USA > New Jersey > Mercer County > Trenton > History of Trenton, New Jersey : the record of its early settlement and corporate progress. > Part 5
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Next year-1760-the sum of £60 was raised for the poor, which 1763 saw increased to £80. In the meantime there are allusions to the Pennytown (Pennington), the Maidenhead (Lawrence- ville) roads and the road to William Reed's.
Animals went astray and came to the near-by plantations, as the records of the Clerk will show, not to mention the setting down in full of "ear-marks" of prominent residents. These "ear- marks" were slots, nitches, circles and other devices cut in the ears of cows, sheep and hogs, and were the colonial prototypes of the later plan of branding animals upon their haunches.
These were the days of apprenticeships, and the following extract, under date of March, 1764, shows how the lads fared : "Mary Moor Agreed to take James Nelson for the Insuing year and find him Lodging and Dyat at five Shillings a Week."
The subject of the poor was always an unsolved factor, not only in colonial New Jersey, but in fact in all the dependencies from Massachusetts Bay to Georgia. All kinds of makeshift legislation regarding the poor were in vogue. In West Jersey it seems to have been a game of shifting the burden, and no sooner were poor persons "settled" in one township than attempts were made to throw them upon a neighboring township. In March, 1774, Daniel Clark, Charles Axford, Jr., and Stacy Potts proposed to take charge of Trenton's poor for one year. These gentlemen, for the sum of £130, contracted to find these poor people all necessaries except "Phisick and Doctoring." They also agreed to bury the dead, but stipulated that the said Clark, Axford, Jr., and Potts should bear no expense of lawsuits regarding settlement.
The rumors of war find no place in the records, and very strange to say the only allusion to the Revolution and the troublous times in Trenton is found in March, 1776, soon after the outbreak of the struggle. Thus it reads : "This being the time Directed by the Provincial Congress for Chusing a Committee of Observation and Correspondence, when the following Persons were appointed : Doctor Isaac Smith, Sam'l Tucker, Abr'm Hunt, John Abott, Benj. Clark, Dan'l Howell, P. Dickinson, Dan'l Scudder, Alex. Chambers, Benj. Yard, David Pinkerton, any five of which to be a Quorem to transactt Business."
Indeed, during the years from 1776 to 1784, nearly all the records relate to the poor and sums raised for their support.
In 1784, we find Huntley's run bridge cost £12 18s. 7d.
In 1791 the roads under the town supervision had greatly increased in number. They were as follows, with these Overseers : "Town Spot, Joseph McCully ; Pennington road, Richard Palmer ; Scots road, Capt. Israel Corle ; lower part of River road, Daniel Mershon ; upper part of River road, Benjamin Jones ; Shabaconk road, Isaac Howell."
The legislative incorporation of Trenton, in 1792, brings the volume to a close.
A final entry, under date of June, 1791, is particularly apropos, and is the first allusion to that rivulet of local celebrity-"Petty's run." In those days that stream rose in the lowlands back of the town ; its pure, limpid water caught the early rays of a morning sun and reflected the nodding daisies upon green banks. Willows drooped their attenuated limbs in the crystal brook, and darting minnows or yet larger fish sought feeding-grounds near the Delaware. And marvel of marvels, the finest linen of Trenton's old-time aristocracy was washed in this pretty stream ! But this was a hundred years ago, and the least we say about the changes of a century the better. At any rate, "Pettitt's Run bridge" was in need of repair, and the structure was ordered rebuilt at a cost of £30. Messrs. John Riggs, Daniel Mershon and Joseph McCully, all local celebrities, made an excellent bit of work thereof, and it is said their labors outlasted the passing of many, many years.
E
CHAPTER IV.
SOME DISTINGUISHED TRENTONIANS OF COLONIAL TIMES.
MAHILON STACY-THE TRENTS-WILLIAM TRENT, THE FOUNDER-WILLIAM TRENT, JR. ; ANDREW "TRENT" HAMILTON ; ARCHIBALD HOME, THE POET ; THOMAS CADWALADER, THE FIRST BURGESS, AND IS FAMILY ; MAHLON KIRKBRIDE ; SIR JOHN SINCLAIR.
F THE early settlers of West New Jersey, none stands in more striking light than does Mahlon Stacy, of Hawsworth, in the county of York, in Old England. To him must be given the credit for the practical settling of the northern portion of the Yorkshire Xth, which extended, by virtue of the purchase of 1677, from the Ran- cocas to the Assanpink. Mahlon Stacy reached America in the "Shield," from Hull, Daniel Towes, master, which, in December, 1678, landed her passengers at Burlington. With Mahlon Stacy were his wife, children and men and women ser- vants. That he at once came to the site of Trenton is shown by the fact that he began the erection of his grist mill in 1679, and in 1679-80, Jasper Danker and Peter Sluyter, Dutch Labardists, speak in their journal of Mahlon Stacy's house on the site of Trenton. He was the representative man in the vicinity of " Ye ffalles." Mahlon Stacy was influential in the Society of Friends, of which body he was a faithful member. His large planta- tion interests and his wealth made him rank easily among the half score of men who framed the destinies of Burlington county between 1676 and 1715. In the political life of the time, he held, from one year to another, nearly every office of profit and trust in the Province. He appears as Commissioner in 1681-82, and as a member of Assembly in 1682, 1683, 1684 and 1685. He was also a member of Council in 1682 and 1683. In 1683, 1684, 1685 he was an Indian Land Commis- sioner, and in 1683 was selected to write to the members of the Society of Friends, in London, describing the condition of the new settlement. As a Justice, he sat in the 1st Xth in 1685, and continuously remained on the Burlington bench as His Majesty's Justice from May, 1695, to May, 1701.
In 1697, Mahlon Stacy, who was also at that time a member of the House, signed, as a Quaker member, to uphold the interests of the King.
By 1714, when William Emley, the surveyor, laid out the meets and bounds of his land, Mahlon Stacy possessed 800 acres at "The Falls." Basse's "Book of Surveys" shows his planta- tion bounded by the lands of Andrew Heath, Thomas Lambert, which family gave its name to Lambertville, Nathaniel Pettit, who named Petty's run, and Ruth Beak. The Beak land lay upon the south, the Heath and Lambert land upon the north, as is shown by the map.
The Yard interests in Trenton date from the purchases of William, Sr., William, Jr., and Joseph Yard, who, in 1712, bought Stacy's land on Front street, between Broad and Warren.
Although the association of Mahlon Stacy with Trenton practically is extinguished by the sale of his land to William Trent, it is pertinent that as late as 1726 exclusive ferry privileges on the Delaware, two miles above and below the "Falls," were given to James, a son of Mahlon Stacy. This led to the Calhoun street ferry, abandoned about fifty years since upon the erection of the old wooden bridge, and the lower ferry, which became useless on the erection of the bridge in 1804.
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THE CITY OF TRENTON.
Before 1700, one finds that of this family were Mahlon Stacy, Jr., Henry Stacy and Robert Stacy, all officchoklers and men of estate.
William Trent, for whom the city of Trenton was named, was of an ancient Scotch family. Emigrating from Inverness, young in life, with his brother James, he settled in Philadelphia about 1682. Here he identified himself in business with the Quakers. As a man of intelligence, industry, thrift and integrity he soon became a large wholesale and retail merchant, being a shipowner in partnership with William Penn and his partner, James Logan. Although not a lawyer, William Trent, from 1703 to 1721, continued a member of the Pennsylvania Provincial Council. In 1706 he was one of the persons selected to systematize the courts, and was later one of the five Supreme Court Justices. This is all the more remarkable in that he was a Church of England man, whilst the government of Pennsylvania was in the control of the Society of Friends. In 1710, 1715, 1719 he was a member of Assembly and in 1717-18 was Speaker of the House.
In Philadelphia, as in Trenton, William Trent was a large landowner. His residence in that city was the famous "Slate Roof House," on Second street, which had been William Penn's mansion-the most elegant in the city. It was built of briek, surrounded by rare and beautiful plants and flowers, and a lawn extending to the Delaware river. William Penn, Jr., an extravagant young man, sold William Trent the "manse of Williamstadt," partially the site of the city of Norristown. This property contained 7,000 acres.
Beside these Pennsylvania purchases, William Trent, in August, 1714, purchased 800 acres of land of Mahlon Stacy. In 1718 the founder of the city bought 200 acres of land of Samuel Atkinson and Ruth, his wife, and 28 acres of William Burge, of Philadelphia, giving him possession in fee of most of the land now embraced in the congested portion of Trenton. In 1721 William Trent became permanently established in Trenton and built "Bloomsbury Court, " now "Wood- lawn"-the residence of Edward H. Stokes, Esquire. This was a spacious and elegant house. In 1720 Justice Trent granted land to the county of Hunterdon for a Court House and jail, which land was conveyed to the Trenton Banking Company in 1814 and is now used by them. In 1721 William Trent became Colonel of the Hunterdon County Regiment, and in 1723 presided over the New Jersey Assembly as its Speaker. The honor of being Chief Justice of New Jersey was soon conferred upon him, but he did not long hold the office, as he suddenly died on Christmas day, 1724. He was buried in the Friends' lot in the old portion of Riverview Cemetery. That he was much lamented is proved by a letter from Governor Burnet to the Lords of Trade, who speaks of William Trent as being "universally beloved." Justice Trent was an influential man in Christ Church, in Philadelphia, and the Rev. J. Talbot, missionary rector of Saint Mary's, Burlington city, writes to the Bishop of London that Mr. Trent had aided the house of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. An epistle testifying to his worth and esteem was printed in a London Catechism, 1719.
Although the subject of research, genealogists differ concerning the names of William Trent's wives. They are mentioned as Miss Coxe, of New Jersey ; Miss Burge, of Philadelphia, and Miss Coddington, of Rhode Island.
William Trent, Jr., son of the founder, was born and educated in Philadelphia. Branching out from purely local traffic, he became a fur-trader upon a truly interstate scale, and enjoyed the confidence of the Indian tribes. He spoke with ability a number of the dialects of the Algonkin tongues. In consequence of this, his services were in constant demand in treaty-making. He was a Captain of a Pennsylvania company in King George's wars, and for his services to the State, in various capacities, received a grant of 3,400,000 acres of land. This led him to England, where King George III. refused to confirm the action of the American authorities. In the mean- time, Captain Trent's family remained in Trenton. In 1775, William Trent, Jr., returned to America, residing in Lancaster, where he was Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He died in Philadelphia in 1787.
In Trenton and vicinity the name of Trent is absolutely extinct. In fact, the last living resident representative of Justice Trent is Miss Anna Rossell, of the old Burlington county family. She is his great-great-granddaughter, and to her acknowledgment must be made for the facts of this article.
The only attempts which have been made in the city to commemorate the "Founder" is in the naming of a Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in his honor. The name
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THE CITY OF TRENTON.
"Trent " has also become famous upon the tile made by one of the largest works of its character in the United States.
General John Meredith Read, the distinguished historian, has communicated to Trentonians a strange story concerning Andrew Hamilton, born in Scotland, 1676; died in Philadelphia, 1741. It will be remembered that Andrew Hamilton was Attorney-General of Pennsylvania in 1717; was State Councilor in 1720 ; one of the purchasers of Independence Square in Philadelphia on which to erect a "suitable building " as a legislative hall, and crowned his career by the defense of the editor, John Peter Zenger, in 1735, in which he set up the then novel doctrine, "the truth of the facts in an alleged libel could be set up as a defense; the jury thus becoming judges of the law and facts."
Gouverneur Morris ealls Hamilton "the day star of the American Revolution."
Hamilton seems to have kept secret his real name and parentage-for what reason is not known-and in so doing assumed the name of Trent. He later became known by the name of Hamilton. In 1739, he addressed the Pennsylvania Assembly, saying that the love of liberty alone kept him in Pennsylvania to the manifest injury of his fortune, so the presumption may be that " Trent "-Hamilton had financial interests in Scotland which rendered it unwise for him to fully disclose his identity.
It is to be greatly regretted that no enduring monument has been crected to keep alive in the minds of Trentonians the name of William Trent. A man so worthy, through his intellectual attainments, and by virtue of his Christian life, should not thus be further neglected, and even dishonored.
Archibald Home, on January 4th, 1742, offers 40s. reward for the return of his servant man, William Simson. Thus appears before us one of the few bright stars of the colonial literati in West Jersey. The indefatigable Secretary of the New Jersey Historical Society, William Nelson, Esquire, discovered, among the manuscript volumes of a London bookseller, one which bore the title, "Poems on Several Occasions By Archibald Home Esqr late Secretary and One of His Majesties Council for the province of New Jersey North America,"
Probably, like Pope, physical disabilities kept him in retirement, and his literary aspirations were thus confined to a limited circle. Coming to America about 1733, Home became Secretary of the Colony and of Council "sometime between June 23 1738 and March 23 1739." As a member of His Majesty's Council, Home was commissioned May 29th, 1741, although "not expecting or desiring" such elevation.
He was one of the earliest members of the celebrated American Philosophical Society of Phila- delphia. Mr. Home died in Trenton in the latter part of March, 1744, and was buried beneath the aisle of the First Presbyterian Church in this city. His social position is indicated in that his executors were Robert Hunter Morris, Thomas Cadwalader, and his brother, James Home, of Charleston, S. C.
The writings of this early citizen of Trenton display marked versatility, although his poems are usually in the stilted rhyming couplet of the time. He translated the Latin and French poets, wrote a prologue, and verses to many ladies. His " Elegy, On the much lamented Death of George Frazer of Elizabeth Town" in Scotch dialect, is one of his happiest efforts. Thus :
"Jersey ! lament in briny tears Your Dawty's gane to his Forbears Wae worth him ! Death has clos'd the Sheers And elip'd his Thread, Just in the Prime of a' his Years George Frazer's dead."
On the twenty-second of November, 1739, in the "Pennsylvania Gazette," Thomas Cadwalader and Elizabeth Biles offer for sale certain properties, among which are "1200 Acres in the County of Hunterdon and Township of Ainwell" and "One 16th Part of the Forge at Trenton." Thomas Cadwalader herein mentioned was a son of John, in the line of a Welsh family of royal origin. John Cadwalader came to Philadelphia in 1699, where, in 1702, he married Martha, daughter of Dr. Edward Jones and Mary Wynne Jones, daughter of Dr. Thomas Wynne. Their son, Thomas
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THE CITY OF TRENTON.
Cadwalader, inherited the professional ambitions of his maternal line, and after being educated in the Friends' Academy, in Philadelphia, studied medicine and surgery in London. Returning to Ameriea, he soon gave up a large practice in Philadelphia, removed to Trenton, and, in 1746, when Trenton was incorporated, was elected its Chief Burgess (Mayor). In 1750 he gave £500 to found a public library in Trenton, and was one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Hospital, from which originated the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania. As a large landowner near Trenton, he remained in the city of his adoption and died in his seventy-third year, 1779.
Thomas Cadwalader's wife was Hannah Lambert, daughter of Thomas Lambert, Jr., of Trenton, for which family Lambertville (formerly Coryell's Ferry) is named. The issue of John
Thos ladwaleds
Cadwalader and Hannah Lambert Cadwalader were : Martha, who married Brigadier-General John Dagworthy, of Trenton ; Lambert ; John ; Mary and Rebeeea, first and second wives of General Philemon Dickinson ; Elizabeth, died a spinster, and Margaret, wife of Brigadier-General Samuel Meredith.
Mahlon Kirkbride, living in Pennsylvania about two miles above the Falls-Ferry, in the "American Weekly Mercury," first week in March, 1738-39, offers a Nottingham plantation of 450 acres for sale. The "place" was four miles from Trenton. In the note by Mr. Nelson, Mahlon Kirkbride, which family name frequently was and even yet is pronounced Cubright, is mentioned as the son of Joseph Kirkbride, of Bordentown, and his second wife, Sarah Stacy. She was the daughter of Mahlon Stacy, and was married in 1702. Joseph, who was the original immigrant,
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THE CITY OF TRENTON.
came from Parish Kirkbride, near Carlisle, North England, in 1681. As an influential citizen of West Jersey. Joseph, in 1719, was one of the New Jersey-New York Boundary Commission. He died in 1737.
Sir John Sinclair's mansion, at the Falls of the Delaware, about a mile above Trenton, was "a pleasant rural retirement." Sir John was a Baronet of Nova Scotia. Of him the Rev. Dr. John Hall has the following note :
"There was a Sir John St. Clair in Braddock's army, who arrived in January, 1755; was Lieutenant-Colonel of the Twenty-second Regiment and Deputy Quartermaster-General for all the forces in America. In 1762 he was made a full Colonel. On the list of the wounded at the defeat, July 9th, 1755, he is put down as 'Sir John Sinclair, Baronet, Dep. Q. M. Gen.' (Winthrop Sargent's History of Braddock's Expedition : Pennsylvania Historical Society, pp. 136, 143, 285.) The death of 'Hon. Col. Sir John St. Clair, Bar't,' is announced in the newspapers of the day as having taken place at Elizabethtown, December, 1767. There was a 'Captain Rutherford' with St. Clair in the Expedition."
Sir John was the first occupant of the mansion that afterward belonged to Lord Stirling, and then to Mr. Rutherford, a short distance west of the State House and on the river. The three families were connected. The house was subsequently tenanted by Robert Lettis Hooper, and the walls of " the Green-House" remained to give name to the site long after the dwelling itself had been demolished. A correspondent of the "Trenton Federalist," of March 30th, 1802, states that the first ice-house in the State, "in our recollection, was erected by Sir John St. Clair [so written] about the year 1760."
CHAPTER V.
THE TRENTON BARRACKS.
THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR-THE INHABITANTS OBJECT TO THE QUARTERING OF TROOPS- PETITIONS FOR BARRACKS-LEGISLATIVE ACTION AND THE LOCATION OF THE BUILDINGS-THEIR VARIOUS USES-NOW THE PROPERTY OF THE WIDOWS' AND SINGLE WOMEN'S HOME SOCIETY.
LTHOUGH the manifold evils of the French and Indian War left no direct impress upon Trenton, nevertheless the reports of cruelties in Western Pennsyl- vania and the fear of raids along the upper Delaware valley contributed to the general "distressing fear" as well in Trenton as in other parts of West Jersey.
As a strategic point, Trenton, the largest outpost of the northern towns of the Delaware valley, was of great value to the British War Department. During the colonial period soldiers were frequently in the town, and among the military records one finds many items of peculiar local interest in reference to the billet- ing of English troops for lodging and subsistence on the inhabitants of Trenton.
This mode of lodging became very annoying to the people of the State ; the habits and the morals of the soldiers were not always such as they desired. Indeed, the whole system was exeeedingly hard to endure. The near approach at times of the stealthy Indian foe, the letters which were received in Trenton giving notice of the murder of men in Sussex county by the savages, made the people think that some permanent arrangement should be made for their future protection.
In this connection, General Stryker states that "The fears of the inhabitants of Trenton of ineursions of the Indians first found expression in the winter of 1757, by a petition to the General Assembly of the Province. There are thirty-nine petitions of a similar character on file in the military records of the State."
This petition recited the dangers of Indian raids and the consequent necessity of troops, the annoyanee of the "quartering" system and terminated with a humble request that suitable Bar- racks might be ereeted. It was numerously signed by the magistrates, freeholders and inhabitants of Trenton and near-by places. The inhabitants of Hunterdon county, in February, 1756, and at other times, sent petitions to the General Assembly respecting the raising of troops under emergent conditions. But it was not until the fifteenth day of April, 1758, that a law was passed by the Council and General Assembly to provide for the erection of Barracks :
"An Act for building of Barracks within this Colony, and for other purposes therein mentioned.
"Whereas it is found by experience that the admitting soldiers within private Houses in this Colony, during their winter Quarters is not only attended with a very heavy publiek expence, but many other pernicious consequences to private Families, for prevention whereof for the future,
"Be it enacted by the Honourable John Reading, Esq., President and Commander in Chief of this Colony, the Council and General Assembly and it is hereby Enacted by the Authority of the same, that it shall and may be lawful for the Treasurers of this Colony, out of any Money now in their Hands, made current for the service of the present war, or out of such Money as may come into their Hands, by virtue of an Act of Assembly pass'd this Session, entitled An Act for aug-
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THE CITY OF TRENTON.
menting the Regiment of this Colony of New Jersey to the number of One Thousand effective Men, Officers included, and making provisions for the same to pay unto Hugh Hartshorn, Thomas Scattergood, William Skeels, John Allen, Joseph Yard, Theophilus Severns, Reuben Runion, Henry Fisher, Joseph Mount, Samuel Nevill, Thomas Barton, John Smyth, Robert Ogden, Cornelius Hatfield and Jacob Dehart, Esq'rs or any two of them such sum or sums of Money, as they, or any two of them, may think necessary for erecting and building Barracks sufficient to contain three hundred Men, at each of the respective places of Burlington, Trenton, Perth Amboy, New Bruns- wiek and Elizabeth-Town, which Barracks they are to build according to their discretion, as soon as may be, in the best and most substantial, most commodious and frugal Manner they are capable of, together with the necessary Conveniences thereunto belonging."
These Commissioners, or any two of them, "residing in the Place where the respective Barracks are hereby ordered to be built shall forthwith purchase a suitable piece of Ground not exceeding one Acre, for erecting the same and take the Advice and Directions of the Members of the House of Representatives of the City or County where the said Barracks are to be built, respecting the Quantity and Situation of the Ground so to be purchased ; And to the end, the said Ground and building may be effectually secured to the Use of this Province."'
It was also further enacted " that the Honourable Andrew Johnson, James Hude, and Richard Salter, Esq's and Robert Lawrence, Charles Read, William Morris, John Johnson, Ebenezer Miller,
OLD BARRACKS AS IT APPEARED IN COLONIAL TIMES.
and Richard Smith of Burlington be and they are hereby appointed Trustees for the Colony of New , Jersey in whose names the respective Deeds of the said Grounds, shall be taken, to them, and the survivors and survivor of them and the Heirs of the Survivors of them forever ; yet nevertheless to the uses, intents and purposes hercinafter specified, and to no other use, intent or purpose whatsoever ; that is to say, to and for the use of Barracks for the Quartering of Soldiers whenever they be sent by proper Authority to reside in any of the places aforesaid ; And the said Ground and Barracks when built shall be under the Care and Direction of the two principal Magistrates and the two Freeholders chosen for the City or Town where they are respectively built, and they may at their discretion, occupy the same or suffer the same to be occupied at all Times hereafter, when no Soldiers are there ; so always that proper care be taken to keep them from Damage as much as may be and to have them at all Times free for the use of the Soldiers as aforesaid. Provided Always, and it is hereby declared to be the true Intent and Meaning of these presents, that no part of the said Grounds shall be converted into or made use of for erecting any sort of a building thereon besides Barracks as aforesaid ; with the necessary Fencing with which the said grounds so to be purchased shall be enclosed and remain for the uses aforesaid forever." The Commissioners were limited to the sum of £1,400 for each Barrack, retaining five per cent.
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