Part of the American History and
Genealogy Project
First Quakers in Old Gloucester, New Jersey
By Frank H. Stewart
Thomas Sharp wrote in the Haddonfield
Friends Meeting records a short account of the settlement of
Newton Township in Old Gloucester by Irish Quakers in 1681.
His narrative has been frequently
copied in various histories.
The first settlers were:
William Bates
George Goldsmith
Thomas Thackara
Mark Newby
Thomas Sharp. They arrived at
Elsinburg in Salem County, Nov. 19, 1681, from Dublin, Ireland,
which they left Sept. 19, 1 68 1. They were entertained by the
Thompsons (John and Andrew) of Elsinburg who had left Ireland
several years before (1677). After visiting the Thompson
families the party went to Salem and used several vacant houses
of the first settlers of Fenwick's Colony who had moved to their
plantations in the country. A boat was purchased from the
Swansons (Swedish people) and a trip was made to Burlington
where a warrant for land was obtained from the Surveyor General,
Daniel Leeds. After considerable search the party selected
Newton and in the beginning of the spring of 1682 the party,
with Robert Zane, another Irish Quaker of Salem, removed from
there to Newton, where a Meeting was established in the home of
Mark Newby who soon became one of the most prominent men of West
New Jersey; a little later the house of William Cooper of Pyne
Point was also used as a Friends Meeting House.
The Indians proved loving and kind,
contrary to expectations. He finishes the sketch with "This
narrative I have thought good and requisite to leave behind as
having had knowledge of the things from the beginning." We are
very much indebted to him.
The first birth recorded was
Constantine Wood, son of John and Alice Wood, of Woodbury Creek,
born 24th 7 mo, 1683, probably as the entry claims the first
child born of English parents about the neighborhood of the
creek.
The first marriage recorded was that
of John Ladd to Sarah Wood at a public meeting at the house of
James Atkinson, 13th 10 mo. 1685.
New Jersey
AHGP
Source: First Quakers in Old Gloucester,
New Jersey Society of Pennsylvania, Volume 1, Compiled by Frank
H. Stewart, 1917
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