USA > New Jersey > Cape May County > The history of Cape May County, New Jersey : from the aboriginal times to the present day > Part 2
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Of Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, who was formally installed during the summer of 1623. as first Director-General of New Netherlands, many good things are said. " 'Tis bet- ter to govern by love and friendship than by force," wrote his superiors in Holland; and he acted in the spirit of his instructions to "the great contentment of his people." Among the Indians at Fort Nassau, Mey's little colony of brides and grooms were unharmed, while at Fort Orange and Manhattan the Indians "were all as quiet as lambs, and came and traded with all the freedom imaginable." When at a time the residents of Manhattan were suffering from a tant of clothes and stores, he supplied them from his ship.
Director William Verhulst, a successor of Mey, in pre- siding over New Netherlands, visited the Delaware in 1625, and extended his voyage up the river as far as the falls at Trenton.
In the meanwhile that the Dutch were attempting to dis- cover and colonize along the shores of the Delaware Bay and river, King Gustavus Adolphus, of Sweden, at the sug- gestion of William Usselinx, of Holland, who in 1590 had proposed the Dutch West India Company, undertook to found a colony on its banks also, but none of them are Known to have settled at Cape May.
In 1629 the West India Company endeavored to excite Individual enterprise into colonizing the country which they now claimed. A number of the directors entered into a scheme, the outcome of which was they called themselves patroons for establishing colonies, in each of which were to be fifty settlers. Each patroon was granted a charter by the company, in which the patroon was given exclusive prop- erty in the large tracts of lands with extensive manorial and seignorial rights. Thus encouraged, several of the directors for whose use, probably, the charter was designed, among them Godyn, Bloemmart, Pauuw and Van Rense- laer were most distinguished, resolved to make large terri-
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HISTORY OF CAPE MAY COUNTY.
torial acquisitions. These directors sent out from Amster- dam three ships, and the whole management of the affair on this side of the Atlantic was entrusted to Wooter Van. Twiller, a clerk of the Amsterdam department of the com- pany. He was to select the lands for the individual directors .. He entered the Delaware Bay with a ship and party about June ist, 1629, a few days before the adoption of their char- ter by Holland, and landed on the south side of the bay, where he bought of three chiefs of an Indian tribe there a tract of land for Godyn about Cape "Henloop," or "In- loop," now known as Cape Heulopen.
As soon as the settlement on the south side of the bay had become fairly inhabited, Skipper Peter Heyssen, of the ship Walrus, visited the Cape May shore and as agents of Samuel Godyn and Samuel Bloemmaert, bought of ten li- dian chiefs on, says an account, May 5, 1630, which sale was afterwards made a matter of record under date of June 3, 1631, a tract of land four miles along the bay from Cape May to the north, and extending four miles inland, con- taining an area of sixteen square miles. The deed for this. land, which is still preserved among the old colonial rec- ords, reads as follows:
"We. Director and Council of New Netherland, residing on the Island of Manhattan at Fort Amsterdam, under the jurisdiction of Their Noble High Mightiness, the Lords- State's-General of the United Netherlands and the Incor- porated West India Company, Department of Amsterdam, attest and declare herewith that to-day, date underwritten, appeared Peter Heyssen, skipper of the ship "Walvis," at present lying in the South river, and Gillis Hosset. com- missary on the same, who declare that on the 5th day of May, last past, before them appeared personally, Sawo- wonwe, Wvoyt, Pemhake, Mekowetick, Techepepewoya, Mathemek, Sacoock, Anehoopeon, Janqueno and Paka- hake, lawful owners, proprietors and inhabitants of the east side of Goddyn's East bay, called Cape de Maye, who for themselves in proportion of their own shares and for all the other owners in regard to their shares of the same land, de- clare of their own accord and deliberately in their said
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THE INDIANS AND THE DUTCH EXPLORERS.
qualities, to have transported, ceded and conveyed as law- ful, unalienable and free property by virtue and title of sale and in consideration of a certain quantity of goods, which they, the conveyors, acknowledge in their said quality to have received and accepted before the passing of this con- tract, and they herewith transport, cede and convey, to and in behoof of the Noble Honorable Samuel Godyn and Samuel Bloemmaert (who are absent and for whom they had accepted the hereafter described land subject to the ustal reservation) to wit: the east side of Godyn's bay or Cape de Maye, reaching 4 miles from the said cape to- wards the bay and 4 miles along the coast southward, and another 4 miles inland, being 16 square miles, with all in- terests, rights and privileges which were vested in them- selves in their aforesaid quality, constituting and delegating the aforesaid purchasers in their own stead as real and actual owners thereof and giving and surrendering at the same time to their Honors, full, absolute and irrevocable power. authority and special charge, that tamquam actores at procuratores in rem propriam the Noble Messrs. Godyn and Bloemmaert or those who might hereafter receive their property, enter upon, possess in peace, inhabit, cultivate, keep, use, do with, trade and dispose of the afore described land as they would do with their own inherited lands and fiefs, without that they, the conveyors, shall have, reserve or keep in the least degree any particle of claim, right or privilege thereon, be it of ownership, authority or juris- diction. but for the behalf as aforesaid, they herewith en- tirely and absolutely desist from. give up. abandon and re- nounce it now and forever, promising further not only to keep, fulfil and execute firmly, inviolately and irrevocably in infinitum this, their contract and what might be done hereafter on the authority thereof, but also to deliver the said tract of land and keep it free against everybody, front any claim, challenge or incumbrance which any body might intend to create; as well as to have this sale and conveyance approved and confirmed by the remainder of the co-owners, for whom they are trustees: all this under the obligations required by law, in good faith, without evil intent or deceit. In testimony whereof this has been confirmed by our usual
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HISTORY OF CAPE MAY COUNTY.
.signature and our seal appended thereto. Done on the aforesaid Island of Manhattan, at Fort Amsterdam, the 3d «of June. A. D. 1631."
The above patent and one for land on the south side of the bay were issued by Peter Minuit, while Director of New Netherland, and this is the only document found in Holland by Mr. Brodhead, as having come down to the present time from the West India Company, the rest having been sold as waste paper.
Gillis Hosset, or Osset, was a colonist, born in Holland. He was commander of the De Vries expedition, mentioned later. He sailed from the Texel on December 12, 1630, in the ship "Walrus.' He built a house on the Delaware side of the bay, and because of an attempt to play a trick on some Indians was killed by them in December, 1631. The sixteen square miles which was purchased was in the pos- session of the Lenni-Lenape Indians. This was the first recorded purchase of the natives within the limits of the .State.
At the time of Godyn's and Bloemmaert's purchase the marshes of Cape May were very "extensive and the sounds and thoroughfares large. The inland waters were found to abound in oysters, clams, crabs, and other shell fish." Noth- ing is given in the old Dutch records, however, to prove that a colony was at this time established in Cape May.
The tract for Pauuw was purchased on Staten Island and about Hoboken, while a tract on the Hudson, near Fort Orange, was seeured by Van Twiller for Van Rense- laer. Godyn's territory was called "Swanwendael."
After Pieter Heyset concluded his purchase of the Cape May county land he entered into the whaling industry.
The impracticability of these great exclusive grants was subsequently discovered and condemned. Their ratifica- tion were never obtained by the States-General until they had admitted other directors to participate in the privileges.
In the course of time these directors formed an equal partnership with David Pieterson de Vries, a navigator of enterprise. They immediately planned to colonize the shores of the Delaware, to plant tobacco and grain, and to
THE INDIANS AND THE DUTCH EXPLORERS.
establish a whale and seal fishery. Of de Vries it is saidi that he was wise in counsel, that he conciliated the Indians; of Swanwendael and Scheyichbi, and made the way smooth. for the following settlers on both shores of the Delaware. In 1631 he entered the Delaware and left a colony at Hoornekill, near Boompjes Hoek (now Bombay Hook) .. He was the first resident patroon owner of Cape May, and' was a religious and devout man. He went back to his- Hoornekill colony .the next year, but found that they had been massacred by the savages. "Finding the whale fish- ery unsuccessful, he hastened his departure, and, with the other colonists, proceeded to Holland by the way of Fort Amsterdam" (New York). "Thus," says Gordon, "at the" expiration of twenty years from the discovery of the Dela -- ware by Hudson, not a single European remained upon its. shores."
De Vries, in his journal, says, "March 29th, 1633. found that our people have caught seven whales; we could have done more if we had good harpoons, for they had struck seventeen fish and only saved seven."
"An immense flight of pigeons is obscuring the sky. The: 14th, sailed over to Cape May, where the coast trended E .. N. E. and S. W. Came at evening to the mouth of Egg- Harbor; found between Cape May and Egg Harbor a: slight sand beach, full of small, low sand hills. Egg Har- bor is a little river or kill. and inside the land is broken,. and within the bay are several small islands. Somewhere. further up in the same direction is a beautiful high wood."" This was probably Somer's or Beesley's Point, clothed in its primitive growth of timber.
In 1638 a number of Swedes entered the bay and were> ordered off by the officials of the Dutch West India Com- pany. At the time all the Swedes were told to leave their possessions. The Swedes who entered the bay said that they were on their way to the West Indies and had put into "Zuydt" bay to rest after a stormy voyage.
Dr. Beesley says:
"About 1641 Cape May was again purchased by Swedisin agents, a short time before the arrival of the Swedish Gov --
HISTORY OF CAPE MAY COUNTY.
ernor, Printz Tinicum. This conveyance included all land from Cape May to Narriticon, or Raccoon Creek."
Campanius, a Swedish minister, who resided in New Sweden, on the banks of the Delaware, from the year 1642 to 1648, says, "Cape May lies in latitude 38° 30'. To the south of it there are three sand banks, parallel to each other, and it is not safe to sail between them. The safest course is to steer between them and Cape May, between Cape May and Cape Henlopen."
CHAPTER II. THE PIONEERS AND WHALING.
Whaling in the Delaware bay was noted as a consider- able industry about this time. English colonists from New Haven and emigrants from Long Island, who made whaling their principal industry, must have come to Cape May as early as 1638. The New Havenites were led by George Lamberton. About this time Captain Nathaniel Turner bought of the Indians the land along shore from Cape May to Raccoon Creek, Varcken's kill, Hog creek or Salem river. The price paid was £30, and the deed is dated November 24th, 1638. At different subsequent times New Haven people bought more land and were aided in the pur- chase by refugee Pequod Indians, who had taken asylum with the Lenni-Lenapes. The New Haven people are said to have paid in the aggregate within five years about £600. Gordon, in his history of New Jersey, says: "Emigrants from New Haven settled on the left shores of the Delaware so early as 1640, some of whose descendants may probably be found in Salem, Cumberland and Cape May counties."
The first account of a visit to Cape May was published in a "Description of New Albion" (New England), written by Sir Edmund Plowden, under the nom de plume of "Beau- champ Plantagenet," which appeared in London in 1648. Plowden reproduced a letter from Lieutenant Robert Evelyn. "Master Evelyn," as Plantagenet calls him, left England with an expedition for the Delaware in 1634, and probably made his exploration of the cape soon after. Others had observed Cape May, he learned, as follows: Hudson in 1609; Argall, 1610: Cornelius Hendrickson, 1616; Dermer, 1619; Mey, 1620; Hossett and Heyssen, 1630, and de Vries, 1631, besides a party of eight sent to "x-
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HISTORY OF CAPE MAY COUNTY.
plore the bay in 1632, by Governor Harvey, of Virginia .. who were killed by the Indians.
Evelyn's letter reads:
"I thought good to write unto you my knowledge, and first to describe to you the north side of Delaware unto Hudson's River, in Sir Edmund's patent called New Albion, which lieth between New England and Maryland, and that ocean sea. I take it to be about iCo miles. I find some broken land. isles and inlets, and many small isles at Eg: Bay; but going to Delaware Bay by Cape May, which is twenty-four miles at most, and is, I understand, very well set out and printed in Captain Powell's map of New Eng- land, done as is told me by a draft I gave to Mr. Daniel .. the plotmaster, which he Edmund saith you have at home :: on that north side (of Cape May) about five miles within is a port or rode for any ships, called the Nook, and within liveth the king of Kechemeches, having, as I suppose, about fifty men. I do account all these Indians to be eight hun- dred, and are in several factions and war against the Sar- quehannocks, and are all extreme fearful of a gun, naked and unarmed against our shot, swords and pikes. I had some bickering with some of them, and they are of so little esteem that I durst with fifteen men sit down or trade in despite of them. I saw there an infinite quantity of bus- tards, swans, geese and fowl, covering the shores, as within the like multitude of pigeons and store of turkeys, of which I tried one to weigh forty and six pounds. There is much variety and plenty of delicate fresh and sea fish and shell- fish, and whales and grampus, elks, deere that bring three- young at a time. Twelve hundred Indians un- der the Raritan kings, on the south side next to Hudson's River, and those come down to the ocean about Little Eg Bay, and Sandy Barnegate, and about the South Cape two sinall Kings of forty men a piece called Tirand and Tias- cons."
From this description there is no doubt that Evelyn vis- ited and made a circuit of the country. The name Egg bay is still retained with little change in Egg Harbor Bay, and the many small islands, called beaches now, and ors which are the seaside resorts, are the testimony that he -
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THE PIONEERS AND WHALING.
actually saw them. Dr. Beesley says of the reference made . to the Kechemeches:
"Now where it was the king of Kechemeches with his . fifty men held forth, it would be difficult to ascertain: it might have been at Town Bank, or Fishing Creek, or fur- ther up the cove or 'nook,' as he was pleased to call it. Master Evelin must certainly have the credit of being the first white man that explored the interior, as far as the sea- board, and his name should be perpetuated as the king of pioneers. * His account of the great .abundance and variety of fowl and fish seems within the. range of probability, and the story of the turkey that weighed forty -- six pounds, would have less of the 'couleur de rose' were- it not qualified in the same paragraph, with 'deere that bring, forth three young at a time.' And what a sight it must have. been to see the woods and plains teeming with wild animals, the shores and waters with fowl in every variety, where they had existed unharmed and unmolested through an unknown period of years; and the magnificent forest, tlie stately, towering cedar swamp, untouched by the axe of the despoiler, all reveling in the beauties of Nature in her pris- tine state, the realities of which the imagination, only, can convey an impression, or give a foretaste of the charms. and novelties of those primeval times."
At this time the county was the stamping ground of the . bison, or buffalo, the black bear, the panther, the wolf, . the catamount, the deer and other larger beasts. The small- er ones prevalent at the time were the opossum, raccoon, . foxs, mink, otters and beaver.
Whether at this time, about 1640, the New Haven set- tlers, probably at Town Bank, and the Dutch or the In- dians ever had any quarrels is not recorded, and they prob- ably had not. Commissioner Huddle, of Fort Nassau, on the Delaware, in 1648, complained that the Cape May tribe of Indians made barter "rather too much against them,"" as "the Indians always take the largest and smallest among them to trade with us," by which the long-armed "tellers". compassed a "long price" for their clansmen's beaver skins. The money they used was called "sewan."
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HISTORY OF CAPE MAY COUNTY.
Concerning the Swedes who may have settled in Cape May county Dr. Beesley says:
"As history throws no light on the original occupiers of the soil, conjecture only can be consulted on the subject. It would seem probable, inasmuch as many of the old Swed- ish names, as recorded in Campanius, from Rudman, are still to be found in Cumberland and Cape May, that some of the veritable Swedes of Tinicum or Christiana might have strayed, or have been driven to our shores. When the Dutch governor, Stuyvesant, ascended the Delaware in 1654, with his seven ships and seven hundred men, and subjected the Swedes to his dominion, it would be easy to imagine, in their mortification and chagrin at a defeat so bloodless and unexpected, that many of them should fly from the arbitrary sway of their rulers, and seek an asylum where they could be free to act for themselves, without re- straint or coercion from the stubbornness of mynheer, whose victory, though easily obtained, was permanent, as the pro- vincial power of New Sweden had perished for ever."
On July 12, 1656, the Dutch West India Company ceded land from Boomtjes Hauken to Cape Helopen to Amster- dam for 700,000 guilders ($266,000), and the territory be- came under the control of that municipality in Holland. Whether the municipality secured any rights in the Cape May land is not known, but if they did the rights were nev- er asserted.
The contest between the Dutch and the Swedes had been going on for some years, although the settlers m Cape May were seldom affected by it. The Dutch had made their principal settlement on Manhattan Island, while the main colonies of the Swedes were in Delaware and Southern Pennsylvania. The former was known as New Netherlands and the latter New Sweden. At last the Dutch secured the mastery of the whole territory. Their reign was short, how- ever, because the constantly growing settlements made by the English in New York, Virginia and Maryland made the holding of the territory too much of a burden for the Dutch to carry.
Director Beekman, of New Netherlands, under date of June 10, 1661, writes to Governor Stuyvesant: "On the
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THE PIONEERS AND WHALING.
east side of this river are residing from English among the Manto savages; they arrived in a small boat in the neigh- borhood of Cape May about three months past; they ap- parently went home from Virginia, as they now seem in- duced to remain there, if their report of the savages is cor- rect.'
The English deposed the Dutch as easily as did the latter the Swedes, who really united their fortunes with those of the English.
In 1664 the English took absolute control of the terri- tory, which they claimed by right of the discoveries made by the Cabots in 1498. New Jersey came into the posses- sion of proprietary governors. On the 23d and 24th of June, 1664, the Duke of York, who had obtained a patent from King James, did "in consideration of a competent sum ·of money, grant and convey unto Lord John Berkeley, Baron of Stratton, and Sir George Carteret, of Sultrim, in the County of Devon, to their heirs and assigns forever, all that tract of land adjacent to New England. and lying and being to the westward of Long Island; bounded on the east part by the main sea and part by the Hudson River, and hath upon the west Delaware Bay or River, and ex- tendeth southward to the main ocean as far as Cape May, at the mouth of Delaware Bay, and to the northward as far as the northernmost branch of said bay or river of Dela- ware, which is forty-one degrees and forty minutes of lati- tude, and worketh over thence in a straight line to Hudson river, which said tract of land is hereafter to be called by the name, or names, of NOVA CAESAREA, or NEW JERSEY." The name of New Jersey was given to the land because Carteret had been a governor of the Isle of Jersey, in the English Channel, and had defended it against the Long Parliament. In the same year Sir Robert Carr was sent into the Delaware with two frigates and the troops not required in New York to compel the submission of the Dutch, which he effected with "two barrels of powder and twenty shot."
Ten years after the granting of the possessions to Berke- ley and Cartaret, the Dutch succeeded in retaking New York from the English. For a few months the old province
28
HISTORY OF CAPE MAY COUNTY.
of New Netherlands, including the country as far south as Cape May, was restored to Holland. But in the next year the whole territory was receded by the States-General to. England.
The king gave his brother, the Duke of York, another patent for the land between the Connecticut and Delaware: Rivers, and yet confirmed his patent to Berkeley and Car- taret. Notwithstanding both of these grants, he appointed that tyrant, Sir Edmund Andros, royal governor of all the. English possessions in America. Berkeley, having become. disgusted with the actions of King Charles and disappointed with the pecuniary prospects of the colony, offered his inter -- ests for sale. John Fenwick bought it as a trustee for Ed- ward Byllynge. The latter afterwards became heavily in- volved with debts, and his share was consigned for the- benefit of his creditors. William Penn, Gawen Lawrie and! Nicholas Lucas were appointed the trustees. In 1676 Fen- " wick also assigned and his assignees were John Eldridge and Edmund Warner. On August 6, 1680, the Duke of York deeded to Penn, Lowric, Lucas, Eldridge and War- ner the territory of West Jersey in trust for Byllynge, to. whom the government was conveyed. On the first of July,. 1676, a division had been made of New Jersey, and Sir- George Cartaret took all that part north of what is now the northern boundary line of Burlington county, which? was named East Jersey, while Penn and the Quakers took all the portion south of that line and christened it West Jersey.
Within two years some four hundred families had ar -- rived and settled, most of them near Salem, but none are- known to have found their way to Cape May.
It was the next year that the "agreements" of the Qua- kers were made, in which they allowed freedom of con- science, the ballot box, equality before the law, the right of assembly, the freedom of election, of speech, of the press,. popular sovereignty, trial by jury, open courts and free: legislation.
The gradual growth of the number of settlers and the. question of the division and barter of lands becoming an- important one, the Assembly, in 1681, appointed a com-
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THE PIONEERS AND WHALING.
mission to prescribe rules for the land settlements. The surveyor was required to measure the Delaware front from Assunpink Creek to Cape May and to find a point of the compass for running partition lines between each tenth.
The question of the date of the first settlement of Cape May by English families has always been in doubt. Dr. Maurice Beesley says:
"After the most careful investigation and patient research in the State and county archives, and the early as well as the more recent chronicles of our past history, we find no data to prove that Cape May was positively inhabited until the year 1685, when Caleb Carman was appointed, by the Legislature, a justice of the peace, and Jonathan Pine, con- stable.
"These were independent appointments, as Cape May was not under the jurisdiction of the Salem Tenth. This simple fact, however, that the appointment of a justice and constable for the place was necessary, goes to prove that there were inhabitants here at this time; yet whence they came, in what number, or how long they sojourned, are in- quiries that will most probably ever remain in mystery and doubt. Fenwick made his entry into 'New Salem' in 1675, and soon after extinguished the Indian title from the Del- aware to Prince Maurice River. He made no claim and exercised no dominion over Cape May, and we have noth- ing to show at the time of his arrival that the country from Salem to the seashore was other than one primeval and unbroken forest, with ample natural productions by sea and land to make it the happy home of the red man, where he could roam free and unmolested, in the enjoyment of privileges and blessings which the strong arm of destiny soon usurped and converted to ulterior purposes."
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