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 18
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The inconsistencies and shameless infidelities of the statesmen of that time render it most difficult to understand the political purposes for grant- ing charters, patents and privileges to the despised classes and sects that received then. But whatever the shifting motives and purposes of the Duke of York or Colonial Ministers, the one class of men seem to have come voluntarily to New Jersey prior to 1680. Even Governor Philip Carteret had been (with Thomas Scott, Sir George Carteret's son-in-law, a strong republican) in 1659 a member of a club, the Rota-Men, to which Algernon Sidney also belonged.
Sir George Carteret, the cavalier, sent to New Jersey as his repre- sentative his kinsman Philip Carteret, of the Isle of Guernsey, a repub- lican. His antecedents and his instructions to offer liberty of conscience and self-representation and self-government would attract the class of col- onists most desirable and profitable to Sir George and the Duke of York.
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The cupidity and dishonesty of the latter named destroyed the advantages gained by one policy, while he promoted the cause of another.
Sir George Carteret, Proprietor of East Jersey, died in 1679, and by will ordered that Province to be sold by his executors to pay his debts. It was purchased in 1681-2 by twelve Proprietors, chiefly, like the Pro- prietors of West Jersey, Quaker gentlemen and merchants of London. At this moment the Duke of York in Scotland was endeavoring to ingrati- ate himself with the nobility and gentry, especially the powerful highland chiefs who commanded armies and were Catholics and Cavaliers. He drew tighter the reins of tyranny upon the Protestants of the lowlands. For twelve years they had been hunted in their glens and valleys, had been persecuted and plundered by Claverhouse and the "Highland Host."
The coming of the Duke of York and his oppressions filled them with despair. They sent agents to England to treat with the Proprietors of Carolina for the settlement of a colony in America. On the trials of Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney their messengers were accused of coming as conspirators in the plots hatching in London at that time. Sidney's indictment accused him of sending one Aaron Smith to Scotland as mes- senger to "invite, procure, and incite divers evil disposed subjects of our said Lord and King, of his Kingdom of Scotland, to come into this King- dom of England, to advise and consult with the aforesaid Algernon Sid- ney, and the aforesaid other unknown traitors in the Kingdom of Eng- land." Sir John Cockran, the Campbells and "one Monro" ( Foulis) did go to London at this time. Whether their coming was for the purpose of joining an insurrection, or for the promotion of the colonization of Carolina, they certainly visited London, and soon after their return were identified with the uprising of the Cameronians, in which they were vic- torious at Loudon Hill, and a little later were sadly defeated at Bothwell Bridge, June 22, 1679, by the Viscount Dundee, or "Bludy Claverse," and the Duke of Monmouth. To utterly crush the Cameronians and pre- vent the spread of the anti-monarchical principles which they were quietly preaching in secret, the Duke of York "devised a test" in July, 1681, so contradictory and complicated that "no honest man could take it." Archi- bald Campbell, Earl of Argyle, opposed the clause excepting the Duke of York from this oath. Although Argyle took the oath, with a written explanation of his reasons for so doing, the Duke found charges against him, and he was sentenced to be executed. Charles II forbade the verdict, but, taking no, chances in the friendship of a Stuart, Argyle made his escape
. from his prison by the aid of his step-daughter, Lady Sophia Lindsey. His brother, Lord Neil Campbell, became a Proprietor of East Jersey, where he resided until after the Revolution in 1688.
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In 1682 the twelve English Proprietors who had purchased East Jersey from the executors of Sir George Carteret added twelve Scotch Proprietors to their number, making twenty-four in all, and to them the Duke of York (on March 15, 1682-3) granted a new patent. They signed as follows : James Drummond (Earl of Perth), John Drummond of Lundy, Robert Barclay of Ewry (Urie or Ury), David Barclay, Jr., of Ewry, Robert Gordon of Cluny, Arant Sonmans of Wallingford, Scot- land, William Penn of Worminghurst, Robert West of Middle Temple, London, Thomas Rudyard of London, Samuel Groome of Stepny, mariner, Thomas Hart of Enfield, merchant, Richard New of Stepny, merchant, Ambrose Rigg of Gatton Place, Surrey, merchant, Thomas Cooper of Lon- don, merchant tailor, Gawen Laurie of London, merchant, Edward Billings of Westminster, James Braine of London, merchant, William Gibson of London, haberdasher, John Heywood of London, skinner, Hugh Harts- horne, of London, skinner, Clement Plumbstead of London, draper, Thomas Barker of London, merchant, Robert Turner of Dublin, Ireland, merchant, and Thomas Warne, of Dublin, merchant. Their proprietary twenty-fourths were immediately transferred, divided and subdivided. Many Scotchmen took up the subdivisions, as Robert Burnett of Lethentie, Lord Neil Camp- bell, Sir George Mackenzie, Sir John Dalrymple, John Drummond, later Lord Melfort, son of the Earl of Perth, Sir John Gordon, Advocate of Scot- land, Viscount George Tarbet, John Campbell, etc., all connected with the trial of the Earl of Argyle, 1681. Sir Ewan (or Evan) Cameron of Lochiel, a most loyal cavalier; the greatest of his clan and name, also became a Proprietor. These men were all related by intermarriages, and repre- sented the romance, poetry and history of Scotland during the seventeenth century. For pictures of them and their times we must look to Sir Walter Scott's "Border Minstrelsy," "Old Mortality," "Fortunes of Nigel," "Pev- eril of the Peak" and "Lays of the Last Minstrel," "Lays of the Scot- tish Cavaliers," by Aytoun, and many others. The very men who took part in these scenes with their clansmen and leaders came to New Jersey during the decade from 1680-90-came in bonnet and plaid and plume, came with their hearts full of Cameronian republicanism, came weary of border strife, came with the breath of the heather of the glens and caves still on them. They came with the memory of the hunger and mould of dungeons stamped upon their souls by the tyranny of the Stuarts, to whom they had sometimes even given their fealty. An old history of the town of Perth, Scotland, after giving from the records a list of those men and women who suffered for recusancy in 1684, stated that the poorer sort were either neglected or threatened with corporal punishments. The bet-
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HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
ter classes-the merchants, tradesmen and ministers-were harrassed, fined and imprisoned. They were people of influence and property.
The new proprietors immediately made their plans to establish a town on the Raritan River called New Perth, later Perth Amboy or Perth Point, in honor of James Drummond, Earl of Perth. Robert Barclay was ap- pointed Governor for life, "With dispensation from personal residence." He was the son of Colonel David Barclay and Catherine Gordon of Gor- donstown. Colonel Barclay had served in the thirty years' war with Gus- tavus Adolphus. He was related, as blood kin, to the Stuarts. Robert Barciay of Ury was born December 28, 1684, and married Christian, daugh- ter of Gilbert Mollison, of Aberdeenshire. He had one son, John, who lived in Dublin, Ireland. His brother, John Barclay, was a merchant of London, became a Proprietor of East Jersey, and his son, Captain John Barclay, settled first in Perth Amboy, and later became a resident of Mon- mouth county, New Jersey. He married Catherine, daughter of Charles Gordon, of Monmouth county, New Jersey. Robert Barclay was of noble birth, and was related to the great families of Scotland. He was a Quaker and a man of learning, the writer of their "Confession of Faith," and of a powerful "Apology" for their doctrines.
Thomas Rudyard was appointed Deputy Governor, and Samuel Groome, Surveyor General. They, with William Penn, Proprietor, and Colonel Lewis Morris, Captain Berry, Captain Palmer, Captain Sanford, Lawrence Anderson and Benjamin Price, councilmen, held the first meet- ing of the Governor and Council on February 28, 1682-3. With much difficulty they obtained the books and records from Captain James Bollen, Secretary of Governor Philip Carteret.
About this time Thomas Rudyard and Samuel Groome purchased from Samuel Bacon his house and lot in Woodbridge, and a few days later Sam- uel Groome purchased from John Toe his house and lot in Elizabeth Town. During the first session of the Governor and Council ( March, 1683) Sam- tel Groome, Colonel Lewis Morris, Captain John Bound, Richard Harts- horne, John Hance, Joseph Parker and Lewis Morris, Jr., were authorized "to make and settle highways, passages, landings, bridges and ferries in Monmouth county, New Jersey." Some years ago in the village of Mid- dletown, just west of the home of Charles Morford. in an abandoned roadway, running north, at right angles to the town street, William W. Murray or George C. Murray planted a number of young locust trees. The two ruts of the single roadway were worn deep between the banks on either side. This the Murrays always called Groome's Lane. The way ran in a northeasterly direction through a piece of woodland called Groome's Lane Woods, towards Shoal Harbor, one of the landings at the
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mouth of Compton's Creek, used by the people of Middletown. The Murrays owned the land which, at the time this roadway was surveyed, had be- longed to Richard Hartshorne. Groome's Lane was a convenient road to Shoal Harbor, whence vessels could sail to the ne wtown of Perth. This old landmark, bearing the name of Samuel Groome, is fast becoming forgotten and unknown. He died about one year after he first came to New Jersey ( 1682-3-1683-4). His son sold his twenty-fourth to "Will- iam Dockwra of the Parish of St. Andrews, Under Shaft, London mer- chant." Samuel Groome had three daughters who by marriage became Elizabeth Braine, Margaret, wife of George Heathcot, of New York, and Mary Taylor, probably the wife of Edward Taylor, of Middletown, or of Samuel Taylor, of Shrewsbury.
The Proprietors immediately made preparations to locate and improve their new property. Some prepared to emigrate themselves, some to send their sons and near relatives, and some to send their representatives, agents and servants, as clerks, lawyers, apprentices and tenants. The Scotch Proprietors, in December, 1684, sent out, indentured for four years "John King, John Neismith, John Baird, James Paule, William Ronald, Alex- ander Neper (Nepier), Janett Hampton, George Reid, Patrick Alexander, Alexander Murt, John Haburnt, James Melven, George Anderson, Thomas Ridford, Andreas Burnett, James Seaton, William Yorbis, James Symson, John Webster, William Hardy, Isabel Keith, John Hampton, John Reid, overseer. and Jane Shaw, since sold to Robert Hamilton of Middletown." These men and women were not all menial servants, but were employees, selected for the work of establishing the town of New Perth, and of select- ing, locating and surveying the claims of their employers. John Reid, the overseer, was a scientific gardener who wrote upon the subject learnedly, and he was a surveyor. The records show that his associates were men of intelligence and executive ability. Having established the town of Perth Amboy, they, with others who had come like themselves, crossed the Raritan River and penetrated the woods and barrens to the southward. Near the Indian village of Topanemus they laid out the town of Wicka- tunck. Some of the lots had been assigned in 1688 as follows :
No. No. 6. Thomas Warne I-3. No. 8. Thomas Barker 1/2.
4. Peter Sonmans.
No. 9. Peter Sonmans. No. 14. Peter Sonmans.
No. 15. Thomas Hart. No. 17. Walter Benthal 1/2.
No. 18. Thomas Rudyard.
.
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No. 19. Clement Plumbstead 12. Robert Burnett 1/2.
No. 20. Miles Forester, merchant, New York, son-in-law of Gov- ernor Laurie 12. Robert Gordon of Cluny 1/2.
No. 21. Peter Sonmans.
No. 22. John Barker 1/2. Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel 1/2.
No. 24. Thomas Cooper 1/2. Sir John Gordon 1/2.
No. 25. William Penn.
Other lots were assigned to Alexander Napier, Archibald Campbell (son of Lord Neil), "Gawen Drummond, merchant burgess of Edinburgh, by purchase from John Drummond of Lundine." With each town lot was apportioned five hundred acres of land. A town was also planned and apportioned at Topanemus.
These two old proprietary towns were laid out within a triangle marked by the present towns of Marlboro, Freehold and Englishtown. The land was high and fertile, an elevated plateau. The new towns were in the center of the lands granted by the Nicolls patent to the "Middletown and Shrewsbury men" who had resisted the Proprietary Governor, Philip Carteret and his council, in defense of their patent. These towns were directly in the line of travel across the province from Navesink and Narum- sunk Necks to Burlington and Philadelphia. They were the intersecting point of the proprietary line from Perth Amboy to Barnegat, near the most southern limit of East Jersey-Little Egg Harbor. Just there, deep down in the upper and lower marl beds, beat the heart of Monmouth, supplying the arteries that flowed to the sea, the springs that fed large streams flowing to each point of the compass. They were Hop and Yellow Brooks (branches of the Navesink River), Toms River, Doctor's Creek, Millstone River, Manalapan and Matcheponix Creeks and other streams forming. the South River, a branch of the Raritan. There were many other smaller tributaries, for the land was well watered. Crossing the headwaters of the Manasquan and descending Toms River, the Pro- prietors laid out and apportioned lands at Barnegat after the same plan as at Wickatunk. Perth Amboy and Barnegat were seaports; Wickatunk and Topanemus were at the center of all the headwaters of the principal waterways of the most valuable portion of East Jersey. Surely this point was not chosen by ordinary men. John Reid of "Hortencie" (near Wicka- tunck), was the overseer of the indentured servants sent out by the Scotch Proprietors. He surveyed these lands and made maps. Old Scots Bury- ing Ground, a city of the dead, probably marks the site of one of the oldest Presbyterian churches in America and also the site of the town of Wicka- tunck. The ancient Indian village of Topanemus became for a short time the site of a Scotch and English Quaker settlement. There George Keith
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organized the old St. Paul's church ( Episcopalian ) which afterward moved to the Present town of Freehold-a little to the southward, on the highway from Perth to Barnegat.
In Old Scots Churchyard, where Thomas Gray might have written his "Elegy," and could have found,
"Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked"- 1
where Robert Patterson ( "Old Mortality") might have chiselled deeper the inscription on the stones of Cameronian exiles, or placed a recording monument upon some neglected martyr's grave-here, in the heart of Monmouth
"Each in his narrow cell forever laid The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep"-
as witness some of the inscriptions :
"Rev. John Boyd, died August 30, 1708, in his 26th year, first pastor of Old Scots Church."
"Richard Clark, died May 16, 1733, born February 10th, 1663, in Scotland.'
"Anthony Ward, died December 6, 1746, aged seventy-six years; born in Great Britain (about 1670)."
"Thomas Warne, died May 15th, 1722, aged seventy years, born in Plimouth in Devonshire in Great Britain. Lived some time in Ireland, And in the thirty first year of his age came over a Proprietor in East Jersey."
"Deborah Warne, died March 15, 1731, aged twenty-seven years, wife of Thomas."
"Joshua Warne, died August 5th, 1758, in his fifty second year."
"Sarah Warne, died October IIth, 1742, in her sixth year; daughter of Joshua and Elizabeth."
Here lie Archibald and Mary Craig, Jonathan and Margaret Forman, John and Ann Henderson, Walter and Ann Wall (of Middletown), and many others born in the seventeenth century, and probably in America.
The tombstones of William and Margaret Redford and old proprietary records tell a typical story of early Scotch emigration. The inscriptions read :
"William Redford, died March 1, 1726, aged eighty-four years, came from North Britain, 1682."
"Margaret Redford, died April 17, 1729, aged eighty-four years, wife of William."
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HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
In the "Calendar of New Jersey Records" is the following entry :
July 18, (Scotch) Agreement, made by William Rid- ford, late in Frier Shaw in Tiveodaill, husbandman, with Arent Sonmans of Walifoord, one of the Proprietors, to go to East Jersey where he is to have 100 a. rent free for 10 years."
Thomas Ridford, his son or brother, was among the indentured serv- ants of the Proprietors, associates of John Reid, who came to Perth Amboy about 1683. William remained in or near Perth Amboy until 1696-7, when he received from John Reid of Freehold a deed for a lot near Wickatunck, bounded east by Augustin Gordon, son of Robert Gor- don of Cluny, west by Alexander Naipper, and south by Clement Plumb- stead and Richard Salter.
William Redford was six years old when Charles I was beheaded, eight when Cromwell founded the "Republic of England," eighteen at the Restoration, and forty when he left Teviotdale to find a home of peace in America. At the time of his departure from Scotland, Teviotdale is de- scribed by Sir Walter Scott in the Fourth Canto of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel."
"Sweet Teviot! on thy silver tide The glaring balefires blaze no more; No longer steel-clad warriors ride Along thy wild and willowed shore ; Where e'er thou wind'st, by dale or hill, All, all is peaceful, all is still, As if thy waves since Time was born, Since first they roll'd upon the Tweed, Had only heard the shepherd's reed, Nor started at the bugle-horn.
"Unlike the tide of human Time, Which, though it change in ceaseless flow, Retains each grief, retains each crime,
Its earliest course was doom'd to know ; And, darker as it downward bears, Is stained with past and present tears-
Low as that tide has ebb'd with me It still reflects to memory's eye The hour my brave, my only boy, Fell by the side of great Dundee. Why, when the volleying musket play'd Against the bloody Highland blade, Why was not I beside him laid !- Enough-he died the death of fame: Enough-he died with conquering Graeme."
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"Now over border dale and fell, Full wide and far was terror spread ; For pathless marsh and mountain cell The peasant left his lowly shed. The frighten'd flocks and herds were pent Beneath the peels rude battlement ; And maids and matrons dropp'd the tear,
While ready warriors seized the spear. From Branksome's towers, the watchman's eye Dun wreaths of distant smoke can spy,
Which, curling in the rising sun, Show'd southern savage war begun."
Not far from the grave of William Redford (about half a mile) upon a little knoll is another Covenanter's grave,-the grave of another "fore- father of the hamlet." .Here "Old Mortality" would have lingered lov- ingly, for Walter Ker had been a prisoner in the Whig's Vault of Dunottar Castle, near Stonehaven, on the North Sea, south of Aberdeen. Through- out the long defense of the Covenant the name of Ker had been constantly conspicuous in the low countries among its defenders. Sir Walter Scott tells the story of the prisoners of the "Whig's Vault:"
"It was in 1685, when Argyle was threatening a descent upon Scot- land, and Monmouth was preparing to invade the West of England, that the privy council of Scotland, with cruel precautions, made a general ar- rest of more than a hundred persons in the south and western provinces, supposed, from their religious principles, to be inimical to government, together with many women and children. These captives were driven northward like a flock of bullocks, but with less precaution to provide for their wants, and finally penned up in a subterranean dungeon in the Castle of Dunottar, having a window opening to the front of a precipice which overhangs the German Ocean."
George Scott, Laird of Pitlochie, a persecuted Covenanter, obtained permission to leave the kingdom of Scotland, chartered a vessel from New- castle, and, receiving as a gift the banished prisoners of Dunottar, sailed to the plantations of East Jersey. Lord Neil Campbell sold to him one thousand acres of land. The voyage was a pitiful one, and the Laird and his wife died on the passage. John Johnstone, his son-in-law, became his heir and executor. He settled near the town of Topanemus, Monmouth county, New Jersey. Not until 1689-90 did Walter Ker receive deeds and grants of land. After that time he received lands from James, the son of John Johnstone, beside his own lands at Topanemus. From 1685 to 1689 he probably served John Johnstone to pay for his passage to America.
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HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
Walter Ker was one of the founders of "Old Scots" or "Old Tennent" Church.
There is still another and perhaps more far-reaching association be- tween Dunottar Castle and the historic families of New Jersey. For sev- eral centuries that stronghold had been the seat of the family of Keith, Earls-Marischal of Scotland. In an article in "The Scottish Review" for October, 1898, entitled "Earl-Marischal and Field Marshal," it is said that "In the seventeenth century, when Dunottar was made a prison for the Covenanters, and its dungeon became known as the 'Whig's Vault,' the later Castle of Inverugie, built, or at all events largely added to, by the Keiths, became the favorite residence of the family." In the autumn of 1645, when James Graham, of Montrose, with his Irish dragoons and Highlanders, swept down from the north, destroying the Covenanters of the lowlands who were opposing Charles I, he demanded entrance to Dunottar Castle. "The bearer of the letter was not, however, suffered to enter within the gate, and. was sent back, at the instigation (probably) of the Earl's lady and the ministers who were with him, without an answer. Montrose then endeavored, by means of George Keith, the Earl-Marischal's brother, to persuade the latter to declare for the king. but he refused, in consequence of which Montrose resolved to inflict summary vengeance upon him by burning and laying waste his lands and those of his retainers in the neighborhood." After this event the Earl-Marischal and his lady resided in the Castle of Inverugie, on the River Don, a few miles al ve Aberdeen. About a century before, one of his ancestors had founded Marischal College in Aberdeen. Here many of the men who came to New Jersey after the fall and execution of Argyle and the Duke of Monmouth had been educated-the Gordons, Forbes, Barclays of Ury, Burnetts of Lethentie, Falconers, Campbells. Fullertons and many others. . Among them was George Keith, a younger son of the Covenanting Earl-Marischal and his lady, of Dunottar and later of Inverugie. The Keiths and Can-1)- bells of Argyle were related by marriage. George Keith, the Quaker, probably influenced by his mother and Robert Barclay of Ury, came to America as a Proprietor, Surveyor General, etc. He held lands all through Monmouth county. He resided in Philadelphia, and after differences upon points of doctrine with the Quakers returned to Scotland. Early in the eighteenth century he again came to New Jersey and from among the Quakers organized the Episcopal Churches of Shrewsbury, Middletown, Freehold and other New Jersey and Pennsylvania towns. George Keith was a cousin of Lord Neil Campbell.
The Marquis of Argyle. Lord Neil's father, was the guardian and instructor of Sir Ewan (or Sir Evan) Cameron, commonly called Ewan
12*
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HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
Dhu of Locheil or Lochiel, from the lake Loch Eil, near which was the seat of the Cameron's Lochaber. The Marquis strove to train Lochiel in the tenets of the Covenanters, but he refused to receive the instruction of such stern teachers. At the age of eighteen he was allowed to return to his home at Lochaber. He and the Earl of Perth were ever constant and powerful friends of the Stuarts. Lochiel was one of the East Jersey Pro- prietors, owning land near Bound Brook, at Perth Amboy, at Wickatunck, and at Barnegat. Robert Drummond, nephew of Gawan Drummond, and related to the Earl of Perth, settled upon a large tract of land situated between the present towns of Eatontown and Tinton Falls, and the locality avas named for a time Lochaber or "Locharbour." The Drummond family still occupy this land. Sir Evan Cameron was one of the greatest of the Scotch cavaliers, and was the most conspicuous hero in the history of his clan. His grandson, Donald Cameron, was the "Lochiel" of Thomas Campbell's poem, "Lochiel's Warning"-a prophecy of the disastrous battle of Culloden in 1745.
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