USA > New Jersey > Genealogical and memorial history of the state of New Jersey, Volume I > Part 6
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owing to the great confusion at Melford. By traversing a byway they reached Sir Robert Crane's, which was between Sudbury and Mel- ford, and there learned that Lady Rivers had escaped to Bury on her way to London, and that Sir Robert, despite his well-known repu- tation as a parliament man had been obliged to retain a train-band in his house to protect himself and his property. In 1641 and 1642 Sir Robert furnished besides a considerable sum of money "two grey geldings for Chris- topher Reps Troope" valued at £30. He died at London, February, 1643, and on the 17th of that month the house of commons ordered "that the Lady Crane shall have Mr. Speaker's warrant to carry down into the country the body of Sir Robert Crane, lately a member of this House." He was buried at Chilton, Feb- ruary 18, 1643. By his second wife Sir Robert Crane had ten children, two of them sons who died very young, and eight daughters, three of whom pre-deceased their father, and one died very soon after him. The remaining four, Mary, Susan, Anne and Elizabeth, became his coheiresses. I. Mary, born March 19, 1629; married, 1648, Sir Ralph Hane, of Stow-Bar- dolph, Norfolk, Baronet, became the mother of seven children and one of the ancestresses of the famous Hare and Hare-Powel families of Philadelphia. 2. Susan, born May 26, 1630; married, 1649, Sir Edward Walpole, of Houghton, Norfolk, Knight of the Bath, and was ancestress of the present Earl of Orford and of all the famous members of the Walpole family ; she died July 7, 1667, and was buried at Houghton. 3. Anne, born October 17, 1631 ; married, August 28, 1649, William Airmyne, Esquire, afterwards Sir William Airmyne, of Osgodby, Lincolnshire, and left only daughters; after his death she married John, Baron Belayse of Worlaby, county Lincoln, by whom she had no children ; and dying August II, 1662, was buried at St. Giles-in-the-East, London. Baron Belayse was the noted military commander under the two Charleses. He raised six regiments of horse and foot for the civil wars of that period, took part in the battles of Edgehill, Newbury and Naseby, and the sieges of Red- ding and Bristol ; afterwards was Governor of York and commander-in-chief of the forces in Yorkshire. With Lord Fairfax he fought the battle of Selby, and at the same time was lieu- tenant-general of the counties of Lincoln, Northampton, Derby and Rutland, and besides being governor of Newark, was general of the King's Horse Guards. Three times he was
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imprisoned in the Tower of London; but at the restoration was made lord lieutenant of East Riding, county York, governor of Hull and general of his Majesty's forces in Africa, governor of Tangiers and captain of the Guard of Gentlemen Pensioners. 4. Elizabeth, born August 18, 1634; married Edmund, afterwards Sir Edmund Bacon, of Redgrave, Suffolk, Premier Baronet of England, and died December 6, 1690, leaving only daughters.
Susan, Lady Crane, widow of Sir Robert, became the wife of Isaac Appleton, Esquire, of Little Waldingfield, a descendant in the fifth generation of the Thomas Appleton who about 1490 married Margery, daughter of Robert Crane, of Chilton. Isaac Appleton died about 1661; and his widow was buried at Chilton, September 14, 1681.
Sir Robert Crane dying without surviving male issue, the family prerogative passed into the hands of his cousins, the descendants of his great-uncle, John, of Norfolk, but to which one it is impossible with the data at hand to say positively. Among these cousins were Joseph Crane, of Earl Stoneham, Suffolk, who bore the same coat armor as Sir Robert, and Robert Crane, Esquire, of Suffolk, whom Charles II., in 1660, made a Knight of the Royal Oak. Another, a contemporary of Sir Robert of Chilton, was Robert Crane, of Cog- geshall, a parish on the Blackwater and near Braintree, county Essex, a man of consider- able prominence in his day, who had a very large estate and was a generous supporter of the parliamentary cause. He was also active as a member of the original company to settle Massachusetts and owned lands in Dorchester, Roxbury and Ipswich. The Rev. Nathaniel Rogers, son of the famous preacher of Ded- ham, county Essex, England, and father of John Rogers, fifth president of Harvard Col- lege, married, in 1626, Margaret, daughter of this Robert Crane, and before emigrating to Massachusetts in 1636 resided in Coggeshall where three of his children were born: John, June 17, 1627; buried June 21, 1627; Mary, February 8, 1628; John, January 23, 1630. In 1643 Robert Crane, of Coggeshall, was appointed a member of the committee for the execution of several ordinances of parliament, and again February 15, 1644, on the committee for raising and maintaining forces for the de- fence of the kingdom under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax in county Essex. Five days later he was placed on another committee for raising and levying a monthly sum of £21,- 000 among the several counties for the main-
tenance of the Scottish army, commanded by the Earl of Leven; and again in August fol- lowing to raise the weekly sum of £1,125 from his own county of Essex to maintain the army of parliament. After the death of Mary his first wife, Robert Crane married (second) Mary, daughter of Samuel Sparhawke, of Dedham, Essex. His will was proved in 1658, and he left six children: Samuel, Thomas, Robert, Margaret, "wife of the Reverend Na- thaniel Rogers, now in New England ;" Mary, wife of Henry Whiting, of Ipswich, and Eliz- abeth, wife of William Chaplyn. He had also a brother, Thomas, who predeceased him, and left another, John Crane, of Horram, county Suffolk, as well as a cousin, Robert, "son of my cousin Robert Crane of Braintree."
In view of the fact that Robert Crane, of Coggeshall, was personally connected with the settlement of Massachusetts; that he owned lands in various towns within that common- wealth; that his daughter, Margaret, wife of the Rev. Nathaniel Rogers, came with her hus- band and settled in New England; that the Cranes, Jasper excepted, who emigrated to the new world bore christian names correspond- ing to those borne by members of the family of Robert Crane, of Coggeshall,-there is much probability to the hypothesis, now gen- erally adopted, that the American Cranes are closely related to this branch of the family. Jasper, however, may possibly have come from Hampshire, and be a descendant of Hugo de Crane, fifth sheriff of that county, 1377 to 1399, in the reign of Richard II; as he was a nephew of the Margaret Crane, of Hampshire, who married Samuel Huntington, and whose daughters married, Margaret, May 2, 1592, John Ogden, of Bradley Plain, Hampshire, and Elizabeth, on the same day, Richard Og- den, of Wiltshire, and thus became the mother of John, the founder of the Elizabethtown Ogdens, and of Richard, the founder of the Fairfield, Connecticut, and South Jersey Og- dens.
The earliest record of the Cranes in the new world is January 8, 1637, when John Crane is registered in Boston. Two years later Jasper Crane attended a general meeting of all the free planters of New Haven, held in Mr. New- man's barn, June 4, 1639. Samuel Crane, in 1640, was elected to the town committee of Dorchester ; and Henry Crane, probably a son of Samuel, is recorded there in 1654. Ben- jamin Crane was in Wethersfield, Connecti cut, as early as 1655 with his brother, Henry, who went to Guilford in 1660. Stephen Crane
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was in New Jersey in 1665; and John Crane again, appeared at Coventry or Bolton, Con · necticut, about 1712.
John Crane, of Boston, and Samuel Crane, of Dorchester, appear to have either died or returned to England, the latter leaving his son, Henry, born probably in England1 about 1621; married Tabitha, daughter of Stephen Kinsley; settled in Braintree, Massachusetts, and left a large line of descendants. There is also quite a little evidence to believe that Ben- jamin and Henry Crane, of Wethersfield, we; e sons of John, of Boston, and that John Crane, of Coventry, Connecticut, was a grandson of Benjamin, of Wethersfield, and possibly a son of John Crane, who married Abigail Butler, October 27, 1692.
Jasper Crane removed from New Haven to Branford in 1652. He was a very prominent member of the colony but became dissatisfied when the colony united with Connecticut as he wished it to remain independent. Conse- quently he threw in his lot with the Branford contingent of the original settlers of Newark, New Jersey, and became one of that town's most prominent citizens and the founder of the most numerous of the New Jersey lines of descent.
According to the family traditions of his de- scendants, Stephen Crane, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, came from England or Wales between 1640 and 1660, and there is no claim to a con- nection with the other families. Mr. Ellery Bicknell Crane, however, says that "there seem several reasons for placing the honor ( of being Stephen's father) upon Jasper. The latter had children born before arriving at New Haven and as they went to New Jersey about the same time, and Stephen occupied lands adjoining lots owned and occupied by children of Jasper, with suitable age, and fam- ily names that were more or less adopted in common, and to say the least, strong indica- tions that there existed close family ties be- tween them." It should be noted, however, that there is a Cornwall family of Cranes, dat- ing from the latter part of the fifteenth cen- tury in which all of these same names occur; and so far as the present writer knows it is the only one which does include the name of Stephen.
(I) Stephen Crane, "of Elizabethtown," was born about 1630 or 1635. Some have claimed that he was born as early as 1619; and there is a tradition, coming from his great-great-grandson, the Rev. Elias W. Crane, that "about 1625, * * * during
the persecution of the Puritans in England under Queen Elizabeth, the ancestor of the Crane family came to America. His name was Stephen. The ship in which he came is supposed to have sailed from the west of England, favored at embarkation by a fog * * to have sunk at Amboy, New Jersey, but all on board were saved. Stephen Crane settled at Elizabeth Town, named for Queen Elizabeth, who confirmed the purchase of lands from the Indians." It is a pity that such a tradition must be stamped as almost wholly if not altogether fiction, but history is against it. Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 and was succeeded by James I, who in turn was succeeded in 1625 by Charles I .; and it is a matter of record that the name "Elizabeth- town was bestowed by Sir Philip Carteret, the first Governor of East Jersey, in honor of the Lady Elizabeth Carteret, the wife of his brother Sir George Carteret, the proprietor." Moreover, if Stephen Crane came to America as indicated in 1625, he must have been at least one hundred and five years old when he died, a thing in itself very improbable, and his children, assuming the dates of their births to be approximately correct, all born after their father was sixty-five or seventy years old. Stephen Crane's name is recorded as one of the original Elizabethtown associates of 1665, and he with them took the oath of alle- giance to Charles II, February 19, of that year. This is the first record we have of him. His house lot of six acres was bounded south- east by Samuel Trotter, northwest by Crane's brook, east by the mill creek, and west by the highway. He also had sixty acres between two swamps and adjoining William Cramer's ; also seventy-two acres on Crane's brook, bounded by the brook, William Cramer, Rich- ard Beach, Nathaniel Tuttle and William Par- don; and also eighteen acres of meadow "to- wards Rawack Point"; in all about one hun- dred and fifty-six acres. In 1675 he obtained from the proprietors of East Jersey a patent to confirm his title to these lands ; and in 1710 he executed a deed to his son Nathaniel giving him his house lot in Elizabethtown and other parcels of land in which he describes them as bounded by the lands of John, Daniel, Jere- miah and Azariah Crane. By his will, dated 1709, he bequeathed to his son John, another piece of land within the town limits. He was. one of the most active opponents of the .un- warrantable acts of Governor Carteret, and with Robert Morse was the one who demol- ished Richard Michel's house "and plucked
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up the pallisades of his garden." According to the fundamental agreement of 1665, made in town meeting and consented to by the gov- ernor on his arrival, none but the people in town meeting assembled could determine who should be admitted as associates and free- holders. Carteret, who had brought over with him as servents a number of Frenchmen and other foreigners, in direct violation of this consent, February 10, 1669, made Claude Val- lot a freeman by proclamation and gave him a grant of land. October 31, 1670, he re- voked the commissions of the officers of the train band and forbad the drill. May 16, 1671, in' violation of the provisions of the Concessions, he constituted a special court and a few weeks later repeated his first offence by making Richard Michel, another Frenchman, a freeman and giving him a grant of land. Michel fenced in the land, built himself a house on one part and sublet the remainder to Will- iam Letts, the weaver. If such acts of ag- gression on the part of the governor were tol- erated they might be followed by others and the town soon became overrun with foreign- ers, claiming equal shares in the plantation ; and if the acts were not resisted, the town's privilege of self-government was gone. Con- sequently the town meeting assembled, warned Michel's tenants not to use the lands they rented and appointed a committee to tear down the fence. Robert Morse and Stephen Crane, who were next door neighbors, living on the west side of the creek, took upon themselves to demolish the house and garden plot, and although it must have been warm work for a midsummer day, June 20, 1671, their deed proved to be the climax of the fight against the governor, who was forced to let the matter drop, and in the following October appoint as constable of the town William Meeker, one of his bitterest opponents. December II, 1673, Stephen Crane with the other Elizabethtown men swore allegiance to the Dutch who had reconquered the province, which they were to hold for a short time longer; and in 1694 he subscribed fifteen shillings to the support of the minister of the town, the Rev. John Har- riman.
About 1663 Stephen Crane married. It is said that his wife was "a Danish woman with red hair, and that nearly all the Cranes in and about Elizabethtown and Westfield" are de- scendants from them. There are four sons of record to Stephen Crane and his wife : I. John, in 1713 one of the overseers of the highways, and in 1720 a town-committeeman. Decem-
ber, 1714, he purchased one hundred acres on the east side of the Rahway river, on which he located a saw and grist mill, and which he bequeathed to his sons John and Joseph. He also owned land on the southwest side of the river where the town of Cranford is now sit- uated. He married Esther, daughter of Sam- uel and Esther (Wheeler) Williams, and left ten children: John, Matthias, Benjamin, mar- ried Esther Woodruff, Samuel, Abigail, mar- ried Jacob DeHart, Joseph, Esther, Sarah, Re- becca and Deborah. 2. Jeremiah, whose wife was named Susanna, was admitted among the second generation of associates in 1699 and the same year signed a petition to the king. He died in 1742, leaving a widow and one son James. 3. Daniel, referred to below. 4. Nathaniel, whose wife Damaris was born in 1684, died October 9, 1745, leaving seven children: Nathaniel, married Mary, daughter of John Price; Caleb, Jonathan, Christopher, Moses, married Joanna Miller ; Phebe, mar- ried the father of John Chandler ; Mary, whose first husband was a Chandler, and who by her second husband became the mother of General Elias Dayton.
(II) Daniel, son of Stephen Crane, of Elizabethtown, was born about 1670 or 1675, died February 24, 1724. In 1699 he signed the same petition to the king that his brother Jeremiah did, and he married Hannah or Su- sannah, daughter of William Miller, and sister to Alderman William Miller. In his will he mentions five sons : I. Daniel, born in 1703, died February 25, 1723. 2. Jonathan, born April 19, 1705, died January, 1766, in West- field ; married Mary --- , who died in 1766, aged sixty-two years, who bore him four chil- dren : Hannah, born July 24, 1728; Mary, No- vember I, 1730; Sarah, May 24, 1733, died March 1, 1738; Rebecca, July 12, 1740, mar- ried Deacon Joseph Achur, and was the grandmother of John D. Norris, of Elizabeth- town. 3. William, left no further record. 4. Stephen, referred to below. 5. David, born about 1712, left his brothers Stephen and William at Elizabethtown and removed to Maryland, settling in Chestertown, Kent county, where he established himself in the business of tanning and currying leather. He married Elizabeth Rickets, of Chestertown, and died quite young leaving two children: David, born September 19, 1743, married Mary, sister to Colonel Philip Reed, the com- mander at the battle of Caulk's Field where Sir Peter Parker fell in 1814. David himself was a captain in the revolution and did good
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service at Clow's Fort on the Delaware boun- dary. He left thirteen children. Sarah, the other child of David, son of Daniel Crane, died without issue.
(III) Stephen (2), son of Daniel and Han- nah or Susannah (Miller) Crane, was born in 1709, died June 23, 1780. He was one of the leading patriots of New Jersey during the revolution, and under the colonial government was a man of considerable note in his day. His portrait is in the engraving, "The First prayer in Congress." His homestead was about one and one-half miles from Elizabeth, near the point where the road to Galloping Hill leaves the road to Mulfords. The spot is in sight of and on the north side of the Central railroad of New Jersey. The old well was on the opposite side of the road from the house which was recently still standing in good pres- ervation and under a large oak tree.
The controversy between the townspeople and the proprietors, which had been going on almost ever since the founding of the town and which was to result in the famous Eliza- bethtown bill in chancery, had in the time of Stephen Crane become quite acute and had led to many actions for trespass and ejectment, and the county lines had become so changed in the interests and for the benefit of the pro- prietors that it was determined to carry the matter directly to the king. November 16, 1743, Solomon Boyle, of Morris county, wrote to James Alexander, both of them belonging to the interests of the proprietors, that he "had been to Elizabethtown the week before and had been informed that the people of that place and the people of Newark had come to a written agreement relative to their boundary -the Newarkers to join in sending home against the proprietors, but that Colonel ( Rob- ert) Ogden said that it was not finished and that none of the Ogdens would agree to it." December 12, following, David Ogden wrote to James Alexander, his fellow-councillor of the proprietors, confirming what Boyle had written and stating further that "Mr. Fitch from Newark had met the Elizabeth Town Committee and left with them a petition to the King for relief against the proprietors with which they were much pleased; that Matthias Hetfield and Stephen Crane had been chosen by them to go to England during the winter and lay it before the King." The ap- peal referred to in the above quoted extracts was drawn up by a lawyer of Norwalk, Con- necticut, who was afterwards governor of that state. It recites clearly and fully the matters
in controversy, narrates succinctly the history of the Indian purchase and of the opposing claims, refers to the litigation already determ- ined, and to the other suits still pending, shows the difficulty of obtaining an impartial hearing of the case as the courts and the country are constituted, and appeals to his Majesty for re- lief. The address is signed by three hundred and four persons, purporting to be "The Pro- prietors, Freeholders and Inhabitants of a Tract of Land now called Elizabeth Town," etc. It was taken to England and presented to King George II by Matthias Hetfield and Steven Crane, read in council, July 19, 1744, referred to the lords of the committee of the council for plantation affairs, and August 21, 1744, referred to the lords commissioners for trade and the plantations, and then it is lost sight of, and no record has been found of what action if any was taken upon it. Apparently it had very little effect in bringing about an adjustment as matters went from bad to worse ; land riots arose, and finally in 1745 the famous bill in chancery suit was begun, which was never to come to a legal termination, but was to produce suits and counter suits, eject- ments, legal and illegal, until the revolution brought to a close forever the numerous contro- versies between the settlers and the proprietors, the crown and the British parliament. In 1750 William Livingston, a pupil of James Alexan- der, one of the proprietors, and William Smith Jr., drew up the complaint against Elizabeth- town and a town committee was chosen to conduct the defense of the town, consisting of John Crane, John (2), Stephen (I), Andrew Craige, William Miller, John Halsted, Stephen Crane, Thomas Clarke and John Chandler, most of whom were members of the corpora- tion of the town. November 1, 1751, Gov- ernor Belcher, who had been obliged on ac- count of his health to remove the seat of gov- ernment from Burlington to Elizabethtown. arrived at that place, and the corporation pre- sented him with a written address of welcome signed by John Stites, John Radley, Stephen Crane, John Chandler, Samuel Woodruff, Rob- ert Ogden, Thomas Clarke and John Halsted. August 22, 1753, Governor Belcher incorpo- rated the First Presbyterian Congregation of Elizabethtown and appointed as the trustees Stephen Crane, Cornelius Hatfield, Jonathan Dayton, Isaac Woodruff, Matthias Baldwin, Moses Ogden and Benjamin Winans. Shortly after this Stephen Crane became high sheriff of Essex county as. successor to Matthias Hat- field and as predecessor of Matthias William-
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son; and this office together with that of a judge of the court of common pleas he held during the agitation caused by the stamp act. In 1768 he was returned as one of the mem- bers of the New Jersey assembly to represent Essex county, and to take the place of the speaker, Robert Ogden, who had resigned. In 1770 he became speaker of the house; and during the years 1772-73 he was mayor of Elizabethtown. On Saturday, June 1I, 1773, shortly after the "Boston Tea Party," a meet- ing was held in Newark, and a paper offered by William Livingston was unanimously and heartily adopted urging the country to stand firm and united in opposition to parliament and inviting the provincial convention to as- semble speedily to appoint delegates to a gen- eral congress, and at the same time appointed as its representatives Stephen Crane, Henry Garritse, Joseph Riggs, William Livingston, William Peartree Smith, John DeHart, John Chetwood, Isaac Ogden and Elias Boudinot. July 21, 1774, in accordance with these sug- gestions and pursuant of a circular letter issued by the Newark committee, the several com- mittees met at New Brunswick and appointed Stephen Crane "to preside over their delib- erations." They then chose James Kinsey, William Livingston, John DeHart, Stephen Crane and Richard Smith as delegates to a general congress. This general congress met from September to October, 1774, at Phila- delphia; and the Essex committee of corre- spondence issued a call for town meetings to "organize the towns for more vigorous resist- ance, and the prosecution of the measures rec- ommended by the congress." In accordance with this call the freeholders of Elizabethtown met at the court-house on Tuesday, December 6, 1774, with Stephen Crane in the chair; a committee on organization was chosen and Stephen Crane, John DeHart, William Living- ston, William Peartree Smith, Elias Boudinot and John Chetwood were unanimously re- elected on the Essex county committee of correspondence. In January, 1775, Stephen Crane was re-elected to the colonial congress. In 1776 fears were entertained that the Brit- ish troops then at Boston were about to be transferred to New York. General Washing- ton therefore wrote to Lord Stirling to take proper measures for the defence of that city. Accordingly Lord Stirling, March 13, 1776 called upon each of the several adjacent counties in New Jersey to send forward at once three or four hundred men to aid in the fortifying of the city and harbor. To this
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