Cong Life History of UHPC

UNION HILL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF DENVILLE NEW JERSEY A COMGREGATIONAL LIFE 0001: Introduction. Before you start to read, sit comfortably in a chair with your feet flat on the floor. Rest your arms comfortably on your lap or at your side. Close your eyes. Next imagine the place our church stands with trees, grass and boulders. Perhaps several deer trails run through it. There is no car noise. The sky was blue and open with no aircraft trails overhead. You cannot see very far due to the dense growth of trees and bushes. To get anywhere, you will follow deer trails, or Indian paths or streams at the bottom of valleys. There were no roads, no buildings, save what the Indians used. It is so quiet. The only sounds you can hear were your footfalls on the leaves and animals scurrying ahead of you. There is no 'hum' of car tires, Ambulance and police sirens, no radio waves; simply quiet. Now open your eyes and focus on the following events that led up to our church's founding. 1600: Native Lenapi peoples were known to travel the Minisink Trail for centuries before Europeans arrived in New Jersey. Part of that trail cuts across what was now southern Denville, roughly following the course of Route 10 and Mt. Pleasant Turnpike. Some research has indicated that there was a Lenape campsite along the trail in Denville, on or near the Ayers/Knuth Farm Historic Site along Route 10. When Dutch and English settlers began to arrive in the new world, in the early Seventeenth century, the Minisink Trail was the likely route they traveled to explore the interior. 1630: Early Puritan Laws empowered the elected, or townspeople, to “see that every pastor or master instructed the young members of his family (whether children, Apprentices or servants) in so much learning as would enable them perfectly to read the English tongue, And to have knowledge of the capital laws’ that once a week he should catechize them on the grounds and principles of religion” and that every young person should be carefully bred and brought up to some honest, lawful calling, labor or employment.” 1661: Samuel Green publishes the first Bible in America (John Eliot's Algonquin Indian version). 1663 to 1666: New Jersey, A kind of no-mans-land for the first half of the colonial generation, was anglicized. Representative government was introduced in 1668 and the territory was divided into East and West Jersey in 1676. Delaware, conquered in 1664, remains in political limbo until 1673, when the English legal system was introduced there and life was normalized as an English colony. 1664: 01-01, King Charles II grants the whole territory (East and West Jersey) to his brother, the Duke of York. After obtaining control of Dutch holdings lying between Virginia and New England, the Duke of York makes a proprietary grant to Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley, of the land between the Hudson and the Delaware River. These men intend to profit from real estate sales. The new grant was named New Jersey for Carteret, who was governor of the Isle of Jersey. Page 1 of 287 1 OF 287 UNION HILL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF DENVILLE NEW JERSEY A COMGREGATIONAL LIFE 1664: 01-24, New Jersey, named after the Isle of Jersey, was founded. 1664: Daniel Denton, one of the purchasers of what was known as the Elizabethtown Tract, leads an expedition into the interior of northern New Jersey. 1670: Daniel Denton writes the first English language description of the interior of northern New Jersey. Some researchers would later conclude that it’s Denton who lends his name to the naming of Denville. 1679: Presbyterian Synod was held in Boston. 1680: After Carteret's death, his widow, Lady Carteret, conveys the eastern division to Penn and others. The area of Denville was located in East New Jersey. 1683: Francis Makemie, whose work in founding churches in the U.S. earns him the title, "Father of American Presbyterianism," arrives from Ireland. 1690: European settlers begin to come to the Denville area. These early settlers were primarily Dutch and English from Long Island, Quakers from Philadelphia, And Germans. 1690: Presbyterianism becomes the established Church of Scotland. 1702: Queen Anne reunites the two divisions (East and West) into the one Royal Province of New Jersey, And appoints Lord Cornbury, the Governor of New York, to also serve as New Jersey's Governor. 1706: Seven congregations come together in Philadelphia to form the first American Presbytery, with the Rev Francis Makemie and six other ministers. 1710: The First Presbyterian Church of Whippany, NJ, was founded; and in 1834, The Church building was constructed in the Wren-Gibbs style. 1713: 08-13, A principal purchase was made by the West Jersey Proprietors to begin Morris County’s formation. It took in all the land from the Whippany River southward to the Passaic below the Great Swamp. Westward it extended to the region of Mendham and Succasunna. This was approximately the land previously bought by the New Britain men. The deed, like the others made at this time, left no rights or privileges to the Indians. Page 2 of 287 2 OF 287 UNION HILL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF DENVILLE NEW JERSEY A COMGREGATIONAL LIFE 1713: 08-18, Another purchase of land in Morris County was presumably for land around Lake Hopatcong. This sale was made by the Indian sachems, Quenemaha and Telakonis. As the deed states, the land extended from the Delaware eastward to the area owned by Taphaw and his relatives, who lived within Morris County. 1714: The weather in the Denville, NJ, And surrounding area was remarkably mild – flowers seen in woods in February. 1715: William Penn and several other proprietors begin to survey and stake out lands in the Denville area. These surveys were the first documentation of Denville. 1717: 02-19 to 02-24, The weather in the Denville, NJ, And surrounding area was “greatest snow ever known up to this date in Morris County. Some authorities state 12 feet deep.” 1718: William Tennant, Presbyterian minister and educator, Arrives in Philadelphia. His cabin academy, dubbed the "Log College," – a ministerial training school (1746) evolves over several decades into the College of NJ (now Princeton University). 1720 to 1760: American colonies experience the First Great Awakening, involving widespread conversions to charismatic Protestant churches emphasizing personal piety and individual interpretations of the Bible. The First Great Awakening stressed immediate conversion and aggressive evangelization. Theodore Frelinghuysen preaches in New Jersey (1720). Gilbert Tennant spreads the Revival to New Brunswick. It was the first stirrings of the First Great Awakening. 1723: First Presbyterian Church of Morristown, NJ, was founded; and in 1893, The Church building was constructed in the Romanesque Revival style. 1730: 01-22, The weather in the Denville, NJ, And surrounding were was a deep snow, the like not known in many years. 1730: Parsippany Presbyterian Church of Parsippany, NJ, was founded; and later, in 1828, The Church building was constructed in the traditional style. 1730: to 1760: Several forges and mills were erected in Denville along the Rockaway River and the Denbrook (river). A number of communities associated with the forges and mills begin to emerge. Ninkey and Franklin in southern Denville developed around the forges there of the same names. Denville village developed around the Job Allen Iron Works. Page 3 of 287 3 OF 287 UNION HILL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF DENVILLE NEW JERSEY A COMGREGATIONAL LIFE 1733: The Presbyterian Synod of East Jersey was created at a meeting of the Synod of Philadelphia. 1735: Hilltop Presbyterian Church of Mendham, NJ, was founded; and in 1862, The Church building was constructed in the meetinghouse style. 1738: 03-15, Morris County was created by an Act of the State Legislature, separating it from Hunterdon County, one of the state's largest counties of the period. Named after Colonel Lewis Morris, then Governor of the Province of New Jersey, it originally included what were now the counties of Morris, Sussex and Warren. 1738: Lewis Morris becomes the first Governor of New Jersey. 1738: The Presbyteries of East Jersey and Long Island were combined into the Presbytery of New York. 1740 to 1741: The weather in the Denville, NJ, And surrounding area. It was a cold winter – snow three feet. (There is) great suffering of people and cattle. 1745: The congregation of The First Presbyterian Church of Succasunna, NJ, was organized. 1747: First Congregational Church, Chester, NJ, was founded; and in 1856, The Church building was constructed in the Greek revival style. 1747: First Presbyterian church of Madison, NJ, was founded; and in 1887, The Church building was constructed in the Romanesque style. 1750: William Smith purchased land in the area to become Union Hill, he builds a log house and sets up housekeeping, And was said to have had nineteen children. The old homestead was located where his son Gerrett lived, Afterward his grandson John, now is the residence of Cornelius L. Smith William and his sons own at one time nearly all the lands between Shongom and Franklin, then called Pigeon Hill. It was not out of the order of the day, At that time, for an ordinary hunter and trapper to keep the table well supplied with bear, deer and turkey, And in the season, many of the broad acres of the Smith Farm were literally covered with pigeons, hence the name Pigeon Hill, it was a paradise to the early settlers. 1752: The Authorized Version of the Bible was published in New World colonies. Page 4 of 287 4 OF 287 UNION HILL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF DENVILLE NEW JERSEY A COMGREGATIONAL LIFE 1756: First Presbyterian at Sucksunny Plains, Succasunna, was founded; and in 1853, The Church building was constructed in the meetinghouse style.

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