part 13 of The Route Not Taken
This article is part of my series on the Delaware Flemington Railroad Company and the rail line it had planned to build in 1873 to run from Prallsville to the Flemington Depot.
part 13 of The Route Not Taken
This article is part of my series on the Delaware Flemington Railroad Company and the rail line it had planned to build in 1873 to run from Prallsville to the Flemington Depot.
The Hoaglands (Hooglandts) came to New Netherland in the early to mid 1600s, along with the rest of the settlers of this Dutch colony. As so often happened, their children or grandchildren preferred to settled in the wilderness rather than the established colony, which is how Jan & Jacobe Hoagland came to Hunterdon County.
The Opdycke family emigrated to America from Holland in the 17th century, settling at Gravesend in Kings County, New York. They certainly prospered in their new home and multiplied extensively. Consequently, there are many many Opdycke descendants, and also an extensive published genealogy. Because it is such a large family, I have not been able to research it as thoroughly as some others.
(1) Emanuel Coryell (1706 – 1749) & Sarah Tunison (1706 – )
The Somerset Quarterly published “Earliest American Ancestors of Somerset Families” in Vol. V p.188 et seq, which included this statement: “Elias, Emanuel (or John Emanuel) and David Coriell, perhaps with another brother Abraham, emigrated from the island of Corsica in 1663, and were French. Emanuel went to Lambertville and operated a ferry there in 1733.
(1) Samuel Barber (c.1690 – 1751) & Eliada Alida Johnson (c.1695 – after 1782)
The Barber Family in present day Hunterdon begins with Samuel Barber who died sometime before May 1751, age about 61. It is not clear who his parents were. The family was primarily located on Lambertville-Headquarters Road in Delaware Township. Much of the family information comes from Hiram Deats’ notebook on the Barber Family at the Hunterdon Co. Historical Society, which includes his transcription of the Barber family bible.
My previous article (Hunterdon’s Militia) included mention of the Locktown Volunteers and their Captain, John Bellis, who happened to be “an ardent Republican” in a neighborhood of equally ardent Democrats or Copperheads.1 How Bellis managed to get along with his neighbors is an interesting question.
part 12 of The Route Not Taken
My last post (A Rockafellar Homestead Divided) concerned the farm of Jacob B. Rockafellar who died without a will in 1813. His farm was divided into 28 lots in 1820 and distributed among the heirs. A division map was drawn that showed the bordering owner on the north to be our old friend, Elijah Carman.
Some time ago, I began to write about a road in Raritan Township that originated as a private lane used by the Carman and Hoagland families to get from their farms to the main road from Flemington to Ringoes. That private road eventually became Johanna Farms Road. In my previous article, I had gotten to the point where the farm on the south side of Johanna Farms Road was owned by Cornelius Voorhees in 1852 (see Hoagland’s Road, part one). Voorhees bought the farm in 1840 from the assignees of John S. Rockafellow.
Shortly after publishing last week’s article, the Heaths of Locktown, David Sherman sent me four very interesting documents from his collection of Heath & Sherman memorabilia. They shed new light on the lives of Edward M. Heath and his son Robert, as well as their friend Lester B. Sherman, and his wife Fayetta Reep’s family.
The Heath family turns up fairly often in my articles without ever getting the attention it is due. They were ‘fruitful and multiplied’ and owned quite a lot of land in various parts of the county.1