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 22
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East Jersey deeded to the Laird of Monyvard by the Earl of Perth. As early as 1676 William Lawrence obtained lands at Cohansey through his agent, Anthony Page, also one of the Middletown Patentees. His chil- dren inherited those lands in the different parts of the State. William Lawrence, Jr., marricd Ruth Gibbons and remained in Middletown. Han- nah Lawrence married Joseph Grover, of Middletown. John and Joseph became identified with Manasquan, and Elisha, born about 1666, married Lucy Stout, daughter or granddaughter of Richard and Penelope Stout. In 1688 and 1690 Elisha Lawrence obtained lots of land in Middletown. In 1698 his father conveyed to him lots of land amounting to 123 . acres. He also purchased in 1698 the 280 acres sold by John Crawford and his wife, Abigail, when they moved to Cape May. Elisha Lawrence moved westward toward Upper Freehold and Crosswicks with other sons "of the Middletown Patentees. He had four daughters, "Hannah, who mar- ried Richard Salter; Elizabeth, who married Joseph Salter; Sarah, who married John Embers; and Rebecca, who married a New Yorker named 'Watson," and three sons, Joseph, Elisha and John. The latter "ran the noted Lawrence's line between East and West Jersey." He was born in 11708 and "married Mary, daughter of William Hartshorne, and had chil- dren as follows: John, a physician who died unmarried; Helena, who married James Holmes, merchant, New York; Lucy, who married Rev. Henry Waddell, of New York, who was installed pastor of the Epis- copal church at Shrewsbury, in 1788; Elizabeth, who married William Le Compte, of Georgia; Sarah and Mary, who died single, and Elisha, who married Mary Ashfield, of New York, and who was sheriff of Monmouth county at the breaking out of the Revolution." ("Old Times in Mon- mouth.") The Lawrences were Loyalists in the war for independence.
Elisha Lawrence, the son of Elisha Lawrence and Lucy Stout, had a son named John Brown Lawrence, who was the father of Captain James Lawrence. He had served gallantly in the Tripolitan war with Commodore Bainbridge, Captain Richard Somers, and Lieutenant James Biddle. When Captain Lawrence fell dying into the arms of his brother-in-law, Lieuten- ant Cox, he uttered the few Anglo-Saxon monosyllables "Don't give up the ship. So long as an American seaman can sail a vessel in any of the world's oceans they will never be forgotten. Lieutenant Cox was also ·descended from a Middletown Patentee, Thomas Cox. As his descendants moved westward to the Ohio valley in a critical hour, another of this name arose to fame, Samuel S. Cox, the orator and statesman. He was the orator of the day at the centennial celebration of the battle of Monmouth, and was introduced by Governor Joel Parker as follows: "I have the pleasure of introducing the Hon. Samuel S. Cox, of New York, a gentle-
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man through whose veins courses patriotic blood, whose grandfather fought in the Revolution, whose father and mother were born in Monmouth county," etc. In the United States Senate in 1861, he most eloquently de- fended the Union of the States.
Like Lieutenant Cox, there were many Jersey men of the old stock who first made the "man behind the gun" famous in the history of cur navy, but their names individually are not recorded. Even Joseph Bainbridge, the brother of the Commodore, although a gallant officer, is scarcely re- membered.
Although the Bainbridges, Taylors and Lawrences were Tories they regarded themselves only as loyal to a legitimate government. Had the rebellion of the Colonies failed theirs would have been the proud boast of true loyalty. This does not excuse the arrogance or brutality to which some of them stooped, but perhaps the shame of it in the light of failure taught their children, equal loyalty to the new government, and the generous magnanimity to a fallen foe for which they became distinguished. Defeat taught pity and sympathy for the fallen. The crew of an American ship would fight like demons while the battle raged, but when the enemy surrendered they, with equal zeal, struggled to save the lives of the reir nant of the crew on board the ship their guns had shattered, even giving their own lives in the risks taken to accomplish that noble purpose. Such. precedents had been established by the soldiers 'and sailors of the Revolu- tion, nor were the children of the defeated loyalists to fall below that standard.
During the eighth century Charlemagne, in his wars against the Sax- ons, drove thousands of them from their homes. They fled for sake of their religion, for sake of liberty, joining other tribes of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. They not only infested and settled upon the shores of Great Britain, but they especially planned predatory expeditions against France and the domains of the great emperor-ascending the principal navigable rivers of his kingdom of France. Charlemagne not only massacred the Saxons and forced them to adopt Christianity, but he transplanted many of them into Flanders, Switzerland and other parts of his empire. The Saxons, Batavians and Fresians were kindred tribes whom the Romans had never conquered. They were the race from which, between two and three centuries before, the Vikings had sailed to the conquest of Romanized Britain. Thus unto the maritime province of France there came a strong infusion of Saxon blood, with all its liberty-loving and commercial spirit. These people became the founders of cities at the mouths of the great rivers of France. In 902 Rollo, a Norseman, obtained the duchy of Normandy,
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thus holding the mouth of the Seine. These people formed the middle or commercial classes. Early in the twelfth century Louis VI chartered towns, giving them rights of self-government and self-defense. They were to sup- port the King against the feudal lords of old Frankish stock. The crusades and the fall of Constantinople brought learning and commerce to these cities, and prepared them for the adoption of the principles of the Reformation. Under her Norman and Plantagenet Kings, Norman England held and controlled many of the maritime provinces and cities of France. Not until the close of the, fifteenth century did France obtain possession of Britagne from England, under whose control it had been for several centuries.
During the domination of Europe by Charles V, and the persecution of the Protestants of the Low Countries, France and England were compara- tively friendly, and Francis I encouraged commerce. Protestantism, neglected by the authorities, grew strong in France, until persecutions were commenced in the short reign of Henry II, son of Francis II, and Catherine de Medici. The century which commenced with the edict of Charles V against the Netherlands (1550) and closed with the Peace of Westphalia ( 1648) is the most pitiful, the most terrible, in the history of Europe. The Duke of Alva, with the wealth of the murdered and plundered Peruvians and Mexicans, ravaged the most free, most peaceful, most learned and civilized people, as well as the richest portion of Europe- the Flemish lowlands. Catherine de Medici urged her son to the horrors of St. Bartholomew (1572), when the streets of cities flowed with the blood of the Huguenots, the merchants and middle classes of France, her most educated and refined people. Seven years later Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Friesland, Groningen, Overyssel and Gelderland, the United Provinces, declared themselves independent of Spain, under the leadership of William the Silent, Prince of Orange. About one year after his death, in 1585, the army of the Duke of Parma destroyed Antwerp, the richest city of Europe, and its inhabitants fled to Holland to enrich the city of Amsterdam. The commerce of England and France profited by the coming of these merchant and artisan exiles and they were made welcome. These Protest- ant Walloons or French speaking inhabitants of Artois, Hainault, Namur, Luxemburg, Flanders and Brabant-the Catholic Netherlands-were Cal- vinists, and sometimes called Huguenots. The threads of the history of the Dutch and French Protestants are interwoven like the threads of the Flemish tapestries, portraying scenes of heroism, martyrdom, love and war.
Sir Martin Schenck Van Nydeck, "Lord of Toutenburg in Gelderland, Knight and Marshal of the Camp," was born at Goch in 1643. He inher- ited no property save his sword, but he became celebrated for his bravery in the wars of the Low Countries. Through a long line of ancestors he
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is said to have been descended from Colve de Witte, Baron Van Touten- burg, who was killed in a battle with the Danes in 878 or 880, about sixty- eight years after the death of Charlemagne. Sir Martin served for a. short time as page to the Lord of Yeselstein. While still but a youth he" joined the forces of William, Prince of Orange, at the head of twenty-two men-at-arms. He became angry because estates which he should have: received were withheld from him by the Estates General, and for a time: he served with their enemy, the Duke of Parma, but on May 25, 1585, he declared his allegiance to the Dutch Republic, and served it to his death. He became known as a terrible soldier and leader. He was knighted by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, as the representative of Queen Elizabeth of England. Soon after this, accompanied by the "Mad Welshman," Roger Williams, he made a furious nocturnal attack upon Parma before Venlo. He built the fort which then and long after bore his name "Schencken Schaus," at the important point where the Rhine, opening its arms to enclose "the good meadow," the Island of Batavia, where his race had first settled, there on the outermost part of the Republic, and looking straight from his fastness into the hostile States of Munster, Westphalia and the Electorate, the bold knight took his stand in the face of all enemies. He was drowned in the Waal at Nymegen, on August IIth, 1589. Falling or jumping into the water, he was borne down by his iron armor. Sir Martin had a brother, General Peter Schenck, who also served with the Prince of Orange, and who was also born at Goch, in 1547. He married at Doesburgh, May 17th, 1580. Johanna Van Scherpenzeel, and their son, Martin Schenck Van Ny- deck, born August 7th, 1584, is supposed to be the Martin Schenck who with his two sons, Roelof and Jan, and daughter Anetje, emigrated from Amersfoort, Holland. Sailing in "de Valckener," Captain Wilhelm Thom- assen, they arrived in New York on June 28th, 1650. The Schencks and many other families with similar histories settled at Flatlands, Long Island. They had been ruined in fortune by the devastations of the Thirty Years War. ("Ancestry and Descendants of Rev. William Schenck," by Captain A. D. Schenck, U. S. A.)
The oldest son of Martin Schenck, Roelif Martense Schenck, was born in Amersfoort, Province of Utrecht, Holland, in 1619. He married (in 1660) Neeltje, the daughter of Gerrit Wolphertse Van Couwenhoven, a son of Wolfert Gerritson Van Couwenhoven, who came to America from Amersfoort in 1630, to Rensselaerwick, now Albany, New York. ("Early Dutch Settlers of Monmouth County, New Jersey," by George C. Beck- man. ) This was the first of the long list of marriages between the Schencks and Conovers (Von Couwenhovens) in this country. There is 14*
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certainly a remarkable affinity between the two families. No matter how separated by fate, they inevitably gravitated toward each other. Roelif Martinse Schenck became Magistrate of "the five Dutch Towns" of Long Island, February 21st, 1664; "Schepen" of Amersfoort, August 18th, 1673; Lieutenant of Militia, October 25, 1673; Deputy to Council at New Amsterdam, March 26th, 1674; commissioned "Justice" for Kings county, New York, by Lieutenant Governor Leisler, December 12th, 1689; com- missioned "Captain of Horse" for Kings County, January 13th, 1690. His will was proved August 3d, 1705. By his first wife he had the two sons, Garret Roelifse Schenck and Jan Roelifse Schenck, who set- tled in Monmouth county, New Jersey. Roelif Martinse Schencks's sec- ond wife was Anetje Pieterse Wycoff (married 1675), and his third wife was Catherine Cruiger, "widow of the late Christopher Hoagland."
October 7th, 1695, John Bowne, of Middletown, granted a deed to "Gerret Schenck, Stephen Courte Voorhuys, Cornelius Couwenhoven and Peter Wycoff, of Flatlands (alias Amesfort, Kings county, Long Island), for five hundred acres in Middletown, as per patent of March 10th, 1685. Gerret Roelifse Schenck settled in Monmouth county about 1696, and his brother, Jan Roelifse. (on March 30th, 1697) received by deed from Peter Wycoff his fourth of the above purchase and settled on it soon afterward. The descendants of these men are to be found in every part of the United States. The history of this family almost from the remote days of Charle- magne to the present is typical of the race to which it belonged. Their standard of respectability and integrity, their force of character and moral cleanliness, seems to have been constantly maintained throughout the centuries. They were ever active members of the community to which they belonged, and defenders of its liberties. They always preserved the demo- cratic traits of the old Saxon chieftains.
The intermarriages of the descendants of Sheriff Daniel Hendrickson and his wife, Catherine Van Dyke, of old Dutch families, perfectly illus- trates the amalgamation of the nationalities which were represented in the colonization of New Jersey. They married into the families of the Dutch Schencks, Van Maters and Conovers; the English Holmes; the French Du Boises and Schurmans; the Scotch Formans and Pattersons; and the Welsh Lloyds. A John Hendrickson (in 1793) married Mary, daugh- ter of John Lloyd and Sarah Cowenhoven. Another daughter married Nicholas Stevens, a grandson of Benjamin Stevens, of Old Tennent Church. and of Scotch descent. On November 28th, 1805, their son, John Lloyd Stevens, was born at Shrewsbury, New Jersey. He became a famous traveler and archaeologist and vice president of the Panama Railroad Com-
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pany. He was a frequent and welcome visitor to the families of the old towns of Shrewsbury and Middletown during the first half of the last century.
In 1650 it has been estimated that about one-half of the inhabitants of the New Netherlands were Walloons-literally, French-speaking people from the Austrian Netherlands of their time and the Belgium of to-day. They had fled from the Duke of Parma to the Prince of Orange. As early as 1614 Walloon names are to be found in the records of New Amsterdam. Joris (George) de Rapalie and his wife, Catalina Trico; of Wallabout Bay (the Bay of the Strangers), were Walloons. Other names well known in New Jersey were de Trieux (du Truax) Hulet, Fontaine ( Fountain) de Rue, Le Conte or Le Compt, Laurens, etc. Jacob Truax, merchant of New York, purchased land in Middletown from the Indians in 1678. Lands purchased by him from Peter Tilton of Middletown, in 1697, near Swim- ming River, were still in the possession of the family but a few years ago. The children and grandchildren of these merchants of New York (or New Amsterdam) came to New Jersey in most instances after 1695. The Denyse or de Nyse family were Walloons who fled to Holland. The name takes several forms in New Jersey-Tunise, Tunnisson, Denise, etc. On November 17th, 1701, John Harrison, of Elizabeth Town, deeded a lot of land in Middlesex and Somerset counties along "Milston" River to Theodorus Polhemus, Itoffle Probasco, Cornelius Wyckoff, Hendrick Lott, Jacques Corteleou, Peter Corteleou, Denise Tunise and Frederick Van Lieu, "all of Nassau (Long) Island, New York, between Lodging Brook, George Willox, Peter Cortileou, Garret Wechte (Veghte), on the road from Piscataway to the falls of the Delaware River and the rear of Rari- tan lots." These men were of Walloon origin. but probably were of the second or third generations who had resided with the Dutch, and at the time that they settled in New Jersey spoke the Dutch language.
Of the French refugees who fled to England in the sixteenth century were the families of du Bois and Perrin-or Perrine-Antoine du Bois as early as 1583. His descendant, Louis du Bois, settled at New Platz, New York, and his son Louis, marrying Catherine Van Brunt, settled upon Staten Island. Their son Benjamin became the pastor of the Reformed Dutch Churches of "Freehold and Middletown" in 1764. Count Perrin, a prominent Huguenot refugee from Nouere, fled to England. Daniel Perrin, descended from him, came to New Jersey in 1675 as a servant of Sir George and Philip Cartaret, and settled upon Staten Island. His de- scendants later settled in Monmouth county.
The Reverend Jonas Michaelius, Dominie of the first Dutch Church
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in New Amsterdam, wrote that many Waldenses had come to the New Netherlands as refugees between 1648 and 1658. "Oliver, the Protector of the Republic of England," dictated a letter to his Secretary, John Milton, in May, 1655, beseeching "Immanuel, Duke of Savoy, Prince of Piemont," to revoke his edict against the Waldenses. Letters concerning their perse- cution were written to "Prince Lewis, King of France," Cardinal Maza- rin, the Prince of Transylvania, the Kings of Sweden, Norway and Den- mark, the States of the United Provinces, the Evangelical cities of Switz- erland and the Consuls and Senators of the city of Geneva. "No English ruler," says John Morley, "has ever shown a nobler figure than Cromwell in the case of the Vaudois, and he had all the highest influences of the nation with him. He said to the French ambassador that the woes of the poor Piedmontese went as close to his heart as if they were his nearest kin; and he gave personal proof of the sincerity of his concern by a munifi- cent contribution to the fund for the relief of the martyred population. It was his diplomatic pressure upon France that secured redress, though' Mazarin, not without craft, kept for himself a foremost place." Milton's sonnet "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont," tells the sad story of these people :
"Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones, Forget not : in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. The moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven."
Upon Staten Island, near New Dorp, in 1658, a little band of Walden- ses or Vaudois built a stone church. In his history of "Baptist Churches In the United States," A. H. Newman claims that at the beginning of the sixteenth century the Waldenses held some Baptist principles and num- bered about one hundred thousand in the Alpine Valleys of France and Italy, and about one hundred thousand scattered throughout Europe. John Crocheron, Jaques Post and . Moillart Journeay were Vaudois refugees who came to Staten Island prior to 1670. In 1658 the following names are also found among the records of the Waldensian Church at New Dorp: Bedell, Guyon, Corson, Fountain, Perrine, Van Pelt, Poillon, Segoine, etc. The first marriage recorded was that of Cornelius Britton and Charlotte Colon.
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Most of these families were not natives of Savoy, but were led to join this congregation because of a sympathy in beliefs, and some, possibly, because the French language was there spoken.
To the chartered city of La Rochelle, France, fled the refugees from the Massacre of St. Bartholemew, where they were cared for and pro- tected. After a long siege and most heroic defense the city was overcome by the wiles of Cardinal Richelieu, and, says Smedley, "thus perished this little Christian republic which had defied the crown of France for seventy years." The ambitious young king, Louis XIV, while acting as his own minister, encouraged commerce and manufactures. Many exiles returned to France. Then in his old age he revoked the Edict of Nantes, their only legal protection. His people had reached the zenith of their commercial glory. Then, in the blindest fury, the best social elements were driven out of the kingdom forever. From La Rochelle thousands fled to the colonies.
Lieutenant Governor Leisler, of New York, obtained a portion of Pells Manor, in Westchester county, New York, which he granted to many of these refugees, who named their new from their old home, New Ro- chelle. Leisler is said to have been of Swiss origin, and had a brother who was a Swiss officer in the French army. He may have been one of the Waldenses, for his sympathy with the Huguenots was true and real. Many of the refugees from La Rochelle also settled upon Long Island and Staten Island. After the unjust persecution and hanging of Leisler, many of his Dutch and Huguenot friends, especially of the younger generation, moved to New Jersey. Of the Huguenots from La Rochelle, France, we find the following representatives in New Jersey, viz .: The Bodines, Allairs, Pintards, Guyons, Scurmans, Mersereaus, Hillyers, Rezeans, Apelbes, Nixons, Micheaus, Ganos, Stelles, etc.
The majority of the Dutch and French colonists came into Mon- mouth county and the lower portion of the State after the close of the seventeenth century. With them came also many English families from Long Island, Staten Island and New York. With the Huguenots of Staten Island especially came the Frosts, Coopers (Benjamin Cooper of Fresh Kills and his son John), the Lakes and many others found on the Bay shore of Monmouth county. From this time the history of immigra- tion into the State became individual rather than national.
In the first half century of the history of her colonization, New Jersey was peopled by four national groups-the English, Scotch, Dutch and French. Into the veins of all had been infused more or less of the old Saxon blood, with its unconquerable love of liberty and independence. The English Anabaptist and Quaker merchants and seamen belonged to
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the short-lived Republic of England; the Scotch Presbyterians were citi- zens of the chartered towns of the Scottish Lowlands, and were merchants and tradesmen of the commercial world. Of the same class were the mer- chants and artisans of the Dutch Republic and the'r oppressed French- speaking neighbors of Flanders and Normandy. The Vaudois of Savoy, from the mountains and valleys of the Rhone and the Lake of Geneva, belonged in all their sympathies to the Swiss Republic. Geneva, the home of Calvin, was upon their side of the lake. The followers of Peter Waldo, "the Poor Men of Lyons," were the merchants and tradesmen of cne of the greatest commercial centers of France, the city of Lyons. Soon after they came to New York, a party of the refugees from the little Christian Republic of La Rochelle, France, asked of Louis XIV permission to settle in the valley of the Mississippi River. In his name, Ponchartrain, his sec- retary, replied, "The King has not driven Protestants from France to make a republic of them in America." Almost all who then came to New Jersey had been men of property, accustomed to the manipulation of men and af- fairs. It is not strange that they and their descendants should have founded and developed a republican commonwealth whose history, for more than two centuries, has been quietly legislative and judicial. New Jersey has bravely defended her own liberties, and given aid to others in the defense of theirs, but she has never persecuted or oppressed her fellow men.
In the eighteenth century two classes of men, of different race, ex- erted a most powerful influence upon the descendants of the Saxon colon- ists of the previous century in New Jersey. They were the Irish school- master and the Welsh minister. Of the personal history of the former we know very little, but of the latter the Morgans, Jenkins, Griffiths, Joneses and Roberts will never be forgotten.
For forty-seven years Abel Morgan exerted all the influence for good that a learned, conscientious, loving, Christian man can exert as the be- loved pastor of three large congregations. He lived a life of celibacy, de- voting himself to his work and to his mother.
Once every month for over forty years Abel Morgan had driven from his home, a short distance from the home of Joseph Murray, near Heddens Corners, to Crosswicks to preach in the "Yellow Meeting House" and per- form his pastoral duties to that congregation. He was usually accompanied by Richard Crawford, a Bowne, a Holmes, a Conover or some other neigh- .. bor or friend. The journey was made in stages from one home to another, the minister's horses awaiting him in some good stable near home for the last stage of the return.
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