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S'ije Sotntt^tt fitll©

Being a Brief Record of Significant

Facts in the Early History

of the Hill Country of

Somerset County

New Jersey

Ludwig Schumacher

New Amsterdam Book Company

156 Fifth Avenue New York

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F. P. OLCOTT

Round Top Farm
Bernardsville

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

" When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre

He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea ;
An' what he thought ^e might require,
'E went an' took — the same as me ! "

In the preparation of this little book, the usual
sources have been consulted. These have been
found in the collections of the New Jersey, New
York and Pennsylvania Historical Societies. To
these have been added some oral traditions, now
first put in form, and some materials culled from
unpublished manuscripts. In brief, to use the
words of the immortal creator of Don Quixote,
** though seemingly the parent, I am in truth,
only the stepfather " of these historic excursions
and digressions.

MILLINGTON, N.J.
October, 1900.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PASS

I. General Survey - - - - 1 1

II. Indian Tradition and History - 20

III. Society in Colonial Somerset - 29

IV. Pluckamin and Bedminister - - 41
V. Bernardsville _ - - - 62

VI. Basking Ridge - - - - 71

VII. Lamington - - - - - III

VIII. Mendham, Peapack, etc. - - 118

IX. Epilogue __ - - - 123

X. Notes on Illustrations - - - 129

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

Frontispiece.

"The Dust of a Vanished Race " - Facing 20
The Stirling Arms ----- 40

General Knox's Headquarters, Bed-
minster ----- Facing 54

Sir Francis Bernard - - - '' 62

Facsimile of General Lee's Writing - 70

Mrs. White's Tavern - - Facing 76

Caricature of General Lee - - ''78

East Front of Stirling Manor House *' ^6

William Alexander first Lord Stirling ** 92

Major-General the Earl of Stirling ** loi

The Somerset Arms - - - - no

Relics of The Buildings - - - - 128

THE SOMERSET HILLS

GENERAL SURVEY.

HE traveller needs but a slight acquaintance
with London in order to recall the huge
building or series of buildings looming over the
Thames known as Somerset House. It was
built on the site of the erstwhile palace of the
Dukes of Somerset in the year 1776 — a signifi-
cant date in American annals. The relationship
existing between the town house of the Protes-
tant Protector during the minority of King
Edward VI. and the Somerset Hills of New
Jersey is not apparent. But a brief inquiry into
the origin of names will bring us to fair Somer-
setshire in Old England, the ancestral home of
Henry Vlll.'s brother-in-law, and so too, doubt-
less, of the early settlers of Somerset County.

12 The Somerset Hills.

Perhaps they found in these New Jersey foot-
hills some suggestions of the mountains, moors,
and fens that characterize old Somersetshire,
the land of Lorna Doone and John Ridd, the
West Wales of the romances of Arthur and his
Round Table.

In any case, the county name records the
memory of their old home for all time. So, too,
the townships of Bridgewater and Bedminster,
and the town of High Bridge, once within the
county limits, but now across the borders of
Hunterdon County, are but names transplanted
from old Somerset. And who shall say that
this new Somerset, no less than the old, may
not claim "a fine soft atmosphere all its own" ?

The aristocratic tradition of Somerset County
neither begins nor ends with the association in
name with an English ducal house. The Duke
of York, the first Lord Proprietor of the Colony,
deeded all the land within the present limits of
the State to two arch-aristocrats, John, Lord

The Somerset Hills. 13

Berkeley, and Sir Philip Carteret. The trifling
gift was in recognition of their loyalty to the
House of Stuart. Berkeley had accompanied
the Stuarts into exile, and Carteret, governor
of the Island of Jersey, had endeared himself to
the royal house by a determined defence of the
island against the parliamentary troops. Divid-
ing their estate into two parts, the dividing line
passed through the Somerset Hills. The greater
part of the county, however, was in East Jer-
sey, whose capital was Perth Amboy, from
which centre the county was developed. Only
a small portion fell to West Jersey, the estate
of Lord Berkeley. But in 1673, Lord Berkeley
lost all faith in the possibilities of his American
estate, and sold out for the sum of ^1,000
all his interests to one John Fenwick, a Quaker,
who purchased it in trust for Edward Byllinge,
also a Quaker. This sale was destined to mo-
mentous consequences in the colonial develop-
ment of America. It led directly to ''one of

14 The Somerset Hills.

the pivotal events of American history "—the
coming of the Quakers to the middle Colonies.
For a dispute between Fenwick and Byllinge
over the purchase was brought to William Penn
for adjudication, in the process of which he
became interested in American real estate.

East Jersey was soon subdivided by Car-
teret's heirs, and again subdivided until the
Lords-Proprietors numbered twenty-four. Every
foot of ground belongs to the present owner
as successor to these proprietors, by and through
the rules of Common and Statutory Law.

The aristocratic tradition is well maintained ;
for in the last century, we find that Catherine,
Duchess of Gordon, of Gordon Castle, Scotland,
a daughter of the Earl of Aberdeen, was a large
landowner in both Bedminster and Bridgewater
townships. In local parlance, this tract is still
referred to as **The Duchess." A mention of
the Duchess of Gordon suggests a link of as-
sociation with a classic repartee. The Duchess

The Somerset Hills. i 5

married General Staats Morris, whose brother,
the celebrated Gouverneur Morris, induced her
to invest in American real estate, acting as her
agent in the Somerset County purchase. While
Gouverneur Morris was at the French Court,
his personal resemblance to the King, Louis
XVI., was a subject of general comment. The
king himself noted it and once remarked to
Morris: "You bear a striking resemblance to
our family ; was your mother much at court?"
'*No," replied Morris, "but my father was."
This was a favourite story of the late Lord Tenny-
son, who accounted it a brilliant illustration of
the world's stock of anecdotes of this class.
It is possibly mythical in the personal application
to Morris, but his resemblance to the House of
Bourbon, together with a reputation as a wit,
makes it entirely possible.

To continue the county tradition. Lord Neil
Campbell, brother of the Duke of Argyle, lived
in state on an estate of sixteen hundred acres

1 6 The Somerset Hills.

near the junction of the north and south branches
of the Raritan River. He was devoted to the
cause of "The Pretender" and saved his head
by escaping to the Colonies. His grandson,
John Stevens, married Betty Alexander, sister
of the last Earl of Stirling. They are the ances-
tors of the distinguished Stevens family of
Hoboken.

The Earl of Stirling proved his title clear in
1760 and then returned to his estate at Bask-
ing Ridge, and spent his time, to use his own
words, *'in settling a good farm in the wilder-
ness and bringing to it some of the productions
and improvements of Europe." That aristocratic
tradition and ancestry were not incompatible
with the type of patriotism that gave birth to
a great republic in 1776, is abundantly shown
in the annals of the American Revolutionary
struggle.

The early settlers of Somerset were most
heterogeneous, both in rank and nationality.

The Somerset Hills. 17

There were English and Scotch gentlemen and
yeomen, Dutch burghers and peasants, and Ger-
mans from the Palatinate, many of whom were
redemptioners. We may trace their origin in the
religious societies and congregations that still
exist, some of which have records of a historic
continuity of more than two centuries. Several
Protestant Episcopal parishes have their origin
with the mother-church of England, and were
doubtless centres of settlements by the English.
Luthern congregations were organized by the
German immigrants ; Presbyterian by Scotch
Calvinists ; and the Dutch Reformed churches
scattered through the central and southern part
of the country speak for the land of dikes and
ditches, the land of William the Silent and
John of Barneveld.

The earliest specific reference we fmd to the
Somerset Hill country is in a report to the
proprietors of East Jersey. In answer to one
of their inquiries of their agents, the report

1 8 The Somerset Hills

dated March, 1684, says : "There are also hills
up in the country, but how much ground they
take up we know not; they are said to be stony
and covered with wood, and beyond them is
said to be excellent land."

The existence of Somerset County dates from
1688, when it was set off from the neighbor-
ing county of Middlesex. But it was some
twenty-five years before it was sufficiently or-
ganized to have courts of its own for the ad-
ministration of justice, and a county seat. Six
Mile Run, Hillsborough, and Somerville were
successively the county capital, the present ad-
ministration buildings at Somerville dating from
1798.

In Smith's "History of New Jersey, " published
in 1765, the description of the county records:
"The land is rich and being settled by the in-
dustrious low Dutch and a few others, much
improved wheat is the staple of the county of
which they raise large quantities ; they send

The Somerset Hills. 19

their flower down Rariton River, to New York."
The first permanent settlement within the
present bounds of the county was made in 1681.
In 1665 the first English governor, Philip Car-
teret, issued a publication entitled "Concessions
and Agreements of the Lords-Proprietors." The
object of this was to encourage emigration,
and as an immediate result several families from
Piscataqua, in the then province of Massachu-
setts, settled Piscataway. Pushing westward
from this point along the line of the old Indian trail,
the settlement soon spread across the present
borders of Somerset, and with the settlement of
Bound Brook in 1681 the county history begins
as a matter of written record.

20 The Somerset Hills.

II.
INDIAN TRADITION AND HISTORY.

AS with other prehistoric peoples, we are
largely dependent upon oral tradition for
our theories of the genesis and evolution of the
American Indian race. By a careful considera-
tion of their weird and fantastic traditions, we
may reach a plausible working theory when
these are supported by circumstantial evidence.
The Indians who roamed through the Somer-
set Hills are classed as Algonquins, the huge
family whose territory extended from the Mis-
sissippi to the Atlantic and from the Carolinas
to Hudson Bay. ''Like a great island in the
midst of the Algonquins, lay the country of the
tribes speaking the generic tongues of the Iro-
quois." The true Iroquois, or Five Nations, ex-
tended through Central New York, from the
Hudson to the Genesee River. The particular

"The Dust of a Vanished Race"

The Somerset Hills. 21

tribe occupying New Jersey, so far as it was
occupied, is now termed Delawares, though
they called themselves Lenni-Lenape, and the
country they occupied between the Hudson and
Delaware Rivers they call "Scheyichbi." The
Indians were never numerous in this State ; in-
deed, the whole family of Algonquins is estimated
within a quarter of a million, and at no time
after the discovery by Europeans numbered
more than two thousand in New Jersey. In
New England, attracted thither possibly by the
bounty of the sea, they were more numerous.
The Algonquin traditions all agree that their
remote ancestors came from a region west of
the Mississippi. Like the story of the Aryan
migrations from the region about the Caspian
Sea, there seems to have been successive tides
of migration, each crowding its forerunner
toward the sea. They believed that previous
to their incarnation they were all animals, and
lived in caves under the earth. One of them

22 The Somerset Hills.

accidentally discovered a hole leading out to
the sunshine, and then they all followed him
out and found it so pleasant that they began
life anew. They gradually developed into human
beings, learned to hunt and fish, and practised
a rude agriculture. They still claim kinship to
their animal ancestors, it would seem, for we
still hear of such chiefs as "Sitting Bull" and
"Big Bear."

The Lenni-Lenape in their march eastward
came in friendly contact with an earlier migra-
tion from the Northwest, called the Mengwe,
later known as the Iroquois. Their common
progress was disputed by another powerful tribe
known as the Alligewi, who disputed their
right to advance. Neither tribe being strong
enough to vanquish the Alligewi, they joined
forces and completely annihilated them. Then
the Lenape and Mengwe parted company, the
latter settling in the vicinity of the Great Lakes,
and the former continuing eastward. The Le-

The Somerset Hills. 23

nape crossed the AUeghanies, a name com-
memorating their vanquished enemies, the
Alligewi, and in course of time reached the
Delaware, which they called Lenape-Whittuck, —
the River of the Lenape. Then crossing over the
river they took possession of the land and
called it Scheyichbi.

Such is the Indian tradition. They surely
found game and fish in abundance ; deer were
plentiful ; bears, wolves, and panthers were
quite too numerous to permit even the idle life
of the aborigines to drift into monotony. The
fertile bottom lands of the rivers were easily
cultivated, and here they usually planted their
maize and built their wigwams. On a single
farm near Basking Ridge, along the upper
courses of the Passaic River, several hundred
flint and quartz arrowheads, and some fifty
tomahawks, have been picked up in recent
years. At still another point irregular fragments
of flint, and imperfect arrowheads, celts, and

24 The Somerset Hills.

tomahawks, seem to indicate the site of an
arrow "factory." An ** amulet " too is occasion-
ally met with. These are curious and varied in
shape, sometimes resembling a bird, sometimes
a rabbit or other animal. They are sometimes
rudely decorated — or are the decorations hiero-
glyphics ? Throughout Bedminster township,
too, these relics of the American Stone Age
have frequently been found.

The Indian trails connecting the Delaware
River with the ocean crossed Somerset County
in several places. The main one followed the
lower course of the Raritan River, between New
Brunswick and a point on the Delaware north
of Trenton. The natural course of settlement
was along these trails, but it is a matter of
great pride to the people of the State that the
country was peaceably occupied by purchasing
the lands from the Indians. No bloody Indian
wars interrupted the development of the Col-
ony. Disputes occasionally arose as the pur-

The Somerset Hills. 25

chases multiplied, but the matter was amicably
adjusted by the colonial government, and a
reservation of three thousand acres in Burlington
County was set aside for their use. Here the
remnants of the Lenapes settled and became
known as the Edge-Pillocks. In 1801 they
were invited by the Mohicans of New York to
join them. The invitation was in terms both
cordial and picturesque: **Pack up your mats,"
said the Mohicans, **and come and eat out of
our dish which is large enough for all, and our
necks are stretched in looking toward the fire-
side of our grandfather till they are as long
as cranes."

The Edge-Pillocks sold their lands and joined
the Mohicans. Both tribes soon decided to buy
lands in Michigan and settle there, but they
did not prosper. In 1832 the whole remnant
of these New Jersey Indians numbered only
forty. They therefore sent their oldest chief,
one Bartholomew Calvin, to petition the New

26 The Somerset Hills.

Jersey legislature for aid, making a claim for cer-
tain hunting and fishing rights they still held.
They claimed but two thousand dollars, which
amount the legislature readily granted. * * It is
a proud fact in the history of New Jersey,"
said Samuel L. Southard, a native of Basking
Ridge, on this occasion, "that every foot of
her soil has been obtained from the Indians by
fair and voluntary purchase and transfer — a fact
that no other State in the Union, not even the
land that bears the name of Penn, can boast
of." These sentiments were indorsed by the
Indian agent in his address to the legislature.
He was a full-blooded Indian, called by his
people Shawriskhekung or Wilted Grass. He
was educated in Princeton College by a Mis-
sionary Society which had named him Bar-
tholomew Calvin. In closing his address, he
said : " Not a drop of our blood have you spill-
ed in battle, not an .acre of our land have you
taken but by our consent. These facts speak for

The Somerset Hills. 27

themselves and need no comment. They place
the character of New Jersey in bold relief and
bright example to those States within whose
territorial limits our brethren still remain. Noth-
ing but blessings can fall upon her from the
lips of Lenni-Lenape."

There is a record, however, of one Indian
brave who refused to follow the tribe West.
He with his squaw returned to Burlington
County and settled near Mount Holly, where
they died some twenty years later. They left
a daughter, a tall, powerful woman who was
known throughout the country as Indian Ann.
She lived to a great age, dying in 1894, with
the melancholy distinction of the ''Last of
Lenni-Lenapes in New Jersey."

"Ascending the St. Lawrence," says Francis
Parkman, ''it was seldom that the sight of a
human form gave relief to the loneliness, until
at Quebec, the roar of Champlain's cannon from
the verge of the cliff announced that the savage

28 The Somerset Hills.

prologue of the American drama was drawing
to a close, and that the civilization of Europe
was advancing on the scene." In New Jersey,
haply, the advance was accomplished with no
record of cruelty or wrong.

The Somerset Hills. 29

III.
SOCIETY IN COLONIAL SOMERSET.

THE colonial population of Somerset County
was far from homogeneous. It was liter-
ally composed of all sorts and conditions of men.
There were English, Scotch, Dutch, German,
Indians, and of negroes there were not a few.
There was a corresponding diversity in rank,
for class distinctions, both in theory and in fact,
were as fully recognized as they were in the
mother countries. But colonial society added
yet another social condition — that of the negro
slave. We find within the narrow limits of
Somerset County the noble, the slave, and all
the intermediate ranks ; all this too in a scattered
population probably never much exceeding
6,000 souls.

The international conscience of the civilized
world on the subject of slavery was not yet

3© The Somerset Hills.

awakened. The traffic proved to be extremely
profitable, and its interests were carefully fos-
tered by the home Government. In theory the
institution was as fully accepted in the North as
it was in the South, and the fact that they soon
became more numerous in the South is due
chiefly to conditions of climate and occupation.
The moral and economic aspects of the question
were not seriously considered until a period
shortly prior to the Revolution. Stern New
England Puritans did not hesitate to engage in
the traffic and amass fortunes thereby. Peter
Faneuil, the Boston Huguenot merchant, was,
we are told, " on the one hand piling up profits
from his immense slave trade, while on the
other occupied in private and public charities, and
in the erection of a Cradle of Liberty in Boston."
As Professor John Fiske humorously observes,
*'It takes men a weary while to learn the
wickedness of anything that puts gold in their
purses." The pious woman who retorted to

The Somerset Hills. 31

the author of "The Negro's and Indian's Ad-
vocate" that "he might as well baptize puppies
as negroes" was not unique. The question
before the United States Supreme Court in the
famous Dred Scott case was no new thing. So
early as 1667, nearly two centuries before Chief-
Justice Taney's decision, the Virginia House of
Burgesses enacted: "Whereas, some doubts
have arisen whether children that are slaves by
birth and by the charity and piety of their
owners made partakers of the blessed sacrament
of baptisme, should by virtue of their baptisme
be made free : It is enacted and declared by
this grand assembly and the power thereof, that
the conferringe of baptisme doth not alter the
condition of the person as to his bondage or
fTreedom ; that diverse masters, ffreed from this
doubt, may more carefully endeavor the propa-
gation of Christianity by permitting children,
though slaves, or those of greater growth if
capable, to be admitted to that sacrament."

The Somerset Hills.

The extent to which it obtained in New Jersey
is not definitely known, but in proportion to its
population, it was far in excess of any other
colony north of the Mason and Dixon line.
They were most numerous in those parts of the
country settled by the Dutch, presumably be-
cause the Dutch colonial interests in the tropics
and their vocation as traders had familiarized
them with the institution. The total population
of the State in 1726 numbered 32,442, of which
eight per cent, were negro slaves. The same
year, out of a total population in Somerset
County of 2,271 souls, 17 percent, were negro
slaves, and this ratio was exceeded in two
other counties. In the year 1800 the proportion
of negroes to whites was still nearly as great,
and they then numbered 1,863. In the early
years of the century a series of laws were
enacted for their gradual emancipation, and by
1830 the total number in Somerset County
numbered but 78.

The Somerset Hills.

Negroes in Somerset County were valuable
property. In an inventory of an estate at
Branchburg, settled in 1764, there is mention of
six slaves varying in value from £,^0 to £ri^
each. Again, a few years later^ we find the
following bill of sale : "July 10, 1768, John
Van Nest, of Bridgewater (now Branchburg)
sold to Peter Van Nest, a certain Neger Winch
named Mary, and a neger boy named Jack for
the sum of ;£"66, York currency."

Nor shall we have to go South, or to the
pages of * 'Uncle Tom's Cabin," for instances of
barbaric cruelty. There are records of revolting
brutality in the execution of the death penalty.
For murder or assault, the slave was burnt alive,
and for certain petty misdemeanors, hanging
was considered none too severe by the colonial
courts. In 1694 a justice of Monmouth County
pronounced sentence on a negro murderer in
the following terms : ''Caesar, thou art found
guilty by thy country of those horrid crimes

34 The Somerset Hills.

that are laid to thy charge : therefore, the court
doth judge that thou, the said Caesar, shall
return to the place from whence thou earnest,
and from thence to the place of execution, when
thy right hand shall be cut off and burned
before thine eyes. Then thou shalt be hanged
up by the neck till thou art dead, dead, dead :
then thy body shall be cut down and burned
to ashes in a fire, and so the Lord have mercy
on thy soul, Caesar."

From such sombre pictures, it is a relief to
turn to a consideration of the fashionable life of
the Colony. Here we have glimpses of colour,
gayety, and grace sufficient for the composition
of a Watteau picture. Midway between New
England and Pennsylvania, the social life of New
Jersey was neither so austere as was that of the
Puritans nor yet so sombre as that of the
Quakers across the Delaware. It was more in
touch and sympathy with the gayety of Knick-
erbocker New York and Cavalier Virginia. So

The Somerset Hills. 35

we may read of gay doings in the old Capitol
at Perth Amboy ; of men in crimson and satin
garments, gold laced and frilled, with silver
buttons engraved with monograms ; in silk
stockings and jewelled shoe buckles ; in hats
cocked and laced, and powdered wigs ; with
gold snuff-boxes and gold-headed walking-sticks.

And the ladies were even more ''smart" in
gorgeous apparel. They wore gorgeous bro-
caded silks and satins, large hats with streaming
feathers, jewels, gay ear-pendants ; they pow-
dered and puffed their hair, painted and patched
their faces. We hear of all these vanities ; they
are no new things in these later days. An
advertisement in the New York Gazette of 1733
reads: "Morrison, Peruke maker from London,
dresses gentlemen's and ladies' hair in the
politest taste. He has a choice parcel of human,
horse, and goat hair to dispose of."

''The apparel oft proclaims the man" and
woman. It is but a step from the world's

36 The Somerset Hills.

stage to the mimic stage. The first theatre
company to visit the Colonies appeared in Perth
Amboy in 1752, and fashionable New Jersey
society received the innovation with open arms.
Long years after^ old ladies recalled with rap-
ture the beauty and charm of the leading lady
as Jane Shore. In marked contrast to all this,
in the year 1750, the Assembly of the province
of Massachusetts forbade theatrical representa-
tions because, that body held, ''they tend greatly
to increase immorality, impiety, and a con-
tempt of religion."

The colonial administration of America abounds
in memories of gentlemen of distinction no less
than in tyrannical time-servers and selfish poli-
ticians. Of the gentlemen, the Colony of New
Jersey was favoured with not a few. Of such
was Col. Robert Hunter, who was appointed
to the governorship of the provinces of New
York and New Jersey early in the eighteenth
century in the reign of Queen Anne.

The Somerset Hills. 37

It was during his administration that Northern
Somerset County was settled, and the western
portion was set off as a separate county, named
in compliment to him. Hunter-don. He was a
personal friend of Addison, Steele, and Swift,
and was thus in close touch with the literary
life of the Augustan Age of English letters.
Indeed, it is said he owed his appointment to
Addison, who was then Under Secretary of State.
Himself a graceful and witty writer, it would
seem that he shared the mantle of the brilliant
dean of St. Patrick's. Writing to Swift from
the executive mansion, Perth Amboy, under
date of March 13, 17 13, he says : ''This is the
finest air to live upon in the universe ; and, if
our trees and birds could speak, and our assem-
blymen be silent, the finest conversation also."

The consecration of Swift to the bishopric of
the Church of England in America was once
seriously considered. The plan was abandoned,
however, and the mother Church never sent a

38 The Somerset Hills.

bishop across seas to the American Colonies.
The American episcopate of the Protestant Epis-
copal Church, therefore, dates from a period after
the Revolution, nearly a century after the plan
of sending Jonathan Swift hither was considered.
Had he been sent to the new world instead of
to Ireland perhaps " Gulliver's Travels" had not
been written, and Stella and Vanessa had not
languished.

All functions relating to the administration of
the Government were attended with great dignity
and ceremony. These, of course, were based
on English precedent, some of them, indeed,
being still in force. Judges on a circuit were
''met outside of the town by the sheriff, justices
of the peace, and other gentlemen on horseback
who conducted them in honour to their lodg-
ings." When Lord Stirling, a distinguished son
of Somerset, officially attended the Governor's
Council, ''he rode in a great coach with gilded
panels, emblazoned with coronets and medal-

The Somerset Hills. 39

lions, and altogether affected a style and splen-
dour probably unequalled in the Colonies."
A contemporary speaks of the equipage of
Governor Lewis Morris (Governor of New Jersey
from 1738 to 1746) rolling down Broadway
"with silver mountings glittering in the sun-
shine and the family arms emblazoned upon it
in many places." To support all this state,
private fortunes were expended, and salaries
were out of all proportion to modern ratios.
The salary of the royal governor of New Jersey,
a modest little colony which at no time before
the Revolution numbered more than 150,000,
is estimated at quite or nearly ;^i,ooo.

Indeed, to reconstruct the social life in the
Colonies, even in the modest little province of
New Jersey, it would seem necessary to deduct
but little from the brilliant pen pictures of Thack-
eray and Macaulay which depict contemporary
England. One important deduction must, how-
ever, be borne in mind : Architecturally, the

The Somerset Hills.

colonial mansion, be it ever so ** stately," could
never rival the manor house or castle of Old
England. The colonial houses developed in the
English American Colonies have a beauty and
fitness of their own, but they are not to be
compared to the splendour that ** falls on castle
walls" of enduring stone, or to the domestic
beauty and comfort of a Tudor manor house.

The Somerset Hills. 41

IV.
PLUCKAMIN AND BEDMINSTER.

THE name of the village of Pluckamin is
of doubtful origin. It is probably de-
rived from an Indian word of uncertain mean-
ing from which we get our word persimmon.
The settlement of the village dates about the
middle of the eighteenth century. The names
of the early settlers, together with the early
religious history of the village, indicate a Dutch
and German origin of the first land-holders of
Pluckamin. St. Paul's Lutheran Church was
erected in 1756, and maintained a vigorous
existence for the next generation. The con-
gregation was gradually absorbed by the Pres-
byterians whose church building is near the
site of the Lutheran Church which was torn
down early in the nineteenth century.
At the outbreak of the revolution, it was a

42 The Somerset Hills.

flourishing village, and situated as it is on the
highroad between Trenton and Morristown,
was the scene of many marchings and counter-
marching, of halts and incidents worthy of
recollection. After the battle of Princeton early
in January, 1777, Washington wished to attack
the British at New Brunswick before going into
winter quarters at Morristown. But the jaded
condition of his small army led him to abandon
the plan, and so, bearing to the northwest
of the enemy, he reached Pluckamin on Satur-
day, the 4th of January, halting there over
Sunday. The wounded were quartered in the
village; the British prisoners, numbering nearly
three hundred, were quartered in the Lutheran
Church which was turned into a temporary
prison. The army camped on a snow-covered
hill to the south of the village. The head-
quarters of Washington during these two event-
ful days was the Fenner house, still standing.
Here he wrote his official report of the battle

The Somerset Hills. 43

of Princeton and immediately dispatched it to
Congress by Col. Henry. The moral effect of
the victories of Trenton and Princeton to the
American cause is almost incalculable. As
strategic successes they rank with the brilliant
achievements of any war. The ageing King of
Prussia, Frederick the Great, who watched the
progress of the war in America with keen
interest, pronounced them master-strokes of
military genius. There was no community of
interest between the Prussian autocrat and the
American Colonists, but, like the figures on a
chess board, the game deeply interested him as
a study in military science. His admiration of
the strategic skill displayed in the movements
on Trenton and Princeton led him to send to
Washington a sword with the complimentary
inscription, ''From the oldest general in the
world to the greatest."

The Commander-in-chiefs modest official re-
port of the engagement at Princeton, penned

44 The Somerset Hills.

on that busy mid-winter Sunday spent in Pluck-
amin, is well worth perusal and is inserted here
unabridged :

Pluckamin, 5 Jan. 1777.

To THE President of Congress.

Sir : I have the honour to inform you that since
the date of my last from Trenton I have re-
moved with the army under my command to
this place. The difficulty of crossing the Dela-
ware on account of the ice made our passage
over it tedious, and gave the enemy an oppor-
tunity of drawing in their several cantonments,
•and assembling their whole force at Princeton.
Their large pickets advanced towards Trenton,
their great preparations, and some intelligence
I had received added to their knowledge that
the 1st of January brought on a dissolution of
the best part of our army, gave me the strongest
reason to conclude that an attack on us was
meditating. Our situation was most critical and
our force small. To remove immediately was

The Somerset Hills. 45

again destroying every dawn of hope which
had began to revive in the breasts of the Jersey
militia; and to bring those troops who had first
crossed the Delaware, and were lying at Cross-
wicks under General Cadwalader, and those
under General Mifflin at Bordentown (amount-
ing in the whole to about three thousand six
hundred) to Trenton was to bring them to an
exposed place. One or the other^ however,
was unavoidable. The latter was preferred and
they were ordered to join us at Trenton^ which
they did by a night march on the ist instant.
On the 2nd, according to my expectation, the
enemy began to advance upon us; and after
some skirmishing the head of their column
reached Trenton about four o'clock, whilst their
rear was as far back as Maidenhead. They
attempted to pass Sanpink Creek, which runs
through Trenton at different places, but finding
the fords guarded, they halted and kindled their
fires.

46 The Somerset Hills.

We were drawn up on the other side of the
creek. In this situation we remained till dark,
canonading the enemy and receiving the fire of
their field pieces, which did us but little dam-
age. Having by this time discovered the enemy
were greatly superior in number, and that their
design was to surround us, I ordered all our
baggage to be removed silently to Burlington
soon after dark; and at twelve o'clock, after
renewing our fires and leaving guards at the
bridge in Trenton and other passes on the same
stream above, marched by a roundabout road
to Princeton where I knew they could not have
much force left and might have stores. One
thing I was certain of, that it would avoid the
appearance of a retreat which was of conse-
quence, or to run the hazard of the whole army
being cut off, whilst we might, by a fortunate
stroke, withdraw General Howe from Trenton
and give some reputation to our arms. Happily
we succeeded; we found Princeton about sun-

The Somerset Hills. 47

rise with only three regiments and three troops
of light-horse in it, two of which were on their
march to Trenton. These three regiments, es-
pecially the two first, made a gallant resistance,
and in killed and wounded and prisoners must
have lost five hundred men ; upwards of one
hundred of them were left dead on the field ;
and with what I have with me and what were
taken in the pursuit and carried across the Dela-
ware, there are near three hundred prisoners,
fourteen of whom are officers, all British.

This piece of good fortune is counterbalanced
by the loss of the brave and worthy General
Mercer, Colonels Hazlet and Potter, Captain Neal
of the artillery, Captain Fleming who com-
manded the first Virginia regiment, and four
or five other valuable officers, who, with about
twenty-five or thirty privates, were slain in the
field. Our whole loss cannot be ascertained,
as many who were in pursuit of the enemy
(who were chased three or four miles) are not

48 The Somerset Hills.

yet come in. The rear of the enemy's army
lying at Maidenhead not more than five or six
miles from Princeton, was up with us before
our pursuit was over, but as I had the precau-
tion to destroy the Bridge over Stony Brook
about half-a-mile from the field of action, they
were so long retarded there as to give us time
to move off in good order for this place. We
took two brass field-pieces, but for want of
horses could not bring them away. We also
took some blankets, shoes, and a few other
trifling articles, burned the hay and destroyed
such other things as the shortness of time
would admit of.

My original plan when I set out from Trenton
was to push on to Brunswic; but the harassed
state of our troops, many of them having had
no rest for two nights and a day, and the
danger of losing the advantage we had gained
by aiming at too much, induced me by the
advice of my officers to relinquish the attempt.

The Somerset Hills. 49

But in my judgment, six or eight hundred fresh
troops upon a forced march, would have de-
stroyed all their stores and magazines, taken (as
we have since learned) their military chest con-
taining seventy thousand pounds, and put an
end to the war. The enemy, from the best
intelligence 1 have been able to get, were so
much alarmed at the apprehension of this, that
they marched immediately to Brunswic without
halting except at the bridges (for I also took
up those at Millstone on the different routes to
Brunswic) and got there before day. From the
best information 1 have received, General Howe
has left no men either at Trenton or Princeton.
The truth of this I am endeavoring to ascertain
that 1 may regulate my movements accord-
ingly. The militia are taking spirit and I am
told are coming in fast from this State, but I
fear those from Philadelphia will hardly submit
to the hardships of a winter campaign much
longer, especially as they, very unluckily, sent

50 The Somerset Hills.

their blankets with their baggage to Burlington.
I must do them the justice, however, to add that
they have undergone more fatigue and hardship
than I expected militia, especially citizens, would
have done at this inclement season. I am just
moving to Morristown where I shall endeavor
to put them under the best cover I can. Hith-
erto we have been without any; and many of
our poor soldiers quite barefoot and ill clad in
other respects.

I have the honour to be, etc.

This was an eventful Sunday in the annals
of the quiet Somerset village. Besides the Com-
mander-in-chief, there were among others
known to fame, Generals Greene, Knox, and
Sullivan; there was, too, the venerated Dr. Ben-
jamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of
Independence, soon to be appointed surgeon-
general of the army. Among the fourteen
British officers captured and under guard was

The Somerset Hills. 51

one Captain William Leslie, son of the Earl of
Leven, who was so severely wounded in the
battle that he died soon after reaching Pluck-
amin. Dr. Rush, who ministered to the dying
captain, was a native of Philadelphia. He
graduated from Princeton College at the early
age of fifteen, and then studied medicine in
Edinburgh where he took his degree. During
his residence abroad, he knew the family of
the Earl of Leven intimately. It was his mel-
ancholy privilege to attend the dying captain
in his last moments, and see him reverently
interred in the Lutheran Cemetery. The journal
of Captain Rodney of the Delaware line has the
following record of the event:

Pluckamin, N. J., Jan. 5, 1777.
The General continued this day also to re-
fresh the army. He ordered forty of our light
infantry to attend the funeral of Colonel Leslie,
to bury him with the honours of war. He

52 The Somerset Hills.

was one of the enemy who fell at Princeton.
They readily obeyed in paying due respect to
bravery, though in an enemy. Captain Henry
was now gone home, and 1, myself, had com-
mand of the five companies of infantry, but as
I had not paid any attention to the military
funeral ceremonies, 1 requested Captain Hum-
phries (Humphreys ?) to conduct it.

Dr. Rush had the grave marked with a head-
stone bearing the following touching inscription :

In memory of the

Hon. Capt. William Leslie of the

17th British Regiment.

Son of the earl of Leven

in Scotland.

He fell January 3d, 1777, aged 26 years,

at the Battle of Princeton.

His friend, Benj. Rush, M. D., of

Philadelphia,

hath caused this stone to be erected as

a mark of his esteem for his

worth, and respect for

his noble family.

The Somerset Hills. 53

About the year 1835 the crumbling tomb-
stone was replaced by the then Earl of Leven.
He ordered a literal copy of the inscription
written by the good Dr. Rush, who, the day
after the burial of Leslie, hurried off to Prince-
ton to attend the dying General Mercer.

More than a century later, another Phila-
delphia physician was to find inspiration in
the life and character of Dr. Rush. In Dr.
Weir Mitchel's novel of the Revolution, **Hugh
Wynne," Dr. Rush divides the honours and the
interest with the nominal hero of the romance.

Another incident of the halt at Pluckamin
is not so sombre. This was the arrival 01
Captain John Stryker's troop of Somerset
horse, laden with some timely spoils of the
enemy. Cornwallis, in his hurried retreat, had
left several broken-down baggage wagons in
charge of a guard of two hundred men.
Captain Stryker with but twenty troopers,
suddenly fell upon them at night and so

■ W t tl a ~' T ' "Vt ir <• • • • • ■"-■■■ , ,i..n .,.,.■:.■•,.-, .1 a:. .-::».. . :. . j ■ . -

54 The Somerset Hills.

■ ■ ■ I

terrorized the guard that they fled, leaving
the baggage to fate. Captain Stryker promptly
repaired the wagons, bringing them in triumph
to the army during the halt at Pluckamin.

In the disposition of the army during the
winter of 1778-79, General Knox was in com-
mand of an artillery corps, stationed at Pluck-
amin while the Commander-in-chief made his
headquarters in the Wallace house near Raritan.
General Knox's headquarters were in the Van
der Veer house near the Bedminster Church
where he was joined by Mrs. Knox, who
also spent the winter there. The corps, which
boasted a fine artillery train captured from
Burgoyne, was stationed near the village.

Facing the parade ground was a building
known as the Academy — enclosing a room
thirty by fifty feet which did service as a
lecture hall, for the camp was turned into
a training school during the periods of inac-
tivity. The camp known as Artillery Park was

'^^-^

173

c/T
>-<
<u

Pi
0)

The Somerset Hills. 55

the scene of much merry-making and social
life during this winter.

"You know what an agreeable circle of
ladies this State afforded two years ago,"
wrote an officer to a brother of General Knox.
"It is since much enlarged, so that we can
(in military stile) at a moment's warning, parade
a score or two."

The most brilliant event of that season took
place on February i8th (1779). It was a grand
fSte and ball to celebrate the first anniversary
of the French Alliance. There were military
reviews and manoeuvres directed by Baron
Steuben, the Inspector-General. There was a
dinner followed by a display of fireworks and
a grand ball. The company included all the
army officers stationed at or near Pluckamin,
the Commander-in-chief and his staff, and
many people of distinction In residence near
the camp. A grand pavilion one hundred feet
long, roofed by thirteen arches, was decorated

56 The Somerset Hills.

with allegorical paintings executed for the
occasion. The sixth of the thirteen arches
was a grand illuminated representation of
Louis XVI. as "The encourager of letters,
the supporter of the rights of humanity, the
ally and friend of the American people." A
strange fate met this ''supporter of the rights
of humanity " a few years later on the Place
de la Revolution.

This early significant use of the number
thirteen was the subject of a brilliant Tory
sarcasm at the time. The Lampoon states:
''Thirteen is a number peculiarly belonging to
the rebels. A party of naval prisoners, lately
returned from Jersey, say that the rations
among the rebels are thirteen dried clams per
day; that the titular Lord Stirling takes thirteen
glasses of grog every morning, has thirteen
enormous rum bunches on his nose, and that
(when duly impregnated) he always makes thir-
teen attempts before he can walk. That Mr.

The Somerset Hills. 57

Washington has thirteen toes on his feet (the
extra ones having grown since the Declaration of
Independence) and the same number of teeth
in each jaw . . . that a well organized rebel
household has thirteen children, all of whom
expect to be generals and members of the
High and Mighty Congress of the Thirteen
United States when they attain thirteen."

General Knox writes to his brother of the
event with great pride:

"We had at the Park on the eighteenth,"
he says, *'a most genteel entertainment given
by self and officers — everybody allows it to be
the first of the kind ever exhibited in this
State, at least: We had about seventy ladies —
all the first ton in the State — we danced all
night — between three and four hundred gen-
tlemen— an elegant room — the illuminating fire-
works, etc., were more than pretty."

A correspondent to the Pennsylvania Packet
of March 6th gives a detailed account of the

58 The Somerset Hills.

celebration and concludes with the following
tribute to the women of the period:

**Is it that the women of New Jersey, by
holding the space between two large cities,
have continued exempt from the corruptions
of either, and preserved a purity of manners
superior to both ? Or have I paid too great
attention to their charms and too little to
those imperfections which observers tell me
are the natural growth of every soil ? "

It was doubtless a brilliant company that
danced in the academy that night. The event
stood in bold relief against the inactive and
troubled social life of the preceding years.
General Washington himself, with Mrs. Knox,
opened the ball. Mrs. Washington, Lady Stirl-
ing, Mrs. Greene and others received the guests.
And there was William Duer, Englishman,
West-Indian, New Yorker, ex-member of Con-
gress, and army officer, come to dance with
his fiancee, Lady Kitty Stirling.

The Somerset Hills. 59

Among the guests was the distinguished
Henry Laurens, late president of Congress, who
was soon to be a prisoner in England while
his son. Col. John Laurens, was doing such
valuable service in bringing about the active
co-operation of the French. Exasperated with
the dalliance of the French ministers. Colonel
Laurens resorted to an argument with Count
de Vergennes which was irresistible. ''The
sword which I now wear in the defence of
France as well as of my own country," he
said, *M may be compelled in a short time
to draw against France as a British subject,
unless the succor I solicit is immediately ac-
corded."

The sojourn of General and Mrs. Knox in
Pluckamin closed in gloom. A tombstone in
the graveyard of the Bedminster Church tells
part of the story. The inscription reads :

''Under this stone are deposited the Remains
of Julia Knox, an infant who died on the second

6o The Somerset Hills.

of July, 1779. She was the second daughter
of Henry and Lucy Knox, of Boston in New
England."

The Consistory of the Dutch Reformed Church
refused to allow the child to be buried in
the churchyard, because the Knoxes were not
of their faith. But Jacobus Van der Veer, Gen-
eral Knox's host, invited him to bury the infant
in the field adjoining the graveyard, where
his own daughter was buried, for a still
more brutal reason. She had died insane —
"possessed of the devil" — and therefore should
not have Christian burial. Years afterwards
the field was included in the churchyard, but
the incidents are sorry illustrations of the re-
ligious intolerance of the day.

With the breaking up of General Knox's
camp, the important revolutionary incidents of
the village come to a close. EofTs tavern
continued to be a convenient half-way house,
and a detachment of the Continental troops.

The Somerset Hills. 6i

with our French allies under Lafayette, passed
through in 1781 on the hurried march to
Yorktown. With the return of peace the
village returned to the even tenor of its
way — which, it would seem, has scarcely been
interrupted since.

62 The Somerset Hills.

BERNARDSVILLE.

Bernards Township and Bernardsville prob-
ably commemorate one of the royal governors
of the province, Sir Francis Bernard, who was
appointed in 1758. He was a popular gov-
ernor, and when he was transferred to Massa-
chusetts in 1760 by the home government, the
regret was general. His administration of that
province was less happy. It was he who in-
troduced the royal troops to the city of Boston,
prorogued the Colonial Assembly for refusing
to vote supplies for their support, and so con-
tributed to the volume of grievances that led
to the Revolution.

Governor Franklin, of New Jersey, writing to
his father, Benjamin Franklin, from Burlington
in 1769, says:

''The Boston writers' have attacked Gov-

Sir Francis Bernard

The Somerset Hills. 63

ernor Bernard on his letters and on his being
created a baronet. They worry him so much
that I suppose he will not choose to stay
much longer among them. There is a talk
that a new governor is shortly to be appointed.
Many of the principal people there wish you
to be the man, and say you would meet
with no opposition from any party, but would
soon be able to conciliate all differences."

The old name of the village was Vealtown,
and the old Vealtown Inn, known as Bullion's
Tavern, is frequently mentioned in Revolution-
ary annals. It occupied the site of the present
stone tavern in the village. While the scene
of no distinguishing event, Bernardsville was
frequently the halting or camping place of
officers and troops in their crossing and re-
crossing of New Jersey. After the disastrous
battle of Long Island in August, 1776, Gen-
eral Lee was extremely dilatory if not posi-
tively disobedient in following the Commander-

64 The Somerset Hills.

in-chief in retreat across New Jersey. On the
twelfth of December, his command camped
for the night in Bernardsville. Lee, however,
temporarily transferred his command to Gen-
eral Sullivan, and, "governed by some freak
or whim, or still baser passion," put up for the
night at Mrs. White's Tavern at Basking Ridge.
The story of his capture by the British the
following day is told more in detail in the note
on Basking Ridge.

A month later Bernardsville again saw the
Continental troops. This time, however, not in
disheartening retreat, but flushed with the great
strategic and actual victories of Trenton and
Princeton. After the battle of Princeton, early in
1777, the first halt made by Washington and his
army on the way to Morristown was at Plucka-
min. From thence, after a few days' sojourn, he
proceeded through Bernardsville and New Ver-
non, making his winter headquarters at the
Arnold Tavern on the Morristown "Green."

The Somerset Hills. 65

Early in 1781 the tavern at Vealtown was
the scene of a little army diplomacy. During
that winter the Pennsylvania line under com-
mand of General Wayne went into winter
quarters on Kimball Hill near Morristown. It
would seem that the condition of the troops
was but little better than during the mem-
orable winter at Valley Forge.

''The men," wrote General Wayne, ''are
poorly clothed, badly fed and worse paid,
some of them not having received a paper
dollar for near twelve months; exposed to
winter's piercing cold, to drifting snows, and
chilling blasts, with no protection but old
worn-out coats, tattered linen overalls, and
but one blanket between three men." Small
wonder they mutinied. They were devoted to
their cause and to General Wayne, but he was
quite unable to restrain them. So thirteen
hundred withdrew from camp intent on march-
ing to Philadelphia to present their claims to

66 The Somerset Hills.

Congress. Their first halt for the night was
at Vealtown and here Wayne followed them,
meeting the non-commissioned officers of the
mutineers in Bullion's tavern. The result of
the conference was a compromise. General
Wayne despatched a courier to Congress stating
their grievances and claims, and Congress
promptly sent a committee to confer with
them. They met the mutineers at Princeton,
relieved their necessities, granted the justice
of their claims, and sent them back to camp.
Meanwhile an incident had taken place that
proved they were no traitors, though in a state
of mutiny. Emissaries from General Clinton
met them, offering generous terms to join
the King's troops. But Clinton had reckoned
without his host. The emissaries were
promptly seized as spies and turned over to
the custody of General Wayne, to whose
command the mutineers themselves soon re-
turned. General Wayne's sobriquet of ''Mad

The Somerset Hills. 67

Anthony" was changed to ** Dandy Andy" in
New Jersey, where he was extremely popular.
The sobriquet grew out of his gentlemanly sol-
dierly appearance and fastidiousness in dress.

The camp at Kimball Hill and various
events in this and the preceding seasons fur-
nish the materials for Bret Harte's pretty Rev-
olutionary story, *' Thankful Blossom." The
house of the heroine was on one of the main
roads leading from Kimball Hill to Vealtown.

When, in August, 1781, Washington boldly
decided to cross the Hudson and unite with
Lafayette and the French fleet in Virginia,
the allied armies crossed New Jersey by different
routes in four divisions.

The two divisions of our French allies lay
at Whippany, Morris County, over night on
August 28th. The first division camped at
Bullion's Tavern, Bernardsville, the following
night, and the next day pushed on to Mill-
stone. On the 30th, the second division fol-

68 The Somerset Hills.

lowed from Whippany, and they too camped
at Bernardsville for the night, following the
first in their southern course, one day later.
The journal of the commissary of the French
army records: "The road which I took to
reach Bullion's Tavern is not disagreeable,
but the farms are still middling, they were
sown with maize and buckwheat; I also saw
a little hemp there."

The appearance of the soldiers of his Christian
Majesty Louis XVI., well drilled and in natty
uniforms, must have been in striking con-
trast to the ill-fed and half-clothed troops
that passed through the village five years
earlier after the defeat at Long Island. Then
there had been no considerable victory over
the royal forces. Now there was the memory
of Trenton, Princeton, and Monmouth in New
Jersey; of the capture of Burgoyne in New
York. Then the Colonies were fighting single-
handed; now they held the active and moral

The Somerset Hills. 69

support of a powerful ally — the hereditary
enemy of the British.

With this memorable march across the Jerseys,
the Revolutionary memories of Bernardsville
close; for the final victory at Yorktown fol-
lowed two months later.

Perhaps the most interesting historic house
architecturally is the old Kirkpatrick home-
stead on the Mine Brook road. It is built of
stone, two stories in height, in a severe and
dignified style which the present owner has
had the good taste to preserve and copy in
all restorations and extensions. On a stone
over the doorway are chiselled the initials
D. M. K., 1765. The initials stand for David
and Mary Kirkpatrick, the sturdy Scotch emi-
grants who built the house, whose son
Andrew was a distinguished Chief-Justice of
the State (1803- 1824).

<>»

w«

^' '4

•^

<::>.
A

The Somerset Hills. 71

VI.
BASKING RIDGE*

Several existing records place the earliest
settlement of Basking Ridge ** about the year
1700." It is quite possible that squatters may-
have been settled in the vicinity as early as
1700, for in the transactions of the regular
sale and deeding of the land there are sundry
references to trouble in dispossessing the
squatters. But inasmuch as the date of the
purchase of a tract of some three thousand
acres, including the site of the present village,
is dated June 24th, 1717, the latter may be
considered the date of the historic beginning
of the village.

The purchase was made from an Indian chief
named Nowenoik by one John Harrison, agent
of the East Jersey Proprietors, the price paid
being about fifty dollars. The tract extended

72 The Somerset Hills.

east to the Passaic River at Millington and
south to the Dead River. It was known as
Harrison's Neck and was sold a few years
later to four men, namely : Daniel Hollingshead,
George Rissearick, Col. John Parker, of Amboy,
and James Alexander, surveyor-general of the
provinces of New York and New Jersey.

These gentlemen had it regularly surveyed
in 1727 and laid out in farms of one hundred
and fifty to two hundred acres each. These
were then drawn for in lots, the lot to the
northeast of the village having fallen to James
Alexander, the surveyor-general of the province.

The name of the village is variously spelled —
Baskinridge, Baskenridge, Basken Ridge, etc. —
in published and written documents, during the
first century of its existence. In the loose
orthography of the period, this is nothing un-
usual, but in the earliest authentic documents
the word appears in its present form. This
seems to indicate a purely English origin for

The Somerset Hills. 73

the name, the local tradition being that the
Ridge was a place of resort for the wild animals
to bask in the sun.

A log meeting house was erected on the site
of the present Presbyterian Church some time
between the years 1725- 1730. This was super-
seded by a larger frame building in 1749. The
earliest burial discoverable from the gravestones
is dated 1736. But by 1740 Basking Ridge
must have been the centre of a considerable
and vigorous community. In that year the
village was visited by the great English evan-
gelist, George Whitefield, who himself recorded
the visit in the following terms:

"When I came to Basking Ridge I found that
Mr. Davenport had been preaching to the con-
gregation. It consisted of about three thousand
people. In prayer I perceived my soul drawn
out and a stirring of affection among the peo-
ple. I had not discoursed long, but in every
part of the congregation, somebody or other

I ■ ■ - I .1

74 The Somerset Hills.

began to cry out, and almost all were melted
to tears."

This was the period known in the religious
annals as The Great Awakening. They were
days of fervent, genuine piety, even though
marred by Puritan narrowness and intolerance.
The spirit of the Puritan petition to parliament
still obtained. "The service of God," that peti-
tion records, "is grievously abused by piping
with organ singing and trowling of psalms from
one side of the choir to another, with the squeak-
ing of chanting choristers disguised in white
surplices, some in corner caps and silly copes."
There was no organ and no choir in the village
church at this period. The doleful hymns of
the day were "lined out" by the pastor or a
deacon, then sung by the congregation. The
churches were cheerless and plain; in winter
unheated, and the customary sermon, morning
and afternoon, was one hour in length timed
by an hour-glass. It is recorded of one Puritan

The Somerset Hills. 75

preacher that he could rarely confine himself
within the hour limit. When the sand had
run out he would turn over the hour-glass
deliberately and say: ''Brethren, let us take
another glass."

In 1 75 1, the Rev. Dr. Kennedy was appointed
to the pastorate of the Presbyterian Church,
and soon after established a classical school of
considerable repute throughout the State. He
was a Scotchman, a graduate of the University
of Edinburgh, a Doctor of Medicine, and an all-
around gentleman of culture. He died in 1786,
and was buried in the churchyard. The present
church structure, the third on the site, was
erected in 1838.

At the outbreak of the Revolution, a culti-
vated society already existed in Basking Ridge
and the surrounding Somerset Hills. Lord
Stirling had made his summer home here a per-
manent residence. The distinguished Southard
family were his neighbors. John Morton, of

76 The Somerset Hills.

New York, had recently settled here in an
attractive and well-furnished homestead. This
society was soon augmented by exiles of
prominence from New York and elsewhere,
who found comparative security in these hills.
Elias Boudinot, of Elizabeth, who as president
of Congress signed the final Treaty of Peace
with Great Britain, had placed his family in
two farmhouses near the village. When Gov-
ernor Livingston was obliged to abandon his
home in Elizabethtown, Liberty Hall, his family
was sent to Basking Ridge and were the guests
of his brother-in-law. Lord Stirling, at The
Buildings.

The capture 01 General Lee in the early period
of the war was the beginning of a series of
Revolutionary associations with the village.

For nearly a hundred years the measure of
this adventurer's guilt was a subject of dispute,
but thorough investigation leaves no doubt on
that subject. Lee, who was second in com-

The Somerset Hills. 77

mand, coveted the post of commander-in-chief.
After the battle of Long Island and the series
of subsequent disasters, he was extremely
dilatory in following Washington into Pennsyl-
vania, hoping, it is charged, that with his small
force some new disaster would befall him, and
thus place his covetous second first in com-
mand. On the 1 2th of December, 1776, Lee
arrived in Bernardsville, where the army camped
for the night. He, however, moved on to more
comfortable quarters in Mrs. White's tavern in
Basking Ridge, leaving the army in charge of
General Sullivan. The following morning a
party of thirty British dragoons, under Colonel
Harcourt, suddenly appeared, surrounded the
house, captured him, and carried him off to the
British lines at New Brunswick, some eighteen
miles distant, where, clothed only in dressing
gown and slippers, the crestfallen would-be
commander-in-chief created no little merriment.
At the time, the capture of General Lee was

78 The Somerset Hills.

counted another addition to a long series of
disasters. It was, 'indeed, the darkest period
of the war. But we know better now. The
capture left General Sullivan in command of
Lee's division, which promptly joined Wash-
ington in Pennsylvania, and made possible the
most brilliant strategic feat of the war— the
capture of the Hessians at Trenton and the
victory of Princeton. And we know now, too,
that at the very moment of Lee's capture, he
had but signed the following letter to General
Gates :

Basking Ridge, Dec'r ye 13th, 1776.

My Dr Gates:

The ingenious maneuvre of Fort Washington
has unhinged the goodly fabric we had been
building. There never was so damned a stroke
entre nous a certain great man is most damn-
ably deficient. He has thrown me into a
situation where I have my choice of difficulties,

The Somerset Hills. 79

If I stay in this province I risk myself and
army, and if I do not stay, the province is lost
forever. . . . Our counsels have been weak to
the last degree. As to yourself, if you think
you can be in time to aid the General, I would
have you by all means go. You will at least
save your army. . . . Adieu my dear friend.
God bless you.

In "Janice Meredith," his romance of the Rev-
olution, Mr. Paul Leicester Ford makes the cap-
ture of Lee a conspicuous episode. With sub-
stantial fidelity to facts, he gives a realizing
picture of the tavern of the day, its keeper and
patrons, and above all of the covetous, arrogant
General Lee on that wintry December morn-
ing in 1776. We see the cursing, crestfallen
captive within the British lines at New Bruns-
wick, and from thence forwarded to Cornwallis
at Princeton.

There were great festivities in the village on
July 27, 1779. The occasion was the marriage

8o The Somerset Hills.

of Lady Kitty Stirling to Col. Wm. Duer, of
the Continental army. The ceremony took
place on the lawn in front of The Buildings,
"under a cedar tree," so the local tradition
states. It brought together a large and brilliant
company, including many army officers. A
barbecued ox and wine without stint furnished
refreshment. The bridegroom is described by
Judge Jones, the Tory historian of the period,
as "William Duer, a West Indian, settled in
the province of New York for several years,
as great a rebel as ever lived."

Colonel Duer was, in fact, a native of Devon-
shire, England, though his early life was spent
in the West Indies. After the war, he lived
in great state in New York City, but in 1792
his reckless speculations precipitated the first
great financial panic known to New York.

The Duers were conspicuous during the period
of social reconstruction in New York City fol-
lowing the war. In* the "Republican Court"

The Somerset Hills. 8i

which succeeded the Provincial court circle,
they naturally occupied the prominent place to
which their birth, breeding, and the public ser-
vices of their respective families entitled them.
That Lady Kitty Duer had all the graces and
accomplishments tradition attributes to her is
attested by the existence of her letters which
are models of graceful elegance. In the sum-
mer of 1778 the Countess of Stirling and Lady
Kitty visited Mrs. Robert Watts, Lord Stirling's
elder daughter, in New York City. This was
by special permission of Sir Henry Clinton, the
commandant, during the British occupation.
In a letter to her father on her return, Lady
Kitty writes:

" I have made several attempts to obey an in-
junction laid upon me by my dear papa, in a
letter to General Maxwell, but have always
been interrupted, or entirely prevented, by trivial
accidents, which, though important enough to
prevent my writing, are scarce worth mention-

82 The Somerset Hills.

ing to you; Colonel Livingston going to camp,
at last furnishes me with an opportunity of
acquainting you with everything my memory
retains of our jaunt to New York.

"In the first place we had the satisfaction of
being treated civilly by the British officers.
One indignity indeed we received from General
Grant, who ordered a sergeant to conduct the
flag to town, instead of an officer; but we
were so happy at getting permission to go on
that we readily excused his want of politeness.
Our acquaintances in town were very polite to
us: many, indeed, were remarkably attentive;
but whether it proceeded from regard to them-
selves, or us, is hard to determine. The truth
is, they are a good deal alarmed at their situa-
tion, and wish to make as much interest as
possible on our side. The sentiments, I really
believe, of a great number, have undergone a
thorough change, since they have been with
the British army; as they have many oppor-

The Somerset Hills. 83

tunities of seeing flagrant acts of injustice and
cruelty which they could not have believed their
friends capable of if they had not been eye
witnesses of their conduct. This convinces
them that if they conquer, we must live in
abject slavery.

"Mamma has, I suppose, mentioned to you
the distressed situation in which we found
poor Mary. The alarms of the fire and of the
explosion, added to her recent misfortune, kept
her for several days in a very weak state ; but
we had the satisfaction to leave her perfectly

recovered. The child she now has is one of
the most charming little creatures I ever saw,
and by all accounts is more likely to live than
either of the others. Mr. Watts, I am happy
to find, is among the number of those who
are heartily sick of British tyranny; and as to
Mary, her political principles are perfectly
rebellious. Several gentlemen of your former
acquaintance in the British army made par-

84 The Somerset Hills.

ticular inquiries after you. Col. Cosmo Gor-
don, brother of the Duchess, was very desirous
of making acquaintance with us on your
account, but we happened, unfortunately, to be
abroad whenever he called upon us. The
Chief Justice, Lord Drummond, Mr. Barrow and
several others begged to be remembered to
you. Lord Drummond is very anxious to have
his character cleared with respect to his parole:
he says you know the circumstances, and
wishes you would persuade the General to
take the matter into consideration. I believe
his lordship would be very happy to become
an American subject if the British parliament
would condescend to accede to our independ-
ence, and he is therefore very solicitous to
secure our good graces.

''Upon the whole, I think we may call our
jaunt a very agreeable one, though it was
checkered by some unlucky circumstances.
For my own part, I liked it so well that I

The Somerset Hills. 85

could wish to repeat it in a few months if
my sister does not get permission to pay us
a visit. I left mamma very well two days
ago to pay a visit to the Governor's family,
who sent the Colonel with an absolute com-
mand to fetch me. They all beg to be re-
membered to you."

This letter is dated ''Parsippany, August,
1778," whither Lady Kitty had gone, it will
be observed, to visit her uncle. Governor Liv-
ingston.

During the winter of 1779-80, Washington
and his army were encamped at Morristown
for the second time. In February General
Greene's division was moved to Basking Ridge,
where it remained until the opening of the next
campaign. During this season smallpox again
broke out in camp, and a hospital was es-
tablished for isolating and treating the victims.
This was located on the road between the
village and the Stirling estate, well back from

86 The Somerset Hills.

the highway. The foundation of the old farm-
house, which was the nucleus of the hospital,
still exists, and human bones have been un-
earthed in the vicinity. General Greene's
headquarters were at The Buildings, the home
of his companion in arms, Lord Stirling. At
the same time Governor Livingston's wife and
daughter were also guests of Lady Stirling.
We have a hint of the social refinement at
The Buildings in a private letter of General
Greene to his wife. Referring to the Misses
Livingston, he writes:

"They are three young ladies of distin-
guished merit, sensible, polite and easy.
Their manners are soft and engaging; they
wish to see you here and I wish it too, but
I expect long before that happy moment to
be on the march towards Philadelphia."

In August, 1 78 1, the village was gay with
the passing French and Continental troops en
route for Yorktown. Washington's pretended

J-^/u^V

'Ji

S-i

C/3

C/5

The Somerset Hills. 87

menace of New York concealed his brilliant
strategy, and almost before Sir Henry Clinton
was aware of his design, the body of the
Continental army and the French allies were
well on their way to Virginia, there to co-oper-
ate with the French fleet which had just
arrived. The army marched in several divis-
ions by different routes. Washington chose
the route across New Jersey by way of
Pompton, Morristown, Basking Ridge, Plucka-
min, etc. With him were two thousand
Continentals, General Knox and some artillery,
and Count Rochambeau with a division of
the French toops, including his favourite regi-
ment of Bourbonnois. The latter were partic-
ularly conspicuous for their brilliant uniforms,
trim appearance, and military efficiency. The
column halted at Basking Ridge and Bernards-
ville. The French officers were entertained
by Mr. John Morton, who lived near the
village church. Living with the Mortons were

88 The Somerset Hills.

Mrs. Morton's parents who were natives of
Germany. They utterly refused to meet the
hereditary foes of their native land, protest-
ing that no good could possibly come to
America from a French alliance. The halt was
brief, and, doubtless, the progress of the French
troops south continued to excite the interest
and admiration of the countryside.

The Revolutionary annals of the village may
fitly be concluded with a sketch of William
Alexander, titular Earl of Stirling, Major-General
in the Continental army. His father was James
Alexander, engineer in the Jacobite uprising
known as ''The '15." This failure to restore
the "Pretender" to the throne of his father
led James Alexander and some of his asso-
ciates to avoid embarrassments by escaping
to America. He came well recommended,
however, and in 17 16, the year after his
arrival in New York, he was appointed Sur-
veyor-General of the* Provinces of New York

The Somerset Hills. 89

and New Jersey, a post which he held until
his death forty years later. He studied law
and was admitted to the provincial bar, where
he soon rose to eminence. He appeared in
defence of John Peter Zenger in the famous
libel case in 1735 — thirty-five years earlier
than the same principle agitated all England
by the publication of the "Letters of Junius."
He was a member of the Governor's Coun-
cil, a member of the Board of Proprietors of
East Jersey, and one of the founders of ''The
American Philosophical Society." Thus, sur-
veyor-general, lawyer, statesman, scientist, the
career of the sometime engineer-officer in the
ranks of the Old Pretender is an early illustra-
tion of the truism that America is another
name for opportunity. In 1721 he married
the widow of one Samuel Provost. He died
in 1756, leaving to his widow and five
children a large landed estate, including a tract
of some seven hundred acres at Basking Ridge.

90 The Somerset Hills.

In the division of the estate, this fell to
his only son, William Alexander, known in
American history as Lord Stirling.

The career of William Alexander, titular Earl
of Stirling, is an interesting page from the
romances of the British peerage. He was
born in New York City in 1726, educated in
the best schools of his day, his father instruct-
ing him in mathematics and surveying. He
entered business life at an early age, first as
clerk, then as co-partner in the provision
business his mother inherited from her first
husband.

In the course of their trade, they took con-
tracts for supplying the King's troops with
clothing and provisions in the French and
Indian War. He soon attracted the attention
of the Commander-in-Chief, Governor Shirley,
who invited him to join his personal staff,
and eventually appointed him his private sec-
retary. When, in 1756, Governor Shirley was

The Somerset Hills. 91

summoned to England for trial, Alexander
accompanied him as a witness, and his testi-
mony contributed materially to the vindica-
tion of the character of Governor Shirley.

William Alexander remained in England five
years, during which time he presented and
prosecuted his claims, first to the title, and
then to a portion of the estate of the Earl of
Stirling.

When Henry, fifth Earl of Stirling, died in 1739,
the next in succession to the title was one Dr.
William Alexander, who had settled in Jamaica,
Long Island. Dr. Alexander was a nephew of
James Alexander of New York, and the uncle
urged the nephew to present his claims. This
he refused to do, and when he died childless,
in 1747, James Alexander fell heir to the title.
It was his purpose to present his claim to the
title, but public and private affairs prevented
his departure for Scotland from year to year,
and the claim was not entered and prosecuted

92 The Somerset Hills.

until after his death, when his son William
went abroad for that purpose.

The earldom of Stirling was not an ancient
dignity, but the origin and history of the house
are of extraordinary interest. The founder of the
house was William Alexander (1580- 1640), the
court poet of the reigns of James I. and
Charles I. These monarchs created him suc-
cessively Lord Alexander of TuUibrodie, Vis-
count of Canada, Earl of Stirling, and Earl of
Dovan. Along with these titles came huge
gifts of land in Nova Scotia, Canada, a ''tract
of Maine," and Long Island. To these were
added great political and administrative pow-
ers, among which was the power of creating
one hundred and fifty baronets. As a matter
of fact many English baronets to-day hold their
titles from patents granted by the first Earl of
Stirling. When, however, the fifth Earl of
Stirling died, the American estates had van-
ished, but it was the purpose of William

The Somerset Hills 93

Alexander to try to recover the title to some
portion of them, along with the dignity.

William Alexander proved his claim to
the title according to Scotch law, and since
the claim was for a Scotch peerage, this would
seem to settle the matter. But some of his
friends persuaded him to present his claim to
the House of Lords, not as a necessary meas-
ure, but as a matter of courtesy to that
august body. The decision by the House of
Lords was not reached until after his return
to America, when they decided the claim
could not be allowed because he had failed
to show that heirs in a direct line were
extinct.

He had assumed the title of Earl of Stirl-
ing when the Scotch court reached the de-
cision in his favour, and continued to be known
as such in public and private life to the day
of his death. But with all his apparent vanity,
there was no uncertain note in his politics

94 The Somerset Hills.

when it became necessary to take issue in
the events that led to the Revolution.

On his return to America, he disposed of
his mercantile interests in New York City and
began the work of developing the landed es-
tate at Basking Ridge, which he had inherited
from his father. He built thereon a summer
residence, which after a few years became his
permanent residence.

Smith's "History of New Jersey," published
in 1765, has the following reference to it:

"Here also at Basken-Ridge, is the seat of
William Alexander, Earl of Stirling; his im-
provements for taste and expense promise
more than anything of the kind hitherto
effected in the Province."

In 1748, he had married Sarah Livingston,
a sister of the Governor Livingston who was
to succeed the last royal governor of New
Jersey.

Meanwhile he continued to be active in

The Somerset Hills. 95

public life as Surveyor-General of the Province
and member of the Provincial Council. In the
latter capacity, he was summoned to Bur-
lington by Governor Franklin in November,
1765, to consider the Stamp Act. He was
detained in Basking Ridge by illness, but
wrote the Governor his sentiments on the
subject. Like many another man of the day,
he refused to consider the Stamp Act a de-
liberate measure on the part of the ministry,
believing it to be a mere blunder, which
would be repealed as soon as recognized.

At no time in the course of the events
that led to the Declaration of Independence
was his judgment obscured or his course
vacillating. He was still a member of the
King's Council, and on terms of friendly in-
timacy with Governor Franklin when the first
Revolutionary Congress appointed him to com-
mand the First New Jersey Battalion.

His prompt acceptance and vigorous organi-

96 The Somerset Hills.

zation of the same led to his dismissal from
the Board until the King's pleasure should
be known. When, however, the Provincial
Congress deposed Governor Franklin, the last
royal Governor of New Jersey, it became
the duty of his old friend and associate,
Lord Stirling, to arrest and imprison him. He
was soon released on parole, and at the close
of the war retired to England, where he died
in 1815.

The career of Major-General the Earl of
Stirling, as he was officially designated, in the
course of the Revolutionary struggle, is well
known. His bold attack and capture of a
British man-of-war laden with provisions in
New York Harbour in January, 1776; his
gallant and able service in the Battle of Long
Island; his services at Brandy wine Creek,
Germantown, and Monmouth; his timely ser-
vices in exposing the Conway cabal and thus
preserving to the • army its Commander-in-

The Somerset Hills. 97

chief ; his lamented death in Albany, in January,
1783, while in charge of the Northern Depart-
ment awaiting definite terms of peace — all
these are matters of public history.

There is but little difference of opinion
from the American point of view on the sub-
ject of his public life. Judge Jones, the Tory
historian of New York during the Revolution,
presents quite a different viewpoint. He
quotes with great satisfaction a reference to
Lord Stirling by the Marquis de Chastellux,
a member of the personal staff of Count de
Rochambeau, who made a tour of the rebel
colonies during the war, and, like many a
later traveller, ''wrote us up." The Marquis
writes: ** His birth, title, and property have
given him more influence in America than
his talents could ever have acquired him.
The title of 'Lord' which was refused him
in England is not here contested. He is ac-
cused of loving the table and the bottle as

98 The Somerset Hills.

becomes a 'Lord' but more by far than be-
comes a General."

His fondness for his title was sometimes the
subject of jokes, at his expense, even among
his friends. On one occasion, when a soldier
was about to be executed for desertion, the
criminal called out in terror, ''Lord have mercy
on me!" Lord Stirling, who chanced to be in
that vicinity, replied with warmth: "I won't,
you rascal! I won't have mercy on you."

With the death of Lord Stirling the family
disappears from the active life of the village
of Basking Ridge. His estate, owing to his
extravagance and the depreciation of the Con-
tinental currency, was so deeply involved that
he died practically bankrupt. The Basking
Ridge estate passed out of the family, and
the splendours of The Buildings were soon
tarnished by time and neglect. What is at
once the most authentic and realizing picture
of the elegance and refinement of the home

The Somerset Hills. 99

of this American nobleman is from the memoirs
of Mrs. Quincy, wife of a former president
of Harvard College. Her father, Mr. John
Morton, lived near the Stirling estate, and
during her girlhood she knew the family
intimately. She writes:

''The seat of Lord Stirling, called by the
country people The Buildings, was two miles
distant. Designed to imitate the residence of
an English nobleman, it was unfinished when
the war began. The stables, coach houses, and
other offices, ornamented with cupolas and
gilded vanes, were built round a large paved
court behind the mansion.

'* The front with piazza opened on a fine
lawn descending to a considerable stream
called the Black River. A large hall extended
through the centre of the house. On one side
was a drawing-room with painted walls and
stuccoed ceiling. Being taken there while a
child, my imagination was struck with a style

LofC.

loo The Somerset Hills.

and splendour so different from all around.
The daughters of Lord Stirling, called Lady
Mary and Lady Kitty, afterwards Mrs. Watts
and Mrs. Duer, the Miss Livingstons, afterwards
Mrs. Kane and Mrs. Otto, and other cultivated
and elegant women domesticated in the family,
made an impression I can never forget, for
they were all very pleasing and kind to me.
Ten years afterwards I again visited The Build-
ings, but what a change had taken place!
The family had removed, the house was
tenanted by a farmer, and the hall and elegant
drawing-room, converted into granaries, were
filled with corn and wheat, and the paved
courtyard with pigs and poultry.

"The stables and coach house were going to
ruin, and through the door of the latter, which
was falling off the hinges, I saw the state
coach of the fashion of Sir Charles Grandi-
son's day. It was ornamented with gilded
coronets and coats-of-arms blazoned on the

tp^^^-i^

^U-^r^J^^

rr/a.

e. — .

^i>7-^-

The Somerset Hills. loi

panels, and fowls were perching and roosting
upon it."

Lord Stirling was buried in the Livingston
vault in the old Dutch Church in Albany. When
the church was demolished in 1808, the remains
were moved to the Protestant Episcopal bury-
ing ground on State Street. In 1868 the grave-
yard was included in a public park and the
bodies removed to the Albany Rural Cemetery.
Here, it seems probable, rest the bones of
Major-General the Earl of Stirling in an un-
marked grave; for in the process of removal
their definite location was lost. ''Our fathers
find their graves in our short memories, and
sadly tell us how we may be buried in our
survivors."

Other citizens of national reputation belong
to the Basking Ridge of the next two genera-
tions. William L. Dayton was born here in
1807. In the course of his life he served suc-
cessively in the State Senate, on the bench of

I02 The Somerset Hills.

the Supreme Court of the State, in the United
States Senate, as State attorney, as candidate
for Vice-President on the Republican ticket of
1856 along with Gen. John C. Fremont, and
in 1 86 1 was appointed Minister to the Court of
France by President Lincoln. He died in Paris
in 1864 while in charge of this important post.
The Southard family, already referred to, had
migrated from Long Island soon after the set-
tlement of Basking Ridge. Here Henry South-
ard was born in 1747. He was a member of
the State legislature for eight years and repre-
sented his district in Congress for twenty-one
years. His still more distinguished son, Samuel
L. Southard, was born here in 1787. He was
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and was
elected Governor of the State in 1829. He was
appointed Secretary of the Navy in 1823, and
for a time was also Acting Secretary of War
and Treasury. He served several terms in the
United States Senate*, of which body he was

The Somerset Hills. 103

president in 1841. While in the Senate he
met his father in a joint committee of the two
houses — father and son each being chairman
of his respective committee. When St. Mark's
Church was erected in 1852, the stone altar
therein was built by the Southard family as a
memorial to the Congressman and Senator of
their family.

Basking Ridge, no less than Lamington, has
the tradition of an Indian horror, at least by
association. The following story, told by an
aged kinswoman of the heroine, was written
out many years ago, under title of

THE LOCUST GROVE.

Not far from the banks of the Passaic
River, where the narrowing meadow-lands
approach the Passaic Water Gap, is a grove
of locust trees. It is not far from the high-
road leading to the ancient village of Basking
Ridge and was once a part of the estate of

I04 The Somerset Hills.

Lord Stirling. The surrounding country is
steeped in the tradition of a past century ;
across the meadows, some two miles to the
west, is the stately old mansion which was
Lord Stirling's home before and during the
Revolutionary struggle — the trysting-place of
many men now known to fame, during
the two winter encampments of the Conti-
nental army at Morristown. On the crest of
the ridge that lies to the east of the village
stands the colonial house in which the too
ambitious General Lee was captured. The
church edifice guarding the head of the main
street is not as ancient as the village, though
venerable enough to command respect.

But to return to the Locust Grove. The
present generation can still remember when
the solitude of the place was broken only by
the low of cattle grazing in the meadows,
the note of Bob White, or the rumbling of
wagons over the road hard by. Near the

The Somerset Hills. 105

centre of the grove is still to be seen the
remnant of a hearth that was once a home,
and some fragments of a foundation. A suc-
cession of old-fashioned flowers here makes
an annual struggle for existence. Daffodils,
grape-hyacinths, rockets — each has its season,
and each season the noiseless encroachments
of 'tares' rob them of a little of their former
glory. These, together with some traces of
a well-sweep, are all that is left of the home
of 'Old Aunt Polly Kernan.' Here she lived
in lonely, childless widowhood, well into the
nineteenth century, surviving the tragedy of
her life nearly half a century.

She was married in Basking Ridge several
years before the outbreak of the Revolution,
and then went to Cherry Valley in Central
New York where her husband had purchased
some land. This was then a frontier region,
and its proximity to the house of the Six
Nations resulted in the destruction of the

io6 The Somerset Hills.

village and the massacre of the inhabitants
in the course of the border warfare that added
to the horrors of the period. In the summer
of 1778, the country was terrorized by the
reports of the massacre of Wyoming Valley
in Northern Pennsylvania. The Tories and
their Indian allies of New York resorted to
barbarities scarcely equalled in the earlier
border warfare. A few months later Cherry
Valley was similarly raided, and among the
victims was the pioneer Kernan family. Among
the Indians was a party of Mohawks, led by
their chief, the notorious Joseph Brant, the ally
of his Majesty George III.

The Kernans lived on the outskirts of the
village on a secluded farm off the highroad.
The even tenor of their uneventful lives was
rudely interrupted towards the close of a quiet
autumn day in 1778.

Aunt Polly was busily engaged before the
great kitchen hearth preparing the evening

The Somerset Hills. 107

meal. The children were playing about the
door waiting for the return of their father and
the men from the meadows. A wild shriek and
the alarming cries of the children brought the
mother to the door, only in time to see two of
the children scalped by a party of savage
Indians; the third, a little brown-eyed girl of
four years, taken roughly into custody, and
to be herself bound hand and foot and along
with the little girl put under guard while the
house was plundered. Meanwhile John Kernan
returned from the field, and almost before he
could comprehend the situation, was scalped
before the eyes of his wife and child, and
the bloody trophy flaunted in their faces.

As soon as night set in, the Indians turned
their backs on the ghastly victims of their ven-
geance and the home they had desolated and
began a hurried and stealthy retreat, carrying the
little girl but compelling the mother to follow
on foot.

io8 The Somerset Hills.

The story of Polly Kernan's life among the
Indians was never known in detail. Years after
her capture, when she returned saddened and
changed, the subject was too painful for dis-
cussion in her presence.

This much became known: She was early
separated from her only surviving child and for
years was jealously watched by her captors, who
took her to Western Pennsylvania — the far West
of that day. She finally succeeded in evading
the vigilance of her captors sufficiently to con-
fide her story to an English trader, with whose
connivance she succeeded in returning to the
East. Long and weary marching by night, and
hiding during the day, with many an escape
that seemed almost miraculous, placed her
beyond their power. One day she lay concealed
under a brush heap in a clearing, and her
benefactor barely succeeded in preventing the
Indians from firing the brush heap in pursuing
their work. She eventually found an asylum

The Somerset Hills. 109

with a relative near her former home in Basking
Ridge and immediately began to make efforts to
trace the wanderings of her daughter, the little
brown-eyed Mary.

After years of patient following and of one
clew after another, she was identified as the
wife of a chief in the far West. She had lost
her original identity and had no interests further
than those of her children, her husband, and
the tribe with which she had become identified.
The trader who found her learned that she had
a vague recollection of a mother, and an early
home, but she refused to return to either.

•'The old order changeth, yielding place to
the new," and the quiet locust grove with its
succession of old-time flowers and its pathetic
tradition is to be no exception. Already the
shriek of the locomotive crashing through the
woods to the south disturbs the repose of the
summer days, and bustle of the new life of
progress is crowding out this significant inci-

I lO

The Somerset Hills.

dent of pioneer days. The passing of the Indian
would seem to indicate that his mission is
accomplished. What that mission was in the
development of the human race is a subject
beyond the limit of the Somerset Hills.

The Somerset Hills. 1 1 i

VII.
LAMINGTON-

THE Presbyterian church was organized
about 1740, and the first regular pastor
was installed in 1742. This was the Rev. James
McCrea, who organized the parish and erected
a manse on the banks of the Peapack River,
where his children were born. Two of his sons
were killed in the battle of Saratoga, one was
killed in a skirmish, and one was a surgeon in
the army. But the chief interest in the family
centres about his daughter Jane, whose life
furnishes a romance of the Revolution, and the
circumstances of whose tragic death were cited
with thrilling effect when the great Burke
arraigned the ministry before the House of
Commons.

Jane McCrea, second daughter of Rev. James
McCrea, and Mary Graham his wife, was born

112 The Somerset Hills.

in the Lamington manse in 1753. There was
an excellent school in the village, from which
there is a record of at least one student who
entered the University of Edinburgh. Here Jane
McCrea received her education along with her
future lover, one David Jones.

Her oldest brother John studied law and
settled in Albany for the practice of his profes-
sion, and in 1773 purchased a farm on the
western bank of the Hudson near Fort Miller
Falls. After the death of her father in 1769 Jane
made her home with her brother at Albany and
on the farm. There were other emigrants from
Lamington settled in that region, among them
one Mrs. Jones, a widow, and her six sons, one
of whom, David, was the old schoolmate of
Jane McCrea at Lamington.

Before the marriage was consummated, how-
ever, the war of the Revolution broke out, and
the home of the McCreas and Joneses became
the theatre of the series of events connected

The Somerset Hills. 1 1 3

with Burgoyne's invasion of Northern New
York. The McCreas were stanch patriots;
the Joneses were Tories. So the course of
true love between the Tory Jones and his
fiancde ran the traditional course. But affec-
tions are deeper than political prejudices, and
secret communications with Lieutenant Jones
of his Majesty's forces in America led to the
plan of a clandestine marriage. He was to
meet her at the house of a mutual friend, a Mrs.
McNeil, at Fort Edward, on July 27th (1777),
but the close proximity of the American pickets
made that impracticable. So he sent her word
that a band of friendly Indians would meet her
as near the house as safety would permit and
conduct her to the British camp where the
marriage was to take place. On the morning
of the 27th, while Jane was watching for the
appearance of her escort, the American troops
were driven forward by a band of Indians
under one DeLoup. Six of the band left the

114 The Somerset Hills.

pursuit and entered Mrs. McNeil's house, took
Mrs. McNeil and Jane prisoners and hurried
them off to a neighbouring hill. Here they
were met by another band of Indians, those
sent by Jones to escort his bride to his camp.
They demanded the release of Jane; her captors
refused and in a quarrel that ensued, DeLoup
in a fit of rage turned to Jane McCrea, brutally
struck her with a tomahawk, "scalped her
and tossed her flowing hair aloft with a
fiendish yell of triumph." The next day her
body was found covered with leaves and brush;
it was conveyed to the fort, near which it
was buried the following day by her grief-
stricken brother. Her lover. Lieutenant Jones,
saw the bloody scalp in the British camp and
learned the details of the horror from DeLoup,
the leader of the band he had sent to escort
her.

This is not an isolated instance of Indian
brutality, but it attained almost international

The Somerset Hills. 115

importance as an illustration of the infamous
policy of the British Government in the Indian
alliances. The immediate responsibility of the
deed, as a question of military ethics, has
never been definitely settled, but the v/illing-
ness on the part of the British Government
to employ savages against the colonists cost
them the loyalty of more than one vacillat-
ing colonist.

In his formal protest to General Burgoyne,
General Gates said: "Miss McCrea, a young
lady, lovely to the sight, of virtuous character
and amiable disposition, engaged to an officer
of your army, was taken out of a house
near Fort Edward, carried into the woods,
and there scalped and mangled in a most
shocking manner. The miserable fate of Miss
McCrea was particularly aggravated by her
being dressed to receive her promised husband,
but met her murderers employed by you."

During the Revolution, when the British

1 1 6 The Somerset Hills.

were in possession of New York, the patriotic
Rev. Dr. Rodgers, pastor of the First Presby-
terian Church, found it necessary to leave the
city, and for a year he ministered to the con-
gregation at Lamington. In 1778, in conse-
quence of the British occupation of Phila-
delphia, the Synod of Philadelphia met in the
Lamington Church.

This was before the days of the temperance
agitation. There is a story of a clergyman
who was once sent to supply Lamington
Church, who preached with particular force
and eloquence. After the morning service,
as was the custom, the elders gathered about
him and paid his fee in crisp half-pound notes.
"Gentlemen," he said, "will you take a walk
with me.'^" Whereupon they all crossed the
street to the tavern and took a drink at the
parson's expense. He handed the barkeeper
one of the half-pound notes, saying: "Take
your pay out of that, I just received it for

The Somerset Hills. 117

preaching the sermon." Then they all re-
turned to the church for the afternoon meet-
ing. A full century before this date, the Vir-
ginia House of Burgesses had deemed it
necessary to enact a warning to the clergy-
men in the following terms: "Mynisters shall
not give themselves to excesse in drinking
and ryott." Whether for better or for worse
is another question. But standards and judg-
ments have both changed by process of the
silent years.

1 1 8 The Somerset Hills.

VIII.
MENDHAM, PEAPACK, Etc

THE village of Mendham is just beyond
the limits of the Somerset Hills. But
inasmuch as it was within the original limits
of the county — Hunterdon and Morris counties
being both included in the original limits of
Somerset — it may fairly claim a passing note
here. In 17 13 a large tract of land, including
the present site of the village, was purchased
from the original lords proprietors by one
James Wills. It was at first called Rocksiticus,
by which name it was known until shortly
before the Revolution, when it received the
name by which it is known at present.

The early church relations of the Mendham
pioneers were either with the congregation of
Basking Ridge, or with that at Morristown,
first known as West Hanover. But by 1738

The Somerset Hills. 1 1 9

there was a separate Presbyterian congrega-
tion in existence here, and in 1745 the first
church edifice was erected on the site of the
present building. As a result of the British
occupation of New York after the disastrous
battle of Long Island, in 1776, the Presby-
terian Synod of New York met in the Mend-
ham Church. During the winter of 1780-81,
when a division of the Continental army was
encamped on the hills extending from Morris-
town to Washington Corner, near Mendham,
the church was cleared of its pews and turned
into a hospital. Some unnamed and un-
marked graves in the churchyard bear mute
testimony to the ravages of disease in the
army hospital during that severe winter.
Still they could hardly wish ** couch more
magnificent." For like the martyrs of many
another struggle for a great principle:

"On Fame's eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread;

I 20 The Somerset Hills.

And Glory guards in solemn round
The bivouac of the Dead."

The Presbyterian congregation in Mendham
claims to have given some thirty ministers
to the Church in the course of its existence.
Among these may be counted the late dis-
tinguished bishop of Western New York, the
Rt. Rev. Arthur Cleveland Coxe. He was born
in Mendham, the son of the then pastor of
the Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Dr. Cox,
distinguished alike as theologian, preacher, and
wit. Of his family of ten children, five be-
came members of the Episcopal Church. **How
many children have you, Dr. Cox.^" he was
once asked. "Ten" was the prompt reply;
"Five of them are wise and five of them are
Episcopalians."

The village of Peapack records the name
and location of an Indian trail that crossed
Northern New Jersey east and west. This
trail was known as- the Peapack Path and

The Somerset Hills. 121

was a well-known landmark. In 1701 a large
tract of land was conveyed by the proprietors
to George Willocks and John Johnston. The
tract was known as the Peapack patent and em-
braced the site of the present village, which was
settled soon after this time. George Willocks,
along with John Harrison, who purchased the
Basking Ridge tract in 1717, were among the
founders of the first Church of England parish
in East Jersey, St. Peter's, Perth Amboy(i698).
The fact is recorded on a tablet on the walls
of the present church edifice erected by the
parish in 1825. \l

The settlement of Liberty Corner may be
dated about 1730, the date when the Annin
family located here, and the place was long
known as Annin's Corner. It was to all
intents and purposes a part of Basking Ridge,
having no church of its own for a hundred
years. The first regular pastor of the Bask-
ing Ridge Church, the Rev. John Cross, lived

122 The Somerset Hills.

here in the house still standing, and here he
entertained the Rev. George Whitefield during
his memorable visit in 1740. There is a
tradition in the family that Lafayette spent
the night in this house in the spring of 1780.
He v^as en route for Morristown on his re-
turn from his memorable mission to the
French Court in the interest of the States.
He is also said to have recalled the fact to
a member of the Cross family when he re-
visited this country in 1825.

Several houses still standing antedate the
Revolution, notably the old stone house (the
Annin homestead) and the Cross house already
mentioned, both to the north of the village.

The earliest homesteads were established on
Long Hill and Millington about 1730. The
highroad over Long Hill was the main
thoroughfare to Newark by way of New
Providence (Turkey) and Springfield.

The Somerset Hills. 123

IX.

EPILOGUE*

NOTHING has been said in the foregoing
pages of the natural beauties of the
Somerset hills. These speak for themselves.
Historic associations may fade, yes, vanish ;
but the beauties of nature are enduring and
self-evident.

The earliest civilizations developed in the
lowland plains of the great river valleys. This
is in accordance with the natural law of de-
velopment along the lines of the least resist-
ance. The hill country marks the frontier in
the evolution of all the earlier civilizations.
The occupation of the hills is a second period
in the march of progress, the extension of
empire, the beginning of conquest. Of the
three great monarchies that successively occu-
pied the basin of the Euphrates and Tigris

1 24 The Somerset Hills.

rivers — Chaldaea, Assyria, and Babylonia — each
in turn stretched farther inland embracing
more and more of the hill country. The
settlement and development of colonies illus-
trate the same principle. In the settlement
of the colony of New Jersey, the lower
courses of her two chief rivers, the Raritan
and Passaic, were first occupied. For a gen-
eration or longer, the hill country was a
natural frontier — the abode of elves and fairies,
it may be no less than of witches; a land
full of mystery and beauty — not without its
dangers and therefore alluring.

But more than for anything else, the hills
have stood for a region of refuge and repose.
We shall not have to search far in Holy Writ
for illustrations of this. For the great Hebrew
poet, ''the little hills rejoice on every side,"
and in his despair he exclaims, '*! will lift
mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh
my help!" Shakespeare retires the disheart-

The Somerset Hills. i 25

ened Henry VI. to a hill, there to await the
result of the battle of Towton. Here the
tempest-tossed king reflects:

"Methinks it were a happy life
To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill as I do now. . . .
Ah, what a life were this! how sweet!

how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn brush a sweeter

shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep.
Than doth a rich embroidered canopy

To kings that fear their subjects'
treachery ? "

The hill country is, moreover, the haunt of
the babbling brooks, the "little rivers"; and
there be those to whom the sound of the bab-
bling, purling waters of a brook is the most
delicious note in nature. "There's no music
like a little river's," writes Robert Louis Steven-
son in "Prince Otto." "It plays the same tune
(and that's the favourite) over and over again,
and yet does not weary of it like men fiddlers.

126 The Somerset Hills.

It takes the mind out of doors ; and though
we should be grateful for good houses, there
is, after all, no house like God's out-of-doors.
And lastly, sir, it quiets a man down like say-
ing his prayers."

But the lowlander may not share this par-
tiality for the hill country. Like the Lincoln-
shire farmer in Alton Locke, he will have
"none o' this darned ups and downs o' hills
to shake a body's victuals out of his inwards,"
but he would have "all so vlat as a barn
door for vorty mile on end — there's a country
to live in! " Ah, well! "Chacun a son mauvais
gout.'*

For the hill dweller will persistently regard
the lowlands as a land of exile. He may be
out-argued in the matter and have to admit
that the coign of vantage is not always in
his favour ; but he will insist that the hill
country is the only fit dwelling-place. That
here, more than otherwhere, lovers of nature,

The Somerset Hills. 127

of "God's out-of-doors," find her responsive
to every passing mood. Her sympathies are
eternal and infinite; her influences manifold.
Some of these are reflected in the following
sonnet:

"O Earth! thou hast not any wind that blows
Which is not music; every weed of thine
Pressed rightly flows in aromatic wine;

And every humble hedgerow flower that
grows,
And every little brown bird that doth sing,

Hath something greater than itself, and bears
A living word to every living thing,

Albeit it holds the message unawares.

All shapes and sounds have something which
is not

Of them; a Spirit broods amid the grass;
Vague outlines of the Everlasting Thought

Lie in the melting shadows as they pass;
The touch of an Eternal Presence thrills
The fringes of the sunsets and the hills."

The Somerset Hills. 129

NOTES ON ILLUSTRATIONS.

Frontispiece.

Book Plate of Seymour, Duke of Somerset,
from a copy of the original, engraved on
steel by B. Clowes.

"The Dust of a Vanished Race." Facing
Page 20. Specimen arrow heads found in
Somerset County. Drawings the exact size
of the originals in a private collection.

General Knox's Headquarters, Bedminster.
Facing Page ^4. The house still stands
as originally built. Illustration is from a
drawing made in 1900.

Sir Francis Bernard. Facing Page 62. From
the original painting by Copley in the
hall of Christ Church, Oxford; by per-

1 30 The Somerset Hills.

mission of the Dean and Canons of Christ
Church, and through the kindness of
Messrs. Macmillan & Co., of London. Au-
thor's note in The American Revolution,
by John Fiske. Illustrated Edition. 'Pub-
lished by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin &- Co.,

by whose courtesy the portrait is here pre-
sented.

Facsimile of General Lee's Writing. Page 70.
This letter, written at Basking Ridge just
before his capture, was an important link
in the chain of evidence that established
Lee's treason.

Mrs. White's Tavern. Facing Page 76. The
frame of the original tavern is incorpo-
rated in the house occupying the original
site. The drawing was made from a
woodcut, circa 1850, before the house was
remodelled.

Caricature of General Lee. Facing Page 78.

The Somerset Hills.

From the engraving in Girdlestone's Facts
tending to prove that General Lee was the
Author of Junius, London, 1813. The
drawing was made by Barham Rush-
brooke, on Lee's return from Poland in
1766, in the uniform of an aide to King
Stanislaus, and shows the inevitable dog.
According to Dr. Girdlestone, "though
designed as a caricature, it was allowed
by all who knew General Lee to be the
only successful delineation, either of his
countenance or person." The absurd
notion that Lee might have been the
author of The Letters of Junius had its
origin in a particularly audacious lie
which he told to Thomas Rodney, of
Delaware, in 1773. Author's note in The
American Revolution, by John Fiske. Il-
lustrated Edition. Published by Messrs.
Houghton, Mifflin &- Co., by whose courtesy
this portrait is here presented.

132 The Somerset Hills.

East Front of Stirling Manor House. Fac-
ing Page S6. After a drawing made
about 1850, at which time this front still
remained as it was built by Lord Stirling.
The cedar tree shown in the foreground
is the one under which, according to
one tradition, Lady Kitty Alexander was
married to Colonel Duer in July, 1779.
According to another tradition, she
stepped out on the lawn in her bridal
gown, after the ceremony, and under
this tree received the congratulations of
a company of soldiers who assembled to
honour their Major-General's daughter.

William Alexander, first Lord Stirling. Fac-
ing Page 92. From a copy of the ex-
ceedingly rare engraving by William
Marshall. "In 1637 Lord Stirling published
his collected works (with the exception
of his 'Aurora ') under the title of * Rec-

The Somerset Hills. 133

reations with the Muses.' Marshall en-
graved his portrait, which, it is stated, the
noble Lord placed only in the copies pre-
sented to his friends. It is a fact that
it is found in only a very few copies
and has always been considered rare."

Major-General the Earl of Stirling. Facing
Page loi. From the portrait engraved
for The Life of William Alexander, Earl
of Stirling. New Jersey Historical Society,
1847.

Relics of The Buildings. Page 128. Weather
Vane and Bell owned by The Washing-
ton Association of New Jersey and pre-
served in Washington's Headquarters at
Morristown.

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