History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of many of their Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 12

Author: W. Woodford Clayton, Ed.
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia: Everts
Number of Pages: 1224

USA > New Jersey > Middlesex County > History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of many of their Pioneers and Prominent Men > Part 12
USA > New Jersey > Union County > History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of many of their Pioneers and Prominent Men > Part 12

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2 ]buid., p. 90.

3 Ibid., pp. 90, 91.

CHAPTER IX.

GOVERNMENT OF PHILIP CARTERET .- ( Continued.)

Affairs in 1669 .- In 1669 the affairs of the prov- ince were involved in much uncertainty on account of the trouble which had overtaken the Lords Pro- prietors at home. Berkeley had " been detected in the basest corruption" and deprived of his office. Car- teret had long been under the accusation of Parlia- ment of being a defaulter to a large amount as treas- urer of the navy, and after a rigid investigation of his accounts by a Parliamentary committee he was expelled from the House of Commons in the autumn of 1669. These circumstances led to a renewal of the scheme of annexing New Jersey to the province of New York, in which Col. Nicoll had always been interested. He at the first had remonstrated with the duke against the grant of New Jersey to Berkeley and Carteret, and being now in England he renewed his remonstrance with still greater earnestness. Meas- ures were accordingly taken by the duke for the re- covery of his lost territory. Samuel Maverick, writ- ing to Governor Winthrop, under date of Feb. 24, 1669, says,-

" The Lord Berkeley is under a Cloud and out of all his offices, and offers to surrender up the Patent of N. Jersey. Sir G. Carteret, his part- ner, i« in Ireland, but it is thought he will likewise surrender, and then N. Yorke will be inlarged."

Later he writes,-

" New Jersey is returned to his Royal Highness by exchange for Dela- ware, as Sir George Carteret writes to his Cousin, the present Governor : Bonie tract of land on this side of the river and on the other side to reach to Maryland bounds."4

At this time the Newark people were in evident perplexity :

" At n Town Meeting 28th July. 1669, the Town made choice of Mr. Crane and Mr. Treat to take the first opportunity to goe over to Yurk to advise with Colonel Lovelace Concerning our Standing, Whether we are designed to be part of the Duke's Colony or Not."5

Such were the negotiations for the transfer of New Jersey to the Duke of York's possession. Though so nearly consummated, they failed in the end. Berkeley was made lord lieutenant of Ireland, of which Car- teret was already deputy treasurer. By some new turn of the political wheel the lords retained posses- sion of their charter, and Elizabeth Town remained the seat of government of the province and the resi- dence of the Governor and his officials.

Between Carteret, however, and the popular branch of the government there had grown up an irrecon- cilable difference. The Governor for more than two years refused to convene the Assembly or to recognize the legality of its proceedings. The Assembly met in 1670, and again on March 26, 1671, and held an adjourned meeting on the 14th of May following.

4 Pepys' Diary, iv. 97, 114, 115. N. Y. Col. Doc., ii. 410; iii. 105, 113, 114. Whilehead's East Jersey, pp. 30, 31. 4 Mass. Hist. Col., viii. 315, 319.

6 Newark Town Records, p. 21.

GOVERNMENT OF PHILIP CARTERET.

Deputies for Elizabeth Town, Newark, Bergen, Woodbridge, and Piscataway were in the Assembly or House of Burgesses, as it was then called. As the Governor refused to preside over the Assembly, either in person or by deputy, the members, as au- thorized by the Concessions, appointed Capt. James Carteret, the son of Sir George, who was then re- siding in Elizabeth Town, to preside over them. William Pardon, the secretary of the House, taking sides with the Governor, refused to deliver up the acts and proceedings of the Assembly, and tbese records were, by the authority of the Governor, de- stroyed. By virtue of his appointment as president of the Assembly, Capt. James Carteret issned the following warrant for the arrest of Pardon, addressed to the constable of Elizabeth Town or his deputy, May 25, 1672:

"These are in his Maties Name to Will and require You to apprehend the body of William Pardon and him to keepe in Safe Custody until fur- ther order, or until he deliver up the Acts of Lunes made by the Gen- eral Assembly at their Sett ng the 26th of March Last the Which Laues the said Wm Pardon now refuseth to deliver." 1

Constable Meeker immediately made the arrest. Governor Carteret fled to Bergen. Pardon escaped Meeker's custody, and was with his associate mem- bers of the Council-Vauquellin, Edsall, Berry, Bishop, Andrus, and Pyke-convened by the Gov- ernor at Bergen on May 28th, when the following proclamation was issued :

" Whereas we are certainly informed of several Eregular and Illegal proceedings and Actions of several Persons styling themselves thr Dep- uties or Representatives for the Country, in Attempting the making au Alteration in this Guvernment by Assembling together at Elizabeth Towne, the fourteenth day of May Last under the Denomination afore- said, without writts from the Guvernor, or without the knowledge, ap- probation or consent of the Governor and Council abovesaid, and by Electing a President for the Country and making Proclamation puh- lickly of these their Illegal Actions, All which tende only to Mutiny and Rebellion, &c."

The document is too lengthy to be quoted in full. In it the Governor declared his purpose that unless the people should declare their submission within ten days, he should " proceed against them as Muti- neers and Enemies to the Government." Pardon returned to read the proclamation before a town- meeting; an order was issued for his arrest; the constable, with a posse, broke into his house and carried away "all his moveables to Goodman Tom- son's house, except his writing-desk and papers, which were carried to Capt. Carteret."

The Governor had already been advised by his Council to repair to England and lay the grievances of the province before the Lords Proprietors. He concluded to act upon this advice, and accordingly, in July, 1672, with his officials,-Bollen, Vanquellen, Samuel, Moore, the marshal, and Pardon,-he left the country and returned to England, leaving Capt. John Berry, Deputy Governor, in his place. Capt. James Carteret, however, occupied the government house at Elizabeth Town. On the 9th of July he

issued a writ of attachment against the house and lands and all the estate of William Pardon, " escaping away for England." 2

It appears that Capt. James Carteret arrived in Elizabeth Town in the summer of 1671, on his way to North Carolina to take possession of his newly ac- quired domain as landgrave. He was the son of Sir George Carteret, the lord proprietor of East Jersey, and probably had been instructed to call upon Gov- ernor Philip Carteret and confer with him in respect to the affairs of the province, then getting to be quite complicated. The fact that he was instructed by a council convened in New York in September, 1671, in connection with Governor Carteret, to "order a General Assembly to be called" in East Jersey for the purpose of prosecuting a war against the Indians on the Delaware shows that he must have had some kind of co-ordinate or supervisory authority with the Governor, either by commission or as the representa- tive of his father.3 It is probable that his father, knowing the unfortunate state of affairs in the prov- ince, had intrusted him with all the authority which he exercised, and that at his suggestion, in order to conciliate the aggrieved planters, he had taken the popular side in the controversy with the Governor. At the time of his occupancy of the government house at Elizabeth Town he made frequent visits to New York, the result of which was his marriage, on the 15th of April, 1673, to Frances, daughter of Capt. Thomas Delavall, merchant and mayor of that city.

"Capt. James Carteret had scarcely completed his honeymoon before he received by Capt. Bollen dis- patches and instructions from his aged father, requir- ing him to retire from the scene of conflict in New Jersey and look after his patrimony in Carolina. He was now the only surviving son of his father, his elder brother, Sir Philip, having been slain in battle almost a year before, May 28, 1672. Bidding farewell, there- fore, to the kind people of the town, he took passage with his wife early in July, 1673 (after nearly two years' sojourn in the town), on board of a sloop, Sam- uel Davis captain, bound for a Southern port. Sam- uel Hopkins, one of the planters of the town, accom- panied them.

2 Hathi -Id's Elizabeth, p. 148.

3 Hatfield's Elizabeth, note to p. 141 -" Great injustice has been done to the memory of Capt. James Carteret. The Bill in Chancery (p. 35) calls him 'a weak and dissolute youth.' He could scarcely have been lese than 40 years old. Governor Philip was bnt 32. Wynne calls him ' a dis- eninte son of Sir George' (i. ¿ 05). Chalmers speaks of him as 'a natural son of the Proprietor' (p. 616). Grahame ures the same language (i. 466). . Gordon describes him as 'a weak and dissolute natural sun of Sir George' (p. 29). Whitehead makes him 'au illegitimate son of Sir George,' 'a wrak and dissipated young man' (p. 55). Mulford nses the Bamne epitliets (p. 152). That he was the lawful son of Sir George and his wife Elizabeth cannot be questioned. Dankers, the Labadist jour. nalist, who knew and met with him at New York in 1679, calls him 'a person of quality,' and gives aot the least intimation of his being other than the lawful sun of Sir George, but much to the contrary Dankers' Journal, p. 139. Collins' Peerage (1745), iji. 329; iv. 327-8. His morals at the time could not have been much worse than those which generally prevailed at court ; they may lieve been better."

1 E. J. Records, iii. 64. Leaming nad Spicer, p. 15.

HISTORY OF UNION AND MIDDLESEX COUNTIES, NEW JERSEY.

Capt. Berry signalized his brief authority by two or three bellicose proclamations. In one he forbade the people to purchase any of the estates to be sold by Constable Meeker; in another he called upon the " malcontents" to make their submission at the town of Bergen on the 10th day of June next, or after that to " expect no favors but what the law affords." In the third he declared that, in accordance with the declara- tion of the Lords Proprietors, no person or persons whatever shall be accounted a freeholder of the pro- vince, 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 them.

Governor Carteret returned from England in No- vember, 1674. Meantime the Dutch had retaken the country, and had again surrendered it to the English. Berkeley had sold his half of the province to John Fenwick, and Sir George Carteret had become the sole proprietor of East Jersey by a new patent from the Duke of York. The same ship which brought over Carteret brought also Col. Edmund Andros, the newly-appointed Governor of New York. The latter became Governor of all the colonies, and in his at- tempt to extend his jurisdiction over New Jersey came into conflict with the government of Carteret, no less than with the desire and interest of the people, who now made common cause with their Governor against a formidable enemy, in which former animosi- ties seemed for the time forgotten. Andros sent his writs to all the towns demanding the subjection of the people to his authority. In March, 1680, he noti- fied Carteret that he intended to take military posses- sion of the province and to erect a fort at Sandy Point. On the 20th Carteret replied as follows :

" If you intend to set a fort at Sandy Hook, I shall be constrained to ondeavur to prevent the same, and shall be necessitated, if any force be used, to defend ourselves and families the best we can, which if any bleed be shed it will be contrary to vur desires, and the just and right- eons God require it at your hands who are the causes thereof. And therefore we intreat you to forbear your threats or any other acts of beetility towards us until his Majesty decides this controversy, which we ehall endeavor to have efterted as soon as possible inny be. The occasion that hinders this from being sent you sooner is the foulness of the weather hindering the conucile meeting, as also an alarm we had yes- terday of your being copie with your sloops and a considerable number of soldiers, which coustrained ne to put ourselves in a posture of de- fence."

The next scene in the drama is well described by Governor Carteret himself in a letter to Sir George, of whose decease Jan. 14, 1679-80, he had not yet heard :

. "Sir Edmund Andross came hither on Wednesday the 7th instant, ac- companied with several of his officers, councellors and merchants, to demand the government of this your hoeour's province, supposing to have gained it either by threats or flattery,-and having notice of it be- forehand I had gotten together a matter of 150 men in arms to receive him, doubting he would have brought some offensive forces along with him but did not, and having leave with his train to come a shore, he came up to my house where after the eivilities past, he began to show by what authority he had to lay claim to the government."

Both parties presented their documents and pleas, ending of course as they began :

" His last answer was that he had showed what authority he had, and according to his duty did require it in behalf of hie master, and if we would not obey him, let it rest at our perils; for that we answered him we had sent away our appeal to his majesty, and should be ready to sub- mit to what his Majesty should determine, and then we went to dinner, that done we accompanied him to his sloep, and so parted."

The conduct of Andros at this time was most dis- graceful. Dankers, who was in the country at the time, and cognizant of the whole affair, says,-

" He sent boats several times to Achter Kull to demand the submission of the place to his authority, which the people of Achter Kull jeered at and disregarded, being ready to uphold the king and their own guver- por, whom they bound themselves to maintaio. At night, and unseason- able hours, and by surprise, he took from New Jersey all the staves of the constables out of their houses, which was as much as to deprive them of the power to act. Seeing he could accomplish nothing by force, be declared the inhabitants released from their oaths to the Heer Car- teret; they answered they could not acknowledge any release from their oatlıs," etc.

The capture of Carteret soon followed, in the same cowardly manner. The story is told by Dankers, as follows :

" At length he captured une of Carteret's domestics, for Carteret had De soldiers or fortifications, but resided in a country house coly. He then equipped some yarbts, aud a ketch with Buldiere. arms, and ummu- Dition, and dispatched them to Achter Kel, in order to abduct Carteret in any manner it could be done. They entered his honse, I know net how, at midnight, seized him, naked, dragged him through the window, struck and kicked him terribly, and even injured him internally. They threw him, all naked as he was, into a canoe, without auy cap or hat on his head, and carried him in that condition to New York, where they furnished him clothes and shoes nud stockings, and then conducted him to the fort and put him impiediately in prison. When they seized him at Achter kol, the armed boats had gone home, and the seizure w88 ac- complished through treachery. Two of the head mien of Carteret (Bol- len and Vauquellin) immediately took possession of his papers, such as were of importance to him, and travelled, one to Maryland, and the other, crossing the upper part of the North River, to Boston over land, and both to England, in order to remonstrate. The Governor (Andres) eeot immediately to Achter kel, took possession of the place, posted up orders, and caused inquiries to be made for the man who had sot Car- teret's man (Bollen) over the river, but without success. While Carteret was in prison he was sick, very sick, they said, in regard to which there were various surmises.1

On the 27th of May he was brought to trial before a special assize for presuming to exercise jurisdiction and government within the bounds of His Majesty's letters patent granted to his Royal Highness the Duke of York. The jury declared him " not guilty," and he was acquitted. But an order was appended to the judgment of the court requiring him to give se- curity that he would not exercise jurisdiction, either civil or military, in the province of New Jersey. Carteret, thus released, às it were, upon parole, imme- diately returned to his home, drew up the necessary papers for an appeal to the home government, which he sent to England on the 9th of July, 1680.

On the 2d of June, only five days after the conclu- sion of Carteret's trial, Andros called a General As- sembly to meet at Elizabeth Town. He presented himself personally before the deputies, unfolded the king's letters patent, bearing the great seal of Eng- land, and claimed to be the rightful and lawful Gov- ernor. He gained nothing, however, “ but a tacit ac-

1 Leaming and Spicer, p. 678. Pankers' Journal, pp. 347-352.

TITLE TO LANDS.

quiescence on the part of the people in the existing state of things until the authorities in England could be heard from."1

The deputies returned to him the following answer:

" As we are the Representatives of the Freeholders of this Province, we dare not grant his Majesty's Letter- Patents, though under the Great Seal of England, to be our rule or joint safety for the Great Charter of England, alias Magna Charta, ss [is] the only rule, privilege, and joint safety of every freeboro Englishman."

Carteret occupied the interval in the improvement of his estate, and in the erection of a new house, for which he had been making preparation. Says Dr. Hatfield,-

" He improved his leisure, also, in making some friendly visits, either to the city or to Long Island, re- sulting in his marriage, April, 1681, to Elizabeth, the widow of Capt. William Lawrence, of Tew's Neck, L. I., who had died in 1680, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. Mrs. Carteret was the daughter of Richard Smith, patentee of Smithtown, L. I., and brought with her to this town seven children,-Mary, Thomas, Jo- seph, Richard, Samuel, Sarah, and James. Samuel died Aug. 16, 1687, aged fifteen years, and Thomas, Oct. 26, 1687, aged nineteen years, and both were buried in the rear of the meeting-house. Their graves are now covered by the First Presbyterian Church, and their monuments adorn the rear wall of the building, being the most ancient stones in the ceme- tery. This was, in all probability, the Governor's first marriage, no allusion to any other having been dis- covered. He resumed office by proclamation March 2,1681.

" The remainder of his administration was of short duration and uneventful. With the decease of Sir George Carteret, and the transfer of East Jersey to new proprietors, the necessity arose for a new admin- istration. This was inaugurated under Thomas Rud- yard, as the deputy of Governor Barclay, in 1682. Carteret continued to occupy the government house, which he claimed as his own property.2 He survived his retirement from office only some four weeks, his will, made just before his death, bearing date Dec. 10, 1682. Of the cause, occasion, and circumstances of his

death no record remains. It may have resulted front the injuries received at the time of his capture by An- dros. However well qualified by gifts and attain- ments he may have been for the administration of the government of a newly-founded colony, he failed to secure the confidence and respect of the town and province. Living among, and associating daily with, a community in full sympathy with the men and man- ners and principles of the Commonwealth, he was ever exemplifying, asserting, and upholding the social and political (if not the ecclesiastical) principles of the Stuarts, and exacting a deference, as the representa- tive of that aristocratic and vicious court, which the Puritan colonists of the town and province were among the very last to concede. Instead of identify- ing himself as much as possible with his townsmen, and seeking to conciliate them, he seems to have pur- sued a course, almost from the first, that he must have known would excite their prejudices and thwart their plans and purposes in founding a settlement in the wilderness. From the time of the first collision with the people in 1668 he persisted in excluding from his Council and confidence the very best men in the community, men of sterling integrity and of great moral worth, putting in office, and persistently retain- ing when notoriously rejected and despised for their sycophancy, such parasites as Bollen, Vauquellin, and Pardon. His administration must be regarded as a complete failure, opposed as it was almost from the beginning by the worthiest men of the colony. He seems to have had no party in the town outside of the clique that came with him and lived on his favor and patronage." 8

CHAPTER X. TITLE TO LANDS.

THE original Associates purchased their lands of the Indians, and obtained a patent therefor from Col. Richard Nicolls, Governor under the Duke of York. This was before the province had been sold to the Lords Proprietors, Berkeley and Carteret. These pro- prietors and their successors undertook to invali- date the title of the Associates granted by Governor Nicolls, and to compel the owners to take out new patents under the proprietors, and pay them the usual quit-rents. This controversy began in Philip Carteret's time, who, although he himself had become a purchaser under the Associates, and had repeatedly acknowledged the validity of their title, eventually took sides with the proprietors, causing the Asso- ciates great trouble and annoyance towards the close of his administration.

After the sale of West Jersey to John Fenwick, in trust for Edward Byllinge, of the Society of Friends, in March, 1674, Sir George Carteret, by a new patent

1 Hatfield's Elizabeth, p. 194, Leaming and Spicer, pp. 680-83.

2 Scot's Model of E. N. J., pp. 149, 150. The government house, built by Carteret just before his death, was subsequently known as the " White Hullse," sometimes as " Schuyler's House," it having passed into the hands of Col. Peter Schuyler. It was converted intu a public- house, and was kept by Mrs. Margaret Johnston, formerly the widow of William Williamson, and then of Mr. Chetwood, a daughter of Capt. Matthins Dellart, and sister of Mrs. Samuel Mann. It was then called " the Nag's Head Tavern." In 1766 it was offered for sale by Jonathan Hampton. In 1984 it was again advertised (by Col, Edward Thonmas) for sule as " that large, commodions, and famous Brick House, known by the name of the White House, built in the strongest and best manner, by a former Governor of New Jersey, for the seat of government, bean- tifully situated on the river running through the town, on which is a very good wharf." It is thus fully identified as Carteret's house, In 1759. St. John's parsonage is described in the deed of sale as "on the Sunth side of the said Elizabeth Town Crerk, opposite to a large white honse, now or late belonging to Mr. Peter Schuyler." This determines the locality, Weyman', N. Y. Gazette, No. 249. Holt's N. Y. Journal, No. 1214, Clark's St. John's Church, p. 186.

3 Hatfield's Elizabeth, p. 212-13.

HISTORY OF UNION AND MIDDLESEX COUNTIES, NEW JERSEY.

from the Duke of York, became the sole proprietor of East Jersey, the duke granting him the whole prov- ince in " as full and ample a manner as the same had been granted to himself." This latter clause was evidently designed to secure to Carteret the right to all the lands in the territory, not excepting the large tract which had been acknowledged to belong to the Elizabeth Town Associates. That such was the con- struction of the new patent very soon appeared. Philip Carteret, who had been absent in England more than two years, returned to his government in November, 1674. Conscious that he was about to take a decided stand against the Elizabeth Town people, and therefore ashamed to resume his old seat in that town, he proceeded to Bergen, where he called to- gether his Council. With his new commission as Governor, dated July 31, 1674, the Concessions had been so modified as to give him entire control of the Legislature. Moreover, he had come with express instructions from Sir George Carteret to enforce his claim against the lands of the Associates, who had now been in possession of them about ten years. The instructions were to this effect :

" For such as pretend to a right of propriety to land and government within our l'rovince, by virtue of any patents from Governor Col. Rich- ard Nicolle, ne they ignorantly assert, we utterly disown any such thing. But if such persone as have not already received petents of their land from us shall not within one year after notice to them given of this our pleasure therein desire and accept patents of the said land, we do hereby order our Guverner and Council to dispose of such lande and tenements in whole or in part, for our best advantage to any other persons."

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History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of many of their Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 12

Author: W. Woodford Clayton, Ed. Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Philadelphia: Everts Number of Pages: 1224

Author: W. Woodford Clayton, Ed.
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia: Everts
Number of Pages: 1224