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History of the Early Settlement and Progress of Cumberland County, New Jersey

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History of the Early Settlement and Progress of Cumberland County, New Jersey «u « *?. ^0* o : f° ^ ^ o * * , V • - ^° 0^ HISTORY Btttltmtnt rcnir vxbqx£S$ arlg w nmbtxlznb Uo\xnt$ f NEW JERSEY; AND OF THE CURRENCY OF THIS AND THE ADJOINING COLONIES. BY LUCIUS Q. C. ELMER. BRIDGETON, N. J.: GEORGE F. NIXON, PUBLISHER. 1869. Entered according to the Act of Congress in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine, by GEORGE F. NIXON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of New Jersey. PREFACE. These sketches of the early history of Cumberland County were prepared a few years ago for the columns of a newspaper. Many of the facts detailed, relating to the first settlers and proprietors, came to the knowledge of the writer in the course of a somewhat protracted career as a lawyer. Although of no great importance, it has been thought they were worth preserving in a more perma- nent and accessible form. Having been born in Bridgeton, when it contained only three hundred inhabitants, and always resided there, he has witnessed, and had the opportunity of minutely stating, its growth into a city of no mean importance. The chapter giving a history of the money of account and of circulation, in this and the adjoining colonies, from their begin- nings to a recent date, it is believed embraces facts not to be found in any of our histories, which were fast passing into oblivion, but which are too curious and instructive to be entirely lost. Bridgeton, May, 1869. EARLY HISTORY CUMBERLAND COUNTY, NEW JERSEY. CHAPTER I. EAELY SETTLERS AND PROPRIETORS. Cumberland County was set off from the county of Salem, and erected into a new county, by an act of assembly passed January 19, 1747-8. The Duke of Cumberland, who had not long before gained the victory of Culloden, and thereby established the house of Hanover permanently on the throne of Great Britain, was the great hero of the day, and the new county was named after him. The first settlers of this part of West Jersey were probably Dutch and Swedes. Gabriel Thomas, a Friend, who lived for a few years in Pennsylvania, on his return to England in 1098, published an account of that province and of West New Jersey. Describing the rivers, he names Prince Maurice River, " where the Swedes used to kill the geese in great numbers for their feathers only, leaving their carcasses behind them." Quite a number of Swedes settled in the neighborhood of this river, and engaged in hunting and cut- ting lumber, without, however, obtaining a title to the soil, until some of them purchased of the English. About the year 17-13, a Swedish church was built on the east side of Maurice River, nearly opposite Buckshootem, where missionaries were accustomed to preach until after the Revolution. The graveyard with a few stones still remains. Many of the Swedish names have been con- tinued in the neighborhood. A few of the New Haven people, who as early as 1611 made a settlement on the creek called by the Dutch Varcken's Kill (now Salem Creek), may have wandered into the limits of Cumberland, 2 6 FIRST SETTLERS AXD PROPRIETORS. and thus become the pioneers of the considerable number, who about fifty years later came from Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Long Island. The Indians do not appear to have been numerous, consisting mostly of wandering tribes, having no permanent settlements, and no principal sachem or chief. There was a considerable tribe which generally resided in Stow Creek and Greenwich, where many of their stone hatchets and other relics have been found. At the place still called Indian Fields, about a mile northeast of Bridgeton, they had a settlement before 1697, the place being refer- red to by that name in a survey of that elate. Another contempo- raneous survey referred to a settlement on the Cohansey, in Upper Hopewell, about a quarter of a mile below the mill known as Seeley's Mill. There was also a settlement on the west side of the same river, just above Bridgeton, on the property now belonging to the iron and nail works ; and the tradition is that an Indian chief was buried, or, as some accounts say, placed in a box or coffin, on the limbs of a tree, on the point of land opposite North Street, since from that tradition called "Coffin Point." Other places of settle- ment or occasional places of resort are known to have existed near Fairton, and on Maurice River. Fenwick purchased the land of these, and to the fair and reason- ble treatment they received from the Friends, who were the first English settlers, may probably be ascribed the absence of those desolating wars which prevailed in New England. But this cir- cumstance has prevented much notice being taken of the aborigines m the early accounts of West Jersey. James Daniels, a minister among the Friends, whose father settled in the forks of Stow Creek, near the place now called Canton, in Salem County, in 16^0 when he was about five years old, learned the Indian language, and says in his memoirs, "the white people were few, and the natives a mul- titude; they were a sober, grave, and temperate people, and used no manner of oath in their speech ; but as the country grew older the people grew , worse, and had corrupted the natives in their morals, teaching them bad words, and the excessive use of strong drink. Thomas, in his account ' of West Jersey before referred to says "the Dutch and Swedes inform us that they greatly decreased in numbers to what they were when they came into this country and the Indians themselves say that two' of them die to every one Christian that comes in here/ 1 The minutes of the justices and — FIRST SETTLERS AND PROPRIETORS. 7 freeholders of Cumberland County for the year 1754, state that a charge of £4, 3s. 4«?. was brought by Deerfield Township, for taking care of an old Indian who died in said precinct, which was allowed. At a conference held by commissioners appointed by the legislature with the Indians in 1758, one Kobert Kecot claimed " the township of Deerfield, in the county of Cumberland, where the Presbj^terian meeting-house stands, and also the tracts of James "Wasse, Joseph Peck, and Stephen Chesup." After this, all the Indian claims were fully paid for and relinquished. A few of the descendants of these original inhabitants lingered within the county until after the Revolution, earning their subsistence princi- pally by making baskets. Soon after the commencement of the present century they had all removed or died. All vacant lands being—according to the law of Great Britain vested in the crown, and it being the established principle of Euro- pean law that countries uninhabited, or inhabited only by savages, became the property of the nation taking possession, King Charles II. granted all that territory, called by the Dutch New Nether- lands, including part of the State of New York, and all New Jersey, to his brother, the Duke of York, afterwards James II., March 12, 1663-4. The duke conveyed New Jersey to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, June 24, 1664. In 1672, the Dutch reconquered the province ; but in 1673 it was restored, and new grants were executed. Berkley, in 1673, conveyed his half to John Fenwick, and shortly afterwards Fenwick conveyed nine-tenth parts of his half to William Penn, Gawen Lawrie, and Nicholas Lucas, in trust for the creditors of Edward Billing. The above- named persons had all become followers of George Fox, and were then called Quakers, adopting themselves the name of Friends. Fenwick had been a member of a church of Independents, whereof John Goodwin was the pastor. He held a commission as major of cavalry, which Johnson, in his History of Salem, says was written in Cromwell's own hand. In 1676, the province was divided, Fenwick, Penn, Lawrie, and Lucas becoming proprietors of the half called West Jersey. Bil- ling—who was a London merchant—having failed, his nine-tenths, held by Penn and others, was conveyed to his creditors and others in hundredth parts, or, as the deeds made in England set it forth, in nineteenth parts of ninety hundredth parts, so that a full pro- prietary interest came to be reckoned a hundredth part. Lesser b FIRST SETTLERS AND PROPRIETORS. parts of the hundredths, or a definite number of acres therein, were also frequently conveyed to individuals. Fenwick, and Eldridge, and Warner, to whom he executed a long lease in England, for the purpose of raising money, were recognized as owning ten proprie- taries, or one-tenth of the province. It would seem that each par- ticular hundredth was at first in some way designated, and the respective owners drew lots for their several shares; but this designation was never fully carried out, and it is not known how the parts were owned. Fenwick's ten proprietaries, however, were all considered to be contained in what was called the Salem tenth, extending from Berkeley River (now Oldman's Creek) to a creek a little east of the Cohansey, originally called the Tweed, which, having a wide mouth where it empties into the Delaware, was sup- posed to be a stream commencing far up to the north, but which proved to be confined to the marsh, and has since been called Back Creek. Fenwick came into the Delaware in June, 1675, with his family and servants, consisting of two daughters and their husbands, one unmarried daughter, and two servants.
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