History of Hunterdon and Somerset counties, New Jersey : with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 48

Author: Snell, James P; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1170

USA > New Jersey > Somerset County > History of Hunterdon and Somerset counties, New Jersey : with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 48
USA > New Jersey > Hunterdon County > History of Hunterdon and Somerset counties, New Jersey : with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 48

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The removal of the finer particles of the surface of the land-the loam, clay, sand, and gravel-by elima- tie influences effects many phenomena that are not easily explained by the tyro. Of these phenomena, we will discuss but one, -the bowlders and surface- stones existing in our county that are not a part of the drift material.

We have already stated that the strata belonging to the Triassic Period vary in chemical and physical composition and in degree of hardness or durability. S une of the strata yield readily to climatic influences, easily moulder into soil, and are quickly transported to expose the subsoil. Other strata are more durable and for a greater length of time resist decay. Again, in the same stratum there are sections which, in chemical and physical composition, are quite unlike the main portion of the bed. These sections are sometimes harder, sometimes softer, than the main part of the layer. Hence it is that a durable layer, or a durable portion of an average layer, may be both underlaid and overlaid by softer and more yielding rork. And, as the softer and more yielding rock is the soonest removed, the layer underlying as well as the layer overlying a given hard stratum may be dis- integrated and transported, while the hard strata, or the hard section of a softer one, are only exposed along the line of their strike, or so disintegrated that they are separated into bowlders, spalls, sand, and the like. Ilence results, in long ridges. the projecting

outerop of the more silicious layers, everywhere seen over the face of the red shale. So, too, has resulted the bowlders that seem to be collected upon isolated patches or are scattered over the surface, as seen in the Sandy Ridge district and elsewhere. Likewise has resulted the cobble-stone, or scattered surface- stone, more or less numerous everywhere.

At some places these bowlders and surface-stone- are far removed from the strata from which they have been detached. Such is the case with the basaltic bowlders south of Rocktown. Here we find large bowlders of basalt lying upon the surface of altered shale, two, three, four, and five hundred yards from any stratum or bed of rock of the same kind. In- deed, the nearest bed of this kind of rock is that forming the dike that extends along to the north of the village, and from this layer, doubtless, they have been detached. At an early time the Sourland Ridge, at this place, and indeed at every other place, was very much higher than it now is. At that time the eleva- tion, as now, was effected by the continuity and thick- ness of its strata. Then the strata of altered shale that flank the dike on the south were longer than now, and, with the same dip that they now have, ex- tended upward and reached farther towards the south. Upon these strata of altered shale the . trap-dike rested. At the same time, the dike itself was covered with indurated shale. But, the shale being the most easily disintegrated and transported, the layer ahove has been first removed, exposing the outeropping basalt ; the outeropping basalt has then been sepa- rated at its joints into large blocks, which, hy exfoli- ating, have effected large interspaces, so as to expose more or less the underlying altered shale ; the under- lying altered shale, then subjected to climatic in- fluences, has been disintegrated and transported more rapidly than the fragments of basalt that rested upon it. As the transporting process reduced the elevation of the surface, the detached portions of the basalt re- main to show how far towards the southeast the dike extended in earlier times.

There is a phenomenon relating to surface-bowlder-, and to surface-stone in general, that demands ex- planation. Everywhere the cobble-stones and bowl- ders are seen, not resting upon the surface of the ground, but partly sunken into it, as it were. How happens this? In the spring, at the time that the frost di-appears from the soil, the earthy substance is surcharged with water,-so much so that the entire soil becomes an imperfect liquid. Then the bowlder- and surface-stone sink into the ground until they reach that point at which their weight is poised by the specific gravity of the liquid soil. Tree- main- tain their relation to the soil in the same way. But for this process the transporting of the soil by cli- matie influences would in a short time not only leave bowlders upon the surface of the ground, but would lay bare the roots of every tree and every perennial plant.

182

HUNTERDON COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

CHAPTER II.

LAND TITLES AND SETTLEMENT.

Title derived from the Crown-Deeds from Indians-Head-lands-Irregu- larity in Surveys-Treaty with Indians, 1703-Dividends of Land- Proprietary Tracts-Early Settlement-The Quakers make first Settle- ment, in 1676-First Church-First Accurate Survey in Hunterdon, 1707-Tax-roll of 1722-Early Settlers in Various Portions of the County-Early Bridges-First Road-Early Mills-During the Revo- Intion-Growth, etc.

THE title to the lands of West as well as East Jer- sey was derived from the Crown. Although deeds from Indian claimants are held by some of the pres- ent owners, unless patents or surveys were also ob- tained, the legal title must rest .upon possession and not upon deeds. After the division of the province, in 1663, West Jersey was sold in hundredths. Fen- wick, to whom a conveyance had been made in trust for Byllinge, and who himself executed a long lease to Eldridge and Warner, was recognized as entitled to ten hundredths, and other parties became proprie- tors of ninety hundredths, so that a full proprietary right in West Jersey was a hundredth part. These were subdivided into lots of one hundred parts each. No patents were issued in West Jersey. In 1676 the proprietors, freeholders, and inhabitants established and signed certain concessions and agree- ments regulating the government and the mode of acquiring title to land. "Head-lands" were granted to settlers, and commissioners appointed to regulate the setting forth and dividing them. The amount of land thus appropriated was not large. After the right to head-lands ceased title was derived from the orig- inal proprietors of the hundredths. Regular deeds of conveyance-formerly by lease and release, in modern times by deeds of bargain and sale, either of a frac- tional part or of a specified number of acres-trans- ferred the title.

During the early years of the settlement there was much irregularity in the mode of making surveys. For many years the surveys called for fixed monu- ments, and, the measurement of the lines being re- turned much shorter than they really were, great frauds were perpetrated by making the survey to include more land than the acres specified .* This led, about 1786, to the order to surveyors to establish a "beginning" corner, and then to confine themselves to strict course and distance. This remedied the abuse in part, but it was found in some cases that, though no fixed cor- ners were specified in the return, they were marked on the ground, and, being respected by other survey- ors, they were, after a lapse of time, necessarily recog- Dized by the council and courts as established monu- ments, although a large overplus of land became thus included in the survey.t

Commissioners were elected who were empowered "to set forth and divide all the lands of the Province as were taken up, or by themselves shall be taken up and contracted for with the natives, and the said lands to divide into one hundred parts, as occasion shall require."# The first and second divisions extended as far as the Assanpink (Trenton).

At the beginning of the eighteenth century the people of West Jersey, some eight thousand strong,¿ began to look with longing eyes upon the territory to the north, which was yet held by the Indians, so the proprietors urged the council to grant them a third dividend or taking up of land. In compliance with this request, John Wills, William Biddle, Jr., and John Reading were appointed a committee to treat with the natives. The committee reported at a meeting of the council June 27, 1703, "that they had made a full agreement with Himhammoe for one tract of land adjoining to the division-line" (i.e., the line between East and West New Jersey) "and lying on both sides of the Raritan River. . .. And also with Coponnockous for another tract of land, lying between the purchase made by Adlord Bondell and the boun- daries of the land belonging to Himhammoe fronting on the Delaware."T This purchase was computed to contain one hundred and fifty thousand acres, and the cost was estimated at seven hundred pounds. It was proposed to allow five thousand acres for each dividend to a proprietary.

At another meeting of the council, Nov. 2, 1703, the same committee was sent to those Indians, partie- ularly to Coponnockous, to have the tract of land lately purchased " marked forth, and get them to sign a deed for the same, . .. and that they go to Him- hammoe's wigwam in order to treat with them, and to see the bounds of the land lately purchased of him." This purchase covered the greater part of the present county of Hunterdon.

The one hundred and fifty thousand acres above mentioned were divided among the proprietors, but the tract extending northward from Trenton, and em- bracing the original township of Hopewell, belonged to the West Jersey Society, a company of English proprietors. Daniel Coxe, who owned twenty-two proprietary shares and obtained his title in 1685, con- veyed this tract to them in 1691. One of the first to take up land out of this tract of one hundred and fifty thousand acres was Benjamin Field. His estate had two tracts,-one of three thousand, on the Delaware, and another of two thousand, near Ringos.

Joseph Hehnsley and Thomas Hutchinson, both of Pennsylvania, bought ten proprietaries of land in this county of the trustees of Byllinge. In 1676, William Biddle, " of Burlington County," bought the

* An allowance of fivo acres to the hundred was made in West Jersey for high ways.

t Appendix to "Constitution and Government of the Province and State of New Jersey," by L. Q. C. Ebner, 1872, pp. 181, et ary.

# Chap. i, of Concessions of " The Trustees." Quoted in Gordon's list. N. J., p. 68.

¿ Gordon's History, p. 57.

| The Boude tract extended sonth from Lambertville,

1 Smith's History of New Jersey, pp. 96-97.

183

LAND TITLES AND SETTLEMENT.

third division of one-fourth of a proprietary of land of Helmsley, and in 1686 the same amount of Ilutch- inson. Biddle dying, it descended to his son, William, who subsequently sold a portion (1705) to John Hol- combe, of Abington, Pa., and in 1714 a part, lying west of Rosemont, to Charles Wolverton. Mr. Hlol- combe is the ancestor of the Holcombe families in this county. Eleven hundred and fifty acres of the Biddle tract was sold in 1732 to Peter Emley, of Mans- field (now Washington), Warren Co .; this passed to Christopher Cornelius in 1750, and four hundred acres of it to Daniel Howell the same year, near the north boundary of Delaware township. This was the Howell from whom the ferry took its name. His land joined John Reading's at the Delaware River.

In the surveyor-general's office, at Burlington, is recorded, in Liber M, folio 10, the ninety-one thou- sand eight hundred and ninety-five acre tract called the Morris purchase. In 1701 was surveyed to Gov- ernor A. Hamilton and Benjamin Fields, for the West Jersey Society, two thousand acres (Liber , folio 43, Hunterdon County). This was a part of the pur- chase from the Indians made by Adlord Boude. In 1702, also, a tract of three thousand acres was sur- veyed to Benjamin Field (recorded Liber A, folio 43, Hunterdon County), being near an Indian town called " Nishalemensey,"* at "Allexhocken brook." The ten thousand acre tract of the West Jersey Society is recorded in the Secretary of State's office, Trenton, in Revel's book, folio 142. This was on the Delaware, adjoining the thirty thousand aere tract, while in the same book (folio 143) is recorded a twenty thousand nere tract, which adjoined the Coxe purchase. The West Jersey Society had an aggregate of four hun- dred and seventy-four thousand one hundred and sixty-eight acres of land in this section of the State.

The three thousand acre tract, before referred to as surveyed in 1702 to Benjamin Field of Burlington, was not fully conveyed to him on account of his sudden death, leaving a will, dated May 13, 1702, in which he constituted his wife, Experience, sole executrix ; but he appears to have become possessed of sixteen hundred and fifty acres of the tract, and she, by deed (dated May 29, 1702), conveyed the same to Nathan Allen, of Allentown, in the county of Monmouth. He began to sell the same to settlers about 1720. Thus, among others, Philip Peter became possessed of one hundred and fifty acres, deed dated May 2d and 30, 1720; Rudolph Harley, " of Somerset," of one hun- dred and seventy-six acres, at what is now Ringos.

In 1677. William Penn and his associates, by deeds of lease and release, conveyed to Francis Collins, Richard Mew, and John Ball one whole proprietary in Kingwood and Alexandria, Richard Mew to have two-sevenths of the whole tract. At his death it de- scended to his son, Noel, who devised it to his son, Richard, who in 1716 soll one-half of it to his sister

and the other half to John Mumford, of Rhode Island. In 1735, Mumford sold to Dr. John Rodman, of Bucks Co., Pa. The title then descended through his son to his grandson, William, who in 1794 sohl to Thomas Lowrey for two thousand eight hundred and eighty-four pounds six shillings seven pence.

Of the "Society's Great Tract," James Alexander purchased, in 1744, ten thousand acres, taking in the whole of Round Valley and sourrounding mountains, and all the land from Bray's Hill to White House. Two thousand aeres (the Lebanon part) of this were conveyed in 1782 by Alexander's heirs to Anthony White. A tract of five thousand and eighty-eight acres, extending from Asbury to Hampton Junction, was purchased by John Bowlby in 1740. The Coxe tract lay cast of this, and extended to Clinton; it ad- joined the Kirkbride tract, the two covering an area of four miles. Northward lay the tracts of Budd and Logan, James Parker, George Willocks, and others, and south lay the Penn tract of five thousand acres, the dividing-line between the Penn and Coxe tracts being in the village of Flemington.

In the south part of the county were several tracts. Robert Dinsdale had extensive tracts about Lambert- ville and Mount Airy ; John Calow, northward, along the Delaware ; William Biddle held five thousand acres north of Calow's tract and fronting on the river. John Reading took up land in the vicinity of Pralls- ville and Barber's Station. Other owners of tracts were Benjamin Field, Gilbert Wheeler, John Kays, Richard Bull, John Clarke, etc. Allen and Turner, of Philadelphia, bought at an early day from the pro- prictors ten thousand acres north and west of Clin- ton, extending from Van Nyckel's to German Valley.

But it is impossible to give here the details of the sub- divisions and the innumerable transfers of these tracts occurring in their subsequent history. The most of that considered essential on this subject is given elsewhere, by the township writers, in their separate treatment of the civil divisions of the county.

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

In the opening up to settlement of the territory now constituting the county of Hunterdon there were two points of approach,-the Delaware Bay on the south, und Raritan Bay on the east,-openings to the sea of the (two) rivers of the same name, one coursing along the western line of this territory, the other, with its tributaries, draining nearly all of its hills and watering nearly all of its valleys. The course of immigration from the Old World and the car- lier settled portions of the New was up these streams, spreading westward from Woodbridge and Piscata- way into the valleys of the Raritan and Millstone Rivers, and thence along the branches of the Raritan into Hunterdon County, and at the same time extend- ing northward up the Delaware, from Burlington and from Trent's Town, into Hopewell, Amwell, and all portions of the vast domain of old Hunterdon.

" In some deeds also spelled " Wishalimenty.

184

HUNTERDON COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

The first settlements in Hunterdon County were made by the Quakers about the year 1676, at the Falls of the Delaware, as the country in the vicinity of the Assanpink* was then and for some time known. Among those who came from Hull, England, in 1678, on the "Shield," which was the first vessel that had ever ascended the Delaware as far as Burlington, were a number who settled in what was known after 1713 as the south part of Hunterdon, but which then was a part of Burlington County. Prominent among these pioneers were Mahlon Stacy, who took up a tract of eight hundred acres, principally on the north side of the Assunpink ; } Thomas Potts, and Thomas Lambert, who settled at Lamberton about 1679, and from whom the place derived its name. Mahlon Stacy lived in a log house near the site of the present residence of Edward H. Stokes, Esq. In 1680, Mahlon Stacy built a grist-mill on the Assanpink, and about the same time Thomas Ollive erected one on his plantation, on Rancocas Creek. These two mills were for several years the only ones in this section of West New Jersey. Nathaniel Pettit took up eight hundred acres of land to the north of Stacy, and adjoining the tracts of Peter Fretwell, William Spencer, and Joshua Ely. Pettit and Spencer not only took up land, but were actual settlers, as the records show them to have been respectively assessor and collector of the township in 1701. At the northwest corner of William Spencer's land, later the Dickin- son farm, commenced Thomas Hutchinson's manor. Andrew Heath also settled prior to 1700, and to him the township owes its name.

In 1703, John Hutchinson (only son and heir of Thomas Hutchinson, who died intestate) conveyed two acres of land to the inhabitants of Hopewell, for a "publie meeting-house and also for a place of burial" (AAA, folio 105, p. 114, office Secretary of State, Tren- ton). This was the first house built for public wor- · ship in Hopewell, and, so far as has been ascertained, the first in the State, except that of the Quakers .? It was occupied by the Episcopalians until their church was built, in Trenton, and occasionally for many years after. A portion of the foundation is still standing, and in it the stone which perpetuates the memory of Samuel Tucker, president of the Second Provincial Congress of New Jersey, as well as that of his wife, ete. The Presbyterians built a log church in 1712, near the spot on which the brick church now stands, in Ewing. The land was given by Alex- ander Lockart, who was county clerk of Hunterdon in 1721.

Among other early settlers of Hopewell were Moore Furman, the first mayor of Trenton, prominent in the affairs of the county; William Green and John Reading, who were the first assessors of Hunterdon County ; John Muirhead, who was the first sheriff ; Col. William Trent,| _who in 1723 was Speaker of the New Jersey Assembly and a commissioner of the county of Hunterdon along with John Reading ; William Yard, who settled in 1712, and William Trent in 1714 (the latter purchased the Mahlon Stacy tract before referred to; and his oldest son, James, established the ferry on the Delaware at the "Old York Road" crossing in 1726 ; T) William Yard, who was county clerk in 1722; John Porterfield, who was a justice of the Hunterdon courts in 1721; and Joseph Stout, who in 1727, with John Porterfield, was admitted to a seat in the General Assembly, the first members from the county of IIunterdon.

Joseph Stout was the son of Jonathan, the head of one of the three families who settled in the north part of IIopewell, near the Sourland Mountain, in 1704. At this time " the place was a wilderness and full of Indians." The Jonathan Stout here referred to was the founder of the Baptist Church in the north part of Hopewell, whose membership extended far into old Amwell, and which was, no doubt, the first so- ciety of this denomination in Hunterdon County. It is generally held-and may be true-that Daniel Coxe, the great landowner of Hunterdon County, was a non-resident and never lived within its borders, ** but the records at Trenton show that some of his de- scendants lived in the county, and were prominent and influential in its early affairs.tt The name of Daniel Coxett appears in 1746, "in the 19th reign of King George II.," as one of the burgesses of the borough of Trenton, under the royal charter, along with William Morris, Joseph Warrell, Andrew Smith, Alex. Lockart, Theophilus Phillips, Samnel Hunt, Reuben Armitage, Joseph Decou, Andrew Reed, David Martin, and Robert Pearson. The Common Council were Joseph Paxton, Theophilus Severns, Benjamin Biles, Jasper Smith, Cornelius Ringo, Jonathan Stout, John Dagworthy, Jr., George Ely, Thomas Burrows, Jr., Jonathan Walters, Joseph Phillips, John Hunt, William Plasket, John Welling, Daniel Lanning, and Benjamin Green .¿¿

* Mahlon Stacy, in writing to his friends in England, in 1680, dates his letter from the " Falls of the Delaware in West Jersey."-Smith's Hist., 1. 114.

+ This creek is called in the public records Derwent, St. Pink, Sun Pink, Assunpink (meaning "stony creek," from its gravelly bottom), and Assunpink, its present name .- Raunt's Hist., p. 12.

Į Ibid. p. 43.

¿ The Quaker meeting-house at Burlington was established in 1696; that of Trenton city in 1739.

| 1Ie died Dec. 25, 1724.

f Raum's Trenton, p. 70. *** Wickes' Hist. Med. in N. J., et als.

it The court minutes, in the clerk's office at Flemington, also corrobo- rate the statement; Daniel Coxe's name there appears as a justice in 1723, and as a judge officialing on the bench of the county, in 1726, etc.

## This Daniel Coxe must have been Col. Daniel, the ellest son of the proprietor. The latter is said to have died about 1739. Dr. Mott, in his " History of Hunterdon County" (p. 50), says that Judge Coxe was a grund- son of Daniel Coxe, the first proprietor, " whose large proprietary tracts made his descendants immensely wealthy. In the latter part of the cen- tury Charles Coxe bought the farm of twelve hundred acres owned by Judge Johnson at Sidney, and afterwards the residence of Judge Wilson. In the old mansion Judge Coxe spent his summers, extending a princely hospitality" to his friends, including the first families of Philadelphia. de Liber AAA, Com'rs, p. 266, Sec. Off.

185

LAND TITLES AND SETTLEMENT.

The first accurate survey of the south part of old Hunterdon County, now embraced in Mercer, of which there is any record is to be found in the Book of Sur- veys, page 103, in the office of the Secretary of State, at Trenton, having the marginal note, "Re-survey of Hopewell tract for Col. Cox, 31,000." It is as follows :

"SEPTEMBER, 1707.

" Resurveyed then for Coll. Daniel Cox, his tract of land called Hope- well, beginning at the upper corner of the same by the river Delaware, at a white oak corner in the low land, and runs thence East South East fourty chain to a markt maple and hickory for a corner ; then East three hundred and one chain to a white oak for a corner ; then north by west one hundred and sixty-five chain to a white oak corner; then East twe hundred sixty-four chain to a white oak corner ; then again East two hundred and forty chains to a white oak corner in a line called the Scotch line, er ine of partition between East and West Jersey ; then along the said line uvaro Sonth South West four miles and thirty-two chains to o white oak corner in the line of Malden bead Indian purchase ; then alonge the sald line, south west and south south west to the head of a creek callod little Shahbaconck ; then south west to e creek called Great Shabbakonk ; then down by tho sume fivety-six chaine to a tree markt for a corner on the south west side thereof; then south west eighty-two chain to a hickory corner to land surveyed to Thomas Hutchinson ; then by the same North West two hundred eighty-five chaines to a hickory corner by the land surveyed to Pope and Wetherell ; then bounded by the satne by a line North East seventy-three chains and East by South foorty-nine chaine, and South Elenven chaine and East by South fivety-six chalne, and North by East one hundred and three chuines and e halfe, and west sixty-four chains, and South West by West one hundred and ninety-eight chaine to a hickory corner at the Dellawar aforesaid, and 80 bounded up by the said river to the first mentioned corner containing one and thirty thousand acres besides allowances for highways.

" Resurveyed by me, DANIEL LEEDS."

Another testimony to the oft-stated fact that the lands of New Jersey were fairly purchased of the In- dians is the deed to Adlord Boude, agent of Daniel Coxe, from the Indian chiefs Hoham, Teplaopamun, Mchekighue (Mcheckissue), Capernonickon, Nahu- sing, MIchkaekan (Neheekan), and Shawonne, dated March 30, 1688. This was for the lands previously mentioned, being portions of what are now Hunterdon and Mercer Counties.

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History of Hunterdon and Somerset counties, New Jersey : with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 48

Author: Snell, James P; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885 Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1170

Author: Snell, James P; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1170