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action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/goodspeedhist/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114This article is a continuation of the history of the Cook Proprietary Tract,1<\/a><\/sup> The previous articles dealt with the northern half of the tract. It is time to turn our attention to the southern portion, half of which came into the possession of the Rounsavell family at a very early date, and remained in the family for many years thereafter. The other half was acquired by John Young, and after his death was conveyed to John Hice in 1789. The Young and Hice families will have to wait for another time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There is an overabundance of Richard Rounsavells in Hunterdon County. And it does not help that the spelling of the name has been wildly inconsistent: Rounsavel, Rounsaval, Rounsaville, Rounsifull, Rounsifer, Rounsevelt, etc. According to the authors of the Rounsavell Genealogy, the name originates from the small village of Roncevalles, Spain\u201a\u00c4\u00eelocated in the Pyrenees mountains, straddling the border of France and Spain. The name literally is translated as \u201a\u00c4\u00favalley of thorns\u201a\u00c4\u00f9, and was also the site of the military defeat of Charlemagne\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s army in 778, and the death of Charlemagne\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s nephew, Roland.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n There were two branches of the family in America, one that settled in Massachusetts, led by Philip Rounsevell, and the other in New Jersey led by Richard Rounsavell. Notice the different spelling. The Genealogy\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s authors found that descendants of the Massachusetts family tended to use the \u201a\u00c4\u00f2-evell\u201a\u00c4\u00f4 spelling, while the New Jersey family used \u201a\u00c4\u00f2-savell.\u201a\u00c4\u00f4 But there is certainly no hard and fast rule. I often see the Rounsavil spelling as well as Rounsavel. For the rest of this article, I will generally use the spelling Rounsavell, except in certain cases, like references to author Brian Rounsavill.<\/p>\n To add to the confusion, sometimes the same Richard was identified as Richard Sr. and sometimes as Richard Jr. The terms Sr. and Jr., as used in the 18th<\/sup> century, did not necessarily mean a father-son relationship. It simply meant there were two men of the same name in the same vicinity, and that one was older than the other. In this case, however, the references are definitely to fathers and sons. Families persistently reused given names from generation to generation, and that was very much the case with this family. There were five succeeding Richard Rounsavells in Hunterdon County.<\/p>\n If we consider Hopewell Township as part of Hunterdon County, which it was until the mid 19th<\/sup> century, then the Rounsavells surely count as among the earliest settlers in the county. Richard, his wife Hannah and their very young children came to Hopewell from Southampton, Long Island in 1701 or 1702, when very few settlers were present.<\/p>\n In 1687, Richard Rounsavell listed as a proprietor and inhabitant of Stratford, Connecticut. It is thought that he had immigrated to Connecticut from the southwest of England. The Rounsavell Genealogy does not provide definitive evidence of Richard Rounsavell\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s origins, but by process of collecting circumstantial evidence and then eliminating what did not fit, the authors concluded that the immigrant Richard was born March 12, 1658, and christened in Padstow, Cornwall on March 22, 1658. He was the twelfth child of Roger Rounsevall and Mary Warne, and grandson of Richard (1574-1658) and Jane Rounsevall. Richard Rounsavel came to Stratford, Connecticut around 1680, and received a town lot there in January 1685.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Stratford, Connecticut did not suit Rounsavell. Sometime between 1687 (his last record in Stratford) and 1698 he moved to Southampton, Long Island.4<\/a><\/sup> It was in 1698 that Richard and his wife Hannah were present with their two children, Richard and Martha, according to a list of inhabitants of Wickapogue, in which Richard\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s name was spelled \u201a\u00c4\u00faRounsifull.\u201a\u00c4\u00f95<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n In 1701 or 1702, Richard and Hannah Rounsavell and their first two children, moved again, this time to Hopewell Township, New Jersey, which was then in the county of Burlington. (Hunterdon County was not created until 1713\/14.) This made the Rounsavell family among the earliest settlers in what became Hunterdon County.6<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Richard Rounsavell was one of the 38 signers of an agreement with Daniel Coxe to settle the disputed land titles in Coxe\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s Hopewell tract. The agreement is dated August 26, 1703, which is after the date of Rounsavell\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s inventory on March 10, 1703. Does that mean that the agreement was not dated until everyone had signed it? No, it means that the date March 10, 1703 was given in Old Style, in which the year did not begin until March 25th<\/sup>. Therefore, the agreement was signed by the elder Richard Rounsavell in 1703, and he died the following year in February 1704. His will was recorded on April 28, 1704.<\/p>\n As you can see, the move to Hopewell Township did Richard Rounsavell little good. Soon after arriving, on February 5, 1703, he wrote his will, naming his wife Hannah the sole executrix of his \u201a\u00c4\u00favisible estate\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 and referring to three (unnamed) children. The will was witnessed by Daniel Howell, Samuel Davis and Alexander Lockhart.7<\/a><\/sup> The three children were most likely Richard (1690-1775), Martha (c.1697) and Benjamin (c.1700-1778).<\/p>\n In his will, Rounsavell wrote \u201a\u00c4\u00fato my well beloved wife, Hannah to care and look after my children to cherish and chastise them.\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 She had to do more than that\u201a\u00c4\u00eeshe had to deal with the estate, having been named sole executrix. But a widow with young children to care for must have needed help from her neighbors. Sadly, after the will was proved in 1704, there are no further estate papers or guardianships, and nothing is known of what happened to Hannah. She may have re-married but there is no record of that. If she did not re-marry, the minor children may have been assigned a guardian, as was generally the practice in the 18th century, but there is no record of that either in the New Jersey Archives Abstracts of Wills & Estates.<\/p>\n Of the three children of Richard and Hannah Rounsavell, only one came to live on the Cook Proprietary Tract, and that was Richard, born about 1695 (often identified as Sr.).<\/p>\n The eldest son Richard was only about 9 years old when his father died. Presumably he remained with his mother in Hopewell, at least for a time. He became acquainted with the Bogart family of Amwell, who had moved there from New York sometime before 1714, or at least one particular member of it. On April 3, 1718, he married Rebecca Bogart, 18-year-old daughter of Cornelius Bogart and Cornelia Delmater.8<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n The couple\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s first child, Mary, was born on October 12, 1719 and was christened at the Harlingen Dutch Reformed Church on April 13, 1728. This was actually the town of Harlingen now in Somerset County.9<\/a><\/sup> The second child, Benjamin Rounsavell, was born April 14, 1721, followed by daughter Hannah on January 12, 1723, and daughter Jane on October 24, 1727. The next child, named Richard (often identified as \u201a\u00c4\u00faJr.\u201a\u00c4\u00f9), was born April 19, 1734, followed by daughter Rebeccah on April 19, 1739, and lastly, son Henry born on June 26, 1744.10<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Son Benjamin took up residence in Readington and Kingwood Townships, and later moved to Virginia (now West Virginia). The youngest son Henry took up residence in Amwell Township, where he lived his entire life. It appears that his farm was near his brother Richard\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s, but he managed to avoid being recorded. In 1773 his father Richard bequeathed him 100 acres bordering Edward Taylor and John Young, which puts him in the Cook Proprietary Tract, and he was taxed in Amwell on 100 acres in 1780, and on 102 acres in 1786. Henry married Elizabeth Clara Heath (c.1760-1818), daughter of David Heath and Mary Worthington, on March 15, 1781 at St. Andrews Church in Amwell. They had seven children, from 1782 to 1794, but none of them settled on Henry\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s farm. He does not appear in the index of Hunterdon County deeds, and he did not record a will. Perplexing.<\/p>\n Since this article concerns the Cook Proprietary Tract, I will focus instead on the other Rounsavell who settled there, Henry\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s brother Richard iii. Research into his life can be confusing, because he and his father were both referred to as Richard, Jr. in some documents. To keep things straight, the Richard Rounsavell Sr. (c.1695-1775) who first moved to Amwell Township will be referred to as Richard ii and his son Richard (1734-1777) will be Richard iii in this article.11<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n The earliest record of Richard Rounsavell ii\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s residence in Hunterdon County is dated 1724 when he was elected a Constable.12<\/a><\/sup> This was a position of some stature, which says much about how Rounsavell comported himself as a young man. He was only about 25 years old when elected.<\/p>\n But where were Richard and his family living? It is possible the Rounsavell family were still living in Hopewell Township. But they clearly made some trips to Readington in the 1730s and may have been living there by 1741, as Richard\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s brother Benjamin Rounsavall (c.1700-1778) was a well-documented resident there. On April 23, 1732, Richard and Rebecca Bogart Rounsavell had their son Henry christened at the Reformed Church of Readington Township, and in 1741, Richard was listed as a freeholder of the town and eligible for jury duty.13<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\nRichard Rounsavell and Family<\/h3>\n
The First Richard Rounsavell<\/h3>\n
Family of Richard and Rebecca Bogart Rounsavell<\/h4>\n
The Rounsavells Move to Amwell<\/h3>\n