East Jersey was totally different in its topography from West Jersey.
The northern half of the State is a region of mountains and lakes. As
part of the original continent it had been under the ice sheet of
the glacial age and was very unlike the level sands, swamps, and pine
barrens of West Jersey which had arisen as a shoal and island from the
sea. The only place in East Jersey where settlement was at all easy was
along the open meadows which were reached by water near the mouth of the
Hudson, round Newark Bay, and along the Hackensack River.
The Dutch, by the discoveries of Henry Hudson in 1609, claimed the whole
region between the Hudson and the Delaware. They settled part of East
Jersey opposite their headquarters at New York and called it Pavonia.
But their cruel massacre of some Indians who sought refuge among them at
Pavonia destroyed the prospects of the settlement. The Indians revenged
themselves by massacring the Dutch again and again, every time they
attempted to reestablish Pavonia. This kept the Dutch out of East Jersey
until 1660, when they succeeded in establishing Bergen between Newark
Bay and the Hudson.
The Dutch authority in America was overthrown in 1664 by Charles II,
who had already given all New Jersey to his brother the Duke of York.
Colonel Richard Nicolls commanded the British expedition that seized the
Dutch possessions; and he had been given full power as deputy governor
of all the Duke of York's vast territory.
Meantime the New England Puritans seem to have kept their eyes on East
Jersey as a desirable region, and the moment the Connecticut Puritans
heard of Nicolls' appointment, they applied to him for a grant of a
large tract of land on Newark Bay. In the next year, 1665, he gave them
another tract from the mouth of the Raritan to Sandy Hook; and soon the
villages of Shrewsbury and Middletown were started.
Meantime, however, unknown to Nicolls, the Duke of York in England had
given all of New Jersey to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. As has
already been pointed out, they had divided the province between
them, and East Jersey had fallen to Carteret, who sent out, with some
immigrants, his relative Philip Carteret as governor. Governor Carteret
was of course very much surprised to find so much of the best land
already occupied by the excellent and thrifty Yankees. As a consequence,
litigation and sometimes civil war over this unlucky mistake lasted for
a hundred years. Many of the Yankee settlers under the Nicolls grant
refused to pay quitrents to Carteret or his successors and, in spite of
a commission of inquiry from England in 1751 and a chancery suit, they
held their own until the Revolution of 1776 extinguished all British
authority.
There was therefore from the beginning a strong New England tinge in
East Jersey which has lasted to this day. Governor Carteret established
a village on Newark Bay which still bears the name Elizabeth, which
he gave it in honor of the wife of the proprietor, and he made it the
capital. There were also immigrants from Scotland and England. But
Puritans from Long Island and New England continued to settle round
Newark Bay. By virtue either of character or numbers, New Englanders
were evidently the controlling element, for they established the New
England system of town government, and imposed strict Connecticut laws,
making twelve crimes punishable with death. Soon there were flourishing
little villages, Newark and Elizabeth, besides Middletown and
Shrewsbury. The next year Piscatawa and Woodbridge were added. Newark
and the region round it, including the Oranges, was settled by very
exclusive Puritans, or Congregationalists, as they are now called,
some thirty families from four Connecticut towns--Milford, Guilford,
Bradford, and New Haven. They decided that only church members should
hold office and vote.
Governor Carteret ruled the colony with an appointive council and a
general assembly elected by the people, the typical colonial form of
government. His administration lasted from 1665 to his death in 1682;
and there is nothing very remarkable to record except the rebellion of
the New Englanders, especially those who had received their land from
Nicolls. Such independent Connecticut people were, of course, quite out
of place in a proprietary colony, and, when in 1670 the first collection
of quitrents was attempted, they broke out in violent opposition, in
which the settlers of Elizabeth were prominent. In 1672 they elected
a revolutionary assembly of their own and, in place of the deputy
governor, appointed as proprietor a natural son of Carteret. They
began imprisoning former officers and confiscating estates in the most
approved revolutionary form and for a time had the whole government in
their control. It required the interference of the Duke of York, of the
proprietors, and of the British Crown to allay the little tempest, and
three years were given in which to pay the quitrents.
After the death of Sir George Carteret in 1680, his province of East
Jersey was sold to William Penn and eleven other Quakers for the sum
of 3400 pounds. Colonies seem to have been comparatively inexpensive
luxuries in those days. A few years before, in 1675, Penn and some other
Quakers had, as has already been related, gained control of West Jersey
for the still smaller sum of one thousand pounds and had established
it as a Quaker refuge. It might be supposed that they now had the same
purpose in view in East Jersey, but apparently their intention was to
create a refuge for Presbyterians, the famous Scotch Covenanters,
much persecuted at that time under Charles II, who was forcing them to
conform to the Church of England.
Penn and his fellow proprietors of East Jersey each chose a partner,
most of them Scotchmen, two of whom, the Earl of Perth and Lord
Drummond, were prominent men. To this mixed body of Quakers, other
dissenters, and some Papists, twenty-four proprietors in all, the Duke
of York reconfirmed by special patent their right to East Jersey. Under
their urging a few Scotch Covenanters began to arrive and seem to have
first established themselves at Perth Amboy, which they named from
the Scottish Earl of Perth and an Indian word meaning "point." This
settlement they expected to become a great commercial port rivaling New
York. Curiously enough, Robert Barclay, the first governor appointed,
was not only a Scotchman but also a Quaker, and a theologian whose
"Apology for the True Christian Divinity" (1678) is regarded to this day
as the best statement of the original Quaker doctrine. He remained in
England, however, and the deputies whom he sent out to rule the colony
had a troublous time of it.
That Quakers should establish a refuge for Presbyterians seems at first
peculiar, but it was in accord with their general philanthropic plan to
help the oppressed and suffering, to rescue prisoners and exiles, and
especially to ameliorate the horrible condition of people confined in
the English dungeons and prisons. Many vivid pictures of how the Scotch
Covenanters were hunted down like wild beasts may be found in English
histories and novels. When their lives were spared they often met a
fate worse than death in the loathsome dungeons into which thousands of
Quakers of that time were also thrust. A large part of William Penn's
life as a courtier was spent in rescuing prisoners, exiles, and
condemned persons of all sorts, and not merely those of his own faith.
So the undertaking to make of Jersey two colonies, one a refuge for
Quakers and the other a refuge for Covenanters, was natural enough, and
it was a very broad-minded plan for that age.
In 1683, a few years after the Quaker control of East Jersey began, a
new and fiercer persecution of the Covenanters was started in the old
country, and shortly afterwards Monmouth's insurrection in England broke
out and was followed by a most bloody proscription and punishment. The
greatest efforts were made to induce those still untouched to fly for
refuge to East Jersey; but, strange to say, comparatively few of them
came. It is another proof of the sturdiness and devotion which has
filled so many pages of history and romance with their praise that as
a class the Covenanters remained at home to establish their faith with
torture, martyrdom, and death.
In 1685 the Duke of York ascended the throne of England as James II,
and all that was naturally to be expected from such a bigoted despot was
soon realized. The persecutions of the Covenanters grew worse. Crowded
into prisons to die of thirst and suffocation, shot down on the
highways, tied to stakes to be drowned by the rising tide, the whole
Calvinistic population of Scotland seemed doomed to extermination. Again
they were told of America as the only place where religious liberty was
allowed, and in addition a book was circulated among them called "The
Model of the Government of the Province of East Jersey in America."
These efforts were partially successful. More Covenanters came than
before, but nothing like the numbers of Quakers that flocked to
Pennsylvania. The whole population of East Jersey--New Englanders,
Dutch, Scotch Covenanters, and all--did not exceed five thousand and
possibly was not over four thousand.
Some French Huguenots, such as came to many of the English colonies
after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes of 1685, were added to the
East Jersey population. A few went to Salem in West Jersey, and some
of these became Quakers. In both the Jerseys, as elsewhere, they became
prominent and influential in all spheres of life. There was a decided
Dutch influence, it is said, in the part nearest New York, emanating
from the Bergen settlement in which the Dutch had succeeded in
establishing themselves in 1660 after the Indians had twice driven them
from Pavonia. Many descendants of Dutch families are still found in
that region. Many Dutch characteristics were to be found in that region
throughout colonial times. Many of the houses had Dutch stoops or
porches at the door, with seats where the family and visitors sat on
summer evenings to smoke and gossip. Long Dutch spouts extended out
from the eaves to discharge the rain water into the street. But the
prevailing tone of East Jersey seems to have been set by the Scotch
Presbyterians and the New England Congregationalists. The College of
New Jersey, afterward known as Princeton, established in 1747, was the
result of a movement among the Presbyterians of East Jersey and New
York.
All these elements of East Jersey, Scotch Covenanters, Connecticut
Puritans, Huguenots, and Dutch of the Dutch Reformed Church, were in
a sense different but in reality very much in accord and congenial
in their ideas of religion and politics. They were all sturdy,
freedom-loving Protestants, and they set the tone that prevails in East
Jersey to this day. Their strict discipline and their uncompromising
thrift may now seem narrow and harsh; but it made them what they were;
and it has left a legacy of order and prosperity under which alien
religions and races are eager to seek protection. In its foundation the
Quakers may claim a share.
The new King, James II, was inclined to reassume jurisdiction and extend
the power of the Governor of New York over East Jersey in spite of his
grant to Sir George Carteret. In fact, he desired to put New England,
New York, and New Jersey under one strong government centered at New
York, to abolish their charters, to extinguish popular government, and
to make them all mere royal dependencies in pursuance of his general
policy of establishing an absolute monarchy and a papal church in
England.
The curse of East Jersey's existence was to be always an appendage of
New York, or to be threatened with that condition. The inhabitants now
had to enter their vessels and pay duties at New York. Writs were issued
by order of the King putting both the Jerseys and all New England under
the New York Governor. Step by step the plans for amalgamation and
despotism moved on successfully, when suddenly the English Revolution
of 1688 put an end to the whole magnificent scheme, drove the King into
exile, and placed William of Orange on the throne.
The proprietaries of both Jerseys reassumed their former authority. But
the New York Assembly attempted to exercise control over East Jersey and
to levy duties on its exports. The two provinces were soon on the eve of
a little war. For twelve or fifteen years East Jersey was in disorder,
with seditious meetings, mob rule, judges and sheriffs attacked while
performing their duty, the proprietors claiming quitrents from the
people, the people resisting, and the British Privy Council threatening
a suit to take the province from the proprietors and make a Crown
colony of it. The period is known in the history of this colony as "The
Revolution." Under the threat of the Privy Council to take over the
province, the proprietors of both East and West Jersey surrendered their
rights of political government, retaining their ownership of land and
quitrents, and the two Jerseys were united under one government in 1702.
Its subsequent history demands another chapter.