Hardyston memorial : a history of the township and the North Presbyterian Church, Hardyston, Sussex County, New Jersey

Contents

CHAPTER. PAGE.

J. Indian Inhabitants and Pioneer Settlers 7

II. Some Early Settlers and their Families - 25

Preface

The purpose in preparing this volume has been to place in durable form such incidents of history belonging to the Town and the North Church of llardyston as might be of interest to those now living, as well as of value for future reference. The work is necessarily imperfect, for only what is remembered can be recorded, and many tilings deserving of notice have passed from memory. It is a matter of regret that the effort was not sooner made. ( )ur aged people have been rapidly passing away and much that might have been gathered even twenty years ago is lost. With gleanings from all available sources it is believed that the main facts of local history have been secured and are truthfully presented.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to kind friends for the generous aid they have given in the compilation of the work.

Chapter I. Indian Inhabitants And First Settlers

When the first settlers came to these regions they found them already in possession of a race of men known to us as the American Indians, whose origin has given rise to much discussion among civilized people. Some have thought them indigenous to the land, and others that they emigrated from the old world over both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, or came down by way of Greenland, or by Behring straits to Alaska. They have peculiarities which mark them as a distinct race. Their features and habits were such that they cannot be allied with any other type of men, but remain separate by themselves. Had adventerous crews or stranded ships brought their progenitors here, hundreds and even thousands of years ago, resemblances could have been traced to the inhabitants of the old world, whether they came from eastern Asia, western Europe, or Africa.

That they had been very numerous, we judge from thei1* sepulchers which are often invaded by the spade of the excavator. Where the plow turns the soil, we find every year, the stone implements and flint arrow-heads of a prehistoric age. These are the principal Indian relics that remain to us. They are so abundant and are found in so many localities as to prove the number and general diffusion of the old inhabitants. These stone implements are of great variety and some of exquisite finish. They are made of honestone, jasper, chalcedony and flint. They are adapted to warlike, hunting and fishing purposes, as well as to the requirements of common life. There are arrow and lance heads, axes, some of which are grooved for handles, knives, hammer stones, pestals and mortars. The chisels and gouges were used in peeling bark from trees, and shaping the wood for purposes in which it was employed. Their pipes were of various forms,

O 1IARDYSTON MEMORIAL.

beautifully polished, the bore being true, and they were fitted to a wooden stem which was ornamented.

The mound builders were evidently a more cultivated people who subsisted largely upon the products of the soil. The modern Indians, when first discovered, were to some extent agricultural. They protected their villages by stockades and ditches, and were expert in many industrial pursuits. Their mats and baskets, their fishing nets and feather cloaks, have long disappeared. They had ornaments and beads, and belts decorated with wampum, made with great skill and perseverance.

It has been customary to speak of the Indian as the untutored savage. The habits of the Indians were different from our own, but suited to the forest life they led. From the narrations of those who lived with them, as the boys captured and adopted into their tribes and afterwards released, we may believe that their lodges were abodes of happiness and, according to their primitive tastes, even of comfort. To suppose that they were so inferior to white men as to have no refinement of sentiment and attraction in character and bearing, would be a great mistake. They were without a written language, but by certain marks and pictured signs could convey news of victories and losses, and the numbers of their own forces and of their enemies on a campaign. They had their legends in poetic form, which they committed to memory and handed down from generation to generation, and sang around their fires. But they had no Homer to gather these legends and clothe them in immortal verse, and tell of some Indian Achilles or Hector of undying fame.

The language of the Delawares was said, by those who understood and could appreciate it, to have been poetic and beautiful. Their young braves were handsome. Their old chiefs were venerable in appearance. The young were tall, erect, and moved with gracefulness. They were agile and skillful in capturtng the game with which the woods abounded and upon which they largely fed. The fish were abundant in the streams and lakes, and were taken with bone hooks, or speared at night, when they were attracted to the water's surface by the waving of flaming torches. The whites learned lessons in hunting and fishing from the Indians, and made

INDIAN INHABITANTS AMD FIRST SETTLERS. 9

good use of the wood craft they derived from them. Our baskets of oak splints are some of them still made upon their old patterns. The Indians raised corn, pumpkins, squashes, beans, and other vegetables, around their lodges. These were cultivated by their squaws and the smaller boys, while the men prided themselves on their prowess as hunters and trappers. They planted orchards of apple, plum and cherry trees. In my boyhood there were Indian orchards still bearing fruit in old age, and some of their descendants may still be found, where a native specimen stands by itself without mixture with those of European origin. Fifty years ago there were in this neighborhood several flats called " plum bottoms,'' that produced the red Indian fruit in great profusion. The Indians had several varieties of cherries. The berries were mostly growing wild, although the red raspberries seems to have been planted and cultivated by them. The government of the Indians may be described as simple and patriarchal, and the chiefs exercised their authority for the good of all the tribe. The sentiment of exact justice prevailed, and harmony and good feeling were preserved.

The Lenni-Lenapi, called Delawares, from living in the regions adjoining the Delaware River, are the Indians with whom our immediate territory had the most to do. In many respects they are the most interesting of the Indian tribes known to us, from their historical legends and their intercourse with the early settlers. If the historian Palfrey gives a correct view of the Indians of New England, our Delawares were vastly their superiors. Their language has been pronounced the most expressive of all the Indian tongues. They claimed to have been the earliest comers of all the Algonquin tribes, and were called the grandfathers of the nations. They were naturally of a peaceful disposition, and often the arbitrators between the tribes at war.

One remarkable tradition of the Lenni-Lenapi survives, and we may regard it as their traditional account of the subjugation and expulsion of the race known to us as the " Mound Builders,"" whose gigantic works extend along the entire length of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and are found at points in the Middle States.

" Hundreds of years ago," they said, " they resided in a far away country toward the West. As they journeyed toward the sun, they found the country east of the Mississippi possessed by a people, the Allegewi, who had many large towns. A great war ensued, in which the Allegewi were defeated and fled down the Mississippi, and the Lenni-Lenapi occupied their country in common with the Iroquois, or Six Nations, who had followed them from the far West."

They had three divisions or great clans, known by their emblems of the wolf, the turtle, and the turkey, which are still distinguished and held by the little surviving remnant now in the far off Indian Territory.

Previous to the coming of white men the Delawarcs had greatly decreased in numbers, and many a village fire had gone out never to be re-lighted. Great wars had thinned the ranks of their braves and spread desolation through their forest homes. Diseases, some of which had been introduced by Europeans, spread among them and swept away many thousands. These epidemics were beyond the power of their simple remedies to check. The weakness of the Indians, and the naturally peaceful and inoffensive disposition of the Delawares, were favorable to the settlement of Northern New Jersey. They manifested a friendly disposition toward the new comers. With their own numbers small and the land so wide, they were less jealous of intrusion than if they had been more numerous and required the whole country for their own occupation. They made liberal grants of land in exchange for very trifling sums. The early settlers purchased of them sites for their homes, and built their cabins without much fear ; they pursued game on the Indian hunting grounds, and fished in their waters, visited them in their villages, and received their visits in return.

The Missionary, David Brainerd, from 1742 to the close of his labors, passed among them in his long tours unmolested. The Dutch settlers were living in amity with them at their first settlement upon the upper Delaware as far back as 1680, when they journeyed inland from the Hudson River. We have some accounts of the massacre of whites and torture of captives, but they were liot usual, and the atrocities of King Phillip's war in New England, found no counterpart in the conflicts of very early times along our border. Our ancestors suffered most from Indian depredations during the old French war, when the Indians were invited to massacre and plunder by the emissaries of a civilized nation. So, too, during the Revolutionary war, the British officers employed Indians in their murderous work, and disguised Tories led them in marauding expeditions. That the improper conduct of the whites sometimes provoked to retaliation and bloodshed, does not fix any special ferocity upon those whose soil was invaded, and who, as the whites multiplied, might well be alarmed lest their homes should soon be entirely lost to them. We read that, in 1774, an unprovoked invasion of the Indian country was made by a party of land hunters. Without cause the Delaware Chief, Bald Eagle, was killed, scalped, and his body set adrift in his own canoe on the river. The celebrated chief Logan, whose family had been ruthlessly murdered, led on parties of the Delawares and Shawnees to terrible reprisals. The Indians were said to have been revengeful, but how were the whites ? Tom Quick, called the Indian slayer, and avenger of the Delaware, was said to have slain ninety-nine of them in revenge for his father's death, and to have only regretted that he could not make the number an even hundred.

The great superiority of the white man was in the possession of the axe and the rifle. The woodman's axe found no competitor among their stone hatchets. A white man could clear his ground, cut and hew his logs and build his cabin — a more enduring structure — in shorter time than they could cut their poles and roof their wigwams. Firearms were deadly instruments against the Indians. In the chase they gave the white man the superiority in killing game, which grew scarcer with the greater slaughter of animals. In battle the Indians had little hope of success if victory must be won against firearms with only bow and spear. They learned, however, to make their attacks and draw the white man's fire, and then rush upon him before he could reload, and overcome him by force of numbers. The whites in emergency learned to hold their fire, and often by merely pointing at the Indians kept them at bay. We read of the Indian atrocities which are on record, but we have not the full statement of the more frequent acts of injustice and cruelty, perpetrated by the whites upon the Indians. They were doomed to pass away when the first settlers were permanently established, and the process began when our fathers landed and followed their trails along the streams and over the hills. We tread upon their graves and plow among their bones, but have lost the story of their lives.

The Indian population among our Sussex hills was sparse at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and became more so as many withdrew into the Susquehanna country, or passed on into Ohio, abandoning many of their settlements. Yet there were scattered communities and a few families that long remained, and traces of their blood may be seen in the complexion and features of some of the mixed race yet living among us. The Indians often tamely submitted to oppression with a forbearance white men never exercised, although they would nourish revenge and sometimes rise in resistance and strike back deadly blow^.

Edsall says in his Sussex County Centennial Address : " No difficulties with the red men are of record before 1755, or have been handed down by tradition. The settlers purchased their lands and dealt equitably with the Indians and were accorded privileges of hunting and fishing." Although in general on good terms with the aborigines, the settlers felt the necessity of guarding against treachery, and took precautions against hostile surprises. They placed their houses in proximity, and cut loopholes for musketry in the log walls. Sometimes they stockaded about their homes. Women and boys, as well as men, were practiced in the use of the rifle, and often exercised their skill effectively against wild beasts, as well as in preparation for the Indians.

In very early times Sussex county was a favorite huntingground for the Indians, and was mostly covered with a dense forest. As by war and pestilence the tribes diminished in numbers, the game multiplied for the survivors, who found here all that delights the heart of the red hunter. Among

INDIAN INHABITANTS AND FIRST SETTLERS. L3

the birds were geese, clucks, wild turkeys, pigeons, partridges and quail. The deer were so plentiful as to furnish a common supply of Indian food. Fish abounded in the lakes and streams, and were taken with bene hooks or in nets. Oposum, otters and beavers were often killed. The beavers were particularly hunted for their furs, and after white men came, the beaver skin became a great article of commerce.

The first white settlers were greatly troubled by beasts of prey. Panthers, bears, wildcats and wolves, dwelt in the woods, and often prowled around the settlers' homes, killing sheep and calves, and even threatening men. Hunters were compelled to keep their fires burning all night when they bivouaced on the mountains. Wolf scalps or heads were nailed on the outside of many a cabin, a pleasing exhibition of the hunter's success in the chase after these ravagers. The destruction caused by a single wolf, or a pair of wolves, for they generally went in pairs, in one night among a flock of sheep would be fearful. The old wolves became exceedingly cunning to escape pursuit or to avoid the traps set for them, and the she wolves when they had young were the fiercest and most ravenous. The American gray wolf was nearly four feet long, with a bushy tail of eighteen or twenty inches. Some overgrown specimens might have been even larger. Although about the same height and length as the European wolf, the American was more muscular and had more powerful jaws. The general color was a grey, with some much lighter than others.

Sometimes a great hunt would be organized for the destruction of a single wolf, which had broken into some sheep fold. The hunters surrounded a large district, or a mountain side, within which they supposed the wolf was lurking and then came in closer and closer until he was found. "Wolves are afraid of fire, and of the human eye, and seldom attack men. Large bounties were paid for killing wolves. In 1730 the New Jersey Legislature passed " An act to encourage the killing of wolves and panthers." A reward of twenty shillings was paid for every wolf's head to the slayer ; five shillings for every whelp of a wolf that cannot prey ; and for every panther fifteen shillings.

In 1751 an amendment to this act was passed. The preamble says, " Whereas it is found by experience that said act is not a sufficient encouragement for the killing of wolves," and the amendment provided, that " the further sum of forty shillings shall be paid for every wolf killed, and five shillings for every whelp of a wolf, over and above the allowance in the first act."

December, 1807, the flock of Thomas Lawrence, of Hamburg, was invaded by wolves and a number of sheep killed.

As late as 1820 twenty dollars were paid for a wolf's scalp ; and boys who could handle a gun received two dollars for each of the wild cat's heads they brought to the Justice of the Peace. The " Squire '' cut off the ears and gave the slayer a certificate entitling him to draw his money. Wolves were on Snufftown mountain in the recollection of men now living who can recall their howling at night.

Black bears were formerly quite numerous. They seldom attacked a man, but when standing on the defensive, would tear the dogs with their claws when they ventured near enough to be caught, or squeeze them to death with their paws. They would sometimes come into the corn fields and devour the green corn. With their sharp claws they could very quickly climb the largest trees. Bears meat was highly esteemed by the settlers.

In 1818 Peter Shafer killed a bear and three cubs in a clump of trees, not far from the big rock, in the Wallkill, below the Haines House. Near 1823 two bears were killed in the vicinity of Monroe Corner and the meat was divided among the families. Still later a bear was discovered on the James Scott place in the early morning by a man who was very much frightened at seeing him emerge from a hollow. The man ran back and gave the alarm. Scott's boys and others joined in the pursuit but were unsuccessful. The latest bear killed in these parts was found in Wawayanda mountain about 1860, and his skin was made into a lap robe.

Deer were so plentiful in olden time that they formed a common food for the Indians. Fifty years ago they were killed upon the mountain about Oak Ridge. A herd of deer was also hunted on the Blue mountain on the line of the Hamburg and Milford turnpike road within a much more recent period. Very frequently they would come down from Pike county, and swim the Delaware, or cross upon the ice to reach our Sussex mountains. In 1836 vension was eaten from a deer, shot within a few miles of Hamburg.

The Indians had much skill in smoking and dressing for preservation the skins of the animals they slew, and especially in preparing the buck-skin of which to a large extent their clothing was made. The furs of different animals were spread in their wigwams, or covered the dried grass of which their beds were made.

The most venomous serpents were the rattlesnakes. These abounded in some localities and were objects of dread. Yet it is wonderful, that in proportion to their numbers and power for mischief, these reptiles destroyed so few of the lives of the early settlers.

The men sometimes stripped bark from young white ash trees and tied it about their legs when they went upon surveying parties, or were working in places where they were much exposed. The rattlesnakes, it is said, would avoid the white ash, and if they did strike, their fangs could not penetrate beyond the bark.

Immigrant families as they went through the woods in search of their new homes sometimes drove before them their swine, who were very ravenous in devouring the snakes, and because of the fat under their skin, suffered very little when they were bitten.

The Indian dwellings were huts, called wigwams. The frame was made by driving poles into the ground and bending them over until they came together at the top. They were bound in their places by cords of hemp or thongs of leather. Stakes were driven to form the sides, and the roof was of bark.

The early settlers had very primitive structures, but these were great improvements upon those of the Indians. They felled trees and scored them for the walls of their cabins, using: often the bark of chestnut trees for roofing. Afterwards shingles were split out of red oak trees, or pines when they could be found ; but for want of nails, slabs were frequently substituted. The doors were hung without iron hinges, and the window, if any, was unglazed. One room constituted the house.

After a little time the capacit}7 of their dwellings was doubled, by putting a second house close by, and near enough to have' one roof cover both, leaving a passage-way between. Sometimes this was wide enough for the storing of the farm implements or even the running in of a wagon. The doors [being opposite, the access was easy from one room to another. These were called double houses and saddle-bag houses. My grandmother described them as common in her youth. In such a house lived Peter Coulter, and the Itutans, and the Perry family towards Vernon sixty or seventy years ago. John McCoy lived in such a house on the bank of the Papakating creek. There were no saw mills, here at the erection of the earliest frame houses, and all the sawed lumber had to be hauled from a distance of many miles.

The last log house in the village of Hamburg was the Sam Sidman house, with two rooms and two chimneys, standing near the site of Colonel Kemble's barn.

The Indians cracked their corn in mortars with a pestle. The mortal's were sometimes made of stone but more frequently of some hard wood which would not split. For this they chose the gum tree or sweet balsam. Acquackanunck was so called by them, meaning (lie place of gum blocks. The pestle or pounder was of stone, which varied in length and weight. The whites were often obliged to do as the Indians before they had mills. Some old families have the stone pounders which were in use a hundred years ago by their ancestors, and which they received from the Indians.

Previous to 1700 families of Hugenots, driven from France upon the revocation of the edict of Xantz, and exiled from Holland, had settled on the Hudson at the mouth of the Wallkill at Esopus, or Kingston. By penetrating into the country they reached the mouth of the Navarsink where another colony was formed. The name they gave the river testifies to the nationality of the settlers who conferred it, and who where once inhabitants of Navarre in France. So too, the name of our principal stream, the Wallkill river, which was named by the Holland settlers after the river Waal in the Low Lands. So Wallabout bay, Brooklyn Navy Yard, was named from the Waaloons, farmers from Holland. The

INDIAN INHABITANTS AND FIRST SETTLEKS. 17

Xavasink Colony sent some of its families over the Kittatinny mountain to find their homes in our part of the Wallkill Valley. Then from Kingston, by a more direct route following up the Wallkill, families of Huguenots and Hollanders strayed into this vicinity where they established themselves.

The French and Dutch names still linger here, aud are borne by some of our families. Of these some retain the original spelling and pronunciation, and others may be recognized in somewhat corrupted form. Thus we find names of French origin testifying to their Huguenot descent ; among whom we may place La Fountain, Ballou, Chardavoyne, Bevier, L'Hommedieu, Roy, &c.

In a letter written from Quebec by M. de Denonville to the French Minister, dated 16th Nov., 1686, the writer says: "The same man from Manat told me that within a short time fifty or sixty men, Huguenots, arrived there from the Island of St. Christopher and Martinique, who are establishing themselves at Manat and its environs. I know that some have arrived at Boston from France. There again, are people to operate as Banditti," [Documentary History X. Y. 1: 225.] Some of these were ancestors of our people.

In 1700 there were few if any white settlers in the territory of Sussex county except in the Minisink region bordering upon the Delaware River. They are said to have gone there in search of minerals. A road had been constructed from Pahaquarry to Esopus, a distance of one hundred miles. It was the earliest work of any considerable length constructed by Europeans in North America. It is still a thoroughfare and remains an enduring monument cf the enterprise of the hardy Hollanders. [See Edsall's Centennial Address.]

The Minisink region forms parts of New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It includes the townships of Montague, Walpack and Sandyston in our county. When Wantage extended to the Delaware river it embraced a portion of the Minisink country. It was called by the Indians the country of the " Minsies," or separate people, because long before they separated from the Indians at Columbia and Belvidere, and passed by way of the

Indian Ladder through the Water Gap to the other side of the Pohoqualin Mountain, which is a part of our Kittatinny or Blue Mountain.

In 1682 and succeeding years, while New Jersey was under a Quaker Governor, many persecuted Presbyterians came from Scotland to New Jersey and found their way in time to the northern part of the province. About 1730, families of English origin began to arrive in our vicinity. Some of these came from Massachusetts Bay Colony, some from Connecticut, and others from Long Island by way of Amboy and Elizabethtown. The proprietors of New Jersey encouraged immigration, with a desire to enhance the value of their lands, and held out inducements to settlers by making grants of land on easy terms.

In David Brainard's diary, S May, 1744, he writes, "Travelled about forty-five miles to a place called Fishkill, and lodged there. Spent much of my time, while riding, in prayer that God would go with me to the Delaware. My heart was sometimes ready to sink with the thoughts of my work, and going alone in the wilderness, I knew not where." He crossed the Hudson, and went to Goshen in the Highlands ; and so travelled across the woods, from the Hudson to the Delaware, about a hundred miles, through a desolate and hideous country above New Jersey where were very few settlements ; in which journey he suffered much fatigue and hardship. He visited some Indians in the way, at a place called Minisink, and discoursed with them concerning Christianity. "Was m elan ch oily and disconsolate, being alone in a strange wilderness. On Saturday, May 12, came to a settlement of Irish and Dutch people, and proceeding about twelve miles further arrived at Sakhauwotung, an Indian settlement [near Easton] within the Forks of the Delaware," "28 May. Set out from the Indians above the Forks of the Delaware, on a journey towards Newark, in New Jersey, according to my orders. Rode through the wilderness ; was much fatigued with the heat ; lodged at a place called Black River [now Chester, Morris Co.]; was exceedingly tired and worn out." "17 Feb. 1745. Preached to the white people in the wilderness [somewhere in Warren Co.], upon the sunny side of a hill ; had a considerable assembly, consisting

INDIAN INHABITANTS AND FIRST SETTLERS. ID

of people who lived, at least many of them, not less than thirty miles asunder ; some of them came near twenty miles."

Smith describes Sussex Co., 1765, or twenty years later, as "a frontier, uot much improved and having but few inhabitants," while the act of 1768 giving Sussex the right to representation in the Legislature, says, "Whereas, the counties of Morris, Cumberland and Sussex are now become very populous, &c." When the Provincal authorities in 1709 defined the Ixmndaries of West Jersey, they included the territory of Sussex within the limits of Burlington. When Hunterdon was formed in 1713 we belonged to that county ; when Morris, in 1738, we were included within its bounds. The Provincial Legislature by enactment, Sth June, 1753, established the county of Sussex. The name was given by Governor Jonathan Belcher in compliment to the Duke of New Castle, whose family seat was in Sussex Count}7, England. Some English miners from Sussex, England, had also opened an iron mine at Andosrer, which they called the Sussex mine. Walpack and New-Town Townships embraced nearly all of the present territory of our county until Wantage was formed from New-Town, May, 1751. Ilardyston from New-Town, 1762. Ilardyston was named for Josiah Hardy, who was Governor of New Jersey, 1761-1763. It included the present townships of Vernon and Sparta. Vernon was set off from it in 1792, and Sparta in 1845.

When in 1738 Morris county was erected, the northern part of New Jersey began to attract attention. This region from a remote period had been the favorite residence of the Indians, but the migration to hunting grounds more remote made their population sparse. The wise policy of the Proprietors of East New Jersey, under whom we now came after the county's erection, greatly promoted its early settlement. Representations of the great fertility of the lands, the abundance of game, the fewness of the Indians, and the many other inducements offered, were freely circulated, and adventurous sons of the first European settlers, as well as many new comers, turned their faces northward. The tide of immigration flowed in until the people in 1750 petitioned the Provincial Authorities to form a new county, and relieve them from the inconvenience and expense of attending the courts at Morristown. The Assembly, 8th June, 1753, passed " An act for erecting the upper part of Morris county, in Is ew Jersey, into a separate county to be called the county of Sussex, and for building a Court House and goal." The first court of justice was held November, 1753, in Jonathan Pettit's house in Ilardwick, near where Johnsonsburg now is, and in which vicinity the "Log Goal" was built. The courts continued here until February, 1756, when they were ordered to be held in New-Town. Henry Harelocker was a Hollander, who built a log cabin on the site of Newton, on lands of Jonathan Hampton, about the year 1750. There was not another cabin for miles around in any direction. The question of location for the Court House was under discussion. The courts had been held in Ilardwick near Log Jail, now Johnsonsburg ; Stillwater put forth strong claims for the selection ; but the act of Assembly, 1761, directed the Court House to be erected upon the plantation occupied by Harelocker, doubtless through the influence of Jonathan Hampton who owned the land. Several pieces of ground in the vicinity were donated and sold, and other dwellings were put up. This was the beginning of Newton, which was long called Sussex Court House, and bore that name for four years after it was given a post office, from March 20th, 1793 to July 1st, 1707. The Indians called it the " Side Hill Town," Chinkchewunska, in their language.