USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Orange > The Mountain Society : a history of the First Presbyterian Church, Orange, N. J. organized about the year 1719 with an account of the earliest settlements in Newark > Part 3
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A certain Scotchman, James Johnstone, writing to his friends at home, said the wolves " are nothing to be feared, neither are the country people afraid to be among them all night, insomuch that I oft- times going wrong, and lying out all night, and hearing their yells about me, and telling that I was afraid of them, the country people laughed at it."* The snakes were still less to be feared, "for
Quoted with references, by Stearns, p. 79. In 1682, a double bounty was offered for wolves, 15 shillings being paid by the county, and 15 by the town. "In 1695, these bounties were re- pealed, and it was left to the discretion of each town to adopt
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HOUSES.
nothing can come near them but they give warn- ing with the rattling of their tails, so that people may either kill them or go by them, as they please." What influence these assurances had to bring over the water any of the "kith and kin " of the worthy Scot, we know not. There was a con- siderable infusion of Scotch into the Newark settle- ment before the beginning of the eighteenth century.
The style of the Jersey houses of that day is thus described by Gawen Lawrie, writing to a friend in London : " A carpenter, with a man's own servants, builds a house. They have all ma- terials for nothing, except nails. The poorer sort set up a house of two or three rooms after this manner: The walls are of cloven timber, about eight or ten inches broad, like planks, set one end to the ground, and the other nailed to the raising, which they plaster within." At Amboy, where a great city was to be built, a beginning was made by Samuel Groome in the erection of three houses, in 1683, which were thus described by him : " The houses at Amboy are thirty feet long, and sixteen feet wide; ten feet between joint and joint ; a double chimney, made with timber and clay, as
such measures as might be necessary to exterminate the wolves. General legislation, however, was again resorted to, in March, 1714, and the bounty was extended to panthers and red foxes." In 1730, that on foxes was withdrawn. In 1751, the bounty was " sixty shillings for wolves, and ten shillings for whelps." Barber and Howe's Hist. Collect, (1844), p. 40.
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SELF-GOVERNMENT.
the manner of the country is to build." Such edi- fices "will stand in about £50 a house."* These were doubtless a fair type of the homes of the wealthier class.
The capacity of the Newark community for self- government was early tested. " Will you know," inquires Bancroft, " with how little government a community of husbandmen may be safe ? For twelve years the whole province was not in a set- tled condition. From June, 1689, to August, 1692, East Jersey had no government whatever." The maintenance of order, during this period, rested wholly with the local authorities and with the people themselves. A town meeting was ac- cordingly convened, March 25, 1689-90, to pro- vide for the exigency, Hamilton, the deputy-Gov- ernor, having left for Europe the preceding August. It was "Voted, that there shall be a committee chosen to order all affairs, in as prudent a way as they can, for the safety and preservation of our- selves, wives, children and estates, according to the capacity we are in." The committee consisted of Mr. Ward, Mr. Johnson, Azariah Crane, Wil- liam Camp, Edward Ball and John Brown, " with those in military capacity." It was well for the little commonwealth, in those times of disorder, that they were qualified, not only for "the carry-
Smith's New Jersey ; Stearns, p. 30.
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END OF PROPRIETARY RULE.
ing on of spiritual concernments," but also for the regulation of " civil and town affairs, according to God and a godly government." It was not simply that they were a community of husbandmen, as inti- mated by the historian, that made them safe with- out the protection of provincial laws; they had a higher law, a more imperative rule of action, writ- ten upon the heart.
The breaking up of the Proprietary government took place during the war between England and Holland, when the Dutch took forcible possession of the province. On the return of peace, the Pro- prietors were reinstated with new powers. Pro- fessing still to adhere to the original Concessions, they published a " declaration of their true intent and meaning," which was really a declaration, in some essential points, of things not intended and meant. The people saw in it a breach of the Con- cessions, and a dangerous abridgment of their priv- ileges. And the seeds of discontent, thus rashly sown by the Proprietors, rapidly ripened to such power, that they were constrained, in 1702, to sur- render the reins of government to the British crown. Tyranny, acting in obedience to avarice, defeated its own end. Nor did the effect stop here. The wave set in motion by the popular reaction rolled on with accumulating force, and having first stripped the Proprietors of their governmental functions, broke down at last their gigantic and
43
HORSENECK PURCHASE.
odious monopoly of the soil. This was, however, the work of three-quarters of a century. The last and effective sweep of quit-rents and proprietary exactions was made by the American revolution.
About this time was made another extensive purchase of Indian lands. The tide of population, setting back from the coast, had reached the moun- tain. It was now to break over, and carry its freight of civilization still farther into the interior. Preliminary action was taken at a town meeting, Oct. 2, 1699. " It was agreed, by the generality of the town, that they would endeavor to make a purchase of a tract of land lying westward of our bounds to the south branch of Passaic river ; and such of the town as do contribute to the purchase of said land, shall have their proportion according to their contribution." Mr. Pierson and Ensign Johnson were chosen to go and treat with the Pro- prietors about obtaining a grant. Samuel Harri- son, George Harrison, Thomas Davis, Robert Young, Daniel Dod, Nathaniel Ward and John Cooper were a committee to consider and put for- ward the design. On the 3d of Sept., 1701, cer- tain "articles of agreement" touching the matter were adopted and subscribed by one hundred prin- cipal men of the town, and one woman, each sub- scriber designating the number of lots he would take. These were subsequently known as the " Articles of the First Committee." Mr. John
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ITS LEGALITY.
Treat, Mr. Joseph Crane, Joseph Harrison, George Harrison, Eliphalet Johnson, John Morris and John Cooper, were now appointed, with full power to " treat, bargain and agree with such Indians as they find to be the right owners thereof by their diligent enquiry"-the major part of the commit- tee to have full power to act .* It is a circumstance not easily explained, that we find in these articles no reference to the Proprietors, while the fourth article declares that " the said land, purchased and paid for by us, shall be held and continued as our just rights, either in general or particular allot- ments, as the major part shall agree from time to time." As, however, an act of the General Assem- bly of the province, passed in 1683, was still in force, forbidding the taking of any deed from the Indians, except in the Proprietors' name ; and as the inhabitants of Newark, down to the date of this new purchase, had maintained an unimpeachable loy- alty to the Provincial government ; especially, as they had but two years before sent a committee to the Proprietors to obtain a grant of this very tract ; the presumption is, that they obtained the grant, and that this important accession to their territory
The tract was secured for £130, and a deed obtained of the Indians. This important deed was destroyed by fire, March 7, 1744-5, in the burning of Jonathan Pierson's house. It was promptly renewed within a week, so far as it could be, by another conveyance, to which Daniel Taylor was a witness, signed by the descendants of the sagamores who had signed the first.
45
ITS LEGALITY.
was made in a way that satisfied at once the rights of the natives and the claims of authority .* The bonds of loyalty had not yet snapped under the strain of oppression. It needed the administration of a Cornbury, and the attempt to subject the Puri- tans of New Jersey to an ecclesiastical establish- ment from which their fathers had fled, to give vitality to those seeds of discontent which had already been planted, and which were to ripen with the growth of another generation.
* Yet the account given of this period by the Council of Pro- prietors, in 1747, bears certainly against that presumption. It runs thus: "In 1688, the then king, James, broke through the rules of property, by seizing the government of New Jersey, and things continued in disorder and confusion till some time after the glorious revolution in England, that the Proprietors' government was restored; from which time, peace and tranquillity remained until 1698. From that time till 1703, all rules of property were slighted ; many riots, and much disorder and confusion ensued. In 1701, during that time, it's said that Horseneck purchase and Vangeesen's purchase were made, and possibly the others that they, the Committee, say they have concern in and for. And then was a grand effort made, by the Remonstrance and Petition before- mentioned, to King William, to overset all the rules of property in New Jersey, and to establish Indian purchases ; but in this they failed, and kept their purchases secret. And to prevent the like disorder, confusion and attempts for the future, the Act of 1703 was made, and peace and tranquillity restored ; which New Jersey ever since happily enjoyed, to the great improvement thereof; till 1745, that the worthy Committee, as is supposed, formed great plans and estates for themselves in their own minds, by setting up Indian purchases again."-Appendix to Bill in Chan- cery, p. 37.
3*
CHAPTER II.
THE MOUNTAIN SOCIETY.
NIFTY years have passed. The venerable Pier- son, leader of the Branford flock, has long rested from his labors. His son and successor, more dis- tinguished as the first president of the Connecticut college, to which he was removed from his Newark charge, has also finished his course. The pioneers in the settlement on the Passaic sleep in silence within sound of its waters. A generation has passed away. Five pastors have closed their min- istry in Newark. The aspects of the congregation, and its relations and circumstances, have consider- ably changed. It adheres to its early faith, but it has felt the force of surrounding influences upon its ecclesiastical usages and forms. New Jersey, except as held by the Quakers, is in the main Pres- byterian ground, and the Newark church, yielding to the influences of its position, and having received a considerable infusion of Presbyterian elements from abroad, has received its sixth pastor, Rev. Joseph Webb, from "the hands of the Presbytery." The statement of Dr. McWhorter, quoted by Dr.
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CHANGES IN NEWARK.
Hodge,* that Newark was settled by English Pres- byterians, and had elders from the beginning, ac- cording to his best information and belief, is dis- proved by well-established facts. At the same time we must agree with Dr. Hodge, that on the soil of New Jersey at large Presbyterianism has not in- vaded and supplanted Congregationalism. It was the earlier and predominant type of ecclesiastical order, and naturally absorbed and assimilated the Congregationalism that came in. This assimilation was not, however, without a struggle between the two systems, and in a community like that of Newark, originally composed of Congregationalists only, the process of change was necessarily slow. When the second Pierson manifested some leanings toward the Presbyterian order, the displeasure of his peo- ple was excited, and troubles arose which resulted in his dismissal. Yet on the 22d of October, 1719, Joseph Webb, in the line of his successors, was or- dained and settled over the same flock by the Pres- bytery of Philadelphia, and the next year took a seat in the Synod with a ruling elder from his church.
Did that event precipitate an Independent or- ganization at the mountain ? A comparison of dates will make the supposition appear at least probable.
The records of the Newark Church, and those of # Hist. Pres. Church, part I., p. 108.
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CHURCH AT THE MOUNTAIN.
this church also (it is said), perished or were lost in the time of the Revolution. But in a parcel of old deeds and other papers preserved by the Trustees of this church, is a deed of twenty acres of land sold by Thomas Gardner to "Samuel Freeman, Samuel Peirson, Matthew Williams, and Samuel Wheeler, and the Society at the Mountain associated with them," which bears date, January 13, 1719. As the year then began on the 25th of March, January followed October in the calendar. The deed was therefore given about three months after Mr. Webb's ordination and settlement in Newark. This coincidence, taken in connection with the previous history of the old Society, and with the well-established fact of the Congregational form of this Church till after the death of its first minister, affords presumptive evidence of the opinion ex- pressed above, that the change which took place in Newark stimulated the new movement here.
In 1720, ground was purchased of Samuel Wheeler on which to erect a house of worship. This again favors the supposition of a recent or- ganization. Dr. Stearns places the event "in or about the year 1718."* A congregation was doubt- less collected here by that time. Yet it seems scarcely probable that the Church had existed two years before steps were taken to build a sanctuary. With such light as the subject obtains from the
" On the authority of Dr. McWhorter.
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PARSONAGE LAND.
facts above given, we incline to the opinion that the Society took organic form sometime during the year 1719.
Among the inducements held out to the settlers by the Proprietors of East Jersey, was the offer of two hundred acres of land for the support of public worship in each parish. A warrant for the survey of 200 acres and meadow for a parsonage was granted to the Newark settlers October 23, 1676. The actual survey, however, does not appear to have been made till twenty years later, April 10, 1696, when, besides the two hundred thus appro- priated, three acres were assigned for a burial-place, three for a market-place, and six for a training- place, the last being on the present site of the First Park in Newark. We shall have occasion hereafter to notice the contentions to which these parsonage lands gave rise, and the measures adopted from time to time to protect them from plunder. How soon the Mountain Society set up its claim to a portion of them we do not know. Such a claim was very likely to have been among the first thoughts of the new congregation.
However this may be, the mountaineers were not indifferent to their supposed duty of making per- manent provision for the ministry. Their first act as an ecclesiastical body, of which we have any knowledge, was the buying of land for the minis- ter's use. They were manifestly unwilling to leave
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THE GARDNER PURCHASE.
so important a matter to any issues connected with their rights in the property of the Old Society.
The land purchased of Thomas Gardner in 1719, being "the sixth year of the reign of our sover- eign Lord, George, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland King, defender of the faith," &c., the deed informs us was sold " for divers good causes and considerations, me thereunto mov- ing, but more especially for and in consideration of the sum of £25 current money of New York." It was " to be and remain for the use and benefit of a dissenting* ministry, such as shall be called to that work by the grantees before-named, and their associates from time to time." It is described as "scituate, lying and being in the bounds and limits of Newark aforesaid, on the east side of a
* So called by English usage till the colonies became independ- ent. The Puritans in America were in no just sense dissenters. They secured here that "freedom to worship God " for which they left the fatherland. In New Jersey, religious liberty was explicitly guaranteed by the Proprietors. When the latter, in 1702, surren- ered their civil jurisdiction to the crown, an attempt was made by Lord Cornbury, the governor, to subject the people to the forms of the Church of England. "The Prayer Book was ordered to be read, the sacraments to be administered only by persons episco- pally ordained; and all ministers, without ordination of that sort, were required to report themselves to the Bishop of London. A bill for the maintenance of the Church in the Jerseys was defeated solely through the unflinching perseverance of a Baptist and a Quaker-Richard Hartshorne and Andrew Browne." Webster's Hist. Pres. Church., p. 88.
51
FIRST MEETING-HOUSE.
brook commonly called and known by the name of Parow's Brook .* Beginning at said brook near a bridge by the road that leads to the mountain, thence running easterly as the road runs, so far as that a south-westerly line cross the said lot (it being twelve chains in breadth) shall include twenty acres of land, English measure : bounded southerly with Joseph Harrison, westerly with said Parow's Brook, northerly with said mountain road, and easterly with my own land." This locates it east of the Willow Hall Market, south of, and including, the present park.
A meeting-house was the next demand. This was the central object of interest in every commu- nity of the Puritans.+ If no Dwight had ever composed for their use the precious hymn-
" I love thy kingdom, Lord, The house of thine abode,"
they were quite familiar with the inspired original
* Named from PERRO, one of the Indians who negotiated in the sale of the lands. See Robert Treat's testimony, Bill in Chancery, p. 118.
* A joint letter sent in 1684 to the Proprietors in Scotland, by David Barclay, Arthur Forbes, and Gawen Laurie, says: "The people being mostly New England men, do mostly incline to their way; and in every town there is a meeting-house, where they worship publicly every week. They have no public law in the country for maintaining public teachers, but the towns that have them make way within themselves to maintain them." Stearns, p. 78.
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THE BUILDERS.
from which its touching sentiments were drawn. " If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning"-were words that echoed the warmest feelings of many a settler's bosom.
If the reader has ever worshipped in any of the primitive sanctuaries of the far West or South, he will have no difficulty in limning for himself a pretty correct portrait of the rude and lowly edi- fice. The site selected for it was on the highway leading to the mountain, a few rods east from where the First Church now stands. Time has not spared for us the name of the architect and the particulars of the contract, as it has of the sanctuaries since built on nearly the same spot.
The town records of Newark, though occupied much with ecclesiastical matters, have nothing to say of the Mountain Society. They are indeed silent upon the building of the second house of worship in Newark, which is supposed to have been erected between April, 1714, and August, 1716, where a vacancy in the records occurs. Had we the details of that work, which took place just before the Society here was formed, we might obtain some probable clew to the men engaged upon the building here.
The mountain congregation, however, were not entirely dependent upon the Bezaleels and Hirams of the old Society.
Samuel Pierson was a carpenter, and his sons
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HANDS THAT HELPED.
Joseph, Samuel, James, Daniel, and Caleb,-all of them now arrived at manhood, for the father was fifty-six years old-must have had some knowl- edge of the trade. He was a good man, who had a care for the spiritual, as well as for the material edifice, as appears from the testimonial placed upon his headstone ten years afterward. We surmise that the holy structure went up under his superin- tendence, though the use of the broad-axe, the saw, and the auger, may have been left to younger hands. Doubtless there were others of the craft connected with the work. Many a right hand lent its cunning. And many a rough hand, accustomed more to the labors of forest and field than to those of the carpenter's bench, lent to the enterprise its manly strength. Samuel Harrison's saw-mill, which did good service for the parsonage twenty-eight years later, was not yet in operation, and planing-mills, sash-and-blind factories and the like, were institu- tions still more distant in the future. But our men of the wilderness were men trained to expedients. The want and the will brought the ways and the means. One by one, the straight shafts of the forest fell before the axe and were fitted to their places. From week to week the progress of the meeting-house was a principal topic of conversation, and when at last, on a little knoll in the midst of the travelled road, which on either side retired like the parting Jordan making way for the Ark, the
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HOLY JOYS.
completed sanctuary was seen, we can imagine with what care every domestic duty and labor of the field were so arranged that the future worshippers might join in the act of its solemn dedication to the worship of God.
We have not the programme of that solemnly glad occasion. Who offered the prayer, who preached the sermon, who read the psalm, who led the congregation in their hearty song of thanks- giving, were then matters of interest; but they have ceased to be matters even of traditional re- membrance. A " beam out of the timber " yet remains of the ancient edifice, but it is silent when questioned relative to the persons and scenes of that distant day .* It is probable that Mr. Webb, of the old Society, was among the ministers pres- ent ; for tender ties yet existed between him and the separating portion of his flock; while eccle- siastical ties may have brought from Connecti- cut or Long Island some prominent Independent minister to take the leading part of the service.+
This relic of the first meeting-house is in the frame of Mr. Charles Harrison's barn, in Valley street. It is a heavy cross- beam, of white oak, worked down a little from its original size, and having a line of mortises for studs. The post that supports it at the east end was also a post in the old meeting-house. The barn, or that part of it, was built by Samuel Harrison. The beam has answered one inquiry of the writer, viz. : that the meeting- house was framed, not a log house.
* According to a letter written March, 1729, by Rev. Jedediah
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THE CONGREGATION.
This supposition is the more likely, if Daniel Tay- lor was at this time pastor, of which there is room for doubt.
It is more easy to guess who were some of those who occupied the pews. There was seen, if not too infirm to attend, the hoary head of Anthony Oliff, probably the oldest man in the society, a patriarch in years though not a father. We have in our thoughts a figure of the eccentric old man, now about fourscore and five years old, and per- mitted to sit a few times in the new meeting-house before he was "in the church-yard laid." There was Nathaniel Wheeler, who had also numbered his fourscore years ; Matthew Williams, aged about seventy ; and probably Azariah Crane, a veteran of seventy-four. Around these aged men were others somewhat younger, in the midst of family groups that shared the joys and hopes inspired by the occasion. Arranged in their square pews, the more aged sat with their faces pulpitward, their eyes reverently fixed upon the preacher. The smaller ones were seated opposite, while on the right and left were youths and maidens in a side- wise position, suggestive of a state of mind that lent one ear to the sermon and another to whatever was passing in the rear of the house. High up in
Andrews, of Philadelphia, referred to by Richard Webster, (p. 583,) this was the only church in the Province at that date which did not conform to the Presbyterian mode.
56
STYLE OF WORSHIP.
a little pulpit, with sounding-board above, sat the minister of the day. And in his place, a person- age not to be overlooked, stood the precentor, to line out the psalm which the minister had read, and lead the congregation in the solemn service of song. Some recollections of the meeting-house arrange- ments, and the style of worship pertaining to that remote period, yet remain in the minds of elderly people. Time has since brought with it many modifications in matters not affecting the spirit and benefit of religious worship .*
The old Society in Newark had built its first meeting-house amid the alarms created by Indian atrocities in New England, where Philip's war was at that time raging. The men who had worked upon it had their arms ever at hand, and the walls of the house, " filled up with thin stone and mor- tar as high as the girts," were for walls of protec- tion in case of an attack. But those days of terror
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