The second in the series Hunterdon’s First Settlers
Technically, I should not include Richard Bull in the series “First Settlers of Hunterdon County,” since he never actually lived in Hunterdon, but he certainly qualifies as one of the first landowners. And he surveyed many of the first proprietary tracts here and even further north in Warren and Sussex Counties.
Richard Bull was a land owner in Hunterdon County, well before the county was created. Surprisingly, by the 20th century, even an accomplished student of Hunterdon history like Egbert T. Bush did not know exactly who he was. Bush wrote:1
“. . . “Bool’s Island” {was} the name of a famous long and narrow island opposite {Raven Rock}, which is said to have taken name from one Bool, who owned the island and much land ashore.”
When I first began my blog in 2009, I thought I would use it as a way to discover more about the life of my ancestor Samuel Green. So I began hunting for traces of him in the earliest days of the Province of West New Jersey. But the history of that place became so interesting in itself, that I began to follow its development year by year, thinking that eventually I would get to 1695 when Samuel Green first shows up. (For an index of stories on West New Jersey, go to my About page.)
It has been awhile since I’ve written anything about the chronology of early West Jersey, but I’m glad I waited, for I just recently got my hands on a PhD. Dissertation by Frederick R. Black that has opened my eyes to events in the 1690s and solved some mysteries for me. It is entitled The Last Lords Proprietors of West Jersey; The West Jersey Society, 1692-1702, and is available from Rutgers Library, Special Collections, through inter-library loan. I can’t recommend it enough.
In 1689, affected by the uncertainty of the times, the West Jersey Proprietors wrote to Daniel Coxe that they would proclaim him governor if he would just provide his own writ of quo warranto. They “stressed the urgency of the situation” but Coxe, who also felt the uncertainty of the times, delayed his answer for several months.1
Once again, Jerseyman has caught me by surprise. He has published a fascinating post relating to early maneuvering before the first Quaker settlers arrived in the Delaware River.
Under instructions from the Quaker trustees, James Wasse and Richard Guy had a survey made by Richard Hancock, which was published by John Thornton and Robert Green and titled “A Mapp of Virginia Mary-land, New-Jarsey, New-York & New England,” probably around 1677 or 1678. It showed three designated areas for settlement, one being at “Bethlem” which became Gloucester, another called Antioch where Salem was located, and the third was 5000 acres at the Falls.
During their meetings held in 1688 and 1689, the Council of Proprietors was setting up rules for how surveys would be obtained, and naming registrars for Burlington and Gloucester counties, who were Samuel Jennings and John Reading, respectively. They did not act for Salem County because it was still under John Fenwick’s control. But there were other matters to attend to.
This is what I wrote in a previous post (dated July 14, 2010).
It is not clear whether any records were actually turned over, or if they were, what happened to them. While the directive of the Dominion of New England was in effect, New Jerseyans may have tried to avoid compliance. What I do not know is whether John Skene was ordered to deliver the papers to Boston himself or just hold onto them.
At the time of writing, I had not yet visited the State Archives and taken a close look at the Minutes of the Council of West Jersey Proprietors. Those minutes did shed some light on this problem of record-keeping, but first I want to say a few words about my visit to the Archives.
The Burlington Court Book is full of fascinating cases that shed light on what life was like in early West New Jersey. One of those cases (pp. 75-80) jumped out at me, because it involves the daughter of one of the first proprietors to purchase tracts in Hunterdon County.
At the end of the last post, I said I would leave the subject of Coxe’s West Jersey landholdings to discuss his other plans for the colony. Spoke too soon. Here is some more on the subject:
