New Jersey

C

Proprietary Government

King Charles II of England granted all of the captured Dutch colony to his brother, James, Duke of York. James in turn granted a proprietorship over New Jersey to Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. Unaware of this transaction, the royal governor of New York parceled out tracts of land in Monmouth County and at Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth) to Puritans from New England and Long Island.

Almost immediately, conflict arose between the proprietors and the Puritans over land claims and the right to establish a government. Political and religious differences intensified the friction; the proprietors were Anglicans and loyal to the king, while the Puritans were dissenting Protestants. Sporadic riots broke out over the demands of the proprietors that landholders pay them rent. However, the colony continued to grow. By 1670 English settlers, mostly Puritans from Connecticut and Long Island, had founded settlements at Newark, Woodbridge, Piscataway, Middletown, and Shrewsbury. Immigration of non-English colonists later swelled the population and magnified the religious differences.

The Dutch briefly regained possession of New Jersey, but lost it again to the English in 1674. Meanwhile, Berkeley sold his share of the colony to two Quakers. When one of them, Edward Billinge, went bankrupt in 1676, his creditors took control of his share under a deed that divided New Jersey in half from Little Egg Harbor to a point north of the Delaware Water Gap. Carteret retained control of the eastern half, while the creditors, including prominent Quaker William Penn, controlled the western half. This touched off a long-lasting boundary dispute and enduring political, economic, and social differences between the two Jerseys. The Quakers gravitated toward Philadelphia, while those in the eastern half turned toward New York City.

In attempting to establish a colony, the Quakers in West Jersey soon went bankrupt, so they formed a joint stock company and sold shares to finance their efforts. The company shareholders became the board of proprietors, who acted as landlords and government of the colony. In East Jersey, Carteret’s heirs also formed a stock company in 1682, and its shareholders became that area’s board of proprietors.

---

---

Under the original two proprietors, the charter for the government of New Jersey was the Concessions and Agreements of the Lords Proprietors, which provided for religious freedom, trial by jury, and a representative assembly. In 1677 Penn wrote a second charter for West Jersey called the Concessions and Agreements, which guaranteed freedom of religion and personal liberty, and provided for the annual election by secret ballot of a representative assembly with limited powers of taxation. By the time New Jersey was united as a royal colony in 1702, a tradition of self-government had been established.

Settlements were sparse and scattered. In the 1680s and 1690s West Jersey was settled by English, Irish, Welsh, and Scottish Quakers. The Burlington Quaker Meeting, which dictated terms of settlement—and nearly everything else—among the local Society of Friends, allowed settlers to spread across the countryside in farms of more than 240 hectares (600 acres). In East Jersey, Essex County and what later became Morris County were largely owned by the Scottish partners of the proprietors, who tried to transplant their ways to New Jersey. They set up huge estates, imported several hundred indentured servants, and refused to sell land to independent farmers. The Dutch brought the first African slaves into Bergen County. By the 1680s English landowners from the West Indies settled in and purchased larger numbers from the slave markets of New York City. In 1702 the population of East and West Jersey was about 14,000.

D

Royal Government

In 1702 the boards of proprietors in both sections of New Jersey turned their governing authority over to Queen Anne, who united the two into a single royal colony. However, the two proprietary organizations continued to act as landlords, holding title to all unclaimed land in New Jersey.

Under royal government, local self-rule was curtailed and the colony was bound more closely to England. Despite political unification, each section insisted on maintaining its own capital. The assembly, which shared colonial rule with the royal governor, was forced to hold its sessions in Perth Amboy and Burlington in alternating years. Differences between the two sections remained, but they united to present a common front against the royal governor. In trying to restore harmony and obedience to royal authority, the governors were forced until 1738 to divide their attention between New Jersey and New York, and many of the crown’s representatives were incompetent. This enabled the colonists to exercise a greater amount of self-government than the monarchy desired. Especially important was the assembly’s power to collect taxes for the governor’s salary. Governors who remained responsible to the king and opposed the interests of the colonists often went unpaid.

The Great Awakening, a religious movement that swept through the colonies in the 1740s, further undermined royal authority, as well as that of the Anglican Church. Led by Presbyterian ministers William Tennent and his son, Gilbert Tennent, preachers crossed Bergen, Essex, and Hunterdon counties. Their fiery sermons made Protestants repent their sins and seek salvation. The awakening left churches in turmoil, as the newly saved attacked more conservative ministers, who refused to accept their conversion experiences as genuine. Within a decade, in Sussex and other wilderness counties, orderly denominations became a chaos of jealous, competing sects. Religious fervor also sharpened farmers’ anger when proprietors questioned their land titles during the so-called “land riots” of the late 1740s. Hundreds of farmers squatted on their land, defying efforts by sheriffs and militia units to evict them. When several were arrested, their friends stormed jails in Somerset, Newark, and Perth Amboy to free them.

From 14,000 in 1700, the number of inhabitants doubled to more than 30,000 in 1726. It continued to grow rapidly, reaching about 120,000 by 1775. Immigrants poured into the colony from New York and Philadelphia, giving it a diverse and multilingual character. Dutch continued to trek into Bergen County, dotting the valley of the Hackensack River with Dutch Reformed congregations. The small Swedish group in Salem was swamped by an influx of Irish Quakers and Scots from Ulster, who made up a quarter of Salem’s population by the time of the American Revolution in 1775. Large numbers of peasants from Germany settled in Hunterdon and Sussex counties. As a result, the English province of New Jersey was probably only half English in ethnic origin on the eve of the revolution, and counties like Hunterdon, Middlesex, and Salem were less than 40 percent English. Bergen and Somerset counties were, respectively, half and two-thirds Dutch by the 1760s. The growing number of Scots-Irish, Welsh, Dutch, German, Swedish, Belgian, French, and black settlers in New Jersey made British rule that much less popular.

Of the royal governors, only Robert Hunter and Lewis Morris received cooperation from the assembly. Even Morris, who before becoming governor was a strong defender of the assembly’s prerogatives, went without salary for two years. In 1763 William Franklin, the son of statesman Benjamin Franklin, was appointed governor. He could muster little support for the British in the French and Indian War (1754-1763) that was raging along the American frontier, as Great Britain and France fought for control of North America. The presence of a large number of Quakers and other pacifist sects partly accounted for this lack of concern. The basic reason, however, was that New Jersey was too preoccupied with its own problems and development to come to the aid of the king.

Opposition to royal authority continued to mount as Britain attempted to enforce laws restricting trade and imposing taxes on the colonies. See also Navigation Acts; Sugar and Molasses Act; Stamp Act; Townshend Acts. Following the lead of Massachusetts and Virginia, a provincial congress met in New Brunswick on July 21, 1774, and elected delegates to the First Continental Congress. Four months later a group of New Jersey patriots, again following the lead of rebellious colonists in Boston, burned a cargo of tea in Greenwich. As unrest spread, many royal officials yielded to the provincial congress. In June 1776 William Franklin, who remained loyal to Britain, was arrested, and the reign of royal governors ended in New Jersey.

E

American Revolution

On July 2, 1776, the provincial congress, meeting at Burlington, adopted a constitution declaring New Jersey’s independence. In August, New Jersey’s delegates to the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence, and William Livingston became the state’s first governor. The transition from colonial status to statehood had been smooth, but the burden of defending independence fell heavily on New Jersey during the American Revolution (1775-1783).

As with most states, New Jersey had many citizens who opposed American independence. These Loyalists organized six battalions, who presented a constant frustration to the more than 17,000 citizens of New Jersey who took up arms against the British. The advance of the British from Fort Lee to the Delaware River in the winter of 1776 was the signal for open Loyalist activity to increase. When the new state legislature was forced to flee Princeton in early December, despair gripped the state. However, General George Washington secretly crossed the Delaware and on December 26 won an important victory in the Battle of Trenton. A victory at the Battle of Princeton a week later permitted Washington’s army to return to New Jersey. They spent the remainder of the winter and early spring encamped in Morristown.

In June 1778, as the British retreated from Philadelphia across New Jersey, Washington’s forces attacked in the Battle of Monmouth. The battle ended in a draw after American General Charles Lee delayed his attack, then retreated. Lee was dismissed by Washington and later court-martialed.

Washington spent the winter of 1778 and 1779 at the Wallace House in Somerville, with his troops camped nearby at Middlebrook. The army also camped at Morristown in the severe winter of 1779 and 1780. Deaths from starvation and exposure were common, and housing and medical supplies were poor. In June 1780 the British were beaten back in the Battle of Springfield, the last major engagement in New Jersey.

F

Early Statehood

The New Jersey constitution, reflecting the prevailing fear of despotic government, vested virtually all powers in a popularly elected bicameral legislature. Each county, regardless of population, sent one representative to the upper house, while the lower house was chosen on a proportional basis. All citizens over 21 who owned a certain amount of property were allowed to vote. However, women’s right to vote was rescinded in 1807. The governor, judges, and other government officers were elected or appointed by the legislature, so had little power of their own. Two New Jersey towns served briefly as the nation’s capital: Princeton from June to November 1783 and Trenton from then until December 1785.

From 1781 to 1789, while the states were united under the agreement known as the Articles of Confederation, New Jersey’s economy was hampered by restrictions on commerce. Consequently, New Jersey was one of the five states represented at the Annapolis Convention to discuss interstate commerce and was a moving force behind the calling of the Constitutional Convention. At the Constitutional Convention, New Jersey proposed that the national legislature be a unicameral body in which all the states would have equal representation. The New Jersey Plan was supported by small states, while larger states sought a system based on population. Under a compromise plan adopted by the convention, the New Jersey proposal became the basis for representation in the United States Senate. Assured of equality with the larger states in at least one house of Congress, New Jersey became the third state to ratify the Constitution of the United States on December 18, 1787.

The unanimity that greeted the Constitution was short-lived. New Jersey was again divided as permanent political parties replaced the old competing factions. At first the Federalist Party was in control, but by 1801 a strong Democratic-Republican Party, led nationally by Thomas Jefferson, had come to power. In presidential elections, New Jersey supported Andrew Jackson in 1832 and Whig candidates by narrow margins until 1852. In 1844 liberal elements mustered enough support to write a new state constitution that eliminated property qualifications for voting, provided for the popular election of a governor for a three-year term, and added a bill of rights.

In 1790 Trenton became the state capital, replacing the joint capitals of Perth Amboy and Burlington. The state’s population was then 184,000; by 1850 it had risen to 489,555 and was concentrated largely in the north. The growth of this area was spurred by the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, a group founded by American statesman Alexander Hamilton, which established Paterson in 1791. Paterson, the first planned industrial city in America, was an early leader in textile manufacturing and a pioneer in the construction of railroad locomotives.

New Jersey’s location—between New York City and Philadelphia and between New England and the South—dictated the need for transportation facilities. By 1830 the legislature had chartered more than 50 turnpike companies, and about 880 km (550 mi) of roads were built, almost all in the northern part of the state. In 1831 the Morris Canal, built to exploit the iron resources of Morris County, linked the upper Delaware River with the Atlantic Ocean. Three years later the Delaware and Raritan Canal connected the Delaware and Raritan rivers, providing a short all-water route from New York City to Philadelphia. This canal remained in operation until 1934.

The toll roads and canals changed the nature of rural life and hastened the movement of farmers into cities. The Delaware and Raritan Canal permitted shipment of anthracite coal from the Lehigh Valley, which cut the livelihood of farmers who shipped firewood and charcoal for city markets. To keep up with growing competition from outside the region, farmers turned to more modern iron plows and tools. By 1839 these improvements cut the need for farm labor to half the number of the 1790s, setting adrift thousands of laborers and tenants who had little choice but to seek work in nearby towns.

The greatest improvements in transportation took place within the railroad industry. Inventor John Stevens, a pioneer in steamboats, operated the first American steam locomotive in 1825 in Hoboken. In 1830 he and his two sons were granted a monopoly for their Camden and Amboy Railroad between New York City and Philadelphia. Although other railroad lines were constructed, the Camden and Amboy remained dominant in the industry and came to wield great influence over state politics. The construction of railroads, turnpikes, and canals contributed to the growth of northern New Jersey, but southern New Jersey remained rural and underpopulated.

As railroads forged links to the marketplaces of New York City and Philadelphia, New Jersey’s small towns became industrial centers by the 1860s. Camden and Trenton became foundry subcontractors to Philadelphia’s iron and locomotive manufacturers. Paterson became a center for silk, then machine shops, then a major supplier of railroad locomotives. Newark specialized in manufacturing leather trunks, shoes, tools, coaches, and jewelry. By 1860, it was one of the most industrialized cities in the country.

Industry turned cities into places of sharp social contrasts. As early as the 1840s and 1850s, wealthy businessmen took advantage of new coaches and horse-drawn cars to commute to work while their families were lodged in safe suburban enclaves like Clinton Hill and Woodside in Newark or Llewellyn Park in West Orange. The middle classes were largely made up of storekeepers, clerks, and skilled artisans. Many of the latter were German immigrants, who earned decent wages as piano and instrument makers, furniture carvers, brewers, and confectioners. At the bottom of this urban world, forming perhaps half of the cities’ populations, were a mass of unskilled, low-paid workers. Some came from Jersey’s farms, but a growing number were Irish Catholic immigrants. These unskilled refugees from the potato famine that swept Ireland in the 1840s were desperate for any sort of work. On Newark’s streets and Jersey City’s wharves, three-quarters of the unskilled workers were Irish. They worked as stevedores and day laborers, moving freight and digging sewers. In the 1850s their efforts earned them less than a dollar a day, half that of skilled artisans. With luck, they might make $250 to $300 per year, while their families needed twice that to survive in an urban environment.

G

Civil War

New Jersey did not play an important role in the movement for the abolition of slavery. In 1804 a law for the gradual emancipation of slaves was passed, but not until 1846 was slavery permanently abolished. Even then, slaves were bound over to their masters as apprentices, and the difference between the two conditions was often slight. The Underground Railroad was active in the state, helping runaway slaves from the South reach safety in the Northern states and Canada. But New Jersey officially obeyed the federal Fugitive Slave Laws, which required state officials to help return runaway slaves to their Southern masters.

As the outbreak of the American Civil War (1861-1865) neared, antiwar elements had strong support among New Jersey industrialists, who feared the loss of valuable Southern markets for their products. Even though the state responded warmly to a visit by President Abraham Lincoln in 1861, it was the only Northern state that did not give him all of its electoral votes in the presidential elections of 1860 and 1864.

If New Jersey was not unanimous in its support of the crusade against slavery, it responded vigorously to secession by Southern states and to Lincoln’s call to arms. New Jersey put more than 88,000 men in uniform. About 6,300 New Jersey residents were killed during the war, among them General Philip “Fighting Phil” Kearny.

	More from Encarta
	•  Important Notice: MSN Encarta to be discontinued. Learn more. •  Presidential Myths Quiz •  Coffee break: Recharge your brain