Stories of New Jersey Part 4

" " " "Miller.

" " " "Distiller.

The necessity for this variety of occupation is shown by a letter from a gentleman named Charles Gordon, living near Plainfield, to his brother, Dr. John Gordon, in England, in which he says, "If you design to come hither, you may come as a planter or merchant; but as a doctor of medicine I cannot advise you, for I hear of no diseases to cure but some agues and some cutted legs and fingers." Other physicians gave up their professions at the beginning of the Revolution, and became prominent in military matters.

Dr. John Cochran, one of the first New Jersey physicians, was a man of wide experience and reputation. He was surgeon in the British hospital during the French War, and afterward practiced medicine in New Brunswick. During the Revolution, he became an army surgeon. He was a friend of Washington, and, in fact, was quite intimate with the commander in chief of the American forces. It is said that when Washington was at West Point in 1779, and the doctor and his family were stationed at the same place, Washington wrote to Dr. Cochran almost the only facetious letter which is known to have come from the pen of that grave and dignified man.

This letter informs the doctor that he has invited Mrs. Cochran and Mrs. Livingston to dine with him the next day, and says that the table is large enough for the ladies, and then proceeds to tell "how it is covered." "Since our arrival at this happy spot, we have had a ham, sometimes a shoulder of bacon, to grace the head of the table; a piece of roast beef adorns the foot, and a dish of beans or greens, almost imperceptible, decorates the center. When the cook has a mind to cut a figure, which I presume will be the case to-morrow, we have two beefsteak pies, or dishes of crabs, in addition, one on each side of the center dish, dividing the s.p.a.ce, and reducing the distance between dish and dish to about six feet, which without them would be twelve feet apart. Of late, he has had the surprising sagacity to discover that apples will make pies, and it is a question if in the violence of his efforts we do not get one of apples instead of having both of beefsteak. If the ladies can put up with such entertainment, and will submit to partake of it on plates once tin, now iron (not become so by scouring), I shall be happy to see them."

The fact that the early physicians of New Jersey were very skillful, and patients in that healthful country very scarce, seems to have had the effect of making some physicians of that day extremely sharp about business matters. A certain doctor of Rahway had been called upon to visit a rich man who was in great pain and distress. The doctor having administered some medicine, the patient very speedily recovered. Some time after this, the doctor determined to leave Rahway; and the rich man who had been attended by him with such gratifying results began to be afraid that he might be taken sick again in the same way. So he went to the doctor, and requested that before he left, he would give him the prescription which had seemed to suit his case so admirably.

Doctors seldom approve of their patients taking their treatment into their own hands; but, after a little consideration, he said he would furnish the prescription, but that it would cost ten dollars. This quite astonished the rich man, and at first he refused to pay such a high price; but, after considering that it might save him many visits from the new doctor who should come to Rahway, he agreed to pay the price demanded, and the prescription was written, and delivered to him. When he reached his home, he thought he would try to make out what this prescription was; but when he opened the paper, he found nothing but the word "catnip." It is not likely that he ever again tried to take advantage of the medical profession.

But it was not always Jersey doctors whose wit shone brightest in a financial transaction. There was a doctor in the town of Rocky Hill who was sent for to attend a poor old man who was suffering with a piece of bone sticking in his throat. The doctor went immediately to the old man's house, and it was not long before the bone was out. As the doctor was packing up his instruments, the old fellow, whose name was William, inquired how much he would have to pay; and the doctor replied that for an operation of that sort his charge was five dollars. This quite astonished William, who probably had not five cents in the house; but he wished to pay his debts, and not to be considered a pauper patient, and so he asked the doctor if he might come to his house and work out the bill. The doctor replied that that would be entirely satisfactory to him, and that William might come the next day and work in the garden.

The next day old William went to the doctor's house. All day he faithfully dug and hoed and raked. Toward the end of the afternoon the doctor came into the garden, and, after informing William that he might come again, he casually asked him how much he charged for a day's work. William stood up and promptly answered, that for a day's labor in the garden his charge was five dollars. Now was the doctor surprised.

"You don't mean," he exclaimed, "that you are going to ask five dollars for one day's labor!"

"That is exactly my price," said William. "If two minutes' yanking with a pair of pincers at a little bone is worth five dollars, then one day's hard labor in tilling the ground is worth just as much."

It often happens that doctors are men of wit and humor; and it is recorded that a New Jersey physician, named Dr. Hole, was the author of the first version of a tombstone epitaph which afterwards became widely known and used. The lines of Dr. Hole are cut upon a tombstone of a child, and run as follows:-

"A dropsy sore long time I bore: Forsitions were in vain Till G.o.d above did hear my moan, And eased me of my pain."

That some of those early doctors were honest is proved by a doctor's bill which is now preserved in the New Jersey Historical Society. At the end of this bill, after all the different items of service and medicine had been charged upon it, there is this entry: "Contrary credit by Medsons brought back." It would be difficult now to find a doctor in New Jersey, or anywhere else, who would be willing to take back, and allow credit for, all partly filled bottles of medicine, and boxes of pills, the contents of which had been ordered, but not entirely used.

THE SLAVES OF NEW JERSEY.

We have so long looked upon New Jersey as prominent among what were called the "free States" of the Union, that it now seems strange when we consider, that among the first of the inst.i.tutions established upon its soil by the early settlers, was the system of slavery. This was the case not only in New Jersey, but in all the American Colonies. The settlers of New England, as well as those of the Southern Colonies, used negro slaves as laborers on their farms; and the trade in native Africans was a very important branch of industry.

The Duke of York, to whom his brother, Charles II., had made a grant of extensive American possessions, was at the head of the African Company, formed for the purpose of bringing slaves from Africa, and selling them. The Dutch were then the great rivals of the English in this trade; and the Duke of York was very glad to possess New Jersey and the rest of his grant, for then he could not only oust the Dutch from the territory, but could possess himself of this very desirable and profitable slave market.

But it was not only the English and Dutch who brought negro slaves to America, for it is stated that the earliest Swedish settlers brought slaves with them as laborers. So we may say that slavery and freedom were planted together in this country of ours; one to be pulled up afterward like a weed, the other to be left to grow and flourish.

When Berkeley and Carteret acquired authority over New Jersey, they did everything that they could to induce settlers to come to the new country; and, as they were anxious to have the lands opened up and cultivated as rapidly as possible, they encouraged immigrants to bring as many slaves as they could afford. They offered one hundred and fifty acres to every one who would settle, and another one hundred and fifty acres for every full-grown able-bodied male slave, and seventy-five acres each for those not grown up. Afterwards, when slaves became more numerous, the bounties given on their account were diminished, and in course of time they ceased altogether.

A great many slaves must have been brought direct from Africa to New Jersey, for at Perth Amboy there was established what was then called a barracks; and in this, negroes who had been brought in the slave ships were confined until they were sold and sent out into the country.

Not only were there negro slaves in the State, but there were also Indians who had been enslaved, and were regularly sold and bought. How these red men happened to be slaves, we do not certainly know; but we may be very sure that the whites did not make war upon Indian tribes, and capture prisoners, for the purpose of making slaves of them. It is far more likely, that, when one tribe of Indians made war upon another, the conquerors found it a very profitable thing to sell their prisoners to the whites. There is no reason to suppose, however, that the natives made war on purpose to capture and sell their fellow-countrymen, as was the case in Africa.

The early records, however, prove that there were Indian slaves. When the House of Representatives for the Province met at Burlington in 1704, an act was brought before that body for the regulating of Indian and negro slaves.

Negroes were then considered to be such legitimate articles of merchandise, that English sovereigns thought it very necessary to see to it that their loyal settlers were sufficiently supplied with slaves, and at prices not too high. When Queen Anne sent out Lord Cornbury as governor of the Province, she recommended the Royal African Company to the especial attention of the governor, that New Jersey might have a constant and sufficient supply of merchantable negroes at moderate rates in money or commodities. In consequence of the fostering care of the Proprietors and the English sovereigns, slaves rapidly increased in New Jersey.

The English themselves were not at all averse to the ownership of a good serviceable slave; and about the middle of the eighteenth century a young gentleman in England wrote to his father in New Jersey, begging that he might "be favored with a young negro boy to present to the brother of the then Duke of Grafton, to whom he was under obligations, as 'a present of that kind would be very acceptable.'"

Of course, the existence of slavery made the state of society in New Jersey and the other Colonies very different from what it is now; and this difference is strongly shown by the advertis.e.m.e.nts of runaway negroes, which we can find in some old newspapers. It seems very strange to see in a Boston paper of one hundred years ago a picture of a black man running away with a bag over his shoulder, and under the picture the statement of the reward which would be given for his capture; and in the New Jersey papers there were frequent advertis.e.m.e.nts of runaway slaves and of negroes for sale. One of these, published in Burlington two years after the Colony had declared itself free and independent, reads as follows:-

"To be Sold-For no fault-but a saucy tongue for which he is now in Burlington jail-A negro man about 39 years of age. He is a compleat farmer, honest and sober. For further particulars enquire of the subscriber in Evesham, Burlington Co. Feb. 4, 1778."

When Washington was in Morristown in 1777, one of his aids wrote a letter to a friend in Elizabethtown, which states,-

The General will esteem it as a singular favor if you can apprehend a mulatto girl, servant and slave of Mrs. Washington, who eloped from this place yesterday, with what design cannot be conjectured, though as she may intend to the enemy and pa.s.s your way I trouble you with the description: her name is Charlotte but in all probability will change it, yet may be discovered by question. She is light complected, about thirteen years of age, pert, dressed in brown cloth wescoat and petticoat. Your falling upon some method of recovering her should she be near you will accommodate Mrs. Washington and lay her under great obligations to you being the only female servant she brought from home and intending to be off to-day had she not been missing. A gentle reward will be given to any soldier or other who shall take her up.

I am with respect your most obedient servant

After a time, negro slaves became so plentiful in New Jersey, that laws were pa.s.sed restricting their importation, and a considerable tax was laid upon each African brought into the country.

But the negroes were not the only slaves in New Jersey during those early days. Here, as well as in many of the other Colonies, was a cla.s.s of white people, generally from England, who were called "redemptioners." These were poor people, although often persons of fairly good station and education, who desired to emigrate to America, but who could not afford to pay their pa.s.sage.

A regular system was then established, by which a poor person desiring to settle in New Jersey would be brought over free. When one of these emigrants took pa.s.sage on a ship, he signed a contract which gave the captain of the vessel the right to sell him, as soon as he arrived in America, for enough money to pay his pa.s.sage. This white man was thus bought, when he reached New Jersey, exactly as if he had been a negro slave; and he was subject to the same rules as those which governed other slaves. Of course, he was made the subject of great imposition; for the captain would naturally desire to get as large a sum of money as possible for each redemptioner, and therefore would be perfectly willing to sell him for a long term.

The people who owned redemptioners could sell them again if they chose; and it often happened that some of them pa.s.sed into the possession of several families before they finally served out the term for which they had been sold. All sorts of people became redemptioners,-mechanics, laborers, and even professional men. Among the people who sold themselves into limited slavery there were schoolmasters, and it is stated that at one time the supply of redemptioner schoolmasters was so great that they became a drug in the market.

In the days before there were many regular schools in New Jersey, much of the education must have been carried on by what we now call private tutors; and a schoolmaster who could be bought as if he had been a horse or a cow was often a very convenient piece of property. If a family should own a teacher who was able only to instruct small children, it would be very easy, when these children grew older and able to undertake more advanced studies, to sell this primary teacher to some family where there were young pupils, and buy one capable of teaching higher branches.

It is said that these redemptioners were often treated much more harshly and cruelly than the negro slaves, and any one who a.s.sisted one of them to escape was severely punished. There was good reason for this difference in the treatment of the two cla.s.ses of slaves; for a negro was the property of his master as long as he lived, and it was manifestly the interest of the owner to keep his slave in good condition. But the redemptioner could only be held for a certain time, and, if his master was not a good man, he would be apt to get out of him all the work that he could during the time of his service, and to give him no more food or clothing than was absolutely necessary.

After a time there were laws made to protect the redemptioners. One of these was, that any person sold after he was seventeen years old could not serve for more than four years; and another provided, that, when a redemptioner's time of service had expired, his master should give him "two good suits of clothing, suitable for a servant, one good ax, one good hoe, and seven bushels of Indian corn."

But although the redemptioner sometimes fared very badly in the new country, it often happened that he came out very well in the end. Among the white people who came here as slaves there were often convicts and paupers; but even some of these succeeded in bettering their condition and establishing themselves as good citizens, and in founding families.

It often happened that some of the Germans who came to buy land and settle, chose rather to put away their money, and sell themselves as redemptioners to English families, so that they might learn the English language and manner of living. Then, when they had educated themselves in this practical manner, and their time of service was over, they could buy land, and establish themselves on terms of equality with their English neighbors.

But the trade in redemptioners gradually decreased; and by the middle of the eighteenth century there were not many of them left in New Jersey, although there were a few in the State until after the Revolution. Negro slavery, however, continued much longer. It grew and flourished until it became a part of the New Jersey social system; but it must not be supposed that all the people of the State continued to be satisfied with this condition of things.

At first everybody who could afford it owned slaves, and the Friends or Quakers bought negroes the same as other people did; but about the end of the seventeenth century some of these Quakers began to think that property in human beings was not a righteous thing, and the Quakers of New Jersey united with those of Pennsylvania in an agreement recommending to the members of the Society of Friends that they should no longer employ negro slaves, or, if they thought it best to continue to do this, that they should at least cease to import them.

A strong party among the Quakers of New Jersey opposed slavery for many years, and the system was denounced at some of their yearly meetings; and this went on until about the middle of the next century, when a law was made that no person owning slaves should continue in the Society of Friends.

As years pa.s.sed on, people other than Quakers began to consider slavery an injustice and an evil; and this feeling gradually increased, until in the beginning of the nineteenth century it became very strong, and in 1820 an act was pa.s.sed by the Legislature for the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves. They were not set free all at once, and turned into the world to take care of themselves; but a system of gradual emanc.i.p.ation was adopted, by which the young people obtained their freedom when they came of age, while the masters were obliged to take care of the old negroes as long as they lived. By this plan, slavery was very gradually abolished in New Jersey, so that in 1840 there were still six hundred and seventy-four slaves in the State; and even in 1860 eighteen slaves remained, and these must have been very old.

A JERSEY TEA PARTY.

At the time when the American colonists began to be restless under the rule of Great Britain, the people of New Jersey showed as strong a desire for independence as those of any other Colony, and they were by no means backward in submitting to any privations which might be necessary in order to a.s.sert their principles. As has been said before, the people were prosperous, and accustomed to good living, and it was not likely that there was any part of America in which a cup of well-flavored tea was better appreciated than in New Jersey.

But when the other colonists determined to resist unjust taxation, and resolved that they would not use tea, on which a heavy tax was laid without allowing the American people to have anything to say about it, the patriotic people of New Jersey resolved that they too would use no tea so long as this unjust tax was placed upon it. When the tea was destroyed in Boston Harbor, the Jersey patriots applauded the act, and would have been glad to show in the same way what they thought upon the subject.

But when tea was shipped from England, it was sent to the great ports of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston; and what was used in New Jersey came from these places after the consignees had paid the tax. However, to show their sympathy with the efforts which were being made at the sea-ports to prevent the landing of tea, the New Jersey people, that is, those who belonged to the Whig party,-which was the patriotic party, and opposed to the Tories, who favored England,-formed an a.s.sociation, the members of which bound themselves to buy or use no tea until the tax should be removed.

There is a story told of Hugh Drum of Somerset County, who was so thoroughly in earnest on this subject, and who probably supposed that the weak little Colonies would always have to submit to the power of Great Britain, that he took an oath that never again during the rest of his life would he take a cup of tea; and although he lived a great many years afterward, during which the Americans imported their own tea without regard to what any other country thought about it, Mr. Drum never again drank tea.