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 4
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* We are not sure but one change has affected the spirit and true effect of public worship. While the introduction of hymn books has obviated the necessity of reading the hymn by couplets, the introduction of choirs has almost set aside the hymn book, or its appropriate use by the congregation. There are exceptions to the statement, which are happily increasing in number. In some parts of our country the precentor yet exercises his primitive func- tions. The writer, while laboring in one of the Southern States, where he preached occasionally to a number of Scotch congrega- tions, has often, after reading the psalm, handed the book to the chorister, to be read again by him as the lines were sung.
57
MIXTURE OF RACES.
were now past. Fifty years of peaceful intercourse with the natives had produced a general feeling of security. It was no longer necessary to worship in forts, or to erect flankers at the church corners for the shelter of armed sentinels. Indeed, the gospel had by this time penetrated the darkness of the aboriginal mind, and in the same Christian assem- bly might have been seen the white man with his African servant and his Indian neighbor. Amid this mixture of races the foundations of our Zion were laid. Just about a hundred years later, (Feb- ruary 24, 1820,) New Jersey passed her emancipa- tion act, and now African and Indian have together receded before the resistless intelligence of a supe- rior race.
CHAPTER III.
REV. DANIEL TAYLOR.
I may be presumed that the year 1721 found the Mountain Society in circumstances to invite to their pulpit a pastor, if this step had not been already taken. There is a tradition in the parish, that before the settlement of Daniel Taylor, the Society had a minister, who was drowned, together with his son, in crossing the Connecticut river at Saybrook, on a visit to his friends. This tragic in- cident, however, belongs to the history of Rev. Joseph Webb,* of the Newark church. It is quite likely that before the congregation had obtained a
The Boston Gazette and Weekly Journal of Oct. 27, 1741, contained the following : "We have an account that, on Tuesday last, the Seabrook ferry-boat overset, wherein were the Rev. Joseph Webb, of New Haven, and his son, a young woman, and several others. The two former were drowned; the others with great difficulty got safe to shore." (See the New England Historical and Genealogical Register and Antiquarian Journal, January, 1856.) Mr. Webb had been about five years dismissed from his Newark charge.
59
HIS NATIVITY.
minister, Mr. Webb had occasional appointments here. The people were a part of the flock to which his predecessors had ministered. It it also likely that during the four years of his residence in Newark, after his dismission from that charge in 1736, when he continued still to preach in the neighborhood, this part of the town received his occasional labors. He, however, could not have been Mr. Taylor's predecessor here, and the fatal casualty at Saybrook ferry did not occur till 1741, when the latter is known to have been in the field eighteen years.
According to the inscription on his tombstone, Mr. Taylor was born about the year 1691,* and was in his sixteenth year when he graduated at the high school, or college, at Killingworth, the embryo YALE. It was not uncommon at that period for boys to be put through the required course of Greek and Latin at sixteen years.
Inquiries respecting his nativity have been fruit- less. We have sought for it among the Taylors of Deerfield, Mass., and among those of Norwalk and Danbury, Conn. It appears, from the town records of Smithtown, Long Island, that he resided there four years, ending with 1717, and that Rich- ard Smith and his four brothers, on the 13th day
* Not 1684, as given by Thompson ; Hist. Long Island, 2d ed., vol. I., p. 460.
60
LABORS ON LONG ISLAND.
of February in that year, gave him fifty acres of land on the west side of Nesaquake river, in con- sideration of his ministerial labors. There, too, at the age of twenty-four years, died his wife, Jemima, April 20, 1716, as indicated by a headstone in the old burial-place of the Smiths.
In what year he came to New Jersey is not known. It was prior to April 23, 1723, at which time he and Matthew Williams were witnesses of a deed given by Peleg Shores to Jonathan Lindsley, conveying " one equal half of the farm or planta- tion which did formerly belong to Anthony Olive." On the 18th of May, 1726, the same land was con- veyed by Jonathan Lindsley to David Williams, and the deed again witnessed by Daniel Taylor and Elizabeth Taylor .* The latter may be pre- sumed to have been his " beloved wife, Elizabeth," mentioned in his will. She married a Hedden after his decease.
According to traditions handed down in the line of his family, Mr. Taylor brought a wife from Long Island, whom he buried here. From such light as we can gather from his will, and from the ages recorded on their tombstones, we suppose her to
On the back of the deed is a deposition, certified Dec. 27, 1765, to the effect that the said Elizabeth Taylor, now Elizabeth Hedden, personally appeared before Samuel Woodruff, one of his Majesty's Council for the province of New Jersey, and swore that she saw the within deed lawfully executed.
61
MR. TAYLOR'S FAMILY.
have been the mother of his oldest son and second daughter; and if he came to this parish after the year 1721, he must have brought with him three children. This second wife is said to have been afflicted with a nervous disorder, which so affected her mind as to bring great trials upon her hus- band. Toward the end of her life she had a ham- mock suspended in her room, on which she was laid and gently swung, with a view to its soothing and sleep-inducing influence. Before the spring of 1726, her sufferings had evidently terminated; un- less we suppose the Elizabeth Taylor mentioned above to have been the mother or sister of the min- ister, instead of his wife .* The lady whom he next married, and who bore that name, outlived him by at least eighteen years. From this and other circumstances, it may be inferred that she was considerably younger than he.
From the number of deeds witnessed, and appar- ently drawn up by Mr. Taylor, he appears to have
* An ancient volume of sermons, said to have been given by Mr. Taylor to Susan Tichenor, and now in the possession of Widow Mary Freeman, of South Orange, contains upon a fly-leaf the in- scription : " Elizabeth Taylor, her Booke, 1686." The tradition is, that it had belonged to his sister. If so, she had probably received it from her mother, as the name was inscribed five years before Mr. Taylor's birth. The volume is a thick quarto, published in London in 1674, and containing thirty-one sermons by leading preachers of the time; the first being by the compiler, Dr. Samuel Annesly.
4
62
HOME AND LANDS.
been the scrivener, as well as the minister, of the parish. His ready pen and knowledge of legal forms were in frequent demand, and doubtless saved to the planters many a fee that would other- wise have gone to the lawyers.
He was the owner of his residence, which stood on the site now occupied by Joseph B. Lindsley, corner of Main and Hillyer streets. This bordered upon the twenty acres bought of Thomas Gardner by the parish. His house is said to have been afterwards moved to where the Park House stands, and to have been fitted up for a tavern.
Besides the homestead, he had a tract of land, lying a quarter of a mile to the north, on the south- west side of Washington street, now owned by the Williams family. Fifteen acres* of this, lying be- tween the upper end of Park street and the brook,
* Described as "one certain tract or parcel of land, scituate, lying and being in the bounds of Newark aforesaid, at the moun- tain plantations, so-called, and by a brook commonly called and known by the name of Perrow's brook : Beginning at a walnut-tree marked,on the western side of the highway ; thence running north- west down to said brook; thence northerly, as the brook runs, to the land of said Matthew Williams ; and thence by his land to an highway, and so round by highways to the place where it began : containing and to contain fifteen acres, be there more or less." Signed by DANIEL TAYLOR.
GORSHOM WILLIAMS, his THOMAS + LAMSON, mark.
Witnesses,
63
REVIVAL OF 1734.
were deeded by him to Matthew Williams, Jun., June 1, 1731. The rest of it lay on the other side of Park street, including the ground on which Aaron Williams now resides. Between it and the main road were twenty-six acres, owned by Na- thaniel Williams, and sold by him, Feb. 10, 1735, to Matthew Williams, who again sold four acres of the same to the parish, in 1748.
We know little of Mr. Taylor as a preacher. From the boldness and zeal with which, according to their statements, he took sides against the Pro- prietors in defence of Indian titles, we may infer a character of energy, fearlessness, and firmness. Such a man must have been one who shunned not to declare the whole counsel of God. And it is pleasing to know, not only from the perpetuity and growth of the Church, but from records made at that time of the mighty works of God, that power divine attended his words, and that revival scenes were passing here while the great awaken- ing in New England was in progress. President Edwards, in his Narrative of Surprising Conver- sions, thus alludes to a work of grace here: "But this shower of Divine blessing has been yet more extensive : there was no small degree of it in some parts of the Jerseys, as I was informed when I was at New York (in a long journey I took at that time of the year, for my health), by some people of the Jerseys whom I saw : especially the Rev. Mr, Wil-
64
REVIVAL IN NEWARK.
liam Tennent, a minister who seemed to have such things much at heart, told me of a very great awakening of many in a place called the Moun- tains, under the ministry of one Mr. Cross," &c .* What numbers were truly converted and added to the fellowship of the Church, as the result of this " very great awakening of many," we have no means of ascertaining.
About four years later, viz, in August, 1739, a revival of similar power took place in Newark, under the then youthful Rev. Aaron Burr. It was just before the first visit of Whitefield to this part of the country. Beginning among the youth, it reached the adult portion of the congregation by the following spring, when " the whole town were brought under an uncommon concern about their eternal interests." As the work abated in Newark, it broke out in Elizabethtown, after Whitefield had been laboring there with apparently no suc-
* It is stated by Rev. Richard Webster (Hist. Presb. Ch., p. 413,) that John Cross, "styled by Dr. Brownlee 'a Scottish worthy,' was received as a member of Synod in 1732, and settled at a place ' called the Mountains, back of Newark.' The remark- able revival in his congregation there, in 1734 and '35, is noticed in Edwards's 'Thoughts on Revivals.'" Here is a double error. Mr. Cross, of Baskingridge, could not have been settled here, though he may have preached here during the revival-for he was very zealous in revival labors ; and the passage referred to in Edwards is cited from the wrong treatise, being found in his Narrative of Surprising Conversions.
65
NEGRO PLOTS.
cess. Again, in the following year, it was revived in Newark, with more glorious manifestations of Divine power than before. To what extent its in- fluence was felt by this congregation, we have no means of knowing.
It is painful to turn from these pleasing views of the triumphs of the gospel of peace, to the troubles and disorders that ensued. Serious apprehensions were excited, about this time, of insurrections among the servile population. As early as 1734, a rising was attempted in the neighborhood of the Raritan, in consequence of which one or more ne- groes were hung. In July, 1750, two others were executed at Perth Amboy, for the murder of their mistress. Between those events, in 1741, a formi- dable negro plot was thought to be discovered in New York, which resulted in "many executions, both by hanging and burning." The plan laid in the insurrection of the Raritan was, to join the In- dians in the interest of the French, in a general massacre of the English population.
But the troubles in which the planters of this locality were more seriously involved, grew out of their relations with the great land-monopoly. The Proprietors of East Jersey had, in 1702, surren- dered to the crown their powers of government, but not their right to the soil. It was stipulated, among the conditions of the transfer, that "the crown disclaims all right to the province of New
66
RIGHTS OF THE CROWN.
Jersey, other than the government, and owns the soil and quit-rents, &c., to belong to the said Gen- eral Proprietors; and the Governors are directed not to permit any other person or persons, besides the said General Proprietors, to purchase any land whatsoever from the Indians within the limits of their grant." By an act of the Assembly, pub- lished in November, 1703, after the arrival of Lord Cornbury, not only all Indian purchases which had not been made by the Proprietors before that time, were declared null and void, unless grants for them were obtained , within six months ; but also all who should thereafter make purchases of the Indians, except Proprietors (and they only in the manner prescribed by the act), should forfeit forty shillings per acre for every acre so pur- chased.
This stringent prohibition was thus confidently vindicated : " Has not the crown of England a right to those void or uninhabited countries which are discovered by any of its subjects? Has not the crown of England a right to restrain its subjects from treating with any heathen nation whatsoever? And has not the crown of England, in consequence of that right, power to grant the liberty of treating with any heathen nation to any one particular per- son, exclusive of all others, and that upon such terms as by the crown may be thought proper ? Has not the crown of England at least granted that
67
CHALMERS' OPINION.
right to the proprietors by the grants of New Jersey, under the great seal of England ?"*
Yet there were some in Newark, as there had been long before in Elizabethtown, who ventured to call this right in question; "blindly led on," say the Proprietors, " by a position, that the Indians were once the owners of the soil; and therefore they con- clude that those who have purchased, or got deeds of their right, must also be owners now."
It is not our business to discuss the question here at issue. The reader will however be interested in the following views of Dr. Chalmers, touching the same question. A band of Moravian missionaries, exploring the coast of Labrador in 1811, took formal possession of the country in the name of George III., whom they represented to the natives as the Great Monarch of all those territories. " We do not see the necessity of this transaction," says Chal- mers, " and confess that our feelings of justice some- what revolted at it. How George III. should be the rightful monarch of a territory whose inhabi- tants never saw a European before, is something more than we can understand. We trust that the marauding policy of other times is now gone by, and that the transaction in question is nothing more than an idle ceremony."+
* Publication of April, 1746.
+ On the efficacy of Missions as conducted by the Moravians. -- These claims of the Christian potentates of Europe have a curious
68
PAPAL CLAIMS.
-
Sentiments similar to these began to be general in our mountain settlement in the course of twenty years after the constitution of the parish.
Various causes had operated to excite disaffection toward the proprietors. Many of them were ab- sentee landlords, living in England and Scotland on the rents which they drew from the province. It
history. They began with the popes, who, as God's vicegerents, claimed to be the earth's sovereign masters and proprietors. All heathens, heretics, and infidels, according to their theory, had no right to any possession of the earth's soil. Hence, Pope Eugene IV., in 1440, made a munificent donation of Africa to King Al- phonso V., of Portugal ; " not because that continent was unin- habited, but because the nations subsisting there were infidels, and consequently unjust possessors of the country." By the same principle, Pope Alexander VI., in 1493, the year after its discovery, gave the whole of America to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, (although one of his infallible predecessors had declared that no such continent as America did or could exist) ; a grant which the royal pair accepted (according to Herrera) against the advice of the Spanish civilians and canon lawyers.
The disposing power thus assumed by the popes was too absurd to be regarded by Roman Catholic princes, when exercised to the prejudice of their interests. Yet, with greater absurdity, they arrogated for themselves the power which they denied to the suc- cessors of St. Peter. Thus, Henry VII. of England, in 1496, com- missioned John Cabot and his three sons, with their associates, "to navigate all parts of the ocean, in five ships, under the banners of England, for the purpose of discovering such heathen or infidel regions, countries or islands, wherever situated, as were unknown to christian states; with power to set up the King's standard in any lands, islands, &c., which they might discover, not previously occupied by christians, and to seize, conquer, and possess, all such
69
DISAFFECTION.
happened in a few instances that lands were twice sold under conflicting proprietary titles, so that cer- tain purchasers were dispossessed. Some who had purchased a proprietary interest, with the privilege of selecting their land afterward, took advantage of the circumstance to select and sell at their pleasure. Licenses to buy of the natives were also forged or
lands, islands, &c., and as his liege vassals, governors, locumtenentes [lieutenants] or deputies, to hold dominion over and have exclusive property in the same." Elizabeth, James, and their successors, gave similar commissions, all containing this proviso, "that the territories and districts so granted be not previously occupied and possessed by the subjects of any other christian prince or state."
What kings would not concede to popes, was by virtue of their power conceded to kings, but under protest. Thus, Bartholomew De Las Casas, bishop of Chiapa, in a treatise dedicated to Charles V., represented that the natives of America, "having their own lawful kings and princes, and a right to make laws for the good government of their respective dominions, could not be expelled out of them, or deprived of what they possess, without doing vio- lence to the laws of God as well as the law of nations."
" It is universally acknowledged that discovery, the only title that any European State could allege to the lands of America, affords no just claim to any but derelict or uninhabited lands, which those of America are not. [Griffith, vol. 10.]"
" All the nations of Europe, and indeed of the world, have been as unchristian and as savage as the aborigines in America ; and if ignorance, either in matters of religion or science, could defeat the title of a people to their country, the English must be unjust possessors of the British soil, and incapable of conveying it to their posterity."
See an "Examination into the rights of the Indian Nations to their respective countries," &c. Phila .. 1781.
4*
1
70
OPPOSITION MEASURES.
altered. These things all together created no little confusion ; and between the errors of agents and the arts of the unprincipled, the planters often found their just interests sacrificed. It was not difficult to turn the current of popular indignation against the proprietors, even when the latter were victims of the fraud.
As early as 1744, we find the settlers about the mountain adopting measures for the defence of their titles .* Contributions were raised for defraying the
" See Samuel Harrison's account-book, preserved by Edward Pierson, Esq., of Newark, in which is the following "account of what each one hath paid in order to the establishing their right of land, and in defraying the charge." The dates belong to 1744.
"Nathaniel Crane,
Sam. Harrison, in cash to Capt. Wheeler,
£1-10-0 Thomas Williams, £ 3-0
Samuel Wheeler, 17-6
7-0 Going to N. England 4 days, 1- 4-0
Nathaniel Camp,
7-0 Going to N. England 9 days, 2-14-0
Samuel Baldwin,
7-0 Going to Horse Neck with Mr. Taylor, 5-0
Sam. Harrison p'd Mr. Tay- lor,
3-6 Going to Horse Neck with Dan. Lamson, 5-0
7-0 Cash p'd to Mr. Taylor, 3-6
" p'd to John Cundict, 14-0
7-0 do. 66 2-4
" p'd to John Tompkins, 17-10
Going to New York, &c. &c.
10-0"
John Cundict p'd Mr. Tay- lor,
August 20. Garhshom Wil- liams,
Oct. 7. I received of Amos Williams, on accompt of the charge of the purchase right,
7-0
We find the following entry also about that time: "Jan. 23, 1744-5. Samuel Freeman brought to me two wolves' heads, and I marked it [them] according to law and gave him a ticket for the same." We may infer that Mr. Harrison was a magistrate, and that Deacon Freeman did not consider the poor wolves entitled to the charities of his office.
71
LOSS OF DEED.
expenses of agents sent to Connecticut and to Horse Neck [Caldwell], for the purpose, it is presumed, of obtaining papers or affidavits tending to confirm their rights.
In these proceedings Mr. Taylor appears to have taken a prominent part.
From the coincidence of dates it would seem that these measures were made necessary by the loss of the deed of the large Indian purchase of 1701. That important document was destroyed- whether accidentally or intentionally cannot be known-by the burning of Jonathan Pierson's house, March 7, 1744-5. With all haste another was drawn up, which was signed on the 14th by certain descendants of the old Sagamores, and witnessed by Isaac Vangiesen, Francis Cook, [his mark,] Daniel Taylor, and Michael W. Vreelandt [his mark.] The event furnished an occasion, how- ever, which seems to have been seized upon for disturbing many persons in their claims and pos- sessions, and this in turn gave rise to the riots that ensued. Samuel Baldwin, for getting saw-logs off his land, was arrested and put in jail. His friends went to his rescue, broke open the jail and released him. In November, depositions were made before Joseph Bonnel, Esq., " by John Morris, aged 79 years, Abraham Van Giesen, aged 80 years, Michael Vreelandt, aged 81 years, Cornelius Demaress, Samuel Harrison, John Condit, Deacon Samuel
72
RIOTS.
Alling, Samuel Tompkins, Francis Spier, Hen- drick Francisco, Joseph Riggs, and others, relating to the course of the Proprietors of East Jersey, in obliging them to repurchase their lands after hav- ing enjoyed long and peaceable possession."* In the same month, Nehemiah Baldwin, Joseph Pier- son, Daniel Williams, Nathaniel Williams, Eleazer Lamson, Gamaliel Clark, and twenty-one others, stood before the Supreme Court for riots committed in Essex county.
Affairs were now converging to a general and spirited struggle with the Proprietors. During the year 1745, an association was formed, and another large purchase west of the mountain was made of the Indians, in which all proprietary claims were ignored. It was the famous purchase of fifteen miles square, obtained, as the Proprietors sneer- ingly asserted, "for the valuable consideration of five shillings and some bottles of rum . .. from Indians who claimed no right, and told them they had none; but no matter for that, it was enough that they were Indians, and they had their deeds." The purchasers took a different view of the transaction. They had their vindicator too. There was
" A DANIEL come to judgment : yea, a DANIEL."
Toward the close of the year, there appeared in New York a little pamphlet of forty-eight pages,
* Rutherford MSS. See Analytical Index, by N. J. Hist. Soc.
73
VINDICATION.
entitled " A Brief vindication of the Purchassors Against the Proprietors in a Christian Manner." It is supposed to have been written by Mr. Taylor .* A writer also in the New York Post-Boy, of Feb- 17, 1745-6, just after another riot and release of prisoners in the Newark jail, took up the cause of the planters, laying on the Proprietors the blame of the disturbance. And in April a petition was addressed to the General Assembly, in which the charges set forth in the Post-Boy were enlarged upon, and measures of relief were sought. In the meantime, prosecutions were renewed against the agitators ; a list of forty-four persons concerned in the last riot being filed in the Supreme Court at the May term.
But law owes its potency to public opinion, and so the Proprietors in turn made their appeal to the public by means of the press. From their publica- tion of April 7, 1746, it appears that this part of Newark bore its full share of responsibility for the riots, while a very charitable apology is suggested for some of the offenders. They say : "Possibly
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