USA > New Jersey > Union County > Elizabeth > History of Elizabeth, New Jersey : including the early history of Union County > Part 18
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REV. JEREMIAH PECK.
The Rev. Jeremiah Peck became a frecholder of this town, as early as 1668. The home-lot of Capt. Robert Seeley, deceased, is described, Nov. 2, 1668, as lying " be- tween the Personage Lott and Jeremiah Peck's." The precise date of his coming is not stated .*
He was the eldest son of Dea. Win. Peck, of New Haven, Ct. ; was born near London, Eng., in 1622, or 1623 ; and, at the age of fifteen, accompanied his father, in the ship Hector, to this country, arriving at Boston, June 26, 1637. Thence Dea. Peck, with his family, proceeded to New Haven, in 1639, and became one of the founders of that town. According to Cotton Mather's statement, Jeremiah studied at Harvard College, graduating in 1654. But his name is not included in the Harvard Catalogues. He was, at this time, in his 32d year; and must, therefore, have commenced his studies late in life.+
* E. J. Records, I. 6, 7. t Savage's Gen. Dict., III. SS1. Mather's Hecatompolis.
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Devoting himself to the work of teaching, he was employ- ed at Guilford, Ct., where, Nov. 12, 1656, he married Johannah, daughter of Robert Kitchell, of that town ; and where, Jan. 18, 1659-60, his eldest son, Samuel, was born. In the Records of the Colony of New Haven, under date of June 28, 1660, appears the following entry :-
It was agreed that Mr Pecke, now at Guilford, should be schoole- master, and that it should begin in October next, when his half yeare expires there ; he is to keepe ye schoole, to teach the schollers Lattine, Greek and Hebrew, and fitt them for the Colledge; and for the salary, he knowes the alowance fro the colony is 40li a yeare and for further treaties they must leave it to New haven, where the schoole is ; and for further orders concerning the schoole and well carrying it on, the elders will consider of some against the court of magistrates in October next, when things as there is cause may be further considered.
Mr. Peck accepted the appointment, and returned to his old home, in Oct. 1660, a house and a plot of land being also allowed him. Under date of May 29, 1661, the follow- ing record is made :-
There was sundry propositions presented by Mr. Pecke, schoolemaster, to this Court as followeth : (in all fifteen, relative to the school; closing, as follows) : these things being suitably considered and confirmed, if it please the honoured court further to improue him who at present is schoole master, although unworthy of any such respect, and weake for such a worke, yet his reall intention is to giue vp himselfe to the work of a gramer schoole, as it shall please God to giue opportunity and assistance.
His propositions, with some considerable modifications, were accepted, with which " Mr Pecke seemed to be very well satisfied."
Nov. 5, 1662. Mr Pecke ppounded about some differance betwixt the treasurer & himselfe in making vp their accounts, but the Court left it to them to issue it between themselves.
It was alsoe ppounded about 4li abated of Mr Pecke's sallary, for some time that he left ye schoole, whether it should not return to ye jurisdic- tion. Owing to the distraction of the time the school was laid down .*
This settlement of accounts was owing to his removal, a year previous, to the town of Saybrook, having entered into
N. Haven Colonial Records, II. 377, 407, 8; 471, 2.
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ELIZABETH, NEW JERSEY.
an agreement with the people, Sept. 25, 1661, to labor among them in the work of the ministry, and to receive, as a settlement, £100, in lands in fee, and £55, in a house and lot to revert to the town if he removed within five years ; his salary to be £60, a year, to be paid in two firkins of butter, and the rest in corn and flesh at current prices ; his maintenance to be, if necessary, increased. His ordination must have taken place in the latter part of 1661, or early part of 1662 .*
The people of Saybrook were either a little fastidious, or reasonably convinced that Mr. Peck was not just the preacher that they needed, as appears from the following letter :
Anno Domini 63 feb. 2 Respected and loving ffriends the Inhabitants and planters of Seabroke I understand and that from divers that there is much Dissatisfaction with Reference to myselfe in respect to my proceed- ing in the Ministry at least to a settlement and that there are desires in many to provide themselves with a more able Help: I do freely leave my- self to the providence of God and the Thots of his people : and so far as I am any wayes concerned herein I doe leave the Towne wholly to their own Liberty to provide for themselves as God shall direct: and with re- spect to laying aside the future Term of years expressed in the Covenant as also of laying me aside from an Employment of so great a coneernment I do desire that these Things may be duly considered and dealt tenderly in that I may not be rendered useless in future service for God : altho 1 am unworthy to be improved so I am yours in what I may as God shall please to direct and enable.t
Notwithstanding these difficulties, he continued at Say- brook nearly two years longer, closing his engagement, Jan. 30, 1665, the town " giving him full possession of his accom- modation," and purchasing it of him for his successor. He returned to Guilford, where he found his father-in-law, many of the Guilford people, and the greater part of Branford with Mr. Pierson, their aged minister, talking about a removal to New Jersey. Casting in his lot with them, he came to Newark, either in the autumn of 1666, or the spring of 1667, and became one of the founders of the town. His house-lot was on the E. corner of Market and Mulberry sts., adjoining
* Bronson's Waterbury, pp. 201-12. 1 Stlles' Itinerary, In Yale Coll. Lib., III. 122.
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his father-in-law's, on Mulberry st., and Obadiah Bruen's on Market st. It is probable, that he served the town in the ministry until Mr. Pierson's arrival, Oct. 1, 1667 .*
The close relations, that subsisted between the people of this town and Newark, may have led them to seek a supply for their vacant pulpit at Newark. Mr. Peck was not needed there, after Mr. Pierson came, and, in all probability, soon after removed to this town, and entered on the work of the ministry here, occupying himself, also, as a teacher of the rising generation. As stated before, he was a townsman in November, 1668, and may have been such for a year previous. In July, 1670, the people of Woodbridge instruct- ted their committee for the supply of the pulpit, to apply to "Mr. Peck of Elizabethtown," or "Mr. Samuel Treat, to preach six or seven months." A subsequent application, May, 1675, was made to Mr. "Jeremiah Peck," but with no better success. +
It is evident that Mr. Peck was known extensively as a minister of the gospel. An application for his ministerial services was made in March, 1675, by the people of Jamaica, L. I. At a town meeting, March 6, 1675, they made " choise of Jonas holsteade & John Foster to goe to Mrrs Pek or any other minister that may be procured to come and live amongst us as our minister." In the Records of the Prov- ince of E. Jersey, he is designated as "Clarke," or Clergy- man.±
In the absence, therefore, of all evidence to the contrary, it is safe to conclude, that Mr. Jeremiah Peck came to this town as early as 1668, on invitation of the people, to serve them in the ministry of the gospel; and that he is to be re- garded as the first pastor of the church in this place. His house-lot is described as containing 5 acres, 13 by 4 chains, bounded, N. & E., by highways ; S., by Ben. Parkis (for- merly Capt. Seeley's) ; and W., by the Mill Creek. He had an allotment of 180 acres, with a third-lot right.§
In 1672, he became, with others, a purchaser from the In-
* Newark Town Records, pp. 3, 5, 10. E. J. Records, II. 98.
t Whitehead's Amboy, p. 381. # Macdonald's Jamaica, p. 59.
§ E. J. Records, II. 98.
·
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ELIZABETH, NEW JERSEY.
dians, of a tract of land, in the western part of the present town of Greenwich, Ct. In the autumn of 1678, he accepted an invitation to settle with them in the ministry, where he continued until 1690; when, having made himself obnoxious to some of the Greenwich people, by his opposition to " the half-way covenant," and having been invited to settle at Waterbury, Ct., he entered upon the pastoral work at the latter place, and continued there until his death, June 7. 1699, in the 78th year of his age. His eldest son, Samuel, remained at Greenwich, and became the father of the numer- ous family of that name in that vicinity .*
REV. SETH FLETCHER.
The second minister of the town was the Rev. SETH FLETCHER. After the removal of Mr. Peck at the close of 1678, there is nothing on record to show, that any minister of the gospel had become a permanent resident until the summer of 1680, when Mr. Fletcher was employed to preach.
He was the son of Robert Fletcher, of Concord, Mass., who died, April 3, 1677, aged 85. His sister, Hope, was married to the Rev. Samuel Stow, son of Thomas Stow, of Concord, a graduate of Harvard in 1645, the first minister of Middletown, Ct., from 1646 to 1655, and thenceforward a citizen of Mid- dletown till his death, in 1704. Mr. Fletcher made a profes- sion of religion, at Hampton, N. H., in early life, under the ministry of the Rev. Timothy Dalton, with whom he studied for the ministry. He married, previous to 1655, at Portsmouth, N. II., Mary, the only daughter of Maj. Bryan Pendleton, a man of considerable property and distinction. Their only child inherited, at his grandfather's death, in 1681, the home- stead at Winter Harbor, Me. As early as 1655, Mr. Fletcher became the minister of Wells, Me. ; but, owing mainly to the laxness of his views on the sanctification of the Sabbath, he was dismissed, in Oct., 1660. From this time until the breaking out of the Indian War, in 1675, he resided at Saco, Me., supplying the pulpit, except for short intervals, from
* Bronson's Waterbury, pp. 201-12. Mead's Hist. of Greenwich, pp. 67, 8, 72, 3, 205-306.
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year to year. Retiring with his father-in-law from the ex- posed frontiers, he tarried awhile at Salem, Mass., where he preached occasionally for the Rev. John Higginson, at whose instance, in 1676, he visited the towns on the east end of Long Island. Fordham, of Southampton, had died in 1674, and had been succeeded, until July, 1676, by John Harriman. He had now returned to New Haven, and Mr. Fletcher was employed as his successor .*
Mr. Fletcher remained at Southampton about four years, (1676-80); at the expiration of which time he was induced to remove, and become the minister of this town, in the sum- mer or autumn of 1680. Of his ministry here, the only me- morial is a letter to Mr. Increase Mather of Boston, dated " Elizabeth Towne, March 25, 1681." It is a document of great interest, and the earliest ecclesiastical memorial of the town. It presents some facts not otherwise known :-
Rev. Sir : You may please to call to mind that since I saw you in March (or Aprell) the year past, I wrott a Letter to you bearing date May 28; 1680, and another before that, May 10, 1680. That upon May 10 (espe- cially) being about Mr. Gershom Hobart's 16g. 6d. which he is indebted to mee, and Mr. Trapp's Exposition from Romans to the end of the Bible (in quarto.) I never heard from you since what hath been done with it. I am now more remote and so the more to secke of cash. New York not being such a place for the production of money as Boston is. Be pleased therefore to acquaint Mr. Bateman at the draw bridge foote what you have done, or like to doe, or are inclined to doe about it. I have been much molested with Quakers here since I came. New ones comeing in one ofter another. Upon February last past upon the motion of two of the sect, one of which two is a schoolemr to some children in the towne (by nation a Scott, by name John Usquehart,) by former profession (as fame makes known to mee) a Popish Priest. A scholler he doth professe himselfe to be, and I find that he hath the Latine tongue. The businesse of that day was for mee to maintain an Assertion viz. That a Quaker liv- ing and dyeing as a Quaker (without repentance) must find out a new gospell, which might aford them hope of salvation, for what God hath revealed in his holy word there was no salvation for them in their impen- itent condition. I opened the terms Explicated by way of distinction of sedusers and seduced and so their sinnes; and likewise what God expected from the one and the other sort, which being done (although there were
* Savage's Gen. Dict., II. 173-4. Allen's Am. Biog. 'Dict., Art., Stow. Greenleaf's Sketches, p. 53. Folsom's Saco and Biddeford, pp. 130-6. Felt's New England, II. 173, 249, 392. Mass. Records, IV. 426, 434.
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ELIZABETHI, NEW JERSEY.
four or five more Quakers in the throng, yet none appearing in the cause but the scholler aforesaid and a Chirurgeon) I demanded of them what they had to say against my Explanation. Instead of speaking pertinently the scholler (whom I understand had been at the University four or five years) begins to tell the people a story of Moses, Ezra, Habaccuk their being Quakers. Whereupon having the people on account of the business of the day I proceeded to six severall Arguments by which to make good my Assertion, viz. That a Quaker living and dyeing as a Quaker (without repentance) according to what God hath revealed in his word, he could not be saved. I in every argument demanded what part of the Argu- ments they would deny but instead of answer there was railing and threatening mee that my destruction was nigh at hand. To prove the Minor I continually produced their owne authors and several things out of their Rabbie's books, which so exceedingly gauled them that then they set themselves to Humming, singing, reeling their heads and bodies (An- tique like) whereby both to disturb mee and to take off the people from attending to what I had to say for the maintaining the Assertion. Since that (I heare) I must ere long be proved to be no minister of Christ, and they have attempted to raise as great a party at Road Island and Delle- way Bay against mee as they can. Nay more they say England and their friends there shall heare of it and in speciall Will. Penn, whom I men- tioned once and but once and then but in my 4th argument, Namely his denyall of Christ being a distinct person without us from his book en- titled Counterfeit Christian p. 77. As for news about Commonwealth affairs I saw a Proclamation of the old Governor forbideing upon Perill the graunting any obedience to those in present power, promiseing open courts shortly. The proclamation was put up here at our meeting house upon Sabbath morn March 1680-1, but before morning exercise taken down, and the day after sent to York. What the issue will be God (in time) will discover. Sir no further to inlarge I take leave committing you, to the keeper of Israel, remaineing yours to serve you in the Lord.
I saw Mr. Abraham Person in health upon Thursday morning March 9 at his own house and the next day Mr. Allen (in health also) at my house .*
During Mr. Fletcher's residence at Southampton, he had become somewhat intimately acquainted with the family of Mr. Henry Pierson, the ancestor of the Pierson family. Mr. Fletcher, whose wife had died some years previously, may have been an inmate of his house. Mr. Pierson died, Oct., 1680, leaving his wife, Mary, and their children, Joseph, Henry, (b. 1652), Benjamin, Theodore, and Sarah (b. Jan.
* Mather Papers. Folsom's Saco, pp. 130-6.
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20, 1660). His estate was valued at £1256, 1, 2,-a large sum. In due time Mr. Fletcher made proposals of marriage to the widow, which were accepted ; and, May 30, 1681, or shortly after, they were united in the bonds of wedlock. A written contract was drawn up, and entered on the Records of the Province, as follows :-
.This writing witnesseth A Covenant Contract and Agreement by and between Mr Seth Fletcher of Elizabeth Town in the Province of New Jersey of the one part and Mrs Mary Pearson of Southampton in the East riding of Yorkshire on Long Island of the other part and is as followeth
Imps the said Mr Seth Fletcher by and upon the said Mrs Peirson's and his sollom Contract of Marriage doth hereby bind himself his heirs Executors and Administrators firmly by these presents, that he will not at any time vase or dispose or in the Least ever Concern himself or desire any of the Estate of her the said Mrs Peirson notwithstanding their Mar- riage togeath Onely one hundred pounds which the said Mrs Peirson doth Engage to Deliver into his hands for the Mutual Comfort of each other and doth Engage himself that if it should please God to call him out of this Life before the said Mrs Pearson to Leave unto her the said hundred pounds again and also to give unto her one hundred pounds more of his own proper Estate and to take three of her children with her as Long as she shall see cause to have them so to be with her and she the said Mrs Mary Pearson doth hereby Engage herself and her Executors that if she shall depart this her Natural Life before him the said Mr Seth Fletcher that then he the said Mr Seth Fletcher shall Quietly have and forever as his own proper and free Estate Enjoy the aforesaid One Hundred Pounds, without the Least demand of any by from or under her the said Mrs Peir- son Clayming or Laying any manner of title or Claime to any part or parcell thereof and this our mutual sollomn Covenant and agreement, wee Joyntly and Severally before the sollomn Tye of Matrimony have here- unto for the Conformation of this our Covenant both of us set our hands and seales in Southampton this thirtieth day of May in the thirty third yeare of the Reigne of our Sovereign Lord Charles the Second By the Grace of God King of England France and Ireland Annoq, Dom 1681. Seth Fletcher In the presence of us Josuah Barnes Mary Peirson
Henry Peirson Thomas Harris .*
Benjamin Pierson, and, probably, two others of her chil- dren, accompanied Mrs. Fletcher to her new home, and thus the Pierson family were introduced here-distinct from the
* E. J. Records, IV. 14. N. Y. Book of Wills, II. 62-4.
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Newark family, who sprang from the Rev. Abraham Pierson ; though the latter was probably an uncle, or elder brother of Henry Pierson, Sen", of Southampton .*
Mr. Fletcher's death occurred in August of the following year (1682), and his widow took, Sept. 18, Letters of Admin- istration from Governor Carteret. His estate was valued at £559, 5, S, of which the books were rated at £175, 4, 4. His library must have been quite large for the times. He appears to have been a man of vigorous thought, of scholarly attainments, and of much zeal for the truth,-though, at one time, somewhat lax on the doctrine of the Sabbath. Possibly, his controversies with the Quakers in these parts may have led him to entertain more orthodox views on that subject. He was, probably, nearly sixty years old at the time of his decease. The children of his son, Pendleton, (who died a captive among the Indians in 1698), settled in the vicinity of Wells and Saco, Me.t
* Howell's Southampton, pp. 263, 4.
+ E. J. Records, IV. 14. Folsom's Saco, pp. 130-6.
14
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CHAPTER XI.
A. D. 1682-1688.
Death of Sir George Carteret -Sale of the Province - Quaker Rule - Robert Barclay, Governor - Thomas Rudyard, Dep. Governor-Death of Gov. Car- teret - His Character - His Will -New Era - Quaker Settlers - Descrip- tions of the Town and Country in 1684-5 - Rudyard's Administration - Legislature - Enactments - Gawen Laurie, Dep. Governor-Land Troubles revived - Militia - Scotch Immigration - Lawrie's Account of the Town and Country - Scot's Model -Other Accounts- Lawrie's Land Investments - Western Bounds - Baker's Trial -Perth Amboy made the Capital - Acces- sion of the Duke of York to the Throne - Trouble about the Newark Bounds - Lawrie Superseded.
WITH the decease of Sir George Carteret, Jan. 14, 1633, a new administration of the government of East Jersey became a necessity. In his will, dated Dec. 5, 1678, all his property in E. Jersey was devised to Trustees for the benefit of his creditors. Fruitless attempts were made, for two or three years, to obtain a purchaser, though the whole territory with the right of jurisdiction was offered to Lord Norreys and others for less than £6000. The government of the Province, in the mean time, was administered in the name of " The Right Honble The Lady Elizabeth Carteret, Baroness, Widow, The Relict and Sole Executrix of the Right Honble Sir George Carteret, Knight and Baronet Deceased Late Lord Proprietor of the said Province, and Grandmother and Guardian to Sir George Carteret Baronet Grandson and Heir of the said Sir George Carteret Deceased, the Present Lady Proprietrix of the Province aforesaid." *
The Province, with the Jurisdiction of the People, was at length disposed of to the highest bidder in January, 1682,
* E. J. Records, II. 37.
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ELIZABETH, NEW JERSEY.
together with all arrearages of rent and sums of money due to the late Proprietor, for which, Deeds of Lease and Release were executed, Feb. 1 & 2, 168}. The sum paid for the property and privileges was £3400. The purchasers were an Association of twelve persons, residents of London and its vicinity, the most of them connected with the Society of Friends, Wm. Penn, Thomas Rudyard and Samuel Groome being of the number. Presently after, the number of the Associates was doubled, six being added from Scotland, and the remainder mostly from London. Among the Scotch were James Drummond, the Earl of Perth, Lord High Chan- cellor of Scotland, a thorough monarchist of the Stuart type, and subsequently a Papist and an exiled Jacobite ; his brother, David Drummond ; and Robert Barclay, of Urie, the Quaker Apologist. Gawn Lawrie, the Quaker merchant, was one of the new Proprietors, from London. One Proprietor was thus exchanged for twenty-four ; and the Cavalier for the Quaker rule .*
ROBERT BARCLAY, originally a Presbyterian, then a Papist, and now a Quaker, being in favor not only with William Penn, the leading Quaker, but with the royal family, was chosen Governor of the Province, with the privilege of non- residence and of acting by Deputy. He made choice of THOMAS RUDYARD, one of the Proprietors, and a London bar- rister, as his Deputy. Samuel Groome, another Proprietor, and a sea-captain, of Stepney, near London, who had visited America in 1676, was appointed Receiver and. Surveyor General.+
Rudyard and Groome arrived, and took up their residence in the town, November 13, 1682; thus superseding Carteret and Vauquellin, and putting an end to Carteret's long con- test with the people. Rudyard brought with him his two adult daughters, Margaret and Anne, and, possibly, his two sons, Benjamin and John, also. Groome, whose family re- mained in England, became the Governor's host. Carteret
* Leaming and Spicer, pp. 141-150. Whitehead's E. Jersey, pp. 82, 3, 6, 90, 196-203. E. T. Bill, pp. 8, 9, 52.
t Grahame's United States, I. 452, 8; 5SS. Whitehead's E. Jersey, pp. 89-91, 123-5, 200, 1.3. Whitehead's Amboy, p. 13.
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continued to occupy the government-house, which he claimed as his own property. Groome's house was on the north side of the Creek, below the bridge, on tide water .*
Carteret survived his retirement from office only some four weeks, his will, made just before his death, bearing date, Dec. 10, 1682. Of the cause, occasion and circumstances of his death, no record remains. It may have resulted from the injuries received at the time of his capture by Andros. However well-qualified, by gifts and attainments, he may have been, for the administration of the government of a newly-founded Colony, he failed to secure the confidence and respect of the town and province. Living among, and asso- ciating daily with, a community in full sympathy with the men and manners and principles of the Commonwealth, he was ever exemplifying, asserting, and upholding the social and political (if not the ecclesiastical) principles of the Stuarts, and exacting a deference, as the representative of that aristocratic and vicious court, which the Puritan colo- nists of the town and Province were among the very last to concede. Instead of identifying himself as much as possible with his townsmen, and seeking to conciliate them, he seems to have pursued a course, almost from the first, that, he must have known, would excite their prejudices, and thwart their plans and purposes in founding a settlement in the wilderness. From the time of the first collision with the people in 1668, he persisted in excluding, from his council and confidence, the very best men in the community-men of sterling integ- rity and of great moral worth, putting in office, and persist-
* Scot's Model of E. N. J., pp. 149, 150. The government house, built by Carteret, just before his death, was subsequently known as the " White House; " sometimes as "Schuy- ler's House," it having passed into the hands of Col. Peter Schuyler. It was converted into a public house, and was kept by Mrs. Margaret Johnston, formerly the widow of Wm. Wil- liamson, and then of Mr. Chetwood, a daughter of Capt. Matthias De Hart, and sister of Mrs. Samuel Mann. It was then called, "the Nag's Head Tavern." In 1766, it was offered for sale, by Jonathan Hampton. In 1784, it was again advertised (by Col. Edward Thomas) for sale, as "that large, commodious, and famous Brick House, known by the name of the White House, built in the strongest and best manner, by a former Governor of New Jersey, for the seat of government, beautifully situated on the river running through the town, on which is a very good wharf." It is thus fully identified as Carteret's house. In 1749, St. John's Par- sonage is described in the deed of sale, as "on the South side of the said Elizabeth Town Creek opposite to a large white house now or late belonging to Mr. Peter Schuyler." This deter- mines the locality. Weyman's N. Y. Gazette, No. 249. Holt's N. Y. Journal, No. 1214. Clark's St. John's Church, p. 186.
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