History of Monmouth county, New Jersey, Part 13

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Swan, Norma Lippincott. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia, R. T. Peck & co.
Number of Pages: 1148

USA > New Jersey > Monmouth County > History of Monmouth county, New Jersey > Part 13

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2 The crime of which these New England bigots found him guilty is set forth in the following :

" The sentence of Obadiah Holmes, of Seaconk, the 31st of the 5th mn. [O. S.], 1651.

" Forasmuch as you, Obadiah Holmes, being come into this jurisdiction about the 21 of the 5 m., did meet at one William Witter's house at Lynn, and did there privately (and at other times, being an excommunicate person, did take upon you to preach and baptize ), upon the Lord's day or other days, and being taken then by the constable, and coming afterwards to the assembly at Lynn, did, in disre- spect to the ordinance of God and his worship, keep on your hat, the pastor being in prayer, insomuch that you would not give reverence in vailing your hat, till it was forced off your head, to the disturbance of the congrega- tion, and professing against the institution of the church as not being according to the gospel of Jesus Christ ; and that you, the said Obadiah Holmes, did, upon the day following, meet again at the said William Witter's in contempt to authority, you being then in the custody of the law, and did there receive the sacrament, being excommunicate, and that you did baptize such as were baptized before, and thereby did necessarily deny the baptism that was before administered to be baptism, the churches no churches, and also other ordinances and ministers, as if all were a nullity : and also did deny the lawfulness of baptizing of infants ; and all this tends to the dishonor of God, the despising the ordinances of God among us, the peace of the churches. and seducing the subjects of this commonwealth from the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and perverting the strait ways of the Lord. the Court doth fine you thirty pounds, to be paid, or sufficient sureties that the said sum shall be paid, by the first day of the next Court of Assist- ants, or else to be well whipt, and that you shall renmin in prison till it be paid, or security given for it. By the Court.

"INCREASE NOWELL."

HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

thirty years, principally at and near Newport, R. I., which was his residence at the time when he became one of the Monmouth patentes. Though he never settled on his Monmouth lands, he made occasional visits here, one of which was upon the organization of the Baptist Church at Middletown, which was the first of that de- nomination in New Jersey and the third or fourth in America. Two of his sons, Obadiah and Jonathan, became settlers in Monmouth. The first named returned to Rhode Island after a few years, but Jonathan remained, and was one of the first officials elected at a meeting of the inhabitants of "Middletown, on Newasunk Neck, and Shrewsbury, on Navarumsunk Neck," held on the 19th of December, 1667. His father, the Rev. Obadiah Holmes (the patentee), died at Newport on the 15th of October, 1682.

Nathaniel Sylvester, a non-resident patentee of Monmouth, was a Quaker, and the prin- cipal owner of Shelter Island, near the eastern end of Long Island. His house afforded an asylum for Lawrence Southwick (one of Rev. Obadiah Holmes' partners in the glass-works at Salem, Mass.) and his wife, Cassandra, who, with their son, Josiah, had joined the Quakers in Massachusetts Bay Colony, and had on this account been frequently and cruelly punished by whipping, and were finally banished from the colony. Being old people, they were com- pletely broken down by the severity of their punishments and persecutions, and they died at Mr. Sylvester's house, in 1659, within three days of each other. Their daughter, Provided Southwick, married Samnel Gaskell, and from them descended the numerous family of Gaskell in New Jersey.

Captain John Bowne was a leader in the project of purchasing from the Indian sachems the three " Neeks" of Newasink, Navarumsunk, and Pootapeck, and was one of the company who sailed from Gravesend, L. I., in Christo- pher Ellsworth's sloop, in December, 1663, in the prosecution of that enterprise, as is mentioned in the preceding account of the trip of Govert Looekermans and others to the Navesink region, in the same month. Captain Bowne became one of the patentees of the Monmouth grant, by Governor Nicolls, and was one of the first five |

families who made a permanent settlement on the great tract. The place where he located is in the present township of Holmdel, though in the okt records he is mentioned as one of the settlers of Middletown,-a name which was at that time applied to a large and somewhat vaguely-defined region surrounding the " town" or central settlement. Until Captain Bowne's death, in the early part of 1684, he seems to have been the most prominent citizen of the county, esteemed for his integrity and ability. He had been compelled to leave the Massachu- setts colony on account of his sympathy with the Baptists, and he was one of the founders of the Baptist Church at Middletown. He appeared as a deputy to the first Assembly in Governor Carteret's time, which met May 26, 1668, the members of the Lower House being then called "burgesses." He was deputy again in 1675, after Carteret's return from England ; and in the first Legislature under the twenty-four pro- prietors, in 1683, he was a member and the Speaker, and acted until the December following. He held other positions of trust. March 12, 1677, a commission was issued to him as presi- dent of the court to hold a term at Middletown. In December, 1683, shortly before his last ill- ness, he was appointed major of the militia of Monmouth County. He died in January, 1683- 84, leaving two sons, Obadiah and John, the latter of whom was also a prominent man in the province, and a candidate for the office of Speaker of Assembly in Lord Cornbury's administration ; but he was expelled from the House on a charge of having taken part in the raising of a large sum of money in the province to be paid to Cornbury as a bribe for corrupt official action. No such charge could ever have been brought against the rigid virtue and up- rightness of the first John Bowne, of Mon- mouth.

Captain Andrew Bowne, a somewhat later set- tler in Monmouth County, who was a member of the Governor's Council, and also Acting Governor just prior to the surrender by the proprietors to Queen Anne, is supposed to have been a brother of Captain John Bowue.

Richard Stout was one of the Monmouth pat- entees, and his was also one of the first five fan-

EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND LAND TITLES.

ilies who settled on the Indian purchase in 1664. He had previously lived a number of years on Long Island, and while there had been married to a young Dutch widow, of whom and her two husbands the following account is found in a " History of New Jersey," published in 1765 :

" White New York was in possession of the Dutch, about the time of the Indian war in New England, a Dutch ship coming from Amster- dam was stranded on Sandy Hook, but the pas- sengers got on shore; among them was a young Dutchman, who had been sick most of the voy- age ; he was taken so bad after landing that he could not travel, and the other passengers being afraid of the Indians, would not stay till he re- covered, but made what haste they could to go to New Amsterdam ; his wife, however, would not leave him, and the rest promised to send as soon as they arrived. They had not been long gone before a company of Indians coming down to the water-side discovered them on the beach, and, hastening to the spot, soon killed the man, and cut and mangled the woman in such a man- ner that they left her for dead. She had strength enough to crawl up to some old logs not far dis- : tant, and getting into a hollow tree, lived mostly in it for several days, subsisting in part by eat- ing the exerescences that grew from it ; the In- dians had left some fire on the shore, which she kept together for warmth ; having remained in this manner for some time, an old Indian and a young one, coming down to the beach, found her; they were soon in high words, which she afterwards understood was a dispute, the for- mer being for keeping her alive, the other for | dispatching. After they had debated the point awhile the first hastily took her up, and, tossing her upon his shoulder, carried her to a place near where Middletown now stands, where he dressed her wounds and soon cured her. After some time the Dutch at New Amsterdam, hear- ing of a white woman among the Indians, con- cluded who it must be, and some of them went to her relief; the old Indian, her preserver, gave her the choice either to go or stay ; she chose the first. A while after, marrying to one Stout [Richard], they lived together at Middle- town among other Dutch [?] inhabitants. The

old Indian who saved her life used frequently to visit her; at one of his visits she observed him to be more pensive than common, and sit- ting down, he gave three heavy sighs ; after the last she thought herself at liberty to ask him what was the matter. He told her he had some- thing to tell her in friendship, though at the risk of his own life, which was, that the Indians were that night to kill all the whites, and ad- vised her to go off for New Amsterdam ; she asked him how she could get off; he told her he had provided a canoe at a place which he named. Being gone from her. she sent for her husband out of the field and discovered the matter to him, who not believing it, she told him the old man nerer deceived her, and that she with the children would go ; accordingly, going to the place appointed, they found the canoe, and paddled off. When they were gone the husband began to consider the thing, and sending for five or six of his neighbors, they set upon their guard. About midnight they heard the dismal war-whoop; presently came up a company of Indians ; they first expostulated, and then told them that if they persisted in their bloody design, they would sell their lives very dear. Their arguments prevailed, the In- dians desisted, and entered into a league of peace, which was kept withont violation. From this woman thus remarkably saved, with her sears visible through a long life, is descended a nu- merous posterity of the name of Stout, now inhabiting New Jersey."

In another account of these events, based on the same authority (Benedict's " History of the Baptists"), it is added that Mrs. Stout's maiden- name was Penelope Van Princes ; that she was born in Amsterdam about the year 1602 ; that she married Richard Stout in New York when she was in her twenty-second year and he in his fortieth, he being an Englishman of good family ; that they afterwards settled at Middle- town ; that she lived to the age of one hundred and ten years, having borne to Richard Stout seven sons and three daughters,1 and before her

1 The sous were Jonathan John, Richard, James, Peter, David, Benjamin ; the daughters were Mary, Sarah and Alice. Benedict says Richard Stout was a son of John Stout, of Nottinghamshire, England.

HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

death saw her offspring multiplied to five hun- dred and two in about eighty-eight years.

There is, beyond doubt, a good deal of ro- mance and inaccuracy in both these accounts, though in their main features they are probably correct. The statement that they lived "among other Dutch " at Middletown is clearly incor- reet, as there were no Dutch among the early settlers there. The story of the intended In- dian massacre, too, is undoubtedly the product of a fertile imagination, as it is well known that the Indians of this region were always friendly to the English settlers, and never gave them any trouble except an occasional drunken brawl, which the white men punished by plac- ing the noble red men in the stocks or pillory, just as they did the same class of white offenders, -a fact which in itself shows that they had no fear of any Indian massacre. As to Benedict's statement, if it is true that she was born in 1602, and was married to Richard Stout when she was twenty-two, the time of their marriage must have been the year 1624, at which time he was forty years of age. They went to Mid- dletown, with the first settlers, in 1664, at which time (if this statement is correct) her age was sixty-two, and his eighty years. At that time, and for several succeeding years, Richard Stout was a prominent man in the public affairs of the Navesink settlements, which would hardly have been the ease at such an age; and in 1669, when (according to the above supposi- tion) he was eighty-five years old, Richard Stout, Jonathan Holmes, Edward Smith and James Bowne were chosen "overseers " of Middletown, and Stout made his X mark to the " Ingadgement " in lieu of signature,- which last-mentioned fact makes it improbable that he was, as stated, an Englishman "of good family," according to the usual English under- standing of that term. Richard Stout was, however, one of the most respectable and re- spected men in his day in the Monmouth settle- ments.

William Reape (Monmouth patentee) was a Long Island settler and a Quaker, on which account he had been arrested and imprisoned by the Dutch Governor, Peter Stuyvesant, who could hardly be termed a religious bigot, but

who became a mild persecutor of Quakers be- eause his instructions from the States-General re- quired him to discountenance all forms of religion but that prescribed by the Synod of Dordrecht. Soon after his liberation Reape went to New- port, R, I., where he engaged in mercantile business, and was living there when he became interested in the Monmouth patent. He was one of the first settlers who came to make their homes on the Navesink Indian purchase in 1665.

John Tilton was another of the twelve Mon- mouth patentees. " When he first came from England he located at Lynn, Massachusetts. His wife was a Baptist, and in December, 1642, she was indicted for 'holdinge that the Baptism of Infants is no Ordinance of God.' They left Massachusetts with Lady Deborah Moody and other Baptists and settled at Gravesend, Long Island, where again they were made to suffer for conscience' sake. In 1658 he was fined by the Dutch authorities for allowing a Quaker woman to stop at his house. In Sep- tember, 1662, he was fined for 'permitting Quakers to quake at his house.' In October of the same year himself and wife were summoned before Governor Stuyvesant and Council at New Amsterdam (now New York), charged with having entertained Quakers, and frequent- ing their conventicles. They were condemned and ordered to leave the province before the 20th day of November following, under pain of corporal punishment. It is supposed that through the efforts of Lady Moody, who had great influence with the Dutch Governor, the sentence was either reversed or changed to the payment of a fine."! They came to Mon- mouth among the settlers of 1665. Jonathan Tilton, who was also one of the earliest settlers, was an ancestor of Theodore Tilton, of Brook- lyn, the famous lecturer. The residence of Jonathan Tilton (and the place where he died) was an old house, still (or recently) standing between Balm Hollow and Middletown, just east of Beckman's Woods.

James Grover, one of the patentees, be- came a permanent settler, and built the first iron-

1 Hon. Edwin Salter.

EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND LAND TITLES.

works in New Jersey. Their location was at Tinton Falls. They were sold, with a large traet of adjacent land, to Colonel Lewis Morris, the elder, in 1676.

William Goukling (whose name heads the list of Monmouth patentees) was one of the Massachusetts Bay Baptists, who were perse- euted and banished from that colony on account of their religion. He became a permanent settler, and was one of the founders of the old Baptist Church at Middletown.

Richard Gibbons, who is mentioned as lin 1673. He was a deputy to the Assembly in "Sergeant Gybbings" in the account of the' 1668, but refused to take or subscribe the oath visit of the Long Islanders to the Navesinks in of allegiance but with provisos, and would not December, 1663, was one of the twelve pat- yield the claims of his people under the Mon- entees of Monmouth, and an early settler on ; mouth patent, and submit to the laws and gov .- the great traet. The old records do not men- tion his name as frequently as those of many of the other patentees and settlers. ernment of the proprietors when directed against those elaims, in consequence of which he was rejected as a member, as was also Jona- than Holmes, Edward Tartt and Thomas Win- settlers of 1665, had previously resided at Grave- terton, at the same session, for the same reasons. Hance was re-elected a deputy in 1680 and at other times. " 1

Samuel Spieer, a patentee and one of the send, L. I. He was a member of the Society of Friends, and, like Reape, Tilton and others, had been severely dealt with by Governor Stuyvesant for non-conformity to the estab- lished religion of the Synod of Dordrecht.

Edward Smith, whose name appears as a purehaser of lands within the Monmouth pat- ent, was one of those who were indieted at Plymouth with Rev. Obadiah Holmes and John Hazell, in October, 1650, as before mentioned. The indictment was as follows :

"October second, 1650.

" Wee whose names are here underwritten, being the Grand Inquest, doe present to this Court John Hazell, Mr. Edward Smith and his wife, Obadiah Holmes, Joseph Tory and his wife, and the wife of James Man, William Denell and his wife, of the town of Rehoboth, for the continuing of a meeting upon the Lord's day, from house to house, contrary to the order of this Court, enacted June 12, 1650.

THOMAS ROBINSON, HENRY TOMSON, ete., to the number of 14."

They were tried before Governor William Bradford, Capt. Miles Standish and other magistrates, and soon afterwards Edward Smith

and William Denell removed to Rhode Island, where Smith beeame Lieutenant-Governor. Both he and Deuell settled in what is now Mon- month County in or about the year 1665.

" John Hance was one of the original settlers of Shrewsbury. He is named as a deputy and overseer at a court hell at Portland Point, December 28, 1669. He held various positions in the county, among which was justice, and that of 'schepen,' to which latter he was ap- pointed by the Dutch during their brief rule

William Shattock was a native of Boston, who, about 1656, joined the Quakers in the Massachusetts Bay colony, and for this offense was imprisoned, cruelly whipped and banished. He removed to Rhode Island and thenee to New Jersey in or about 1665, settling on lands of the Monmouth patent. A few years after- wards he moved to Burlington. His daughter Hannah married Restore Lippincott, son of Richard Lippincott.

Samuel Shattock (or Shaddock), who was a settler on the Navesink purchase, was a Massa- chusetts Quaker, who removed thence to Rhode Island before his settlement in New Jersey. Not long after the persecution and banishment of Lawrence Southwick and his wife from Massachusetts Bay, their son, Josiah 2 (who had also been banished), with Samnel Shattock and Nicholas Phelps, went to England, where, after long and persistent efforts, they procured the King's order that thereafter all persons indicted as Quakers should be sent to England for trial instead of being tried in the Massachusetts Bay

1 Hon. Edwin Salter.

2 A son or nephew of JJosiah Southwick settled at Mount Holly about 1700,

HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

colony. After that time the Friends were

tinued to hold that position until October, 1693, comparatively free from persecution iu New and again from February, 1696, to March, England.

John and Job Throckmorton, ancestors of | Council. He still continued to hold his seat as the numerous Throckmortons of the present time in Monmouth County, were settlers here between 1665 and 1667. They were sons of John Throckmorton, who, with Thomas James, William Arnold, Edward Cole and Ezekiel Holliman (or, more properly, Holman), came over from England in the same ship with Roger Eliakim Wardell, who was one of the asso- ciate patentees of Monmouth, had lived near Hampton, N. H., where he and his wife were persecuted, imprisoned, whipped and finally banished because of their Quaker principles. They then removed to Rhode Island, which colony, although it offered to the Quakers a more peaceful and safe asylum than they could find elsewhere in New England, was yet objec- tionable to them in some respects.3 Mr. War- Williams, and all of whom are mentioned by Williams as his friends and associates in an account written by him in 1638.1 John Throckmorton was among the first settlers at Providence, R. I., and was afterwards in West- chester, N. Y., with Ann Hutchinson. After she was killed by the Indians he still held his lands in Westchester and on Long Island, but returned to Providence, where he spent most of his time and held his citizenship.

John Smith came to the Monmouth great tract with the carly settlers, and was the first " schoolmaster " of Middletown. He was the same person who, with three others, accom- panied Roger Williams on his first exploring journey to Rhode Island. Edward Smith, who was also a settler in Monmouth, left Massachu- setts Bay with John Smith, the teacher, because of the persecution against them as Baptists.

Richard Hartshorne came to the province of New Jersey in September, 1669, and located himself in Middletown, Monmouth County. Sandy Hook was first held under a grant to him iu 1667. He was a Quaker by profession, and an account of the country written by him and circulated in England induced considera- ble emigration. A letter from him, dated Nov. 12, 1675, is one of a collection printed in 1676, a fac-simile of which is in the New Jersey Historical Society Library. He soon attained popularity in East Jersey, but did not enter into public life until early in 1684, when he was appointed one of Deputy-Governor Law- rie's Conneil. In the succeeding year he was elected to the General Assembly from Middle- town ; was chosen Speaker in 1686, and con-

1698, when he became one of Governor Basse's a member of the Assembly, and filled both positions until the surrender of the government to the crown.2 He was a brother of Hugh Hartshorne, one of the twenty-four proprietors, who is mentioned as "Citizen and Skinner of London " in Leaming and Spicer, p. 141.

2 This account of Richard Hartshorne is found in New Jersey Archives, Series 1, vol. i. p. 220.

3 " In regard to Quakers in Rhode Island, the toleration extended to them was not so unrestricted as in New Jersey, for the General Assembly of that colony endeavored to compel them to bear arms, which was contrary to the dictates of their consciences, in an important point in their religious faith. The General Assembly of Rhode Island declared that . In case they, the said Quakers which are here, or who shall avise, or come among us, do refuse to subject to all duties aforesaid, as training, watching and such other engagements as other members of civil societies, for the preservation of the same in justice and peace ; then we determine yea, and we resolve to take, and make use of the first opportunity to inform our agent resident in England that he may humbly present the matter They declared that they wished no damage to the principle of freedom of conscience ; but at the same time their demands of the Quakers that they should 'train,' or in other words, perform military duty, was certainly an effort to compel them to act contrary to the dictates of their conscience in an essential part of their religious be- lief. This effort to compel them to ' train' may account for the fact that many members of that sect who had been persecuted in Massachusetts, and sought refuge in Rhode Island, did not become freemen there, but only made a temporary stay. and when the Monmouth Patent was granted, they came to that county with the original settlers, where from the outstart they were allowed all the privi- leges enjoyed by other settlers, some of their number being elected as deputies to frame laws and to other of- fices, at the first election, as well as at subsequent elec- tions. They were not required to . train' against their conscientious convictions. Besides which it may be added

1 Backus' " History of the Baptists."

EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND LAND TITLES.

dell removed from Rhode Island to New Jer- sey, where he became one of the carly settlers on the Monmouth patent, and was the first sheriff of the county, appointed in 1683.

Christopher Allmy, who was at one time Lieutenant (or Deputy) Governor of Rhode Island, was one of those who came from that colony to settle on the Monmouth lands, in 1665 or 1666. He afterwards became one of the associate patentees, and remained an inhabit- ant of Monmouth County for several years, during which time he ran a sloop with consid- erable regularity (exeept in the inclement sea- son of the year) between Wakake Landing and the Rhode Island ports. In Monmouth County he became involved in a great number of lawsuits, by which he was nearly ruined, and he finally left New Jersey and returned to Rhode Island.

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History of Monmouth county, New Jersey, Part 13

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Swan, Norma Lippincott. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Philadelphia, R. T. Peck & co. Number of Pages: 1148

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Swan, Norma Lippincott. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia, R. T. Peck & co.
Number of Pages: 1148