USA > New Jersey > Burlington County > Burlington > History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men > Part 38
USA > New Jersey > Mercer County > History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men > Part 38
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STONY BROOK .- In the southern part of the town- ship, along the historic stream of Stony Brook, there . are still standing, hoary with age and sacred with
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Revolutionary associations, Worth's Mills and the and Millstone Rivers, the other from the margin of ancient Quaker meeting-house, and near them a . the Delaware River, along which streams the carly little cluster of houses and shops, known before Princeton had a location and a name as the hamlet of Stony Brook. settlers of New Jersey planted their new homes. It was a central point, and nearly midway, on an air- line, between the cities of New York and Philadel- Adjoining these places on the north lies the great battle-field of Princeton, where Washington turned the tide of the war with greater personal danger than he elsewhere experienced in his whole military career. and where the gallant Mercer sealed the victory with his blood. There are no other villages or towns in the township except the incorporated borough of Prince- ton, and this occupies so large a portion of the terri- tory of the township, and is so ancient and so full of : historic interest, that the greater part of the space al- lotted to us must be devoted to it, after we describe Keith line, which we understand now to be recognized the early settlement of the township. phia, also nearly midway between New Brunswick and Trenton, the former being at the head of naviga- tion on the Raritan, and the latter at the head of navigation on the Delaware. The province line separating the province of East Jersey from the province of West Jersey passed along so near its southwestern boundary as to leave it for a long time in doubt whether the place belonged to the eastern or western province. Indeed, it lay between the two lines of the surveyors, Keith and Lawrence. The as the true province line, is the boundary line of the township of Princeton on the west, so that while Princeton has been so nearly on the line as to be
The Stony Brook enters the township of Princeton on the west side thereof, and while its crystal waters pass along through the tall and silent forest on either claimed by both sections, it is all in East Jersey, side for a quarter of a mile it assumes the name of assuming the Keith line to be the true one. But in the other direction it lay in the line of a great pros- pective thoroughfare of travel between the great cities, as above stated. Its situation as the middle point on the route, though not the first to be occupied, was, nevertheless, not without local advantages; for in the natural course of time and events, as a highway was opened for travel and the waves of population ap- proached it, its growth became the more rapid from being replenished from both sides. Pretty Brook, a resort in summer for excursion par- ties of children and Sunday-schools, then resuming its historic name and flowing down through the southern part of the township, being utilized at Worth's Mills, and making a semicircle along the Quaker road, it extends almost to the province line, where a slight elevation or embankment prevents its overflow into the depression of the Assanpink, and thence into the Delaware River. Here, resisted in its southward course, it trends to the east and empties into the Millstone River at the Aqueduct Mills, on the east side of the township, about two miles distant from, and opposite to, the point where it first entered the township. This stream has seven bridges built across it in this township. The Delaware and Rari- tan Canal passes along its banks on the line separat- ing Princeton from West Windsor township.
The Millstone River, after its confluence with the Stony Brook at the Aqueduct Mills, forms the eastern boundary line of Princeton and of Mercer County as it flows down by the Kingston Mills to the Somerset County line, near the mills and village of Rocky Hill.
First Settlement .- The precise date of the settle- ment of the first family in what is now Princeton cannot be ascertained. What may be called its orig- ยท inal settlement was not of so early an origin as that of some other towns in the State. Its rich soil and pleasant situation, uninhabited and secluded, with William Penn as the chief and almost sole proprietor of all the land, attracted, in 1695 and 1696, a little colony of about half a dozen families of the Society . of Friends, who were intelligent and thrifty, and who desired to dwell by themselves under their own laws, and as much as possible separate from Puritan so- ciety. Its situation was that of a frontier forest be- tween two slowly advancing waves of civilized popu- lation, one flowing from the margins of the Raritan
In the library of the New Jersey Historical Society there is a map of the rivers, Millstone, Raritan, etc., : made by John Reid, a Scotchman, in 1685, for the proprietors. On this map the plantation of Dr. Green- land is designated, and is now recognized and identi- fied as the Castle Howard, or Beatty Farm, recently owned by the late Rev. Dr. Blodgett, purchased by him of Capt. Thomas Lavender, deceased. This farm is bounded by the Millstone River, with its mansion on the east side of the road leading from Princeton to Kingston, and just without the limits of the borough of Princeton. This map is corroborated, as to Dr. Greenland's plantation, by the fact that the Penn deed to Richard Stockton in 1701 for the five thou- sand five hundred acre tract describes that tract as bounded on the east side by Henry Greenland's land.
There is still further confirmatory testimony that Dr. Greenland owned a plantation in this part of what was then Somerset County, and had a family here. Daniel Brinson, who is mentioned in the Penn- Stockton deed, was a son-in-law of Dr. Greenland, , and lived in this vicinity before 1690. His residence was at or near the Kingston Mills, the mills not then yet erected. He left a will bearing date 1690, and therein devised his plantation to his son. Barefoot Brinson, a name frequently met with in the records of Somerset County.1 Barefoot Brinson was a man
1 This name is sometimes written Brunson.
.
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of some prominence. He held the office of sheriff of that county, and died in that office in 1749, or thereabouts. His successor was John Riddle, of Princeton, appointed at the suggestion and recom- mendation of Thomas Leonard, Esq., then a judge of the Common Pleas of Somerset County, and residing in Princeton. Judge Leonard was arraigned before the Assembly of the State for the dereliction of his official duty in not properly qualifying Mr. Riddle and his sureties in that office, but he made a successful defense.
As early as 1685, Dr. John Gordon seems to have been the owner of a tract of about eight hundred acres of land which lay between what is now the main street of Princeton and Stony Brook, on the east side of Princeton, extending from Queenston to the line of the farm now belonging to Charles H. Olden, and of "Woodlawn." In 1696 Dr. Gordon conveyed the westerly end of said tract, from what is now Washington Street, containing about four hun- dred acres, to Richard Stockton, and the easterly half, embracing the Hamilton farm and the farm of Joseph Olden, to John Hornor. And between 1701 and 1709, | Deputy Governor under Robert Barclay, and emi- Richard Stockton conveyed one hundred acres, in-
grated to New Jersey in the same year, and perhaps cluding what are now the college grounds and other ; in the same vessel with Benjamin Clarke, then a sta- adjoining lands, to Benjamin Fitz Randolph. The tioner in Lombard Street, London. remainder, including the seminary property, the land Mr. Whitehead, in his very valuable contributions . to East Jersey history, informs us that Benjamin Clarke, stationer, arrived with his son Benjamin at Perth Amboy in 1683; was followed by his wife in 1684, and surviving his wife died in the latter part the year 1689, leaving his son Benjamin heir to all his estate, which was very considerable. on Canal Street, the Episcopal Church property, Edgehill and Steadman Street property. and the Springdale farm, he devised to his son, Joseph Stock- ton. This tract of eight hundred acres, owned by Dr. Gordon, appears not to have been a part of the Penn tract, which was conveyed to Richard Stockton. As there is no evidence that Dr. Gordon ever resided on Charles Gordon, in a letter to his brother, March 16, 1685, speaks of him as having brought a library of books to sell, and James Johnstone, in a letter to his brother about the same time, speaks of the good sta- tioner's shop of books at Perth Amboy. his tract, or in this vicinity, while it is fully estab- lished that Dr. Greenland was settled on his planta- tion above referred to in 1685, the latter must be regarded as the first settler in this neighborhood, and nearest to what is now the borough of Princeton, so far as we have any authentic proof.
The prominent starting-point, however, in the his- tory of the early settlement of Princeton is found in the purchase by William Penn, in the year 1693, of a large tract of land lying in and about the neighbor- hood of this place, he having taken it as his share from the proprietors. Through his influence a num- ber of Quaker families removed liere. They came to establish free and safe homes. They had been perse- cuted in their native countries, and after they had settled in New England, in New York, and in other parts of New Jersey, they desired to secure, as we have already stated, a settlement where they might enjoy their religious principles without molestation, even from the Puritans ; hence they were attracted to this unsettled neighborhood of Stony Brook, and to the land of Penn, where there might be no disturbing element in their society.
These families were highly respectable, intelligent, and religious, and, as we shall hereinafter see, the influence and high position of Princeton in history
may be traced in no small degree to the sterling char- acter of these early settlers. Their names should be held in grateful remembrance, not only by their lineal descendants but by this entire community. We proceed to enumerate them. They all appear to have come in the same year.
BENJAMIN CLARKE came to Stony Brook in 1696, from Piscataway, in Middlesex County, N. J. His father, Benjamin Clarke, was a native of Scotland. and became a member of the religious Society of Friends during the lives of its founders and about the time of its organization. He was an intimate friend of his fel- low-countrymen, Robert Barclay and Gawen Laurie. The former, a large proprietor and Proprietary Gov- ernor of the Eastern Division of New Jersey from 1683 to 1686, was one of the most celebrated polemi- cal writers of his time in defense of the fundamental principles of Quakerism. Gawen Laurie, a native of Scotland, and for several years a merchant of Lon- don, a prominent member of the same religions society, was a wealthy and large proprietor and
His son, Benjamin Clarke (the second), afterwards married Ann, the daughter of James Giles, of Bound Brook, in Piscataway, N. J., and becoming the owner of two hundred and seventy-five acres of land in Pis- cataway, removed there, and settled on his land, and was a justice of the Town Court of Piscataway in 1688, and a member of the Assembly from that place in 1692.
In 1695-96 this Benjamin Clarke (the second ) bought of Thomas Warne twelve hundred acres of land lying on the south angle of Stony Brook, bounded by the old road as it now runs from Princeton to Worth's Mills on the west, by the province line on the south, and the Olden tract on the north. It included the two farms of Mary Hallet on the other side of the brook, and it included the battle-field of Princeton. In 1796 he removed to Stony Brook, and built the first dwelling-house on that traet which he had bought, where the present dwelling-house now stands on the farm lately occupied by Elisha Clarke and other heirs- at-law of Joseph Olden Clarke. He continued to re- side there till liis death. In 1709 he conveyed nine
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sixty one hundredthis aeres to Richard Stockton and others in trust to build a meeting-house on it and for a burying-ground for. the Society of Friends.
Next to Richard Stockton, Benjamin Clarke was the largest landholder at one time about Princeton and Stony Brook. He gave to his son, James Clarke. a large tract of land on the south and southwesterly side of Stony Brook, and he gave to his son,- Benja- min Clarke, his homestead farm, which ineluded the David Clarke farm. He was a practical surveyor, an intelligent man, with good business habits. His name frequently appears as a witness to important deeds and documents. He was one of the trustees. appointed in the will of Richard Stockton in 1709, and he transacted inneh publie business.
He was the progenitor of a large family, which in- creased steadily through four generations, and then began to diminish. The great body of the traet of land which Benjamin Clarke bought of Thomas Warne was occupied by some of his desccudants until within the present generation.
There were four Benjamin Clarkes in consecutive sueeession from father to son, the last one having been the father of David Clarke, the grandfather of the late Samuel Paxsou, whose farm adjoined the Quaker meeting-house at Stony Brook. This Benja- miu Clarke (the fourth) married Hannah, daughter of William Lawrie. He was one of the most prominent members in meeting (church) affairs, a public min- ister and traveling preacher, extending his religious visit on one oeeasion to Canada. David Clarke married for his second wife Miss Kirkbride, her sis- ter having married John Jaeob Gurney, the philan- thropist, of England.
Dr. Israel Clarke, a physician of Clarkesville, well remembered by our older inhabitants for his cxten- sive praetiee and humorous nature, who died in 1837 and was buried at Stony Brook, was of this family of Clarkes. So also were the two maiden ladies who nursed at their house Gen. Mereer, who was mortally wounded at the battle of Princeton, lineal deseend- ants of the original Clarke family of Stony Brook. Joseph Olden Clarke and his surviving widow, Mar- tha Clarke, and their children-Elisha, Elizabeth. Fanny (Mrs. Paxson), and Josephine-were the last of the. Clarke family who occupied the old original homestead farm of the first Clarke settler at Stony Brook. Mrs. Clarke and her children having sold the old farm, now reside in the village of Princeton. The farm in whose house Gen. Mereer was nursed and died is now owned and occupied by Henry E. Hale, who purchased it of John Clarke, now deceased.
There are but few families among the descendants : of the first settler who bear the name of Clarke in . this region of country, none in the immediate vicin- ity of Princeton, except the heirs of Joseph O. Clarke, above mentioned. None of the original Clarke tract of land is occupied by any one bearing the name of Clarke. We have not been furnished with the gene-
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alogy of the family, and therefore, in the absence of any public historical record of any prominent citizens of Princeton bearing the family name, we can only add that it has been a very numerous, intelligent, and excellent family.
WILLIAM OLDEN came to Stony Brook from Pis- cataway, in' Middlesex County, N. J., in the year 1625. He purchased of the Warne tract in that year four hun- dred acres of land lying north of and adjoining Benja- min Clarke. His wife was Elizabeth Giles, a daugh- ter of James Giles, who emigrated from England in 1668, and who settled at Bound Brock, in Piscataway, in 1682, and died there. He became by this marriage a brother-in-law of Benjamin Clarke, who married Ann Giles. They had eight children, three sons and five daughters. Their oldest son, Jolin Olden, mar- ried Mary Brearley, and they had ninc children, six sons and three daughters ; and their oldest son, James Olden, married Catharine Gardner ; their second sou, Thomas Olden, married Sarah Hart ; and their third son, Joseph Olden, married Ann Gardner. James Olden and Catharine Gardner had seven children. viz .: Samuel, who married Mary Worth, Ann (Tom- linson), Mary (Bates), John, James, Catharine ( White). Elizabeth (Ridgeway).
Thomas Olden and Sarah Hart had two children, viz. : Nathaniel, a teacher, not married, and Hart Olden. who married Temperance Smith. The children of Hart Olden and Temperance Smith were Sarah, Charles Smith Ohlen (late Governor of New Jersey), Jane (Clow), Mary, Job G. Olden, George Olden, Ruth (Stebbins).
Samuel Olden and Mary Worth had six children. viz. : Samuel, Mary, James, Elihu, Giles, and Catha- rine.
Giles Olden married Catharine White, and had three children, -- John, James, and Samuel.
Stephen Smith married Catharine Olden, daughter of Samuel, and had four daughters, viz. : Phebe Ann, who married Charles S. Olden (the Governor), Re- becca, Mary (Speakman ), and Catharine.
Joseph Olden and Ann Gardner had five children,. viz. : Ephraim, Amcy (Rickey), Ann (Clarke), Job, who married Elizabeth Emley, and Joseph, who mar- ried Aehsah Middleton.
Job Olden and Elizabeth Emley had a son, Emley Olden, who married Martha Earle, and they had four children, viz .: Elizabeth, wife of Martin Voorhees, Charles, Rebecca ( Harlow), and Sarah (Smith).
Joseph Olden and Aelisah Middleton had five chil- ! dren, viz. : Amey, Sarah ( Ely), Benjamin, who mar- ried Mary Worth, Ann ( Clark), and Mary Olden.
Benjamin Olden and Mary Worth had three chi !- dren, viz. : Susan W. Olden, Joseph Olden, both living in Princeton, on the land of their immediate ancestors, and Samuel W. Olden, deceased, who grad- uated at Princeton College in 1843.
There are many other branches to the Ohlen tree which are not here given.
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HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
William Olden, the first settler here by that name, Samuel Stockton, by the advice and with the consent of his guardians, Thomas and Susannah Leonard, built on the site of the present residence of Charles H. Olden. His land extended from the Stony Brook to ! gave a deed to Thomas Potts, a miller from Pennsyl- the old road leading from Princeton to Worth's Mills.
vania, for a mill-pond and the right to dig a raceway It embraced the land recently occupied by Job G. . therefrom ; and in April, 1714, Joseph Worth, of Olden and his brother, Governor Olden, and " Wood- lawn," the residence of Judge Field at the time of his decease. This tract of land is in high state of cultivation, and the title remains in the Olden family at the present day, except "Woodlawn," now owned by Mrs. Susau D. Brown.
The Olden family was numerous in former years. The name of Joseph Olden often appears, in the cx- ecution of deeds, as a judge of the pleas in Middle- in November, 1716, to Joseph Worth. Joseph Chap- sex County, and he was a man of some publie repu- tation. Ephraim Olden tauglit school. Hart Olden, the father of Governor Olden and of Job G. Olden, was a merchant, first at Stony Brook and afterwards in Princeton. Both of his sons pursued the same line of business. Emley Olden was accustomed to trans- aet public business of a local and limited nature, though a farmer. He spent the most of his life on the Mansgrove farm, a mile north of Princeton. Giles Olden lived on the original Olden farm. His name is mentioned in the boundaries of the borough of Princeton in its charter in 1813, and his sons, John, James, and Samuel, or one of them, held it after his death.
The original William Olden was a practical sur- veyor. He has always been regarded as a Quaker, and his posterity for the most part were Quakers. It is elaimed that only a part of the Oldens were mem- . bers of that society. But we are not able to designate any of the early families who were not such. At the present day we cannot name one who is a member. The descendants of the present generation in this neighborhood are found within Presbyterian or Epis- copal Churches.
JOSEPH WORTH came from Woodbridge, N. J., to Stony Brook in 1696. He was a member of the Soci- ety of Friends. He was a brother-in-law of William Olden and of Benjamin Clarke, having married Sarah Giles. In 1697. he purchased of Benjamin Clarke two hundred acres of land, lying chiefly, if not wholly, on the south side of the Stony Brook, in the vicinity of the mills which bear his name, and probably in- cluded the present farm of Jolin Hunt.
Worth's Mills at Stony Brook have derived their name from this Joseph Worth and his successors in the Worth family, who have held them since his death. As these mills are very ancient and also his- . stead of a branch of their Olden ancestry.
whom we have above spoken, sold and conveyed six and a quarter aeres of land to said Potts, upon which two corn water-mills or grist-mills, under one roof, and a bolting-mill were built. In 1715, Potts con- veycd one-fourth of the mill to Joseph Worth, and one-fourthi to Joseph Chapman, a carpenter. In Au- gust, 1716, Potts appointed Joseph Kirkbride his at- torney to sell his remaining one-half, which he did i man bought fifteen acres of Sammuel Stockton, adjoin- ing the mill lot, in the same year, and sold it with his one-fourth share in the mill property to Joseph Worth in January, 1721. Joseph Worth had four daughters and five sons. Giles Worth, the eldest sou of Joseph, received this property from his father by will in 1724, and he gave it to his son Samuel Worth, who in 1791 devised one-half of it to his son Samuel, with the privilege of buying the other half for eight hundred pounds, and which he did buy in 1794. Upon the death of this Samuel Worth his son, Josiah S. Worth, became invested with the title to the whole property, and occupied it till his death in 1854, and his widow still resides in the handsome stone dwelling-house near the mill with her nephew. Joseph H. Bruere, who holds the title in the property at the present time. The mill is about a mile and a half front Princeton on the Lawrenceville road. The mill-pond, which is at a considerable distance above it, is a beautiful sheet of water, shaded by tall trees on either side of it, and is much resorted to for the amusements of fishing, boating, bathing, and skating.
The Worth family was never numerous, and the family name has quite disappeared from this com- munity. There are many of our citizens who recol- lect Josiah S. Worth as the genial and honorable cit- izen, upright and trustworthy in public office, with a kind heart towards all men. He served the public in the Legislature and in many local offices accept- ably. He was the last among us who bore the family . name, and he died without issue in 1854. His ami- able and much-beloved sister, Mary Worth Olden, re- membered for her benevolence and piety, as also for her business capacity, died in 1852, and has two chil- dren surviving her, viz., Joseph Olden and Susan W. Olden, who reside in Princeton, on parts of the home-
torie, having been very early the source of supply of There was a Jolin Worth, who married Jane Giles, a sister to the wives of Joseph Worth, William Olden, and Benjamin Clarke, but whether he ever resided at Stony Brook, or anywhere in this region of country, we have no knowledge. feed and flour to the first settlers in the neighborhood, -- there being no mill nearer than Trenton before this was built, -- and having continued in operation for one hundred and sixty years, until the present time, it is ap- propriate here to insert a short history of them. This JOHN HORNOR came to Princeton from Piscataway mill property embraced land from both the Penn traet , in 1696. He located on the property which he pur- and the Clarke or Warne tract. In February, 1712, I chased in that year of Dr. John Gordon, which consisted
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of that tract of land embraced between the road lead- executors, in April, 1770, conveyed the homestead farm, which was then adjoining Jonathan Baldwin, to Jonathan Sergeant. It would thus appear prob- able that John Hornor's homestead was on the Ser- geant farm. After the death of Samuel the survivors of the family were gathered around what we know now as Queenston. This place was formerly called Jugtown, a name given to it because the Hornor family kept a pottery there for many years, and jugs were manufactured. It has since been called Queens- ton. Several houses and places of business were erected there, such as a store, tavern, tan-yard, school, "shops, etc. The last of the descendants, except Rob- ert E. Hornor, removed to Milwaukee before 1840, and he became an active politician and prominent citizen of Princeton. He died without issue in 1844, ing from Queenston to the Aqueduct Mills on one . side, and the road now known as Washington Street on the other side, and bounded on the north by the main street of Princeton, and on the south by the Millstone River and Stony Brook, covering about four hundred aeres, which included the farmis now held by Joseph Olden and Alexander Gray, formerly known as the Sergeant farm and the Hamilton farm, and the several lots on the south side of the main street which : have been built upon. He was an enterprising man, and by his buying, selling, and exchanging lands he contributed much to the growth of the village. In 1722 he was the owner of all the land ou the north side of the main street, opposite the tract which he had bought in 1696, and extending probably as far west as Witherspoon Street, and as far north as the | and none now bear the family name of Hornor in this Mansgrove farm, which Thomas Leonard had bought, neighborhood. the farm now occupied by John V. Terhune.
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