USA > New Jersey > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, New Jersey, 1664-1920, Volume I > Part 8
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Her Majesty Queen Anne's instructions to the first royal governor of New York and New Jersey, Lord Cornbury, was to stop any move- ments that interfered with the traffic in slaves, the Royal African Com- pany being particularly brought to the notice of the governor as deserving encouragement, and that the province should have a constant and sufficient supply of merchantable negroes at moderate rates in money or commodities. At Perth Amboy there were barracks in which imported slaves were immured, and in almost every settlement the labor of the families with a very few exceptions was exclusively performed by black slaves. As late as 1776 it is stated there was but one household in Perth Amboy that was served by hired free white domestics.
An act was passed by the Legislature in March, 1714, which provided for the trial of negroes for murder and other capital offenses before three or more justices and five principal freeholders of the country, the pains of death to be suffered in such manner as the aggravation or enormity of their crimes in the judgment of the said justices and freeholders shall merit and require ; although the mode of trial was changed in 1768, even then the manner in which death should be inflicted was not specified. There were several executions under this act; a negro man named Prince in 1729 was burned alive at Perth Amboy for the murder of William Cook, a white man. Perth Amboy was again, July 5, 1750, the scene of another of these judicial murders; the victims, two negroes, were burned alive for the murder of their mistress, Mrs. Obadiah Ayres. The execution took place in a ravine on the north side of the town, which became known afterwards as "Negro Gully," and was witnessed by the entire black population of the town, who were summoned from their homes, being obliged to be present in order that they might be deterred from the commission of like offenses. At a later period a negro was hung a short distance out of Perth Amboy for theft.
There were two or three risings amongst the negroes that disturbed the peace of the province. One occurred in the vicinity of the Raritan
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in 1734, and as a punishment several of the ringleaders were hung. The design of the insurrection was to obtain their freedom by a general mas- sacre, and then join the Indians in the interest of the French. An insur- rection was anticipated in 1772, but was prevented by due precautionary measures.
The number of slaves in New Jersey in 1800 was 12,422, in the next decade the number had decreased to 10,851, and in that year in Wood- bridge, with a population of 4,247, there were 230 slaves; Piscataway, with a population of 2,475, had 251 slaves. The Legislature on February 24, 1820, passed an act which gave freedom to every child born of slave parents subsequent to July 4, 1804, the males on arriving at twenty-five years of age, the females at twenty-one years of age. Under this act, slavery entirely disappeared from the State of New Jersey in the towns mentioned above, in Woodbridge, for instance, in 1840, while the free colored persons numbered 351 in a population of 4,821, the slaves enu- merated were only seven. In Piscataway in the same year, the census reports record a population of 2,828, of which there were 298 free colored persons and only three slaves ; at the taking of the next census a decade later, the slave element of each of these towns had entirely disappeared.
CHAPTER X. STUDY OF THE SOIL.
The red shale drift in Middlesex county is a part of the great northern drift of the glacial epoch which covers nearly all of the northern ter- ritory of New Jersey. This portion is a part of the southern end of the great sheet covering the continent. The city of Perth Amboy stands on the southermost point of this particular drift bank. The red shale material, the predominating and characteristic constituent in the mass of drift, gives character to the surface of the country, the red shale cropping out in places. The soil has that peculiar purplish-red color which forms a marked contrast to the sandy soil towards the west and south. The forests in this drift area are quite different from those grown in the sandy gravelly loam surfaces. There are less chestnut and pine trees, which largely make up the woodlands south of the Raritan river.
The general outline of the drift in the country is from Staten Island Sound on the east to the Raritan river on the south, thence west to near Bonhamtown to the northerly limits of the country. There is no shale or sandstone to be found south of the Raritan river and east of the South river. The former at Perth Amboy divides the two surface formations. This drift is, however, of yellow sand and gravel at Ford's Corner and several points between that place and Perth Amboy. The matrix of this drift consists of red shale in the form of small fragments and a fine red earth. In this are found pebbles, cobblestones, boulders, and other rock masses. Fragments of red and bluish sandstone and trap-rocks are abundant. The surface of much of the area is remarkably uneven. The hills are irregular in outline and of uneven slope, sink- holes and small ponds are numerous. These irregularities of the sur- face are a prominent feature in the higher grounds west and southwest of Woodbridge. The thickness of the red shale drift does not exceed twenty feet, though in some places it reaches nearly one hundred feet. No organic remains have been discovered in this drift, although it has been largely excavated at several points.
The yellow sand and gravel includes the layers which form the sur- face materials or superficial covering of the clay district outside the boundaries of the red shale or northern drift which overlays it. The thickness of this surface formation varies from point to point even within the limits of a single clay bank. The materials of this sand and gravel formation are always stratified. The lines or layers of stratification sometimes are horizontal, but frequently they are wavy or gently undu- lating. The inclination of these layers is not uniform, the prevailing dip being towards the northwest. The sand and gravel generally alter-
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nate, but somewhat irregularly, and in some places there are thick beds of sand without any lines of gravel; frequently a thin gravel stratum a few inches thick is seen lying immediately upon the clay. The sand is mostly of a fine white to a yellowish white granular quartz mass, which in some layers is mixed with earthy matter. On the north side of the Raritan there is less sand and a larger proportion of earth and gravel. The yellow sands are largely quartz in the form of grains and pebbles of white to yellowish transparent translucent chalcedonic varieties. Some- times black grains of hornblende and very small grains of magnetite occur with the quartz ; in some places these grains are cemented together by oxide of iron and make a stony mass. There is an absence of any quantities of spar and mica, and in the vicinity of Piscataway angular formation of red shale is quite abundant in the formation. Wherever the white sands of this formation constitute the surface, the soil is light and poor, and the timber is mainly yellow pine, chestnut and scrubby oak. The gravel has more earth in it and makes a firmer and better soil. The whole area of this sand and gravel formation is inferior to the red shale drift north of the Raritan river. This formation has been at times described as a drift, and must not be confounded with a glacial drift, as its origin is due to water. Its stratification, lines and layers indicate that flowing water, not ice, was the moving power.
The tidal meadows constitute the more recent alluvial formation, the red shale drift, sand or gravel, being under the meadow mud. The boundary lines of the meadows are easily traced, the alluvium resting unconformably upon the older formations. At a few points valuable clay has been found a few feet beneath the surface of the tide meadows, but the expense of development has retarded the utilization of only that near the upland border. Investigation has proved that the clay beds are continuous underneath the meadows and the Raritan river, therefore it is evident that they were deposited before the river cut its present channel to the sea.
The clay district of Middlesex county has been a source of great wealth and enterprise, and a factor in the industrial world. This district is confined to the extreme southerly part and ranging easterly, in the township of Woodbridge, to Staten Island Sound, thence it runs west and southwest into the township of Raritan to about a half mile north of Bonhamtown, thence in a southwesterly direction to Lawrence brook in the township of East Brunswick, which is its western limit. The southern boundary is not plainly marked, but runs in the direction of Jacksonville in Madison township to the Monmouth county line. On the northwest the clay district joins that of the red clay and sandstone and the frequent outcrops of the latter mark the location of the northern boundary easy and accurate. Towards the west the boundary is entirely arbitrary, but owing to geological formation is hard to determine, and
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it is possible that it extends across the State in the direction of the Delaware river and beyond. In the flat and sandy country south of the South river and stretching east as far as Jacksonville, the yellow sand and gravel drift reaches down to tide level, so this must be con- sidered the limit of the district where clay can be possibly dug, rather than the end of the beds. From Jacksonville to the bay shore the out- cropping clay marl defines the southern margin of the clay district. The area of the clay district in Middlesex county which has been devel- oped is in the neighborhood of seventy-five square miles, and it is estimated that in New Jersey and Staten Island the belt of country underlaid by the plastic clays includes an area of three hundred and twenty square miles, with the possibility that much other valuable clay land may in the future be profitably worked.
Although the clay district borders on the tide waters of Staten Island Sound and Raritan Bay, and is intersected by the tide waters of the Raritan and South rivers, it is not like the general Atlantic slope of the country, of a flat surface. On the contrary, the surface is uneven ; north of the Raritan river the elevation exceeds thirty feet, fully one- third of it is over one hundred feet, and forty feet above tide water level.
The materials of the clay formation are earthy, and no rocky or stony layers or beds are found within it. Sometimes the sand and gravel are cemented with oxide of iron, so as to form a rough building stone ; also, concretions of clay and oxide of iron of a stony hardness are found in some of the clay beds, but the layers of sand and clay of which the formation is made are all earthy and so soft that they can be dug with a spade. The whole formation is composed of a series of fire-clay, potter's clay, brick clay, sand and lignite. The thickness of a series of strata is nearly three hundred and fifty feet running parallel to each other, inclining towards the southeast with an average dip of about forty-five feet per mile.
The agricultural district of the country is under a high state of cultivation, the drainage being supplied by extensive waterways that traverse its surface. The soil is good tillable land, abounding in differ- ent places in gravel and containing much sandy and clayey loam. The surface is generally rolling and yields abundant crops of hay, cereals and vegetables, interspersed with orchards.
The mineral products of the country, if any, have not been developed. In the year 1748-50 several lumps of virgin copper from five to thirty pounds in weight were plowed up in a field within a quarter of a mile of New Brunswick. This discovery induced Elias Boudinot to take a lease of the land for ninety-nine years. He with several other gentle- men formed a partnership in 1751 and opened a pit about two hundred to three hundred yards from the Raritan. About fifteen feet deep the prospectors came upon a vein of bluish stone about two feet thick,
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embedded between two loose bodies of red rock, covered with a sheet of pure virgin copper about the thickness of gold leaf. This bluish stone was filled with sparks of copper resembling filings, and here and there were large lumps of copper from five to thirty pounds in weight. They followed this vein for almost thirty feet, when, the pit filling with water, it became too expensive to work. A stamping mill was erected, the bluish stone was reduced to a powder washed in large tubs, resulting in the securing of tons of purest copper which was sent to England without passing through fire. The cost of labor was, however, too high to make the venture profitable. Sheets of copper three feet square on the average, having a thickness of a sixteenth of an inch, were taken from between the rocks within four feet of the surface. At the depth of fifty or sixty feet a body of solid ore was found in the midst of the bluish vein between rocks of flinty spar, but it was however worked out in a few days. Work on the mine was abandoned, though the vein at that time showed richer developments.
CHAPTER XI. TRANSPORTATION.
The American Indians were endowed with the instincts of the engi- neer. The communicating paths they made were direct and skillfully selected for their combination of all the natural advantages that were required. If their paths crossed a stream, it was at the easiest and safest fording place, if they traversed a swamp, it was where there was per- manent or solid ground; the hills were crossed at the easiest grade; in fact, they combined economy of labor and perseverance in every essential form. The Indian paths determined the location and course of the roads that were afterwards established by the early colonists.
The most notable path established by the Indians in New Jersey was known as the "Minisink Path." Its starting point was near the Nave- sink Hills, at the mouth of the Shrewsbury river or inlet in Monmouth county, thence running along the southern shore of Raritan bay in a northerly direction through Middletown to the Raritan river in Mid- dlesex county, crossing at Kent's Neck near Crab Island about three miles above Perth Amboy. After crossing the Raritan, the path ran north- west to the headwaters of the Rahway river, reaching a point about six miles west of Elizabethtown Point, thence it ran a short distance due north, and for the remainder of its route north and northwest, passing over the mountains to the west of Springfield and Newark, traversing the whole of Morris and Essex counties to the Minisink Island in the Delaware river below Port Jervis, New York. The distance thus cov- ered was about seventy-five miles. These were the favorite hunting grounds of the Minisinks. These grounds extended throughout the entire valley lying north of the Blue Mountains in Pennsylvania, stretching from the Wind Gap in that province to near the Hudson river in New York. This path the Indians located, making their peri- odical visits to the seacoast during the season of the oyster, clam and periwinkles, to obtain their shells for the manufacture of wampum. Besides this extensive path there were many others. One ran from Perth Amboy to New Brunswick, where it crossed the Raritan, proceed- ing westward through Six-Mile Run. There was also the "Old Bur- lington Path" from Shrewsbury southerly through Monmouth county, which afterwards became a part of the highway known as the "Lower Road."
The earliest description of a journey between the Raritan and Dela- ware rivers is obtained from an original Dutch manuscript in the possession of the Long Island Historical Society. Jaspar Dankers and Peter Sluyter on December 29, 1679, started from the Falls of the Dela-
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ware (now Trenton) to cross the country eastward to Piscataway. There was at this time no settlement between these points. They found the country deluged with water, obliterating the Indian path and over- flooding the flats, valleys, morasses, enlarging the waterways, and pene- trating even to the high solid ground. They traveled about twenty-five miles the first day, and reaching a large body of water they encountered Indians, and arranged with the chief to row them across the river in a canoe. The river they crossed was a portion of the present Raritan. The voyagers arrived at dusk at the end of their second day's journey at the house of Cornelius Van Langevelt, a Dutch trader, located where the branch united with the Raritan river, and thence flowed to the Achter Kull. This was not far from the present site of New Brunswick. The two travelers on the first day of the year 1680 left Van Langevelt's trading post in a canoe for Elizabethtown Point on their way to New Amsterdam.
The first roads traversing New Jersey made by the European settlers were laid by the Dutch to connect New Amsterdam with Fort Nassau on the Delaware river. They must have been constructed soon after the building of Fort Nassau, as the intercourse between the settlements was principally by letters, they being dispatched across the bay to Elizabethtown, thence carried by runners, generally friendly natives. Old documents state that Peter Jegow kept a house of entertainment for travelers as early as 1668, about eight or nine miles below Delaware Falls, between what is now Burlington, New Jersey, and Bristol, Penn- sylvania. The statement is made that at this time there was no settle- ment at Perth Amboy or near it on Staten Island, nor on the south side of the Raritan; there were no ferries nor were there any roads lower down the Raritan river than where New Brunswick now stands, which was the principal line of travel. Therefore there is no doubt that the first road that traversed New Jersey passed from New Amsterdam through the bays and rivers by means of a ferry to a point afterwards Elizabethtown, thence through the towns afterward known as Wood- bridge and Piscataway, finally ending at what afterwards was known as Inian's Ferry. At this latter point two roads were formed. One of these, originally called the "Upper Road," later known as the "King's Highway," passed through the present sites of Kingston and Princeton to Trenton, where it crossed the Delaware river, continuing into the present State of Pennsylvania to Bristol, eventually to Philadelphia. The other road, known in early times as the "Lower Road," diverged from the "Upper Road" several miles west of the present site of New Brunswick. It afterwards was shifted within the present limits of that city. After leaving the "Upper Road" it went southerly and westerly through the township of Cranbury to Burlington, where it crossed the Delaware at Bristol and rejoined the "Upper Road."
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In the eighties of the seventeenth century, the only established road of importance in New Jersey was the Dutch thoroughfare established by Governor Stuyvesant. Attempts were made in 1683 to divert the travel from the old route to Perth Amboy. At this time Perth Amboy was a place of great expectations. It was a seaport having a magnifi- cent harbor, the seat of the proprietary government, and it was fondly hoped it would become the great maritime center of America. In response to the wishes and instructions of the proprietors, Governor Gawen Lawrie in 1683 projected a ferry across the Raritan at Radford (now South Amboy) to connect with a road through Spotswood to Burlington, for the purpose of connecting Perth Town and Burlington. A boat was run between Perth and New York. The road thus estab- lished was sometimes known as the "Lawrie Road," and was located south of the "Lower Road," and probably intersected it before reaching Burlington.
The effort to divert the travel from the old road proved ineffective, the King's Highway accommodating the bulk of the internal intercourse of the province, and the establishment of Inian's Ferry on the present site of New Brunswick made it the most popular route for travelers ; though even as late as 1716, when it had been established a score of years, no provision was made by the Assembly to pass over the ferry anything but "horse and man and foot passengers." From 1684 to 1686 numerous roads were projected and opened, some of them of con- siderable importance, some of them remaining in use to the present day. During the period from 1705 to 1713 no less than thirty-five dif- ferent roads were viewed, opened and established within the limits of Middlesex county. The only public conveyance, however, previous to the surrender of the province by the proprietors to the crown, was on the Amboy road, granted to one Dellaman, by the authority of Governor Hamilton, to drive a wagon for the transportation of goods and pas- sengers in connection with a packet boat operated between Perth and New York. There was no set time or fare for the trips, they being made irregularly. The next road of public importance in Middlesex county was what was known as "The Road up the Raritan." It branched from the main highway at Piscataway, running to Bound Brook, thence to Somerset county. It was one of the early factors along the Raritan for pioneer plantations. It did not follow the present highway, but passed from Piscataway in a northwesterly direction west of Metuchen, through Quibbletown (now New Market), thence to Bound Brook, where it proceeded west to what was then known as Howell's Ferry (now Lam- bertville). The remaining roads that were laid out in the country in the early days and for many years afterwards, were almost entirely local in their character, intending to connect the clustered neighborhoods with the important towns of Woodbridge, Piscataway, Perth Amboy and New Brunswick.
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The Legislature of 1716 seems to have given more attention to the condition of public highways. An act was passed, combining all high- ways that were six rods wide which had been laid out in pursuance of previous laws, and annulling all others. The system of laying out of roads was remodelled, rates of ferriage established, improvements rec- ommended. The ferries in existence at this period were: One from Perth Amboy to Staten Island, opened by Captain Billop; one from Perth Amboy to South Amboy, called Redford's Ferry ; the latter place was also connected with Staten Island, and those already mentioned on the Raritan river. The ferries across the Raritan and the Sound at Perth Amboy were granted in 1719 to George Willocks, who erected a house for the accommodation of the traveling public. In 1728 Gabriel Steele received a patent for a ferry from South Amboy to Staten Island, touching at Perth Amboy. These ferries continued to be of essential service until traveling and transportation fell into other and more con- venient channels.
In the first decade of the eighteenth century there was a public agita- tion claiming that a monopoly existed in the transportation of freight and passengers on the road from Burlington to Perth Amboy. Grievances were laid before the Assembly, but nothing was done until 1716, when passenger and freight rates were established. This act of the Legislature stimulated competition, and in 1732-33 Solomon Smith and James Moore, of Burlington, advertised that they intended to run two stage wagons between Burlington and Perth Amboy once every week, and oftener if business warranted it. The following year Arthur Brown operated a boat between New York and South River, New Jersey, freighting goods as well as passengers from the latter point to Bordentown on the Dela- ware river, where they were transferred to a boat for Philadelphia.
William Atlee and Joseph Yeats operated in 1742 a stage line between Trenton and New Brunswick, which was purchased in 1744 by William Wilson, of New Brunswick, who notified the public he would make trips twice a week, leaving Trenton on Mondays and Thursdays, and New Brunswick on Tuesdays and Fridays. A new line of stages was estab- lished in 1750 by Daniel O'Brien, a resident of Perth Amboy. This enter- prising Irish citizen informed the public that he had a "stageboat" well fitted for the purpose, which, "wind and weather permitting," would leave New York every Wednesday for the ferry at Perth Amboy. The following day a stage wagon would be ready to take passengers to Bor- dentown, where his "stageboat" would receive and carry them, and the freight to Philadelphia. The rates of charges were the same as charged via New Brunswick and Trenton, and the passage was to be made in forty-eight hours. In March, 1752, trips were made twice a week. The success of this line of stages led to the formation of an opposing line. The passengers by this new line embarked on a boat at Philadelphia tor
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Burlington, thence by stage wagon through Cranbury to the Perth Amboy ferry. There a palatial passage-boat, equipped with a commo- dious cabin fitted up with a tea table and sundry other conveniences, was to carry the passengers to New York. A stage line between Phila- delphia and New York was instituted via Perth Amboy and Trenton in 1756 by John Butler, to cover the distance in three days. This was followed about ten years later by another line that left twice a week from each terminal, using a covered Jersey wagon without springs to cover the distance in three days, at a cost to the passengers of twopence a mile. A third line was established in 1766, the vehicle used having seats on springs. The journey required two days in summer and three days in winter; the cost of transportation to the traveler for a through passage was twenty shillings. This line connected with the Blazing Star ferry on the Sound, below Elizabethtown.
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