USA > New Jersey > Memorial cyclopedia of New Jersey, Volume I > Part 52
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Dr. Burnet took a very active part in the cause of freedom, and at different times held various offices under the government of his native State. He was chief physician and surgeon in an important section of the Continental army during the war, and was
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mother country." He used his official posi- tions to assist the military authorities, and welcomed the British troops when they took possession of the city. On October 22, 1779, he was attainted of treason by the legislature of New York, his property was confiscated, and his person banished from the State. He fled to England, and his only son Isaac became commissary-general in the Royal army.
His brother Nicholas, father of Henrietta Lowe, wife of Dr. Charles King, president of Columbia College, was also a prominent merchant in New York, and remained true to the patriot cause, being a member of the state legislature and a delegate to the state convention at Poughkeepsie, June 17, 1788, that deliberated on adopting the Federal constitution.
Isaac Low married Margrieta, daughter of Cornelius and Catharine ( Schuyler ) Cuy- ler, of Albany, July 17, 1760, and built "an elegant mansion" on Dock street, New York City. He died at Cowes. Isle of Wight, England, in 1791.
HARDENBERGH, Jacob Rutsen, Prominent Educator.
Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh was born in Rosendale, New York, and was baptized at Kingston, New York, February 22, 1736, son of Colonel Joannes and Maria (Du- Bois) Hardenbergh, grandson of Major Johannes and Catherine (Rutsen) Harden- bergh, great-grandson of Captain Gerrit Janse and Jalpie (Schepmoes) Harden- bergh, and great-great-grandson of Jan van Hardenbergh, who came from Holland to New Amsterdam previous to 1644, and died there previous to 1659. Major Johannes Hardenbergh became owner of the Harden- bergh land patent purchased from the In- dians in 1706, confirmed by royal grant April 23, 1708, and originally containing two million acres of land lying in five con- tiguous counties on the west bank of the Hudson river, in the State of New York.
Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh was an or- iginal member of the Coetus party formed to establish an organic union of the Dutch Reformed churches in America independent of the care of the classis of Amsterdam, Holland, and when King's (Columbia) Col- lege was established in New York and plac- ed under the care of the Episcopal church, he advocated a similar college to be known as Queen's, to be under the care of the Dutch Reformed church, and he was an original trustee from the State of New York of Queen's (Rutgers) College, 1770-86. He was born in Kingston, New York, June I, 1706, and died in Rosendale, New York, August 20, 1786. He was a member of the Colonial Assembly, 1743-50; of the State Legislature, 1781-82; and a member of the first Provincial Congress in New York, May 23, 1775. He was commissioned colonel in the Continental army October 25, 1775, and was a personal friend of General Washing- ton, who with Mrs. Washington visited him at Rosendale, New York, in June, 1783.
Jacob R. Hardenbergh was educated at Kingston Academy, and studied theology with the Rev. John Frelinghuysen, in Rari- tan, New Jersey. He was the first minister in America in the Dutch Reformed Church to complete his education and be licensed to preach without going to Holland for examination. He was licensed by the Amer- ican Classis, or Coetus, in 1758. The Rev. John Frelinghuysen, his instructor in the- ology, died in September, 1757, and Mr. Hardenbergh married his widow. Dina (Van Bergh) Frelinghuysen, in 1758, and succeed- ed him in the pastorate of the five associat- ed churches centered in Raritan, New Jer- sey, where he labored from 1758 to 1781. He visited and made a tour of Europe in 1762, bringing back to America the widow- ed mother of his wife. He became prom- inent as a Revolutionary patriot, and gained the enmity of his Tory neighbors. He was a delegate to the Provincial Congress of New Jersey, 1776; of the convention of 1776 that framed and adopted a State con-
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stitution ; and a member of the General As- BALDWIN, Moses, sembly. He was the especial object of an- noyance to the British, and a price of £10o was offered for his arrest. He thereupon armed himself, and became accustomed to sleeping with a loaded musket by his bed- side. On October 26, 1779, a company of the Queen's rangers under Colonel Simcoe burned his church to the ground. While Washington's army was at Bound Brook :. Millstone and Princeton, Dominie Harden- bergh was a frequent visitor at headquar- ters, and was visited at his home in Raritan by the American commander-in-chief. In 1781 he removed to Rosendale, New York, and became pastor of the church there, and also of the churches of Marbletown, Roches- ter and Warwarsing, adjoining. serving these churches for five years. As early as 1770 he began the agitation of the establish- ment of a university or college to be con- nected with the Dutch Reformed church, and took a leading part in applying for the charter for Queen's College, to be located at New Brunswick, New Jersey. The con- summation of his hopes was delayed by the occupation of that place by the British army, but in 1785 the plan was carried out, and he was elected the first president, holding the office until his death. He was a trustee of the college from 1770 to 1790, and secre- tary from 1770 to 1782. In addition to his duties as head of the new institution and its chief instructor, he was pastor of the Dutch Reformed church there. He took up his residence in New Brunswick in April. 1786. In the councils of the church he was an earnest advocate of separation from the Amsterdam classis, and aided largely in securing the establishment of the Dutch Re- formed church in America. He received the honorary degree of A. M. in 1770 and that of D. D. in 1771 from the College of New Jersey, and that of S. T. D. in 1789 from Columbia. He died in New Bruns- wick, New Jersey, October 30, 1790.
Early Resident of Orange.
Moses Baldwin, son of Joseph Baldwin, 'was a master carpenter. He lived in the stirring fines of the Revolution, but wheth- er he was the Moses Baldwin who was a private in the Essex county troops is un- certain. His home was in Orange, and in 1753 he was one of the heads of the eleven Baldwin families who subscribed for the erection of a new meeting house for the Mountain Society, his subscription being £3. This house of worship, completed and dedicated to its sacred uses in the last days of the year 1754, was a stone structure, of hammer-dressed sandstone laid in regular courses. The committee "regularly chosen to manage the affair of the building," were Samuel Harrison, Samuel Freeman, Joseph Harrison, Stephen Dod, David Williams, Samuel Condit, William Crane and Joseph Riggs. Matthew Williams, who was a ma- son, had the superintendence of the mason work. Moses Baldwin had the charge of the carpenter work. A written contract be- tween the latter and the committee is pre- served among the manuscripts of the New Jersey Historical Society. The "agreement" provides that he shall perfectly finish the house, excepting the masonry, after the model of the meeting house in Newark, finding all the materials, "such as timbers, boards, sleepers, glass, oils and paint, nails, hinges, locks, latches, bolts, with all other kinds of materials necessary for finishing" the same. The details of this contract, sup- plemented by the recollections of many who have worshipped within its walls, furnish a good idea of the building and its appoint- ments. Standing as it did lengthwise with the street, its south broadside was its front, with the broad entrance door in the centre. Opposite to this door was the pulpit, ap- proachied by a broad alley with a double row of pews on each side, and narrow alleys
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on the ends of the room. One pew on each side of the pulpit, two on the right, and two on the left fronting the pulpit, all with doors and hinges, and somewhat elevated above the seats, but upon the floor, were provided for the officials in the congrega- tion. In the pulpit was the desk taken from the old building, remodeled and adapted for its new relations. A seat, made of wood, was built against the wall back of the pulpit for the minister and his associates. Four wooden pegs on the wall gave their support to the clerical hats. After the Revolution this space back of the pulpit was occupied by a large gilt eagle. The arched wall of the room, and the ends of the building above the plate and under the galleries were ceiled with white wood boards, and "painted a light sky color." Such was the inanimate memorial that Moses Baldwin left behind him. To posterity he left five children : I. Joseph, married Sarah, daughter of Sam- uel Jones, lived at the southwest corner of what is now Grove and Williams streets, East Orange, until about the beginning of the nineteenth century, when he emigrated to Galloway, New York, near Schenectady. in company with his father-in-law and most of his family. His children were Char- lotte, wife of Timothy Williams; Matthias ; Lydia, wife of John Wilson ; James ; Rufus ; Elizabeth; Isaac; Israel, and Samuel. 2. Caleb, mentioned below. 3. Moses, died 1802 ; had his home near the Jonathan Wil- liams farm, and tradition says that the Sus- anna Baldwin he married was the daughter of Susanna, the sixth child of Samuel Dod, of Newark, who died in 1713 or 1714. 4. Hannah, born near Newark, married Jared, son of Joseph Harrison by his wife Dorcas, daughter of Sergeant John Ward, and grandson of Sergeant Richard, son of Rich- ard Harrison, of West Kirby, Cheshire, England, and New Haven and Branford, Connecticut. Jared Harrison, born 1745, died 1827; lived in Orange, and his one child, Deacon Abraham Harrison, lived for many years on High street in that village.
5. Catharine, born February 4, 1737, mar- ried Elihu Pierson, a schoolteacher and carpet weaver, and their daughter Phebe married the Rev. Stephen Dodd, of East Haven, Connecticut.
Caleb Baldwin, son of Moses Baldwin, was like his father a carpenter, and prob- ably helped him in the building of the sec- ond meeting house of the Mountain So- ciety, now the First Presbyterian Church of Orange; at any rate he supplied the shingles for the parsonage since the building fund account of that edifice contains the entry "Paid out to Caleb Baldwin for shingles £3 19 s. 6 d." His house was situated on a lane, twenty or thirty feet wide, which led from the highway between Newark and the Mountain, to his house on the west side of the path and that of Matthias Dodd on the east side. From the time of the Revolution up to about 1840 it is spoken of in deeds and conveyances as "Whiskey lane." About ten years after that date, by a vote of the neighborhood, it was widened to fifty feet, carried through to Forest street, and named Grove street, from the fact of its passing through a pleasant grove. During the Rev- olution Jonathan Sayer, a merchant of New- ark, had placed in his storehouse on the Stone dock a considerable quantity of cider whiskey. Fearing that it might be plunder- ed, he removed it for safe keeping to an empty barn belonging to Caleb Baldwin, on the west side of the lane. The barrels were deposited in a bay of the barn and covered with salt hay, but as it happened, with not enough to conceal them entirely. Soon af- terwards a small company of British light horse, with a band of Hessian soldiers, en- camped for the niglit on the property of Matthias Dodd which was opposite the barn. In the morning it was found that the whole company of Hessian footmen were drunk. On investigation the cause revealed was the whiskey stored in Caleb Baldwin's barn. The soldiers were punished for their mis- conduct, and though many of the barrels were staved in and the liquor lost much still
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remained. The owner, however, abandoned all care for it ; and in came to be regarded in the neighborhood as common property and open to all who might wish to replenish their jugs and canteens. In 1814 the barn was torn down; but the name of Whiskey lane thus earned and bestowed upon the path still clung to it. In 1845 the present owner of the Dodd property, a grandson of Matthias Dodd, in removing a stone wall on the front line of his property, opposite to where the barn had stood, found an old sword much corroded by long exposure, which on being cleaned was found to be marked with the name of a Hessian colonel. This relic is now in the museum of the New Jersey Historical Society ; and is probably a relic of the above described night of debauch. Whether Caleb Baldwin himself was at home at the time of this incident is uncer- tain. He may have been away on duty as one of the two Caleb Baldwins who were privates in the second regiment of Essex county militia, one of whom was in Captain Lyon's company, and the other in that of Captain Squires. Caleb Baldwin married Rebecca Coleman, and had six children, all born in Orange: 1. Sarah, born 1770, bap- tized February 27, 1774, by the Rev. Jede- diah Chapman, married Whitfield Culber- son. 2. Martha, 1772, married Patrick Car- roll. 3. Cyrenus. 4. Ezra, married Ma- tilda Ramadge. 5. Margaret, 1782, died 1797. 6. Caleb W.
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MANNING, James,
Clergyman, Educator, Patriot.
James Manning was born in Piscataway, New Jersey, October 22, 1738, son of James and Grace (Fitz-Randolph) Manning, and grandson of James and Christiana (Lang) Manning and of Joseph and Rebecca (Drake) Fitz-Randolph. His great-grand- father, Jeffery Manning, was one of the earliest settlers in Piscataway township.
James Manning attended the Hopewell Academy, 1756-58, and was graduated with
second honors from the College of New Jersey, A. B., in 1762, and received the A. M. degree in 1765. He was ordained as an evangelist, April 19, 1763, and travelled through the colonies. In July of the same year, while at Newport, Rhode Island, he suggested the establishment of a college to be conducted by the Baptists, and in accord- ance with the suggestion of Colonel John Gardner, the deputy governor, he drew a sketch of the plan and a rough charter was laid before the next General Assembly, August 1, 1763, but it was not until Febru- ary, 1764, that it finally passed the assembly, after a warm debate, and largely through the personal influence of Mr. Manning. He was called to Warren, Rhode Island, where he organized a church of fifty-eight members, of which he was pastor for six years, until 1770, and there opened a Latin school which was later removed to Provi- dence, Rhode Island, and became the Uni- versity Grammar School. The first meeting of the corporation for founding and endow- ing a college or university within the prov- ince of Rhode Island was held at Newport in September, 1764, and at the second meet- ing in September, 1765, Mr. Manning was chosen president and Professor of Lan- guages. He matriculated his first college student, William Rogers, a lad of fourteen, from Newport, September 3, 1765. In
1767 he organized the Warren Association, the first Baptist Association established in New England. The first commencement of the college was held in the meeting-house, September 7, 1769, and the discussion of American independence constituted the prin- cipal feature of the exercises. The college was removed to Providence, Rhode Island, in May, 1770, and Mr. Manning gave up his church in Warren, and at the solicitation of the trustees of the college he removed to Providence and continued his duties as president. The first commencement in Providence was held in the meeting-house of the society on September 8, 1770. Mr. Manning was pastor of the first Baptist
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church in Providence, founded by Roger Williams, and regarded as the oldest Baptist church in America, 1771-91. A new meet- ing-house was erected in 1775. During the Revolutionary War the college doors were closed, the students prosecuting their studies at home, and University Hall was used by the American and French troops as a bar- racks and hospital. The college exercises were resumed on May 27. 1782. President Manning was a delegate to the Continental Congress, 1785-86, and it was largely through his endeavors that Rhode Island adopted the constitution. The University of Pennsylvania conferred on him the hon- orary degree of D. D. in 1785. He was a firm upholder of public education, and was the author of : "A Report in Favor of the Establishment of Free Public Schools in the Town of Providence." See "Life, Times and Correspondence of James Man- ning, and the Early History of Brown University," by R. A. Guild (1864), and "History of Brown University, 1856-1895," ibid (1895).
He was married, March 29, 1763, to Margaret, daughter of John Stites, for several years mayor of Elizabethtown, New Jersey. While at family prayers he died of apoplexy, in Providence, Rhode Island, July 29, 1791.
HENRY, Alexander,
Early Fur Trader.
Alexander Henry was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1739. He join- ed the army of Sir Jeffrey Amherst in 1760 in its expedition against Montreal, and was present at the surrender of that important post, which opened a new market, and Alex- ander engaged in the fur-trade. In 1761 he went to Fort Mackinaw, a principal trad- ing-post, and secured the friendship of Wa- watam, a Chippewa Indian, who adopted him as a brother, and who saved his life in the Indian massacre which occurred at the
post on June 4, 1763. Henry thereafter lived with the Indians, wearing their dress and speaking their language. In June, 1764, he went to Fort Niagara, where he com- manded an Indian battalion, and accom- panied Bradstreet to Detroit. After that city had been reinforced and Pontiac had retired to the borders of the Maumee river, Henry re-engaged in the fur trade and ex- tended his travels to the Rocky Mountains. In 1770 he induced the Duke of Gloucester, Sir William Johnson, Henry Bostwick and others, to form a company to work the cop- per mines of Lake Superior, but it was done in a half-hearted way, and in 1774 the com- pany was dissolved. In company with David Thompson he organized the Northwest Company, for which he acted as fur-trader and business manager, while Thompson served as the official geographer and ex- plorer. They extended their journeys to the Pacific ocean from 1799 to 1814, in- cluding the Red river of the North, the heart of the Rocky Mountains, and the Columbia river. He resided at Astoria, or Fort George, and from that post traded in all directions.
He published : "Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories be- tween the years 1760 and 1766" (1809), and left manuscript journals which Dr. Elliott Coues used as the basis of his "New Lights on the Early History of the Greater Northwest" (three volumes, 1897). He was drowned near Fort George, May 22, 1814.
HENDERSON, Thomas,
Revolutionary Soldier, Congressman.
Thomas Henderson was born in Freehold, New Jersey, in 1743, a son of John Hender- son, who was clerk of the Old Scotch Pres- byterian Church in 1730, elder of the Free- hold Presbyterian Church as early as 1744, and died January 1, 1771; grandson of Michael, who died at Marlboro, New Jersey, August 23, 1722 ; and probably a descendant
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of John Henderson, a Scotchman, who came to America in the "Henry and Francis" in 1685.
Thomas Henderson was graduated from the College of New Jersey, A. B., 1761, A. M., 1764. He studied medicine under Dr. Nathaniel Scudder, of Freehold, and began practice in Monmouth county about 1765. He was elected a member of the New Jersey Medical Society in 1766. On December 10, 1774, he was appointed to the Freehold Committee of Observation for the preservation and support of American free- dom, and his name appears in the records as an energetic member. His military serv- ice in the American Revolution commenced February 15, 1776, as second major in Colonel Stewart's battalion of minute-men. He was made major of Colonel Heard's battalion on June 14, 1776, and subsequently lieutenant-colonel of Forman's battalion of Heard's Brigade. He was brigade-major at Monmouth, and at Freehold Court House he was the "solitary horseman" who in- formed Washington of the misconduct of General Charles Lee, who had thrown away his advantage and deprived his commander of the assistance of six thousand men by ordering a retreat without striking a blow. When the town was laid waste, Dr. Hender- son's was the first house destroyed. He was a member of the Provincial Council in 1777; delegate to the Continental Congress, .. . 1779-80; vice-president of the Council of New Jersey, 1794, and Acting Governor during the absence of Governor Howell at the head of New Jersey troops to quell Shay's rebellion in Pennsylvania. He was a representative in the Fourth United States Congress, 1795-97, and subsequently surro- gate of Monmouth County, State Represen- tative, judge of the Court of Common Pleas and boundary commissioner. He was rul- ing elder of the Tennent ( Presbyterian) Church at Freehold for more than forty years.
died soon after their marriage, and in Jan- uary, 1778, he was married to Rachel, daughter of John Burrowes, of Middletown Point, New Jersey, (born September, 1751, died August 22, 1840). By his second mar- riage he had seven daughters. He was the author of "Memoir of the Life of the Rev- erened William Tennent Jr." (1807). He died in Freehold, New Jersey, December 15, 1824.
WRIGHT, John,
Famous Character of the Revolution.
John Wright, progenitor of all by the name of Soverel in the Oranges, was a weaver by trade. He was born in Scotland in 1746, emigrated to America in 1769, and settled at Orange, Essex county, New Jer- sey. In 1769 he purchased the Eleazer Lampson farm of twenty-two acres, then situated in Newark, which was later Orange and now East Orange, on the old road to Cranetown. The place included the land and homestead. John Wright, with the characteristic thrift of his race, set about at once to get his new possessions into condition for profitable farming and cider making. One of the first things he did was to plant an apple orchard which in a few years yielded such generous quantities of the fruit as to make it possible to send large consignments to other settlements and to use in the manufacture of cider, a then noted beverage of the times, being distilled in famous applejack, sometimes mentioned as "New Jersey distilled liquor." As the years went by he added largely to his savings and soon became one of the well-to-do men of the community. The correspondence which took place between John Wright and his younger brother in Scotland is still pre- served in the Soverel family. One letter especially was very interesting, being sent by the Scotch brother acknowledging the receipt of a barrel of apples sent him by his elder brother John, by the packet "Fanny."
He was married to Mary Hendricks, granddaughter of William Wikoff. She The fruit, grown on John Wright's farm,
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arrived in excellent condition, and was dis- tributed among the Scotch neighbors. The old homestead of John Wright, which at the present time has been altered and added to several times, was built in the early years of the eighteenth century by the Lampson family many years before John Wright ar- rived in America. Many scenes of the Rev- olution were enacted in and around the ancient structure.
When war was declared between America and Great Britain, John Wright espoused the cause of the patriots and took up arms in their behalf, and enlisted in Captain Craig's company, Philip Van Cortland's Second Essex county regiment, attached to Hurd's upper brigade. He was a minute-man, and whenever there was an alarm of the ap- proach of the British he among others was ready with muskets to protect the village folk. During the winter of 1776-77, when the British and Hessians were encamped in Newark, the homes of the rebels were pil- laged time and again until spring arrived, when there was little left for the farmers to begin their work with. Shortly after he purchased the Lampson homestead, John Wright married Elizabeth or Eliza Peck, called Bestey, daughter of Judge John Peck, who lived at "Peck Hill," near Maple ave- nue and Main street of the present day in East Orange. During the winter of 1776-77 Judge Peck's well filled barns and store- houses were especial objects of the visitation of the British and Hessians, and he suffered severely by their depredations. To John Wright, then about thirty-one years of age, fell the honor of taking part in the only skirmish known in the Oranges during the Revolution while protecting the homes of the patriots. In company with John Tich- enor and Josiah Shaw, while returning from a response to an alarm, they were attacked by a party of Highlanders near Judge Peck's home. The latter were equipped with swords, while the minute-men had their flint locks. The adherents of the Crown were ordered to lay down their swords on the
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