested in the foundation of the New Haven colony, and took the oath of fidelity to its government and signed the "fundamental agreement" in 1639. He removed from New Haven to Branford at the time of the latter place's establishment. When the officers
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of the Crown were searching high and low for the regicides Goffe and Whalley, he was commissioned to try and run them to earth, in the town of Milford. These sturdy men who had sat in the Court that condemned Charles I to be beheaded were in Milford at the time; they were, indeed, being secretly cared for by Michael (or Micah) Tompkins (or Tomkins), who later was to be associated with Ward in the founding of Newark. Lawrence Ward is believed to have been impressed into service, and it is enough to say that he not only did not find the fugitives, but that the Crown officials reported that he had made a most thorough search. Lawrence Ward was a member of the Colonial Assembly from Branford. He was the first deacon of the church upon its establishment in New- ark. He died three or four years after the settlement of Newark.
JOHN WARD (Turner)-With Deacon Ward there came to Newark two of his nephews, John and Josiah, both of whom were forceful members of the community in its struggling days. John was one of the Branford signers to the fundamental agreement. To him fell much of the routine incidental to the making of the Newark settlement. He had much to do with the allotment and partition of lands. His home lot was at the corner of North Canal street and Park place. He was one of those chosen to see that the cattle were branded and to keep a record of the particular brands of the individual owners, a task of considerable importance, especially in the days before fencing could be provided.
John Ward and his cousin, John Catlin, were appointed a committee to consummate the actual purchase of the new Bar- badoes Neck property between the Hackensack and Passaic rivers. He was always mentioned in the Minute Book as "John Ward, turner," or "dish-turner," indicating his trade, and to distinguish him from another of the founders, Sergeant John Ward. It is interesting to note that these two Johns had sons also with the name of John, who were distinguished as John Ward, Jr., and John Ward, turner, Jr. John Ward, turner, served as town con- stable in 1670, and may therefore be spoken of as one of the fathers of Newark's police force. He was a member of the board of select-
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men or "town's men," as they were called. He was a "viewer" of fences, a "warner" of town meetings, and one of those whose duty it was to see that every settler turned in his quota of fire wood for the use of the pastor.
JOSIAH WARD-Josiah Ward was a brother of John, the turner, and therefore a nephew of Deacon Lawrence Ward. He also was of the Branford group, and it was he who is reported to have helped Elizabeth Swain ashore at the time of the landing of the Branford settlers.
John Ward, Sr., better known as Sergeant John Ward, was like John, the turner, active in the breaking of the ground for the new settlement.
MICAH TOMKINS-One of the strong men in the settlement was Micah or Michael Tompkins. The last name was varied to Tomkins, even in the early days. He was a Milford man, and the manner of man he was is strikingly shown by his having secreted the regicides, Goffe and Whalley, in the cellar of his Milford home. Had the agents of the Crown discovered the fugitives in Tomkins' keeping it would have gone very hard with him, as the stern old Puritan no doubt knew.
" "From their lodgement in the woods the judges [Goffe and Whalley] removed and took up an asylum in the house of Mr. Tomkins in the centre of Milford, thirty or forty rods from the meeting house." Robert Treat was one of the few who probably knew of and was in entire sympathy with Tomkins' courageous and humane act. "The family used to spin in the room above, ignorant of the Judges being below [in the cellar]. Judge Buck- ingham tells me this story, the only anecdote or notice I could ever learn from a Milford man now living. While they sojourned at Milford there came over from England a ludicrous cavalier ballad, satirizing Charles's Judges, Whalley and Goffe among the rest. A spinstress at Milford had learned to sing it, and used sometimes to sing it in the chamber over the Judges; and the Judges used to get Tomkins to set the girls to singing the song for their diversion,
" Stile's "History of the Three Judges of King Charles I," pp. 88, 89.
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being humored and pleased with it, though at their own expense, as they were the subjects of the ridicule. The girls knew nothing of the matter, being ignorant of the innocent device, and little thought that they were serenading angels."
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