USA > New Jersey > The New Jersey coast in three centuries; history of the New Jersey coast with genealogical and historic-biographical appendix, Vol. II > Part 15
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The sea captains plying between commercial towns and ports, or sail- ing on unknown seas, were men of the merchant class, accustomed to author- ity and negotiation. The fisheries of the North Sea were the great source of wealth to many of the commercial ports on its shores. Salt fish was one of the most important articles of food and commerce, especially in Catholic countries, and was the most necessary portable supply for all fleets, armies and expeditions. In the little vessels of the fishing fleets of the North Sea were trained bold sailors of the Dutch and English navies and merchantmen. Very early the daring fishermen of Portugal and Brittany crossed the Atlantic to the great fishing banks off Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and New England. At the beginning of the seventeenth cen- tury the herring fisheries produced to Holland alone £1,759,000 sterling and employed 50,000 fishermen. The old Dutch captains visiting the New Netherlands discovered and reported the great value of the fisheries along. the New Jersey coast from the Hudson River to Delaware Bay and River. Whaling was reported as one of the most important sources of profit in
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this new region. In Dutch cities Printz gathered the Swedish colonists whom he brought to New Jersey in 1640. Many were probably Nor- wegian and Swedish fish merchants. To-day, in the pines of New Jersey, and especially in the fishing hamlets along the coast, may be found Scan- dinavian types (descendants) who have inherited their names and national peculiarities. A very few may have served in the army of Gustavus Adolphus with the English and Scotch volunteers who formed an import- ant part of this army, and may have been been refugees from the field of Lutzen, stranded in the Dutch cities. But the history of the colony would indicate a milder and less aggressive origin. They displayed no powers of resistance, but amalgamated with whatever people they came into con- tact-Indians, Dutchmen and Englishmen. They have always been brave and hardy seamen of the fo'castle.
The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 laid the foundations of Protestant Germany and established the sovereignty of France, and, between them, the Republics of Switzerland and Holland received recognition. The Hanse- atic League was no longer necessary, but many of the Hanse Towns re- mained independent. The Canton of Ury, between St. Gottard's Pass and the Lake of Geneva, was the cradle of the Swiss Republic-the source of the Rhine and the birthplace of John Calvin. The Rhine carried Calvinism and Republicanism to the sea, and the sea bore them to every commercial port of the known world. Colonel David Barclay, one of the Scotch offi- cers with Gustavus Adolphus at the battle of Lutzen, and the father of the Quaker Robert Barclay, a proprietor of New Jersey, purchased in 1647 the Barony of Ury in North Scotland. In 1696 Governor Andrew Hamil- ton, of New Jersey, in his will, disposed of "Real estate in the City and Republic of Geneva in Scotland."
The downfall of Charles I and the founding of the "Republic of England" under Oliver Cromwell was largely due to the influence of the wealthy and independent municipalities of Great Britain, especially of Lon- don.
To the Hanse Towns, to the Evangelical Cantons of Switzerland, and to the United States of Holland-all great commercial republics-John Milton, as Secretary of State, from 1650 to 1660 wrote many official letters, addressing them always as "our dearest friends" and (sometimes) "confederates." Under the Protectorate, English commerce flourished, for England was then governed by the producing and commercial classes. Some of the earliest acts of the Republic of England were for the promo- tion of colonial improvements and commerce. The navy was strengthened, and the merchantmen increased in number until they began to rival the Dutch, who were excluded from English commerce by the Navigation Act.
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The old Republican sea captain, sailing with a brave ship and hardy crew, was hampered by few instructions or restrictions-he was free to capture any Catholic captain, especially a Spaniard, sailing home with his ill-gotten gain from South America-free to do this for the glory of God and the honor of Great Britain. He was like Captain William Mid- dleton, who in 1591 sailed with Admiral Howard, hoping to plunder the Spanish fleet returning with large booty from America. The expedition failed, but on January 24th, 1595, in the West Indies, the good Captain finished a translation of the Book of Psalms into Welsh verse. Edward Kiffin, a brother poet, in his introduction to that work, is careful to explain, "with a touch of true Elizabethan sea-divinity, that Englishmen were not only zealous to rob and kill the Spaniards, but had also an anxious desire to save their souls; for had they not printed a large number of religious books in Spanish, and distributed them very diligently ?- when not otherwise employed." The soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus and of Oli- ver Cromwell, and the Christian seamen who sailed the Spanish Main, were honestly and truly Christians according to their own interpretation of the Judaic law and teachings of St. Paul. They lived in an age when the loving kindness of Christ could not appeal to them. However incon- sistent they may seem, they fought for and established the liberties which we enjoy.
After the battles of Dunbar and Worcester, hundreds of prisoners of war were put upon vessels and sent to New England and the West Indies to be sold as slaves. In one of Charles Gordon's letters from Amboy, published in "Scot's Model," he speaks of a visit from a kinsman-an "old buckskin planter"-who had been taken prisoner at Dunbar and sold as a slave in New England.
After the defeat of Lesly at Dunbar, September 3, 1650, in order that a new army might be raised, the Scotch, by two resolutions passed in a parliament held at Perth, permitted the royalists or malignants to join the army. This awakened dissensions. The clergy and most strict opposers of Charles II resisted their admittance. The remonstrators were border- men and hated Cromwell and the English. Withholding their troops, they formed a separate association against the sectarians or English independ- ents. A remonstrance against the King was prepared by the counties of Renfrew, Ayr, Galloway, Wigton and Dumfries-the most fanatical coun- ties of the west. They were called Public Resolutioners, Protesters, or Re- monstrants. On December Ist, under Colonels Ker and Strachan, they, numbering about five or six thousand, attacked Hamilton Castle, where Lambert, with the English troops, was stationed. Ker was wounded, and Strachan fled to Ireland, where he joined Cromwell, his former commander.
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The entire force was scattered by a long pursuit, and all were attainted by both Charles II and Cromwell. Sir Walter Scott called this the last of the great border-raids.
Religion brought honesty and peace to the "waste lands" of the border. George Buchanan, in his "History of Scotland," gives "The roole off the Remonstrators that burnt the gaits of Drumlanrig and plundered the waisted lands." John Craufurd, the Laird of Craufurdland, with five hundred men; John Craufurd, Bailie of Ayr, Gilbert Ker, William . Ker of Newtown, the Maxwells (Sir George of Newark), the Fullertons, the Gordons (of Sutherland, Gordonstown and Cluny), the Hamiltons, the Johnstones, the Campbells, and others-many of whom fled or were exiled to the colonies. Many of the Crawfords (or Craufurds) seem to have set- tled upon the eastern end of Jamaica Island in the West Indies. When the New Netherlands surrendered to Richard Nicolls, he changed the name of the town of Jamaica, Long Island to "Craffurd."
The early Scotch colonists of New Jersey were probably more inti- mately associated with the "burning of the gaits of Drumlanrig" than. with any other single event in the founding of the Republic of England. The remonstrators were lowland Scots from below the Grampians. They were merchants and professional men of the cities-often men who had been educated in the universities along the Rhine. They were often younger members of the noble families. A true Highlander was invariably a Cath- olic and a cavalier. He scorned learning and labor-he would "make his mark" with the bloody point of his dirk, but he despised the man who could sign his name like a common clerk. Like the English farmer, he was unwilling to leave his home, and he seldom became a colonist. The most typical record of a Highlander as a colonist in New Jersey, is a draft of an agreement, December 16, 1684, "that John Campbell shall send a footman in velvet to wait upon David Toschacke of Monyvaird as a Pro- prietor, when at Parliament in East Jersey." In 1684 Captain Thomas Pearson imported from Scotland as servants a few men named "Mack- greiger, Mackenzie, Macloud and Macdonald." They were probably pris- oners taken in some raid of those warlike clans into the lowlands. Captain Pearson came from Aberdeen.
As the hour of the Restoration approached, John Milton, in dread, drew the contrast between the Republic and the restored monarchy. Said he :
"And what government comes nearer to this precept of Christ than a free commonwealth : wherein they who are the greatest, are perpetual sery- ants and drudges to the public at their own cost and charges, neglect their
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own affairs, yet are not elevated above their brethren; live soberly in their families, walk the streets as other men, may be spoken to freely, familiarly, friendly, without adoration? Whereas a king must be adored like a demi- god, with a dissolute and haughty court about him, of vast expense and luxury, masks and revels, to the debauching of our prime gentry both male and female; not in their pastimes only, but in earnest, by the loose employments of court service, which will be then thought honorable. There will be a queen of no less charge; in most likelihood outlandish ( foreign) and papist, besides a Queen-mother, such already ; together with their courts and numerous train ; then a royal issue, and ere long severally their sumptu- ous courts ; to the multiplying of a servile crew, not of servants only, but of nobility and gentry, bred up then to the hopes not of public but of court offices, to be stewards, chamberlains, ushers, grooms, etc., and the lower their minds, debased with court opinions, contrary to all virtues and re- formation, the haughtier will be their pride and profuseness. We may well remember this not long since at home; nor need but look at present into the the French court, where enticements and preferments daily draw away and pervert the Protestant nobility."
After years of exile, poverty and restraint, Charles Stuart returned to establish such a court as Milton had described-most dissolute and extrava- gant, its only support the appropriations of Parliament. The Commons of England, the merchants and tradesmen of cities and towns, the generally religious and virtuous middle classes, were not too ready to tax them- selves for the support of an uterly frivolous and useless court. The trades- men, goldsmiths and merchants of London became the creditors of the King, the Duke and their fawning favorites. Pepys, in his diary, takes note of a conversation with Mr. Blackburn at Westminster Hall in1 1683, in which he is credited with saying :
"The Kingly name, with all his dignities, is prayed for by them that they call Fanatiques, as heartily and powerfully as in any of the other churches that are thought better ; and that, let the King think what he will, it is them that must help him in the day of warr. For so generally are they the most substantial sort of people, and the soberest; and did desire me to observe it to Lord Sandwich, among other things, that of all the old army now you cannot see, a man begging about the streets, but what? You shall have this Captain turned a shoemaker; the Lieutenant, a baker ; this a brewer; that a haberdasher; this common soldier, a porter; and every man in his apron and frock, etc., as if they never had done anything else : whereas, the other go with their belts and swords, swearing and cursing and stealing ; running into people's houses, by force often times, to carry away something; and this is the difference between the temper of one and the other; and concludes, and I think with some reason, that the spirits of the old parliament soldiers are so quiet and contented with God's providences that the King is safer from any evil meant him by them one thosand times more than from his own discontented Cavaliers."
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To such men the King and his court turned for private loans, which were paid for by colonial grants and patents, which made them proprietors and patentees in the Colonies. The first two Stuarts appreciated the value to the crown of granting colonial patents and charters, but, to the last two Kings of that unfortunate house, such grants seemed to be the only resource independent of Parliamentary favors. The colonies had flour- ished under the liberal administration of their affairs during the later years of the Commonwealth.
About six months after the Restoration, Charles II, on January 7, 1661, appointed of the Privy Council, nobility, gentry and merchants, a Council for Foreign Plantations, comprising about thirty-five members. Four months later a report upon the conditions of the New England Col- onies was read before the Council Board. They were accused of admin- istering justice repugnant to the Laws of England; of imposing unequal restraints in matters of conscience and divine worship; of having so many sheep that English manufacturers would be less necessary to them, and of having purposely withdrawn all means of judging or disposing of their affairs in England, "as if they intended to suspend their absolute obedience to the King's authority." ("Colonial State Papers.") Just at this time the 'Act of Uniformity, aimed at the Catholic inclinations of the Stuarts and their favorites, was passed. Above two thousand ministers refused to be bound by this act. The heavy penalties of nonconformity fell equally upon all save those who could conscientiously or for reasons of policy were willing to subscribe to the thirty-nine articles and to everything else contained in the Book of Common Prayer. "All schoolmasters, all who entered our universities, and all persons who took any office, civil or mili- tary, were required to give on oath their assent and consent to this act." In the early years of the reign of Charles II. "Emigration to New England, Virginia, Surinam, Jamaica and other West Indian Islands was very con- siderable, the number being computed at upwards of 12,000. In August, 1662, about seventy Presbyterian pastors bade farewell to their churches in the city of London. The Quakers were increasing rapidly, and hundreds were apprehended and put into gaol. They had opposed Monk and the Res- toration. On the 7th of February, 1659, Samuel Pepys saw "Monk's soldiers abuse Billinge and all the Quakers that were at a meeting there (White- hall), and indeed the soldiers did use them very roughly, and were to blame." "Billinge the Quaker," of Westminster (then the aristocratic quarter of London), was a conspicuous figure in London for many years, and later became a prominent Proprietor and Patentee of both East and West Jersey.
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We have thus briefly traced the stock from which came and of which were some of the early colonists of New Jersey, premising that the stories of proprietary rule and of the acquisition of lands from the Indians have been already told in another chapter. Our present concern is with those who were immediately and actually concerned with the settlement of the virgin territory.
Dr. Clarke, Obadiah Holmes and many of their associates who founded Middletown and Newport, Rhode Island, were educated men and men of "birth and breeding" in the old world as well as in the new. Their sons, born to the life of the frontier or of the sea, had not their educational advantages, but were fully imbued with their faith, grown broader and more liberal to their fellow men. And it was these and such as these as were among the earliest settlers of old Monmouth, in New Jersey.
The early settlement of Monmouth county is not to be named without reference to Obadiah Holmes, one of the patentees. For his anabaptist principles he was most cruelly beaten in Boston, in September, 1651. The Rev. John Cotton, in his sermon preached immediately before the court passed sentence upon Mr. Clarke, Obadiah Holmes and John Crandall, affirmed that denying infant baptism would overthrow all. and this was a capital offence and therefore they were "foul murtherers." The sentence was a fine of thirty pounds "or else to be well whipt." Refusing to pay, Mr. Holmes was whipt thirty stripes with a three-corded whip, and in such an unmerciful manner that in many days, if not some weeks, he could take no rest, but as he lay upon his knees and elbows, not being able to suffer any part of his body to touch the bed whereon he lay. A few extracts from a letter written by Holmes "Unto the well beloved brethren, John Spilsbury. William Kiffin and the rest that in London stand fast in the faith and continue to walk steadfastly in that order of the gospel which was once delivered unto the saints by Jesus Christ," will best tell his own story, and also picture the religious character of the men who gathered about Roger Williams, founded Rhode Island, Gravesend on Long Island, and became the earliest settlers of the New Jersey coast. He writes :
"And although there were (those) that would have paid the money if I would accept it, yet I durst not accept of deliverance in such a way, and therefore my answer to them was, that although I would acknowledge their love to a cup of cold water, yet could I not thank them for their money, if they should pay it. So the Court drew near, and the night be- fore I should suffer according to my sentence, it pleased God I rested and slept quietly ; in the morning my friends came to visit me, desiring me to take the refreshment of wine and other comforts ; but my resolution was not to drink wine nor strong drink that day until my punishment was over ;
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and the reason was, lest in case I had more strength, courage and bold- ness than ordinary could be expected, the world should say he is drunk with new wine, or else that the comfort and strength of the creature hath carried him through ; but my course was this: I desired my brother John Hazel to bear my friends company, and I betook myself to my chamber, where I might communicate with my God, commit myself to him, and beg strength from him. I had no sooner sequestered myself and come into my chamber, but Satan lets fly at me, saying, Remember thyself, thy birth, breeding, and friends, thy wife, children, name and credit : but as this was sudden, so there came in sweetly from the Lord as sudden an answer: 'Tis for my Lord. I must not deny him before the sons of men ( for that were to set men above him) but rather lose all, wife, d'iildren and mine own life also. To this the tempter replied, Oh, but that is the question, is it for him? and for him alone? is it not rather for thine own or some others sake thou hast so professed and practiced, and art loth to deny it; is not pride and self in the bottom? Surely this temptation was strong, and thereupon I made diligent search after the matter, as formerly I had done, and after a while there was even as it had been a voice from heaven in my very soul bearing witness with my conscience, that it was not for any man's case or sake in this world, that so I had professed and practiced, but for my Lord's case and sake, and for him alone, whereupon my spirit was much refreshed; as also in the consideration of these three scriptures, which speak on this wise: Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Although I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, thy rod and thy staff shall comfort me. And he that con- tinueth to the end shall be saved."
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"And in the time of his ( the executioner) pulling off my clothes, I con- tinued speaking, letting them, that I had so learned, that for all Boston I would not give my body into their hands thus to be bruised upon another account, yet upon this I would not give the hundredth part of a wampum peaque, (one-sixth of a penny, ) to free it out of their hands, and that I made as much conscience of unbuttoning one button as I did of paying the thirty pounds in reference thereto."
Mr. John Spur, who witnessed the whipping, says :
"When Obadiah Holmes was brought forth to receive his sentence, he desired of the magistrates that he might hold forth the ground of his prac- tice; but they refused to let him speak, and commanded the whipper to do his office ; then the whipper began to pull off his clothes, upon which Obadiah Holmes said, Lord lay not this sin unto their charge; and so the whipper began to lay on with his whip; upon which Obadiah Holmes said, O Lord, I beseech thee to manifest thy power in the weakness of thy creature. He neither moving nor stirring at all for their strokes, breaks out in these ex- pressions, blessed and praised be the Lord, and thus he carried it to the end,
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and went away rejoicing; I, John Spur, being present, it did take such an impression in my spirit to trust in God and to walk according to the light that God had communicated to me. and not to fear what man could do unto me, that I went to the man (being inwardly affected with what I saw and heard) and with a joyful countenance took him by the hand when he was from the post and said, praised be the Lord, and so I went along with him to the prison."
Obadiah Holmes said to his "executioner:" "When he had loosed me from the post, having joyfulness in my heart and cheerfulness in my countenance, as the spectators observed, I told the magistrates, you have struck me with roses."
John Spur and the "good Samaritan" who went to the prison and poured oil upon the wounds of the martyr were apprehended, and John Spur was sentenced to be fined or "well whipped." A witness in his case deposed on the 5th day of the 7th month, 1651, that "being in the market place when Obadiah Holmes came from the whipping post, John Spur came and met him presently, laughing in his face, saying. "Blessed le God for thee, brother," and so did go with him, laughing upon him up towards the prison, which was very grievous to me to see him harden the man in his sin, and shewing much contempt of authority by that carriage, as if he had been unjustly punished, and had suffered as a righteous man under a tyrannical government." ("Old Times in Old Monmouth").
Such men as these, who could say truly "I am willing to seal what I hold with my blood," and under the lash could smile and pray forgivingly and joyously, were not hypocrites. The spiritual exultation of Obadiah Holmes was real and honest. His pride rebelled against the whipping, and in another cause he would have resisted all Boston. The personal living presence of the Lord Jesus Christ was no vision, no dream, no theory. He would not, like Peter, in fear deny him. To Obadiah Holmes' stern judges he was most wicked, and a danger to the welfare of the community. ' They, too, were honest and sincere. Each man's cloudless faith in the righteousness of his own belief made him a cheerful martyr or a relentless judge.
The terms of the historic "Monmouth Patent" and the description of the territory which it covered, are given in full on other pages. The grant was hailed with joy and gratitude by the colonists. Persecuted in England, disappointed in their hopes of liberty in New England, suspiciously and coldly received by the Dutch, the Monmouth patentees at last held lands for themselves, "their heirs, and assigns for ever," with "liberty of con-
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science" and apparently liberal government. But only a few weeks passed when the first difficulties arose concerning the rights conveyed in that patent-difficulties that were never quieted until many of the descend- ants of the patentees had died to establish American independence, and were sleeping beside their fathers in the graveyards of 'Monmouth. But this belongs to the political history of the Province.
Captain James Bollen came to America with Colonel Nicolls in 1664, as commissary of his expedition. He was witness "to the receipt of wam- pum" by the Indians in transfer of the Indian deed for lands in and about Elizabethtown, New Jersey, on October 28, 1664. That deed having been confirmed, September 8, 1665, to John Baylis, of Jamaica, Long Island, by Governor Nicolls, was transferred by Baylis to Governor Philip Cartaret, of New Jersey, some months after the granting of the Monmouth patent. James Bollen became secretary of the Province of Nova Caesarea for Berk- ley and Cartaret. His daughter, "Annah," married Jonathan Stout, August 27, 1685, in Middletown, New Jersey. Jonathan Stout was the son of Richard Stout, a merchant in New York, and Penelope Van Princis, his wife. Richard, the son of John Stout, of Nottinghamshire, England, had left home in anger for love's sake, had served seven years on a war ves- sel, was discharged in New Amsterdam, and had remained there as a merchant. ("Old Times in Old Monmouth.)" Penelope Van Princis (her maiden name) was born in Amsterdam about 1602, and as a bride had sailed to the new world with her young husband about 1620. (Benedict's "History of the Baptists.") At the foot of the Navesinks-the "high- lands between the waters"-their vessel was thrown helpless upon the coast. A few survivors who reached land were attacked by the Indians, who perhaps bitterly remembered Hudson's visit but a few years before. All the shipwrecked people were killed save Penelope, who, wounded and mutilated, crept into a hollow tree, where she lived for several days, eating the fungi which grew about its trunk. She was found by a party of Indians hunting a deer. An old Indian prevented them from killing her, and, carry- ing her to his wigwam, he healed her dangerous wounds. She was kindly treated and finally taken to New Amsterdam and restored to her country- men there as a present-an "Indian present." There Richard Stout, the hero of an English romance, met and loved and married the Dutch heroine of the New Jersey coast. She was about twenty-two and he about forty years of age. He had probably sailed the Spanish main with such com- manders as Captain William Middleton.
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