Volume 2, Chapter 9, Land Conflicts in New Jersey
Land conflicts in New Jersey during the colonial period stemmed from its unique status of having
numerous resident proprietors. Other proprietary colonies had one or a few feudal owners remotely
resident in England. Both West and East New Jersey, however, had numerous resident proprietors
The Bulk of the Problem Centered in East New Jersey, where the proprietors tended to hold on to their granted titles and tried to enforce quit rents rather than subdivide and sell the land quickly.
The proprietors had trouble with two types of settlers.
titles and tried to enforce quit rents rather than subdivide and sell the land quickly.
The proprietors had trouble with two types of settlers, the recipients of the old Richard
Nichols patent during the mid-seventeenth century and squatters who believed no more
was required for owning the land, then settling and purchasing the tract from the Indians.
The Nichols Patentees were largely in Elizabethtown, while the small farmers and squatters were
farther west in the Oranges and in Hunterdon and Morris counties.
The East New Jersey Council of Proprietors began a concerted attempt to enforce their
titles and quit rents during the late 1720s.
Leading the Proprietors were Lewis Morris and James Alexander.
The proprietors received a severe setback when their attempt to eject an Elizabethtown settler
was defeated after a jury trial in Lithgow v. Schuler, 1734.
Foiled in their attempt to oust the Nichols patentees, the proprietors decided to try
to collect quid rents, which had accumulated to a total of £10,000 in arrears.
The West New Jersey Proprietors also began to crack down on squatter settlers, especially
in Hunterdon County. When agents of Proprietor Daniel Cox Jr. tried to collect quitterance,
the Hunterdon settlers drove them off with arms and threatened Cox with assassination
if he should persist in his harassment. The conflict intensified when Lewis Morris, the
The leader of the proprietors became royal governor in 1738.
Morris was the first to be royal governor of New Jersey alone.
Before him the royal governors were only ancillary to their post as governors of New York.
Morris quickly appointed his son, Robert Hunter Morris, to be chief justice of the province,
and his daughter's father-in-law, Richard Ashfield, to be receiver general of quitterance.
The upper house was also packed by Lewis Morris with his fellow proprietors. The determined
Morris decided in the 1740s to try the Elizabethtown land cases in the court of Chancery, where
he himself was presiding judge. In reply, the Elizabethtown settlers petitioned the
The King about their grievances, but to no avail.
Morris and the proprietors also began winning many ejectment cases against settlers on the
fringe of Elizabethtown, as well as against squatters further west who had purchased Indian
titles.
The chancery case against the Elizabethtown settlers was filed in 1745, and the settlers
appeared to be in dire straits.
At this point, with tensions at fever pitch, one of the Elizabethtown leaders, Samuel Baldwin,
was arrested for cutting timber on his own, but allegedly proprietary, land.
The people's anger exploded, and a mob broke open the Newark jail and rescued Baldwin.
Four months later, Nehemiah Baldwin and others of the rioters were arrested in their turn.
In response a crowd armed with clubs appeared and rescued Baldwin. Shortly afterward a mob
of 300 appeared at the Newark jail facing 30 armed militia. Threatening to kill every
militia man if fired upon, the triumphant crowd succeeded in breaking in and rescuing
all the prisoners. The new assembly of February 1746 sympathized with the rioters. In his
In his opening address to the legislature, Governor Morris thundered that the riots were
virtually high treason and likely to end in rebellion.
Morris called for severe measures to quell the revolution.
Morris and the proprietors introduced in the council an amazing bill modeled on an English
law of 1715 providing that if twelve or more persons should meet and refuse to disperse,
If so ordered by a government official, they would then be declared felons and be summarily
put to death.
The confrontation between the two forces continued to mount.
The rebels presented a petition to the legislature, citing their Indian titles and calling for
a stay of all judicial processes against them, while Proprietor Samuel Neville denounced
the petition as infringing the Crown's prerogative and its sovereignty over the soil of New
Jersey. In a sense, Neville was correct. The opposing libertarian theory of land ownership
espoused by the squatters was eloquently set forth by a sympathizer in a New York newspaper.
Going beyond Roger Wynn's simple theory of Indian ownership to what was essentially the
With John Locke, Labor Theory of Original Landed Property, the writer declared that
although the earth was made for equal use of all, it may nevertheless be appropriated
by every individual. This is done by the improvement of any part of it lying vacant, which is thereupon
distinguished from the great common of nature and made the property of that man who bestowed
and his labor in it, from whom it cannot afterward be taken, without breaking through the rules
of natural justice, for thereby he would actually be deprived of the fruits of his industry.
At this crucial point, Lewis Morris died. The proprietary still ran the governor's post,
however, since acting governor John Hamilton was none other than the president of the East
New Jersey Council of Proprietors. Hamilton demanded a bill to suppress the rioters, but
the assembly paid no heed to his request. Instead, rioting spread during the summer
throughout the province, and especially in Hunterdon County. The assembly also refused
to raise troops for war with France. John Lowe, Essex representative and a riot leader, pointing
pointing out that the armed force would soon be employed to suppress the riots at home.
Threats of assassination were again made against Samuel Neville and the Somerset County Jail was broken open by a mob and several prisoners released.
Rioting was rapidly merging into open revolution.
Governor Hamilton responded by intensifying the tyranny suffered by the settlers and the rest of the populace.
Thus, he ordered the sheriff to arrest any tumultuous assembly and to keep them in jail
until trial. And Robert Hunter Morris vainly asked the crown to send troops from England
to suppress the tenant rebellion.
In the spring of 1747, the successful rioters intensified their rebellion and began to assume
The Offensive In Morris County, they began driving proprietors
from their homes.
In the Spring Assembly, Hamilton admitted that the attempts at suppression had only
succeeded in redoubling the rioting.
Here was another example in history of the near impossibility of a government relying
only on its own resources, suppressing a popular revolution.
The Assembly again ignored Hamilton's threat to import counter-revolution by bringing in
British troops. As the Assembly adjourned, the encouraged rioters broke into even more
widespread rebellion, expecting that ultimately the King would be pressured into getting rid
of the problem by granting the settlers their lands. In July, one of the most serious of
The riots broke out in Perth Amboy, the main center of the resident Eastern Proprietors.
John Bainbridge Jr. had been arrested for taking part in the Somerset County outbreak
and was imprisoned in Perth Amboy jail.
At this point, a rescue party of 150, armed with clubs, led by Edmund Bainbridge, Simon
Wyckoff and Amos Roberts appeared at the courthouse, knocked down the sheriff and the mayor, broke
open the jail and jubilantly wrote off with the prisoner.
The government called a grand jury for Middlesex County and Judge Samuel Neville, one of the
leading proprietors, charged the jury to indict twenty of the rioters for high treason.
The jury, however, would hardly indict them for a riot.
In the midst of this revolutionary atmosphere, Jonathan Belcher assumed the post of governor.
Belcher, a professional royal bureaucrat who had been governor of Massachusetts for a dozen
years, could be expected, as a native of Massachusetts, to be unsympathetic to quitterance and feudal
proprietorships.
While sympathetic to the liberal position, Belcher denounced the rioters who affected
another dramatic jail rescue in Essex County soon after the governor assumed office.
But Belcher's momentary annoyance did not push him into a reactionary program. Instead,
he spoke in kindly fashion to a delegation of the rebels. The assembly was under firm
control of the liberals, while the council had been packed with proprietary appointees.
Council repeatedly urged harsh suppression of the rioters, and the proprietors called
for making rioting a crime of high treason.
The assembly, while refusing to take such measures, was in an uncomfortable position.
While liberal on the land questioned, it was too moderate and cautious to be radical or
principled on the issue.
Even the radical rebels, after effecting a jail rescue in Hunterdon County in the autumn
of 1747, proposed a great open march on the government in Burlington to demand defense
against the depredations of the proprietors.
The frightened assembly joined the council in denouncing such a march as an insult and
contempt of the laws.
Chagrined at this desertion by the supposedly sympathetic assembly, the rebel settlers canceled the march.
Indeed, the middle-of-the-road assembly agreed to pass a very mild bill to suppress the riots,
but without funds to enforce it, in exchange for a government pardon for all recanting rioters.
The rebels were now faced with a situation all too common to revolutionary movements throughout history.
They could easily defend themselves from their enemies, but not from their friends.
Once again, a revolution confronted a betrayal by its supposed leaders.
If the rebels were to submit to the amnesty, they would lose their essential revolutionary momentum.
Two hundred rebels prepared to ask forgiveness before the Essex County Court, but their leader,
Amos Roberts, managed to persuade them by his eloquence to stand fast. As a result,
only twenty-three rebels took advantage of the proffered pardon. The stunned leader
of the proprietors, James Alexander, proposed that the Council alone, if necessary, pass
was a law declaring that all non-repentant rebels be summarily convicted of all crimes
for which they stood indicted. A fantastic breach indeed of Anglo-Saxon legal procedures.
Belcher blandly refrained from suppressing the rebels, who continued to chop down timber
allegedly belonging to his proprietary. Finally, however, in the fall of 1748, the weak and
and Uncertain Belcher allowed himself to be pressured into arresting the great rebel leader
Amos Roberts for high treason.
Here indeed was a direct challenge to the power of the revolution.
The same evening a mob gathered at the Newark jail, shunted the deputy sheriff aside and
freed the imprisoned Roberts.
Professor then asked the assembly to curb this sort of open rebellion against the crown.
The rebels increasingly justified themselves on the squatter and Indian grant theory, thus
alienating the wealthier and more respectable Nichols patentees who after all depended for
their theoretical argument on earlier, though less arbitrary, grants from the crown.
The Great Armed Rebellion reached its height in the autumn of 1748 and spread into the
proprietary timberlands of Pennsylvania. As one counselor of New Jersey had exclaimed
in horror, all laws are laughed at and disregarded and they with force cut, carry and transport
timber in the face of the magistrates and defy them. Amos Roberts now headed a virtual
of People's Government in Competition with the Official One. He divided his domain into
three wards, established courts to settle disputes, and elected militia officers.
The oligarchy asserted that Roberts had also appointed assessors and collectors to obtain
taxes, but the rebels themselves indignantly denied this claim. Apparently, they thought
without tax collecting a rather reprehensible act. The fervor and determination of the radical
liberal revolutionaries performed the function of pushing the vacillating Belcher and the
Assembly into line. Headed by a leading writer, Assemblyman John Lowe, the Assembly voted
overwhelmingly to do nothing to suppress the rebels, and Belcher began to listen sympathetically
to the Arguments of the Rebel John Bainbridge, Belcher was also helped to his new position
by the threat of an assembly leader that he would never receive a penny salary if he complained
to the Crown against the rebels.
The Council, stronghold of the proprietary oligarchs, then itself petitioned the King,
which petition included a criticism of Belcher's actions.
The timorous opportunist Belcher, ever ready to bow to the winds of pressure, now hastened
to urge the assembly to vote money to protect the jails, and threatened that, should there
be any further riots, he would call in troops from another colony and set up a military
dictatorship.
The assembly kept its head, even in response to his presumptuous demand, and declared the
the colony much too poor to afford more taxes to protect the jails. It blandly suggested
an extension of the amnesty offered to the rebels. Belcher's reaction was a letter to
the king, but very weakly done and not sent in collaboration with the council. The British
government, however, was coming into different hands and by spring 1749 was beginning to
to pursue a much more energetically imperialistic policy toward the colonies.
The Board of Trade was under new control.
More important, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in charge of the colonies was now no longer
the Duke of Newcastle.
Heading colonial policy as Secretary of State for the Southern Department from 1724 to 1748,
Newcastle had been charmingly lax and had left the colonies more or less alone.
But now Newcastle was succeeded by an energetic imperialist, the Duke of Bedford, who scorned
Belcher and sided wholly with the feudal proprietors.
In this auspicious atmosphere for counter-revolution, Chief Justice Robert Hunter Morris sailed
to London to Plead the Proprietary Cause. The Board of Trade's report to the Privy
Council was virtually copied from Morris's account. But Belcher's representations managed
to mollify the Board. Its final recommendations in the summer of 1751 merely suggested an
impartial investigating commission, a reprimand to the Assembly, and an extended amnesty.
Belcher and the assembly were greatly relieved, especially since the board had been on the
point of doing something drastic, freeing the New Jersey governor from salary paid by the
assembly or reuniting New Jersey with New York or sending in British or New York troops
to quell the rioters.
Meanwhile, the riots themselves had died down as the leaders had fled the colony to escape
The Expected Royal Reprisals Governor Belcher, however, was getting into
dire financial straits.
Continual conflict between assembly and council had blocked the legislature from voting him
any salary.
The assembly shrewdly decided to gain Belcher's support and strike a stunning blow at the
of Proprietary at the same time by voting to raise funds through a tax on unimproved
lands. This, of course, would hit precisely at the arbitrary monopoly of unsettled lands
in the hands of the proprietors. The assembly tried to get Belcher to sign the bill and
simply ignore defeat in the council. But Belcher, though sympathetic, could not take such a
by the 1752 session, no taxes had been paid in New Jersey for 16 years, and the Treasury was empty, and the government heavily in debt.
The Assembly then decided to levy a tax on all land, including the unimproved, and on this more moderate bill, the Council and Assembly compromised and agreed.
The year 1752 also saw the resolution of New Jersey's great land conflict.
With the crown out of the picture, the rebels began to take action again and affected a
jail rescue in April.
The crown having, in effect, decided against them, the proprietors decided to let well
enough alone to be content with their unsettled lands and not to stir up revolutionary ferment.
Furthermore, their chancery suit would be decided by Belcher, who would undoubtedly find
for the tenants.
The proprietors then decided to drop the whole matter.
The great counter-revolutionary attempt to impose feudal overlordship on settlers of
the land in New Jersey had finally collapsed.
The rebels and the assembly, by their determined pressure, combined with the partial assistance
The decisions of the Governor had finally triumphed.