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THE preceding chapter described the royal grants and the occupation under them, of the Dutch, the Swedes and the English, from the grant of 1621 to the settlement of the Dublin colony on the third or Irish tenth, which comprised the territory now embraced in Camden County. Soon after the meeting of the Assembly in November, l685, the proprietors, freeholders and inhabitants of the third and fourth tenths, who had been subjected to many inconveniences for the transaction of public business by reason of the distance from the county-seat of Burlington and Salem, met at Arwames (Gloucester Point), pursuant to public notice, on the 26th of May, 1686, during the administration of Governor Samuel Jennings, and, after much discussion and mature deliberation, adopted a Constitution for the government of the territory lying between Pensauken Creek and Oldmans Creek, it being the third and fourth tenths, to which they gave the name Gloucester County; it thus became the only county in West Jersey organized directly through the action of its own people. This Constitution provided for the holding of courts at Gloucester and Red Bank, and for the election of county officers. It also prescribed the details of legal practice and provided for the recording of the marks of hogs and cattle. The erection of Gloucester County by the authority of the inhabitants within its bounds was confirmed by the General Assembly of the province in 1694. Its boundaries were not definitely defined and it is evident from an act of Assembly, passed the same year the erection of the county was confirmed, that it did not extend to the sea-coast, as the act referred to provides that the few settlers residing at Egg Harbor shall be under jurisdiction of Gloucester County until there shall be a sufficient number to constitute a county. In January, 1709, an act was passed more clearly defining the county boundaries, and in that act Egg Harbor and its vicinity were embraced in Gloucester County. Its bounds were given as follows: "Gloucester County begins at the mouth of Pensaukin Creek; thence up the same to the fork thereof; thence along the bounds of Burlington County to the sea; thence along the sea-coast to Great Egg Harbor River; thence up said river to the fork thereof; thence up the southernmost and greatest branch of the same to the head thereof; thence in a direct line to the head of Oldmans Creek; thence down the same to the Delaware River to the place of beginning." In 1837 Atlantic County was erected, as contemplated in the act of 1694, out of the sea-coast townships, and in 1844 the townships of Camden, Waterford, Newton, Union, Delaware, Gloucester and Washington, then constituting a part of Gloucester County, were erected into the new county of Camden, which was named after the city designed to be its county seat.
EXTRACTS FROM GLOUCESTER COUNTY RECORDS. - The first court for the original county of Gloucester was held at Gloucester in September, 1686, with Justices Francis Collins, Thomas Thackara and John Wood on the bench. The sheriff’s jury list included the names of William Hunt, William Bates, William Alvertson, William Lovejoy, Henry Wood, Jonathan Wood, John Hugg, James Atkinson, Thomas Sharp, Thomas Chaunders, George Goldsmith, John Ladde, Daniel Beading, John Ithel, John Bethell, Thomas Matthews, William Dalboe, Anthony Neilson, John Matson, Thomas Bull, John Taylor, William Salisbury, Matthew Medcalfe and William Cooper. The findings of this court are evidence that after the adoption of the Arwames Constitution the people of Gloucester County considered themselves an independent government, with the power to levy taxes, fix boundaries, etc. The December court at Gloucester in 1687 presented two Burlington officers for conveying accused persons out of its jurisdiction for trial at Burlington, and compelled one of them to make apology. This difficulty was caused by a dispute concerning county boundaries. The grand jury, at the February Session of the court for the same year, ordered the first tax to be laid, levying a shilling for every hundred acres of land, two pence for each head of cattle, a tax of two pence on each freeman having neither land nor cattle and an additional head tax of one shilling on all men not possessed of such property. Taxes were made payable in money or produce, and an increase in double the amount could be distrained for in case of delinquency. Taxes continued to be laid by the grand jury till 1694, when the power was vested by Provincial Assembly in a quorum of the county justices, "with the advice, concurrence and assistance" of the grand jury. In 1713 this power was vested in the justices and chosen freeholders, where it remained until the organization of the Board of Freeholders of the members from each township, on February 13, 1798. From a taxing act passed in 1750 it appears that there were then in the county fourteen stores and shops, twenty-seven mills, five ferries and more than twenty-five taverns.
The first murder trial was a case of infanticide which occurred in 1701, but the court record does not show what penalty was inflicted on the defendant.
The case was tried by the Governor, Lord Cornbury, in person, and on December 19th the following record was made:
"We, the Grand Jury of the County of Gloucester, doe order eighteen pence to by twelve bushels of charcoal for the prisoner, and two pounds two shillings to by three match coats for the prisoner’s use so long as he hath occasion for it, and then to be reserved for the County’s use. We allow seven shillings and sixpence to the clerk for five warrants to the collector to gather the above tax. Ee further allow Matthew Metcalfe twelve shillings and six pence for defraying the Lord Cornbury’s retinue’s expenses when he was lately at Gloucester, and six shillings to John Siddons for a Coffin for the murthered child, and six shillings more we allow him by discount of his old tax in 1694 for bringing the Justices and Coroner to Gloster. We allow eight pounds four shillings and four pence for defraying the Lord Cornbury’s and his attendance’s expences when he was lately at Gloucester."Among the earliest marriages recorded in the county was that of Samuel Taylor and Elizabeth Ward, on January 13, 1687, and George Ward and Hannah Waynwright, on November 17, 1697. The first birth recorded was that of the child of John and Jane Burroughs, of Gloucester River, March 14, 1687.
The earliest recorded meeting of justices and freeholders was held on the 5th day of the Second Month, 1715. The justices present were Richard Bull, John Inskeep, George Lawrence and John Rambo; the freeholders, John Kaighn, Peter Long, John Ladd, Jacob Clement, Joseph Cooper, Jacobus Collin and John Shivers. They provided for the building of a new prison and court-house by at tax of eighty pounds, and made another levy of fifteen pounds to pay bounties for the destruction of wolves, panthers and red foxes. The sum of thirty pounds was ordered raised in 1716 for the same purposes, and in 1717 the board levied a tax of ten pounds for completing the prison, twenty pounds for wolves, panthers and red foxes, and seventy pounds for Timber Creek bridge. Assessors, collectors and commissioners were appointed to carry the action of the board into effect. At the meeting of November 1, 1721, the sheriff, Josiah Kay, was allowed James More’s horse, saddle and brass pistol for executing the man, who seems to have been convicted of highway robbery, and £9 8s. for executing Christiana Boff the murderer of her child. In the minutes of the board on May 3, 1750, Samuel Harrison, the sheriff, brought in a bill of £17 12s. for whipping James McBride and for executing John Johnson, John Steward and Ebenezer Caral. On this claim the following entry was made:
"The Board, taking sd bill into Consideration, allow for ye Ropes and diging ye Graves, 14s. 8; & for ye rest are of Opinion yt its ye Sheriff’s Office to see ye Law Executed upon Convicts; and as they know no Law yt Intitles him to any Pay for ye Execution of his Office in Such Case, think, therefore, it would be a ill Presedent and not warrentable in them to allow said Bill or any of ye like kind."The court and jury seem always to have had a lively sense of their dignity and to have been jealous of maintaining it. On June 1, 1702, Nathaniel Zane was fined ten shillings for his "affront, Abuse and undervallueing of ye forman of ye Grand Jury;" and on December 1st, Jeremiah Bate was fined thirty shillings "for several Contemptuose and Reflecting Abusive Expressions used towards ye Bench;" but "upon his humble submission to ye Bench and desire of forgetfulness, ye same is remitted and forgotten." An instance of the anxiety of the Friends, who were the principal settlers of Gloucester, to purge the community of all questionable characters, was the case of Amos Nicholson, who, having come into the town of Greenwich, was presented by the grand jury, June 2, 1701, as "being a man of ill-fame," and required to leave the township or give security to indemnify the township against his becoming a dangerous or trouble some neighbor. A vagrant negro, having been brought into court September 1, 1701, by the sheriff whose charges amounted to £9 8s., the negro was ordered to be sold for two years to any one who would pay the charges, his master having the privilege of reclaiming him by making the same disbursement.
The stocks, the pillory and the whipping-post were used in Colonial days for the punishment of criminals on various occasions. They were doubtless brought into use under the authority of the old Gloucester courts. The punishment by the pillory was severe and excruciating, the criminal being placed in a standing position. It was not uncommon for men to swoon under the pain of the pillory or the stocks.
The system by which assisted immigrants performed service in return for the payment of their passage-money to this country was in full force, as appears in this minute of the court’s proceedings of March 2, 1701:
"Griffith Morgan makes complaint agst a Servant woman of her deserting of his Service ye 1st of Instant. The servant appearing and alledging that her passage was paid in Scotland, she came from, and that she was not any servant; upon which ye sd Griffith produces an order of Chester Court, in Pensilvania, for her service of five years to one E. Evan, &c., and his assignment to ye sd Griffith. Whereupon ye Bench order that sd Servant perform her time of Servitude, according to ye ad assignment."The township and county boundaries were determined in 1761, Richard Matlack, Henry Wood, John Hinchman, Wm. Davis, James Whiteall, Joshua Lord, Francis Batten and Jacob Spicer having been appointed by the Board of Freeholders, on May 13th, to have the work done. They employed as surveyor Samuel Clement to run the line, and his completed work was submitted to the board at the September meeting. In 1764 Surveyor Thomas Denny ran and marked the lines between Gloucester and Salem Counties. He was, himself a member of the commission charged with the undertaking, his associates being Francis Battin and George Flanigan. In the following year the arms belonging to the county were, by order of the justices and freeholders, divided into four equal lots and delivered to John Hinchman, John Miekle, Samuel Harrison, John Hider, Alexander Randall, George Flanigan, Michael Fisher and John Sparks, who, pursuant to instructions, sold them and turned the proceeds into the county treasury.
PUBLIC BUILDINGS. -A jail was built at Gloucester in 1689. (See history of Gloucester City). Courts were held in taverns and private houses until 1696, when a court-house and jail as one building was erected, which, with additions and repairs, was used until 1786, when it was destroyed by fire, and a majority of the Board of Free-holders voted in favor of erecting new structures instead of repairing the old ones, and agreed to petition the General Assembly for an act to erect new buildings at such a place as shall be designated by a majority of the people of the county at an election to be held for that purpose.
WOODBURY BECOMING THE COUNTY SEAT.- Notwithstanding that there is no recorded evidence of the matter, it is a generally accepted belief that the election was [ ] the people voted to locate the new building at Woodbury, and that this decision transferred the county-seat from Gloucester to that town.
On August 3, 1786, James Brown, John Jessop and Samuel Hugg were constituted "to agree with the workmen and purchase materials for the building of the gaol and court-house at Woodbury," and a tax of £108 6s. 8d. was ordered to defray the expense. At the meeting of the board, on September 29, 1786, the board accepted John Bispham’s offer of a lot at Woodbury, and James Wilkins, John Wilkins and Joseph Reeves were appointed a committee to survey the lot and receive the deed, for which they were authorized to pay fifty pounds. When the managers’ accounts were finally passed, on June 18, 1790, it was found that the cost of the court-house and jail had been more than twelve thousand dollars. The interior of the house is now very much like what it was when first built. The stone columns, steps, etc., in front were added many years ago, and the steeple and belfry have been more than once rebuilt.
Joshua L. Howell, Phineas Lord, John Blackwood, John Brick, John E. Hopkins and John Thorn were commissioned, on November 24, 1797, to buy a lot at Woodbury and erect a building for the keeping of the records removed from Gloucester. This structure has been occupied since 1820 as the surrogate’s office, while the building then erected for the surrogate has been made the clerk’s office.
Woodbury, the seat of justice of Gloucester County since its removal from the town of Gloucester, in 1787, and the place where the law was dispensed to the citizens of what is Camden County, previous to its erection in 1844, is located at the head of navigation on Woodbury Creek, and was probably settled as early as 1681. Richard Wood took up land a mile farther down the creek in that year, and some time between then and 1684 his brother made a home on the present site of the town. The Woods came from some one of the many towns in England named Bury, and hence the derivation of the name of the new settlement.* In 1688 four hundred and thirty-two acres of land on Woodbury Creek were surveyed for Jonathan Wood. From that date until the War of the Revolution the place is destitute of any history that has been preserved, but the incidents of the military movements in 1777 in the neighborhood go to show that it must then have had a population of two hundred or more. During the winter of 1777, Lord Cornwallis had his headquarters in the residence now occupied by the family of the late Amos Campbell, and the doors and cupboards still bear the marks of the British bayonets used in forcing them open. In 1815 the town had grown so as to require four taverns for the local and traveling trade; it had also seven merchants and three physicians and there were seventy-one dwellings. Among the leading citizens then were James Roe, John C. Smallwood, John M. Watson, John Mickle, Robert K. Matlack, Thomas Jefferson Cade and Benjamin P. Howell. The oldest dwelling-house now standing is the Joseph Franklin residence, which was built in the early part of the eighteenth century. Woodbury was incorporated as a borough in 1854 and as a city in 1870. Included in the old organizations of citizens were the Fox Hunting Club, established in 1770; the Library Company, instituted in 1794; and the Whirligig Society, which was organized in 1809 "with authority to suppress all riots and whirligig all gamblers, showmen and such characters as are commonly called Fair Flays." The Friends erected a meeting-house in 1715 or 1716, and the Presbyterians had a log church in 1721. The Methodist Episcopal Society was organized in 1803 and the African Methodist Episcopal in 1817.
* "It seems the little colony soon became short of provisions and none being nearer than Burlington, the male colonists started off in canoes for that place to obtain some. A storm prevented their return as soon as expected, - the provisions left for the women were exhausted, - and the poor creatures, overwhelmed with grief, looked for nothing but starvation in a strange land with none of their kindred near to soothe their dying moments. Thus they were grouped together at the bend of the creek, watching with tearful eyes the flowing tide and listening in vain for the sound of the returning paddles, when an Indian woman appeared on the opposite bank, saw they were in trouble and stopped. By their signs she understood their wants and then disappeared in the shade of the forest, in an hour or two (for she had gone several miles) she returned loaded with venison and corn bread. These she placed on a long piece of bark and, walking a good way to tideward, set it afloat and gave it a push across. It came to where the white women were and its contents saved their lives; for their husbands returned not for such a length of time that but for her, starvation would have been inevitable." - New Jersey Historical Collections.
SOURCE: Page(s) 30-35, History of Camden County, New Jersey, by George R. Prowell, L.J. Richards & Co. 1886
Published 2010 by the Camden County Genealogy Project