First published in The Delaware Township Post, 6 Aug 2007
The earliest mill owners were millers themselves. But the more successful the mill, the more help was needed to run it. Millers hired laborers or indentured servants, and it was fairly common for millers to own one or two slaves.
This article is similar to the previous article, “Delaware Township Villages and Mills,” but just different enough to be allowed in the archive. Gradually I will collect here all my published articles on Delaware Twp. mills.
Published in The Bridge (newsletter for Delaware Twp.) in August 2001
Some time ago, I gave a talk about how Delaware Township’s villages came into existence. It seems appropriate to adapt that talk to the newsletter, in several installments, since villages are still, despite our 21st century way of life, important to our township.
About a year ago, I started this blog with the idea that it would be a place where I could write about the history and genealogy that interested me, and that I would follow wherever my curiosity led me. That is exactly what has happened, and I have decided to keep doing it. However, there is more to be done here, so this post is an explanation for the plans I have.
If ever there was a case where armchair research fails to deliver, this must be it. To properly understand who Dr. Daniel Coxe was, I need to go to London. But that isn’t going to happen any time soon. I must make do with what I can get my hands on, and believe me, it is not enough. Not even Samuel Pepys can help me, for he was no longer writing his diary by this time.
It has been some time since my last post, so it might help to skim over the previous post before continuing with this one.
The Carolina Constitution of 1669 came out four years after the Concessions and Agreements of the Proprietors of East New Jersey. Undoubtedly, Shaftesbury and Locke were acquainted with it. But when Berkeley and Carteret became the first proprietors of New Jersey in 1664, they probably studied the first Carolina Constitution of 1663 before publishing their Concessions and Agreements. Berkeley and Carteret knew what was happening in Carolina because they were among the eight Lords Proprietors of the colony, so we can assume there was a lot of cross-pollination.
As part of the 17th-century appetite for discovery and learning, attention was turned to the blank spaces on the maps of the world, and the opportunities they offered for increased knowledge, as well as increased riches. The New World colonies caught the attention of Daniel Coxe well before he invested in West New Jersey.
After a few years spent mixing with the virtuosi in London and playing with volatile salts in his laboratory, Daniel Coxe bethought himself to get a wife. He married Rebecca Coldham, the daughter of John Coldham, Esq. of Tooting Graveney, London. I’m not kidding; Tooting Graveney, actually has its own page in Wikipedia. It is considered a suburb of London, on the south side of the Thames, and was probably quite rural in the 1670s. John Coldham was an Alderman of London and warden of the Grocers Company, from which I conclude that he was a successful merchant with political connections, an ideal father-in-law for an ambitious man.
Just read a fascinating article by Walter Russell Mead on “A Lifetime Reading List.” It inspired me to reflect on why we read books and why some of us love history. Mead points out that:
“World history is so complex and multifaceted that a great danger is that young readers will give up on making any kind of sense out of it. Dozens of civilizations, scores of powers, religions and cultures rising and falling everywhere you look, uncountable throngs of significant schools of art, more battles and wars than you can shake a stick at: getting things in chronological order is the best and perhaps the only way to help young people find their footing in the torrent.”
And not only young people.
You can read the full article here.
