USA > New Jersey > Mercer County > Trenton > History of the city of Trenton, New Jersey : embracing a period of nearly two hundred years, commencing in 1676, the first settlement of the town, and extending up to the present time, with official records of the population, extent of the town at different periods, its manufactories, church history, and fire department > Part 6
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At the time of the separation, in 1828, one part of the society left this house, and for several years held their meetings in the building at the northeast corner of Greene and Academy streets, in the church formerly belonging to the Methodists, until 1858, when they built their place of worship in Mercer street, near Livingston. The meeting-house in Greene street stood a few feet back from the street, and they erected a brick wall about ten feet high in front of it.
It seldom happens but that disasters of some kind befall the settlers of a new country. Change of climate, modes of living, the air, the soil, and other causes, not unfrequently occasion sickness and great mortality among them. This was the case, to a very alarming degree, among the first settlers on James river, Virginia, and also among those who landed on Plymouth rock, in Massachusetts. And many of the inhabitants in the vicinity of the Falls were visited with sickness, and were removed by death, by a malignant fever, which prevailed among them in 1687, both in Pennsylvania and New Jersey .*
Phineas Pemberton says, "that on the 16th of 3d month, (that is, March 16th), 1687, there was 'a great land flood,' and on the 29th a rupture." This is supposed to refer to the forma- tion of the island at Morrisville, opposite the Trenton bridge, which was at this time separated from the mainland.
The flood here referred to is probably the same as that men-
* Friends' Miscellany, vol. vii., p. 31.
E*
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HISTORY OF TRENTON.
tioned by Mr. Smith, as occurring in 1692,* and there appears to be an error in one of the dates, for it is supposed that so great a rise in the waters as to overflow the banks on the Penn- sylvania side of the Delaware river, at the falls, must have swept away the settlement on the lowlands, at the mouth of the Assan- pink ; and yet, this is said not to have occurred till 1692. The lands on the Jersey shore might, however, have been much higher than on the Pennsylvania side, and probably they were, as they were tilled till many years afterward.
Kalm, a Swede, who traveled in this country in 1748, says, " that his landlord in Trenton told him that twenty years before (1726), when he settled there, there was hardly more than one house."
In August, 1814, Mrs. Jemima Howell (youngest daughter of Mr. John Burroughs), who was born in the year 1724, informed a citizen of this place that although she could not tell when the frame church (in Ewing) was built, yet she remembered that she had helped to scrub it, seventy years before. She said she also well remembered when there were but two or three small houses where the city of Trenton is built, and that it was woods from the neighborhood of the frame church to Mahlon Stacy's mill, on the Assanpink, the place now occupied by Mr. J. G. Burk as a paper mill ; that they had only a foot-path for many years after, and that the farmers carried their grain to market on pack horses.
Kalm says that in 1748 there were near a hundred houses in Trenton. The probability is, from the description he has given of the town, that he included the buildings on the north and south sides of the Assanpink. He also says that there were two small churches-one belonging to the Church of England, and the other belonging to the Presbyterians. As Nottingham and Hopewell were settled almost entirely by Friends, there is reason to suppose that they were among the first to erect places of pub- lic worship, which was probably the fact, as their house was built in 1739. Nearly all the first buildings in the original city were on or near the York road (now Greene street), which led from Mahlon Stacy's mills.
* Smith's History, p. 208.
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HISTORY OF TRENTON.
The Presbyterian and Episcopal churches of this city were both branches of their respective churches in the country. Most of the Episcopalians at first lived' above' the falls, in the vicinity of the church they built on the grounds of the Hutchinson family, As Mr. Thomas Hutchinson died before this ground was appropriated for a burial place, the family selected a spot ón the manor, where several of them, and others, were buried, which is the ground above mentioned.
This spot is about fifteen or twenty rods east of the road, and at the brow of the hill, nearly in front of the old manor-house, which was on the farm now belonging to the State of New Jersey, on which the lunatic asylum stands.
The Presbyterians obtained a lot of land for a place of burial and on which to build a church, from Mr. Alexander Lockhart, who lived on the plantation now owned by the children of the late Dr. Joseph Olden. The deed bears date March 9th, 1709. The land was granted, in trust, to Richard Scudder, John Burroughs, Ebenezer Prout, Daniel Howell, John Deane, John Davis, Jona- than Davis, Enoch Anderson, William Osborne, Jacob Reeder, Cornelius Anderson, John Lefferous, Simon Sackett, George Farley, Caleb Farley, William Reed, and Joseph Sackett.
Not long after this, probably in 1712, a house was built of logs, for a place of public worship, near the spot on which the brick church now stands, in the township of Ewing, of which Rev. E. F. Cooley was pastor until his death. At this time the Presbyterians in the city formed themselves into a congregation, separate from the church in Hopewell.
In a few years after, the log building was taken down, and a frame one erected, which was occupied until the year 1795, when the brick church was built, and occupied by them until they erected the present edifice.
We can find no record to show us with certainty the year in which the frame church was erected, but suppose it to have been about the year 1726, at the same time the church in the city was built.
The city church was built, as will be seen by an inscription on the western portico of the First Presbyterian Church in State street, as follows : "Presbyterian Church-formed 1712-built
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1726-rebuilt 1805." These dates, as has been urged by a late writer, could not refer to the church in the country, as, by the inscription on the tablet, the city church was formed the first year above mentioned, 1712. It was at that time that a separation took place between the city congregation and the old church in the country. But no edifice was erected for public worship until 1726, when the stone church was built, which was afterwards removed, and the brick one erected in 1805. This latter was taken down, and the present building was erected east of the old one, and in the immediate centre of the yard, in 1839.
In the church yard, on the left as you enter from the street, there is a brown stone, which bears the following inscription :
"Here lieth the body of Margaret Anderson, who died on the 25th day of July, Anno 1733,"-just seven years after the church was built.
A century and a quarter ago, it was seldom any stone bearing an inscription was erected over the remains of the dead. Where it was done, at that day, it was in consequence of worth in the individual.
And although this is the oldest record we have any knowledge of, in reference to persons being buried in this yard, yet there no doubt were others buried there years before, as scarcely a grave can be dug in the yard, without disinterring the bones of some one previously deposited there.
In April, 1727, Enoch Andrews (Andrus, and now Anderson), conveyed to John Potterfield, Daniel Howell, Richard Scudder, Alexander Lockhart, William Yard, William Hoff, John Leffer- ous, and Joseph Yard, a lot of land "on the north side of Second street (now State), that goes to the iron works." These iron works were on the property formerly owned by G. Perdi- caris, Esq., and through which State street has now been, extended to Hamilton township.
This lot conveyed by Enoch Andrews was one hundred and fifty feet in length, and one hundred and fifty feet deep .* The lot thus deeded was on the eastern end of the old grave-yard- that piece of ground where the old church stood-being one
* Book of Deeds A F, folio 108, in secretary's office.
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hundred feet front ; consequently, when the additional ground came into the possession of the trustees of the church, it should have made a front of two hundred and fifty feet, but, by a sur- vey made in 1840, the lot is two hundred and forty-seven feet nine inches, being a loss of two feet three inches, which, at the present time, in that part of State street, is of considerable value.
Although this church had been so long established, it was not till 1756 that George II. granted a patent, incorporating it as the Presbyterian Church of Trenton, appointing Rev. David Cowell, Charles Clark, Esq., Andrew Reed, Esq., Joseph Yard, Arthur Howell, William Green, and Alexander Chambers, trustees, under the name of "Trustees of the Presbyterian Church of Trenton."*
In August, 1714, Mahlon Stacy sold his plantation , of eight hundred acres, lying on both sides of the Assanpink creek, on the Delaware, to Colonel William Trent, of Philadelphia, who removed to Trenton shortly after, and built the mansion now in the occupancy of Edward H. Stokes. It subsequently belonged to Dr. Daniel Coxe, and was known as the Bloomsbury farm. The tenant-house was the building situate on the corner of Market and Union streets, near the water power.
In the year 1694, the general assembly fixed the boundaries of Burlington " on the south by the river Cropwell (formerly called Pensaukin), and on the north by the river Derwent (formerly called Sunpink). +
In March, 1714, they set off the county of Hunterdon from the county of Burlington, making the Sunpink, or Assunpink, the southern boundary of Hunterdon, and making the county to include all the northern part of West New Jersey. But the inhabitants of the county were restricted from choosing members of the general assembly until the year 1727, and continued to vote for representatives for Burlington, as before the county was divided. The county of Hunterdon took its name from Colonel Robert Hunter, who was provincial governor at the time the
* A more particular description of this church will be given under its appro- priate head.
¡ Leaming & Spicer, p. 350.
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county was set off. In 1727, Mr. John Potterfield and Joseph Stout were admitted to seats in the general assembly, as the first members from the county of Hunterdon.
Morris county was formed from Hunterdon, March 15th, 1738-9. It was named after Lewis Morris, Esq., then governor of the province. Sussex was formed from Morris, in June, 1753. Warren from Sussex, in 1824, and named after General Warren. In 1838 Mercer was formed from the southern part of Hunter- don, viz., Lawrence, Hopewell, Ewing, and Trenton, in Hun- terdon county; Nottingham, in Burlington county, and East and West Windsor and Princeton, in East Jersey. It was named after the brave General Mercer, who fell in the engagement at the battle of Princeton, on the 3d of January, 1777.
Mr. Joseph Stout, before mentioned, was from the northern part of Hopewell, the settlement of which was commenced in 1704, by three families from Middletown, in Monmouth county. " The place was then a wilderness, and full of Indians."
Joseph Stout was the son of Jonathan, the head of one of these three families, who, in 1705, purchased his plantation of William Biles, agent for William Croush and James Wass. He had resided on the land the previous year as a tenant.
In a small pamphlet published in 1790, a very interesting account is given of this family.
The parents of Jonathan Stout were Richard and Penelope Stout. "Mrs. Stout was born in Amsterdam, about the year 1602. Her father's name was Vanprinces. She and her first husband (whose name is not known) sailed for New York (then New Amsterdam) about the year 1620. The vessel was stranded at Sandy Hook. The crew got ashore, and went toward New York, but the husband of Penelope being hurt in the wreck, could not travel with them, and they both tarried in the woods.
" They had not been long left before the Indians came upon them and killed them as they thought, and stripped them of their garments. However, Penelope revived, although her skull was fractured and her left shoulder so injured that she was never able to use it like the other, besides she was so cut across the body that her bowels protruded, and she was obliged to keep her hand upon the wound.
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"In this situation she continued for seven days, taking shelter in a hollow tree, living on what she could pick off from the tree. On the seventh day she saw a deer pass with arrows sticking in it, and soon after appeared two Indians whom she was glad to see, hoping that they would put her out of her misery. Accord- ingly, one made towards her, to knock her in the head ; but the other (who was an elderly man), prevented him, and throwing his watchcoat about her, took her to his wigwam and cured her of her wounds. Afterwards he took her to New York and presented her to her countrymen, expecting a present in return, no doubt. It was in New York that Richard Stout married her, in her twenty-second year. He was from England, of a good family, and in his fortieth year. They had several children, and Mrs. Stout lived to the age of one hundred and ten years, and saw her offspring multiplied to five hundred and two in about eighty-eight years."*
Mr. Jonathan Stout belonged to the Baptist denomination, and was the founder of the Baptist Church in the northern part of the township of Hopewell. The church was organized the 23d of April, 1715, and the members met in private dwellings until the year 1747, when their house for public worship was built.
When the assembly made the county of Hunterdon in 1714, they enacted that the Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Ses- sions should be held alternately at Maidenhead (Lawrenceville) and Hopewell, " until a court-house and gaol for the county should be built."+
An act was passed April 6th, 1676, "that the county courts should be held at one time in one town, and at another time in another town,"¿ and accordingly they were held for the county of Hunterdon, in Maidenhead, in the months of June and December, and in Hopewell in March and September, from June, 1714, to September, 1719. The first courts in the county
* I give the narrative verbatim as published in 1790.
¡ Laws and Ordinances, vol. i., p. 100, in State Library at Trenton.
į Leaming & Spicer, p. 116.
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were held at Maidenhead on the second Tuesday of June, 1714, but at what house we are not informed.
Afterwards they were held at the houses of Theophilus Phillips, William Osborne, Mr. Hornor, and Daniel Bailey.
In Hopewell they were held first and subsequently at the house of Andrew Heath and the house of Robert Lanning, (the place afterwards owned by the heirs of Nathaniel Lanning).
In September, 1719, the courts were held in Trenton. " It having been represented to the governor that the holding the courts alternately in Maidenhead and Hopewell was attended with inconvenience, in March, 1719, he recommended that the courts should be held and kept in Trenton from the month of September next ensuing."*
The magistrates present at the first court in the county, held at Maidenhead, were John Bainbridge, Jacob Bellerjeau, Philip Phillips, William Green, John Holcomb, Samuel Green, and Samuel Fitch. The tombstone before mentioned in the burying ground at Lamberton no doubt refers to the John Bainbridge here mentioned, as it states " he was a gentleman of great merit, and having the confidence of the people, was called to fill many important offices in the colony." And he was no doubt the ancestor of the Bainbridges in this part of the country, and of the late gallant Commodore Bainbridge.
William Green and John Reading were the first assessors of Hunterdon, and Ralph Hunt, the first collector-these offices at that time being county instead of township offices, as they now are.
The first grand jurors were William Hixson, Daniel Howell, Robert Lanning, Henry Mershon, Richard Compton, George Woolsey, Joseph Reeder, Jr., Thomas Standling, Richard Scudder, Timothy Baker, John Burroughs, John Titus, Samuel Everett, John Ely, and Richard Lanning.
John Muirheid, high sheriff, complained to the court in 1714 and 1717, and in June, 1719, and in March, 1720, that there was no gaol (or jail) for the county.
* Laws and Ordinances, p. 223, State Library at Trenton.
HISTORY OF TRENTON.
6I
In 1728-9, John Dagworthy, Esq., high sheriff, complained to the court that the jail was so out of repair that escapes took place daily. " Ordered to be repaired."*
In 1714, the land became the property of Colonel Trent, and in 1719, if not before, the courts were held here part of the time under the act of April, 1676, "directing them to be held in the towns alternately."
In 1824 it was enacted "that the Supreme Court for the county of Hunterdon, be held in July, at Trent's-town."
The first courts held here were at the house of William Yard, now No. 24 East Front street.
About the year 1721, a log jail for the county was built at the forks of the roads leading from Trenton to Pennington, and from Pennington to the Eight-Mile-Ferry, nearly opposite the residence of the late Jesse Moore, Esq.
From the complaint of the sheriff it appears that neither the jail nor the character of the inhabitants was much credit to the county if the criminals were so numerous and the prison so weak that escapes occurred daily.
Although the sheriff complained to the court of the daily escapes from the jail, there does not appear on the record of the court many criminal cases presented by the grand jury.
They found a bill at one term of the courts against a man " for stealing a book called the New Testament," and at another court against a man " for stealing a horse bill." Besides these, but very few bills were found.
A few years afterwards some of the most interesting trials took place which ever came before this court, in which the Rev. John Rowland was tried for theft, and the celebrated Presbyterian clergyman, Rev. William Tennent, pastor of the Church at Freehold, and Joshua Anderson and Benjamin Stevens, promi- nent members of the Presbyterian Church at Trenton, were tried for perjury.
The following is an account of that most singular affair :
"About the year 1744, there was an unusual attention to
* Minutes of the Court, vol. ii.
F
.
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religion in this part of the country. The Rev. William Tennent and the Rev. John Rowland were considerably instrumental in calling the attention of the people to spiritual concerns.
" Mr. Rowland's popularity and success was very great among all ranks of people, and this drew upon him the enmity of those who disregarded religious truth, and among the number was the Chief Justice of the state.
" The Chief Justice at this time was the son of Lewis Morris, Esq., then governor of the state. He was a member of the council as well as being at the head of the judiciary. The appointment of young Morris to this office was highly reprobated by the people, who opposed the union of the legislative and judiciary, and more especially as this union was in the person of the son of the governor .*
" At this time there was a man traveling about the country by the name of Tom Bell, of notoriously bad character, who had been indicted in most of the middle colonies, yet by his ingenuity and cunning had contrived to escape punishment. It happened one evening, that Mr. John Stockton, of Princeton, met with Bell at a tavern in that place and addressed him as Mr. Rowland. Bell told him his mistake. Mr. Stockton informed him that his error had arisen from his remarkable resemblance to Mr. Rowland.
" This hint was sufficient for Bell. The next day he went into a neighboring town in Hunterdon, where Mr. Rowland had preached once or twice, and introduced himself as the Rev. Mr. Rowland who had before preached for them ; and he was invited to officiate for them the next Sabbath.
" Bell received the kindest attention of the family where he staid until the Sabbath, when he rode with the family in their wagon to the church.
" Just before they reached the church, Bell discovered that he had left his notes behind, and proposed to the master of the family, who rode by the wagon on a fine horse, to take his horse and ride back, that he might get his notes and return in time for
* Mulford's History, p. 345.
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the service. To this the gentleman assented, and Bell mounted the horse, rode back to the house, rifled the desk of his host, and made off with the horse ; and wherever he stopped he called himself the Rev. John Rowland.
" At this time the Rev. Messrs. Tennent and Rowland, with Mr. Joshua Anderson and Benjamin Stevens, were in Maryland or Pennsylvania, on business of a religious nature. Soon after their return to New Jersey, Mr. Rowland was charged with the robbery. At the court, the judge with great severity, charged the jury to find a bill. But it was not until they had been sent out the fourth time, with threats from the judge, that they agreed upon a bill for the alleged crime.
"On the trial, Messrs. Tennent, Anderson, and Stevens, appeared as witnesses, and fully proved an alibi; for they testified that on the day the robbery was committed they were with Mr. Rowland, and heard him preach in Pennsylvania or Maryland.
"So Mr. Rowland was acquitted, to the great disappointment and mortification of his prosecutors. Their enmity to religion, however, led them industriously, to seek occasion, if by any possible means, they might bring disgrace and ruin upon these servants of God.
" There were one or two circumstances which seemed to inspire the hope that their malicious feelings might yet be gratified. The testimony of the man who had been robbed was positive that Mr. Rowland was the robber ; and several persons who had seen the man who called himself Rowland, in possession of the stolen horse, corroborated his testimony.
" But Mr. Rowland was out of their power. He had been acquitted.
" Their vengeance, therefore, was directed against those persons by whose testimony Rowland had been cleared, and they were accordingly accused for perjury, and on ex parte testimony, the grand jury found bills of indictment against Messrs. Tennent, Anderson, and Stevens, 'for willful and cor- rupt perjury.'
" Now the enemies of the gospel and revivals of religion appear to have thought that their end would be easily accomplished
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and that disgrace would be brought on religion, its ministers, and professors, for Messrs. Anderson and Stevens were pious men. These indictments were removed to the Supreme Court. But Mr. Anderson living in the county, and feeling his entire innocence of the crime of which he was charged, and being unwilling to lie under the imputation of perjury, demanded a trial at the first Court of Oyer and Terminer.
" He was accordingly tried, pronounced guilty, and sentenced to stand on the court-house steps one hour with a paper on his breast, on which was written in large letters, 'this is for willful and corrupt perjury.' And the sentence was executed upon him in front of the court-house, which stood on the spot where the Trenton Bank now stands, in Warren street.
" Messrs. Tennent and Stevens were bound over to appear at the next court.
" They attended, having employed Mr. John Coxe, an eminent lawyer, to conduct their defence. Mr. Tennent knew of no person living by whom he could prove his innocence. His only resource and consolation was to commit himself to the Divine will ;* and considering it as probable that he might suffer, he had prepared a sermon to preach from the pillory, if that should be his fate. On his arrival at Tren- ton, he found Mr. Smith of New York, one of the ablest lawyers in America, and a religious man, who had volun- teered to aid in his defence; also Mr. John Kinsey, one of the first counselors of Philadelphia, who had come by request of Gilbert Tennent (his brother) for the same pur- pose.
" Messrs. Tennent and Stevens met these gentlemen at Mr. Coxe's the morning before the trial was to come on.
"Mr. Coxe wished them to bring in their witnesses, that they might examine them before going into court. Mr: Tennent replied that he did not know of any witness but God and his own conscience. Mr. Coxe replied, 'If you have no witnesses, sir, the trial must be put off; otherwise, you will most certainly
* His affectionate congregation felt deeply interested in his critical situation, and kept a day of fasting and prayer on the occasion .- Log College.
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be defeated. Your enemies are making great exertions to ruin you.'
" ' I am sensible of this,' said Mr. Tennent, 'yet it never shall be said that I have delayed the trial or been afraid to meet the justice of my country. I know my innocence, and that God whom I serve will not give me over into the hands of the enemy. Therefore, gentlemen, go on with the trial.' Messrs. Smith and Kinsey, who were religious men, told him that his confi- dence and trust in God as a Christian minister of the gospel were well founded, and before a heavenly tribunal would be all- important to him, but assured him that they would not avail in an earthly court, and urged his consent to put off the trial. But Mr. Tennent utterly refused.
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