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 19
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50
In the registers of many old churches in the lowland towns of Scot- land will be found the baptismal records of Scotch emigrants of Monmouth county, New Jersey, kept in a similar manner to those of the old Tennent Church of Freehold. In "Old Sterling Register," March 6, 1588, is the- following: "Johnne Reid, son of Johnne Reid and Isobell Lowrie. AV. ( witness ) John Scot, potter, John Prestone of Cambers, Thomas Reid, flescher, Gilbert Thompsone, flescher." Among the records of "English- men in Scotland" are these entries: "June 27, 1656, Marie, daughter of William Watsone, Englishman, and Isobell Reid. W. James Stausfeild, John Tutishawe (the Father dead)." December 17, 1657, "Agnes, daugh- ter of William Watsone, Englishman, and Isobell Reid."
These records were made before the Restoration. The baptisms oc- curring after the renewal of the persecutions of the Covenanters may not have been recorded. These were probably the records of the ancestors of John Reid and Peter and William Watson, who came to Monmouth county as servants of the Proprietors. The children of Peter Watson intermar- ried into many of the Monmouth families. Agnes Watson was licensed to marry Peter Fresneau, of Huguenot descent, March 12, 1750, and their son, Philip Fresneau (or Freneau) became the poet of the American Revo- lution. Alexander Napier also came to Monmouth with John Reid and Peter Watson. The latter married Agnes, the daughter of Alexander Napier, a Quaker who returned to the Church of England under the preach- ing of George Keith. The family of Napier was conspicuous among the Covenanters.
Another of the old records above mentioned states, "November 10th,
179
HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
1657, Joseph, son of Thomas Johnstown, Englishman, and Margaret Wright. W. Samuell Winder." In 1685 Thomas Rudyard, merchant, of the city of London and New York, and one of the twenty-four Proprietors of East Jersey, granted one-half of his proprietary claims to Samuel Winder, husband of his daughter Margaret, and to John West, husband of his daughter Anne. Many of the descendants of John West and his fam- ily are to be found along the New Jersey coast and wherever the people of its early settlers have wandered. Samuel Winder, "Register,' a lawyer, came to New York and Staten Island from Boston. His wife's claims in New Jersey he located at Cheesequakes and Chingaroras. Thomas Rudyard had disposed of his New Jersey lands and made his will prior to leaving New York, "by God's permission," on a voyage to Barbadoes and Jamaica, declaring Captain Andrew; Bowne and his "sonnes-in-law" Sam- uel Winder and John West his executors "in ye Provinces of East and West Jersey and New York." He appointed Thomas Foullerton and Hannah Beaumont, servant, his executors "in ye Barbadoes, Jamaica and Old England." This will was proven in 1693. "A true copy was taken out of ye records of ye Province of East New Jersey," Apr 1 10, 1701, and was in the possession of James G. Crawford, a descendant of Captain John Bowne. Samuel Winder was a member of Council under Governor An- .drew Hamilton, and signed the patent from the Governor and Council to John Crawford for his homestead at Nutswamp, New Jersey. James G. Crawford is descended from the latter. Samuel Winder died in 1688-9, in Boston, and his widow, Margaret, married George Willocks or Willox, conspicuous in New Jersey history. Her lands at Chingaroras passed into the hands of the Bownes. Other proprietary lands in this fertile valley passed into the possession of the Bownes as the larger tracts were broken up by the demand for homes. The transfers of title to a por- tion of the valley illustrate perfectly the settlement of Monmouth county.
Captain John Bowne, one of the Englishmen of Gravesend, who under the Nicolls Patent purchased the land from the natives, received his town lots, and after the lots were established located his cut-plantation with Richard Stout in Pleasant Valley or Chingaroras. Then under the twenty- four Proprietors the land's were apportioned regardless of the patent. Thomas Cooper, of London, sold one-half of his claims to Sir John Gor- don. This was subdivided-one-tenth to Sir John himself, one-tenth to Sir Robert Gordon, one-twentieth to Thomas Pearson, etc. By lease and release, dated April 23d and 24th, in 1684. in Scotland, witnessed by "Bar- clay," "Sandilands," and Patrick Innes, Sir John granted one-tenth of one forty-eighth, of his lands in Monmouth county, a part lying in Chingaroras, to Captain Thomas Pearson. The following November he sailed in his
180
HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
ship "Thomas and Benjamin" to Perth Amboy, bringing with him fourteen Highlanders a's servants, some of whom he sold in Amboy. Six months later Thomas Pearson, mariner, of Perth Amboy, deeded his lands at Chingaroras to John Bowne of Middletown. The original lease and release are still in the possession of his descendants. Ten years passed, and John Bowne, Junior, of Middletown, granted five hundred acres of the same land to Garret Schenck, Stephen Courte Voorhys, Cornelius Couwenhoven and Peter Wyckoff, of "Flatlands, alias Amesfort," Kings county. Long Island. John Schenck, the brother of Garret Schenck, two years later pur- chased Peter Wyckoff's one-quarter of the five hundred acres of land. From that time to the present the descendants of the Schenck brothers and Cornelius Cowenhoven have held the fields of Chingaroras (now Pleas- ant Valley), and their descendants are scattered throughout the United States. Every link in that chain of title to lands in Pleasant Valley em- bodies a volume of history. The independent merchant and sea captain of the Republic of England, Captain John Bowne; the advocate of Scot- land, a defender of the Covenanters, Sir John Gordon; with the Scotch sea captain of Aberdeen, Thomas Pearson, and the group of Hollanders, sons of the men who had been ruined by the struggle for liberty and Protestantism during the Thirty Years War on the Continent of Europe, successively within a few years held a few fertile acres in Monmouth . county. They represented the political development of the Reformation Republicanism, and their descendants have defended and perfected the principles of their fathers in; the national history of the United States. Mentally and physically such men were fit for the fatherhood of a nation founded upon the individuality of its units. Each possessed the strongest traits and characteristics of his people. The intermingling of their blood in the rapidly changing and grand environment of the trackless continent over which they swept, have developed the highest types of men known to the civilized world.
The Clan Gordon played a conspicuous part in the Scotch settlement of New Jersey. At this time it was divided, the Marquis of Huntly, chief of the Clan, supporting the Stuarts and either the State or the Catholic Church, while Sir John Gordon, Earl of Sutherland, with his relatives, supported the Covenant. To the former belonged the Gordons of Stra- lach of Pitlurg, represented by Thomas Gordon, Dr. John Gordon of Collis- ton, and Charles Gordon, who died in Aberdeen in 1698-9 intestate. Only the descendants of Thomas remained in the State. Sir John did not come to America, but his brother, George Gordon, merchant, died in Perth Amboy in 1685-6, leaving by will legacies to "lifelong comrades-Thomas Gordon, his brother Charles, Robert Fullerton, William Laing, John Bar-
181
HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
clay, Doctor Robeson, servants John Brown and Jean Morison, and his brother, Sir John Gordon, residuary legatee." The Gordons of Gordons- town and Cluny were branches of the Gordons of Sutherland. They were Quakers and Presbyterians, and closely related to the Barclays by mar- riage. Sir Robert of Gordonstown was the tutor of his nephew, Sir John Gordon, and either he or his son was one of the Scotch Proprietors under Sir John. Under him also the "Gordons of Cluny" held proprietorship of lands at Chingaroras. In 1689 Charles Gordon of Middletown, late servant of John Barclay, deeded his headlands to John Bowne of Middle- town. This was probably to pay for his passage in Captain Bowne's ves- sel, for the captain received many such deeds for about thirty acres. Five years later John Reid deeded to "Charles Gordon of Monmouth County" a tract of land at "Topinemus, Freehold, adjoining William Clerk, formerly Alexander Napier's." In 1706-7 Charles Gordon and his wife Lydia at- tended the wedding of Nathaniel Fitzrandolph and Jane Hampton, county of Freehold. This was a Quaker wedding, and the record is among the Shrewsbury Quaker records. Charles Gordon signed the deed for the land upon which the old Tennent Church now stands. The first meeting to de- cide upon the erection of the first church on White Hill was held in his house. He was an elder, and he and his descendants for many years held the first pew to the right of the pulpit. Janet, the daughter of John Hamp- ton, one of the Proprietor's indentured servants, married Robert Rhea, car- penter, in 1689-90. This also was a Quaker wedding. The bride l'ved to be ninety-three years old. Charles Gordon had four sons and three daugh- ters. Peter had ten children, John one, and Charles two. David married Hannah Lloyd and had nine children, and Catherine married Captain John Barclay, son of John, the brother of Robert Barclay, of Urie, and had three children. Catherine's father had come to New Jersey as the ser- vant of her husband's father. This relation, with the position which he seemed to hold, would indicate that he had lost all, and under the protec- tion of a relative or friend had come to the new world-had left home with no thought of returning. Their twenty-five grandchildren in about sixty years intermarried into some of the principal families in the State. Ilis fourth son, David Gordon, married Hannah, the daughter of Timothy Lloyd, and their oldest son Charles was baptized January 31. 1742. He married Catharine Morford, daughter of John Morford, son of Thomas of Middletown. She was said to be an heiress. Charles was restless and left his home with his wife and children and some friends to seek their fortunes on the new frontier-the Mohawk Valley. Their home was built, their garden planted, and they had cattle, when a friendly Indian warned them to flee, for Brant was coming. Turning their cattle into the garden and
182
HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
led by the Indian, they escaped to the fort. There they witnessed the hor- rors of the battle of Oriskany, and the death of General Herkimer. Charles Gordon abandoned his Mohawk Valley home and returned to Monmouth county. His daughter Hannah was baptized in the Old Tennent Church, October 7, 1764, and became the wife of Judge Jehu Patterson, son of James, and grandson of James Patterson, who purchased the prop- erty on Shrewsbury River from James Grover, "in tenth year of Queen Annie." The Pattersons were of Scotch descent. Intermarriages brought rapid changes in church relations, fraught with many a heartbreak and hours of painful soul-torture, for a change was either a virtue or a vice. Hannah Gordon was baptized a Presbyterian, and her mother belonged to the Church of England. Both father and mother lie buried beside Christ Church, Middletown. Jehit Patterson was a Baptist, and Hannah Gordon joined his church and lies buried beside him in the Old Baptist Churchyard in Middletown.
Contemporaneous with Charles Gordon was Peter Gordon, planter, of Freehold. They were probably brothers and seem to have had children and grandchildren bearing the same names. Peter Gordon married Mar- garet, the daughter of Robert Rhea, who had been imprisoned as a cov- - enanter, and was released by taking the oath, and then had come to East Jersey. As stated above, he married Janet Hampton. He probably built, or helped to build, the first meeting house occupied by the Presbyterians, and according to the old Scotch custom it is presumable that he fashioned from the choicest timber cut from the forests, and carefully laid aside to season, the coffins for the dead of the little community. In 1688 Robert Rhea obtained one hundred and forty-five acres near Spottis- wood South Brook." Five years later he deeded thirty acres to John Camp- bell-the amount of headlands probably owed to John Campbell for his passage to America. He also obtained sixty acres of land from George Keith. He had a grandson, Jonathan Rhea, who married Lydia, daughter of Aaron Forman. Peter Gordon and Margaret Rhea had a son named Jonathan Rhea Gordon, born in 1717. He married Margaret Cole, daugh- ter of William Cole. Their descendants are numerous in Georgia, and in the middle west. Many have been statesmen, soldiers, lawyers, etc. The families of Gordon, Forman and Rhea have repeatedly intermarried.
On December 28th, 1715, Peter Gordon, planter, of the "Towne of Freehold," purchased one hundred and twenty acres of land from Jolin Salter, (son of Richard Salter, agent for Thomas Cooper and William Dockware, proprietors) situated near Imlaystown, on Doctor's Creek. Peter Gordon lived here and became known as "Peter Gordon of Cross-
183
HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
wicks." He conveyed this land to his son Robert Gordon and his wife Patience, in 1741, who finally ( in 1753) sold it to Robert Imlay.
One of the boundaries in this last named conveyance ran along "a row of marked trees above Abram Lincon's shop." Here upon the frontier of Monmouth we find the pioneer ancestor of the Great Martyred Presi- dent of the United States. The descendants of "Abram Lincon," black- smith, moved westward in the van from Monmouth to Pennsylvania, Ken- tucky and Indiana. In 1737 "Abraham Lincon" sold two hundred and forty acres of his land to Thomas Williams. The consideration for this and another tract-four hundred and forty acres-was "£590, and further- inore, every year thereafter, forever, upon the feast of St. Michael the Archangel the sum of one penny, good lawful money." After this sale he moved to Springfield, Chester county, Pennsylvania, and there died in 1745. Mordecay and Thomas, also of Monmouth, sons or brothers of Ab- raham Lincon, moved to Pennsylvania. Mordecay died and his will was probated in 1736, disposing of one thousand acres of land in Berks county, Pennsylvania, and naming George Boone, grandfather of the famous pioneer of Kentucky, as trustee. Mordecay married Hannah, the daughter of Richard Salter and Sarah Bowne. Captain John Bowne, son of John Bowne, mentions his daughter Hannah Lincon, and John Salter, in a letter to Obadiah Bowne, speaks of "my brother Lincon" and "my brothers Thomas and Mordecay." Abraham, posthumous son of Mordecay Lincon and Hannah Bowne Salter, married Ann Boone, cousin of Daniel Boone of Kentucky. In 1782 Abraham and his brother Thomas moved to Bear- grass Fort, Kentucky. Abraham was shot by an . Indian in 1784, and Thomas, his son and the grandfather of President Abraham Lincoln, a boy of six, was with his father in the field. Hearing the shot he ran to- ward the fort, pursued by the Indian, who overtook him and was carry- ing him away when Mordecay, Thomas's brother, shot him. He fell upon his little captive who managed to free himself and escape to the fort. When a young man he married Nancy Hanks, and became the father of the greatest and most typical of all Americans-Abraham Lincoln, who was of the fifth generation of pioneers at the front, where all the conditions of life were the hardest. His English ancestor, Samuel Lincoln, of Hing- ham, Norfolk county, England. belonged to the period of the English Re- public, and came to New England. Abraham Lincon, of Monmouthi, was an anabaptist, and so were his descendants. They came to America seeking liberty-liberty of conscience-and, like "Leatherstocking." they found liberty on the frontier. Five or six generations of such independ- ence and freedom developed the strong, rugged, independent character of . the man who in the crisis of the Civil war dared. as Commander-in-chief
184
HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
of the Army and Navy, to issue the Emancipation Proclamation as an act of military necessity. His ancestors, both Lincoln and Bowne, were fol- lowers of Cromwell, who, as Commander-in-chief of the Army of Parlia- ment in the great civil war of England, dared, as an act of military neces- sity, to proclaim himself the head of the government until he could lead the nation through the critical era that made for liberty or slavery. Both Cromwell and Lincoln were strong, rugged, somber and unlettered; both loved and were deeply loved; both were bitterly hated. One for years feared assassination, and the other was assassinated. John Dryden wrote of Cromwell and might have written of Lincoln :
"His ashes in a peaceful urn shall, rest ; His name a great example stands, to show How strangely high endeavours may be blest, Where piety and valor jointly go."
The Foreman, Formen or fforman family, another of the old Norman Scotch families of Monmouth, is especially identified with the New Jersey coast. The name cannot be forgotten in its association with the heroisini of its defence from Sandy Hook to Cape May in the Revolutionary war. In 1683 George fforman, merchant, of Chester county, Pennsylvania, deeded six hundred and forty acres of land on the south side of Raritan River to Richard Jones, of New York. On November 16th, 1688, Hon. Robert Barclay, by his attorney John Reid, deeded lands on the Burlington road from Wickatunck to Burlington, to Samuel Fforman, of Monmouth county, and upon two boundaries were the lands of Aaron Fforman. From the West Jersey Society, Jonathan Fforman (in 1695) purchased lot No. 21, at Cape May, containing two hundred and fifty acres. Benjamin ffield, of Chesterfield (Crosswicks) deeded five hundred acres on the Cohansey- Salem road to Alexander Fforman, yeoman, of Monmouth county. John fforman, of Middlesex county, was one of the witnesses to the will of Archibald Campbell (son of Lord (?) Neil) which was proven May 12th, 1702. Samuel Forman was High Sheriff of Monmouth in 1695. More than once Dr. Samuel Forman, like Ian Maclaren's "Doctor of the Old School," gave his best endeavor "for the need of every man, woman and child in this wild, struggling district, year in, year out, in the snow and in the heat, in the dark and in the light, without rest and without holiday." General David Forman, sometimes called "Black David" or "Devil David," was the leading spirit of the Revolutionists in Monmouth county. He was especially energetic and aggressive against the Refugees and Pine-robbers. He was warmly supported by other members of his family-by another, David Forman, sheriff, and his son, Tunis; by Jonathan Forman, Cornet
185
HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
in Captain Walton's Troop of Light Dragoons, also the same in the State Troops ; by William Forman, of the Light Dragoons, and Jonathan For- man, of the First Regiment, Monmouth Militia, etc. Colonel Jonathan Forman left Princeton College and joined the American army as a lieu- tenant, and was promoted to the rank of colonel. He married a Miss Led- yard, niece of Colonel Ledyard, who commanded Fort Griswold, opposite New London, at the time of its capture by the British. When their little daughter, born in Monmouth county, New Jersey, was twelve years old they moved to Cazenovia, Madison county, New York. On January I. 1807, Mary Ledyard Forman married Henry Seymour of Pompey, Onon- daga county, New York. In 1819 they moved to Utica, and he died, well known and respected, in 1837. His wife died September 16, 1859. Mrs. Seymour was the mother of Governor Horatio Seymour, of New York, and a niece of Philip Freneau, the poet of the Revolution. Colonel Ledyard was brutally murdered by a renegade New Jersey refugee, named Brom- field. After the Americans had surrendered the fort, Bromfield asked who commanded it. The brave Ledyard replied, "I did, but you do now," and handed his sword to Bromfield. The villain took it and immediately stabbed Ledyard to the heart. ("Old Times in Monmouth.")
On December 30th, 1701, John Reid, of Hortensie, granted lands to Colonel John Anderson, his son-in-law, in Manalapan. He' had married Anna, the daughter of John Reid. Colonel Anderson was a member of Governor Robert Hunter's council for several years, and the inscription on his tombstone states that he had been "once President of his Majesty's Council for the Province of New Jersey." He died March 28, 1736, aged seventy-one years. He was born the year that the Nicolls Patent was granted, 1665. Isabella, daughter of Kenneth Anderson, and granddaugh- ter of Colonel John Anderson, was the wife of Dr. Nathaniel Scudder, colonel of the militia of Monmouth in the Revolution, and signer of the Articles of Confederation July 9, 1778, for New Jersey, with Dr. John With- erspoon, of Princeton. Dr. Scudder was shot by a refugee while reconnoiter- ing with General David Forman at Black Point, Rumson Neck, New Jersey.
One of the members of the Westminster Assembly of Divines in 1643, was the Rev. Henry Scudder, of Colingborne, Wiltshire, England. Nearly related to him ( and possibly his brother ) was Thomas Scudder, the progeni- tor of most of the Scudders in America. Coming from London, or its vicinity, he appeared in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1635. Three of his sons, John, Thomas and Henry, moved to Southold, Long Island, in 1651. Six years later they moved to Huntington, Long Island. John removed to Newtown; Long Island, about 1660, and two of his sons went to New Jersey. Richard Betts Scudder, who was his grandson, and the son of
186
HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
John Scudder, was the ancestor of the Trenton and Ewing Scudders. Many of his descendants became prominent men, and they married into well known families of New Jersey, viz. : Reeder, Hart, Howell, Moore, Mc- Ilvaine, Green, Holmes, Morgan, Philips, Mott, Montgomery, Burroughs, Hunt, Degraw, Titus, Stryker, Anderson, Conover, Temple, etc. The Montgomerys were descended from William Montgomery, of Bridgend, Ayrshire, Scotland, and his wife, Isabella, daughter of Robert Burnett, a proprietor of East Jersey. They settled in Upper Freehold, Monmouth. county. Their grandson, Major William Montgomery, born in 1750, mar- ried Mary, a daughter of Robert Rhea, of Freehold, New Jersey.
Jacob Scudder, son of Benjamin, and grandson of Thomas Scudder, of Huntington, Long Island, married Abia Rowe, and in 1791 moved to Princeton, New Jersey. Their daughter, Lucretia, married Joseph Coward, son of Rev. John Coward, and grandson of Captain Hugh Coward, of London. Their daughter, Sarah, married Charles Parker, a leading poli- tician of New Jersey in his time, and their son was the well known lawyer the war governor of the State in 1862. The late William Scudder Stry- ker, Adjutant-General and Major-General of New Jersey, was the great- grandson of this Lucretia Scudder. Her brother was the well known Col- onel Nathaniel Scudder, of the Revolution. He was born in Huntington, Long Island, May 10, 1733, and moved with his father to Princeton in 1749. He graduated from Princeton College in 1751, and married ( March 23, 1752) Isabella, daughter of Colonel Kenneth Anderson, son of Captain John Anderson, and Anne Reid, of Freehold, Monmouth county, New Jersey. Colonel Scudder's sister, Ruth, married on August 18, 1772, his wife's brother, Major Kenneth Anderson. Colonel Scudder, with his father-in-law and brother-in-law, were officers of the First Regiment of Monmouth Militia. Dr. John Anderson Scudder, son of Colonel Scudder, was a surgeon in the same regiment. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Ezekiel Forman and Catherine Wyckoff, and moved to May's Lick, Mason county, Kentucky, and afterward settled in Indiana. They had many well known descendants in the west.
Dr. Joseph Scudder, a younger son of Colonel Scudder, was born in 1761 and died March 5, 1843. He married Maria, daughter of Colonel Philip Johnston, who was killed in the battle of Long Island. She was a woman of strong character, pious, dignified, intelligent and highly culti- vated. Their children gave ample evidence of her influence, viz., Eliza Scudder, who married the Rev. William C. Schenck, of Princeton ; Philip Johnston Scudder, of Shelbyville, Tennessee, who married Elizabeth, daugh- ter of Captain Simms (Colonel Symmes) and their daughter, Elizabeth. married Thomas Ryall, of Trenton, New Jersey; John Scudder, the mis-
-
187
1
HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
sionary, who married Harriet, daughter of Gideon Waterbury, of Stam- ford, Connecticut, whose eight sons all became famous as physicians and ministers; William Washington Scudder, professor of mathematics in Dick- inson College; Joseph Scudder, a lawyer in Freehold, New Jersey; Cor- nelia Scudder, who married the Rev. Jacob Fonda; Juliet Philip Scudder, who married Daniel B. Ryall, a prominent lawyer of Freehold, New Jer- sey; Matilda Scudder, who married Jonathan Forman, of Freehold; Jane Scudder, who married the Rev. Christopher Hunt, of New York ; and Theo- dosia Scudder, who married the Rev. Dr. William J. Pohlman, who both went as missionaries to China, where they died.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.