So, last month we left 18th century “Nova Cesaria” (New Jersey) in the midst of a portentous property predicament. I wrote that at the start of the 1700s, “farmers were furious.” Let’s discover why.
In the late 1600s and several decades which followed, English sons (and others) had come to the New World, leaving behind family, friends and familiarity for the promise of opportunity and freedom. From wealthy British landowners and landholders, they purchased parcels of rich, fertile land in this new world on which to live, and on which to make a living.
They cleared the land, and raised crops, livestock and families. They created a variety of much-needed goods and services. They purchased and set aside places for worship, for civic activities, and for business. Communities and small villages grew and thrived. For the most part, life was difficult, but good.
But one of the wealthy British landowning families in New Jersey, the Coxe Family, questioned the nature of the original sale of their vast landholdings in the American colonies. Wealthy aristocrat Daniel Coxe III, living in London, made huge chunks of West Jersey land available for investments by the wealthy Proprietors (land managers). But his son, Colonel Daniel Coxe IV, came to America in 1702 when the proprietorships dissolved to represent his father’s interests. Despite deeds, he eventually brought lawsuits which challenged the individual purchases of land, saying that the Coxe family had “superior title” to the land, and that the individual residents had merely purchased the right to use the land belonging to the land managers, not to own it. Of course this flew in the face of Enlightenment beliefs in individualism, and natural and human rights.
The result was that hundreds of farmers’ and individuals’ families in the Hopewell and Maidenhead areas were charged significant penalties for continuing to keep or “repurchase” their land. Many were unable to make the payments, and left. Some migrated to the south and west, to North Carolina and beyond. Others remained in the area and opted to contest the lawsuits. Adding to the original challenge with the deeds to the land were unscrupulous surveyors, representing both sides of the controversy, who tried to “adjust” and prove claim to lands. Many locals became quite angry, and the anger later erupted violently at several points.
These conflicts over rights to the land lasted for decades. The Coxe family issued over 50 evictions in Hopewell alone in the 1730s. When several families, including that of Nathaniel Moore, banded together to countersue in the mid 1730s, not surprisingly they lost their suit, since the civil courts were filled by other members of the British aristocracy.
Hopewellians were furious, and some attempted to force new tenants off of the lands Coxe had previously taken from them. An ad seeking to find the offenders describes the angry mob as being “besmeared with Blackening, and Armed with Clubs and Sticks in their hands”. The record continues to state that the mob did in a ”…Violent and Riotous Manner break into and enter the said respective Dwelling Houses, and Assault, Beat and Wound” the owner within.
Such incidents continued off and on over the following decade. Although Colonel Coxe passed away, his family continued to challenge and sue for the land. In reaction, the area residents met regularly on town committees to contest what they believed to be a preemption of their rights, and to defend their neighbors and land.
As the years progressed, such committee leaders represented the positions of most of the colony, but were only seen as “rioters” by the Provincial government. Several of these leaders were jailed for treason, and other committee members attempted to break into the jails to free them. Because the local colonists sided with the committee members, those in the Provincial government recognized their own weakening power, and consequently passed laws to limit assembly.
All of these conflicts created a deep and long-lasting animosity towards the British aristocracy and Provincial government, particularly in Central NJ. The local committees of neighbors and farmers would unite to become members of the Hunterdon Militia when increasing frustration, anger, injustice and usurpation of rights began to provoke the War for Independence.
Note: Ewing Historic Society advisor Rick Durham will speak on this very topic on Sunday afternoon, March 8 at 2 pm at TCNJ, in Room 113 of the Education Building.
Helen Kull is an Advisor with the Ewing Township Historic Preservation Society.
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