History of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Pt. 1, Part 16

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co.
Number of Pages: 974

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Land and Government within our Province by virtue of any Patent from Colonel Richard Nicolls, as they ignorantly assert, we utterly disown any such thing. A Grant they had from him upon such Conditions which they never perform'd : For by said Grant they were obliged to do and perform such Acts and Things as should be appointed by His Royal Highness or his Deputies ; the Power whereof remains in us by Virtue of a Patent from his said Royal Highness, bearing Date long before these Grants; which hath been often declared by our Governor (and now ratified and owned under the sign Manual of his said Royal High- ness to Colonel Lovelace, bearing Date the 25th of November, 1672), who demanded their sub- mission to their Authority, and to Patent their Land from us, and pay our Quit Rent according to our Concessions; which, if they had done, or shall yet do, we are Content that they shall enjoy the Tract or Tracts of Land they are settled upon, and to have such Privileges and Immunities as our Governor and Council can agree upon ; but without their speedy compli- ance as above said, we do hereby Order our Governor and our Council to dispose therefore, in whole or in part for our best Advantage, to any other Persons. And if any Person or Persons do think they have injustice or wrong done by this, our positive Determination, they may address themselves to the KING and Coun- cil ; and if their Right to that Land or Gov- ernment appears to be better than ours, we will readily submit thereunto. . . . That all Grants of Land, Conveyances, Surveys or any other Pretences for the Hold of Land whatso- ever within our said Province, that are not de- rived from us, according to the Prescriptions in our Concessions, and entered upon Record in our Secretary's Office in our said Province, we

Land commonly called Newasink and Narumsunk, and to give report of the same, to the best of their judgment and observation, as to the quantity of upland and meadow, that soe a fair and equal division may proceed, whereby the lymits of each Town might bee appointed and set down with all convenient expedition. That is to say, between this and the first of February ; and that good observation, as well of quality as of quantity, may be given in, that soe each neck might be peopled in such fitt proportion as shall be thought most fitt and equall."

HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

declare to be null and void in Law. That the Constable of every respective Town within our Province shall have Power by War- rant from our Governor to take by way of dis- tress from every individual Inhabitant within their respective Jurisdictions, their just Propor- tion of Rent due to .us yearly, beginning the 25th Day of March, 1670, and for his Charge and trouble about the same, if they refuse to deliver it at some convenient Place which the said Constable shall appoint within their re- spective Jurisdictions, by the 25th Day of March, yearly ; the Constables only to be ac- countable to our Receiver-General : And altho' our Concessions say it shall be paid in current or lawful Money of England, yet at the request of our Governor and Council, we shall accept of it 'in such Merchantable Pay as the Country doth produce, at Merchant's Price, to the value " of Money Sterling; and if by this Means we cannot obtain our Rent, then the Marshal of the Province shall be impowered, as above said, to collect the same at the Charge of such the Inhabitants as do refuse to pay at the Time and Places aforesaid."1

And in the same document the proprietors declared that "No Person or Persons whatso- ever shall be counted a Freeholder of the said Province, nor have any Vote in electing, nor be capable of being elected for any Office of Trust, either Civil or Military, until he doth actually hold his or their Lands by Patent from us, the Lords Proprietors."

This declaration of the proprietors was not satisfactory to the patentees, associates and pur- chasers under the Monmouth grant, and in May, 1673, John Bowne and James Grover, on behalf of the people of the Navesink settle- ments, petitioned the Governor and Council to make no decision or conclusion as to the rights of the Nicolls patentees until they could make an address to the proprietors, whose decision upon such address they would acquiesce in. This petition was forwarded to England and received, September 5, 1673, by Sir George Carteret (Lord Berkeley having sold his inter- est, and so ceased to be a proprietor, in the pre-

ceding March). Sir George replied, in his instructions to the Governor, dated July 31, 1674, which were in the main but a reiteration of the proprietors' declaration (before quoted) of December 6, 1672; but he added,-" As to the Inhabitants of Navysink, considering their faithfulness to the Lords Proprietors," that upon their Petition their Townships shall be survey'd and shall be incorporated, and to have equal Privileges with other Inhabitants of the Province, and that such of them who were the pretended Patentees, and laid out Money in purchasing Land from the Indians, shall have in consideration thereof Five Hundred Acres of Land to each of them, to be allotted by the Governor and Council in such Places that it may not be prejudicial to the rest of the Inhabitants ; and because there is much Barren Land, after Survey taken, the Governor and Council may give them Allowance;" the allotments of five hundred acres and allowance to be made by the Governor and Council, inde- pendent of all action by the General Assembly.

During the time which intervened between the presentation of Bowne and Grover's peti- tion on behalf of the Navesink people and the publication of Sir George Carteret's reply, as above, the Dutch had retaken the country em- braced in the provinces of New York and New Jersey, and their Governor, Colve, had con- firmed to the English settlers their rights of property. This, together with the fact that Sir Edmund Andros, on assuming the Gover- norship at New York, after the second expulsion of the Dutch, in 1674, published a proclama- tion promising the confirmation of " all former grants, privileges or concessions heretofore granted, and all former estates legally possessed by any under his Royal Highness before the late Dutch government," revived the hopes of the Monmouth patentees that the validity of their grant from Nicolls would, after all, be

1 Leaming and Spicer, pp. 35-37.

2 This, doubtless, has reference to the fact that the peo- ple of the Navesink towns were not represented in the disorganizing sessions of the East Jersey Assembly, held in 1671-72, and took little, if any, part in the attempt made at that time to establish a new government, with Captain James Carteret at its head as " President of the Country."

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EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND LAND TITLES.

finally conceded and established.1 Nevertheless, they very readily accepted the five hundred acre grants, in reference to which the following is found in the " Record of the Governor and Council of East Jersey," under date of May 17 and 18, 1683: "The patentees accepted of the same [the five hundred acre tracts] and pe- titioned to have the same laid out. Warrants were granted for the same. Some were sur- veyed and patented, particularly that of Rich- ard Hartshorne, which appeared to be a full conclusion of that affair, unless it was made to appear that such petition and procedure were not by consent or approbation of the Towns."

On the following day (May 18th) the Gov- ernor and Council held a consultation with John Bowne, Richard Hartshorne and Joseph Par- ker, representing the Navesink settlements. " We inquired," says the record, " into the truth of those petitions and addresses, and the sub- mission and resignation of their pretended rights to the late Lords Proprietors.2 And they owned and agreed they were true, but alleged that the same was done for fear. It was answered that the like allegation may ever be made, but as an evidence to the contrary, the petitioners themselves demonstrated, besides, that the patentees had, after the Lords Proprie- tors' grace and favour granted them five hun- dred Acres of Land- apiece, they returned a letter of acknowledgement and thanks. And their Associates, in compliance therewith, all patented their land according to the Concessions, none excepted, and continued ever after satisfied

: The patentees and associates confidently believed that the Dutch occupation of 1673-74 had extinguished the King's title, and consequently that of the Duke of York and the proprietors under him, and that a decision to that effect would be had at Westminster Hall. In that case they (the patentees and settlers) believed they could safely rely on the fact of their nine years' possession, con- firmed by the Dutch, and promised to be confirmed by An- dros, as affording them a valid title. Some such doubts obtained with the Duke and the proprietors, and so, to make all sure, after the country had again passed to the English crown by right of conquest, in 1674, the royal and ducal grants were renewed and confirmed, as mentioned in a preceding chapter.

" At the date of this record the province was in the pos- session and under the government of the twenty-four proprietors.

therewith." Then the agents, Bowne, Harts- horne and Parker, claimed for the people that the five hundred acre grants were to be free of quit-rents ; but this the Governor and Council positively denied, and refused to accede to, and finally, after much further unavailing discussion, the conference (which appears to have been the last which was held by the Monmouth patentees with the Governor and Council on the subject) was closed without any satisfactory result to either side.

In 1677 the following "Opinion concerning Coll. Nicolls' Patent and Indian Purchases " was given by the King's Council, viz .:

"Upon the questions submitted : 1st, whether the grants made by Col. Nicolls are good against the assigns of Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, and 2d, whether the grant from the Indians be sufficient to any planter without a grant from the King or his assigns. " To ye first Question the authority by which Coll. Nicolls acted Determined by ye Duke's Grant to ye Ld. Berkeley and Ld. George Cartrett and all Grants made by him after- wards (though according to ye Commission) are void, for ye Delegated power wh Coll. Nic- olls had of making grants of ye land could Last no Longer than his Maj" Intrest who gave him yt Power, and ye having or not hav- ing Notice of ye Duke's Grant to ye Lord Berkeley & ST George Cartret makes no Differ- ence in ye Law, but ye want of Notice makes it great Equity yt ye Present Propriet" should Confirm Such Grants to ye People who will submit to ye Cons'sions and Payments of the Present Proprietors' Quitt rents, otherwise they may look upon them as Desseizors, and treat them as such."3

In November, 1684, the twenty-four propri- etors, in a letter of instructions to Deputy-Gov- ernor Gawen Lawrie, empowered and directed him to join with five other proper persons in New Jersey "to end all Controversies and Differ- ences with the Men of Neversinks and Eliza- beth Town, or any other Planters or Persons whatsoever, concerning any pretended Titles or claim to Land in the said Province; And we

3 N. J. Archives, 1st Series, vol. i. page 273.

HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

do hereby declare that we will not enter into any Treaty on this side with any of those peo- ple who claim by Colonel Nicolls' Patent, nor with any others that challenge Land by any Patents from the late Governour Carteret, as being an Affront to the Government there, and of evil consequence to make Things to be put off by delays, and thereby hinder the settle- ment of our affairs in the Province."

The Monmouth patentees were beaten at all . points in the matter of validity of title, and they and those claiming under them all took patents for their lands from the proprietors,1 though they eventually gained their paramount object, for they continued to hold their lands and avoided the payment of even the slight quit-rents which were required by the conces- sions. Neither Governor Lawrie, however, nor any of his successors succeeded in performing 1 the duty with which he was charged, viz : "To end all Controversies and Differences with the Men of Neversinks and Elizabeth Town." They resisted the payment of the quit-rents, and, holding possession of the lands, they were too numerous to have a general eviction practi- cable, though a few were dispossessed. The controversy (which at times assumed, on the part of the people, much of the character of a revolt against the provincial government) was continued with more or less of intensity until closed by the War of the Revolution. But even that great convulsion did not extinguish the proprietary title. The Hon. A. Q. Keas- bey, in an address delivered before the Histori- cal Society of New Jersey on the bi-centennial anniversary of the purchase of East New Jer- sey by the twelve proprietors, said : "On the 1st of February, 1682, the deed was made and . delivered, and twelve land speculators, headed by William Penn, became the sole owners in

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fee of all this fair domain, and from them must be traced the title to every lot and parcel of land which changes owners in East Jersey. And the direct successors of Penn and his eleven associates-still an organized body with active managing officers-own every acre of land which they have not sold ; and every pur- chaser who wants to buy can now make his bargain with them, as purchasers did two hun- dred years ago."

The next settlements in Monmouth County, after those of the Long Island and New Eng- land people at Middletown and Shrewsbury, and of a few others who came from other parts (among the most prominent of whom were Richard Hartshorne and Col. Lewis Morris) and who settled in the region contiguous to those places, were made by Scotch who began to come in the years 1682-83, as a result of the efforts made by Robert Barclay, of Scotland, to promote the emigration of his countrymen to East New Jersey, of which province he had then recently been appointed Governor under the proprietors. They made their settlements chiefly in Freehold township and along the northwestern border of the county2 adjoining Middlesex. Of the coming of these people to Monmouth County the Hon. Edwin Salter says : "About 1682-85 there were many refugee Scotch Quakers and Scotch Presbyte- rians who fled from persecution in Scotland, and located in East Jersey. Occasional de- scendants of the persecuted and banished Huguenots also came to this State ; among them it is said were the Bodines, Gaskells or Gaskins (originally Gascoyne), Dupuy, Soper and D'Aubigne, which latter was corrupted to Daw- been, and finally to Dobbins."

Among the first (as they were also the most prominent of the Scotch settlers in Monmouth county) were John Reid and George Keith, both of whom filled the office of surveyor- general of the province. Reid, who, during a period of nearly forty years, was one of the most widely-known and influential citizens of Monmouth County, was a Scotch Quaker, and was

In an answer made by the proprietors, December 9, 1700, to a remonstrance of the inhabitants of East Jersey, they say : " And ye Licenses granted to the Petrs by Col. Nicolls then and by the Proprietrs since were ex- pressly under a condition to hold the Lands so purchased of the Proprietors by Patent, and a certain Rent ; und all Claiming under the License of Coll. Nicolls actually took Patents of the same Lands at certain Rents, as by the records thereof appears ; which ye Petry have artfully foreborne "to mention, and rely wholly on the Indian title."

" Freehold township at that time extended to the Middle- sex County line.

EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND LAND TITLES.

employed in 1683 by Barclay and the other Scotch proprietors of East New Jersey as " over- seer," to have charge of a party of emigrants from Scotland. John Hanton was also em- ployed in the same capacity and at the same time, each to receive £25 sterling as an annual salary, and a "share" of ten acres of land at Ambo Point (Perth Amboy). On the 28th of August in the year mentioned, they sailed from Aberdeen with their families in the ship " Ex- .change," Captain James Peacock, and on the 19th of December following were landed on Staten I-land. Hanton brought with him nine cows, two horses and one mare, six oxen and "two breeding sowes," and had the value of £144 68. 11d. in " provisions and necessaries." Reid had eight cows, two horses, six oxen, four swine and £147 2s. worth of " provisions and necessaries." Immediately after his arrival he went to Elizabethtown, thence to Woodbridge, and thence, in January, 1683-84, to Perth Am- boy, where he took up his abode "in the field," in a house the building of which is mentioned in David Barclay's statement of account with the proprietors.

Soon after his arrival in New Jersey he was appointed deputy surveyor, and while engaged in that capacity made a map1 of lands on the Raritan, Rahway, Millstone and South Rivers, for which, and for other services, he received the grant of a tract of land named "Hortensia," located " on the east branch of Hop River in Monmouth County," to which tract he removed from Perth Amboy in the latter part of 1686. During the long period of his residence in this county he was several times elected a member of the General Assembly, and held other hon- orable positions, being appointed surveyor- General in the year of the surrender of the government by the proprietors to Queen Anne. While living at Perth Amboy he was clerk of Amboy Meeting of the Society of Friends, and he continued a member of that society after his removal to Monmouth County until the year 1703, when he adopted the faith of the Estab- lished Church of England. He died on the 16th of March, 1722-23, aged sixty-seven years,

and was interred in the old burial-ground of Topanemus, where a stone, still standing, marks his grave.2

George Keith was a native of Aberdeen, Scotland. In his early life he was a Presbyte- rian, which faith he abandoned to adopt that of the Society of Friends. In 1683 he was teacher of a school in Theobalds, having among his pupils a son of Robert Barclay, the proprietary Governor of East New Jersey. This fact, which, together with his Quakerism, brought him to favorable notice of the Governor, and the addi- tional fact that he was known to be "an excel- lent surveyor," secured for him the appointment of surveyor-general of East New Jersey, to which office he was commissioned August 8, 1684. He arrived at New York in the ship " Blossom," Martin, master, in the spring of

2 .' John Reid," says Mr. Whitehead, "appears to have been a bookseller in Edinburgh when selected by the pro- prietaries to take charge of a party of emigrants sent to East Jersey in 1683. A memorandum, written by himself, in the possession of his descendants, gives the following in- formation respecting himself and family. His father and grandfather before him were gardeners, and he was born at Mildrew Castle, in the parish of Kirkliston, on the 13th of February, 1655, and when twelve years old (1667) was bound apprentice to a wine merchant in Edinburgh. His master dying, he returned to his family in 1673, but his father being dead and his mother married again, he 'went to learn the art of gardening' the ensuing year, seeking improvement in the ' famous Hamilton Gardens.' At this time he became a Quaker. After sojourning a while at Drummond, he went, in 1676, to Lawres alias Fording, where he wrote & book entitled 'The Scotch Gardener,' and in 1678 married Margaret, daughter of Henry Miller. of Cashon, in the parish of Kirkintiloch. She was eleven years his senior. Previous to leaving Scotland for New Jersey three daughters-Anna, Helen and Margaret-were born to them. His youngest daughter, yet an infant, died on the 15th of January, 1683-84, and was buried the next day, at Perth Amboy, where his son John was afterwards born, in July, 1686. His daughter Anna married John Ander- son, who filled several important positions, and at the time of his death, in 1736, was President of the Council and Acting Governor of the province, in consequence of the death of Governor Cosby. One of their sons was named Kenneth. His daughter Helen married the Rev. John Bartow, of Westchester, N. Y., and left several children. His only son, John, studied law in the office of John Cham- bers, one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the prov- ince of New York, and afterwards practiced at Westchester ; was surrogate of the county from 1760 to 1764 and died at Westchester aged eighty-seven."-New Jersey Archives, First | Series, vol. i. p. 510.

' An engraved copy of this map is now in possession of ' the New Jersey Historical Society.

HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

1685, and on the 9th of April reported to the Proprietary Council at Perth Amboy, where a house was assigned to him, but he was not sworn into his office until the 12th of June following. Not long afterwards he removed from Perth Amboy to lands which he had purchased in Freehold township, where he " made a fine plantation, which he afterwards sold and went into Pennsylvania."

His residence in Monmouth County was of about three years' duration, in which time (in 1687) he ran the province line between East and West New Jersey, as has already been men- tioned. In 1689 he removed to Philadelphia at the invitation of the Quakers of that town, and there engaged in the teaching of a school, for which service he received the assurance of £50 for the first year and £120 yearly after- ward, with whatever profits might be real- ized from the school beyond that sum, but the children of the poor to receive tuition free. He however, continued in charge of the school only one year.

After his resignation of the position of teacher he became a leading Quaker preacher in Phila- delphia, but he was overbearing and aggressive, and created so much trouble among the Friends in Pennsylvania that he was publicly denounced by the Meeting in 1692, and finally, in 1694, he abandoned the Quaker doctrines and adopted the faith of the Established Church of England, in which he soon attained considerable eminence as a clergyman.

In 1700, Keith was strongly recommended by Lewis Morris (in a memorial to the Bishop of London, concerning the religious condition of the people of New Jersey and other colonies) as the most suitable person to be sent here as a mis- sionary ; and in 1702 he came back to America in that capacity, under the auspices of the then re- cently established Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, to awaken in the people of the provinces " a sense of the duties of Religion." He was the first missionary to the people of "Shrewsbury and the region round about," and of Freehold, of which church (St. Peter's) he was the founder. He also traveled as a missionary of the church through all the · colonies from Massachusetts Bay as far south

as North Carolina, devoting most of his time and efforts, however, to the churches in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, in all of which, as is recorded, he was very successful in his ministrations, bringing in many of his for- mer co-religionists, the Quakers, as converts to the faith and discipline of the Established Church. At the conclusion of his labors in Virginia he returned thence to England, where he received a benefice, at £120 per annum, at Edburton, in the county of Sussex, and in this he continued during the remainder of his life.

The early Scotch settlers in New Jersey were nearly all landed at Perth Amboy, whence they scattered in different directions, locating in Monmouth, Middlesex and other counties. Thomas Lawrie and John Barclay, both Scotch- men of some note, settled in 1684 very near the county line of Monmouth and Middlesex, but on which side of the boundary cannot now be definitely ascertained. A number of Scotch people settled at the place which is now Mat- awan, but which they named New Aberdeen. Nearly the whole northwest border of the county was first peopled by Scotch Presbyte- rians.

In 1685 a large number of Covenanters, who had suffered the extreme of persecution for their religious faith, were gathered in the prisons of Scotland, under sentence of banishment, because of their absolute refusal to take the oath of al- legiance as " embodied with the supremacy." Under these circumstances, George Scott, of Pitlochie, made application, asking that a ship- load of these unfortunates might be turned over to him, to be transported to East Jersey as servants in a colony which he intended to plant there. His request was granted, and he received a large number of the proscribed Cov- enanters, the story of whose sufferings during the voyage to America, and of the manner in which they were received on their arrival, is told in Chambers' " Domestic Annals of Scot- land," as follows:

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History of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Pt. 1, Part 16

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885 Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co. Number of Pages: 974

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co.
Number of Pages: 974