The Heaths of Locktown

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

The first of the family to settle in Hunterdon was Andrew Heath (1667-1720) who came from Staffordshire, England to Bucks County in 1682 when he was 15, as a bonded servant to William Yardley. Heath was released from service four years later in 1686 and given a tract of 50 acres in Lower Makefield Township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He was taxed there in 1693, with property worth £46.

Apparently sometime around 1680 while he was still apprenticed, Andrew Heath married his first wife Elizabeth Barrett Venables and had four children with her: John, Elizabeth, Andrew, Jr. and Sarah. Elizabeth and her first husband, William Venables, had traveled to America on the same ship as Andrew Heath and William Yardley, but William Venables died very soon after they arrived. Elizabeth married second a Lawrence Bannor, but again she was soon a widow. This was probably far too common during these early years of settlement.

By 1699, Heath was looking across the river to the Province of West New Jersey to invest in land and purchased property in Hopewell and Maidenhead Townships from John Hutchinson.² The first property was located near Trenton on Lower Ferry Road. In 1708 he bought more land from Amos Ashead, being “unappropriated.”³ It is clear that the Heaths moved to Hopewell because Andrew Heath became one of the founding members of the Episcopalian Church there.⁴

Elizabeth Barrett Heath died about 1700, about 56 years of age, and was probably buried at Hopewell. Shortly afterwards, Andrew married his second wife, Hannah Buckingham Clark (c.1675-after 1744), another widow, and mother of three children. She and Andrew had a son Richard about 1705 and a daughter Martha about 1708.

Andrew was by then a prominent member of the Hopewell community, which was then a part of Hunterdon County. He was chosen to be an overseer of roads there in 1699 and township assessor in 1701. He was well-acquainted with his native American neighbors; in 1703 when John Reading and Richard Bull needed an interpreter to help them negotiate with the Lenape for a tract of 150,000 acres, they asked Heath to do the job. This land was located north of Hopewell Township and became known as “The Lotting Purchase,” which I have written about elsewhere.  (See John Reading and the Creation of Hunterdon County, parts one-three).

Land in the Lotting Purchase could not be distributed to West Jersey Proprietors until 1712, after additional land to the north had been purchased. Andrew Heath wasted no time. In 1712 he had 450 acres surveyed near Frenchtown on the south side of “Nishasackowicke” Creek. In 1713 he bought more “unappropriated land” from Mahlon Stacy.⁵

Andrew Heath of Hopewell Township, yeoman, wrote his will on January 3, 1717 when he was 50 years old, naming his second wife Hannah, his surviving children and grandchildren, and his son-in-law Nathaniel Pettit. Executors were Thomas Lambert and Robert Eaton; witnesses were John Plumley and Nathaniel Pettit.

This one-time apprentice had become a huge landowner. And he still was when he died in September or October 1720, age 53, leaving a widow and at least four surviving children. His executor, Robert Heaton [sic], a Hopewell tailor, got the will proved on December 29, 1720.

Heath’s Inventory was made on October 3, 1720 by Daniel Howell and Alexander Lockart, and included two old Bibles plus other books, and “a negro lad,” who was unnamed. There was also a fairly long list of men who owed him money.

Children of Andrew Heath, Sr. & Elizabeth Barrett

I have published a Heath family tree to accompany this article, and I expect to hear from Heath descendants about my mistakes and omissions. Because it is a big family and an early one, records can be confusing.

ELIZABETH (c.1680 – 1730), the eldest child, is thought to have been born in Suffolk Co., NY, but that makes no sense. Andrew Heath did not abide there or marry there. Perhaps this is a Heath of a different family. In any case, she married in 1708 Nathaniel Pettit, Jr. of Amwell Township and proceeded to have 11 children, four of whom married Wolvertons! (A Pettit Family Tree will have to be attempted sometime soon. In the meantime, check out The Wolverton Tree.)

JOHN (c.1691-1724), the second child, married wife Mary about 1715 and had a son John, Jr. who only lived to the age of 21. John, Sr. only survived to the age of 33, dying intestate in 1724 or 1725. His widow Mary declined to administer the estate, so John’s brother Andrew became acting administrator. This changed after Mary married second the widower Thomas Hunt about 1728. The couple then took on the task of administering the estate until Mary’s death about 1730.

The third child, ANDREW Jr. (c.1695-1745) is the one I am most interested in, so I will put him off until later.

Andrew, Sr. and Elizabeth also had a daughter SARAH who seems to have died as a young woman, unmarried.

After Elizabeth’s death, Andrew and his second wife Hannah had a son RICHARD (c.1705-1747), who settled in Bethlehem Township. It is thought that Richard married Mary Gordon, and perhaps he did. But if so, his first wife was Sarah Wilson/Willson, born about 1707 to Samuel Willson and Esther Overton. One of Richard’s deeds states that Samuel Willson was his father-in-law. Richard and Sarah had a son William (no further information) and a daughter Esther (1738-1796) who married Abraham Coryell.⁶

Andrew and Hannah are also thought to have had a daughter MARTHA around 1708, who was mentioned in his will, but I have no other information about her.

The Next Heath Generation: Andrew Heath, Jr.

Andrew Heath, Jr. (c.1695 – 1745) left Hopewell and settled in Amwell Township, probably on some of the land his father had purchased. About the time his father died, Andrew, Jr. married Mary Pettit Horseman (c.1700-?). She was the daughter of Marmaduke Horseman and Sarah Woods of Monmouth County.

I would like to know why her middle name was Pettit, it being such an important family in Hunterdon’s history. I know nothing else of her, except that she succeeded in having nine children (c.1721-c.1738), most of whom lived to adulthood.

In 1725, Andrew administered the estate of his brother John Heath. In 1727 he witnessed the will of Richard Caine of Amwell with Charles Woolverton, and made the inventory of Caine’s estate with George Fox.⁷ In 1741, Andrew Heath was listed as an Amwell freeholder.⁸

The Home of Andrew Heath, Jr.

Andrew seems to have settled on a farm on the southwest of quadrant of the village of Locktown (the village did not get that name until 1818). There is a tiny stone house on the property that seems to be very ancient. I had thought it might have been the first house occupied by Andrew and his family. But old as it appears, its architecture is in fact that of a house built in the 1830s, not the 18th century.

Samuel Wilson and his son Robert had rights to 450 acres in the Lotting purchase in 1732.⁹ On October 23, 1736, the Wilsons conveyed these rights to Richard Heath, who the next year, on March 20, 1737, had 125 acres out surveyed for his brother Andrew Heath.¹⁰ In 1738, Andrew Heath got a mortgage on this property from the Hunterdon County Loan Office.¹¹ By then it had been enlarged to 150 acres, and was bordered by William ‘Riddel’ (probably Biddle), Jno VanHorne, Nathan Allen, and Martha “Worrey.”

Note that Samuel Wilson had the rights to survey 450 acres, but that acreage was not necessarily contiguous. Wilson and his sons lived near Quakertown which is probably where the rest of his acreage was surveyed.¹²

Bordering Andrew Heath on the north was a tract that is labeled “Ralph Brock 1743, 177 acres, 2^nd Lot (Bk 1 p.290)” on the Hammond map of proprietary tracts in Hunterdon County. He then added the name William “Rightinghausen.” Ralph Brock, a millwright of Bucks County, received a warrant for a survey of 1,000 acres on November 6, 1734 from the Council of West Jersey Proprietors. He got two tracts surveyed, one of 241 acres, the other of 177 acres. They were located to the north and the south of Andrew Heath’s 125 acres, strongly suggesting that Heath got there first.

The eastern boundary of the Heath & Brock tracts is today’s Locktown Road running nearly due north into Kingwood Township and south to Sergeantsville.

Brock assigned his 2^nd tract of 177 acres to William Rightinghousen on November 18^th. This was the William Rittenhouse (1696-1767) who had settled at Rosemont. On Sept. 4, 1741, Rittenhouse had the 177 acres surveyed “in the Great Swamp,” which was at today’s Locktown.¹³ It bordered land of Andrew Heath, Martha Moray, John Alford and John Reading. This property was later inherited by William’s son Peter Rittenhouse.

On August 3, 1743, Andrew Heath of Amwell, who was then in his late 40s, wrote his will, naming wife Mary, sons Andrew, John, Richard, David and Timothy, and daughters Elizabeth Ketchum, Mary, Catharine and Sarah Heath. Executors were wife Mary and son Andrew. Witnesses were Ephraim Quinby, son-in-law Daniel Ketchum and Dr. John Lewis (See A Pirate in Old Amwell). The chief beneficiary was eldest son Andrew, whom I will call Andrew iii. In the usual practice of primogeniture, the eldest son got all the Amwell real estate. Andrew Heath, Jr. died on Oct. 5, 1745, age 50. His will was recorded on December 17, 1745.

Curiously, two years later, widow Mary Heath had a tract of 150 acres surveyed in Amwell Township by John Reading. It bordered Wm Rettinghouse, Andrew Heath, Paul Lewis, Ephraim Quinby and Martha Morrey.¹⁴ This was the property on the west side of Locktown. Shortly afterwards, Mary Heath died.¹⁵

Andrew Heath, iii

Andrew Heath iii was born about 1721, quite possibly in Hopewell. He married wife Magdalene about 1750 and had with her seven children, all born before the Revolution. According to Heath family legend, when his son Richard was drafted, Andrew went in his place. Upon returning home, in June 1777, it being a hot day, he sat down to have some very cold buttermilk and promptly died.

Fortunately for the widow, most of the children were adults by then. The family was living on the Locktown farm, due west from the point where the Locktown Flemington Road ends in the Locktown Sergeantsville Road.¹⁶

In 1780, widow Magdalene Heath married Uriah Bonham (c.1724-1809). It was a second marriage for both of them; Bonham had been married to Anchor Fox (c.1728 – after 1762), daughter of George Fox and Mary Wolverton, and their five children had reached adulthood by then. Uriah Bonham’s name can be found as witness to most of the wills written by Kingwood Twp. residents from 1749 to 1799. (See Anchor Fox & Uriah Bonham. Some genealogies claim that Anchor did not die until the 1790s; I don’t believe that is true.)

Uriah Bonham had a home farm in Kingwood Township, so it is likely that Magdalene Heath moved there. But not until after she and her son Andrew, who had moved to Virginia, sold the old Heath farm at Locktown to William Dils (Dilts) in 1791. It consisted of 116.25 acres bordering the Wickecheoke Creek and land of Christopher Labacker, Joseph Hart, and William ‘Rettinghouse.’¹⁷ Dils paid £435.9.7 for the property.

The deed included a lengthy recital explaining that the property had been left to Andrew Heath by the will of his father, dated August 23, 1743, and the senior Andrew had acquired it from his son Richard Heath on March 20, 1737, and that Richard Heath had bought it on October 23, 1736 from father-in-law Samuel Wilson and brother-in-law Robert Wilson, who had gotten a warrant to have surveyed a tract of 550 acres anywhere in “the State of West New Jersey.” So, it appears that the property did not stay long in the hands of any of the Heaths who owned it until the third Andrew came along.

Edward Mason Heath & Family

The trigger that got me thinking about the Heath family was an inquiry from a Heath descendant, whose ancestor was buried in the cemetery attached to the Locktown Christian Church. (See Christian Church Cemetery.)

He was Edward Mason Heath, who lived on a small farm that bordered the Locktown-Flemington Road on the south and the Locktown School Road on the north. As this detail from the Beers Atlas of 1873 shows, Heath’s house was located about mid-way between the two roads, meaning he faced the Christian Church property to his west and south, and the Locktown School to his north. Heath purchased the 18.5-acre lot on March 26, 1862 from Anderson and Susan M. Stout.¹⁸ (Regrettably, my copy of the Beers Atlas has a seam right through the middle of Locktown.)

Edward M. Heath was born the fifth of seven children on May 24, 1837 to George D. Heath and Mary R. Heath of Kingwood Township. His parents appear to have been living on the farm of George’s father Richard, located just west of the Andrew Heath farm, on the border between Kingwood and Amwell (later Delaware) Townships. Richard Heath (1759 – 1849) was the son of Andrew and Magdalene Heath, the one who had been drafted to serve in the Revolution. He married Catharine Rittenhouse (1762-1830), daughter of William Rittenhouse, Jr. and Rebecca Harned, about 1780 and had with her ten children.

Edward Mason Heath was named after Edward Mason (1785-1854), husband of Nancy Heath (1792-1849), and brother-in-law of Edward M. Heath’s father George D. Heath. Mason and family lived in Franklin Township on land acquired from his uncle, William Mitchell.

George D. & Mary R. Heath

Richard Heath wrote his will on December 9, 1834, leaving his farm of 105 acres in Kingwood to his youngest child, George, who was the remaining child at home. George had married his cousin, Mary R. Heath on May 12, 1827. She was born March 30, 1810 to Elijah Heath, Sr. and Catharine Kemple. Her grandparents were John Heath, Sr., brother of George’s grandfather Andrew, and Mary Aller. (Please refer to the Heath family tree.) George and Mary were second cousins. But George had a huge selection of first cousins to choose from, 81 altogether, 35 of whom were females.

It is clear the Edward M. Heath grew up with a sense of family history connected with the Locktown area. In 1858, when he was 21 years old, Heath married a woman who also had a well-established family history. She was Annie B. Trout (1835-1922), eldest child of Asher Trout and Harriet Buchanan of Raritan Township. (See the Trout Family Tree.)  Surprisingly, the wedding was not recorded, nor was it announced in the local newspapers.

This marriage took place after the death of Edward’s father. George D. Heath had suffered for many years from gout. He wrote his will on August 4^th, 1848, leaving half his property to wife Mary so she could raise their two youngest children, Amy and Charles. The other half to be divided between all the children, after his executors sold the real estate at public sale. He named his wife’s brother Charles and his friend and neighbor Amplius B. Chamberlin executors. Chamberlin declined, so Charles took care of the estate, following George’s death on April 13, 1850, at the age of 47. He was buried in the Baptist Cemetery in Locktown.

Shortly after George’s death, the Kingwood census was taken, showing widow Mary Heath, age 40, living with her children Lewis A. 17, Elijah 15, Edward 13, Amy 10 and Charles 9. Oldest child Lewis was labeled a farmer with land worth $2,000. That is interesting, since Mary was the actual owner at the time.

I did not know what Edward M. Heath was doing with himself between 1850 and 1860, other than his marriage in 1858 to Annie B. Trout. Heath’s obituary filled in the blanks.

While but half way through his teens he obtained a school in his home neighborhood [in Kingwood Township] and taught there for two terms. He then entered Madison University, in New York State, being only seventeen at that time, and remained in that institution four years. Returning to his native county he conducted a school in Kingwood township one term and then went to Darke county, Ohio, where he had charge of a school for two terms. Again, returning to his native county he taught school at Sand Brook nearly three years and the Reading school one year. In 1860 he commenced teaching at Locktown, where he taught for twenty-eight successive years.¹⁹

Darke County, Ohio (named after a Revolutionary War soldier) was attractive to several Hunterdon families, in particular members of the Lair, Gordon, Rittenhouse, Bonham, Roberson, Hartpence and Wert families. These families were known to Edward M. Heath, and he probably spent time with them while he was there.

1858 is the year that Heath began to have a presence in his community. In addition to marrying, he joined the Locktown Volunteers as a Lieutenant. (The Locktown Volunteers require a separate article, along with other Hunterdon County Militias that formed prior to the outbreak of war.) Two years later, when he began teaching at Locktown, Heath was counted in the Kingwood Twp. census as a 23-year old schoolteacher living with wife Ann age 24 and a domestic servant named Esther Vanhorn, age 18. They were listed next to Edward’s brother Lewis A. Heath, 27, farmer, not yet married, living with mother Mary Heath 52, brother Charles 19 and sister Amy Jane 20. The next year, 1861, he was chosen to be the School Superintendent for Kingwood Twp.

Edward M. Heath in the Civil War

Here is where I begin to wish that Edward M. Heath had kept a journal, or if he did, that it had been saved, because he was entering adult life just when the Civil War began, and he was a schoolteacher, so he had the ability to memorialize his experiences. He was only ten years older than another Hunterdon schoolteacher who wrote at great length about his memories, none other than Egbert T. Bush.

In fact, Bush mentioned Heath in his article “How Locktown Got Its Name,” published May 22, 1930 in the Hunterdon Democrat:

Among such graduates [of the Locktown school], we may name a few. Edward M. Heath, Richard’s grandson, began his school life there in 1841. Equipped with what that school could give, he went to Madison University. Then he came back to be a teacher here in that and the present house until he was appointed Superintendent in 1888. . . .

The Heaths were quite numerous here in early days. Edward M. Heath’s father was George D., his grandfather’s name was Richard and his great-grandfather’s name was Andrew. The Goodell farm—earlier owned by Jacob Rodenbaugh and still earlier by Joseph West—was the original Heath homestead. Now Edward’s son, Robert T., and Robert’s son, Edward, are the only representatives of the name in this community.

For some reason, Edward M. Heath’s name never appeared on lists of those being drafted. Perhaps this was because he had strong feelings against going to war with the South. Heath was a Democrat, and in the early 1860s, Hunterdon Democrats strongly opposed the war. (See “The Democratic Club of Delaware Township” and “1863 Politics in Delaware Township,” in which Heath was listed as first lieutenant for the Locktown District.) When the Democratic County Convention convened in Flemington in October 1862, Heath, young as he was, was chosen to serve on the Executive Committee, along with R. J. Kilgore (editor of the Democrat), Isaac Smith, John C. Rafferty, John T. Sergean[t], Michael Shurts, and Lewis Young.²⁰

Heath’s Locktown Home

Edward M. Heath qualified for a position in the Delaware Twp. Democratic Party because on March 26, 1862, he had purchased a lot of 18.5 acres (Block 5 lot 4) located between Locktown Flemington Road and Locktown School Road, just east of the Christian Church lot.²¹ Prior to that he had been living on his grandfather’s farm in Kingwood Township, just over the border with Delaware Township.

The Locktown lot was sold to Heath for $1,000 by Anderson and Susan M. Stout, who had acquired the property from Joseph & Elizabeth Lair in 1856.²²

This photograph was taken from the Historic Sites survey of Delaware Township properties made in 1977. It may have been the house belonging to Edward M. & Annie Heath, but I am uncertain.

An interesting side note:  Anderson & Susan’s daughter Catharine Stout (1863-c.1925) married George Larison Heath in 1881, a first cousin of Edward M. Heath.

Joseph Lair (1798-1882), son of William Lair & Susan Boss, married Elizabeth Wert (1805-1873) in 1823 at the Locktown Baptist Church. She was the daughter of Peter & Elizabeth Wert, who lived north of Locktown, and sister of Mary Wert who married Spencer Stout and had son Anderson Stout. Hence the connection. In 1832, Joseph and Elizabeth Lair sold a lot from the southwest corner of their large farm along Locktown Flemington Road to the newly formed Locktown Christian Church. (See Historic Hunterdon Church For Sale.)

Among his many other duties, Edward M. Heath served as Clerk for the newly founded Christian Church congregation in Locktown. He still held that position in 1875 when a new pastor was recruited, Rev. John Woodward. (See Copperheadism in Locktown.) Woodward wrote: “Locktown was a hotbed of copperheadism, and it had been unsafe to side with the Union there.” This sentiment still prevailed many years after the end of the Civil War.

I cannot say exactly how much of a “Copperhead” Edw. M. Heath was, but he must have been inclined that way. Despite their political differences, Heath supported the acquisition of a house lot for the new minister. In 1877 Henry F. & David Bodine sold the church a lot on the eastern corner of their property to be used for a parsonage. Heath, probably in his position as church clerk, witnessed the deed.²³ The lot was located directly across from the church, on the corner of the Locktown Flemington Road and the Locktown Sergeantsville Road.

Edward M. Heath’s Career

Heath was first and foremost, a schoolteacher, starting with his very early experience as schoolteacher in Kingwood Township. In 1861, he was elected school superintendent for Kingwood Township. The next year, after moving to his lot in Delaware Township, he was elected school superintendent for that town, as well as in 1863 & 1864.

But he seems to have had other ambitions. In 1864, he was the Democratic candidate for County Surrogate, but was not elected. In 1865, Heath became clerk of a special meeting held in Sergeantsville for calling troops, and in April was elected Clerk of Delaware Township, a position he held through 1873. That same year, 1865, the clerk of the Freeholder Board, William T. Srope, declined re-election and Heath was elected in his place. He held that position for the next two years.

In 1869 & 1870, Heath was chosen to serve as Delaware Township Justice of the Peace. In 1875, the Locktown Grange was organized; Heath and wife Annie were charter members and Heath served on the building committee for a grange hall in 1878.

In 1885, Edw. M. Heath joined with several other history minded citizens to create the Hunterdon County Historical Society. The organizational meeting took place on Sept. 11, 1885 at the Court House, officers were chosen, and Heath was named to “a Committee on Permanent Organization” and a member of the first executive committee. Heath continued to be actively involved in the creation and growth of the HCHS for the rest of his life. In 1891, he served as its president.

But through all this, Heath continued his work as a teacher. On Sept. 15, 1881, the Hunterdon Republican published this item:

Edward M. Heath of Locktown merits honorable mention as one of the good teachers in Hunterdon. He has taught 27 years, with 23 of them at the Locktown Public School. This is an unusually long time for a teacher to remain in one school and it is doubtful whether any other instances can be found in this State

At a meeting of the Hunterdon Co. Teachers’ Association, held on Sept. 17, 1881, “Edward M. Heath of Delaware Tp., presented the subject of ‘Pronunciation,’ in a way that was very interesting and instructive.” Heath was elected Treasurer for the coming year and a member of the executive committee. The next year he was on a list of ‘prominent candidates’ for County School Superintendent, a position he was not named to until 1888. Here is the announcement in the Hunterdon Republican of July 25, 1888:

The New County Superintendent. After teaching the District School at Locktown for 30 years, our new Superintendent, Edward M. Heath, resigned the position of teacher. On July 21st, the scholars and interested inhabitants of the district met to celebrate his retirement as teacher. The exercises opened with prayer, singing and a well-chosen address by Miss Minnie Bodine, who presented Mr. Heath with a gold headed cane as a gift from the school. He was taken entirely by surprise and thanked the donors. Addresses were given by Rev. Jacob Rodenbaugh and Rev. George H. Larison, who had been a schoolmate of Mr. Heath at Madison University, Hamilton, NY. After the company partook of refreshments, including ice cream and cake, recitations were given by Lloyd Barrick and Miss Lina Barrick. The exercises were closed by Rev. J. H. French. The Trustees have employed Howard Horne to succeed Mr. Heath.

Heath served as County School Superintendent for two terms. On October 31, 1893, the Republican published this:

Brief News Items from Kingwood Tp. It is conceded on all sides that Edward M. Heath of Delaware Tp., has made one of the best Superintendents of Public Instruction that Hunterdon Co., has ever had and if efficiency in a public officer is desirable, he ought to be reappointed.

Apparently, he was, but in 1895, he was replaced by Jason S. Hoffman of New Hampton who was “appointed by the State Board of Education to succeed Edward M. Heath. (Heath was 58 that year.) It is not clear whether Heath was resigning voluntarily or not.

Edward M. Heath died on February 1, 1916 at the age of 78. He was buried in the Christian Church cemetery in Locktown. His wife Annie lived to the age of 86, dying in 1922, and was buried next to her husband.

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