USA > New Jersey > Memorial cyclopedia of New Jersey, Volume I > Part 16
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Branford band and signing his name to the: document, Joiin Ward (or as he then spelled it, John Warde) began a career of public life and usefulness which if not so lengthny as that of some of his contemporaries was liardly surpassed by any in its zeal and value. In 1666, he was appointed one of the branders of the community, where his main business the keeping of the record- of the cattie b. ands, was in the then unset- tled condition of the colony by no means unimportant and likely at times to prove highly responsible and even burdensome. This, however, was only one of his tasks. In the difficult business of allotting and di- viding the land among the original settlers and the later comers and of procuring other lands to meet the town's growing needs, John Ward played a prominent and high- ly satisfactory part, record of which is to be found among the entries in the old New- ark town book, 1673-79. Lack of space prevents a proper treatment being given to this topic, but one at least of the controver- sies with which John Ward's name and work were connected ought not to be passed by without mention. In September, 1673, the town meeting determined "that a Peti- tion should be sent to the Generals at Orange, that if it might be, we might have the Neck," by which name the land between the Passaic and the Hackensack rivers was then known. This was the beginning of a long and bitter quarrel that was not finally ended until December, 1681-2, and was the famous "wrangle over the Neck" in which were involved not only the townspeople of Newark, but also Major Nathaniel Kings- land, of Barbadoes. W. I .; Nicholas Bay- ard, and Jacob Melyn, the son of old Cor- nelius Melyn, of New York; the Dutchi court of admiralty in Holland, and a number of other prominent colonial and old world officials. Throughout the whole of this dif- ficulty John Ward seems to have played one of the principal parts. About a month after the petition had been sent, he and his cousin John Catlin, who three years later was to
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become the first schoolmaster of Newark, were, October 13, 1673, appointed a com- miittee to purchase Major Kingsland's inter- est in the property, and about ten days later we find him on the committee in charge of the final settlement of the bargain and the distribution of the new land thus obtained ; and on committee after committee relating to the differences over the Neck, from this time forward his name stands either first or second in appointment. The patent for his property was not recorded until Septem- ber 10, 1675, when he and Robert Lyman and Stephen Davis all three received theirs together, and the record was made in the East Jersey Patents, liber I, p. 139, from which we learn that his dwelling house was situated "north of the Elder's lot, south of Richard Lawrence," or, according to our present-day land marks, on Park place, fac- ing Military Park, and opposite Cedar street, and just about where Proctor's theatre now stands. Later on, in 1679, when a part of the "Elder's lot" was given by the town to John Johnson, it was agreed that "John Ward, Turner, hath the Grant of the remainder of the Elder's Lott which is more than John Johnson is to have, for one of his Sons to build on." The designa- tion "Turner," sometimes elaborated into "Dishturner" from his trade, is as in the above extract always appended to John Ward's name in the old records in order to distinguish him from Sergeant John Ward. his contemporary and fellow townsman ; and in the same way and for the same rea- son, their two sons were generally spoken1 of as "John Ward Jr. and John Ward, Tur- ner, junior." In 1670 John Ward was con- stable for the town, and was appointed again in 1679. On April 28, 1675, he, to- gether with Thomas Johnson, Stephen Freeman, John Curtis, Samuel Kitchell. Thomas Huntington and Samuel Pluni, were chosen as townsmen for the year, and June 12, in the year following, he was re- turned for the same office, together with Samuel Kitchell, Samuel Plum and Thomas
Huntington, the new men being Joseph Walters, Azariah Crane and William Camp. In 1677 he was again given his old office of brander, and at the same time was appoint- ed one of the grand jurymen for the year. In 1679 he was chosen one of the fence viewers, and in 1684 he was reappointed to the office of warner of the town meeting, an office he had previously held in 1676. One of the early tria s and responsibilities of the settlement was the supplying of the parson's wood. This had been arranged for by taxing each family in the community one load delivered at the parsonage. For a time this worked satisfactorily, but later on de- linquents became numerous, and finally, November 24, 1679, a committee of eight men, two for each quarter of the year, was appointed to see that every man delivered his load, the committee to be exempted from their contribution for their pains and care. The members of this committee for the third quarter of the year were Deacon Rich- ard Lawrence and John Ward. The will of John Ward, the "Turner," was proved July 16, 1684, when letters of administration were granted to his widow Sarah, supposed by some to have been a daughter or niece of Robert Lyman, one of the Milford-New- ark settlers. His children, three of whom are named in his will, were: Sarah, John, Samuel, Abigail, Josiah, Nathaniel and Caleb. Of Sarah, born 1651, we have no more information ; but little more is known of John, 1654-1690, whom Mr. Conger con- jectures had a son named Samuel Ward; Samuel, second son of John Ward, the "Turner," was born 1656 and died October 14, 1686, leaving his wife Phebe to admin- ister his estate; Abigail Ward became the first wife of John Gardner, who joined the Newark settlers in 1677, and held several important offices, one of them being sheriff of Essex county in 1695; to Josiah Ward we shall refer later ; Nathaniel died in 1732, having married Sarah, granddaughter of Sergeant Richard Harrison, one of the Branford-Newark settlers, and daughter of
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Samuel Harrison by his wife Mary, daugh- ter of Sergeant John Ward. Nathaniel and Sarah (née Harrison) Ward had two sons, Nathaniel and Abner, and a daughter Eunice, who married into the Woodruff family. Caleb, youngest son of John Ward, the "Turner," died February 9, 1735, leav- ing ten children, the youngest of which, Hannah, also married a Woodruff. In 1709 Caleb was the Newark overseer of the poor.
The land purchased by the Newark set- tlers was an extended tract witliin the lim- its of which are now situated Belleville, Bloomfield, the Oranges, Caldwell, and a number of other towns and villages of the present day. The first division of lands was naturally within the bounds of Newark proper, where the settlers were then dwell- ing together for mutual protection and help. It was on the "home lot" received at this division that John Ward himself seems to have lived and died. At one of the subse- quent divisions he was given forty-four acres "beyond second river," the name by which the stream at Belleville was then known. This property is described as be- ing bounded on the north by Elizabeth Ward (widow of Deacon Lawrence Ward), on the south and west by common land, and on the east by the river and a swamp; and apparently Jolin Ward turned it over to his son Josiah, as from the patent made out to Joseph and Hannah Bond on May 1, 1697, we learn that Josiah Ward was at that time living there and owning the prop- erty, and on that date there was only one of his name alive and able to do this, name- ly Josiah, son of John Ward, the "Turner." Of public record this man has left little except his will, from which we learn that September 19, 1713, when he wrote it, he was fifty-one years old, which would bring his birth in: 1661. or 1662. His death was some time prior to April 8, 1715, when his eldest son Samuel chose Abraham Kitchell as his guardian, although for some reason or other the father's will was not proved until April
16, in the following year. Josiah Ward married (first) Mary, granddaughter 01 Robert Kitchell, the settler in Newark, by the first wife of his son Samuel, Elizabeth Wakeman of New Haven. The Abraham Kitchell who became the guardian of Josiah's son Samuel was Mary Kitchell's half-brother, being son of Samuel Kitchell by his second wife Grace, daughter of Rev. Abraham Pierson. Je siah and Mary (née Kitchell) Ward had five children-a daugh- ter Sarah, and four sons who were minors in 1713, Samuel, Robert, Josiah and Lau- rence, the last name being spelled according to that in his father's will, although later generations have preferred the form Law- rence. The second wife of Josiah, son of John Ward, was named America, and in some accounts her surname is given as Law- rence, and she is said to have borne her hus- band two children, Lawrence and Sarah. In his will Josiah says that Sarah is the daugli- ter of his first wife, and that his second wife's daughter was called Mary, and that she is expecting another child. This last child may have been named Lawrence from his mother's maiden name, and if so the fact would account for the preference shown by the family in later days for that spelling of the name.
Laurence, or Lawrence, son of Josialı Ward, was born about 1710, and died April 4, 1793. His home was in Bloomfield, on the property left to him in his father's will. Like his father before him, he was a quiet country farmer, and does not appear to have taken much if any part in the stirring pub- lic controversies and movements that were going on around him. When the Revolu- tion broke out, Lawrence was nearly sev- enty years old, and though he did not go himself, four of his five sons enlisted in the Essex county regiments and served in the patriot armies. His will, almost if not the last one written before the Declaration of Independence, is dated May 3, 1776, and in it he leaves to his sons "all my estate both lands and meadows and all my moveable
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estate both here and elsewhere." By his wife, Eleanor Baldwin, Lawrence Ward had children : Samuel, Jacob, Jonathan (or as he is sometimes called Jonas), Stephen, Cornelius (to whom his father left a special legacy of £5), Margaret and Phebe.
Like his father Lawrence, Jacob Ward lived and died in Bloomfield, but unlike him he seems to have been quite actively engag- ed in the public life of his time and county. His boyhood was spent on his father's farm. where he was born about 1750. When he was between twenty-five and twenty-six, war was declared between the colonies and Great Britian, and Jacob answering to the first call for troops enlisted in the Essex county militia, where he served for some time, although unlike his brother Jonas, who rose to the rank of captain, he never became more than a private. At the close of the war of Independence Jacob Ward returned to his home in Bloomfield and devoted himself to his farm and family and the interests of the town and county in which he dwelt. Wheth- er the stirring times and incidents through which he had passed and in which he had participated led him to establish the old Bloomfield hotel, or whether he obtained possession of the property in some other way is uncertain ; but we know that he was for many years its owner if not its proprie- tor, and that the place became one of the political headquarters of its day. as the fol- lowing extracts from the Newark town records testify. Among the resolves passed by the meeting of April 11, 1808, the fifth reads, "that the next annual election be opened at the house of Jacob Ward in Bloomfield and continued there during the first day, and adjourned to the court house in Newark as usual;" while the sixth reso- lution passed April 9, 1810, is to the effect "that the annual election shall be opened at the house of Jacob Ward at Bloomfield, and closed at the court house in Newark." Chil- dren of Jacob and Mary (Davis) Ward, all born in Bloomfield :
Joseph, Isaac,
Caleb, Jacob, Mary and Lucy. Mary mar- ried into the Baker family and Lucy into the Jeroloman family.
SHOTWELL, Abraham,
Founder of an Important Family.
This family is one of the oldest in New Jersey. Abraham Shotwell, the first of the name of whom there is an account, is be- lieved to have ₺ en of English origin. His name is the fourth in the list of the in- habitants of Elizabethtown and the juris- diction thereof, who took the oath of al- legiance to King Charles II., February 19, 1665. In the contentions between the peo- ple and Governor Carteret he was bold and outspoken against the governor's usurpa- tions. He became the victim of Carteret's wrath, his house and grounds were con- fiscated, and he himself driven into exile. A portion of this property included the en- tire east side of Broad street, from the Stone Bridge to a point seven hundred and ninety-two feet north of Elizabeth avenue, the court house and First Presbyterian Church being on the opposite side of the street. He retired to New York and ap- pealed to the Lords Proprietors. In the meantime he returned home, sustained by his townsmen. His appeal was not sustain- ed, and he was informed by orders from the Proprietary Government that he must de- part the town, and should he return that he would be subjected to severe indignities. His property was sold at public auction, August 25, 1675, for f12, to Thomas Blum- field Carpenter, of Woodbridge, who re- sold it a fortnight later for £14 to Governor Carteret. Abraham Shotwell obtained a grant of land from the New York govern- ment, and died in exile.
Daniel Shotwell, who settled on Staten Is- land, was probably his son. John Shotwell, another son, married, in New York, Octo- ber, 1679, Elizabeth Burton. The property so arbitrarily wrested from Abraham Shot- well was restored to his son Jolin, May 12,
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1683 ; lie petitioned the Council for its re- storation, as the following will show :
"At a meeting of council held the Ioth day of May, Anno Domini 1683, the petition of John Shotwell being here read, and upon reading there- of it being alleged that the lands for w'hch he desires a survey and patent is now or late in the possession of Elizabeth Carteret, w'w, the relict and executrix of the late Governor, Cap- tain Philip Carteret, deceased. Its agreed that the further consideration thereof be deferred till the next Seventh Day morning, being the 12th instant, at 8 of the clock in the forenoon, and that notice then be given to the Widdow Car- teret that she may then appear, and if she has aught to allege against the substance of the peti- tion she may then be heard."
"Elizabeth Towne, May 12th, 1683. The mat- ter of John Shotwell's petetion came here into debate, and the Widdow Carterett being also here present, and in writing gave in two papers as her answer to the substance of the said peti- tion. And it being asked the said Widdow Car- terett if she desired any tyme to offer or object anything against the substance of the petition, she said she had no further answer that what she gave in writing. And it appearing that Abra- ham Shotwell was the possessor, occupant, clearer, and improver of the land mentioned in the petition, and that John Shotwell is the said Abraham Shotwell's sonne and heire; It is there- fore agreed and ordered that the Deputy Gover- nor issue out a warrant to the Surveyor General and his deputy, to survey the said lands and make return thereof, in order that the said Shotwell may have a pattent thereof, according to the con- cessions."
In the eighth month, 1709, John Shot- well applied for a certificate on account of marriage, to carry to Flushing. Long Is- land, which was immediately granted. and in the following month the Flushing "Rec- ords" show that Jolin Chatwell, or Shot- well, of Staten Island, and Mary Thorne, of Flushing, were married. The same rec- ord shows that in ninth month, 1712, his brother Abraham married Elizabeth Cow- pertliwaite, daughter of John Cowper- thwaite, of West Jersey. Abraham Shot- well, after his marriage, resided in the neigliborhood of Metuchen. Immediately after his marriage John Shotwell settled on
the northerly bank of Rahway river, long known as Shotwell's Landing, now better known as Rahway Port, and lying within the limits of the city of Rahway ; he also acquired a tract of land adjacent to his resi- dence, where he died in 1762.
His eldest son, Joseph Shotwell, was born in 1710, married at Flushing, Long Island, in 1741, located where the National Bank- ing House of Rahway later stood, and was a prominent merchant more than a century and a quarter ago. The land lying between the north and Robinson's Branch of Rah- way river, now known as Upper Rahway, was his farm. Soon after the close of the Revolutionary War two of his sons opened and maintained a direct trade with Bristol, England, shipping flaxseed and other pro- duce and receiving in return dry goods, by means of a small vessel that navigated a portion of Rahway river. Before the close of the century they succeeded (in what was at the time regarded a great and doubtful undertaking) by means of the race way leading to Milton Lake, in obtaining suffi- cient power to run successfully what have since been known as the Milton Mills, and to a descendant of one of the above Rah- way is largely indebted for many of the improvements more recently made.
John Shotwell, the second, son of John Shotwell, of Shotwell's Landing, was born in 1712. Soon after attaining his majority he started for the West, and eventually reached and settled the premises later own- ed and occupied by John Taylor Johnson, president of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, now in the bounds of Plainfield city, but at that time known as the vicinity of Scotch Plains. And here it may not be improper to remark that the mountain be- yond and the Short Hills, that bound the beautiful plain on the east, were occupied and settled before the plain, which, being covered with a stunted growth of scrub oaks, was regarded as of little value for agricultural purposes. At the time of which this is written the present growing and
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beautiful city of Plainfield had not an ex- istence. There was a Plainfield, a neigh- borhood or locality, but it was some two or three miles to the eastward, in the town- ship of Piscataway, county of Middlesex ; the Plainfield of to-day is in Union, for- merly Essex county. In the year 1788 Friends decided to build a new meeting house, and the structure yet stood in 1877, near the depot in Plainfield. The name by which the old town had been called was transferred to the new one, and therefore the present Plainfield had a name and a record. John Shotwell acquired a large tract of land between Scotch Plains and Plainfield, extending from the mountain to the Short Hills. By his first wife, a daugh- ter of Shobel Smith, of Woodbridge, he had one son, John Smith Shotwell, two of whose sons at one time resided at Turkey, now New Providence ; another, many years ago, was a prominent auctioneer and merchant in New York. By his second wife, a daughter of William Webster, Jr., he had a numerous family of children. Two sons occupied portions of the original homestead ; one went to Sussex county, and another to Canada ; the youngest son, Hugh, settled in Harrison county, Ohio. Abraham, the third son of John Shotwell, of Shotwell's Land- ing, was born in 1719, married at Flushing, Long Island, and settled on the bank of the river, between Staten Island and the Landing, on lands believed to have been originally taken up by his father, which were later owned and occupied by a grand- son. Jacob, the fourth son, married at Flushing, Long Island. and was a merchant in Rahway. The house he occupied was standing (1877) in a good state of preserva- tion, having been substantially built on oak frame covered with cedar shingles. Alex- ander Shotwell, a grandson, was long a resi- dent of the State of Alabama. Samuel, the fifth son, resided on what was later Grand street, near the Landing: his descendants are to be found in the northern part of the State. Benjamin, the sixth son, married at
Flushing, Long Island, and inherited the homestead at the Landing, which descended through three generations and finally pass- ed into the hands of strangers. Benjamin Lundy, one of the most persistent of Aboli- tionists, the publisher of the "Genius of Universal Emancipation," was a grandson of Benjamin Shotwell. The descendants of Abraham Shotwell may be found in every part of the Union and also in Canada, but few of them are aware of the suffering and privation he endured more than two centuries ago for his love of liberty and outspoken opposition to oppression and tyranny.
WOOLMAN, John,
Famous Quaker Minister.
Than John Woolman, we have record of no more lovely human character. Revered by all cleanminded people, he was regarded by his own sect as one of its chiefest glories. Henry Crabb Robinson spoke of him as "a Christian all love," and credited him with "a style of the most exquisite purity and grace," while Charles Lamb, in his "Elia," said, "Get the writings of John Woolman by heart, and love the early Quakers."
He was a native New Jerseyman, born in Northampton, Burlington county, in Au- gust, 1720. He was reared on a farm, learn- ed tailoring, and in that line of work chiefly maintained himself. In his seventh year, to use his own language, he "began to get ac- quainted with the operations of divine love." At Mount Holly, about 1742, he began teaching poor and neglected children, and on occasion spoke at meetings of the Friends. His simplicity of style, but intense earnest- ness and unaffected love for all humankind, won the confidence of his fellows, and he was urged by them to listen to a call which had seemed to come to him-"a concern to visit Friends in the back settlements ot Virginia," and his public ministrations be- gan in March. 1746, when he began his travels, which thence forward took up the
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greater part of his time. Everywhere he was received with a love and confidence al- most amounting to reverence. Little of a theologian, somewhat of a mystic, yet there was ever in his conversation and exhorta- tions the idea of a general brotherhood of men, and the beautiful simplicity of his character, and his total lack of worldly and selfish motives, won all hearts to him. Hu- man slavery was utterly abhorrent to him, and he said in his first tract upon the sub- ject, under the title "On the keeping of Negroes," "the burden will grow heavier and heavier till times change in a way dis- agreeable to us," and which sentiments were cruelly emphasized by the dreadful Civil War which worked out the extermination of human bondage. In 1763 he went to Pennsylvania and labored zealously among the Indians in the Wyoming Valley. In 1772 he went to England to visit his breth- ren there and attend their assemblies, and while so engaged contracted smallpox, from which he died, October 7 of that year.
His literary works have an enduring value. Among them are: "Serious Con- siderations," with some of his dying expres- sions, collated and published after his death ; and his "Journal." The latter was first printed two years after his death ; and a later edition (1871) contained a fervent introduction by the poet Whittier. Of the "Journal," Channing said, "it is the purest and sweetest of biographies."
LEAMING-SPICER,
First New Jersey Historical Authorities.
The first original sources of information pertaining to the Province of Jersey are found in the invaluable compilations made by Aaron Leaming and Jacob Spicer, by virtue of an Act of the Legislature of New Jersey, and which were printed in Philadel- phia in 1758. These papers embodied the Grants and Concessions made by the first English Lords Proprietors, together with other official documents,-legislative enact-
ments and miscellancous records-beginning with the grant of King Charles I. in 1661. and coming down to the surrender by the Proprietaries to Queen Anne in 1702.
Leaming and Spicer were both admirably well qualified for their important task. Leaming entered the Assembly in 1740, and with two or three short intermissions was 2 member of that body for about thirty years. Unusually well educated, he was a man of great industry and excellent judg- ment, and his manuscripts were models of clearness and beauty. Spicer was a mem- ber of the Assembly, in close association with his intimate personal friend Leaming, for about twenty years. The two were men of large business affairs in the Cape May region. They separately made minute entries of their transactions and careful record of current events, and their diaries afford the earliest and most authentic in- formation with reference to the people in the southern part of the province, their industries and their mode of living. This materiai has been preserved through the effort of local investigators and of the New Jersey Historical Society.
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