Scotch Covenanters And Others In East Jersey
East Jersey was totally different in its topography from West
Jersey. The northern half of the State is a region of mountains and
lakes. As part of the original continent it had been under the ice
sheet of the glacial age and was very unlike the level sands,
swamps, and pine barrens of West Jersey which had arisen as a shoal
and island from the sea. The only place in East Jersey where
settlement was at all easy was along the open meadows which were
reached by water near the mouth of the Hudson, round Newark Bay, and
along the Hackensack River.
The Dutch, by the discoveries of Henry Hudson in 1609, claimed the
whole region between the Hudson and the Delaware. They settled part
of East Jersey opposite their headquarters at New York and called it
Pavonia. But their cruel massacre of some Indians who sought refuge
among them at Pavonia destroyed the prospects of the settlement. The
Indians revenged themselves by massacring the Dutch again and again,
every time they attempted to reestablish Pavonia. This kept the
Dutch out of East Jersey until 1660, when they succeeded in
establishing Bergen between Newark Bay and the Hudson.
The Dutch authority in America was overthrown in 1664 by Charles II,
who had already given all New Jersey to his brother the Duke of
York. Colonel Richard Nicolls commanded the British expedition that
seized the Dutch possessions; and he had been given full power as
deputy governor of all the Duke of York's vast territory.
Meantime the New England Puritans seem to have kept their eyes on
East Jersey as a desirable region, and the moment the Connecticut
Puritans heard of Nicolls' appointment, they applied to him for a
grant of a large tract of land on Newark Bay. In the next year,
1665, he gave them another tract from the mouth of the Raritan to
Sandy Hook; and soon the villages of Shrewsbury and Middletown were
started.
Meantime, however, unknown to Nicolls, the Duke of York in England
had given all of New Jersey to Lord Berkeley and Sir George
Carteret. As has already been pointed out, they had divided the
province between them, and East Jersey had fallen to Carteret, who
sent out, with some immigrants, his relative Philip Carteret as
governor. Governor Carteret was of course very much surprised to
find so much of the best land already occupied by the excellent and
thrifty Yankees. As a consequence, litigation and sometimes civil
war over this unlucky mistake lasted for a hundred years. Many of
the Yankee settlers under the Nicolls grant refused to pay quitrents
to Carteret or his successors and, in spite of a commission of
inquiry from England in 1751 and a chancery suit, they held their
own until the Revolution of 1776 extinguished all British authority.
There was therefore from the beginning a strong New England tinge in
East Jersey which has lasted to this day. Governor Carteret
established a village on Newark Bay which still bears the name
Elizabeth, which he gave it in honor of the wife of the proprietor,
and he made it the capital. There were also immigrants from Scotland
and England. But Puritans from Long Island and New England continued
to settle round Newark Bay. By virtue either of character or
numbers, New Englanders were evidently the controlling element, for
they established the New England system of town government, and
imposed strict Connecticut laws, making twelve crimes punishable
with death. Soon there were flourishing little villages, Newark and
Elizabeth, besides Middletown and Shrewsbury. The next year
Piscatawa and Woodbridge were added. Newark and the region round it,
including the Oranges, was settled by very exclusive Puritans, or
Congregationalists, as they are now called, some thirty families
from four Connecticut towns--Milford, Guilford, Bradford, and New
Haven. They decided that only church members should hold office and
vote.
Governor Carteret ruled the colony with an appointive council and a
general assembly elected by the people, the typical colonial form of
government. His administration lasted from 1665 to his death in
1682; and there is nothing very remarkable to record except the
rebellion of the New Englanders, especially those who had received
their land from Nicolls. Such independent Connecticut people were,
of course, quite out of place in a proprietary colony, and, when in
1670 the first collection of quitrents was attempted, they broke out
in violent opposition, in which the settlers of Elizabeth were
prominent. In 1672 they elected a revolutionary assembly of their
own and, in place of the deputy governor, appointed as proprietor a
natural son of Carteret. They began imprisoning former officers and
confiscating estates in the most approved revolutionary form and for
a time had the whole government in their control. It required the
interference of the Duke of York, of the proprietors, and of the
British Crown to allay the little tempest, and three years were
given in which to pay the quitrents.
After the death of Sir George Carteret in 1680, his province of East
Jersey was sold to William Penn and eleven other Quakers for the sum
of 3400 pounds. Colonies seem to have been comparatively inexpensive
luxuries in those days. A few years before, in 1675, Penn and some
other Quakers had, as has already been related, gained control of
West Jersey for the still smaller sum of one thousand pounds and had
established it as a Quaker refuge. It might be supposed that they
now had the same purpose in view in East Jersey, but apparently
their intention was to create a refuge for Presbyterians, the famous
Scotch Covenanters, much persecuted at that time under Charles II,
who was forcing them to conform to the Church of England.
Penn and his fellow proprietors of East Jersey each chose a partner,
most of them Scotchmen, two of whom, the Earl of Perth and Lord
Drummond, were prominent men. To this mixed body of Quakers, other
dissenters, and some Papists, twenty-four proprietors in all, the
Duke of York reconfirmed by special patent their right to East
Jersey. Under their urging a few Scotch Covenanters began to arrive
and seem to have first established themselves at Perth Amboy, which
they named from the Scottish Earl of Perth and an Indian word
meaning "point." This settlement they expected to become a great
commercial port rivaling New York. Curiously enough, Robert Barclay,
the first governor appointed, was not only a Scotchman but also a
Quaker, and a theologian whose "Apology for the True Christian
Divinity" (1678) is regarded to this day as the best statement of
the original Quaker doctrine. He remained in England, however, and
the deputies whom he sent out to rule the colony had a troublous
time of it.
That Quakers should establish a refuge for Presbyterians seems at
first peculiar, but it was in accord with their general
philanthropic plan to help the oppressed and suffering, to rescue
prisoners and exiles, and especially to ameliorate the horrible
condition of people confined in the English dungeons and prisons.
Many vivid pictures of how the Scotch Covenanters were hunted down
like wild beasts may be found in English histories and novels. When
their lives were spared they often met a fate worse than death in
the loathsome dungeons into which thousands of Quakers of that time
were also thrust. A large part of William Penn's life as a courtier
was spent in rescuing prisoners, exiles, and condemned persons of
all sorts, and not merely those of his own faith. So the undertaking
to make of Jersey two colonies, one a refuge for Quakers and the
other a refuge for Covenanters, was natural enough, and it was a
very broad-minded plan for that age.
In 1683, a few years after the Quaker control of East Jersey began,
a new and fiercer persecution of the Covenanters was started in the
old country, and shortly afterwards Monmouth's insurrection in
England broke out and was followed by a most bloody proscription and
punishment. The greatest efforts were made to induce those still
untouched to fly for refuge to East Jersey; but, strange to say,
comparatively few of them came. It is another proof of the
sturdiness and devotion which has filled so many pages of history
and romance with their praise that as a class the Covenanters
remained at home to establish their faith with torture, martyrdom,
and death.
In 1685 the Duke of York ascended the throne of England as James II,
and all that was naturally to be expected from such a bigoted despot
was soon realized. The persecutions of the Covenanters grew worse.
Crowded into prisons to die of thirst and suffocation, shot down on
the highways, tied to stakes to be drowned by the rising tide, the
whole Calvinistic population of Scotland seemed doomed to
extermination. Again they were told of America as the only place
where religious liberty was allowed, and in addition a book was
circulated among them called "The Model of the Government of the
Province of East Jersey in America." These efforts were partially
successful. More Covenanters came than before, but nothing like the
numbers of Quakers that flocked to Pennsylvania. The whole
population of East Jersey--New Englanders, Dutch, Scotch
Covenanters, and all--did not exceed five thousand and possibly was
not over four thousand.
Some French Huguenots, such as came to many of the English colonies
after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes of 1685, were added to
the East Jersey population. A few went to Salem in West Jersey, and
some of these became Quakers. In both the Jerseys, as elsewhere,
they became prominent and influential in all spheres of life. There
was a decided Dutch influence, it is said, in the part nearest New
York, emanating from the Bergen settlement in which the Dutch had
succeeded in establishing themselves in 1660 after the Indians had
twice driven them from Pavonia. Many descendants of Dutch families
are still found in that region. Many Dutch characteristics were to
be found in that region throughout colonial times. Many of the
houses had Dutch stoops or porches at the door, with seats where the
family and visitors sat on summer evenings to smoke and gossip. Long
Dutch spouts extended out from the eaves to discharge the rain water
into the street. But the prevailing tone of East Jersey seems to
have been set by the Scotch Presbyterians and the New England
Congregationalists. The College of New Jersey, afterward known as
Princeton, established in 1747, was the result of a movement among
the Presbyterians of East Jersey and New York.
All these elements of East Jersey, Scotch Covenanters, Connecticut
Puritans, Huguenots, and Dutch of the Dutch Reformed Church, were in
a sense different but in reality very much in accord and congenial
in their ideas of religion and politics. They were all sturdy,
freedom-loving Protestants, and they set the tone that prevails in
East Jersey to this day. Their strict discipline and their
uncompromising thrift may now seem narrow and harsh; but it made
them what they were; and it has left a legacy of order and
prosperity under which alien religions and races are eager to seek
protection. In its foundation the Quakers may claim a share.
The new King, James II, was inclined to reassume jurisdiction and
extend the power of the Governor of New York over East Jersey in
spite of his grant to Sir George Carteret. In fact, he desired to
put New England, New York, and New Jersey under one strong
government centered at New York, to abolish their charters, to
extinguish popular government, and to make them all mere royal
dependencies in pursuance of his general policy of establishing an
absolute monarchy and a papal church in England.
The curse of East Jersey's existence was to be always an appendage
of New York, or to be threatened with that condition. The
inhabitants now had to enter their vessels and pay duties at New
York. Writs were issued by order of the King putting both the
Jerseys and all New England under the New York Governor. Step by
step the plans for amalgamation and despotism moved on successfully,
when suddenly the English Revolution of 1688 put an end to the whole
magnificent scheme, drove the King into exile, and placed William of
Orange on the throne.
The proprietaries of both Jerseys reassumed their former authority.
But the New York Assembly attempted to exercise control over East
Jersey and to levy duties on its exports. The two provinces were
soon on the eve of a little war. For twelve or fifteen years East
Jersey was in disorder, with seditious meetings, mob rule, judges
and sheriffs attacked while performing their duty, the proprietors
claiming quitrents from the people, the people resisting, and the
British Privy Council threatening a suit to take the province from
the proprietors and make a Crown colony of it. The period is known
in the history of this colony as "The Revolution." Under the threat
of the Privy Council to take over the province, the proprietors of
both East and West Jersey surrendered their rights of political
government, retaining their ownership of land and quitrents, and the
two Jerseys were united under one government in 1702. Its subsequent
history demands another chapter.
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