USA > New Jersey > Mercer County > Trenton > History of the Presbyterian Church in Trenton, N.J. : from the first settlement of the town > Part 12
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Six of the subscribers seem to have lived in the same neighborhood in February, 1772, as at that time a fire broke out in the house of Dunlap Adams, and spread to those of Merseilles, Cumings, Moore, Pinkerton and How.
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JOSEPH HIGBEE died in 1796, at the age of seventy-six. Another of the name died December 12, 1829, in his sixty- fifth year.
MERSEILLES is a French family which has had its repre- sentatives with us for a century. Peter Mersellis-as the name is on his grave-died June 25, 1764, æt. forty-three. He was a carpenter. His wife was Hannah, and he had a son Edin, Eden, Edon, Edow or Edo, according to the whim of the scrivener or copyist10-perhaps, after all, a French termination attempted in English, like Eudang and Udang for Houdin, the rector of St. Michael's.11 Edin or Edo Merseilles' will was proved in April, 1800; he was then residing in Prekness, Bergen county, and his wife's name is given as Aurenche and Arreanche. He left sons Peter, Edo, Cornelius, John and Garret. His sisters were Rachel, Mary and Elizabeth. His daughters, Anna, Caty, Arre- anche and Jenny, a grandson, Adrian Van Houten. An Eden Merseilles, merchant, died at Bridgeton, January 13, 1808, in his forty-ninth year. "He had been in business longer than any other person in town." Henry Marselis was a brewer in Trenton until his death, in 1753. His will mentions a sister Catherine, and brothers Peter and John. There was a John Merselous, of Hopewell, whose will, in 1784, requires that fifteen geese should be kept on the farm to supply feathers for the beds which he bequeathed to his daughters. He had a son, John Holder.
ISAAC SMITH was at first a physician, and perhaps never wholly relinquished the profession; but at a time when the constitution of the highest judiciary department of the State allowed of lay-judges, Mr. Smith was placed on the Su- preme Court bench (February 15, 1777). Hence, when he was elected a trustee of the congregation, March 12, 1788, his name is entered as "Doctor Isaac Smith, Esquire." His titles might have been extended, for he was Colonel-Com- mandant of the militia in the neighborhood of Trenton in
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the campaign of 1776. He was the first President of the Trenton Banking Company, having been elected to that post on the institution of the bank, February 13, 1805, and continued in it until his death. He served eighteen years on the bench, "during which time," according to his obituary, "he was also elected by the suffrages of the people of New Jersey, at a general State election, to the honorable station of a member of the House of Representatives of the United States, where his high character for political wisdom and tried integrity was known and duly appreciated by all his co- patriots, and particularly by the illustrious Washington and Adams, with whom he enjoyed the intimacy of particular friendship." His epitaph is:
"ISAAC SMITH, Esq., died August 29th, 1807, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. With integrity and honest intentions, as a physician and a judge, to the best of his ability, he distributed health and justice to his fellow-men, and died in hopes of mercy through a Redeemer."12
Of his wife, who died in 1801, the comprehensive char- acter is graven on an adjoining stone :
"She was what a woman OUGHT to be."
It appears by other inscriptions that three sons preceded their parents to the grave: Edward, lost at sea, in 1791, at the age of twenty-five; John Pennington, in 1797; and Charles, Lieutenant of the first United States Regiment, in 1800, aged thirty-two. One of the bequests of Dr. Smith's will was as follows: "To the Trustees of the Presbyterian Church in the city of Trenton, one hundred dollars, with the interest that may arise thereon, to be applied towards building a new church; and provided, also, that they keep the tombstones of myself and family in good repair. I have no descendants to perform this duty." His executors were Lydia Imlay, of Trenton, . Richard Stockton, of Princeton, and Edward Pennington, of Philadelphia.
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SAMUEL BELLERJEAU13 was a nephew of Samuel Tucker. His wife was Achsah; daughters, Hannah Gee and Sarah Brearley ; sons, Henry, Benjamin, John, Samuel, Thomas, and Daniel. He died July 8, 1795, at the age of fifty-six, and his gravestone is one of those that pave the portico of the present church.
GODFREY WIMER. I find no more than that a person of this name died in Nottingham township, June 5, 1801.14
BELL. The only traces of this family are in the church- yard: James Bell15 (probably the signer of Mr. Cowell's call), September 10, 1747; age, seventy. John Bell, No- vember 10, 1788; age, forty-six.
VON or VAN VEGHTEN and VEGHTE occur frequently in the Dutch churches of Somerset county, as commemorated in the "Pastor's Memorial" of the Rev. Dr. Messler, of Somerville (1853).
WOOLSEY has long been a highly respectable family in the township and town. Benjamin was elected elder in 1797, but declined. Dr. Jeremiah Woolsey, "formerly of Trenton," died in Cincinnati, February 9, 1834, in his sixty-fifth year.
MATHIS, sometimes Mathias, and probably also Mathews. The house of Captain James Mathis, deceased, at Lam- berton, was advertised for sale in 1796.
WILLIAM PIDGEON, already named in the notice of Mr. Cottnam, died at Stafford, Monmouth county, January 5, 1780. Elizabeth Cottnam appears in his will, among his relatives. He left fifty pounds to the Methodist Society of Trenton, "for the repair of their meeting-house." He also put three thousand pounds at the discretionary disposal of his executors, for charitable purposes, and "for the relief of my negroes as they may merit it." To the registration of his will is appended this paragraph: "Note, that the within- named William Pidgeon was so burnt by getting out of his house when on fire, that he could not hold a pen to write
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his name, but a mark as above, and escaped in his shirt." From the testimony before the Surrogate, and from the newspapers, it appears that two children of Captain Isaac Andrews, two men-servants, and a hired man, were burnt to death at this time, and that the fire was the cause of the fatal illness of Pidgeon himself.
GEORGE CREED was a physician. He removed to New Jersey from Jamaica, Long Island, of which town William Creed was one of the patentees in 1686. Dr. Creed was born in Jamaica, October 1, 1735, and resided for some time in Flemington, before coming to Trenton. He married Susanna Coleman, of Maidenhead, in 1762, who died in Trenton, September 24, 1835, in her ninety-fourth year. Dr. Creed died suddenly, of apoplexy, on a visit to Jamaica, about the year 1775. His daughter, Mrs. Rebecca Creed Ryall, still survives (1859), in the ninety-first year of her age, having been a communicant of our church for about sixty-three years.16
ROBERT LETTIS HOOPER.17 The first person of this name was Chief Justice of the Province from 1724 to 1728, and again from 1729 till his death in 1739. In an advertisement of February 18, 1752, occurs the name of "Robert Lettis Hooper, now living at Trenton;" and that of his son, Reynald, is in the lottery prospectus of 1753, copied in our Sixth Chapter. Robert L. Hooper, Jr., had a store in Philadelphia, in December, 1762; was Deputy Quarter- master-General in 1778, and was a Judge of the Common Pleas of Hunterdon in 1784. Robert Lettis Hooper died April 25, 1785, in his seventy-seventh year, and was buried in the Episcopal ground in Trenton. In August, of the same year, the death of a stranger (Ebenezer Erskine) is announced "at the seat of Robert Lettis Hooper, near Trenton," and Mr. Hooper was one of his acting executors. A paper of November 7, 1785, says: "Since our last the Hon. Robert Lettis Hooper, Esq., has been elected Vice-
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President of the Legislative council, in the room of John Cleves Symmes, appointed to Congress." In 1796, "Died at Belville, near Trenton, Mrs. Elizabeth, wife of Robert L. Hooper, Esq." July 30, 1797, died "the Hon. Robert Lettice [so spelled sometimes] Hooper, formerly Vice- President of this State, in his sixty-seventh year." Soon afterwards is advertised for sale "that elegant seat called Belville, late the residence of R. L. Hooper," on the Dela- ware, and containing one hundred acres. Belville was the Sinclair and Rutherford country-seat already mentioned. It is advertised in September, 1806, by John Rutherford, as "the summer residence of the subscriber in the city of Trenton," having three hundred and thirty acres on both sides of the river, and one of the lots between the new street and Colhoun's lane, including "Prospect Hill." This exhausts my memoranda of this name in the list of the contributors to Mr. Spencer's salary.
ROBERT SINGER18 was at one time connected in mer- chandise with Bernard Hanlon, and at another in the auction business with Francis Witt. Witt kept a public house; at one time "the Blazing Star," at another, "an ordinary at the sign of Dr. Franklin, near the market." The Trustees sometimes held their meetings at his inn.19
JOHN CLUNN lived in Lamberton. In August, 1781, the Gazette mentions the death of the widow of John Clunn, aged eighty-three, "and in the evening of the same day, the weather being very warm, her remains were interred in the (Episcopal) church burying-place."20
JOSEPH CLUNN21 appears in the Revolution as "Captain in the State Regiment." In 1785 "Captain Clunn" kept an inn which bore the sign of Alexander the Great. In the Episcopal ground are the graves of Joseph Clunn, Sen., who died in 1798, aged fifty-nine; and of John H. Clunn, 1798, aged twenty-eight. In the Presbyterian ground is the grave of Amey Clunn, December 12, 1834; aged seventy-six.
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JOHN FITCH is one of the historical names of America, in connection with the invention or introduction of naviga- tion by steam. He was a native of Connecticut, where his father was "a most strenuous Presbyterian." In May, 1769, he came to Trenton, and Matthew Clunn, a tinman, employed him in the manufacture of brass buttons. He also picked up some knowledge of the watchmaker's trade. Clunn's next door neighbor was James Wilson, a silver- smith, who employed Fitch as a sort of apprentice; but in a short course of time Wilson failed, and became Fitch's journeyman. One of his biographers says :
"His skill and perseverance soon enabled him to master the diffi- culties of his calling, and money began to flow into his pockets. When the war of the American Revolution commenced, he was well estab- lished, doing an extensive business. The faculty of acquiring property appears to have been in him as strong as his disposition to spend it when acquired. His shop and its contents were estimated at three thousand dollars when the British army entered the village of Tren- ton. The troops were attracted to it, because he had large contracts for the repair of American arms. They proceeded to burn the estab- lishment, and destroy the tools and all his visible property."
When the first military company was formed at Trenton, in support of the Revolution, Fitch was one of the lieuten- ants, and had that rank in the cantonment at Valley Forge. The Committee of Safety afterwards made him their gun- smith, or armorer, and he was expelled from the "Method- ist Society" for working at that business on the Sabbath. He had a quarrel with Alexander Chambers, in the Com- missary department, and with John Yard, about military rank. When the enemy entered Trenton, in December, 1776, Fitch removed to Bucks county. He attended the Presbyterian church of Neshaminy, of which the Rev. Nathaniel Irwin was for many years the minister, and who appears to have taken much notice of his ingenuity. It was on his return afoot from that church, lame with rheu- matism, that the passing of vehicles caused him to feel the
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contrast with his own difficult locomotion, and suggested the idea of "gaining a force by steam," that would relieve pedestrians of their disadvantage. 22 After making the first draft of a steam-power, Mr. Irwin showed him, in "Martin's Philosophy," that the steam engine had been already invented, and that the desideratum was to apply it to navigation. It was to the Neshaminy pastor that Fitch addressed his autobiography, which was deposited under seal in the Philadelphia library, with injunctions that it was not to be opened until thirty years after the inventor's death. Stacy Potts was one of the company formed to asssist Fitch in his experiments, and he, with Isaac Smith, Robert Pearson, Jr., Samuel Tucker, Abraham Hunt, and Rensselaer Williams,23 John and Charles Clunn, and others of Trenton, gave their names to the application to the Legislature of 1790, which obtained for him fourteen years' exclusive privilege on this side of the Delaware. His boat Perseverance made several trips between Philadelphia and Trenton in that year.24
Fitch visited the Western States, and was for some time in captivity among the Indians. In Collins's Trenton Gazette, of July, 1785, is the following advertisement :
"John Fitch having traversed the country northwest of the Ohio, in the several capacities of a captive, a surveyor, and a traveller, as the result of his labors and remarks has completed, and now wishes to sell, a new, accurate Map of that country, generally distinguished by the Ten New States, including Kentucky, which opens immense sources of wealth and advantageous speculation to the citizens of the United States, and therefore is an object of general attention. Having per- formed the engraving and printing himself, he is enabled to sell at the very small price of a French crown.
"N. B .- They are also to be sold by Enos Kelsey, in Princeton, and by the printer hereof."
It is said that this map, projected and engraved by him- self, was printed also by him in a Bucks county cider-press. In May, 1785, he wrote to his patron, Potts, from Bucks,
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that his map is so far formed that he "shall want paper for it thirty inches by twenty-three, and would wish to see you on the occasion, but am so engaged that I can not spare the time to go over to Trenton."
In November, 1785, Fitch gave to the Governor of Vir- ginia (Patrick Henry) a bond for three hundred and fifty pounds, "conditioned for exhibiting his steamboat" on the waters of that State, "when he receives subscriptions for one thousand of his maps, at 6s. 8d. each."
From the Methodists and Presbyterians, Fitch went over to the Universalists. One of his biographers says he was "a drinking man" in his later years, "but it is believed he was not a drunkard." Another says he was "a man of ex- tremely temperate habits for that time." The latter writer attributes his death to "gradual suicide" by the use of spirituous liquors, and says that he "foretold the length of time that his constitution would survive, by a mathematical ratio of debility."* But the version of the other, and latest author, is that being ill, he purposely made one dose of twelve opium pills, which had been directed to be taken at intervals .; He died at Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1798. "Will a delay of half a century," asks his biographer of 1847, "in rendering public justice to the watch-maker and gunsmith of Trenton, weaken the obligations of his country- men to admire his genius ?"
JAMES WILSON was probably the silversmith mentioned in the preceding article. His father had prospered in Perth Amboy; and Wilson, having some patrimony, neglected his trade and became intemperate. It was upon his becoming involved in some responsibility in Wilson's business, that Fitch undertook to pay the debt, by taking his tools, when the master and journeyman exchanged places.
* Memoir by Charles Whittlesey, in Sparks's Library of American Biography, vol. xvi. 1847.
Life, drawn from his Autobiography in the Philadelphia Library, by Thomp- son Westcott, 1857.
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WILLIAM SMITH was the name of the landlord of whom Fitch hired a room in Trenton where he carried on the manufacture of silver and brass buttons for peddling. The only place in which I find the name is in an inscription in the grave-yard, the age of the subject of which is rather too young for a subscriber in 1770.
"In affectionate remembrance, from a bereft consort and fatherless offspring of William Smith, who died April 11th, 1799, aged forty years."
JOSEPH BRITTAIN was a shoemaker, and a man of prop- erty. He was the principal owner of the lot on which the State House is built. In January, 1792, he conveyed two and a quarter acres to the Commissioners of the State for the nominal price of five shillings, and in February, of the same year, three-quarters of an acre for sixty-seven pounds and ten shillings.25 Mr. Brittain was a member of this church from 1809 to 1813, when his connection ceased in consequence of his having embraced doctrines too much at variance with those of our communion for his comfortable continuance.
SAMUEL HENRY26 was a large owner of real estate in Trenton and elsewhere. He devised to his children exten- sive tracts in Nottingham and Trenton, including "the old iron-works," and in Pennsylvania. His children (men- tioned individually as son or daughter of "Mary Ogilbee") were George, Samuel, Frances, and Mary. He left a prop- erty in Trenton to Mary Yard, daughter of William Yard, on condition of her keeping it as a comfortable home for his children during their minority; making special refer- ence to the vacations of his sons when they should be stu- dents at Princeton College. Their names, however, are not on the Catalogue. Mr. Henry had a brother Alexander in Ireland, whose son Arthur H. is prominent as the first legatee in his will, but is disposed of with five shillings. He
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left a contingent legacy of three hundred pounds "to the Trustees or managers of the English Church in Trenton, for the maintenance and support of an orthodox minister." In the yard of that church are the tombstones of Samuel Henry, January 9, 1795, twenty-four years; Samuel Henry, May 10, 1784, sixty-seven years; George Henry, October 23, 1846, seventy-six years. The wives of George Henry and Aaron D. Woodruff, Attorney-General, were sisters- Mary and Grace, daughters of Thomas Lowrey.27 There is a fourth stone in the group, marked Mrs. Mary Henry, January 23, 1804; twenty-nine years. There died in Bloomsbury, January 5, 1832, "Katy Willis, a native of Africa, aged one hundred and twelve years. She was for- merly a domestic in the family of Samuel Henry, Sen., of Trenton."
HUGH RUNYON, or Runyan, built one of the few good houses now standing in Lamberton, lately of the estate of John E. Smith, probably included in fifty acres in Notting- ham township, which Runyon conveyed to Elijah Bond in 1777. He removed to Kingwood, and died there. I have seen a deed of 1799, in which he conveyed land to his son, Daniel C. Runyon, of Nottingham.
STEPHEN LOWREY married Sarah, daughter of the Rev. Mr. Spencer. He had been a merchant in Maryland, but after his marriage in Trenton resided there, and for some time, at least, at the parsonage; as there are advertisements of "Stephen Lowrey, at the Rev. Mr. Spencer's," offering "the highest price for loan office bills on the Commissioners in France." He appears also to have been connected with the Commissariat Department in the Revolution; as in November, 1779, he offered a reward of a thousand dol- lars (Continental currency) for nine barrels of flour stolen from "the Continental store-house at Trenton." Mrs. Lowrey's grave is next to that of her father. Elsewhere in
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the church-yard is a stone marked Thomas Lowery, Jr., March 1I, 1803; age, thirty-one.
Of this sort was the congregation to which Mr. Spencer came to minister. At a time when neither the Episcopalians nor Presbyterians were strong enough to maintain pastors for the exclusive service of their town churches, a number were accustomed to hold pews in both, that they might have the opportunity of worship in one or the other place every Lord's day. There seems to have been no difficulty even in holding offices alternately in both. Of the subscribers to the agreement when Mr. Spencer was called, the names of Pidgeon, Bond, Coxe, Hooper, Cottnam, How, Decow, Singer, Witt, Clunn and Adams are to be found among the Wardens and Vestrymen of St. Michael's between 1755 and 1783. From July 7, 1776, to January 4, 1783, that church was not opened at all for divine services.28
CHAPTER XIII.
DR. SPENCER'S MINISTRY-REVOLUTIONARY INCIDENTS IN TRENTON.
1773-1780.
In the year 1773 there appears to have been a rearrange- ment of the pew-holding, probably in consequence of some addition to the number of pews. A meeting of the congre- gation took place on the seventeenth of May, "for regulat- ing and granting seats and pews in the meeting-house." Certain pews-from one to twenty-four-are directed to be "numbered," and they are "rated," from £I Ios. in the gallery, to £3 Ios. below. It was ordered that
"Every person, or persons, entitled to a pew by original purchase or grant, be continued in their right, on his or their paying their annual subscription or rate, in proportion to the size of the pew such person may possess; not under forty shillings, nor exceeding three pounds ten shillings." "William Patterson made application for one-half of any pew below stairs." "James Peak applied for one-half of Mr. Pidgeon's pew in the gallery ; in case Mr. Pidgeon should give it up, he would give fifteen shillings per annum for the half."
There is no record to show when, if at all, Mr. Spencer was installed in Trenton. At his reception by the Presby- tery, in 1771, it was without the mention of any particular charge. One cause that prevented this may have been the confusion and uncertainty arising out of the state of public affairs in colonies approaching a revolution. His patriotic spirit may have forethought that he should be called, if not like his co-Presbyter, Witherspoon, to the public councils, yet to a return to his chaplaincy in the army. In 1775 such
(159)
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an opportunity of serving both his country and Church was presented, and it originated in the impressions made during his missionary visit to North Carolina.1 In Decem- ber of that year a special meeting of the Presbytery was summoned at Princeton, to hear an application from him. He then stated that in consequence of a resolution of Con- gress, he had been invited by the delegates of North Caro- lina to take a journey thither, "and preach and converse for some time among those people, as their case is extremely critical." Dr. Witherspoon was Moderator of the meeting ; and the minute is that "the Presbytery most cheer fully acquiesce with the motion, and appoint Mr. Spencer to comply with the request; and appoint supplies for his sev- eral congregations during his absence; and ordered that the Moderator furnish Mr. Spencer with proper testimoni- als to the churches of Christ in North Carolina."
In the Journal of the Continental Congress, of December 20, 1775, is this minute :
"Resolved, That orders be drawn on the Treasurers, in favor of the Rev. Mr. Elihu Spencer and the Rev. Mr. Alexander Macwhorter, who have undertaken to go to North Carolina, for the sum of one hundred and twenty dollars each, being three months' advance, they to be accountable."
The late Mrs. Biddle, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a daugh- ter of Dr. Spencer, who survived him until 1858, gave to me in 1841 the following memorandum of this mission :
"In the beginning of the Revolutionary contest my father and Dr. Macwhorter, of Newark, were appointed by Congress to visit the more remote parts of Virginia, Georgia, North and South Carolina, for the purpose of informing the settlers there, who were at the time exceedingly ignorant, of the cause of the Revolution and the necessity of standing forth in defense of their right and country. This circum- stance made my father very obnoxious to the British, who suffered his library with all the writings of his whole life to be burnt and entirely destroyed."
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A daughter of Mrs. Biddle has since written to me that she has frequently heard her mother relate the incidents of that period, and their serious consequences to the zealous advocate of Independence, after his return to Trenton, which was soon in the centre of warfare. His interference was considered rebellion, and the authorities of the royal government offered a reward of a hundred guineas for his head.
"This was known," says my correspondent, "to the American officers, and one of them (I think General Mercer) sent a messenger to him in the night to say that the British army were near, and that he must fly for his life. My mother was about nine years old, and recollects perfectly the panic and flight in the middle of the night. They went to St. George's, in Delaware, where they were treated with the utmost kindness and affection. My grandfather preached there until it was safe to return to Trenton. On the return of the family they found their furniture, books, and papers destroyed, and the house itself so much injured that it was scarcely habitable. My mother has often told me that her father was so discouraged by the loss of his papers, that from that time he never wrote another sermon; preaching merely from short notes."2
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