Bulletin Article - September 2005

ROYALTY AND QUAKERS
Excerpts from the speech by Betty Lyons at the Candlelight Dinner in March, 2005

It all started on the Channel Island of Jersey where King Charles II and his family had to flee from London during the war with France. It is here that Charles gave his brother, James, the Duke of York, a grant of land in the New World extending roughly from Virginia to New England. The brothers decided to use the land to present grants to two men who had defended them during the war.

In the proclamation written in March 292 years ago, the land was called Nova Caesarea, or New Jersey. The northern part, East New Jersey, was given to Sir George Carteret. He was thrilled. Philip Carteret, his nephew, was named governor. Sir George named the first city Elizabeth for his wife, and the port and capital city became Perth Amboy. East New Jersey was ready for settlers.

The southern part, or West New Jersey, where Haddonfield is today, was quite a different story. John, Lord Berkeley, wanted cash, not land. His friend, Edward Byllinge, a beer merchant in London, wanted land, but needed more money. He contacted Major John Fenwick, a former army officer who wanted to settle in the New World. Fenwick didn't have enough cash either, so he, in turn, asked friends Eldridge and Werner for money. They contacted others to help. The whole thing turned out to be a financial fiasco.

All of these men were members of the Religious Society of Friends, founded by George Fox in northern England. Members of the Society refused to take an oath to the king and, as a result, were abused, jailed, denied certain jobs and could not be officers in companies. George Fox had been fined and jailed and one judge, Gervas Bennet, told him he should quake at the word of the Lord. So the sect became known as Quakers.

The charismatic George Fox was able to convert thousands of people. He believed in simplicity and thought that each person had an inner light. Rather than a church, he proposed having a meeting house. The equality of men and women, a whole new concept in the world, was stressed. Members went to meetings which were run without ministers and spoke when they wished. Fox organized many committees to handle every situation. One of the committees was made up of three trustees, Nicholas Lucas, Gawen Lawrie and William Penn, appointed to settle the dispute in West New Jersey. The three wrote generous concessions and agreements giving settlers the right to govern themselves. The quintipartite deed they wrote divided the territory into tenths. This was four years prior to the time William Penn founded his Pennsylvania Holy Experiment.

In 1671 George Fox left England for Barbados and the Caribbean to spread the gospel, then traveled north, using Indian trails through Nova Caesarea. He wrote in his journal that he and his party came to an Indian settlement and were invited by the chief and his wife to enjoy their hospitality He announced that it was a perfect place for the Quaker Dream, a place where Quakers could govern themselves peacefully.

Five years later, in 1676, an event occurred which would be important for Haddonfield and West Jersey. On April 23 of that year, in the village of Kelvedon, Essex County, John Estaugh was born. As he grew older, he developed into a religious young man who was dissatisfied with the strict formality of the church. At the age of 17, he attended the funeral of a Quaker neighbor. The noted preacher, Francis Stamper, conducted the ceremony. John spoke with him and carefully studied the religion for several months before deciding to become a Quaker minister also. Although ministers did not lead the meeting house worship, Quakers did have both men and women who went about the countryside recruiting members and preaching. John Estaugh traveled around England, to Holland, Wales, and Scotland.

Another Quaker family, Mathew and Philippiah Marriott Haddon, lived in Hardingstone, Northamptonshire. Their youngest child was their daughter, Ann, whose birth was registered as a member of the Religious Society of Friends, the first time that this family had been recorded as Quakers. When Ann grew up, she became the second wife of John Gill and thus the mother of the John Gill who later came to the New World.

One of Ann's brothers, John, was 5 years old at the time when she was born. As he grew older, John Haddon became interested in mining and metals and was apprenticed to a blacksmith, John Green. Work was scarce in the area, so when John Haddon and his two brothers became teenagers, they moved to London. There John opened a blacksmith shop at the corner of West Lane and Rotherhithe Street in the London district of Southwark, the borough of Bermondsey, directly across the Thames from the old city of London.

On June 3, 1676, a hugh fire took place in Southwark burning down over 500 buildings. The fire was the first entry in the new meeting book of the Horsleydown meeting house. The clerk, Walter Miers, wrote the second entry three days later -- the wedding of John Haddon and Elizabeth Clark. The newly married couple moved to the corner of Jacob and Mill Streets at St. Saviours Dock.

Another event happening in 1676 also affected our area: the first European emigration to West Jersey. Though John Fenwick was dissatisfied with the final financial deal that was made, he and his family set sail for the New World on the ship Griffith, the first English ship to sail up the Delaware River. They landed on October 5, immediately built a meeting house and began planning a town which they called Salem, meaning Peace.

The area where we now live was settled in 1681 by men from Dublin, Ireland, who lived during that winter in Salem. With warmer weather, they paddled up the Delaware River to a creek they named Newton where they established the Newton colony. Because they came from Ireland, this was soon dubbed the Irish Tenth and covered what is now Camden, the Haddons and Collingswood. It continued to be called Newton Township in old Gloucester County until 1845 when Camden County was established. The area now called Haddonfield was first settled by Quaker Francis Collins in October of 1682.

Perhaps the most famous settler of the area was Elizabeth Haddon. She was born in Bermondsey, London, on July 25, 1680. Although seven Haddon children were born, only Elizabeth and her sister, Sarah, seven years younger, lived to adulthood.

Legends abound about Elizabeth Haddon. Most were originally contained in a short story written by Lydia Maria Francis Child who was born in 1802 in Massachusetts, 122 years after Elizabeth's birth. She was a talented Quaker writer who wrote the words to Over the River, wrote a household hint book which is still sold in Sturbridge Village, and married David Child, an experimental agriculturist who never had any money. In order to earn money writing, Lydia moved to New York City to be near editors.

In the city, she boarded with the family of Isaac Hopper whose ancestors had lived in what is now Deptford, New Jersey. At night, in front of the fireplace, the family told stories. One of the stories the Hoppers told was about a young maiden, Elizabeth Haddon, who had come to the New World to establish a town. Lydia wrote a story incorporating the tales she had heard.

Lydia Child was well acquainted with most of the leading Quakers of her day, one of whom was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Longfellow read the story about Elizabeth Haddon and liked it so much that he wrote a poem entitled Elizabeth. It was part of his Tales of a Wayside Inn, the only one of 22 tales set outside New England. It was the second preacher's tale, very appropriate because of Elizabeth's great Quaker devotion. That poem spread the legend worldwide. Many people think it is the love story of Miles Standish and Priscilla Alden, not realizing there really were an Elizabeth Haddon and a John Estaugh.

Lydia Child's story, The Youthful Emigrant, emphasizes Elizabeth's love for John Estaugh. The story relates how Elizabeth proposed to John while on a horseback ride to a local meeting, ignoring the fact that they had made plans for marriage while they were still in England. This is the most famous of all the legends, usually appearing in newspapers every Valentine's Day.

Elizabeth and the young Quaker minister, John Estaugh, had known each other very well in England. John sailed to the New World with three other ministers on a preaching mission before Elizabeth sailed. Elizabeth's reason for coming to the New World was her father's involvement in business in London. John Haddon had signed a deed for land in the New World which had to be settled within six months. Because he couldn't come in person, he sent his daughter in his place. As it turned out, the land she was to settle was the Lovejoy tract in the vicinity of the today's Mews, across from Bancroft School, but the title was not clear.

Haddon had been buying land in West Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. He bought 500 acres from John Willis on Coles Mill Road where most people think Elizabeth first settled, but that title was not clear. He bought 500 acres from Richard Mathews and sent over an indentured servant and blacksmith, John Breach, to manage the property When plans did not work out for the William Lovejoy triangle, Elizabeth's father sold her 930 acres of land where she was in actual possession.

In the meantime, because of unfavorable winds, John Estaugh and his three colleagues landed in Pautuxent, Maryland, after Elizabeth had arrived in the Delaware River. Estaugh and John Richardson traveled south to North Carolina, then worked their way north. They stayed at William Penn's home, Pennsbury, in what is now Buck's County, witnessing the last of 40 Indian treaties negotiated by William Penn. They then parted and continued preaching separately.

John and Elizabeth Haddon were married in her home on a raw, snowy, blustery day on December 1, 1702. Their original wedding certificate with 42 signatures, the cream of Quaker society, is one of the Historical Society's treasures. Each Quaker marriage culminated in the passing around of a certificate, this particular one written by Thomas Sharp, the most outstanding of the Irish Quakers. One legend which continues to pop up is that Indians were at the wedding, but there are no such indications on the wedding certificate.

John Estaugh was devoted to his ministerial work. He and Richard Gove, one of the wedding guests, left to preach in Barbados in 1704. Before arriving there, the ship Price was attacked, chased and captured by pirates. The prize was taken to Martinique and the crew was jailed. Captives stayed in prison until an equally ranked prisoner on the enemy side was captured and exchanges could be made. Such was not the case with the ministers. Several months after their capture, when the governor of Antigua was visiting the area, he heard about the ministers and asked for their release to him. This was done and eventually the Quaker ministers were able to go to Barbados where they continued their mission. They arrived home a number of months later, feeling that they had done a good job in leading the prisoners to the Lord.

Although pirates were everywhere, even in the Delaware River, the experience apparently did not daunt John Estaugh. Together, John and Elizabeth sailed to England. When they returned to the New World in 1706, it was to a house on a hill in the middle of the 500 acre tract on what is now Wood Lane in Haddonfield. John Breach, the indentured servant, had served his time and moved elsewhere in Newton Township.

Elizabeth's cousin, John Gill, son of her father's sister, Ann Gill, came to this country. He became well-known and helpful in many areas of the Estaugh's business. He first lived on 800 acres of land owned by his uncle, John Haddon, approximately in the location of the Woodcrest Country Club. The original deed was called King's Land, probably the area George Fox had proclaimed the Quaker Dream at the Indian settlement. However, that is not historical fact. The Estaughs then sold John Gill 89 acres of land, part of which is now the headquarters of the Historical Society of Haddonfield.

John and Elizabeth traveled again to England and while there made plans with her father and mother to build them a home next to theirs. The house was finished in 1713, the official date of the founding of Haddonfield. They also brought back with them Sarah Hopkins, the five-year old daughter of Elizabeth's sister, Sarah.

The life of Elizabeth's father, John Haddon, was an active one. He owned an anchor smithy in Rotherhithe and was a member of several mining companies. An associate, Dr. Edward Wright, and he went to Sterling Castle in Scotland where they arranged to get patents from a group of Germans for a reverberatory furnace. Nobody knows how or why they obtained the patents, but the Quakers used the plans to their advantage to improve mining, a huge step forward. The government appreciated their efforts so much that, despite the fact that these two men were Quakers, not allowed to become officers in any company because they wouldn't take an oath to the king, Parliament passed a resolution specifically naming them and giving them the right to become directors of the London Lead Company, later known as the Quaker Lead Company. The silver they mined was of such a high grade that Sir Isaac Newton, Treasurer of Great Britain, gave them the right to use a private mark on all silver extracted from their mines for use in coins. The symbol the directors chose was made up of roses for Britain and plumes for Wales.

Later, the Quaker Lead Company bought the Pennsylvania Land Company so that the company would have more land available to mine. John Estaugh was appointed the sole New World agent and his father-in-law, John Haddon, planned to come to the New World to help him after he had resolved problems associated with his business.

When that time came, however, Haddon felt that he and his wife, Elizabeth, were too old to travel. He gave the land, which he called New Haddonfield, outside of his will, to his daughter, Elizabeth, and his son-in- law, John Estaugh. It included the house built for him, the orchards and whatever else they had on the land.

Unfortunately, the 1713 house no longer stands; it burned to the ground in 1842. However, the brew house, which is on the property, was not destroyed and remains as the oldest standing structure in the Borough of Haddonfield, dating from the original 1713 house.

The Estaughs were childless, and with much of the Haddon money concentrated in the New World, and because they were very family-oriented, they needed an heir. On one of Elizabeth's seven trips to England, she had returned with Sarah Hopkins, sister Sarah's daughter.

Four years later, the Estaughs and young Sarah returned to London, staying several years. When they came back to New Haddonfield, Sarah remained in London, but her brother, five-year old Ebenezer Hopkins, sailed with his relatives to the New World. He was given a thorough education by his aunt and uncle Estaugh and grew up to become a tax collector, an assemblyman, and prosperous land owner. Ebenezer helped his uncle survey land, collect rents and improve property for the Pennsylvania Land Company. He married Sarah Lord, a Quaker from Woodbury, when they were both 19 years old and they had 7 children.

Both John and Elizabeth were devout Quakers who were dedicated to the Quaker Dream of having a religious colony. She was clerk of the women's meeting for 50 years. He was a preacher who went on many ministerial visitations throughout his life to Europe and the Caribbean, even though he had severe "head" problems which might have been sinus difficulties or migraine headaches.

When a few Quakers in Tortola, the British Virgin Islands, wrote asking for help, Thomas Chalkley, a Quaker minister, responded. Chalkley died upon arriving at the island. Because of his own health problems, John Estaugh tried to assist by corresponding with the Tortola Quakers . But when it became obvious that they needed more personal involvement, Estaugh and John Cadwallader decided to go. Cadwallader became ill on the ship and died shortly after landing. John Estaugh preached at the funeral but succumbed to a high fever several days later. He died just after his 40th wedding anniversary on December 6, 1742.

Elizabeth didn't hear about John's death for over a month. The governor and his wife wrote several letters to her, telling her that John was buried on the island. Today the actual burial site of the three ministers is inaccessible. A small craft can land on a tiny beach in Fat Hog Bay, but briars and prickly bushes, spreading out for about half a mile leading to the high hill, make it impossible to reach the sites.

Elizabeth carried on, buying and selling real estate in the village, breaking up her extensive land holdings so that a Quaker village could be set up with residences and small shops. Her cousin, John Gill, sailed off to London in 1749 to do business for a local villager. While there, he died and was buried in Bunhill Fields where George Fox, the founder of the Religious Society of Friends is also buried.

Along with his whole family, Ebenezer Hopkins developed smallpox in 1757. All survived except Ebenezer. He had no will, so all his children came under the guardianship of the court. The guardianship continued for twenty-one years since a daughter was born shortly after Ebenezer's death.

Francis Rawle, one of several generations of lawyers who served Elizabeth, was out hunting and accidentally shot himself. He died a few days later.

Elizabeth was alone. She had lost her husband, her cousin and her nephew, as well as her lawyers. Her sister, Sarah, died a year later. Elizabeth continued for almost five more years.

At age 8I, Elizabeth wrote one of the longest and most detailed wills of the colonial period. She gave her extensive property to each of Ebenezer's children and also to some of her friends. She died at the age of 82 on March 31, 1762, having lived a full and pious life. She had carried out the Quaker Dream of her father, establishing a village in the New World.

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Editor's notes: You can read more about the legal entanglements involved in the Lovejoy Triangle in Betty Lyons' article, An Interesting Tract of Land, published in the March 2003 issue of the Bulletin.

A painting of the Estaugh Plantation on Wood Lane, which depicts the original house, was done by Haddonfield artist, Thomas Evans Redman. It is hanging in the keeping room in Greenfield Hall.