Manuscript Group 27, Guide to the Boggs Family Collection 1737-1942

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Descriptive Summary
Biographical Note
Scope and Content Note
Arrangement
Restrictions
Access Points
Related Material
Administrative Information

Series Descriptions and Container List

Series 1: Correspondence
Series 2: Miscellaneous
Series 3: Composition Books and Scrapbooks
Series 4: Estate of Robert Morris (1750-1861) Documents
Series 5: Blauvelt Family Documents
Series 6: Autograph Collection
Series 7: Kearny estate
Series 8: Robert Hunter Morris Estate Documents
Series 9: Musical Scores
Series 10: World War I items

Finding aid encoded by Julia Telonidis. July 2005. Production of the EAD 2002 version of this finding aid was made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Finding aid written in English.

Biographical Note

The Boggs family North American genealogy begins with Ezekiel Boggs, a lawyer who emigrated from the north of Ireland in the early 1700s, originally settling in Delaware. Ezekiel and his wife Elizabeth had two children, Rebecca and James.

James Boggs (1740-1830) married Mary Morris, (1746-1831) the daughter of Robert Hunter Morris, the Chief Justice of New Jersey and governor of Pennsylvania, and sister of Judge Robert Morris, (d. 1815) who taught law at Rutgers College. James was a doctor and a loyalist who narrowly escaped capture by the Revolutionary forces, fleeing to Sandy Hook where he was taken aboard the Swan, a British sloop-of-war. He ten worked as a surgeon in New York, while his family remained in Shrewsbury, where they were able to remain due to Mary’s connections to the rebel army through her brother Robert. James surreptitiously visited his family throughout the remainder of the war, but was eventually forced to move with his wife and most of their children to Nova Scotia, thus forming the Canadian branch of the family.

James and Mary’s children included Robert, Samuel, Charles, Thomas, James Jr., Rebecca and Elizabeth. Robert Boggs, (1766-1831) one of the three children who remained in the United States, married three times: Mary Morris, Mary Lawrence and Maria Stewart. His first wife was his cousin Mary Morris, daughter of his uncle Robert Morris. They had two children.

Robert had studied law in the Rutgers College office of his uncle Robert Morris (who served with the Revolutionary troops) and practiced law in New Brunswick. Robert Boggs served as the Judge Advocate General of the New Jersey Militia from 1794-1795, then a clerk of the U.S. District Court from 1790-1815, and became a Rutgers trustee in 1800. He was one of the executors of his uncle Robert Morris’s will.

After the death of Mary Boggs (nee Morris) Robert married the second of his three wives, Mary Lawrence. Mary Lawrence was the daughter of John Lawrence and sister of Captain James Lawrence, (1781-1813) the heroic commander of the Chesapeake whose famous last words were, “Don’t give up the ship!” It is through this Mary that the Lawrence family came to be attached to the Boggs.

Robert and Mary’s children included John, James, Lucy, James Lawrence, Mary Rebecca, (who married John Scott Blauvelt, allying the Blauvelts with the Boggs) William Brenton, Charles Stewart and John Lawrence. Their son Charles S. Boggs served as a Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War.

Robert and his third wife, Maria Stewart, appear to have had only one child.

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Scope and Content Note

This collection consists of the papers of the Boggs family, as well as the allied Blauvelt, Kearny and Lawrence families. The materials range in date from 1737 to 1950, and include correspondence; composition notebooks; diaries; estate, financial and legal papers; genealogies; and musical scores.

Also included in the collection are estate papers for various individuals-Robert Hunter Morris, Robert Morris, (ca. 1745-1815) and Michael Kearny (1725-1797)-that were maintained by Robert Boggs (1766-1831) in his duties as executor and attorney in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Other materials of note include manuscript copies of New Jersey Loyalist claims from 1798; material from the 1844 New Jersey Constitutional Convention; biographical data collected by Joseph M. Ward, regarding those members of the Kane Masonic Lodge number 454 of New York City who fought in the Civil War; materials on the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, as well as the West New Jersey Society; and the papers of the donor, J. Lawrence Boggs, documenting efforts on behalf of French refugees during World War I.

It is believed that the Kearny papers were obtained through the Lawrence branch of the family: Mary Lawrence’s aunt Elizabeth married Michael Kearny (1725-1797), and Elizabeth and Michael were the parents of Lawrence Kearny, a Commodore of the U.S. Navy.

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Arrangement

This collection is organized into five series:

Series 1: General Correspondence

Series 2: Miscellaneous

Series 3: Composition Books and Scrapbooks

Series 4: Estate of Robert Morris Documents

Series 5: Blauvelt Family Documents

Series 6: Autograph Collection

Series 7: Michael Kearny Estate Documents

Series 8: Robert Hunter Morris Estate Documents

Series 9: Musical Scores

Series 10: World War I Items

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Restrictions

Access Restrictions

There are no access restrictions on this collection.

Photocopying of materials is limited and no materials may be photocopied without permission from library staff.

Use Restrictions

Researchers wishing to publish, reproduce, or reprint materials from this collection must obtain permission.

The New Jersey Historical Society complies with the copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code), which governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions and protects unpublished materials as well as published materials.

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Related Material

For related materials in print on the Boggs Family, see:

Boggs, J. Lawrence. History in the Making: 1676-1920. Books and Autographs; the Property of John Lawrence Boggs of Newark, New Jersey

Boggs, W.E. Genealogical Record of the Boggs Family; the Descendants of Ezekiel Boggs. Halifax: Royal Print (1916).

Boggs, W.E. The Boggs Family. Granville, Ohio (1916).

Boggs, William. The Genealogy of the Boggs Family of New Jersey and Nova Scotia. West Somerville, Mass. (1908?).

Monette, O. First Settlers of Woodbridge and Piscataway: Olde East New Jersey, 1664-1714. Los Angeles: Leroy Carman Press (1933).

For related collections on the Boggs Family at the New Jersey Historical Society, see:

Manuscript Group 57, Lawrence Kearny Papers

Manuscript Group 210, Surveyors’ Journals Papers

Manuscript Group 258, John Lawrence Papers

Manuscript Group 285, Raritan Bay Union and Eagleswood Military Academy Papers

Manuscript Group 711, John Lawrence Papers

For related collections on the Boggs Family at other institutions, see:

Kearny Family Papers, Business Papers, 1768-1851, Rutgers University Special Collections.

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

This collection should be cited as: Manuscript Group 27, Boggs Family Collection, The New Jersey Historical Society.

Acquisition Information

This was a gift of J. Lawrence Boggs.

Processing Information

The introductory portion of this finding aid, including the biographical note, scope and content, and access points, was created by a project archivist as part of the “Farm to City” project funded by NHPRC. The project archivist consulted only the previously prepared container list when writing the introduction to the collection, not the materials themselves. It is not known who arranged the collection or when the container list was prepared.

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Series Descriptions and Container List

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