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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
833 02232 9327
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2010 with funding from
Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
http://www.archive.org/details/historyofmiddles01pick
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MIDDLESEX COUNTY
NEW JERSEY
1664—1920
UNDER THE ASSOCIATE EDITORSHIP
OP
JOHN P. WALL AND HAROLD E. PICKERSGILL
ASSISTED BY AN
Able Corps of Local Historians
HIST0RICAL=B10GRAPHICAL
yOLUME X
I 92 I
LEWIS HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.
NEW YORK AND CHICAGO
FOREWORD , ,.
J2C4213
T IS now nearly half a century since the publication of
a history of Middlesex, one of the most historic and
progressive counties of New Jersey. The present work
is designed to he at once a well digested resume of its
former history, hut more particularly a continuation
down to the present time, and covering a period of phenomenal
development along all the many lines which go to make up the
complex community of to-day.
The value of the work rests in larger degree upon the
intelligent labors of Messrs. John P. Wall and Harold E. Pick-
ersgill, who out of their abundant local knowledge have not
only provided nuich of the matter assembled upon its pages,
but have otherwise abundantly aided the field editors, Messrs.
Frank R. Holmes and Peter K. Edgar, in pointing out most
useful sources of information. Of especial value are various
historical papers contributed by residents who are recognized
as entire masters of the subjects upon which they treat, and
among whom may be named Mr. H. Brewster Willis, on Pub-
lic Education; Mr. Adrian Lyon, on the Board of Proprietors;
President W. H. S. Demarest, on Rutgers College; Dr. D. C.
English, on the Medical Fraternity; Dr. Fred B. Kilmer, on
Christ Church.
The genealogical and personal memoirs have been pre-
pared with all due care from such data as were accessible, and
in each case has been submitted to the immediate subject or to
his proper representative for verification as to fact. It is
believed that the work, in all its features, will prove a real
addition to the mass of annals concerning the people of the
historic region under consideration, and that without it, much
valuable information therein contained would be irretrievably
lost, owing to the passing away of many custodians of records
and the disappearance of such material.
THE PUBLISHERS.
CONTENTS
NOTE — The History proper Is paged continuously, extending into Volume II, and
concluding with Index at page 503. The Biographical Department follows lmme<Jl-
ately thereafter in Volume II, and Is paged continuously into Volume III, concluding
with a Biographical Index.
I'age
CHAPTER I — The Leni-Lenapes — Indian rights to the land, and how disposed
of I
CHAPTER II — Occupation by the Dutch — Character of the Immigrants from
Holland 7
CHAPTER III— Coming of the English— Title of the Duke of York and his
land conveyances to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret 1 1
CHAPTER IV — Settlement of the Raritan Valley — VVoodbridge and Piscataway
— Settlers at New Brunswick and Perth Amboy 19
CHAPTER V — The East Jersey Proprietors — Acts passed by the General
Assembly 27
CHAPTER VI — The Proprietary and Colonial Governors — Franklin the last 39
CHAPTER VII — Organization of Middlesex County — Changes of Boundaries 49
CHAPTER VIII— East and West Jersey— The final division 57
CHAPTER IX — The early Courts — Crimes and Misdemeanors 6.3
CHAPTER X— Study of the Soil— Mineral products 69
CHAPTER XI — Transportation — The Indian trails — First mads and ferries —
Water transportation — Stage wagons — Steamboats and railroads 7.^
CHAPTER XII — Revolutionary days — Home life of the people — The dawn of
the Revolution — Occupation by British troops 81
CHAPTER XIII — Middlesex men in the Revolutionary War — Notable names
— Roster of State troops 97
CHAPTER XIV — After the War — Organization of State government 113
CHAPTER XV— First half of the Nineteenth Century— Political contests 117
CHAPTER XVI — War between the States — Middlesex men bear a splendid
part 129
CHAPTER XVII — Finale — The Spanish-American War — The political land-
slide of 1920 165
CHAPTER XVIII — Visitors, Natives and Residents — Washington and Lafay-
ette — Other notables 171
CHAPTER XIX — Institutions of higher education — Rutgers College — Theo-
logical Seminary of the Reformed Church — Academies and Private Schools. 185
CHAPTER XX— Public Education— Thirty-three }ears' growth of Public
Schools 203
CHAPTER XXI — ^The Press — First newspapers — Later journals 229
CHAPTER XXII — Bench and Bar — Early lawyers and jurists — Notable trials 233
CHAPTER XXIII — The Medical Fraternity — Pioneer physicians — First Medi-
cal Society — Various professional bodies — Founders of County and State
Medical Societies — Prominent Deceased Physicians — Hospitals and Clinics.. 243
CHAPTER XXIV— Manufacturing Industries— At Perth Amboy and New
Brunswick 271
MIDDLESEX
Page
CHAPTER XXV— City of New Brunswick— Settlement— During the Revolu-
tion — Early Industries and Merchants — Development of City to its present
proportions 279
CHAPTER XXVI — City of New Brunswick, concluded — Notable Characters... 347
CHAPTER XXVII— Perth Amboy— Settlement— Old Buildings— In the Revo-
lution — The City of to-day 361
CHAPTER XXVIII— City of South Amboy 397
CHAPTER XXIX— Woodbridge and Piscataway Townships 401
CHAPTER XXX — North Brunswick, East Brunswick and South Brunswick
Townships 423
CHAPTER XXXI — Monroe, Madison, Raritan and Cranbury Townships 437
CHAPTER XXXII— Boroughs of Middlesex County 455
APPENDIX— Military Rolls 483
LANinxG (IK ('A!:'ris!:i-:-L\
CHAPTER I.
THE LENI-LENAPES.
When Henry Hudson, in the employ of the Dutch East India Com-
pany, sailed up the broad waters of what was then known as the Great
North River, now named for its discoverer, he found on its banks
Aborigines occupants. They were members of the Algonquin family,
and by writers on Indian antiquities have been considered as branches
of the general Delaware nation known as the Leni-Lenapes, which in
the Red Men's language means "original people," a title they had adopted
under the claim that they were descended from the most ancient of
Indian ancestry. This claim was admitted by other tribal organizations,
who accorded to the Lcni-Lenapes the title of "grandfather," or a people
whose ancestry antedated their own.
Among the numerous traditions, the leading one of their origin was
that their ancestors lived in a country far to the westward of the rising
sun, and in the hopes of finding a red man's paradise, land of deer and
beaver and salmon, they left their western home and journeying across
great rivers and mountains, at last came to the western banks of the
Namisi Sipu (Mississippi), where they met another nation migrat-
ing like themselves. This adversary for a settlement in the east was
the Mengwes, and for centuries these two aboriginal nations became
rivals and enemies. Their explorations, however, were to receive a
check, for beyond the great river lay the domain of a nation named
Allegewi, who disputed their passage. This opposing nation, while not
strong in numbers, was skilled in the arts of war and had reared great
defenses of earth enclosing their village and strongholds. An alliance,
offensive and defensive, was formed by the Lenapes and Mengwes, and
after a severe struggle for supremacy the Allegewis were humiliated and
exterminated and their country occupied by the victors.
The two victorious nations then journeyed eastward. The Mengwes
taking a northern route, finally reached the Mahicannick. "River of the
Mountains" (Hudson river), while the Lenapes, traveling more in a
southerly direction, rested on the banks of the Lenapi Wihittuck, the
beautiful river, now known as the Delaware, and here they thought
they had found their long-wished-for elysium of an Indian paradise for
which they had left their far western home. This tradition may have
some truthful foundation : the unfortunate Allegewis may have been the
mound builders of the Mississippi Valley, but this is only one of the
many profitless conjectures which have been indulged in by historical
researchers. Indian tribes were fond of narrating long journeys and
great deeds of their ancestors, tracing their ancestors for centuries, but
Mid— 1
2 MIDDLESEX
their traditions are so clouded and involved in improbabilities and inter-
woven with superstition that it is simply speculative on the part of
antiquarian writers to form a decided opinion of the origin of the Amer-
ican aborigines.
On the arrival of the emigrants from Netherlands at the Isle of Man-
hattan, they found dwelling there the fierce Manhattans whom De Laet
calls "a wicked nation and enemies of the Dutch." In the adjacent
territory the Minsie and Mohican nations were located. The Manhattans,
who were members of the Mohican nation, occupied the range of country
on the east side of the Hudson river to its mouth. On Long Island,
called by the natives Sewanhacky, "the land of shells," were the savage
Metonwacks, divided into tribes of which names of thirteen have been
preserved ; the Canaise and Nyack were settled at the Narrows ; the
Mantinecoes in Queens county ; and the Nissaquage, Setauket, Corchaug,
Secataug, Patachogue, Shinnecoe and Montauk, in Suffolk county.
The Minsies, who received Hudson with peaceful overtures and came
daily on board his vessel to barter furs, oysters, Indian corn, beans,
pumpkins, squashes and apples, in exchange for gewgaws and trifles,
inhabited the country from the Minisink (a place named after them,
where they had their council seat and fire), to Staten Island, and from
the Hudson to the Raritan Valley. They were members of the Leni-
Lenape, or Delaware nation, which occupied a domain extending along
the seacoast from Chesapeake Bay to the country bordering Long Island
Sound. Back from the east it reached beyond the Susquehanna Valley
to the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, and on the north joined
the southern frontier of the hated and dreaded Iroquois. In this vast
domain was included all of the present State of New Jersey.
The principal tribes of the Delawares were the Unamis or Turtle,
Unalachtgo or Turkey, and Minsi or Wolf. The latter was the most
powerful and warlike of these tribes, and occupied the most northerly
portion of the Delaware's country, keeping guard along the Iroquois
border; their territory extended southward to the northern boundary
of the present county of Hunterdon. The Unamis and Unalachtgo
branches comprising the Assanpinks, Matas, Schackamaxons, Chiche-
quaas, Raritans, Nanticokes, Tatelos, and many others, inhabited all
that part of New Jersey south of the northern boundaries of the present
Hunterdon and Somerset counties. Statisticians have computed that the
Indian population at the time of the settlement of the Dutch at New
Amsterdam was probably not more than two thousand souls in the
territory comprising the present State of New Jersey.
Before the arrival of the European explorers, the country of the
Leni-Lenape had been invaded by the Iroquois, who had reduced the
former nation to the condition of vassals. The Iroquois attitude, how-
ever, was not wholly of conquerors, it was more of the character of
THE LENI-LENAPES 3
protectors or masters. Their overlordship was tempered with paternal
regard for the interests of the Leni-Lenapes in their negotiations with
the whites, care being taken that no trespasses should be committed on
their rights and that they should be justly dealt with. This anxious
solicitude on the part of the Iroquois was simply to see that no others
than themselves should be permitted to despoil the Lenapes. They
exacted from them an annual tribute, an acknowledgment of their state
of vassalage, and on these conditions they were permitted to occupy their
former hunting grounds. Bands of the Five Nations were interspersed
among the Delawares to keep a watchful eye upon them and their move-
ments.
The Delawares regarded their conquerors with feelings of inextin-
guishable hatred, though held in abeyance by fear. They had, however,
a feeling of superiority on account of their ancient lineage and their
removal from original barbarism. The Iroquois maintained an air of
haughty superiority towards their vassals, and no longer spoke of them
as men and warriors, but as women. This opprobrium was removed
from the Delawares by the Iroquois through the exertions of their most
noted chief, Teedyuscung, who by his masterly oratory and diplomatic
shrewdness defeated the schemes of the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania
in their attempts to defraud the Delawares of their rights in that province.
The Indians were tenacious of the common right in which they
claimed the ownership of the soil. They did not recognize even in their
chiefs any right to convey lands without the general consent of the tribe,
and often refused to submit to treaties unless they were made by their
representatives chosen by popular vote, who met the whites in council
and for their respective tribes ratified the deeds disposing of their lands.
The New Jersey settlers at all times were conciliatory of their rights,
dealing with them in a justifiable and legal way, hence there was no
occasion for hostilities on the part of the Indians. The white settlers
of New Jersey, however, suffered on account of the outrageous manage-
ment of Indian affairs by the Dutch authorities at New Amsterdam.
The Mohawks in 1643 were at war with the Weekquacsgecks, Tanki-
tekes, and Tappeans. Director Kieft espoused the cause of the Mohawks,
and on the night of February 23, 1643, he dispatched a force of eighty men
to attack the Hackensacks, who were bivouacked one thousand strong
at Pavonia, New Jersey. The unsuspecting Indians, unaware of the
Director's secret league with their enemy, were suddenly aroused from
their sleep by a murderous attack by the Dutch soldiers, who spared
neither babies nor women in their inhuman massacre. This kind of war-
fare could not fail to exasperate the natives, and in retaliation seven
tribes entered into an alliance for a relentless war. They killed all the
men they could find, dragged the women and children into captivity,
burned houses, barns, grain and haystacks, and laid waste the farms and
4 MIDDLESEX
plantations. From the Raritan to the Connecticut not a white person
was safe from the murderous tomahawk and scalping knife, except those
that clustered around Fort Amsterdam. The war continued in all its
fury for several months, when a peace was concluded which lasted only
until October, 1643, when the Indians again went on the warpath and
peace was not permanently secured until 1645.
There were no further Indian troubles of any magnitude until 1655,
when during an absence of Governor Stuyvesant to expel the
Swedes from Delaware, five hundred warriors on the night of September
15 landed at New Amsterdam. They were repulsed by the
garrison and driven to their canoes. In retaliation they landed at
Pavonia, which they laid in ashes. From thence they passed
down Staten Island, where one hundred persons were killed, one
hundred and fifty carried into captivity, and over three hundred
deprived of their homes. The savages of the tribes of Hackensack,
Tappaen, Ahasimus and others, were present and took part in this fearful
devastation, and perpetrated inhuman barbarities, notwithstanding their
solemn pledge to adhere to the terms of the treaty. Governor Stuyvesant
made a treaty with the Indians which proved a final settlement of all
difficulties as far as the Dutch were concerned. During these Indian
troubles the inhabitants of the ancient territory of Bergen county were
the greatest sufferers.
The Pomptons and Mennes having sold their lands, removed from
New Jersey about 1737. They became engaged in the Indian war of
1755 in Northampton county, Pennsylvania, which was carried across
the Delaware river into New Jersey. The Indians raided the settlers on
the east bank of the Delaware in the winter of 1757-58, and twenty-seven
murders were committed by them in Sussex county. Governor Bernard
in June, 1758, took measures to put a stop to this hideous warfare;
through Teedyuscung, king of the Delawares, he obtained a conference
with the Minisink and Pompton Indians on August 7, 1758, at Burlington,
New Jersey. This resulted in a time being fixed for a conference at Eas
ton, Pennsylvania, and a treaty was finally signed, the Indians relin-
quishing all their claims to lands in New Jersey, reserving the right to
fish in all the rivers and bays south of the Raritan and to hunt in all unen-
closed lands. A tract of land comprising three thousand acres was pur-
chased in Burlington county by the province, and on this the few remain-
ing Delawares of New Jersey, about sixty in number, were collected and
settled. They remained there until 1802, when they joined their grand-
sons, the Stockbridge tribe, at New Stockbridge, near Oneida Lake, in
the State of New York. Several years after, they again removed and
settled on a large tract of land at Fox River, Wisconsin, which had
been purchased from the Menominee Indians. Here they engaged in
conjunction with the Stockbridge Indians in agricultural pursuits and
THE L.ENI-LENAPES 5
formed a settlement named Statsburg. There were alive in 1832 at this
settlement about forty of the Delawares, who still kept alive the tradi-
tion that they were owners of fishing and hunting privileges in New
Jersey. They resolved to lay their claim before the legislature of the
State, requesting that $2,000 be paid them for the relinquishing of their
rights. The Legislature referred the petition to a committee who reported
favorably upon the request, whereupon the Legislature voted the amount
asked for, in consideration of their relinquishment of their last rights and
claims in the State of New Jersey.
CHAPTER II.
EARLY OCCUPATION OF THE PROVINCE BY THE DUTCH.
The Dutch East India Company of the United Netherlands, who
employed Hudson on his voyage of discovery, combined military with
commercial operations, and was divided into five chambers established
in five of the principal Dutch cities. Its attention was devoted more
especially to making reprisals on Spanish commerce, purchasing slaves,
the conquest of Brazil, etc. New Netherland was committed to the
charge of the Amsterdam chamber.
Five years after Hudson's voyage, a company of merchants under
the title of the United Company of New Netherland, procured from the
States-General of Holland a patent for the exclusive trade on the Hudson
river. They established a trading post at New Amsterdam, on the
present site of the Battery. A small redoubt on the site of what is now
a part of the city of Kingston, New York, was also built ; it was known
as the Ronduit, from whence comes the name of Rondout. In the upper
valley of the Hudson a fort was erected upon Castle Island, near and
below the present city of Albany. One of their navigators, Adriaen
Block, extended the sphere of discovery by the way of the East river,
tracing the shores of Long Island and Connecticut as far as Cape Cod.
He sailed up the Connecticut, named by him the Fresh river, and built
a trading post to which he gave the name of "The House of Good Hope,"
on the present site of the city of Hartford. It was more than probable
as early as 1618 that another trading post was erected in the territory
now comprising the State of New Jersey, which the Dutch called Achter
Kull (or Kill); the spelling of the second name of this title by some
historians is Coll.
The Dutch also claimed as a part of New Netherland by right of dis-
covery, the territory adjacent to the Delaware river, which they named
the South river. This claim was based on Hudson having sailed a short
distance up the waters of that river prior to his entering New York Bay.
As early as 1623 a ship under the command of Cornelius Jacobse May
was dispatched to take possession of this territory and effect a settle-
ment. May entered the Delaware Bay and gave his name to the northern
cape — Cape May. After exploring the river he landed and erected a
fort which he named Fort Nassau, situated on the banks of a small
stream called by the Indians Sassacknow, below the present city of
Camden, New Jersey.
The States-General, on the expiration of the grant of the United
Company of New Netherland, refused to renew it, but they continued
to trade in the territory until 1623, when the Dutch West India Company,
a powerful mercantile association, chartered in 1621, took possession of
8 . MIDDLESEX
the lands temporarily granted to their predecessors. The following year
Peter IMinuit was appointed director of New Netherland ; he built Fort
Amsterdam, and brought over new colonists who settled on Long Island.
Staten Island and Manhattan were purchased from the Indians, but the
settlements for the next five years were merely trading posts.
It was in 1629 or 1630 that the council of the Dutch West India
Company adopted plans for a more extensive colonization of New Neth-
erland. They granted to certain individuals extensive seigniories or
tracts of land, with federal rights over the lives and persons of their
subjects. These tracts of land were granted, provided that a settlement
should be effected within a specified time, besides other conditions.
Under these provinces Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, a pearl merchant of
Amsterdam, secured in 1630 and subsequently, a tract of land twenty-four
by forty-eight miles in extent, comprising the present counties of Albany,
Rensselaer and part of Columbia. Other wealthy patroons obtained
larger grants for similar seigniories in other portions of New Netherland.
The first Indian deed to territory along the west side of New York
Bay and the Hudson river is dated July 12, 1630. It was for a purchase
made by the Director-General and Council of New Netherland for
Michael Pauw, Burgomaster of Amsterdam and Lord of Achtrenhoven,
near Utrecht, Holland. The burgomaster also in the same year obtained
a deed for Staten Island. The purchase on the Jersey shore of the Hud-
son was named Pavonia. The colony established by Pauw was not a
success, and his interests were purchased by the directors of the West
India Company, and it became known as the West India Company's
Farms.
David Pieterson de Vries. who had made two unsuccessful attempts
to establish Dutch settlements on the shores of the Delaware in 1640,
turned his attention to New Netherland. He purchased in that year of
the Indians a tract of about five hundred acres at Tappan, on the Ackter
Kull shore of the Hudson, and gave it the name of Vriesendall. Located
along the riverside, sheltered by high hills, with a stream to supply mill
sites winding its course through its center, it had all the charms of nature,
and with the erection of buildings became an ideal home, where the
energetic owner lived for several years. Settlements were also made at
Communapaw, Hoboken, Ahasamus, Paulus Hoeck, and throughout
the territory were individual settlements, many of which were, however,
destroyed in the Indian War of 1644.
The policy of the Dutch government was to encourage the settlement
of colonies or manors similar to lordships and seigniories of the Old
World, by men of large fortunes, known as patroons, to whom peculiar
privileges of trade and government were accorded. These tracts were
sixteen miles in extent along the seashore or banks of some navigable
river, or eight miles when both banks were occupied with an indefinite
extent inland, the company, however, reserving the island of Manhattan
OCCUPATION BY THE DUTCH 9
and the fur trade with the Indians. These patroons were within four
years from the granting of the tract to settle them with fifty persons
upwards of fifteen years of age, and upon all trade carried on by them
were to pay five per cent, to the company. They were also to extinguish
the Indian titles to the land ; their tenants were not to acquire a free
tenure to the lands, and were prohibited from making any woolen, linen
or cotton cloth or to weave any other material, under a penalty of ban-
ishment. This restriction was to keep them dependent on the mother
country for the most necessary manufactures, which was in spirit with