Manuscript Group 68, Woodbridge, New Jersey Records, 1668-1875 (Bulk dates: 1688-1708, 1730), 0.4 linear feet / 1 box

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Manuscript Group 68, Woodbridge, New Jersey Records, 1668-1875 (Bulk dates: 1688-1708, 1730), 0.4 linear feet / 1 box

Call
Number: MG 68

Summary

• Historical
  Note

• Provenance
  Note

• Scope
  and Content Note

• Folder
  List

Summary:

Includes
the Woodbridge Town Records, 1668-1708; a typescript copy of the Woodbridge
Freeholders Book, 1707-1775; extracts from the original records of Friends’
Meetings at Amboy and Woodbridge; Woodbridge register of births, deaths, and
marriages, 1670-1690, 1852, 1861-1876; records of Woodbridge Town meetings,
1819-1875.

Gift
(in part) of Jacob R. Shotwell, 1865.

Historical
Note:

Woodbridge Township, New Jersey was
established on June 1, 1669.  The charter, signed by Governor Philip
Carteret (1639-1682), James Bollen, Nicolas Varlett, Samuel Edsall, Robert
Vanquellen, William Pardon and Robert Bond, indicated that the township was six
square miles and was bounded by Rahway, Westfield, and Union County on the
north; by the Raritan River on the south; by the Kill Van Kull or Staten Island
Sound on the east; and by Raritan Township on the west.  Woodbridge
Township was named after Reverend John Woodbridge of Newbury, Massachusetts and
was settled mostly by puritan descendants from New England.  The original
township was comprised of sixty families.

Sources:

W. Woodford Clayton, History of union
and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey, with Biographical Sketches of many of their
Pioneers and Prominent Men (Philadelpia, Pa.: Everts and Beck, 1882).

Provenance
Note:

This collection was donated in part by
Jacob R. Shotwell in 1865.

Scope
and Content Note:

This collection contains a variety of
records documenting the inhabitants and town of Woodbridge, New Jersey.
These items include town records, marriage records, birth records, surveys,
deeds, and minutes of the local group of Quakers, dating from 1668-1875.

The town records dating from 1668-1708
consist mainly of the initial deeds and surveys taken by Robert Voquillin, one
of the signers of the town charter.  The initial volume in this collection
is likely a handwritten copy of the original deeds and surveys, while the latter
two are typescript copies.  The deeds and surveys are entered in these
volumes in chronological order.

The following folder (Folder #4) contains
extracts from another Woodbridge town book, which contains lists of the
overseers of the highway, deputies, constables, and town clerks from Woodbridge
from 1683-1810; a list of the freeholders of Piscataway; and a copy of a letter
written by Governor Philip Carteret to the people of Woodbridge reprimanding
them for allowing men who had not patented their lands in Woodbridge to speak at
town meetings.  There is also a list of marriages (i.e. John Dennis married
Sarah Bloomfield, Dec 18 1668) that took place in Woodbridge, New Jersey and
notes on specimens of earmarks.  The extracts were removed from a bound
book and are kept in chronological order.

The collection also includes oaths of the
civil officers (town clerk, constables, overseer of the highways etc.) of
Woodbridge, New Jersey (Folder #5), a book of surveys entitled The
Freeholders Book-Woodbridge 1707-1774 (Folder #6), and a register of births,
marriages, and deaths in Woodbridge and Piscataway from 1670-1790 (Folder
#7).  The latter volume is very fragile and is restricted due to
preservation concerns.

In addition, the collection also contains
extracts from the minutes of Quaker meetings in which they discuss their rules
and mores (Folder #8).

Folder
List:

Processed by James Lewis, July 2001 as part of the “Farm to City”
project funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records
Commission.

Submit a request to copy part of this collection

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