USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Orange > History of the Oranges, in Essex County, N.J., from 1666 to 1806 > Part 6
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The penalty for counterfeiting the bills of credit was death. The gravity of the crime in the eye of the law did not prevent its violation. The paper on which the bills were printed was coarse, somewhat heavier than that in ordinary use, and the print- ing was done on a common printing press. The temptation was therefore such that counterfeiting was not uncommon, and in some instances was committed by those in high social position. Four convicts of this class in Morris county, and one of less considera- tion in Sussex county, were convicted at the same time and sen- tenced to be hung. The four from Morris county, by the efforts of influential friends, were reprieved on the morning of the day appointed for their execution. The poor convict, without friends, was executed. One of the four was a physician highly esteemed for his skill and having a large medical practice. His repute was such that he retained his former relations to his clients. On one occasion after his pardon he was in attendance upon a lady in child-bearing. After one of the throes incident to the occasion, she suddenly turned to him saying, " Doctor, how did you feel that morning when you thought you were going to be hung ?"
1. Elmer's History of Cumberland County, N. J., p. 123.
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History of the Oranges.
TRAFFIC.
In the earlier years of East Jersey, as is the case in all new settlements, traffic was chiefly by barter. Coin was scarce and the methods of living were conformed to the productions of the plantations and the resources of the planters. It was provided that taxes, quit-rents and the settlement of accounts might be paid in pro- duce at prices fixed by authority. The table below illustrates the varied productions of the time and their recognized prices for the first twenty-five years of the Newark township :
1668.
1678.
1692.
Winter wheat, per bush1.
5s.
4s. 6d.
4S.
Summer do.
.
4s. 6d.
4S.
Peas,
3s. 6d. .
Indian Corn, =
.
3s.
2s. 6d.
2s. 6d.
Rye,
4S.
3s. 6d.
Barley,
4s.
3s. 6d.
Beef, per 1b.
2d.
Pork, per 1b.
2łd. 33d.
3d.
Beef, per bbl.
1675. 50S.
40s. 60s.
30S. 50s.
Pork,
70s.
Tobacco,
4d
3d. 3d.
.
In 1675 tried tallow at 6d. per lb. ; green hides at 3d. per lb. ; dry hides at 6d. per lb. were made receiv- able in payment of taxes ; but after 1675, peas in- cluded, were not retained as "currency." In 1676 only wheat, peas and tobacco were received for public charges. In 1677, wheat, rye, Indian corn and to- bacco were the medium prescribed ; and in 1679 and 1692 butter at 6d. was added to the articles given in the table of that year. In 1692 the payment of taxes in silver was provided for, but left optional with the tax payers. 1
I. See Whitehead's East Jersey under the Proprietors, p. 248-9.
7 1
Traffic.
It was in the latter part of the twenty-five years we have noticed that so many letters were sent by the first adventurers to East Jersey to their friends in England and Scotland, commending America to their favorable regard. Many of them are preserved. Their testimony is uniform upon the question of emigration. Extracts from one will illustrate the general tenor of all. It was written from Elizabethtown, January, 1685. The writer says :
"The woods consist of several kinds of Oaks, Chesnut, Hickory, Walnut, Poplar and Beech ; Cedars grow in swamps and barrens, firrs and pines only on barrens. The ground generally 2 or 3 inches deep of black dung as it were ; below that is reddish mould. What you heard of the product of the Indian Corn, viz. 100 or 200 fold, of 20 or 30 fold English Wheat, of the abundance of deer and wild horses and several turkeys and of the great plenty of fishes, are all true. There is very much Cider here ; In 13 or 14 years you may make 100 barrells from your own planting; the best fleshes of all kinds ever I did see are here, tho' in this respect of what you have heard be generally tautologie; yet I found myself oblidged to write it because I am witness to the truth thereof, without Hyperbole."
CHAPTER V.
LEGISLATION AND THE LAWS.
T THE first General Assembly was convened May 26. 1668. It was composed of Philip Carteret, Gover- nor, and seven members of his Council ; also of Burges- ses, ten in number; two from each of the following places, viz., Bergen, Elizabethtown, Newark upon Pish- awack River, Woodbridge, Middletown. The Burges- ses for Middletown represented Shrewsbury also. The representatives from Newark were Robert Treat and Samuel Swaine. 1
The laws enacted? under the Proprietors were in force till the surrender of their government in 1702; and afterwards, to a considerable degree, changes in the code were made as the new order of government and the new circumstances, and changes of popular opinion rendered them necessary. The New England puritan spirit, so distinctly seen in the "Fundamental Agree- ment" of the Newark Associates, imparted to no incon- siderable degree its influence in the penal statutes of East Jersey. The offences noted as capital were arson ;
I. See Grants, Concessions, etc., p. 77.
2. For the terse digest here given of the early laws, see Whitehead's East Jersey under the Proprietors, pp. 239-40.
73
Legislation and the Laws.
murder, perjury to the prejudice of life ; stealing any of mankind; burglary and robbery, for the third of- fence as incorrigible ; theft if incorrigible ; smiting or cursing parents by children on complaint of parents only ; rape subject to discretion of court ; gross and un- natural licentiousness ; but life not to be taken save on proof of two or three witnesses. Infidelity in the mar- ried life was made punishable by divorce, corporal punishment or banishment, as the court may award ; but in 1682, the parties were made subject to a fine, and were bound to behave themselves for one year. Un- chastity was at first punishable by fine, marriage or corporal punishment ; in 1682, three months imprison- ment, or a fine of five pounds, was incurred, and in 1686, ten stripes at a public whipping post were sub- stituted in place of imprisonment, upon non-payment of the fine. Night-walkers or revellers after 9 o'clock at night, (the time was afterwards extended one hour,) were to be detained by the constable till morning, and, unless excused, to be bound over to appear at court.
Marriages were to be published three times in some public "meeting or kirk," or publicly advertised two weeks ; and to render them legal, the consent of parents, masters, or guardians to be obtained. Horses and cattle roamed at large, and were required to bear the brands of the town to which they belonged, as well as the private marks of their owners. These marks were varied in their devices, and were regularly recorded. The provisions respecting assaults by cattle upon man or beast, trespasses by cattle and injuries done by them, were almost identical with those of Scripture, (Ex- odus : xxi.) These were enacted in 1682, at which time the laws relating to the punishment of theft, se- duction, injustice to the widow or fatherless, and for damage sustained by fire from carelessness of others,
74
History of the Oranges.
were all made conformable to the Levitical law, (Ex- odus : xxii.)
The resistance of lawful authority by word or action, or the expression of disrespectful language, with refer- ence to those in office, were made punishable either by fine, corporal punishment, or, as from 1675 to 1682, by banishment. Circulators of false news concerning pub- lic affairs were fined ten shillings for the first offence, and for the second were "whipped or stocked," and in 1675, all liars were included, incurring for the second offence a fine of twenty shillings. If the fines were not paid the offenders were put in the stocks or pub- licly whipped.
"Concerning the beastly vice of Drunkeness," the first laws inflicted fines of 1s., 2s., and 2s. 6d. for the first three offences, with corporal punishment, and if the culprit should be unable to pay, or if unruly, he was to be put in the stocks until sober. After 1682, each offence incurred a fine of five shillings, and, if not paid, the stocks for six hours. Constables not doing their duty in this were fined ten shillings for each case of neglect.
In 1688, each town was obliged to keep an "ordi- nary" for the comfort and entertainment of strangers, under a penalty of forty shillings for each month's neglect. None but the keeper of the "ordinary" was permitted to retail liquors in less quantities than two gallons. In 1677 the quantity was reduced to one gal- lon. In 1683 ordinary keepers were debarred the re- covery of debts for liquors sold amounting to five shillings.
As to rights of persons, the laws were framed in a liberal spirit. In 1675 imprisonment for debt, save when fraud was intended, was prohibited. In 1698 the common law of England was assured to every one.
75
Schools and School-Houses.
In 1682 it was provided that no one should be impris- oned except by the judgment of his peers, or the laws of the Province. All courts were open to persons of any religious persuasion ; they were allowed to plead in their own way and manner, either in person, or by their friends or attorneys. Trial by jury was confirmed, with reasonable challenges allowed ; all persons were bailable except for capital offences. No court by ex- ecution or other writ could authorize the sale of any man's land without his consent, but the rents and profits might be stopped for the payment of just debts.
All prizes, stage plays, games, masques, revels, bull baitings and cock fightings which excite the people to rudeness, were to be discouraged and punished by courts of justice, according to the nature of the offence. Swearing or "taking God's name in vain" was pun- ishable by one shilling fine for each offence, as early as 1668, and this continued to be the fine until 1682, when a special act provided that the fine should be two shillings and sixpence, and if not paid, the offender to be placed in the stocks or whipped, according to his age, whether under or over twelve years. The observance of the Lord's day was re- quired ; servile work, unlawful recreations, unneces- sary traveling and any disorderly conduct on that day being punishable by confinement in the stocks or com- mon gaol, or by whipping.
SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL-HOUSES.
Ten years after the Associates came to Newark, Jan- uary, 1676, the town made a canvass to discover if they could "find a competent number of scholars and accommodations for a schoolmaster." It is to be in- ferred from this action that young children were few at the first, and that earlier steps to secure a teacher
76
History of the Oranges.
were not called for. In the succeeding month a bar- gain was made with the school-master for a year, "to do his faithful, honest and true endeavor to teach the children and servants" of those who had subscribed for his support, the reading and writing of English, and also arithmetic (if they desire it), as much as they are capable to learn, and he capable to teach them, * * * " nowise hindering, but that he may make what bargain he pleased with those who have not sub- scribed." The school, doubtless, now became an estab- lished institution, judging from the fact that at a town meeting in 1714, it was voted that the old floor in the meeting-house should be used for the making a floor in the school-house. 1
The only action taken by the General Assembly of the Province for the cause of education, was a law passed in 1693, providing that the inhabitants of any town in the Province may, by warrant from a justice of the peace of the county, meet together and choose three men of the town to make a rate for the salary and maintaining of a school-master as long a time as they think fit, the consent of a majority of the inhab- itants binding and obliging the remaining part of the inhabitants to satisfy and pay their shares and propor- tion of the rate. In case of refusal or non-payment, distress to be made on their goods and chattels. This act was modified in 1695, as it was found to be incon- venient, by reason of "distance of neighborhood." It was provided that three men be chosen yearly, and every year, in each town to appoint and agree with the school master, and also to nominate the most conven- ient place or places where schools should be kept from time to time. ?
I. See Newark Town Records, p. 124.
2. See Grants, Concessions, &c., p. 358.
77
Schools and School-Houses.
We find an item in the account book of Samuel Harrison, which seems to fix the time when a school- house was built at the Mountain : "1729, June 16. To sawing for scool house, 00. 05. 6."
It was a framed building, about 20×30 feet, with 8-feet posts, roofed with shingles and sided with boards, also ceiled with boards within. The chimney in the corner, built upon the timbers above, received the pipe from a cast-iron box stove. The house occupied the triangle of ground formed by the intersection of the Swinefield Road with the Valley Road, at the turn of the former toward the notch.1 The door was in the southern gable, the building standing north-east and south-west, (recollections of the old people.) The three other sides were provided with windows affording a free opportunity to the scholars to relieve the wear and tear of mental effort by watching all that was pass- ing on the highways from all directions. This struc- ture occupied its original site till near the middle of the present century, when it was a few feet to the south-west and within the east line of the Valley Road. Here it stood and was used as a public school-house until the new stone building was erected on the same street, and south of Llewellyn Park gate. The timber of the old house is still in use, being an essential part of a barn in the same vicinity.
Schools were established and buildings erected in the first half of the last century in other parts of the township; in South Orange over the mountain ; in the second valley at Wardsesson (Bloomfield), Second River, and at other places. The grammar school, sus- tained by the second pastor of the parish, will receive our notice hereafter.
I. At that early day, the Valley road was not opened.
78
History of the Oranges.
LAND TENURES.
The territory of North America became a part of the dominion of England by right of discovery in the reign of Henry VII. Succeeding kings had encouraged emigration to the new country by grants to planters under small quit-rents, payable to the Crown or its grantees. They also permitted and encouraged the planters to purchase the soil of the native Indians, not because of necessity or defect of valid title in the Crown, or its grantees, but to avoid war with the sav- ages, and to encourage a friendship and correspond- ence in the hope of converting them to the Christian faith.
March 12, 1663-4, Charles II. granted all the terri- tories called by the Dutch New Netherland, including part of the State of New York and all New Jersey, to his brother the Duke of York, afterwards James II. Three months thereafter, June 24, 1664, the duke re- leased to John Lord Berkely and Sir George Carteret so much of his grant as formed the provinces of East and West Jersey. These grantees who, with those who became associated with them, were termed the Lords Proprietors of Nova Cesarea, or New Jersey, published their "Concessions "1 to attract immigration to their domains. They offered lands on liberal terms, guar- anteed liberty of conscience in religious belief, and liberty of action in all religious concernments, provided it was not used to licentiousness, or to the civil injury of others. They offered a form of government secur- ing representation by the people in General Assembly, to which was committed the work of legislation and taxation ; the doctrine for which, a century later, they
I. See New Jersey Archives, I., 28.
79
Land Tenures.
so strenuously and successfully contended, that repre- sentation is not to be separated from taxation. 1
The associates of Newark found in these concessions of the Lords Proprietors the liberty they sought for when, in 1666, they migrated to East Jersey and founded their homes on the banks of the Passaic. ?
It was ordered that all lands should be divided by general lots, none less than two thousand one hundred acres, nor more than twenty-one thousand acres in each lot, except cities and towns. The same to be "divided into seven parts ; one-seventh to the proprietors, their heirs and assigns ; the remainder to persons as they come to plant the same, in such proportions as are allowed." 3
The Governor or his deputy gave to every person to whom land was due a warrant, signed and sealed and directed to the Surveyor General, commanding him to lay out, limit and bound the acres in their due propor- tion, the Register recording the same and attesting the record upon the warrant. The annual rent of lands thus granted was one half penny per acre, lawful money of England, or in merchantable pay. 4
In 1672 the Proprietors issued a "Declaration," con- firmed by King Charles II., of the "true intent and
I. See Grants, Concessions, etc., in Carteret's Time, p. 15.
2. Geo. Scot, of Pitlochie, in his " Model of the Government of East Jersey," says : " To be a planter nothing is required but to acknowledging of one Almighty God and, to have a share in the Government, a simple pro- fession of faith in Jesus Christ, without descending into any other of the differences among christians, only that religion may not be a cloak for dis- turbance. Whoever comes into the magistrature must declare they hold not themselves in conscience obliged for Religions sake, to make an altera- tion, or endeavor to turn out their partners in the government because they differ in opinion from them. And this is no more than to follow that great rule to do as they would be done by." (E. J. under the Proprietors, p. 399.)
3. See Grants, Concessions, etc., p. 23.
4. Ibid. p. 3.
So
History of the Oranges.
meaning" and "explanation" of their concessions to the planters, so restricting the rights of the latter as to bring the grantees of both East and West Jersey into collision with themselves. 1
Whether from this condition of affairs, or from dis- satisfaction with the pecuniary success of their adven- ture in colonization, does not appear, but the fact re- mains that the two Lords Proprietors agreed upon a partition of their domain. They executed mutual releases to each other, the line of division being sub- stantially the same as that marking what is now con- ventionally called East and West Jersey. Berkely sold his moiety to Fenwick and Byllinge for £1000.
Carteret, proprietary of East Jersey, died in 1679, having derived so little benefit from his venture that he bequeathed his propriety to trustees, to be sold for the benefit of his creditors.2 The trustees, conse- quently, sold East Jersey in 1682, to twelve persons. They were called the twelve Proprietors of East Jersey. These twelve conveyed a half part of their interest to other twelve in the same year. This conveyance was confirmed by a release from the Duke of York to all the grantees as the twenty-four Proprietors of the Province of East Jersey, with all the royalties and the rights of government. The release was dated March 14. 1682.
The assigns of Berkely and Carteret in the two provinces, after their ineffectnal efforts of twenty years to maintain good order under the grant of the Duke of York, surrendered all their powers of government to the Crown. It was accepted at the Court of St. James on the 17th of April, 1702. Immediately there- after Lord Cornbury was appointed Governor of the
I. See Grants, Concessions, etc., p. 32.
2. See Gordon's History of New Jersey, p. 40.
81
Land Tenures.
Province of New Jersey, and coming duly accredited to America, convened the first General Assembly under the Crown in August, 1703.
After the surrender of the government to the Crown, the Proprietors of East Jersey met from time to time to consider the rights of claimants to their unappro- priated lands, and to grant, or order, warrants and surveys to such as they judged had a right to the same. The return of such surveys, signed by the Sur- veyor General, and duly recorded, gave a title to hold lands in severalty. In doing this they followed, as they believed, the Constitution of New Jersey, so far as the change of the government from a proprietors' to a king's government would admit of without regard to any mode or practice of the Proprietors of West Jersey. 1
The dissensions between the planters and the land proprietors growing out of charges, on both sides, of breach of covenants, and the more bitter controversies over Indian titles, do not require a notice here. For nearly fifty years they were a disturbing element in the history of the Province; perhaps nowhere more so than just here in these Newark Mountains. The pro- gress of this history will require some references to them. The more they are studied the more perplex- ing become the questions of right. Certain it is that the best of men and those of the highest moral purpose were on each side.
The title to Newark lands given and accepted by the associates was as valid as was the grant from the English Crown to the Duke of York. The covenants
I. The Board of Proprietors of East Jersey still exists. All waste and unappropriated lands belong to the Proprietors, who hold a meeting an nually at Perth Amboy. The Board celebrated its Bi-Centennial Anniver- sary in that city November 25th, 1884.
6
82
History of the Oranges.
assumed by the grantees in its acceptance were equally valid.
With the third division of lands began their occu- pation by permanent settlers. A general desire pre- vailed to hold them. The facility with which they were brought into subjection made the holders am- bitious to increase their holdings as they had opportu- nity. In 1692 the Council of Proprietors was appealed to by the people of Newark, representing that they ought to have some recompense out of their "unap- propriated lands for the expense at which they had been in the purchase thereof from the Indians." This representation being thought reasonable, the Proprie- tors agreed "to allow to old settlers in Newark who had obtained patents, one hundred acres apiece more than they were entitled to by the concessions, and that they should have that hundred acres for six pence sterling yearly quit-rent, instead of four shillings and two pence per annum, which at one half penny per acre, they were liable to by the concessions." 1
Warrants were accordingly granted for upwards of six thousand acres, the most of which was at six pence per one hundred acres. There were three general warrants dated April 27, 1694 : two thousand and twenty acres to nine grantees ; one thousand nine hundred acres to fifteen grantees ; and on April 10, 1696, two thousand four hundred and nine acres to twenty-six grantees ; in all six thousand three hundred and twenty-nine acres to fifty-five grantees, in amounts varying from twenty-three to two hundred and eighty acres each. Their names at this day are familiar in their posterity to all the dwellers of the Newark Mountains, to wit : Day, Harrison, Crane, Bond, Pierson, Tichenor, Davis,
I. See Elizabethtown Bill in Chancery, (Representation of the Proprietors of Eastern Division of New Jersey,) p. 36.
83
Land Tenures.
Morris, Ward, Camp, Baldwin, Canfield, Freeman, Ball, Brown, Lindsley, Lyons, Wheeler, Kitchell, Dod, Richards, Bruen, Tompkins. The names of others : Ogden, Sargeant, Treat, Riggs, Lamson and Swaine, have disappeared from the annals of our day.
The eastern slope of the First Mountain and the lands at and near its base were the first to invite settlers. There is a tradition that a house was built by one Smith on the Mountain and on the farm of Deacon Amos Harrison, the homestead of which was Walnut Cottage on the Valley Road. The deacon's son, Abi- ather, who inherited the property, said to a neighbor1 about fifty years since : "I have to-day ploughed up the corner stones of the first house that was built on the mountain." There is no known record of its inhab- itant. These relics of a building were near the house of Anthony Oliff, who located sixty acres in 1678. His house was a few feet north of the stone bridge in Llewellyn Park, where Tulip Avenue intersects Oak Bend. The old cherry trees near his house, and mark- ing the spot, were standing in 1852, when the park was laid out. Tulip Avenue is laid on the path used by Oliff in his approach to the highway from the town at the river to the mountain. It was called Tony's Path, and was known to the old residents as such till it re- ceived its present name. Oliff died without issue March 16, 1723, aet. 87. His gravestone is the oldest in the old burial ground.
Matthew Williams came to Newark and was admit- ted a planter in 1680. A home lot assigned to him was a part of a second division on the hill near the town. He was a son of Matthew, of Weathersfield, Connecti- cut Colony, 1636. He was at Branford with those who
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