USA > New Jersey > Somerset County > Within a Jersey circle : tales of the past, grave and gay, as picked up from old Jerseyites > Part 11
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To the passengers, whirled along by those mettled steeds, there was a sympathetic thrill of admiration and a sort of heroic fellowship with the noble animals, in their breasting of terrific steeps and their breakneck thun-
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dering down duplicate rock-bound descents, with, all the time, a delectable kaleidoscope of pleasant, pastoral scenes, forests, mountain gorges, crests, crags, tumbling floods, sparkling rills and fairy dells. Then there was the exhilarating clatter of hoofs, the rattling, banging and swaying of the laboring vehicle, the merry whistle and crack of the driver's whip, with his horsey quips and quiddities of stableisms, which the fuming chargers un- derstood perfectly and responded to with the strength of fiery demigods and the docility of children.
With all these tingling the blood in the veins and mak- ing fresh and ruddy the cheeks of travelers, top coats were buttoned high; rugs were reefed tight, hats were jammed down hard against the stinging gale and pelting showers of the driving blast, and all sat snug as the great stage coach, like a resistless juggernaut, swept along in the old days through the State.
Starting from the Old Union at Elizabeth, the out- ward journey was by way of Plainfield, Bound Brook, Somerville, skirting the Cushetunk Mountains to White- house, then on to Clinton and Perryville; then over the Musconetcong Mountains to Bloomsbury, Spring- town and Shimers, with many a short stop at welcoming roadhouses between, arriving in good time for an early supper at Easton on the second day. Here they were met by another of Colonel Sanderson's stages that traveled from Easton to Philadelphia.
On the colonel's return journey some of his passengers would branch off at Bound Brook to another of his stages that ran to New Brunswick. Mr. Van Liew ac- companied his father on this branch line when he was a
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boy of six. Arriving on that occasion at New Bruns- wick, the coach was met by old Commodore Vanderbilt, who then ran a ferryboat from there to New York. Wav- ing his hand to the passengers, he cried :
"This way! This way, all of you for New York! My boat is ready. Have a free sail to New York!"
The secret of this touting was that another boat had been started in opposition to the commodore's ferry. The new boat had had the audacity to lower the ferry fare to six cents. When it did this the peppery commodore met it by taking passengers free of any charge at all. He not only did that, but he provided all his patrons with a substanial dinner. Mr. Van Liew says he perfectly re- members the commodore's figure as he saw him shouting from the deck of his boat to the people on the wharf and vigorously waving his arm:
"Come on! Come on!" he cried. "Every one of you ! This way for a free sail to New York and a good din- ner !"
This soon had the desired effect. The new boat, un- able to fight on such terms, was before long taken off, leaving the commodore an undisputed field.
Another man, who many a time rode in Colonel San- derson's coach and who knew the colonel well, is Calvin Corle. Not only did Mr. Corle know the colonel in- timately, but he has still sundry bottles of champagne which he received from Mr. Sanderson. These were known to be of very mature age when they came into Mr. Corle's possession. They are now estimated to be over a century and a quarter old.
It seems truly difficult to quite realize how far back in
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history this combination of ages and acquaintances brings us. Here are Mr. Corle and Mr. Van Liew, neither of whom looks a day older than sixty-five, who have been on intimate terms-at all events, Mr. Corle was-with the famous coachman, Colonel Sanderson, who several times had Lafayette on his coach, and who, no doubt, "talked horse" with the famous Frenchman in that in- timate way that horse-lovers always fraternize. And here, to-day, can be seen in Mr. Corle's hands some of the complimentary wine with which the generous Frenchman loaded the colonel on his return from de- livering the horses to his august purchaser in Paris. La- fayette was a distinguished contemporary of George Washington, as well as of Colonel Sanderson. And here is Mr. Corle, who knew the colonel intimately for a number of years. It may not strike others so, but it does appear to me to be the nearest that I have ever ap- proached to those two great generals who co-operated so well in laying the foundation of the American nation.
It is doubtful if many men like Messrs. Corle and Van Liew are left ; that is, men who made their adieus to the departing stage and to the gallant colonel as the last truc type of Jersey coaching days of old, and then stepping across the breach, welcomed the new era of railroads.
The formal transfer of Mr. Van Liew's allegiance was when he took advantage of the offer of the South Branch Railway of a free ride to New York and Coney Island at the completion of its line in 1864. The ride itself was all right and would have been enjoyable but for a defect, so to speak, in its trimmings. At all events
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there was this qualification necessary in speaking of his own particular experience.
Putting $100 in his pocket and taking every one of his workmen for a nice treat, Mr. Van Liew and his party started from home at 4 o'clock in the morning for a day's outing at Coney Island. After a very early and imper- fect breakfast they had the long ride and then the sail from Jersey City, and by the time they reached the now famous watering place they were all in great trim for their dinners. This Mr. Van Liew was determined should be the very best that money could buy. They had little difficulty in selecting the tavern for their feast, for there was only one to be seen, and that was not of the most promising appearance. Indeed, there was no other house of any kind but that solitary, ramshackle one. Half a dozen little bathing boxes, not unlike cof- fins standing on end, were stuck up here and there on the sandy beach. This completed the accommodations of that day at Coney Island.
As may be supposed, the eager party quickly sur- rounded the only visible table at the inn; but their hun- gry chops fell and their hearts sank when they were told that they could get nothing whatever to eat, not a drop of anything but "soft," very soft stuff-mere luke warm emetics-to drink. There they were, out for a feast and, hungry as cormorants, landed on an almost desert island. On one side was the broad, hungry ocean and long stretches of beautiful white sands, whetting their already voracious appetites into an agony of hunger, and nothing, not even a pretzel or a cent's worth of pea- nuts, to eat! On the other side was a trackless wilder-
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ness of wild weeds, sand dunes and swamps, and no mortal means to escape till 6 P. M.
They wandered up and down all that long day by the sea in a state of suffering that not one of the party ever forgot. Nor did any of them ever forget the pain- ful eagerness with which they cast lots-not to deter- mine which of the party should die and be eaten-but to settle which should be the fortunate man that should devour an oyster, which in parsimonious mercy the sea gave up to them.
Then when at last the steam packet got up steam and took them away from that place of torment, their hearts leaped within them at the thought of what they would do at a restaurant at Jersey City. How they longed to be once more back on dear old Jersey soil again ! Then they'd be happy again! But, alas! for the vanity of human wishes. No sooner had their faltering feet touched the wished-for soil of Jersey than a stentorian voice came from the railroad station gate :
"Train for Elizabeth, Plainfield, Bound Brook, Som- erville, and all stations on the South Branch Railroad. Step lively !"
By a truly heroic spurt they reached the train just as it moved out of the station and secured only standing room. It was 10 o'clock at night, when Mr. Van Liew, with the $100 still unbroken in his pocket and with his famished men, disembarked at Neshanic Station, wiser. perhaps, but certainly hungrier men than they ever were before or ever were again.
BOGUS PARSON MURDERED HIS WIFE
MARY HARDEN, THE TEETERTOWN MILLER'S DAUGH- TER, DONE TO DEATH WITH A POISONED APPLE.
About sixty years ago, "Rev." Jacob H. Harden, a young man of fine appearance, very engaging manner and great eloquence, preached a few times on probation in Somerville. For some reason he was not chosen. A dark rumor of bogus credentials floated among a limited few, but little was said and the candidate soon after re- ceived a call to Mount Lebanon, in Morris County. There his remarkable power in the pulpit attracted im- mediate and absorbing attention and he was widely hailed as the most brilliant speaker in the county or even in the State. Especially was this the case among the fair sex, who, all in a flutter of excitement, elevated the young Apollo of a preacher to the very pinnacle of their most exuberant admiration.
The church filled and flourished and for some time the poor little hearts were legion that went pitapat through long vigils of soulful agitation and alluring arti- fices, conning speculations as to who, oh which of them all was to be the happy girl to be glorified to the seventh heaven of bliss as his chosen one? To some natures this kind of wholesale adulation is the sweetest of incense, which they would fain prolong over all their lives. To others, and happily they are in the majority, it is pain- ful in the extreme and they are miserable and impatient to undeceive such of the fair as have been too indulgently
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kind in their judgment. Jacob Harden, though a born wholesaler in that line, saw the plain necessity to evolve from general suavity his particular attention to one, in order to socially save his face. But the truth really was that one or two motherly dowagers cogently impressed that upon his mind as an absolute necessity, and at length he took their advice.
So one evening, bracing himself up to what was an un- pleasant as well as a serious step in life, he walked out to the Teetertown mill and engaged himself to Mary Darling, the miller's daughter. Sam Darling, the mil- ler of Teetertown, owned several farms, besides the mill, and was well known to be in very comfortable circum- stances. When consulted about the minister's proposal : "All right, Mary, lass," he answered in his kindly, gruff way. "If thee like the domine and thou'st sure he likes thee and thou'st sartin he's good sound grain an' not chaff, why go ahead, lass, and hitch up wi' 'im. Wind jammin' ain't much in my line," he went on. "As the man said, 'I hardly ever open my mouth but I put my foot in it ;' but some can talk the hind leg off a cow and coax millions out of people's pockets, and this domine chap seems like one on 'em."
As time went on and on and the preacher made no show of carrying out his promise of marriage, seeming instead rather more than ever infatuated in other quart- ers, old Sam Darling thought it about time to remind him that he was unfairly neglecting his daughter. The young man was penitent, renewed his proper attention to his betrothed and in due course married her. She was a beautiful girl, both in character and person and, though
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at first not quite as accomplished and at her ease as some in society, she was so lovely and good that any trival deficiencies were amply compensated for, and if she had had a sympathetic and true man as husband, as every- body admitted, she would have been one of the brightest ornaments that society could boast.
Her marriage was the cause of much bitter enmity toward her and, as her husband still continued, or rather increased, his blandishments among other women, mar- ried as well as single, the poor wife soon keenly felt her dishonored position, but never complained. At last it was supposed some desperately wicked scheme brought on a crisis. He was then preaching in Andersontown, Warren County. One Sunday evening, just before church time, he came hastily into his home, telling his wife that a member of the congregation had sent her a beautiful apple.
"I have one, too," he said, "and I feel just like sam- pling it," with which he commenced eating his own.
"My! but, wifey, they're fine fruit," he remarked with gusto. "No, no!" he answered to her request for a bite of his, "just to taste." "No, you must eat your own," he said, "they're simply delicious."
Although not caring much for the apple, she ate it, really because she saw that he wished her to do so. That was ever her one thought, just to be agreeable and please him. They had barely time left to hurry into the church in time for service. He climbed to the pulpit and she sat facing him in the third seat from the front. His sermon, on a text chosen from the Beatitudes, was more eloquent and touching than usual, with fervid appeals
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to the hearts of his hearers for the exercise of all the benign virtues, which ought to reign in their lives, he told them, so as to culminate in the beautiful chaste life of truly Christian homes. It was particularly remarked that on this occasion the gifted preacher often turned his eyes devotedly upon his wife. Several fair ones, who at other times flattered themselves that the minister, as it were, sought inspiration in their bright eyes, felt chagrined and neglected. So pathetically pleading was this discourse, however, that the congregation was deeply moved, many of the ladies being in tears.
At the height of his pathos, when the very atmosphere seemed vibrant with tense feeling, he paused. A few stifled sobs were heard. His eyes were calmly regarding his wife. He had noticed a pallor come over her lovely face; he saw her whole frame quiver and her eyes turn up white and deathlike. But without further notice and with a beautiful smile he raised his face and hands for the benediction. At the same instant his wife moaned : "Oh, father, I'm dying," and fell to the floor.
"Bless her," her husband unctuously remarked, as many hands bore her from the church, "she will soon be better. She is an intensely receptive hearer; that is all."
His wife was carried into the house of a Mr. Ramsey, where in about twenty minutes she died. Harden ap- peared shocked, but next morning he could not be found. Suspicion was aroused. Dr. Enos T. Blackwell, of Ste- phenstown, assisted by Dr. Crane, of Hackettstown, made a post-mortem examination, suspected poison and sent the stomach to Philadelphia for analysis of its con- tents. It was found to contain sufficient of a deadly
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poison to cause death. Then detectives were put on the case and the country was notified. The suspected preacher was traced to Virginia and captured within a week. He readily surrendered himself.
"I am glad you've come," he said. "Take me to prison and hang me, for I am guilty, guilty of murdering a good, beautiful and loving wife. I dare not ask even my God for forgivenness for so heinous a crime. No matter where I go I hear her innocent, dying moan-the wind, the brooks and trees all continually repeat it: 'Oh, father, I'm dying!' Ah!" he half groaned, "I've often tried to define hell. I know it now! I have lived its worst torments from that awful moment when in her dying agony she called, not to me, her natural protector, but to her good father, whom she knew she could trust, for help. She knew that I, vile beast that I am, wanted her out of my way: but like an angel, never spoke it. I poisoned the apple which I pressed her to eat before en- tering church that evening, and it killed her."
He was tried at Belvidere, Warren County seat, and on his own confession of wilful murder was sentenced to be hanged. Executions were then in public, and never before was there such a mighty throng at Belvi- dere as came to see the hanging. Even the day before, people began to pour into the town by hundreds, even thousands. By the early morning of the appointed day the place was packed, housetops, barns, fences, trees, every available point, literally swarming with sightseers. Lines of wagons extended, it is averred, for miles in every direction on the highways, filled with people, who had not the remotest hope of seeing the scaffold. So
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great was the crush and so many were there who ought to have been cared for in their homes, instead of fighting their way for twenty-four hours in such a place, that there were no less than three deaths and four births amid the surging crowds.
The culprit at once after capture began writing a long, detailed confession. But it was so morbidly frank, and involved so many reputations besides his own, that it had to be suppressed. He had never been ordained, it tran- spired, and had cleverly imposed upon everybody-except the circumspect Somerville folks. After making a clean breast of it, he died an abject penitent.
Over poor Mary Harden's grave, in Pleasant Grove Cemetery, in Morris County, is still to be seen her mem- orial stone. In the stone the sorrowing father, old Sam Darling, had a space chiseled out, four inches deep by six inches square, in which he placed his beloved Mary's picture. My informant tells me that, whenever he finds himself in that vicinity, he never fails to go and look at that pathetic memorial of a great tragedy.
DR. JOHN ROCKHILL.
ADVENTURES OF HUNTERDON COUNTY'S FIRST PHYSI- CIAN AND HOW HE WON THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE INDIANS.
One day, a good many years ago, a sturdy Indian sud- denly and mysteriously appeared at the home of Dr. Rockhill, in Hunterdon County.
"Papoose! papoose ! Kup-paum-unum-woo!" cried the man, making wild gesticulations and evidently asking medical aid for a child.
For a moment the athletic young doctor thought it was an intended decoy to lead him into ambush and mur- der him. But young though he was, his varied and some- times thrilling experiences as the pioneer physician among the wilds of the then sparsely settled Hunterdon County, made him able to read human nature better than many an older man.
He saw in a twinkling the yearning sincerity of a par- ent in the red man's behavior; and in a very few min- utes, with a small materia-medica and a few instru- ments in his saddle bags, sufficient to meet any ordinary demand in medicine or surgery, he was plunging along through the woods following the fleet-footed red man he knew not whither. The Indian amply made up for his lack of mount by slipping through thickets and be- neath branches which frequently almost tore the white man from his horse.
After a ceaseless swinging trot of several hours, every
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foot of the way being through seemingly pathless woods and uncultivated wilds, the untiring Indian at last stop- ping in front of a wigwam, signed dramatically for the doctor to enter, again crying, "Papoose! papoose!" and then fell exhausted upon the ground. Inside the hut the squaw-mother was supporting the head of their daugh- ter, a really pretty little girl of twelve, on her lap. She looked up as the doctor entered, the picture of hopeless despair. It required only a cursory examination to prove that the child had smallpox. That disease had wiped out whole families and even villages of the red men. They claimed that the white men had sold them that ter- rible disease along with the match-coats given for their land.
The little sick girl was the apple of the Indian father's eye. He had several sons, but this was his only daugh- ter; and, as he had seen that the medicine men of his tribe could do nothing to fight the deadly malady, he had footed it more than thirty long miles to enlist the skill of the white man to save his child-the first known in- stance of this kind, perhaps, in all Jersey. Through the agency of a tribesman, who knew more or less English, the doctor was enabled to prescribe and give directions as to treatment, and left promising to come again in a day or two.
This was Dr. John Rockhill, the first man to estab- lish himself in practise as a physician in Hunterdon County. After studying medicine under Dr. Thomas Cadwallader, of Philadelphia, he had migrated to Pitts- town, Hunterdon County, and in the year 1748, when twenty-two years of age, began practise there as a phy-
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sician to the Society of Friends. Tradition says he was a man of fine physique, with an iron nerve and great en- durance, and was therefore well equipped for the toil- some and frequently hazardous journeys he was called upon to make to see his patients.
The red man's call for medical aid was a novelty. Hitherto the doctor's acquaintance with the Indians had been anything but agreeable. It was the time of their greatest unrest, when they began to realize the serious- ness of the white man's encroachments upon their do- mains, with the gradual destruction of their only means of living-their hunting grounds. He had often been at- tacked on his errands of mercy, which at one time cov- ered great distances; for when he started practise there was not another medical man from the Delaware as far east as New Brunswick, or from Trenton to the Blue Mountains on the north. All the paths along the Dela- ware and near the mountains were unsafe from the roving hordes of exceedingly hostile Indians that came over the borders from Pennsylvania and New York State, infest- ing the fastnesses on New Jersey's boundaries. But the doctor, who was as handy with his sword as with his scalpel and also a dead shot, was soon known as a dangerous cus- tomer to interfere with.
Passing on one occasion by the path leading through what later became Spring Mills, he suddenly found him- self almost surrounded by red men, who greeted him with a perfect shower of arrows. One of these picked a piece of flesh from the back of his neck, another went through the rim of his hat and a couple stuck in the saddle, one on each side of his leg. In reply to this he shot two of his 13
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assailants dead-one while his horse was going at full gallop through a group of them. He seemed to bear a charmed life, and hit back so effectually when attacked that before long the white "medicine man" was marked as one that was better to keep clear of than to attack.
As good fortune willed it, the doctor's first Indian pa- tient, the little girl-who proved to be the daughter of an influential chief-responded splendidly to his treatment, and when he paid his second visit the child's parents were so over-powered with gratitude and admiration that they literally kissed the hem of his garment and sent men laden down with presents to his home. Moreover, Chief Shack- amaxo, whose daughter the child was, sent out runners in every direction advertising the inestimable goodness and god-like powers of the great white medicine man of Pitts- town and making known that he was the red man's best friend and hence must be protected at the hands of all good Indians thenceforth and forever. After that Dr. Rockhill's life was much safer on his travels; yet, never- theless, he was afterward fired upon by more than one of the roving gangs of mountaineer red men who for years harassed the northern and western boundaries of the State.
In those days there was also more or less danger from four-legged marauders. The few families then settled where the prosperous little town of Flemington now stands had to guard themselves and their children and live stock from the wolves that in the winter came prowling down the valley from the big timber of the Round Mountain and Cherry Hill. There is a tradition that Dr. Rockhill was once hard pressed by a hungry pack of these on his return from visiting a family, supposed to be that of Abra-
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ham Van Horn, near Whitehouse. Leaving there early on a winter night, he was making his way with a clear, full moon in the sky, to visit an Indian village on the Minisi Creek, about two miles above the present Fleming- ton.
His way lay along the skirt of Cushetunk Mountain, which was well known to harbor many wolves. There had been a long spell of very severe weather, with a deep coat of snow on the ground, and the doctor had been cau- tioned about the danger of attack if he took the path he did. But, as he said, the snow was hard, he was well armed and well mounted, and really enjoyed risking it.
The physician soon perceived, after proceeding some dis- tance, that several wolves were trotting behind him; but they kept too far off for him to get a shot at them, though he tried more than once to draw them within range. As the Round Mountain loomed against the western sky, de- ciding to push on, the doctor put spurs to his horse for a spin across what appeared a nice open space. But be- fore he well knew what had happened he found himself unhorsed and partially stunned at the bottom of a deep washout, with the horse overturned on its back partly over- lying him in deep snow and plunging madly to regain his feet. Fortunately the hole into which they fell being at the base of a giant oak tree, a hollowed out recess, big enough to admit his body, extended inward below the roots of the tree. He had just got into this hole and saved him- self from destruction from his horse's wild kicks, when a wolf sprang on the prostrate animal, burying its gleaming fangs in the fleshy part of the beast's hing leg. The doc- tor's pistol rang out sudden death to the intruder, and it fell limp and dead into the hole at his feet. But the bite
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