The Newton settlers were Quakers of the English middle class, weavers, tanners, carpenters, bricklayers, chandlers, blacksmiths, coopers, bakers, haberdashers, hatters, and linen drapers, most of them possessed of property in England and bringing good supplies with them.Like all the rest of the New Jersey settlers they were in no sense adventurers, gold seekers, cavaliers, or desperadoes.They were well-to-do middle class English tradespeople who would never have thought of leaving England if they had not lost faith in the stability of civil and religious liberty and the security of their property under the Stuart Kings.With them came servants, as they were called; that is, persons of no property, who agreed to work for a certain time in payment of their passage, to escape from England.All, indeed, were escaping from England before their estates melted away in fines and confiscations or their health or lives ended in the damp, foul air of the crowded prisons.Many of those who came had been in jail and had decided that they would not risk imprisonment a second time.Indeed, the proportion of West Jersey immigrants who had actually been in prison for holding or attending Quaker meetings or refusing to pay tithes for the support of the established church was large.For example, William Bates, a carpenter, while in jail for his religion, made arrangements with his friends to escape to West Jersey as soon as he should be released, and his descendants are now scattered over the United States.Robert Turner, a man of means, who settled finally in Philadelphia but also owned much land near Newton in West Jersey, had been imprisoned in England in 1660, again in 1662, again in 1665, and some of his property had been taken, again imprisoned in 1669 and more property taken; and many others had the same experience.Details such as these make us realize the situation from which the Quakers sought to escape.So widespread was the Quaker movement in England and so severe the punishment imposed in order to suppress it that fifteen thousand families are said to have been ruined by the fines, confiscations, and imprisonments.
Not a few Jersey Quakers were from Ireland, whither they had fled because there the laws against them were less rigorously administered.The Newton settlers were joined by Quakers from Long Island, where, under the English law as administered by the New York governors, they had also been fined and imprisoned, though with less severity than at home, for nonconformity to the Church of England.On arriving, the West Jersey settlers suffered some hardships during the year that must elapse before a crop could be raised and a log cabin or house built.During that period they usually lived, in the Indian manner, in wigwams of poles covered with bark, or in caves protected with logs in the steep banks of the creeks.Many of them lived in the villages of the Indians.The Indians supplied them all with corn and venison, and without this Indian help, they would have run serious risk of starving, for they were not accustomed to hunting.They had also to thank the Indians for having in past ages removed so much of the heavy forest growth from the wide strip of land along the river that it was easy to start cultivation.
These Quaker settlers made a point of dealing very justly with the Indians and the two races lived side by side for several generations.There is an instance recorded of the Indians attending with much solemnity the funeral of a prominent Quaker woman, Esther Spicer, for whom they had acquired great respect.
The funeral was held at night, and the Indians in canoes, the white men in boats, passed down Cooper's Creek and along the river to Newton Creek where the graveyard was, lighting the darkness with innumerable torches, a strange scene to think of now as having been once enacted in front of the bustling cities of Camden and Philadelphia.Some of the young settlers took Indian wives, and that strain of native blood is said to show itself in the features of several families to this day.
Many letters of these settlers have been preserved, all expressing the greatest enthusiasm for the new country, for the splendid river better than the Thames, the good climate, and their improved health, the immense relief to be away from the constant dread of fines and punishment, the chance to rise in the world, with large rewards for industry.They note the immense quantities of game, the Indians bringing in fat bucks every day, the venison better than in England, the streams full of fish, the abundance of wild fruits, cranberries, hurtleberries, the rapid increase of cattle, and the good soil.A few details concerning some of the interesting characters among these early colonial Quakers have been rescued from oblivion.There is, for instance, the pleasing picture of a young man and his sister, convinced Quakers, coming out together and pioneering in their log cabin until each found a partner for life.There was John Haddon, from whom Haddonfield is named, who bought a large tract of land but remained in England, while his daughter Elizabeth came out alone to look after it.A strong, decisive character she was, and women of that sort have always been encouraged in independent action by the Quakers.She proved to be an excellent manager of an estate.
The romance of her marriage to a young Quaker preacher, Estaugh, has been celebrated in Mrs.Maria Child's novel "The Youthful Emigrant." The pair became leading citizens devoted to good works and to Quaker liberalism for many a year in Haddonfield.
It was the ship Shields of Hull, bringing Quaker immigrants to Burlington, of which the story is told that in beating up the river she tacked close to the rather high bank with deep water frontage where Philadelphia was afterwards established; and some of the passengers remarked that it was a fine site for a town.
