William Penn and The Province of West Jersey

1. William Penn and The Province of West Jersey Joseph M. Laufer Burlington County Historian

2. William Penn was involved in the affairs of New Jersey between 1675 -1677 • At age 33 he arbitrated a dispute between the two Quakers, John Fenwicke and Edward Byllynge. • He was principal author of “The Concessions and Agreements”, drafted March 16, 1677. • The Concessions and Agreements governed the Province of West Jersey. • Penn was not involved in the affairs of Pennsylvania until April 2, 1681 – 6 years after his first involvement in New Jersey • Penn’s first visit to the colonies was in 1682

3. William Penn in Armor – in 1666 - at age 22

4. The Charter of West Jersey King Charles II granted the territory that later became New York and New Jersey to his brother James (later King James II), who conveyed New Jersey to Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. In 1674, Berkely sold western New Jersey to the Quakers John Fenwicke and Edward Byllynge. William Penn intervened in a dispute between Fenwicke and Byllynge, thus becoming involved in the affairs of New Jersey before assuming ownership of Pennsylvania. The colony of West Jersey operated under the Concessions and Agreements of March 13, 1677, probably drafted by William Penn. The Concessions and Agreements guaranteed many of the Quaker principles of civil government, including freedom of religion and trial by jury.

9. The Quaker influence on the origins, colonization and development of Burlington County goes back to the arrival from England of the Kent at Burlington City in 1677 and the Shield in 1678 and the involvement of William Penn in the establishing of West Jersey in 1680. The philosophy upon which Burlington County was formed was derived from the Concessions and Agreements of 1677. The Concessions, written by William Penn (1644-1718) and other Quakers, guaranteed representative government, fair treatment of Native Americans and civil rights and religious freedom and protection for all inhabitants. William Penn “The Shield” in Burlington – 1678 … and current monument on banks of Delaware

10. The Quaker colonists went right to work to establish schools, meeting houses and cemeteries throughout Burlington County, starting first in Burlington City. By 1681 there were 1,400 Quakers in Burlington County. Records show that in 1699 the "Friends" were more numerous in Burlington County than all other counties in the Delaware Valley. Artist’s rendering of Mount Laurel Friends Meeting Arney’s Mount Friends Meeting Rancocas Friends Meeting

11. Burlington County Quaker Meeting Houses • Active Meetings: • Mount Holly • Moorestown • Mount Laurel • Medford (Union St.) • Westfield • Cropwell • Crosswicks • Rancocas • Arney’s Mount Today there are 21 Quaker Meeting Houses in Burlington County -- some active, and some "laid down" (the Quaker term for being abandoned and turned over for other uses). Some communities have two meeting houses, as a result of the "Hicksite Separation" in 1827 -- a reform movement which created a splinter group which separated "Orthodox" from "Hicksite" believers. Fortunately, in 1952, the 300th Anniversary of the founding of Quakerism by George Fox in England, there was a reunification of all Quakers into one body of believers. • “Laid Down” • Bordentown • Burlington (Conf.Ctr) • Mansfield • Copany • Upper Springfield • Vincentown • Medford (Main St.) • Crosswicks (2) • Coopertown • Easton • Moorestown (School) • Colemantown

12. The Four Testimonies of Quakerism EQUALITY There is that of God in each person and each has opportunities to express that divinity. INTEGRITY A person needs to be truly in harmony with oneself and to be whole spiritually one needs to live one’s beliefs. PEACE A positive concern towards taking away the occasion of all wars and the commitment to non-violence in resolving all matters of conflict. SIMPLICITY A commitment to “living simply so that others may simply live;” avoiding all excess; living intentionally and with restraint; and living a life true to one’s beliefs.

13. Burlington City Friends Meeting and Burial Ground The first Meeting House in Burlington was established in 1678. The first Meeting House in Philadelphia was established in 1683 (5 years later)

15. Red Arrow: Pennsbury Manor, Wm. Penn’s Estate Orange Arrow: Green Hill, Gov. Jennings Estate Red Star: City of Burlington – Provincial Capital of West Jersey

16. Green Hill, Oxmead Road Burlington Township, NJ One of the locations William Penn is purported to have visited in New Jersey. Some accounts indicate that Penn planted some trees here.

17. Green Hill, Burlington Twp. NJ • Not many of the old farm buildings that once dotted the countryside of the township survive today. The site of Oxmead Farm which once featured an elaborate multi-story Renaissance Revival style barn is now the Bridle Club development. • Fortunately, in 1973, Chiropractic Physician Dr. Stepehn J. Matlaga purchased 10 acres at the corner of Oxmead Road and Hancock Lane known as Green Hill, originally the estate of early colonial Governor Samuel Jennings. Although not the original Jennings house, Matlaga’s restored home dates to 1801, and he has converted the historic barn into the space where he conducts his practice. An exquisite Italianate cupola graces the top of the barn. An exact duplicate caps one of the structures at the nearby Masonic Home. • William Penn visited the Jennings estate at Green Hill several times and he reportedly planted some of the trees on the property.

18. Surveyor General’s Office, West Broad St., Burlington

19. Surveyor General’s Office • Until December 2005, the Surveyor General’s Office on West Broad Street, Burlington City, between High Street and Wood Street, across from the light rail train station, housed the original 1664 patents from the Duke of York, the Concessions and Agreements of 1676, which served as West Jersey’s constitution and bill of rights, and many thousands of land surveys. • The documents had been stored in Burlington for over three centuries. After two years of negotiations, these monumental documents, which are considered some of New Jersey’s earliest and most important historical records, were transferred to the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton.

20. Documents moved to NJ Archives • Until December 2005, the Surveyor General’s Office on West Broad Street between High Street and Wood Street, across from the light rail train station, housed the original 1664 patents from the Duke of York, the Concessions and Agreements of 1676, which served as West Jersey’s constitution and bill of rights, and many thousands of land surveys. • The documents had been stored in Burlington for over three centuries. After two years of negotiations, these monumental documents, which are considered some of New Jersey’s earliest and most important historical records, were transferred to the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton.

21. Council of West Jersey Proprietors • Each year on April 10, to this day, the Council of West Jersey Proprietors meet to choose new representatives for their Council. The Council is responsible for the original disposition of all acreage within Western New Jersey. • Surveyor General is a highly esteemed position which carries with it the responsibility of presenting surveys to the Proprietors and overseeing the general administration of their records. The position was formally established in 1688 and has been held in direct succession since that time. • A plaque on the building on the corner of High and Broad Streets, Burlington, memorializes the annual meeting.

22. Concessions and Agreements“One of the most innovative political documentsof the 17th Century”

23. Penn intervenes in West Jersey • THE English monarchy encouraged settlement in America by granting land and governing powers in the New World to various individuals, called proprietors. When territorial and financial disputes arose among some proprietors with claims to West New Jersey, Quaker leaders were called upon for arbitration. • The new governing board, with William Penn acting as principal trustee and 12 of the 13 new proprietors being Quaker, resolved the quarrel with the landmark "Concessions and Agreements of the Proprietors, Freeholders and Inhabitants of the Province of West New Jersey in America."

24. Proprietors • THE creation of this West New Jersey government preceded Penn's Pennsylvania by 6 years and reflects both Quaker religious beliefs and Enlightenment ideas adopted by Friends as politically pragmatic. This document, after governing the region for 25 years, became absorbed in the 1702 union of East and West New Jersey into one royal colony. The descendants of these 1677 proprietors still meet annually, although they no longer have legal jurisdiction.

25. HALLMARK PROVISIONS • Based on egalitarian concepts as well as Quakers' adverse experiences with English laws of the period, this document embodies Friends' application of religious principles to form a successful, working government and attracted many new settlers to the colony. Among the hallmark provisions presented for the first time in American law were: • Freedom of Religion; Expanded Concept of Democracy Through the Establishment of a Predominant, Powerful Assembly Elected by All Free Men; No Taxation Without Consent of the Governed; Trial by Independent Jury; Sunshine Laws; Safeguards Against Bribery and Corruption; Restorative Justice; and Equal Rights for Native Americans.

26. Freedom of Religion • That no men or number of Men upon Earth hath power or Authority to rule over men's consciences in religious matters therefore it is consented agreed and ordained that no person or persons whatsoever within the said Province at any time or times hereafter shall be any ways upon any pretence whatsoever called in question or in the least punished or hurt either in Person Estate or Privilege for the sake of his opinion Judgment faith or worship towards God in matters of Religion but that all and every such person and persons may from time to time and at all time freely and fully have and enjoy his and their Judgments and the exercise of their consciences in matters of religious worship throughout all the said Province.  - "Concessions and Agreements," Chapter 16

27. No taxation without consent of the governed • They are not to impose or suffer to be imposed any Tax Custome or subsidie Tollage Assessment or any Other duty whatsoever upon any colour or pretence how specious soever upon the said Province and Inhabitants thereof without their owne consent first had or other then what shall be imposed by the authority and consent of the Generall Assembly and that only in manner and for the good ends and uses as aforesaid.  - "Concessions and Agreements", Chapter 11

28. Trial by Independent Jury • Following the Restoration [of the Stuart Monarchy, 1660] it became a principal objective of the Crown to assure that no revolution would ever again unseat the monarchy. The 1660s became a period of repression. The Quakers were by now a substantial movement, and although a completely peaceable sect, were among the principal victims. ... • One method of harassing Quakers was to lock their meetinghouses. Among those locked by the London authorities was one on Gracechurch Street.On Sunday August 14, 1670, 300 people gathered outside the barred meetinghouse. William Penn, a young man of 26 and of gentlemanly bearing, spoke to the assemblage. He was accompanied by William Mead, a draper and an active Quaker. Penn and Mead were both arrested and, refusing to pay the fine prescribed by the Conventicles Act, they demanded a jury trial and spent the next two weeks in jail. (cont.)

29. Trial by Jury (cont.) • The indictment was for participating in an unlawful assembly. ... The crime consisted of taking part in a band intending acts not yet being committed, but which, if committed, would be a riot. ... • The trial of William Penn and his colleague William Mead [in the Old Bailey] in 1670 was a celebrated one. Despite the venomous hostility of the presiding judge to the accused, the jury acquitted them. The jurors in turn were fined and imprisoned for bringing in the acquittal verdict. Eight jurors paid to secure their release. Four, however, sought relief in a higher court. In a ringing opinion the court determined that a judge may not punish a jury for its verdict, however thoroughly he disagrees with it. The case became a landmark in Anglo-American jurisprudence. • Samuel M. Koenigsberg, "Jury Freedom and the Trial of Penn and Mead"

30. Government Meetings open to all(Sunshine Law) • That in every general free Assembly every respective member hath Liberty of speech that no Man be interrupted when speaking ... and that the people have Liberty to come in to heare and be witnesses of the voates and the inclination of the Persons voating.- "Concessions and Agreements", Chapter 36

31. Equal Property and Legal Rights for Native Americans • It is agreed when any Land is to be taken up for settlement of towns or otherways before it be Surveyed the Commissioners or the major part of them are to appoint some persons to go to the chief of the natives concerned in that land soe intended to be taken up to acquaint the Natives of their Intention and to give the Natives what present they shall agree upon for their good will or consent and that a grant of the same in writeing under their hands and seals...  - "Concessions and Agreements", Chapter 26

32. More… • Safeguards Against Bribery and Corruption in Government • Restorative Justice, rather than Jail for Theft • Expanded Concept of Democracy Through the Establishment of a Predominant, Powerful Assembly Elected by All Free Men

33. CONCESSIONS AND AGREEMENTS Of the Proprietors, Freeholders, and Inhabitants OF THE PROVINCE OF WEST JERSEY IN AMERICA 1676 / 1677 Summary of Chapter Contents About initial commissioners & land settlement: 1. appoints commissioners, contract with natives, lay out lands 2. surveyors to lay out & record land settlement 3. annual elections on 3/25, ballot trunks 4. lot sizes; cases of default 5. method to lay out & record surveys 6. freeways, hunt/fishing 7. no resurveys after 7 years 8. grazing rights (but no commons?) 9. commissioners oversee courts, can reprieve 10. accountability of officers/commissioners/assembly 11. no tax w/o general free assembly OK 12. good faith to letter/spirit, equal justice 13. concessions fundamental, no alterations 14. treason provision 15. constitution to be publicly read and displayed

34. Judicial protections:16. religious freedom, (opinion, judgment, faith, worship) 17. trial by 12 jurors, 35 challenges allowed 18. debtors rights, summons, no debtors prison 19. jury nullification 20. witnesses; perjury 21. victim pardon 22. defendant's rights, self representation, no fees 23. courts open, (no slavery?) 24. transaction witnessed, registered in America & England 25. equal justice w/natives, joint jury (6 natives) 26. land to be bought from natives 27. travel license, 3 wks waiting period with public posting of intent 28. 2-fold restitution or jury sentence 29. wills public, wife/child rules 30. suicide, animal accidents 31. homicide penalty by assembly

35. About the popular assembly32. assembly election Oct 1 (100 member) 33. vote buying: 7 year ban; ballot box method 34. quorum rules, supermajority 35. members certify good faith, paid shilling/day 36. debate in private, votes pub 37. assembly appoint 10 commissioners 38. 100 petitioners per session 39. enact laws similar to English in accordance with the Conc. & Agreements 40. assembly constitutes courts and officers; set pay 41. constables & lower judges popularly elected 42. end of year treasurer’s report public 43. taxation equally 44. make bounds, ports, markets, fairs

36. John Pledger,Richard WilkinsonChristopher SaundersReneare Vanhurst,William Johnson,Charles Bagley,Samuel Wade,Thomas Woodrofe,John Smith,Thomas Peirce,William Warner,Joseph Warne,Isaac Smart,Andrew Thompson,Thomas KentHenry Jenings.Henry Stubbens,William WillisGeorge Haselwood,Rodger Pedrick,William Hughes,Abraham Vanbighst,Hipolitas Lefever,William WilkinsonAndrew Shermock,Ricchard Warsan, Christopher White,Paul DoequetJohn Maddocks,John Forrist,James Vicary,William Rumsey,Richard Robison,Mark Reeve,Thomas Watson,Samuel Nicholson,Daniel Smith,Richard Daniel, William Penton,William Daniel,Robert Zane,Walter Peiterson,Anthony Page,Thomas Lambert,Thomas Hooton,Henry Stacy,Art Jansen,John Surege, Thomas Smith,James Pearce,Edward Web,Lause Cornelious, Samuel Hedge,William Master,John Grubb,John Worildge,E. Meyor,Thomas Barton,Robert PowelThomas Harding,Mathew Allen,R. RightAndrew Bartleson,Woolley Woolison,Anthony Dickson,John Denna,Thomas Benfan,John Paine,Richard Buffington,Samuel LovatBarnard Devenish,Thomas Stokes, Thomas French,Isaac MarriotJohn Butcher,Geo. Hutchinson,Thomas Gardner,Thomas Eves,

37. Mahlon Stacy,Thomas Budd,Samuel Jeninns,John Lambert,William HeulingsGeorge Deacon,John Thompson,Edward Bradway,Richard Guy,James Nevill,William Cantwell,Fospe Ontstont,Machgyel Barow,Casp. Herman,Turrse Plese,Robert Komble,John Cornelise,Garret Van Fumme, William Gill Johnson,Michael Lackerouse,Markas AlgusEvert Aldricks,Hendrick Everson,Jillis Tomesen,Claas Fauson, John Barton,John Pains,Richard Fenimore,Thomas Schooley,Godfrey Hancock,John Petty,Abraham Hewlings,John Newbold,John White,John Roberts,John Wood,John Gosing,Thomas Revel,Eliazer Fenton,Samuel Oldaled,William Black,Anthony Woodhouse,Daniel Leeds, John PancoastFrancis Beswick, William Laswall,John Snowden,Grena JacobsonEd Bylyage, Richard Smith,Edward Nethorp,John Penford,Daniel Wills,Thomas Oller,Thomas Rudyard,William Biddle,Robert Stacy,John Farrington,William Roydon,Richard Mow,Gawen Laurie, William Penn,William Emley,Joshua WrightNicholas Lucas,William Haig,William Peachee, Richard Mathews,John Haracis,Francis Collins,William Kent Benjamin Scott,Perivall Towle, 151

38. Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776

39. CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES Proposed: September 17, 1787 Effective: March 4, 1789

40. The First 10 Amendments – Adopted between Sept. 25, 1789 – December 15, 1791

42. William Penn arrives in Pennsylvania, November 8, 1682 on the “Welcome”

44. 1671-1673 – Fox travels to the New World and traversesthe State of New Jersey, including Burlington County.

45. England in Turmoil100 years • Charles I – 1625-1649 • Cromwell – 1649-1660 • Charles II – 1660-1685 • James II – 1685-1688 • William & Mary – 1689-1702 • Anne – 1702-1714 • George I – 1714-1727

46. Admiral Sir William Penn Born in Bristol in 1621; Ship captain before age 20; Died in Essex in 1670

48. Macroom Castle, County Cork, Ireland

49. William Penn in Armor – in 1666 - at age 22 He converted to Quakerism while in Ireland in 1667