USA > New Jersey > Cumberland County > History of the early settlement and progress of Cumberland County, New Jersey and of the currency of this and the adjoining colonies. > Part 2
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Those familiar with the history of the English colonies in North America, will remember that it was the persistence of the British government in taxing the people, without allowing them to be represented in Parliament, that brought on the Revolution, and hastened their Independence. In 1773, all those taxes were re- pealed but the duty on tea, which our forefathers not only resolved not to use, but which they would not suffer to be landed and offered for sale. The East India Company, which then had the monopoly of this commodity, was encouraged to send it to this country, and was allowed a drawback of all the duties paid in England, it being supposed that the cheapness of the article would tempt our people to purchase largely. Cargoes were sent to all the large seaports ; but at some places the tea was not permitted to be landed, and at others it was stored, but not allowed to be sold. In December, a party disguised as Indians boarded one of the ships in Boston har- bor, and threw the tea into the water.
A brig called the Greyhound, bound to Philadelphia, with a cargo of tea, the captain of which was afraid to proceed to his place of destination, in the summer of 1774 came into the Cohansey, landed his tea, and had it stored in the cellar of a house standing in front of the then open market-square. This house is not now standing, and the market-square has been inclosed as private pro-
* When not otherwise stated, the time referred to as "now" is the year 1865.
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perty. Imitating the example of the Bostonians, a company of near forty men was organized, with the concurrence of the commit- tee of safety of the county, of which Jonathan Elmer, the royal sheriff, was an active member, who disguised themselves as Indians, and on the night of November 22, 1774, broke into the store-house, took out the boxes of tea, and burned them in a neighboring field. The writer remembers to have known in his boyhood one of the party, a man named Stacks, who, it was said, tied strings round his pantaloons at his ankles, and stuffed them with tea, which he car- ried home to his family, and thus got the name of Tea-Stacks.
The owners of the tea commenced actions of trespass against such of the disguised Indians as they thought they could identify, in the Supreme Court of the State, Joseph Reed of Philadelphia, and Mr. Petit of Burlington, being their lawyers. Money for the defence was raised by subscription, and Joseph Bloomfield, then residing at Bridgeton, George Read of New Castle, Elias Boudinot of Elizabethtown, and Jonathan D. Serjeant of Philadelphia, all eminent counsellors, were employed on behalf of the defendants. No trial, however, ever took place. The plaintiff's were ruled to enter security for the costs, which being neglected, a judgment of non pros was entered at May Term, 1776, but at the succeeding term security was filed, and the non pros set aside. The new constitution of the State, adopted in July, having displaced the Royal Judges, and their places being filled in the succeeding win- ter with Whigs, the actions were dropped, and no further proceed- ings took place on either side.
Ebenezer Elmer, who was one of the Indians, enters in a journal he kept during the year 1775, under the date "Die Jovis 25 mo" (Thursday, May 25, 1775), "Came up to Bridge (from his nephew Daniel Elmer's, who lived at Cedarville) just before court, being Supreme Court. Judge Smith gave very large charge to the grand jury concerning the times, and the burning of the tea the fall before, but the jury came in without doing anything, and the court broke up." Under the date of September 7, he enters, "Expected as Sheriff Bowen had got a jury of Tories, we should be indicted for burning the tea and taking Wheaton, but they could not make it out." Wheaton had been arrested by order of the committee of safety, as a dangerous Tory, but, nothing appearing against him, had been discharged. The grand jury, to whom he complained, did make a presentment against the journalist and others, for an
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assault and battery, and false imprisonment, which is now on file, but the court did not think proper to order a formal indictment to be presented, and nothing was done.
The Judge Smyth mentioned in the journal was Chief Justice Frederick Smyth, the last of the Royal judges who presided in the Oyer and Terminer of this county. His charge fell on very dull ears, the Whig sheriff, who knew all about the tea burning, having taken care to summon a Whig jury, the foreman of which was his nephew, Daniel Elmer. Before the ensuing September term this Whig sheriff, who held his office at the pleasure of Governor Franklin, who was not superseded until arrested by order of the Provincial Congress of New Jersey in the following June, was displaced, and David Bowen, who was supposed to be more loyal, was appointed in his place. He held the office of sheriff a little more than a year, being superseded in the fall of 1776 by Joel Fithian, who was elected pursuant to the new constitution.
The place now called Roadstown, surrounded by a fertile region, was settled at an early date, and until Cohansey Bridge was established as the county town, was the place next in importance to New England town, and Greenwich. It is called Kingstown in an old mortgage on record, but if it was ever generally known by that name, which is doubtful, that designation was wiped out by the Declaration of Independence. Prior to, and for some time after the Revolution, it was called Sayre's Cross Roads, Ananias Sayre, originally from Fairfield, who was a prominent citizen, and at one time sheriff, having settled there, and built the house at the northwest corner of the cross roads.
The first proprietors of the land within the bounds of what is now Cumberland, were principally, but not exclusively, Friends. But few of the actual settlers were Friends, that people being principally confined to Greenwich, and at a later day a few on Maurice River. Richard Hancock, who was Fenwick's first Sur- veyor General, after his falling out with him came to the place now called Bridgeton, and before 1686 erected a saw-mill on the stream then and since called Mill Creek, at the place where Pine Street now crosses the dam, then first made to form the pond. The low ground adjoining this creek was then covered with cedar trees, and pine and other large trees covered the hills. What title Hancock had to the land does not appear. It was included within the 11,000 acre survey, about this time located for the West Jersey
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Society, formed by several large proprietors living partly in Lon- don and partly in the province. Probably he held under them. It does not appear that he ever lived here, his residence being at the place in Salem County named after him, Hancock's Bridge, where there still remain some of his descendants. Thomas says, " a goodly store of lumber went out of the Cohansey to Philadel- phia."
It was an early regulation that surveys should not extend on both sides of navigable streams. Surveyors, of whom John Wor- lidge was one, are said to have come from Burlington in a boat. The rights west of the Cohansey seem all to have been purchased of Fenwick or his executors. Most of the land was covered by surveys before 1700. James Wasse, Joshua Barkstead, R. Hutch- inson, George Hazlewood, John Budd, Cornelius Mason, and Ed- mund Gibbon made large surveys, which extended nearly from the Cohansey to the Salem line.
Edmund Gibbon, an English merchant residing in New York, in the year 1677, to secure a debt due to him by Edward Duke and Thomas Duke, took from them a conveyance of 6000 acres of land in West Jersey which had been conveyed to them by Fenwick in England. Gibbon, by virtue of this deed, had a tract of 5500 acres surveyed for him by Richard Hancock in 1682. It was re- surveyed by Benj. Acton in 1703, and included within its bounds Roadstown, the east line running between the present Baptist meeting-house and the cross-roads, and extending southward to Pine Mount Branch, and westward to the Delaware. He devised this tract to his grandson Edmund, who devised it to Francis Gibbon of Bennensdere, England. In 1700 Francis devised it to his two kinsmen, Leonard and Nicholas Gibbon, of Gravesend in Kent, described as "all that part of lands called Mount Gibbon, upon the branches of unknown creek, near Cohansey in West New Jersey," provided they go and settle upon it. They both came over and erected the mill formerly owned by Richard Seeley, who was a descendant of Nicholas, and now by his daughter, the pro- perty having continued in the family to this time. This was pro- bably the first mill erected for grinding grain, unless the tide mill, which was situate on the stream a little east of Greenwich Street, and has been many years gone, preceded it. A fulling mill was erected at an early day on Pine Mount (as Mount Gibbon is now called) Run. The mills of John S. Wood and of Benjamin Shep-
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pard are also of old date. Wood's Mill was for a long time owned by John Brick, the tradition being that he also owned large tracts in Lower Pittsgrove, and that through his influence the line between Cumberland and Salem was so run as to leave them in the latter county. Leonard and Nicholas Gibbon divided their tract in 1730, Nicholas taking the southern part, including the mill, and 2000 acres of land. Nicholas built a good brick house in the town of Greenwich, where he resided until 1740, when he removed to Salem. Leonard built a stone house about two miles north of Greenwich. Both these buildings remain, but have long since gone out of the family, of whom there are still very respectable descendants, residing principally in Salem.
On the east side of the Cohansey a large tract of 11,000 acres was surveyed by Worlidge and Budd for the West Jersey Society in 1686, and re-surveyed and recorded in 1716. East of that tract a large survey was made for the heirs of Penn, which extended to Maurice River. On the west side of that river, and bounding on the Delaware, a large survey was made for Wasse. In 1691 a large survey was laid on the east side of Maurice River for Thomas Byerly. Indeed, it may be safely said that four-fifths of the land included in Cumberland County was covered by surveys before 1700.
Surveys for Helby and John Bellers, creditors of Billing, living in England, covered most of Fairfield. The Helby surveys were sold out to settlers at an early day, but the Bellers title was the occasion of much difficulty. It extended from Mill Creek, at Fairton, to the Tweed or Back Creek. His agent, Thomas Budd, had a power of attorney to sell 400 acres, which he deeded to Ephriam Seeley .* But he made leases to the Connecticut settlers,
* Thomas Budd became a Friend in England, came over to Burlington in West Jersey, in 1678, and held several important offices in the province. In 1681, he was chosen, by the Assembly, a commissioner for "settling and regulation of lands, and was afterward a member of the Assembly. In 1684 he went to Eng- land, and there published a pamphlet entitled, "Good order established in Penn- sylvania and New Jersey, in America, being a true account of the country." Probably he had not at this time visited South Jersey, as he confines his descrip- tion to the parts in the vicinity of Burlington. This pamphlet has been recently published with very copious and interesting historical notes, by Edward Arm- strong, Esq., of Philadelphia.
Budd appears to have returned to Burlington the same year, and soon after- wards removed to Philadelphia, where he owned considerable property, took an
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reserving small quit-rents, and entered into bonds that a good title should be made, or their improvements paid for. Under these leases most of the tract was parcelled out to the settlers, and the land improved. But Bellers appears to have been ambitious of being lord of a manor in America, and upon his death in 1724 entailed this property so that it could not be sold. The Rev. Daniel Elmer procured the semblance of a title to the 400 acres of Seeley's heirs, and in 1745 located part of this right so as to include the farm on which he resided and had built himself a house, and the adjoining meeting-house lot and burial ground lying on Co- hansey River, below Fairton. About the same time he and his son Daniel, who was a surveyor, laid out a town, which was never built, on the bank of the river, extending eastwardly so as to include part of the present sight of Fairton, which it was proposed to call Fairfield. Could the title have been secured, it would probably have become an important town and the county seat. In 1750 the settlers sent over Capt. Thomas Harris to England with money to purchase the Bellers title; but, not succeeding, he laid out the money in Bibles, Watts' Psalms and Hymns, then just coming into use, a folio edition of Flavel, and pewter dishes, which were dis- tributed among those willing to take them. The pewter dishes took the place of wooden trenchers for those able to indulge in such a luxury. Some of them and some copies of Flavel still remain.
It was not until about 1811 that this Bellers title was extin- guished. When about ten years before this time the late Benja- min Chew, of Philadelphia, became the agent of the English proprietors, the occupants refused to purchase, and resisted the surveyors who attempted to run out the tract, and cut off the tail of the agent's horse. Suits were brought, and the Supreme Court of this State made a special order, requiring the sheriff to call out the posse comitatus and protect the surveyors, who pointed out the land to a jury of view. One case was tried, and a verdict rendered for the plaintiff. A compromise then took place, by which three persons from the adjoining counties were selected to determine how much the occupants should pay. They awarded two dollars
active part in disputes that arose among the Friends, and died in the year 1698. His descendants, and those of his brother William, who resided in Burlington County and was an Episcopalian, are numerous and very respectable, in Pennsyl- vania and New Jersey.
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and fifty cents per acre, and seventy-five cents per acre for the costs, which was eventually paid, and deeds made to each occupant. A small part of it remains nominally in Chew's heirs.
A similar difficulty occurred when the proprietors of the Penn tract commenced selling. A gentleman now living remembers when, about the year 1804, the squatters thereon threatened to hang the agent, who had some difficulty in effecting his escape, which he was enabled to do by the swiftness of his horse that carried him safely over Maurice River bridge at Millville before his pursuers could overtake him.
A map annexed to Thomas's description of Pennsylvania and West Jersey, before referred to, contains on it the names of two towns, viz: Dorchester, on the east side of Maurice River, and Antioch, on the south side of Cohansey, the only towns within the bounds of Cumberland which are named. Dorchester was surveyed and returned as a town plat of 2500 acres, and although no town was built until after 1800, it retains the name. Antioch was pro- bably surveyed in a similar manner, but never recorded, unless, as is most probable, the map places it on the wrong side of the river. The original map of Hancock's survey for Gibbon, refers to the boundaries of Antioch or Greenwich town. No town called Antioch ever existed in the county.
The Connecticut immigrants called the place most thickly settled New England Town, by which name, or that of New England Town Cross-roads, it was long known. The first road from Salem to Maurice River was laid out in 1705, through Greenwich, crossing the river there, and then along by the meeting-house at New England Town, up to the neighborhood of the present Fairton, and then through the woods towards Maurice River, without stating precisely where it was to go or where to end. The road from New England Town to Burlington-the seat of government of West Jersey-was no doubt the first road used in the county. It passed over the north branch of the Cohansey, called Mill Creek, at a place where the mill was first erected, somewhat below the present mill-dam, and then along the Indian path about a mile east of Bridgeton, through the Indian fields, passing by the Pine Tavern, then over to the road from Salem, near the present Clarksboro in Gloucester County, then through Woodbury and Haddonfield. The bridge and road at Carpenter's Landing were not made until the forepart of the present century.
Fairton was not so called until the post-office was established,
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about the year 1812. It was previously called by the nickname Bumbridge, a name said to have originated from the circumstance that a constable-then often called a Bum-bailiff, which is a cor- ruption of the word bound bailiff, that is, a bailiff bound with a security-in attempting to arrest a person, fell into the water, owing to some defect in the bridge over Rattlesnake Run, and thus occa- sioned the bridge to be rebuilt, and to acquire a name. For many years the road over this run crossed considerably above where the bridge was made. When the country was first settled, what is now called Mill Creek, at Fairton, was known as the north branch of the Cohansey.
Cedarville became a place of some local importance directly after the Revolution, but was not known by this name until the post-office was established. It was settled at an early period; but when the mill was erected is not known.
Gouldtown-partly in the northern part of Fairfield, and partly in Bridgeton townships-although never more than a settlement of mulattoes principally bearing the names of Gould and Pierce, scat- tered over a considerable territory, is of quite ancient date. The tradition is that they are descendants of Fenwick. His will con- tains the following clause: "Item, I do except against Elizabeth Adams (who was a granddaughter), of having any the least part of my estate, unless the Lord open her eyes to see her abominable transgression against him, me, and her good father, by giving her true repentance, and forsaking that Black that hath been the ruin of her, and becoming penitent for her sins; upon that condition only I do will and require my executors to settle five hundred acres of land upon her."
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GOVERNMENT AND OFFICERS.
CHAPTER II.
GOVERNMENT AND OFFICERS.
THE government of New Jersey was at first assumed by the proprietors. After the partition into two provinces, West Jersey was intended to be divided into Tenths, fronting on the Delaware, but only three or four were defined, and these were soon super- seded by regular counties; and indeed the tenths seem to have been designed rather for the purpose of apportioning the land among the different proprietors than for the purposes of govern- ment. The General Assembly which convened at Burlington May 2, 1682, appointed Justices, Sheriff, and Clerk for the jurisdiction of Burlington, and others for the jurisdiction of Salem, and Courts of Sessions were directed to be held four times a year at each place. No definite limits were assigned to these "jurisdictions," it being probably the design that the officers designated should have power to act in all parts of the province. In 1683 the members of Assembly were elected separately, in the First, Second, and Salem Tenths, and the justices and sheriffs appointed as before. In 1685 an act was passed establishing the county of Cape May, and bound- ing it on the west by Maurice River, authorizing justices to try causes under forty shillings, but other actions, civil and criminal, to be tried in Salem County. This act states that the province had been formerly divided into three counties, but no act for that pur- pose is in print; indeed none of the acts passed in West Jersey were printed until such as could be found were published by Lea- ming and Spicer in 1750.
In 1692 the boundary between Gloucester and Burlington was altered, but the next year the act was repealed. In 1693 Cape May was authorized to have a county court. In 1694 the boun- daries of Burlington and Gloucester were established; and it was enacted that the jurisdiction of Salem court should extend from Berkeley River (now called Oldman's Creek) on the north, to the Tweed (now called Back Creek) on the south. The district between the Tweed and Maurice River was not included in any county.
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To remedy this it was enacted in 1700 that all persons inhabiting on the river Tweed, and all settlements below, unto the bounds of the county of Cape May, should from thenceforth be annexed to, and be subject to the jurisdiction of the court and county of Sa- lem. After the union of the two provinces by the surrender of the government to Queen Anne, an act was passed in January, 1709-10, still partly in force, ascertaining the boundaries of all the counties in the province of New Jersey, which reduced Cape May to its present dimensions, and extended Salem to the western boun- dary of Cape May.
The act establishing the county provided that whenever the free- holders and justices should judge it necessary to build a court- house and jail, an election to determine the place should be held at John Butler's in the town of Greenwich, on a day to be fixed by three of the justices, one of whom should be of the quorum. It being the prerogative of the governor to appoint the time of holding the courts, he issued an ordinance directing them to be held in the meantime at Greenwich, four times a year. A small wooden jail was built in that place, and the courts were held for a time in the Presbyterian meeting-house and the tavern.
An election was held in 1748, by which a majority of those who voted declared in favor of Cohansey Bridge, and to this place the court held in December of that year adjourned. When the jus- tices and freeholders met there in July of that year, the minutes state that "it was proposed to raise money for a jail and court- house ; but the major part of the justices and freeholders present were not so disposed-as to the location of the place where the said jail and court-house shall be built, and thought proper to set- tle the point first, before they consent to raise money for that pur- pose ; but in order to settle the affair of the election, there was a motion made for to examine the voters by purging them by their respective oaths and affirmations, but the freeholders of the south side of Cohansey refused to comply with said offer. There being no business to do, the meeting adjourned." In 1749, a dispute arose as to the election of the freeholders in Hopewell. In 1750, there was a full board, and it was agreed that " there shall be a deed drafted and delivered to Richard Wood and Ebenezer Miller to peruse, and upon their approbation, then they, or more of the jus- tices, are to summons magistrates and freeholders to proceed upon raising money to build a court-house and jail." In 1751 and 1752,
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money was ordered raised. Wood and Miller both lived at Green- wich, but the latter had become largely interested in the property at Cohansey Bridge, and joined the south siders. The lot was a part of his survey, including the present jail, and extending across Broad Street ; and a question being raised about the title, a number of the most prominent freeholders on the south side, as the eastern part of the county was then designated, including Miller, joined in a bond in the penal sum of two hundred pounds, to several of the freeholders at Greenwich, to guarantee the title.
The bridge over the Cohansey was built, resting on cribs sunk in the water, as early as 1716, it being referred to in a survey of that date; but whether it was then passable for carriages may be doubted, as probably there were no four-wheeled wagons at that time, or for long afterwards, in the county. Lumber was floated by water, or, when necessary, drawn for short distances on sleds. A very old man, named Murray, said forty years ago, that he remem-
bered when there was a small store on the west side of the river, near the water, and a bridge for foot-passengers only. When the tide was out the stream was fordable, and an old survey made in 1686, mentions the going-over place to Richard Hancock's mill. A road for use when the tide was in used to cross the stream about half way up the present pond, the marks of which were not long since visible.
When the courts were first held at Cohansey Bridge, it is sup- posed there were no more than eight or ten houses in the imme- diate vicinity. The road from Salem passed a little south of where the old Presbyterian Church stands, at the west end of the town, and entering Broad Street, passed down the same to near the cor- ner of Franklin Street, then came down the hill a northeast course, past the corner of the large stone house, which stands a little back from and west of Atlantic Street, and thence to the foot of the bridge ; passing the bridge, it ran nearly the present course of Commerce Street to near Pearl Street, and then a northeast course, a little south of the stone Presbyterian church, and so on through what was then woodland, to near the corner of East Avenue and Irving Street, and thence through the Indian Fields, over the Beaver Dam at Lebanon Run to Maurice River. A house stood on the brow of the hill, a little west of the run that crosses this road, next east of the railroad station, where there was at one time a tavern; and between that and the railroad, about opposite to East Avenue, there
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