themify domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init 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 6114Among the first settlers of Hunterdon County, in \u201a\u00c4\u00fathe Western Province of New Jersey\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 were Samuel Green and his family. Samuel Green was my ancestor, so of course I am interested in his history. The bonus for me is that his history gives me a way to learn about the earliest days of settlement here. <\/span><\/p>\n So, this is the first of what is likely to be many posts on Samuel Green and his descendants. And I must ask the indulgence of my readers for the side trips I plan to take into West Jersey history, especially the history of settlement, but also of politics, which is so often intertwined with land development.<\/span><\/p>\n Green was a surveyor who managed to acquire vast tracts of land in Amwell Township soon after Indian land purchases were made and surveys were first permitted to the West Jersey proprietors. It is not at all clear how Samuel Green got all his land, for he neglected to record his deeds. This is odd, considering that, being a surveyor, he had to know how land conveyances were documented. It certainly makes it more difficult to learn about him while he was residing in Amwell Township, and before he got there. In fact, Samuel Green is particularly elusive in early New Jersey records.<\/p>\n I am going to try to piece some of the story together, but there will always be questions unanswered, starting with his parents.<\/p>\n Just giving Samuel Green a birth year is a challenge. It could be about 1675 or about 1685. Some researchers have dated his first marriage to 1694, which is how the earlier birth date comes about. But Henry Race, in his article “Greenland in New Jersey” [NNJHS Proceedings, Vol. XI], states that Samuel’s first child was born in 1705, which suggests a birthdate for Samuel Sr. closer to 1680-85. One of the mysteries of Samuel Green is the paucity of records for him prior to 1700, which also argues for a later birth date. For now, until something definitive turns up, I will use the date of c.1680.<\/p>\n Samuel Green’s parents have never been identified. Charles Opdycke speculated (in his Opdycke Genealogy, pg 215) that Green might be the son of Richard Green, an English Quaker, who arrived in Burlington in 1678 on the ship \u201a\u00c4\u00f2Shield\u201a\u00c4\u00f4 from Hull. The ‘Shield’ was only the fourth ship known to have delivered settlers to the Delaware River side of West New Jersey (if you disregard the earlier settlements by the Swedes and the Dutch). The first was the \u201a\u00c4\u00f2Kent,\u201a\u00c4\u00f4 carrying 230 passengers, which arrived at Raccoon Creek, and then at an island next to Burlington City about September 1677.<\/p>\n Two more ships arrived in October, and the \u201a\u00c4\u00f2Shield\u201a\u00c4\u00f4 arrived in December. Reuben Ely has written (in his genealogy of the Ely, Revell and Stacye families, pg 141) that the ‘Shield’ was “the first trans-Atlantic ship to travel so far” up the Delaware River, to the furthest point of tidewater. Apparently the earlier ships did not come up so far. Ely quoted Samuel Smith’s History of New Jersey describing how the ship had to tack back and forth because of headwinds, and found itself entangled in over-hanging trees at the place that eventually became the city of Philadelphia. But they did not have permission to settle there, so back across the river they went, arriving at Burlington.<\/p>\n Hard to imagine what life must have been like for these hardy people, arriving at a place that had no shelter for them, and, given the time of year, no source of food other than what could be hunted or gathered, or given to them by sympathetic Indians. It was so cold that they walked to shore on the ice. Fortunately, things improved greatly after the first settlements were established.<\/p>\n Some of the best known residents of West New Jersey were on board the ‘Shield’ with Richard Green: William Emley, Peter Fretwell, John and Thomas Lambert, Thomas Potts, Thomas Revel, Mahlon Stacy, and many others. Some of these passengers brought their families and servants. Richard Green came alone. Perhaps he found someone to marry among the children or servants of the other families. There is no way to know. There are hardly any records for this Richard Green after he arrived in Burlington, and the only estate recorded for a Richard Green in New Jersey prior to 1750 was for a second-generation Richard Green (more about him later).<\/p>\n The only land transaction I could find for a Richard Green in the NJA Calendar of Records involved a sale on June 18, 1682 by Francis Gilberthorp of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England to Richard Greene of the City of Gloucester, woolcomber, of a 1\/32 share in the Province of West New Jersey. It appears that Green immediately transferred this to Anna Salter, who sold it to John Cripps [WJP B2-520; A-23; B1-20]. Anna Salter was the widow of Henry Salter who had bought 10,000 acres in Salem County from John Fenwick in 1675, and died there in 1679. The widow Anna did a lot of buying and selling of property from 1681 to 1688 in Burlington Co. and Gloucester, as well as Salem. She died in Tacony, Pennsylvania in 1690. I could find no hint of a relationship between her and Richard Green.<\/p>\n A book on the deeds of West New Jersey compiled by John David Davis states that the Richard Green who bought the 1\/32 share from Francis Gilberthorp was “Late of Gloucester, Gloucester Co.” –England or West New Jersey? He doesn’t say, but since the town of Gloucester, NJ was not formed until 1685, I assume he meant England. But some family trees claim he was from Lincolnshire. Passengers who boarded the ‘Shield’ at Hull were generally from Yorkshire and traveled as a group. Lincolnshire is only a short distance south of Yorkshire.<\/p>\n Was Richard Green who bought a 1\/32 share in West New Jersey in 1682 the same as the Richard Green who sailed on the ‘Shield’ in 1678? It appears that his sale to Anna Salter had to take place near “Tawcony,” Pennsylvania because that was where she was living in 1682 [WJP B1-95]. Today, Tacony is in northern Philadelphia, across from Cinnaminson, between Camden and Burlington. Perhaps Green bought those shares from an agent of Gilberthorpe’s in New Jersey. And, by the way, why did Anna Salter buy any shares at all from Richard Green? She already had more than enough from her deceased husband Henry Salter. The more you know, the more you don’t know.<\/p>\n If Richard Green could purchase a 1\/32 share of a propriety, one would expect him to own other shares. But he does not appear on the list of proprietors compiled by Thomas Budd and published in John Pomfret’s The<\/span> Province of West New Jersey, 1609-1702<\/span>. But then, neither does Anna or Henry Salter. This calls for a trip to the N. J. Archives to see if there is any list of West Jersey proprietors later than Thomas Budd’s.<\/p>\n Of the group that arrived on the ‘Shield’ and the other early ships, some were from London and other locations in southern England, and a separate group came from Yorkshire in northern England. True to form, the London group settled south of Burlington City, and the Yorkshire group went north, following Mahlon Stacy who built the first grist mill at Trenton. If Richard Green came with the Yorkshire people, he probably settled north of Burlington also.<\/p>\nSamuel Green\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s Origins<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
Richard Green, Proprietor?<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n