USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Orange > History of the Oranges, in Essex County, N.J., from 1666 to 1806 > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24
25
Indians.
here being asked by an Indian for rum, replied that if he would make a basket which would hold rum, he would fill it for him. It was not long afterwards that a basket of liberal capacity was brought to be filled. The interstices of it were treated with the native gums of the woods, so as to fulfill the conditions of the con- tract.
On the high ground south-west of the Rosedale Cem- etery gate, the remains of an Indian place of defence were observed in the first year of this century, with a trench and a steep embankment, and within a circular space. In the earlier days of our informant it was thickly wooded. The sides of the embankment were so steep that the breaking up of the winter caused slides, of which he had "seen three or four." The site is now removed by the grading of later times.
On the land west of this locality and on the south side of Washington Street, was a space within a diam- eter of about one hundred and thirty feet, on which were fifty or more small excavations about four feet across. They were known by the people as the " In- (lian Barns," so called from the tradition that the na- tives preserved their corn during the winter by bury- ing it in the earth. Ira Harrison (living now at 92,) remembers that his Uncle Abijah ploughed up this section of his farm, expecting to find hatchets, mor- tars, etc., such as the Harrisons found on their lands at Swinefield, but nothing in the way of relics was found.
the great sca conchs, and the black or purple from the inside of the clam or muscle. Its value, at first, in trade with the whites was four and then six beads for one stiver, one penny sterling. In 1659, the purple was fixed at eight, the white at sixteen, which had previously been at twelve. In 1663, eight white or four black were equal to a stiver. This continued to be their value after the surrender of the Dutch to the English. (Documents relating to History of New York, II., pp. 344, 425.)
26
History of the Oranges.
The Indians were the most numerous in West Jersey. In this part of the province the tribes were small, peaceable and not disposed to war. Those west of the Delaware River, and in the mountains of Pennsylva- nia, were more warlike, and were frequently engaged in contests among themselves. In their intercourse with the English settlers, the Indians of New Jersey were generous, kind and affable ; naturally reserved, apt to resent and conceal their resentments, retaining them long. They were very loving to one another. If several of them came to a Christian's house, and the master of it gave one of them victuals and omitted the rest, the portion was equally divided among the whole company. If the Christians visited them, they gave them the first cut victuals. They refrained from eating the hollow of the thigh of anything they killed. Their chief employment was hunting, fishing and fowling : making canoes, bowls and other wooden and earthen ware. The women were employed chiefly in raising corn and preparing it, by roasting and pounding it in a mortar, or grinding it between stones, for making of bread.
When travelling in companies they walked single file, in silence. Two were very seldom seen walking side by side, thus making their trail very narrow. The man went before with his bow and arrows, the women after, not infrequently with a child upon her back, and other burdens. If they were too heavy, the man assisted her.
RELIGION OF THE INDIANS.
Of their religious belief, David Brainard in his diary says of them that their notion is that "it was not the same God made them who made the white people," but another, who commanded them to live by hunting
27
Religion of the Indians.
and not to conform to the customs of the white peo- ple. Hence, when they are desired to become Chris- tians they frequently reply that they "will live as their fathers did," and go to their fathers when they die. Notwithstanding their traditional belief, Brain- ard was successful in a remarkable degree in his missionary work among them. Many to whom he preached embraced the Gospel of Christ, and united themselves with a Christian church. The missions which he established at Cranbury and at Crosswicks, were, doubtless, visited by some of those who trav- ersed these Passaic lands and, perhaps, some brought to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. In his diary, November, 1745, he writes thus of his work : "Twenty- three of the Indians have now professed their faith in Christ. Most of them belonged to this region ; a few from the forks of the Delaware, none of them, as yet, have been left to disgrace their profes- sion by any scandalous or unbecoming behavior."
The Creator endowed the Indian race with a high order of thought. In the numerous councils during the early history of the colonies, and in our subse- quent history as a nation, many of them were the peers of their English associates. Their native reti- cence prompted to contemplation. They studied them- selves, and in the analysis of their own minds, they learned to know something of their own moral nature, and thus got a dim insight into the attributes of the Great Spirit and their moral relations to Him. Brain- erd notices some cases in his experiences with them which illustrate this. His teaching was readily re- ceived by those who had felt their need of Christian truth. One said to him while discoursing: "Now, that I like ; so God has taught me." Thompson, in his history of Long Island, relates the following inci-
28
History of the Oranges.
cident : An Indian Sachem on the east end of the Island visited a man committed to prison by Lord Cornbury for his religious belief. The Sachem asked him if he was a Christian. Being told "yea," he con- tinned : "And are they not Christians who keep you here ?" Being told, they called themselves so, he said "Mang manitou (God) looked at the heart." Taking a piece of coal and drawing a circle he said, "they believed the Great Spirit to be all eye, that he saw everything ; all ear, that he heard everything ; and all mind, that he knew everything."
Teedyescung was a distinguished king of one of the Delaware tribes. On a certain occasion, while a guest at the hospitable home of an excellent member of the Society of Friends in Burlington, he was seated with his host, each silently indulging in his own reflections before the blazing fire on the hearth. The silence was at length broken by the Friend who said: "I will tell thee what I have been thinking of; I have been thinking of a rule given by the Author of the Christian religion, which from its excellence we call the Golden Rule." "Stop," said the Indian, "don't praise it to me, tell me what it is." "It is for one man to do to another, as he would have the other do to him." "That's impossible. It cannot be done." Silence then ensued. Teedyescung looked into the fire for a time ; then rising from his seat he took his pipe, lighted it and walked to and fro in the room. In about a quar- ter of an hour he stood before the Friend with a smil- ing countenance, and taking the pipe from his mouth said : "Brother, I have been thoughtful of what you told me. If the Great Spirit that made man would give him a new heart, he could do as you say, but not else." He had studied his own moral nature till he had wrought out the divine philosophy of the Golden Rule.
29
Indian Paths.
Teedyescung became a Christian in 1749, and was baptised by the name of Gideon. Among the causes which contributed to the pacification of the Indians with the whites in 1758, as well as the conclusion of a treaty of friendship, ending all difficulties with the Indians in New Jersey, was the influence of this Chris- tian Indian king. 1
INDIAN PATHS.
The only Indian Path which has any record on early maps is the Minisink. It extended from the Shrews- bury River north-west, crossing the Raritan a little west of Amboy, and thence northerly to Minisink Island in the Delaware .? This was the great path from the sea to Minisink, the Indian council seat.
The path after leading through Amboy continued due north through the Short Hills to the Passaic, over which it crossed, where Day's bridge was built in 1747, then for about 12 miles to Little Falls, near which it again crossed the same river ; thence it led along the eastern side of the valley to Pompton ; and thence it followed the Pequannoc toward the Delaware. Its route was crooked, as all Indian paths are. The bogs and swamps of the region traversed were avoided, and the most favorable places for crossing the streams and rivers were carefully selected. 3
The various tribes had parts of the seashore to which they resorted as their own. The Minisinks held the
I. See Rev. Dr. Mott, First Century of Hunterdon County. .
2. See Map in Elizabethtown Bill in Chancery.
3. The existence of the great path at Day's Bridge is established by a survey noticed in the Elizabethtown Bill in Chancery, 1747. Its proximity to the Short Hills and the mountain region, both north and south of those passes, forbid the belief that the river was reached by any other route. The other points named are fixed by the not infrequent references to the "Indian path " in deeds and surveys still preserved.
30
History of the Oranges.
shore at Navesink, the Raritans at Barnegat. These latter had their path (traditionally) from the Raritan to the shore by way of Spotswood and Freehold. The Burlington path led across the county of Monmouth from Long Branch and Shrewsbury, by way of Tinton Falls, through Freehold and Crosswicks to Burlington.
A branch path from the Minisink crossed the Rari- tan at New Brunswick, and continued to the Delaware at Trenton. This was used between these two towns for a considerable time after their settlement by the English people began.
The Newark mountain region was crossed by the natives dwelling on the Hudson River by paths, all of which intersected the Minisink. Their nearest and most direct route from the Hudson to Minisink Island. was through the great notch on the first mountain, four miles north of Montclair, meeting the main path near Little Falls. The other intersecting paths were at Montclair, where the highway crosses the moun- tain, the notch at Eagle Rock, the notches of the Mt. Pleasant and Northfield highways and the mountain crossing at South Orange. All these routes led to the Minisink, which was not more than six or seven miles west of the first mountain. They all crossed the great path and were the highways of Indian travel from the Hudson west, through the Musconetcong Valley to the Delaware.
CHAPTER II.
THE EARLY SETTLERS.
T HE experiences of the Newark settlers, in their earlier migrations in America, had taught them the methods of overcoming the difficulties attendant upon the formation of a new settlement. They had now possessed themselves, by an unquestionable title, of a large extent of territory in a state of nature. The Passaic River was navigable and open to the sea ; and, through the East River to Long Island Sound, with the shores of which they were familiar. The lands west of the river lying in meadow, and much upland sparsely wooded ready for cultivation, presented an inviting site for immediate occupation as a town settlement. Their first measure to this end in 1666, was to divide the land in this part of their purchase into six-acre lots to accommodate the heads of families. The allot- ments were made according to their former neighbor- hood ties as towns in the New Haven Colony. They were designated as the Guilford Quarter, the Milford Quarter, etc. Provisions were made for highways and for fencing of lots, and, by a division of the meadow, provision was made for the good condition of their stock, horses, cattle and swine, of which they had brought an abundance.
32
History of the Oranges.
The question sometimes arises: Did they drive their stock to New Jersey from their former homes as Hooker did in 1636, when, with his company, he mi- grated from Cambridge in the Massachusetts Colony to Hartford? The Newark immigrants came in ves- sels. They built vessels in the New Haven Colony, and were familiar with navigation. Milford gave much attention to trade. Brigs voyaged thence to the West Indies, carrying staves, horses and cattle, as well as farm products, bringing, in return, rum, molasses and European goods. Their sloops were built for the coasting trade.
In ten years the Newark settlers had provided a meet- ing house for the worship of God, brought their acres into subjection, made for themselves comfortable homes, established an ordinary for the entertainment of strangers visiting their town, built a gristmill, pro- vided a vessel for traffic by water, established their courts and their system of magistracy, made provision for a schoolmaster, laid their highways, appointed surveyors for the same, and taken steps for the forma- tion of a county, which in 1675 was established as the County of Essex.1 Newark was then the most compact town in the province. About ten thousand acres were taken up for its accommodation, and its outlying plantations covered forty thousand more. In 1682 Newark contained a hundred families. ?
The young men and maidens, some of whom had reached and many more were approaching adult life when they came to Newark, had formed marriage alli- ances and were now seeking homes for themselves on the inviting mountain lands. The settlers had trav-
I. Essex and Monmouth counties were formed in the same year. They were the first erected in the State.
2. See Whitehead's East Jersey under the Proprietors, pp. 123-124.
33
The Early Settlers.
ersed them, and had learned the value of their New Jersey purchase. They were ambitious to occupy them. An order was accordingly made in Town Meet- ing, May 28, 1675, to lay out the third division. The Home lots of six acres extended a little beyond the line of High Street in Newark, as it is now laid out. All east of this was known and continued to be known till 1807, as the Town at the River. The region west to the top of the First Mountain was called the NEW- ARK MOUNTAIN. During the ten years of their res- idence at the river the settlers had greatly increased in horses and cattle and other stock, which were pas- tured on the mountain lying in common, the animals being marked or branded, and recorded in a book provided for the purpose.
In laying out this new division it was ordered that the highest estate should not exceed forty-one acres, and the lowest not less than twenty ; and "that this land should all lie common for pasture, timber and stone, till it be enclosed by fence." The estimate by the set- tlers of the value of the mountain lands is made ev- ident by the readiness with which they were taken up. It is manifest that this division was a very popular measure, and the lots were rapidly occupied, many by the original associates and some by their children. It does not appear that in laying out land the surveyors were careful to conform with any accuracy to the num- ber of acres ordered to be laid to each share. They varied in amount from forty to sixty acres.
The subscription to the "Agreement," so fundamen- tal in the estimation of the associates in the organiza- ation of their town, to which reference is made in a former part of this chapter, was not long insisted upon in the admission of planters to town privileges. In 1680,"fourteen years after the town was founded,
3
34
History of the Oranges.
eleven were received upon the payment of purchase money. No mention is made of the agreement. In 1685, a committee was appointed to go from house to house of those who had not subscribed to the Funda- mental Covenant, and to return their answer to the town. This committee never reported. In the next year one is recorded as admitted a planter, "he sub- mitting to all wholesome orders." From this time onward settlers were admitted without any reference to the covenant.
Pastor Pierson was an old man when he came to Newark. Twelve years thereafter, during nine of which his son was appointed his assistant in his pas- toral work, the godly old Puritan was called to the heavenly rest. The colony was prosperous within itself. It held a territory which invited strangers of the best class to come among them. An increase of planters of good character, and the purchase money which they brought in their hands, secured to them lands upon equal terms with the associates. The lat- ter were also brought into close relations with New York, which had about four thousand inhabitants, with a large trade. The intercourse of the Newark people with New York, and, probably, with the Dutch settlers on the west end of Long Island, was frequent. We find the following "item" illustrative of this in the Town Records, February 12, 1698 : " Upon a report that many are sick of the small pox at New York, it is thought fit to prohibit persons from frequent going thither upon every small occasion as formerly." A committee was thereupon appointed to "consider whether persons' occasions are of urgent necessity, and, as they find, to give liberty or prohibit."
A recent writer says : "The founders of Plymouth set up a religious community with commercial pur-
35
Their Plantations.
poses. The founders of New Amsterdam set up a com- mercial community upon religious principles." The Newark fathers, by leaving New England, had separa- ted themselves from their traditional disputes and dis- sensions which for thirty years had been a source of perplexing concern, a fact of itself calculated, in the quiet relations of their new home, to mollify prejudices and open their minds to the acceptance of more lib- eral views of civil rights. It is reasonable to believe that their friendly and intimate relations, so early es- tablished with their prosperous Dutch neighbors, in connection with the satisfactory condition of their town in its religious, moral and worldly progress, shaped anew their methods of conducting its affairs "According to God and a Godly Government."
It is not to be understood that those admitted as planters without signing the Fundamental Covenant were not the equals of the original associates in relig- ious principle and high purpose as exemplary citizens. They, too, became the honored fathers of this moun- tain region. It is honored still by their numerous pos- terity. This fact is illustrated when we name the fam- ilies of Williams, Condit, Peck, Pierson, Munn, Free- man, Wheeler, Ogden, Hedden, with as many more equally worthy. Newark was constantly drawing in- creasing numbers from New England and Long Island.
THEIR PLANTATIONS.
Having now in some degree illustrated the natural surroundings and resources of the mountain planters, we may look into their methods and their progressive growth as a community. They were a robust, God- fearing yeomanry; men of good estate, trained by their traditions to freedom of thought, self-reliant in the management of [affairs, and fortified in this by
36
History of the Oranges.
high moral and religious purpose. Macaulay, in his History of England, refers to the fact that at the time of the accession to the throne of James I., (1685), many thousands of square miles in England, now rich in corn land and meadow, dotted with villages and coun- try seats, were moors overgrown with furze, and fens abandoned to wild ducks. Straggling huts, built of wood and covered with thatch, where are now manu- facturing towns and seaports. A large part of the country beyond Trent was, down to the eighteenth century, in a state of barbarism. Agriculture was in a very rude and imperfect state. The arable land and pasture were not supposed to amount to much more than half the area of the kingdom. The remainder consisted of moor, forest and fen. Deer in many parts by thousands wandered as free as in our own primitive American forests. Wild beasts of large size were nu- merous. On one occasion, Queen Anne, on her way to Portsmouth, saw a herd of no less than 500 deer. The horse, sheep and ox were diminutive, and at the beginning of cold weather, when the grass became scanty, sheep and oxen were killed and salted in great numbers. During several months of the year even the gentry scarcely tasted any fresh animal food, except game and river fish. The yeomanry did not eat meat except on special occasions. King, in his natural and political conclusions, roughly estimated the common people of England at 880,000 families. Of these fam- ilies, 440,000, according to him, ate animal food twice a week. The remaining 440,000 ate it not at all, or at most, not oftener than once a week. The abode of the lord of the manor of the seventeenth century was with- out decoration. "The litter of the farmyard gathered under the windows of his bed chamber, and the cab- bages and gooseberry bushes grew close to his hall
37
Their Plantations.
door. His table was loaded with coarse plenty, and strong beer was the ordinary beverage." 1
In striking contrast with the condition of the yeo- manry of the mother country, in the last years of the seventeenth century, we contemplate that of the free- holders of the Newark Mountain plantations in the early years of the eighteenth. Their acres, and enough of them for all their needs, were subdued. Their horses2 and cattle and sheep abounded, finding pas- tures not only within the enclosures of their planta- tions, but on the common lands. The temporary homes first erected, had given place to commodious houses of timber, and not a few of stone. Their apple orchards were everywhere adorning their lands. Their cereals furnished them bread, their lesser plant- ings vegetables, and the spontaneous growth of the smaller fruits added healthful luxuries to their diet. Their herds and poultry furnished animal food, and the wool of the flock, and the flax of the field met all the necessary demands for their clothing.
The facilities of land culture in the days of the Newark fathers were in contrast with those of our day. The draught work was done by carts drawn by oxen. They had no wagons. Sleds and drags, drawn gener- ally by horses, were- used for light work. The soil was broken up by the old English plow, with an iron share and wooden mould board. The highways were
I. We discover in these facts the reason why the early letters sent by the first New Jersey emigrants to their friends in the old country so particularly notice the abundant supply of beef, poultry, mutton and pork, as also shell and other fish in the salt water bays and rivers. The good houses to dwell in are also frequently noticed.
2. Horses were first imported by the Dutch in 1625, to New Amsterdam, also cattle and other domestic animals. Cattle were imported in the Mass- achusetts Colony in 1635.
C
38
History of the Oranges.
passages for ox carts. No carriage of any other sort was in use till many years afterwards. 1
Horses were in universal use for riding by both sexes. They carried often two persons and sometimes three. Deacon Amos Harrison went thus to church with his wife and twin children, Arnos Harrijon each one bearing a child in arms. Bethuel Pier- son came weekly, with his wife and daughter on one horse, from South Orange, to attend an evening re- ligious meeting at Wardsesson.
A diary kept from 1772 to 1778, by Jemima Cundict, a bright belle in the Second Valley, describes a visit to her made by one of her admirers. He came on horse- back, and invited her to ride to Elizabethtown, a dis- tance of nine miles from her home. The pleasure thus proffered was declined, notwithstanding his impor- tunity, and she closes her account of his visit thus : "So he went off gentlemanly like, but I thought, when he got on his little nag, that he did not want a button behind him for he almost covered him himself."
THEIR APPLE ORCHARDS.
The apple is indigenous to New Jersey. The Newark Mountain seems to have been adapted to its growth. A place, "commonly called the crab orchard," was a boundary monument in a deed dated 1702. Its locality was a little north-east of the Rosedale Cem- etery. The cultivation of the fruit began with the settlement of the town. "The first row of apple- .
I. The first farm wagon at the mountain was introduced by Aaron Harri- son in 1812, and the first one-horse wagon by his son, Ira Harrison. This latter was quite a popular improvement. It was sent for on funeral occa- sions, and was freely loaned to the people till a hearse was built by the Rose- dale Cemetery Co., and brought into use.
39
Their Saw-Mills.
trees " is noted in the Town Records, 1678, as bound- ing land. 1
As the lands were cleared the orchard was planted, and in a few years became a feature on every farm. In the time of blossoms the whole country was like a flower garden.
The young trees came from the seeds which germi- nated in the droppings of the cattle . that had fed upon the fruit in the pastures of the woods. The young plants were carefully collected and their growth cherished till they were fit for orchard planting. Cul- tivation greatly improved the fruit. It was the only method of improvement, and served the use of the people until the close of the last century, when graft- ing was introduced. Some of the best apples known originated in this region. The growth of the apple tree is slow, and it comes late into bearing. That the soil and climate were favorable in a peculiar degree to its speedy maturity, appears from the fact that in a description of Newark in 1700, we read : "The town of Newark alone in one year made ready a thousand barrels of good cyder out of the orchards of their own planting."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.