Volume 1, Chapter 63, The Unification of the Jerseys
During the crisis years of the Glorious Revolution, both the jerseys at last rested peaceful and
content. The dominion bureaucracy had gone, and the respective sets of proprietors did
not dare to stir, lest their grants be revoked by the Crown. The dominion bureaucracy had
had gone, and the respective sets of proprietors did not dare to stir, lest their grants be
revoked by the Crown. They therefore decided not to impose any rule until the smoke had
cleared. Government in both colonies was local and purely minimal. Dr. Daniel Cox, court
physician and non-Quaker, had, before the onset of the Dominion, bought from Edward
Billing, the sole right to govern West New Jersey as well as the largest proprietary share
in that colony. He also held a much smaller share of the East New Jersey proprietorship.
Cox fought hard and successfully to prevent the lords of trade from annulling the charters
of the two Jerseys or from amalgamating them into New York and thereby converting them
In the spring of 1692, Cox sold all his rights and titles in the Jerseys to a group of non-Quaker
businessmen, the West New Jersey Society, for £9,800. The Society was owned by holders
of 1,600 shares of stock, issued at £10 each. Originally, the Society had 48 stockholders,
The most prominent being Sir Thomas Lane, who was to serve also as Lord Mayor of London.
We have already noted that the proprietors of East New Jersey had chosen the Scot, Andrew
Hamilton, to be Deputy Governor in 1687. After the dominion was imposed in 1688, Hamilton
returned to England and both the Jerseys remained without a central government until 1692. In
In that year, however, with the proprietor ships at least temporarily saved, both of
the Jerseys appointed Hamilton to be governor.
The first step toward unity of the two Jerseys had begun.
Hamilton took up his post in the far wealthier and more populous East New Jersey, of which
Perth Amboy was the capital, and appointed Edward Hunlock to be his deputy in West New
Jersey.
With the return of central and proprietary government came the return of turmoil and
conflict in the jerseys. Hamilton's guiding instruction was to begin once again to enforce
collections of the hated feudal quittrant. Fearful of attempts to submerge the jerseys
into New York, East New Jersey now made particular efforts to aid New York in attempting to prosecute
the War Against New France, and New York's Governor Fletcher expressed his gratitude
to Hamilton for the 400 pounds and the 65 men supplied. Despite the fact that the proprietors
of both colonies had been Quakers, the ethnic composition of the two Jerseys differed greatly.
East New Jersey was heterogeneous, comprising Dutch, Puritans from New England, and Scotsmen.
The Scots were mostly Presbyterians, not Quakers, despite the fact of Quaker proprietorship
during the years of their migration.
West New Jersey, on the other hand, was a poor, sparsely inhabited, predominantly Quaker
colony.
Despite the differences, Governor Hamilton had no difficulty in persuading the supposedly
The early pacifist Quaker Assembly of West New Jersey to join that of the East in voting
ample funds to help New York in the French War. As early as the year before, the West
Jersey Assembly had resolved that while the people of the colony could not bear arms or
participate in war, they could help defend the province, and in 1693 they voted 300 pounds
Hamilton voted £300 for the war effort. Paradoxically, Hamilton met the only resistance to his war plans in non-Quaker East New Jersey.
Hamilton wanted the colony to supply 30 soldiers for the war, but Speaker William Lawrence of the East Jersey Assembly forced him to cut the supply to 20.
However, £430 were raised for the war effort, more than matching the contribution of the year before.
Even so, Hamilton wrote apologetically to Fletcher that volunteers could not be raised,
and that he could only raise troops to send to New York in case of invasion,
and then only on condition that they would return as soon as the campaign was over.
Under Hamilton's aegis, the powers of the local governments over the people were greatly strengthened.
The counties were now authorized to levy taxes, to repay debts and to maintain jails.
The levies and appropriations were to be raised by the county judges, meeting with representatives
of each town in the county.
The townships were also authorized to impose the maintenance of government schools on all
taxpayers of the town, even on those opposing the idea.
Also the term of conscripted militiamen was lengthened.
Hamilton ran into trouble in 1694 trying to persuade the assembly to increase taxes in
order to pay salaries to himself and other government officials.
On the other hand, the Council vetoed the bill passed by the deputies raising their
own salaries, the Council pointing out that its members remained unpaid.
The quit-rent problem came to a head in 1695.
Dr. Richard Hartshorn was the leader of the popular opposition to Hamilton and his council.
Conflicts continued in succeeding years over Hamilton's demands for regular levying of
revenue for the government, as well as enforcement of the quit rent. Once again, Elizabeth Town,
joined by Newton and Shrewsbury, was in the forefront of the opposition. The landlords
When the courts took the quit-rent cases to the courts, and after the juries, in the words
of the proprietors, being all planters, gave a general verdict against their proprietors,
the judges arrogantly reversed the jury's decisions.
On appeal of the cases to England, the claims of the proprietors were, years later, rejected
by the Crown.
The proprietary claim to quitterance had been finally rejected.
As soon as the first of these cases had been so decided by the Crown in 1697, 65 citizens
of Elizabethtown immediately petitioned the King for an end to the tyrannical proprietary
government that persisted in exacting tribute for lands rightfully theirs.
At about this time, however, a grave new threat arose to plague the owners of landed property
in East Jersey.
An English court decided, on a technicality, that the land titles confirmed by former Governor
Cotterett had only been valid for life rather than in fee simple for perpetuity.
Hamilton now offered to reconfirm the absolute land titles, but only at the price of paying
In 1697, Andrew Hamilton was removed as governor in both jerseys. Under the general interpretation
of the Navigation Act of 1696, all Scotsmen were removed from positions of public trust
in the colonies. Hamilton was, therefore, replaced as governor of both jerseys by the
The former Baptist minister, Jeremiah Boss, who assumed his new post in early 1698. Boss,
even before his appointment, had come to be thoroughly hated in West New Jersey and the
other colonies. He had earned this ire as a former agent of Dr. Cox and the West New
Jersey Society and as an opponent of the colonies' violations of the navigation laws. The arch-tory
Inventory and inveterate enemy of the colonies, Edward Randolph, had come to the conclusion
that Scotsmen were particularly active as smugglers and merchants.
He therefore inserted a clause into the Navigation Act of 1696 to keep them out of public office
in the colonies.
Bass was known as one of Randolph's clique of prerogative men, and he schemed at London
to use the clause to oust Hamilton and obtain the post for himself.
At first, conflict between Baas and the people of East New Jersey was not widespread or intense.
The people and the proprietary were jointly engaged in another chapter of continual struggle
with New York, winning for Perth Amboy the right to be a free port, unhindered by New
York regulations.
Using the external dispute as a method of mobilizing support, Baas managed to induce
the assembly in the spring of 1699 to increase taxes sharply, with new taxes being levied
on a wide variety of property.
The new tax burdens stirred up widespread opposition in East New Jersey.
A Newark town meeting denounced the tax and warned that there was no guarantee that the
The money would be used for the announced purposes.
Anyway, there was clearly no danger of invasion from New York.
The Newark meeting resolved unanimously not to pay the new tax and to resist its collection.
Led by young Louis Morris II, a counselor and merchant, later Chief Justice of New York
and Governor of New Jersey, the towns of Newark, Elizabethtown, Perth-Amboy and Freehold joined
to protest to the proprietors against the rule of Boss. They also specifically attacked
a resolution of the lower house of the assembly praising the Boss administration. Morris indeed
had challenged Boss's rule from the beginning, denying the authority of the Boss-appointed
court. Fined for contempt, Morris managed to escape from prison. He continued relentlessly
to Challenge the Basis of Proprietary Rule, such rule, he asserted, was by persons who
really have not the right to govern. He also denounced the quit-rent as an unjust tax upon
us and our heirs forever.
Morris was now, in April 1699, charged by the Council with seditious assembly, with
with intent to subvert the laws and with malicious and reproachful words against Governor Boss.
In May, a grand jury indicted Morris, along with Surveyor General George Willex and Secretary
Thomas Gordon, for stirring up opposition in the towns to the taxes levied in March.
The next day, a large group from Elizabethtown attacked the jail holding Morris and the others
and Freed the Eminent Prisoners. Among the leaders of this revolutionary attack were
such well-known citizens as Justice Benjamin Price, Isaac Whitehead and Jonathan Ogden
Jr. By this time, Boss had left for England to discuss the dispute with New York. Andrew
Bowne now ruled as Deputy Governor. Shortly after their coerced release from prison, Morris
Thomas and Willex called on the council to yield, and send an armed sloop against Perth
Amboy, firing guns by way of defiance to the government.
Bowne and the assembly decided to order the suppression of the insurrection in the province,
but the assembly realized that virtually the whole province opposed the new taxes, and
the bulk of its members walked out in protest against them.
The only placid Bergen County was not in a state of rebellion.
With this kind of opposition in the assembly, reinforced by the proprietor's decision to
appoint the revolutionary Thomas Gordon as Attorney General of the colony, Bound did nothing
to enforce the Tax Act or to suppress the insurrection.
Morris's rebellion had succeeded, for soon after Boss returned from England in the summer
In the year of 1699, Andrew Hamilton was reappointed governor of the Jerseys. Scotsmen, it was
now ruled, were able to hold office in the colonies, and the proprietors seized the opportunity
to reappoint Hamilton and end the calamitous regime of Baths. If Governor Baths precipitated
conflict and oppression in East New Jersey, his rule over the Quaker colony of West New
New Jersey was a veritable reign of terror. Hamilton had left West New Jersey alone. As
a result, the Quakers' largely libertarian society was not confronted, as in previous
years, with the threat of proprietary despotism. As soon as Baas took power, however, he imposed
a program of reactionary change upon the colony. Virtually his first act was to oust the previous
and the Judges, and to fill their post with his friends and favorites, almost all non-Quakers.
The Quaker lower house tried to oppose Bass's accession to power, whereupon he promptly
began to throw them into prison. Peter Fretwell, former treasurer of the colony, was jailed
by Bass for not acknowledging the government. Furthermore, the great leader of the liberal
General Forces in West New Jersey, Speaker of the House Samuel Jennings, was arrested
in the spring of 1699 for saying that Bosse's commission as governor was illegal, and for
slandering one of Bosse's appointed councillors as a papist. Three of the new councillors
indeed published a book denouncing Jennings as the key to the seditious opposition. They
wrote, Samuel Jennings, being the leading man of that party, now sings his old song
over again, and affirms the government to be in the people, thereby encouraging and
exciting the people to rebellion against the present governor and other their lawful rulers
to the great obstruction of the peace and property of the province.
Fretwell and Thomas Gardner, furthermore, were indicted for setting the province in
a flame, but they refused to appear for their trial.
and did indeed burst forth in Salem, where the government was resisted and the boss appointed
magistrates expelled from the town. But the governor sent in fifty soldiers and was able
to suppress the rebellion. Boss found, however, that he could not suppress the voices of his
opposition. Samuel Jennings undaunted not only organized a giant anti-boss petition but also
Andrew Hamilton returned as governor in December 1699, only to find both colonies in a state of outright rebellion.
In West New Jersey, the Bas-Puppet Council was unceremoniously removed, and the revolutionary leaders returned to their posts.
Jennings to Speaker of the House, Fretwell to Treasurer, Gardner became King's Attorney.
But both Jerseys were now in the midst of a revolutionary situation, and a mere change of governors was no longer enough to appease the popular opposition.
The spark for the rebellion in both colonies was the increase in taxes, and a mere change
of personnel would not be enough to relieve the situation.
To Louis Morris and the people of East New Jersey, only the liquidation of the proprietorship
would suffice to end the rebellion.
The proprietors were indeed negotiating with the Crown for surrender of their right to
govern, though not of their land claims.
However, proprietary government continued in the meanwhile until the Crown's decision
should be made.
But the revolution roared on.
In March 1700, justices of the Middlesex County Court, all counselors, were barred from the
courtroom by a rebellious crowd led by Edward Slater, one of the main leaders of the rebellion
against Cotterette, nearly twenty years before.
A week later, Samuel Carter, leading an angry crowd, denounced the proceedings of the Essex
County Court and the court-ordered Carter, arrested for contempt, which may, if not timely
prevented, turn to a convulsion in government to the ruin of the colony.
It may be noted that the crowd supporting Carter included such prominent citizens as
Justice Benjamin Price, a former counselor.
By July, however, Lewis Morris had betrayed the revolution he had led, and now shifted
vigorously to the other side. Returning to the council as Hamilton's appointee for president,
Morris wanted everyone to submit to the governor. Soon Morris had an opportunity to betray his
own neighbors in Monmouth County. The newly appointed sheriff, the Scotsman John Stewart,
was on a rampage in the county, jailing rebels. Friends of those about to be arrested thereupon
attacked Stewart and forced him to flee. Learning of a plan to free one of the captured men,
Morris informed Hamilton, who appeared with an armed troop and then demanded the surrender
of two of the opposition leaders, Richard Salter and John Bray. But the free men of
of Monmouth County by now numbered 6 to 1 against Hamilton and Morris, aroused a hundred
citizens of Middletown armed with clubs, marched to confront the governor's force. A compromise
averted an armed clash when the prisoners agreed to put up bail as security for good
behavior. The renegade Morris had been given the task of suppressing the rebellion and
and his unpopularity was assured when he threatened to drench the colony in the blood of the
rebels who did not yield.
With Morris ordered to seize Salter and Bray, Monmouth, Middlesex and Essex counties conferred
to decide their next move.
They decided to resist Morris's power and to seize, arrest and incarcerate Hamilton,
A grand jury of Monmouth County soon indicted sixteen men, including Salter and Bray, for
riotous assembly and assault of Sheriff Stewart. But the rebels remained undaunted. In September
The Essex County Court at Newark had its proceedings interrupted by Samuel Carter, who challenged
the authority of the court. The constable ordered to seize the prisoner was himself assaulted
by the rebels. The rebels also assaulted Councilor William Sandford, the president of the court.
The rebels were led by Carter and Thomas Johnson, a long-time high official in the colony and
The Leader of the Rebellion under Carteret. Two days later a large group of horsemen arrived
from Elizabethtown to demand of the Essex County judges the freeing of one of the prisoners,
Joseph Parmiter. Led by Samuel Carter and Samuel Whitehead, the rebels on being refused
seized the sheriff and forced him to free Parmiter. Soon afterward in retaliation two
Two grand juries indicted eighty-five Elizabethtown men for joining in the insurrectionary action.
The revolutionaries countered by signing an Elizabethtown petition to the king against
the proprietors. In it they attacked the quit rent, which was being exacted even after the
royal courts had disallowed it, and they asked the crown to replace the proprietary with
The Royal Governor
Leading the opposition to the Proprietary in the Assembly, which convened in May 1700,
was Councilor John Royce.
The Councilor held an old nickels patent for his lands.
This fact jeopardized the lands and subjected it to quit rent exactions so long as the Proprietary
continued.
Hamilton convened the Assembly, but only to try to get a tax bill passed.
He soon saw that there was no chance of success. Moreover, he saw the danger of the Assembly
approving the anti-proprietary position. Therefore, Hamilton made haste to dissolve the Assembly.
But the East New Jersey Petition helped galvanize the Board of Trade to annul the Jersey Proprietary.
The East New Jersey Proprietary tried to stem the tide by its answer to the petition sent
to the Crown in December. The answer, trenchantly, attacked the colonial resistance to payment
of quit-rants as a logical prelude to denial of the royal power itself. It concluded that
the settlers viewed themselves as the absolute owners of the soil, and hence entitled to
an independent government of their own. The proprietors darkly charged that the rebels
were merely a few factious and mutinous people impatient of any government.
The following March 1701, the pattern of revolt against the proprietary courts continued.
As the Monmouth Court, headed by Governor Hamilton, was examining an accused smuggler
named Moses Butterworth, Samuel Willett, an innkeeper, challenged the authority of the
court.
charged into the court with the company of 50 militiamen. A battle ensued between the police on one side and the militiamen in the crowd, led by Benjamin Price and Richard Borden on the other.
The rebels proceeded to free Butterworth and to seize the justices, the attorney general and the other officers of the court.
Court.
The next day the court, with Samuel Leonard presiding, was able to reassert its authority
despite a challenge by Eliza Catterall, who refused to serve on the compulsory jury, and
the refusal of the former court clerk, James Bolan, to surrender the court records.
The court quickly seized, convicted and fined all those denying its authority and refusing
In May 1701, Hamilton and the Council petitioned the King to order the people of East New Jersey
to obey the proprietary government. Hamilton complained that, since he had not yet received
official approbation of the Crown, the licentious past of the people, who look on all government
to be a yoke, had repudiated his authority in all of his actions. As a result, he pointed
out, the reins of government are cut in pieces, and the people run into anarchy and confusion.
But Hamilton was soon to find that the Council was hardly more tractable than the House of
of Deputies. First, in late 1700, George Willocks, deputy for the proprietors, led
a revolt against the leading proprietor, William Dachra, the proprietor's executive secretary.
The Council stalled hearings on Willocks' charges of corruption and injustice against
Dachra, but it finally consented to a hearing the following August. Willocks charged Dachra
with usurpation of governmental rule, levying arbitrary fines on local landowners, voiding
good land titles, and demanding bribes for settling land claims.
Backed by the deputy secretary and six resident proprietors, the council turned against Dachra,
and the board of resident proprietors finally removed him from his post.
But the DACRA problem was purely internal to the ruling oligarchy of proprietors and
their favorites.
Also internal but far more challenging to the existing regime was a sudden move by former
Governor Andrew Bound at the council meeting in June 1701 to claim the post of governor.
Bound declared that the proprietors had appointed him, but he was challenged by the resident
Bound's claim was also backed by William Dockra, who was evidently taking the opportunity to try to oust a regime that had already turned against him.
Louis Morris, now agent of the resident proprietors, decided that the best course would be to abolish
the weak and confused proprietary rule and to replace it with a royal government headed
by Hamilton.
In that way, Hamilton and the ruling oligarchy in East New Jersey could end the permanent
Rebellion, and entrenched themselves in power, backed by the might and prestige of the royal
government. As rebellion settled into a permanent state, the Tory advisors of the colonies began
to offer their solutions. Edward Randolph, in February 1701, advocated not only the end
and Proprietary Government, though not of its land claims, but also the annihilation
of the Jerseys. Randolph urged that East New Jersey be annexed to New York and West
New Jersey to Pennsylvania. In the meanwhile, all is in confusion for want of government.
Andrew Bowne also moved in again, hoping to have his post restored. He called for drastic
Enforcement of the Generally Violated Navigation Acts, Bound suggested amalgamating the jerseys
with Delaware as part of Pennsylvania. The proprietors themselves, indeed, were rapidly
becoming reconciled to the end of their rule, and they submitted a memorial to the Crown
outlining the conditions for voluntary surrender of their governmental rights. The petition,
Incidentally, was jointly submitted by the proprietors of East New Jersey and West New
Jersey.
The final surrender by the proprietors and the acceptance by the Crown were accomplished
in mid-April 1702.
The Crown decided to grant some, but not all, of the proprietor's original conditions.
Every rights to the soil were reconfirmed along with the quit rents due. All land titles
issued by the proprietors were confirmed. The governor was instructed to forbid any tax
on unimproved, that is arbitrarily granted lands, thus greatly aiding the land engrossing
pursued by the proprietors. Another important privilege granted to the proprietors was a
monopoly of all purchase of land from the Indians. This gratuity, in effect, made vague
and arbitrary land grants to the existing landed proprietors. After April 1702, then,
the proprietary government was no more. Both jerseys were now united into one New Jersey,
a royal colony. Andrew Hamilton had had no easier time in West New Jersey. The Reverend
The Revolutionary State had continued in that colony as well.
To a greater extent than in the East, the focal point of resistance was taxation.
The unique element in West New Jersey was that a high-tax program had been instituted
by an alliance of Hamilton with the Quaker-dominated house.
By 1701, a general refusal to pay taxes pervaded the colony, a refusal which included the threat
of Violence Against the Hated Tax Collectors. As in East New Jersey, the rebels refused
to pay the courts security for good behavior. In March, nearly 80 people rioted in Burlington,
broke into prison, and released two men who had refused to put up security for failing
to pay taxes. Furthermore, Quaker imposition of high taxes seemed inconsistent with Quaker
The Proprietor's were anxious to have Andrew Hamilton appointed royal governor of the United New Jersey, but this was one privilege they were not to receive.
The Crown's appointed counsel, Andrew Hamilton, was a senior of the Proprietor's, and he was a very well-educated man.
The Proprietor's were very well-educated, and he was a very well-educated man.
The Crown's appointed counsel for the new colony included six officials from each Jersey,
largely taken from the oligarchal leadership of the two former colonies.
Counselor Louis Morris was designated acting governor by the Crown in June 1702, pending
a final appointment.
Finally, toward the end of the year, the Crown made New York's Governor, Lord Cornberry,
Governor of New Jersey as well. Cornberry assumed his post in July of the following
year. The Crown decided to alternate meetings of the Unified General Assembly between the
respective capitals of Perth-am-Boy and Burlington. The House of Representatives was to consist
of 12 representatives from each of the two former divisions, two appeased to be sent
by the two capital cities. Thus the structure of New Jersey was now similar to that of the
other royal colonies, an appointed governor and council, and elected lower house. Appeals
could be made to the king in major judicial cases. The Crown accepted the proprietor's
Lewis Morris Request for High Minimum Voting Requirements. Voters had to own at least
100 acres and representatives 1,000 acres. Lewis Morris had warned that without the latter
requirement those persons of best estate and the proprietor's interest would be at the
disposal of the tag, rag and rascality. In short, the property qualification was a method
of Attempting to Secure Control of Even the Assembly by the Proprietors. In addition,
the people lost the right to have a regular annual assembly. The rights to call and dissolve
the legislature and to appoint judges and courts were lodged in the royal governors,
but the crucial rights, those of levying taxes for support of the government, remained with
of the Assembly. Also granted were more worthwhile requests of the proprietors, for example,
permitting Quakers to avoid taking an oath of office. Religious liberty was also granted
to every one but Roman Catholics, continuing the East New Jersey policy passed under the
Law of Rights and Privileges of 1698. But this provision was a mixed blessing. From
From the time of the original concessions, at the outset of the colonies, both jerseys
had enjoyed extensive religious liberty. By its discrimination, the new proviso was a
setback for the Catholics. On the other hand, there was an advance in another direction.
The law of 1698 had eliminated the power of the assembly to establish ministers, but now
Separation of Church and State, without which there can be no full religious liberty, was
decreed for the colony as a whole.
The important exception was a proprietary grant to each township of 200 acres of government
land for support of a minister.
This feature enabled some of the Puritan towns in New Jersey to keep an established church.
As to the proprietor's request to make Perth Amboy and Burlington free ports without harassment
from New York, the Crown suggested that this would be granted only if the New Jersey Assembly
raised its customs duties and regulations to equal New York's, thus ending embarrassing
free competition with the highly taxed and regulated port of New York and increasing
Lewis Morris tried to use the new accession of royal power as well as his leading role in the colony to establish the Anglican Church.
As early as 1697, he tried to pass such a bill, but it was defeated by the combined efforts of Richard Hartzhorn, Quaker, and Andrew Brown, Baptist.
One of Morris's main reasons for wanting the proprietors ousted was to further the project of an Anglican establishment.
But the royal government would not establish a religion that was very weak in the colony, indeed weak everywhere north of Maryland.
The lack of a bishop resident in the colony also handicapped the growth of Anglicanism.
Anglicanism. For example, it was difficult for one aspiring to the Anglican ministry to
be ordained. Either a bishop had to come from England to perform the ceremony, and few chose
to come, or the would-be priest had to travel to England.
What happened, incidentally, to the ultrapuritan settlement at Newark that was founded by the
by the former New Haven minister Abraham Pearson in 1667.
Newark continued at first as a rigorously Puritan township, but Pearson died in 1678
and was succeeded by his son, Rev. Abraham Pearson Jr.
Typical of the Puritan ministry throughout New England, New York and New Jersey, the
younger Pearson was drifting strongly toward Presbyterianism.
As a result, Newark ended its established church in 1687 and threw Pearson's salary open to
voluntary subscription. Pearson was thereby obliged to move elsewhere. The ultra-theocratic
experiment at Newark had collapsed. Thus, New Jersey took its place after 1702 as a
There was a northern royal colony with appointed governor and council and a popularly elected assembly.
Proprietary tyranny and attempts to impose taxes, quit rents and arbitrary land allocations ceased.
But royal government, in alliance with the land claims of the proprietary, continued the power of the old oligarchy.
Also ended forcibly were the several years of successful rebellion in New Jersey.
The colony continued to be relatively individualistic, however, and to enjoy religious liberty and diversity.