History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of many of their Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 25

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 25
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 25

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friendly and courteous demeanor, representing not the lordly cavalier of a prond and imperious court, but a trading and agricultural association, of which the members were chiefly plain and unassuming men. Rudyard's family, also, were quite an accession to the settlement. He brought with him his two adult daughters, Margaret and Anne, and, it is thought, his two sons, Benjamin and John, designing to identify his interest fully with those of the country. He ob- tained a grant of three thousand acres of land, mostly on the Rahway and Raritan Rivers, and became a planter on a large scale, thus confirming his declara- tion of preference for these new settlements over the crowded thoroughfares of London.

Governor Rudyard selected good men for his Coun- cil, and appointed local officers high in the confidence of the people. The first General Assembly under his administration convened at Elizabeth Town March 1, 1682, and continued in session until the 28th. Benjamin Price, Sr., of this town, was a member of the Council. At this session East Jersey was divided into four counties,-Bergen, Essex, Middlesex, and Monmouth. The settlements of Elizabeth Town and Newark were included in the county of Essex, whose boundaries are thus defined : " Essex and the county thereof to contain all the settlements between the west side of the Hackensack River and the parting line between Woodbridge and Elizabeth Town, and so to extend westward and northward to the utmost bounds of the Province." Provision was made for the appoint- ment of sheriff's, coroners, justices, clerks, and other officers, and for the erection of county courts, a court of small causes for every town, and a superior court, to be called the Court of Common Right, to be held quarterly at Elizabeth Town. Capt. John Baker and Benjamin Parkis were appointed justices of the Court of Common Right, the highest tribunal at that time in the province except the Governor and Council, to whom appeals could be made in certain cases pro- vided for by law. Capt. John Baker was appointed coroner, George Jewell clerk and messenger of the House, James Emott clerk of the county of Essex and sheriff.

At the adjourned session in May the institution of domestic slavery is introduced for the first time as the subject of distinct enactment. We find the following strong prohibition passed by the Legislature :

"It is found by daily experience that negro and Indian slaves or ser- vants, nuder pretence of trade, or liberty to trathick, do frequently steal from their masters and others what they expose to sale at distance from their habitations; (and, therefore, they forbade all) barter, trade, or traf- fique with any negro slave, or Indian slave, or servant, for any rum, brandy, wine, or strong drink, or any other goods, wares, or conimodi- ties, living or dead."

Numerous laws, mostly such as had been passed in Carteret's time for the preservation of good morals, the rights of property, and the welfare of the com- munity, were enacted. The same strictness in regard to profanity, intemperance, licentiousness, and Sab- bath-breaking was retained. Evidently a healthful

1 Hatfield's Elizabeth, p. 211. See also Leamiog and Spicer, 141-50. 2 See history of Perth Amboy in this work.

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tone of morals prevailed in the several settlements, notwithstanding the recent disturbances.1

At the sessions in December, Benjamin Price, Henry Lyon, and Benjamin Parkis were appointed on the commission to lay out and appoint "all neces- sary highways, bridges, passages, landings, and fer- ries for the county of Essex." As the country was everywhere at this early day infested with wolves, a bounty of fifteen shillings was offered for every wolf's head.

Of the six assessors for the county of Essex, three -Benjamin Price, Benjamin Parkis, and George Ross-were of Elizabeth Town.

Rudyard's administration was brief. In July, 1683, Barclay appointed Gawen Laurie, also one of the proprietors, his deputy for East Jersey. Laurie had been for several years associated with William Penn in the trusteeship of West Jersey, but had not yet come to America. He was a London merchant and of the Society of Friends. He arrived in January, 1684, at the new town of Perth Amboy, bringing with him his wife Mary, his son James, and his two daugh- ters Mary and Rebecca. The latter became the wife of Miles Forster, of Perth Amboy, and her sister Mary married William Haige, of Elizabeth Town. Isabel, the daughter of James, married William Davis, of New York.

Governor Laurie was inaugurated at Elizabeth Town on the 28th of January, 1684, after having spent several days in laying out the streets and lots of the new city of Perth Amboy. Rudyard grace- fully retired to the more humble yet responsible po- sition of secretary of the province, but soon after, in August, 1684, became attorney-general of the prov- ince of New York.

No sooner had Laurie assumed the reins of gov- ernment than he wrote home a glowing account of the new country. Under date of March 2, 1684, he wrote to the proprietors from Elizabeth Town as fol- lows :

" Now is the time to send over people for settling Here. The Scots and William Duckwra's people com og now and settling. advance the Province more than it hath been advanced these ten years. Here wante notlung but people ; There is not a poor body in all the province, nor that want"; Here is abumlance of provision, Pork and Beef, at 24 per pound. Fish and Fowl plenty, Oysters I think would serve all Eng- land: Sider good and plenty, for Id per Quart. Good Venison, plenty brought us in at 18d the quarter, Eggs at 3d per dozen, all things very plenty. Land very good as ever I saw : Wines, Walnuts, Peaches, Straw- berries, and many other things plenty in the woods.

"I have put two houses in repair upon the River, called the Point 2 miles from Elizabethtown; bave let one of them, with 10 acres of Pns- ture gronud, and 10 acres of Woody growth, for 7 years at 26 lib per annum : the man to cleare the ten acres uf Woody ground and make it fit for Ploughing or I'a-ture. I intend to let the other also with sume land. All the houses were like to drop down, all the land lying without fence, and a larn quite fallen down and destroyed ; another without any cover, and that other next to the hoose where I dwell. all lo pieces, and all the fences and out houses were down, but repaired before I came."?

It is said of Governor Laurie that he carried out fully in his administration the instructions of the

I Leaming and Spicer, 227-251.

2 Scott's Model of E. J., 160-65.

proprietors, "to use all means of gentleness and ten- derness with the people, and not stand much with them upon small matters." Notwithstanding the de- sire expressed by the proprietors that he should make the new town of Perth Amboy his capital, he con- tinued to reside at Elizabeth Town till his death, re- spected and honored by all. The General Assembly convened at Perth Amboy for the first time April 6, 1686, and from this time that town became the per- manent seat of government of East Jersey. This was in the second year of the reign of James II., the Duke of York having come to the throne of England under this title upon the death of Charles II., Feb. 6, 1685. Being a Catholic, the news of his accession created great excitement in New Jersey and through- out the colonies. He was, however, soon deposed, and Hled to France, when the Protestant prince and princess, William and Mary, were exalted to the throne, 1690.

The brief period of the reign of James II. was one of the most exciting in the early history of the colo- nies. The king, in order to carry into effect his long- cherished scheme of subjecting all the colonies of North America to his arbitrary and despotic control, commissioned his supple tool, Sir Edmund Andros, captain-general of all New England, with power and authority to bring New York and New Jersey also under his government. This plan of consolidation, although utterly repugnant to the people of New England, who felt called upon to resist it with all their might, was urgently sought by Governor Don- gan and the authorities of New York, who were con- tinually writing letters to the king, asking him to annex the other provinces to their territory. Their interest in this was the aggrandizement of New York, by making her the centre and source of government of the consolidated colonies. The mayor and Council of the city of New York, in an address to the king, dated March 2, 1687, insisted on " the absolute neces- sity there is that those adjacent parts of Connecticut, East and West Jersey, and Pennsylvania should be united to the Province of New York." Andros re- ceived his commission, and after arriving in New York, proceeded to New England to fasten the yoke upon the necks of those elder Commonwealths of the Puritans. At length, on the 7th of April, 1688, "the decree went forth that the two Jerseys and New York were united with New England under the rule of Andros, to be governed by the same royal pleasure which for three years had been grinding the liberties of Britain to powder, the whole to be henceforth known as 'New England.'" Andros, in a letter to the king, says he had received the submission of New York on the 11th of October, also of East Jersey on the 15th, and of West Jersey on the 18th following, and had settled all the officers, civil and military. In proclaiming his commission in East Jersey, he proceeded to Elizabeth Town, then the most consid- erable place in the province, where, we are informed

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in a letter written by Secretary Randolph, the people " all showed their great satisfaction at being under his Majesty's immediate government." Mr. Hatfield is of the opinion that if there was any "satisfaction" really expressed, beyond that of a few new-comers who gloried in the measures of King James, it must have been because the people felt gratified in being at length rid of the proprietary government, with which they had so long been vexed.1

Col. Andrew Hamilton, who had succeeded Lord Neill Campbell in the government of East Jersey, was retained by Andros as his deputy, which went far to reconcile the inhabitants to the change, as Hamil- ton possessed qualities both of mind and heart which secured for him the confidence of all classes. Andros' rule, however, was short and inglorious. His royal master in England was soon dethroned and compelled to flee from his country, while he himself was degraded and imprisoned by the outraged Puritans of Massa- chusetts Bay. In New York, Capt. Leisler had seized the fort and ousted his officers in that quarter. So closely was Elizabeth Town connected, socially and commercially, with the neighboring city, that these events deeply affected the peace of the community. The agitation here, as elsewhere throughout the coun- try, was deep and profound. On the 28th of June, 1689, a Committee of Safety was chosen, to whom was intrusted the management of the affairs of New York, and of this committee two members were residents of Essex County. "The utmost efforts were put forth by the faction in power to obtain the support of the towns in East Jersey, to overthrow the old govern- ments and to set up their own, but without success, the people here resolving to maintain the existing government until they received orders from the new authorities at home."

Governor Hamilton left the country for England late in May, 1690. The proprietors, determining to reassert their jurisdiction, of which they had been deprived by King James, on the decease of Barclay, Oct. 3, 1690, made choice of Col. Joseph Dudley, who served as Governor until the reappointment of Hamilton, March 25, 1692. Hamilton convened the Assembly at Amboy in the following September. The principal work of this session was the adoption of measures to aid New York against an invasion by the French. Hamilton continued to administer the government for the proprietors, but it was evident a crisis was approaching. The proprietary government was doomed. It had been re-established in a mo- ment of transition from the dynasty of the Stuarts to that of the Prince of Orange, in which the minis- try was too much absorbed to give attention to such a colonial incident. Soon, however, the subject was taken up by the new ministry ; their assent was with- held from the appointment of the board at London, and the jurisdiction of the courts denied to any of

their appointees. In accordance with a law requir- ing the colonial Governors to be natives of England, Hamilton was superseded by Jeremiah Basse in April, 1698. Being an Englishman, and in sym- pathy with the opposition, he was opposed by the American proprietors. The people soon learned to hold the government in contempt; revolt ensued ; the leaders were imprisoned, but were speedily re- leased by the populace.

In May, 1699, Basse left the government in the hands of Andrew Bowne, president of the Council, and sailed for England. Bowne's exercise of au- thority was no more respected than his predecessor's, although it stirred up less resistance. The return of Hamilton at the close of 1699 with a new commis- sion served still more to complicate matters. In the course of the following spring and summer the oppo- sition openly revolted. The Assembly called to meet in May, 1700, demanded of Hamilton credentials from the king, and were dissolved the same day. A period of strife and violence followed, the courts were broken up, sheriffs and others were obstructed in serving processes, and, as during Basse's rule, there were " mutual breaking of Gaols, rescuing of Pris- oners, and beating and abusing of officers." ?

We have recited these facts to show how impossible it was during this period that courts should have been regularly maintained and law properly admin- istered. It was a period in which anarchy was the rule and order the exception, At a meeting of the county court in Elizabeth Town March 12, 1700, the sheriff having been ordered to arrest Samuel Carter for contempt of court, the "noise and howling of the people" were such that the court was obliged to ad- journ. A similar scene took place at the county court in Newark in September. In this confusion of public affairs it was determined to make an appeal directly to the king. A petition was prepared by "the Freeholders, Inhabitants, and owners of Land of and belonging to Elizabeth Town, or Township, and other lands thereunto adjacent, in the Province of East Jersey, in America, in behalf of themselves and many others."

After reciting their title, they say, "The said pur- chasers and those claiming under them still continued in the possession of the lands by them purchased, and peaceably enjoyed the same until about September, 1693, being about thirty years, and during that time, at great labor and expense, built, planted, and im- proved the same; and they humbly conceive they ought, according to law, reason, and justice, still to enjoy the same." They then rehearse the troubles to which they had been put in defending their title and their need of an impartial tribunal. They ask, there-

2 E. J. Records, C., 273, 311, 328, 331, 334. E. T. Bill, pp. 45, 124. App. to Do., p. 33. Ans. to Do., p. 32. Smith's N. J., pp. 209-11, 538-60, 568- 69. Leaming and Spicer, pp. 592-93, 605. Gordon's N. J., p.53. White- head's E. J., pp. 138-41, 147-50, 219-20, 223-27. Mulford's N. J., pp. 257-64. Analytical Index of N. J., Col. Dormts., pp. 19-31.

1 Hist. of Elizabeth, p. 235.

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fore, either to be placed under the civil government of New York, or to have impartial judges appointed to whom all these matters might be referred ; and that the usurpers be admonished no more to usurp the royal authority in " constituting courts and com- missioning judges."

The names of sixty-five prominent citizens who signed this petition are elsewhere given. The peti- tion was soon answered by the force of events. The anarchy of faction and the reign of disorder termi- nated at length by the final and unconditional sur- render, April 15, 1702, on the part of the proprietors of all claim and right to the jurisdiction of the province. "Then in reality New Jersey, for the first time, became a royal province, governed no longer by a company of land speculators, but directly by the crown. King William died March 8, 1702, and Anne, Princess of Denmark, ascended the throne. A royal Governor of the combined provinces of New York and New Jersey was appointed Dec. 5, 1702, in the person of Edward Hyde, Lord Viscount Cornbury, cousin to her Majesty. In May, 1703, on the arrival of the royal commission, the proprietary government of East Jersey was brought to a perpetual end."

Whether Governor Philip Carteret was a lawyer or not is not positively certain, but it is evident that he managed many cases in court, and manifested no little skill and knowledge as well as tact and shrewd- ness. One of these occasions was when he was kid- napped and taken before a special Court of Assizes in New York by Governor Andros, in May, 1680. He was tried for " presuming to exercise jurisdiction and government over His Majesty's subjects within the bounds of His Majesty's Letters Patent, granted to His Royal Highness the Duke of York." Carteret presented his commission with other instructions in his vindication. The jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. "Upon which," says Carteret in a letter to Bollen, "he (the judge) asked them questions and demanded their reasons, which I pleaded was con- trary to law for a jury to give reasons after their ver- dict is given in; nevertheless he sent them twice or thrice out, giving them new charges, which I pleaded as at first to be contrary to law, notwithstanding the last verdict of the jury being according to the first brought in by them,-' the prisoner at the bar not guilty,'-upon which I was acquitted accordingly."

This was a triumph for Carteret with the jury, and in law and justice, although the partisan judges felt it necessary to append to the record :

" But the court declare their opinion and judgment that if he, the said Capt. Carteret, shall go to New Jersey, he should give security or engagement not to assume any authority or jurisdiction there, civil or military."

Benjamin Price. Esq., attorney-at-law in New York, , England ; (5) a Court of Chancery, at first constituted 1725, was a grandson of Benjamin Price, one of the original Associates.

Colonial Courts .- Upon the assumption of the

government by the queen of England in 1702, a Gov- ernor of the province was appointed and commis- sioned to hold his office during the pleasure of the sovereign. The executive power was vested in the Governor with the advice of twelve councilors, ap- pointed originally by the crown, but afterwards, gen- erally, by the Governor himself. Six of these were taken from East Jersey and six from West Jersey, five constituting a quorum. The legislative power consisted of the same, with the addition of a General Assembly elected by virtue of writs under the great seal of the province, and convened, adjourned, or dis- solved at the pleasure of the executive. The appor- tionment for members of Assembly was as follows: Two for the inhabitants and householders of Perth Amboy, and ten for the freeholders of East Jersey ; two for the inhabitants and householders of Burling- ton, and ten for the freeholders of West Jersey. This arrangement was somewhat modified by an act passed in 1709 making the representatives elective by a ma- jority of the votes of the freeholders of each county. Each freeholder, in order to be entitled to vote, should own one hundred acres of land or be worth fifty pounds current money ; and the person elected to the Assem- bly should have one thousand acres of land in his own right, or be worth five hundred pounds in real and personal estate. Voting by ballot was not introduced generally until after the Revolution, nor in all the counties until 1797. The Assemblies met not annu- ally, but only occasionally as the Governor saw fit to convene tbem. For example, from the surrender to the crown to the Revolution, a period of seventy-four years, there were twenty-two Assemblies, some of which continued but one year, others longer, and one from 1761 to 1769, eight years. In 1768 an act was passed providing that a General Assembly should be held once in seven years at least.1 All colonial and county officers, even including the clerks of the As- sembly, were appointed either by the crown or by the Governor and Council, and were required to take a certain prescribed oath of fidelity and allegiance.

The courts of the colonial period, which still exist in a modified form, were instituted by Lord Cornbury, under authority of Queen Anne, by an ordinance pro- mulgated in 1704. They consisted of (1) justices' courts, which had cognizance of cases to the amount of forty shillings; (2) Courts of Common Pleas in each county, having power to try all actions at common law; (3) Courts of General Sessions of the peace, each with quarterly terms, having civil and criminal juris- diction in certain cases ; (4) a Supreme Court for the province, to sit once in each year at Perth Amboy and at Burlington, and to have cognizance of all pleas, civil, criminal, and mixed, as fully as the Courts of Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer in

1 Constitution and Government of the Province, by Judge Elmer. Allison's Laws, ed. 1776.

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of the Governor and any three members of his Council. This was changed by Governor Hunter, who during his administration exercised the powers of chancellor alone, which practice, being sanctioned by the king, became the constitution of the court, and so remained till the adoption of the constitution of 1844. The rules of practice were first systematized under the chancellorship of Governor Williamson in 1818.

" In 1714 the Supreme Court was required to hold two terms yearly in each place, and courts for the trial of issues were appointed to be held yearly in each county. .. . The times and places of holding the courts and the length of the terms were from time to time altered, but the constitution and powers of the courts remained the same, except that in 1724, no doubt through the influence of the proprietors, the jurisdiction of the Common Pleas was restricted so as to except causes wherein the right or title to any lands, tenements, or hereditaments were in any wise con- cerned. After 1751 the Supreme Court fixed the times for holding the circuits. The jurisdiction of these several courts remains to this day as established by the ordinance of 1724."

CHAPTER XVII.

BENCHI AND BAR OF UNION COUNTY.

IN our chapter on early courts and jurisprudence the hench and bar have been foreshadowed, appear- ing in various degrees of dignity from the frontier court for the trial of small causes up to the Supreme Court of the colony and the State. The elegant barris- ter of the nineteenth century has been adumbrated in his unprofessional prototype of the seventeenth cen- tury. Thus all things proceed by a law of evolution. The contrast in the outward symbols of dignity which have accompanied the march of jurisprudence is not less marked or impressive than that exhibited in the mental furniture and equipments of judges and law- yers themselves. The backwoods justice presiding in his shirt-sleeves in some frontier cabin is certainly a very different picture from the ermined chief justice of the highest modern court, presiding in gilded and frescoed apartments.

These changes which marked the advance of civil- ization had been passed through in the Old World, but they had to be repeated in the New, where every- thing in the beginning was in a crude and wild state of nature; the forests had first to be subdued and homes made, society had to grow, the diversified po- litical, social, industrial, and commercial relations of man had to be developed before the laws and judicial customs known to all civilized races could be applied except in their crudest and simplest forms. The peo- ple of this country, being of the same race and blood as those of England, only needed time and opportu-

nity to develop here from the root of English law a grander tree of liberty and justice than that which shelters the broad empire of Great Britain.

Little is known of a regular bar in connection with the courts of New Jersey till about the middle of the eighteenth century. Some lawyers there were pre- vious to that, especially in the chief towns, who had been regularly bred to the profession. Some of this class were among the officials sent over from England who participated in the early governments of the colony, such men as Thomas Rudyard, Deputy Gov- ernor in 1682, and Lord Cornbury, the first Governor under Queen Anne. Half a century later William Livingston, who had studied law with James Alexan- der, the former surveyor-general of New Jersey, then in practice in New York, came into practice in the courts of New Jersey, and soon after settled in Eliza- beth Town. About the same time John De Hart, Esq., became a practitioner in the same town. These were followed by Robert Ogden, Jr., called the " hon- est lawyer," who had acquired a large practice before the Revolution. So far as we know these were all the regular lawyers in what is now Union County previous to the struggle for independence.

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History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of many of their Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 25

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