History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men, Part 39

Author: Woodward, E. M. (Evan Morrison) cn; Hageman, John Frelinghuysen
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1096

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 39
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 39

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John Hornor belonged to the Society of Friends, and his name is entitled to be honored in the history of Princeton College. It was he who joined with John . Stockton and Thomas Leonard in a bond for one thou- sand pounds to secure the planting of the college here. He sold and conveyed ten acres of land to the college adjoining the seven acres which had been secured to it. He was present and assisted in laying the corner-stone of the college in 1754. It was he, with John Stockton and Thomas Leonard, assisted some by Nathaniel Fitz Randolph, who accepted the proposals of the trustees of college to remove that institution to Princeton, pro- vided the trustees should receive ten acres of cleared land, two hundred acres of woodland, and one thou- sand pounds proclamation money ; and they complied promptly with those conditions by securing to the college the land and money required. How soon after the year 1754 Mr. Hornor died we have no record to inform us. He was doubtless buried at Stony Brook burying-ground, but no monument there perpetuates his name or age or marks his grave. He must have lived to an advanced age, and he must have been a man of considerable wealth. He certainly exhibited a liberal mind when, though a Quaker, he bestowed his favors upon a college which was understood to be ! thousand acres of said tract were still owned and oc- Presbyterian, and whose charter provided for the teaching of "divinity" in it.

RICHARD STOCKTON ( the first settler of this name in Princeton) was the son of Richard Stockton. of Burlington, N. J., who was a descendant of an ancient and highly respectable family of the town of Stockton, in Durham, on the River Tees, which is the boundary line between Durham and Yorkshire in England. He, the father, emigrated with his wife and children from England to Flushing, L. I., and thence to New Jersey, immediately after purchasing of George Hutchinson a tract of land containing two thousand acres, for three hundred and twenty-five pounds, by- deed March 10, 1692. That traet of land was situated at a place then known only by its Idian name of An-na-nicken, sometimes spelled On-e-on-icken, in the easterly end of the present township of Springfield, in the county of Burlington. It was over two miles in length and a mile in width, adjoining the southerly boundary of the homestead farm of the ancestor of the Newbold family. The present road from Wrights- town to Jobstown runs through it, and the tract ex- tends quite aeross the marl region, and includes some of the very best land in Burlington County, in the farms now owned by Michael E. Newbold, John and Thomas Black, Thomas J. Warren, James C. Bullock, David Stockton, and others. In 1815 upwards of one eupied by the descendants of said Richard Stockton. The mansion-house of James Shreve, deceased, is ou the site of the first house built, and occupied by Mr. . Stockton till his death, on said tract. He left a will dated Jan. 25, 1706, admitted to probate Oct. 10, 1707. He devised four hundred acres of this tract to eaeh of his sons, Richard and Job, and the residue of the tract he devised to be equally divided between his three sons, Richard, John, and Job. He left a widow ( Abigail), three sons, Richard, John, and Job, and five daughters, Abigail ( Ridgeway), Sarah (Jones), Mary, Hannah, and Elizabeth. His widow was left his executrix.

From this progenitor there were descendants bear- ing his name through nearly five generations in Princeton, yet very limited in number. His son, Samuel Hornor, was a large landholder, not only under the will of his father, but by deeds to himself. In 1746 he was commissioned by Governor John Hamilton an ensign to Capt. Henry Leonard in the expedition against Canada. In 1765 he purchased three hundred acres of James Leonard, north of Bare- foot Brin-on's mill-farm, which included the present farm of Dr. Hodge at Kingston. He died about the year 1770, leaving a will, with Mary Hornor, Joseph Richard Stockton (the second), who came to Prince- Hornor, and Robert Stockton his executors. These ! ton in 1696, emigrated with his father from England

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to escape the persecutions which all dissenters had ex- : perienced from the restored dynasties of the Stuarts. He was a member of the Society of Friends. He first settled in the neighborhood a little northeast of Flushing, L. I., with his father. It was near a creek called Stony Brook, not far from Setauket. He did not go with his father to Burlington, but went to Piscataway, either before or after his father removed to Burlington, probably before, and from Piscataway he removed directly to the neighborhood of Prince- ton, which up to that time had no name, but which afterwards was called Stony Brook. The Indian name of the stream of Stony Brook was Wopowog.'

He purchased, in the same year in which he arrived The consideration was nine hundred pounds. There appears to be an omission of one course in the above possession of S. W. Stockton, present owner of Morven. here, of Dr. John Gordon, four hundred acres of land adjoining the tract which John Hornor bought in the description. The original Penn-Stockton deed is in same year of the same person, and this tract of Mr. Stockton extended from Washington Street, as it is now called, to the tract which William Olden had, in 1 . It will be observed that this large tract, which was conveyed by William Penn to Richard Stockton, is described in the Penn deed as being "in the county of Middlesex." This we can only explain by the fact that when Penn received his deed for it'it was in Middlesex, because Somerset at that time had not been set off as a new county from Middlesex; and in copying the deed to Stockton, the recent change in the county must have been inadvertently over- looked. that same year, purchased of Thomas Warne. He thus became the owner of all the land between the main street of Princeton and Stony Brook, bounded on one side by Hornor, and on the other by Olden, land which is now occupied by the college and seminary buildings, the Episcopal Church, Edgehill, Main Street, Steadman Street, Canal Street, Railroad Avenue, and Prospect. It is impossible to ascertain whether he resided on this tract or not, but there is reason to believe that he did, and that his residence was in the old stone house now known as the " Bar- racks," in Edgehill Street, or in some house on or near that site. He certainly did not then live on : Schenck and John Kovenhoven, of Monmouth County. the Morven property, for he did not buy that until five years after he came to Princeton.

In the year 1701, October 20th, William Penn con- veyed to this Richard Stockton a tract of five thou- sand five hundred acres, reserving thereout ten hun- dred and fifty acres. This was that part of the Penn tract which lay on the north side of the Stony Brook, except what lay between the province line and Stony Brook. Penn also owned six thousand five hundred acres on the southeast side of the stream. He re- ceived this land as his share in the division of the proprietors. The boundaries of this tract which Mr. Stockton purchased are set forth in the deed as fol- lows :

" All that tract of land situate lying and being in the County of Mid- dlesex, Beginning where the road from Raritan to the Falls of Delaware doth cross the partition line betwixt East and West Jersey, and runbeth along the said line North and by West and three degrees Westerly Two hundred and eighty chains; Thence East one hundred and forty-five chains ; Thence East South East two hundred and five chains, more or less, to the land of Henry Greenland ; thence South East and by south, and East Southeast, as the said Greenland's line doth run to Millstone River; thence up along the said river and Stony brook to the lower

corner of Dr. John Gordon's land on said brook; thence North North- west, and South West as said Gordon's and Daniel Brunson's lines go-s to the North corner of Thomas Warne's land on the said road; and thence along the road one hundred and twenty-eight chains, more or less, to the place of Beginning. Bounded West by the said Partition line, North by land of Peter Sonmans, East and South by lands of said Greenland, part by Millstone river and Stony brook, part by land of said Gordon and Brunson, and part by the said road. Excepting always out of this present grant or feoffment the full and just quantity of one thousand and fifty acres of land with the appurtenances (part of the said five thonsand and five hundred acres), and to be taken off and di- vided therefrom, together in oue entire tract or parcel either in that part of the said five thousand and five hundred acres at the place of Be- ginning aforesaid, and so by the said partition line of the said provinces of East and West Jersey, or in that part of the same adjoining to John Hornor's land, as to said William Penn shall seem meet and convenient."

The other tract of six thousand five hundred acres on the southeast side of the stream of Stony Brook , the Penns sold and conveyed entire in 1737 to Garret A portion of it is called Penn's Neck. The original patent for this tract is still in the possession of the heirs of the late John G. Schenck, of Penn's Neck, the lineal descendant of Garret Schenck, the patentee.

By these large possessions of valuable land Richard Stockton and his descendants held a prominent place . among the early settlers in, Princeton. He lived, . however, only a few years after he made these pur- chases. His immense estate remained almost intact at the time of his death. He died in 1709, leaving a will which bears date on the 25th day of the 4th month of that year, and was proved August 15th, before J. Bape, surrogate,-the probate being signed and sealed Nov. 30, 1709. By this will Mr. Stockton devised to his oldest son, Richard Stockton, three hundred acres of land adjoining the rear of John Hornor's; to his second son, Samuel Stockton, tive hundred acres, lying on both sides of Stony Brook ; to his third son, Joseph Stockton, two hundred acres (Springdale farnı), "lying between Benjamin Randall (Randolph) and William Holding ( OFlen)," also three hundred acres back of his brother Samuel's; to his fourth son, Robert Stockton, five hundred acres, ad- joining that which is given to Sammuel; to hi, fifth sou, John Stockton, five hundred acres, part of it his dwelling plantation, the other part to be made up of woodland; to his sixth son, Thomas Stockton, four

1 The tradition in the Stockton family that Stony Brook was so called by the first Richard Stockton after a stream of the same name which was on his place on Long Island is unfounded, because this stream was called Stony Brook in a deed dated 1690 for the Bainbridge farm, on Stony Brook, and also in the Indian deed for a large tract in Hopewell, dated 108%, before Stockton knew New Jersey.

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hundred acres, at Annonicken, which had been de- vised to him by his father, and one hundred and forty acres besides. The meadows were to be divided be- . did the other families hereinbefore mentioned as the tween his five oldest sons. To his mother, Abigail, first settlers at Stony Brook. No family in Princeton has maintained for so long a period so prominent and illustrious a name as the Stockton family. he gave twenty shillings a year, and to his loving wite Susanna all of his dwelling plantation until his son John becomes of age, and then half of the house and improvements during her natural life, with all the rest and residue of his real and personal estates, with the use of all his negro slaves except Dinah, which he gave to his brother, Philip Phillips; every one of his sons as they come of age to have one slave. He appointed his wife Susanna his sole executrix, with John Stockton, Samuel Wilson, and Benjamin Clarke, trustees of his will. After adding a memorandum giving to all the sons alike an estate in fee simple in the several devises to them, the will was executed in the presence of Thomas Leicester, Jane V. Hough- ton, Henry W. Mershone, Joseph Worth, John Kelly, and Benjamin Clarke, as witnesses thereto.

After the death of the testator, liis widow, Susanna Stockton, the executrix, conveyed to the several de- vises additional meadow-land, and caused a survey and a map to be made of the whole partition estate of the testator. This map bears date 1701%, and was made by William Emley, and is still in existence. The whole front on the old road. extending from the province line beyond the Millett farm to Bayard Avenue, was divided between Samuel, Robert, and John,-Samuel taking six hundred acres on both sides of the Stony Brook, including what afterwards became the Worth Mill property, but the largest part was on the other side of the creek, including the Millett farm, now Pursee Gulick's ; Robert taking his five hundred acres next towards Princeton, including all as far as to what is now known as " Morven." The homestead of this tract has been known as "Constitution Hill." And John, who was the father of the signer of the declaration, took what was called in the will the home- stead plantation, now " Morven."

It is reasonable to infer from the devise to John Stockton, who is known to have occupied the " Mor- ven" plantation, that the testator's homestead was there, notwithstanding in his will he describes him- self as "of Middlesex County," while Morven was in Somerset.

In fact, prior to 1709 the whole of what is now in- cluded within Princeton township was in Somerset County. The original line of Somerset ran from In- ian's Ferry (New Brunswick) to the road that runs from that place to Cranberry Brook; thence westerly to the Sanpinck Brook ; thence down the Sanpinck to the province line ; thence on that line, ete. But in 1713 the old road from New Brunswick to Trenton, by Jedediah Higgins' house in Kingston, was made the county line. Prior to 1688 the whole of Somerset County was included within Middlesex County, the former having in that year been set off from the latter.

...

The Stockton family, though originally Quakers, did not adhere so rigidly or so long to that society as

It is impossible for us to state which one, if any, of these five families may be regarded as the pioneer, or whether they all came at one time and under a inu- tual agreement. They all appear to have come in the year 1696, and three of them, viz., the Clarkes, Old- ens, and Worthis, were closely related by marriage, and they bought and built on the Warne traet, while John Hornor and Richard Stockton, coming the same year and from the same neighborhood with the others. purchased of Dr. Gordon, and first settled upon that tract. The probability is that they had all agreed to come and buy and settle here before any one had yet come. But this is only our inference from the eir- cumstances of the case, and the fact may be other- wise.

FITZ RANDOLPH is the name of a family connected with the early settlement of Princeton. Benjamin Fitz Randolph came to Princeton from Piscataway between 1696 and 1699. His fifth child was born in Princeton, April 24, 1699, and all of his children born after that date were born in Princeton. He was the youngest son of Edward Fitz Randolph, who was from Nottinghamshire, in Old England, and who came with his parents to New England when a lad, and lived at Barnstable, Mass. There he married a wife whose maiden name was Blossom. Her parents fled from England in time of persecution, in about 1620. They put into Holland, and she was born there. Edward had six children; the youngest was Benja- min, who came to Piscataway, N. J., about 1668. His first wife was Sarah Dennis. She died in 1732, and was buried in Princeton. His second wife was Mar- garet Robertson. He had nine children by his first wife, viz. : Sarah, Grace, Ruth, Hope, Benjamin, Isaac, Nathaniel, Grace (the second), and Elizabeth ; by his second wife, Mary and Margaret. He died in 1746, aged eighty-three years and six months. He bought land of Richard Stockton (about one hundred . acres), embracing the ground where the college stands and Mrs. Potter's farm, as early as about 1704; and later, but before 1709, he bought of the Stockton tract that portion then unsold between Bayard and Witherspoon Streets, on the north side of Main Street, which he afterwards conveyed to Thomas Leonard. His daughter Grace married Stephen Johnes, in 1728, of Maidenhead. They had seven children. One of them, Sarah, married Noah Hunt.

Ruth Fitz Randolph married, first, Edward Har- rison, of Griggstown, and afterwards, in 1720, John Snowden, of Philadelphia. She had two children by her first and four by her second husband. Hope married Henry Davis and had seven children. Ben- janiin, who was born in Princeton in 1699, married

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Elizabeth Pridmore and had three children. He died in 1758. Isaac, born in 1701, in Princeton, married Rebekah Seabrook, and afterwards Hannah Lee. He built a mill on the Millstone River, a short distance above the Aqueduct Mills.

Nathaniel Fitz Randolph, the seventh child of Ben- jamin by his first wife, Sarah Dennis, was born in Princeton, Nov. 11, 1703. He married Rebecca Mer- shone, who was two years older than himself, in 1729. They had fourteen children. They were all born in Princeton except one, who was born in Maryland but died here. His family record states that Job died in Princeton in 1760, of smallpox, and that Elizabeth. the youngest, was born in his brick house near Prince- ton in 1757. Ten of the children were daughters. The sons were Job, Samuel, John, and Nathaniel. The last named died in infancy. Samuel married Amy Edwards in 1762; Eunice married Gershom Hunt, and Sarah married Thomas Norris; Ann mar- ried Paul Fitz Randolph ; Ruth married Christopher Skillman ; John married Elizabeth Vance; Rebekah married James Perrine; Rachel married Thomas Wetherill ; Hannah married William Pangborn. They were a very fruitful progeny, and their de- scendants multiplied rapidly.

Nathaniel was a man of some prominence in Princeton, and his name will appear again, when we refer to the establishment of the college in this place, in which he took much interest. The family of Ran- dolphs in New Brunswick, to which the late United States senator and ex-Governor of New Jersey be- lougs, was related to this one, having dropped the Fitz in their name.

We have thus presented a brief history of the early settlement of Stony Brook. We have named the six intelligent, sterling, religious families who came here prior to the year 1700, and took up all the land in what is now known as Princeton township, except a small tract on the north and west of the Kingston Mills. We have designated the several parcels of land upon which those first settlers planted their homes. We have traced their history down to the death of Richard Stockton, in 1709, and the division of his large estate among his several sons, down to the time when the children were beginning to take the place of their fathers, and the number of households began to mul- tiply.

The next prominent man who came and settled in Princeton was

THOMAS LEONARD .- We are not able to state pre- cisely in what year Mr. Leonard came to reside here, but it was probably as early as 1710. He came from Massachusetts, where his immediate ancestors, who came from England, settled in 1652, and we find him, with his wife Susannah, as "of Stony Brook," con- veying by their deed, dated 1711, to Henry Prince, of Piscataway, a merchant, two hundred acres of land north of John Stockton's land, and adjoining other land of said Leonard on the north and east. Mr.

Leonard soon became one of the largest landholders in this neighborhood, and he owned much land in other counties. In 1716 he and his wife joined with Richard Stockton (the second), in Princeton, in a deed to Rutt Johnson, for five hundred and fifty acres along the Stony Brook and the province line. In 1722 he bought of the sons of Richard Stockton the farm known as " Mansgrove," containing one hundred and sixty acres; that was the farm occupied for many years by Emley Olden, now the residence of John V. Terhune. about a mile north of Princeton. He sold in the same year to Jolin Van Horn six hundred and ten acres on the mill-stream. Aud still later, perhaps about 1740, he bought of Benjamin Fitz Randolph that large tract north of the main street of Princeton, between Bayard and Witherspoon Streets, as far . north as Tusculum, and he also purchased of John Hornor the land lying on the cast side of Wither- spoon Street. He was a man well educated for those days, and possessed as much if not more public spirit : than any of his contemporaries in this community. He was almost continually in office, some time a presiding judge of the Common Pleas in Somerset County, and for nearly a quarter of a century he served as a member of the Colonial Legislature at various sessions between 1723 and 1744 from Somer- set County. He was a member of the eighth General Assembly, held at Perth Amboy. His residence at the time of his death was in the house now kept as the Nassau Hotel, a part of the present building having been built by him in 1756, of brick, imported by him from Holland. It was an elegant residence. He was an intimate friend of Judge Berrien, and also of Jolin Stockton and Richard Stockton his son, the signer of the Declaration. When he entered public life he bore the military title of colonel. He was one of the original corporators named in the charter of Princeton College, and was influential in securing the location of that institutiou in Princeton.

The Borough of Princeton .- This is situated nearly in the centre of the township, on an eleva- tion two hundred and twenty-one feet above the ocean, and almost as high as the Rocky Hill Moun- tain. It stands on the first highland which separates the alluvial plain of South Jersey from the moun- tainous and hilly country of the north. There is a gentle depression between it and the mountain, and a gradual descent on every side of it towards the streams that nearly encircle it. The views from Princeton are almost equal to those from the summit of Rocky Hill, though less extensive northward.

The population of the borough does not increase rapidly. The last census, taken in 1880, when the students were absent and not counted, returned the number of three thousand two hundred and nine.

The number of students and others connected with the institution who remain bere a few years and then go elsewhere is about seven hundred.

Princeton is nearly midway between New York

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and Philadelphia,-forty-five miles from New York and forty from Philadelphia. It is ten miles from Trenton by the turnpike. It is three miles west of Kingston and sixteen from New Brunswick. It is six miles from Lawrenceville on the old road to Trenton.

The name of Princeton is not as old as that of : as of science and letters. Such a place, though not Stony Brook, for previous to the year 1724 the whole settlement in this vicinity was designated in decds and correspondence as "Stony Brook." Nathaniel Fitz Randolph, a native of this place, born in 1703, made an entry in his family journal under date of Dec. 28, 1758, as follows, viz. : " Princeton first named Princeton is especially attractive in the summer and autumnal months, when it is embowered in its rich green foliage. It is then clothed with uncom- mon beauty. Its shady streets, its extensive and finely-kept lawns, its rich and rare variety of trees, some of them over a hundred years old, its hand- some residences, with grounds beautified by flowers, walks, and hedges. All those, in addition to the nu- merous large, unique, and beautiful public buildings and churches, pertaining to letters, science, and re- ligion, with the higher attractions of libraries and lit- erary society, and of educational and religious advan- tages, cannot fail to make it a peculiarly interesting and attractive place, especially for those families who seek health and repose for themselves or education for their children. at the raising of the first house built there by James Leonard, A.D. 1724. Whitehead Leonard the first child born in Princeton, 1725." Tradition confirms the registry of Mr. Fitz Randolph ; and there is another entry in said journal immediately preceding this one in relation to the college and the laying of the corner-stone thereof, with other incidents which are amply confirmed in the history of the college. There is a very general belief among our citizens that Princeton has a flavor of royalty about its name, and that it was given in honor of William Prince of Orange, a prince whose memory was cherished with affection by hosts of men who had been persecuted in Great Britain and on the continent of Europe, not a few of whom had taken refuge in this country and in this neighborhood.

But it is quite as probable, if not more so, that the name is traceable to Kingston, a village a few miles east of Princeton. Kingston is probably an older vil- lage by name than Princeton, and the idea of royal

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History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men, Part 39

Author: Woodward, E. M. (Evan Morrison) cn; Hageman, John Frelinghuysen Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1096

Author: Woodward, E. M. (Evan Morrison) cn; Hageman, John Frelinghuysen
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1096