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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
In 1675, just seven years before William Penn came to the opposite sore of the Delaware, John Fenwick and a group of English Quakers settled the region and founded the city of New Salem, the first permanent English-speaking settlement on the Delaware. Previous settlements had been made by both the Dutch and the Swedes, many of whom subsequently moved farther inland.
The settlers who came with Fenwick were imbued with ideals of religious freedom and self-government. Others of like mind were soon attracted. Within two years the land had been bought from the Indians and divided into lots. By Royal Commission in 1682 the city of New Salem became a port of entry for vessels. Trade and industry prospered in the 100 years before the Revolution and new towns sprang up about the original village.
The early Quaker settlement was swathed in litigation. For the sum of £1,000 the undivided half of New Jersey, later known as West Jersey, was conveyed to Fenwick by Lord Berkeley, who had received it as a grant from the Duke of York. Later, in a trial umpired by William Penn, Fenwick lost title to nine-tenths of the property on the ground that it had been purchased with funds advanced by Edward Byllynge. On the remaining one-tenth, which included the site of Salem, Fenwick had given a mortgage. The mortgagees and William Penn deprived Fenwick of his title to this land, too. The fact that Fenwick had been a major in Cromwell's army may have had something to do with his frequent troubles with Royal favorites.
The settlement was on the whole law-abiding, but the spirit of Quaker friendliness was not all-pervasive. The court record is illuminating:
Salem saw fighting, plundering and murder during the Revolutionary War. In February 1778 Washington at Valley Forge sent a force of about 300 men under Anthony Wayne to obtain supplies from southern New Jersey. Wayne collected 150 head of cattle and brought them to Valley Forge. Salem beef saved the starving army. While Wayne was driving his bawling bulls, Howe, stationed in Philadelphia, sent Colonel Abercrombie with 2,000 men in a vain effort to stop him.
Another detachment of 1,000 British troops under Colonel Mawhood and about 500 Tories (the Queen's Rangers) under Maj. John Simcoe came to Salem the following month to forage. The Colonial troops formed a line of defense at Alloways Creek, 3 miles south. It was along this front that the ambushing of the Americans, the repulse of the British at Quinton's Bridge (see Tour 29), and the Hancock House massacre (see Tour 29) occurred.
The Revolution started Salem's decline as a river port. British war vessels in the Delaware River throttled shipping, while the British occupation of Philadelphia drew attention to that city's superior advantages as a deepwater port.
At the end of the century the soil turned sour after 150 years of unscientific planting, and many Salemites moved west. Zadock Street left Salem in 1803, founded Salem, Ohio, and then Salem, Indiana, a few years later. His son, Aaron, established Salem, Iowa; the parade ended at the Pacific Ocean with Salem, Oregon. The exodus stopped with the discovery of marl, present in the region in unlimited quantities, as fertilizer.
By 1840 the general appearance of Salem was "thriving and pleasant," according to the contemporary historians, Barber and Howe. The town had a bank, a market, 8 churches, 2 fire engines, 2 libraries, a newspaper printing office, 3 hotels and about 250 homes.
During this period the office of high sheriff was still an important position. Salem County's sheriff was especially proud of his work in hanging Samuel T. Treadway, who had shot his estranged wife and was convicted in a much publicized trial. Shortly afterward the sheriff went to Philadelphia, it is said, and applied for a hotel room. The clerk informed him that all rooms were taken, whereupon the sheriff leaned over the desk and said: "I am the high sheriff of Salem County, I hung Treadway, and I want a room in this hotel."
"Sir," the clerk answered coolly, "if you were sheriff of hell and hung the devil it wouldn't make any difference to me. There are no rooms in this hotel."
The reputation of the Quakers as Abolitionists spread throughout the South by grapevine telegraph just before the Civil War, and many escaped Negro slaves made Salem a stop on the Underground Railroad.
Industry became more firmly established in 1863 when a railroad reached the city, which had lost its status as a village by incorporation in 1858. With industry came a steady increase in population, most recently an influx of Negroes.
Early records name Thomas Lutherland as the only known Salemite tested by the medieval Ordeal of the Bier, by which a suspected murderer was judged guilty if the corpse flowed or spouted blood when the suspect's hand was extended toward the body. After a jury trial, Lutherland was hanged in Salem, February 23, 1691. More cruel was the execution of a Negro woman named Hager. She was burned at the stake in 1717 for the hatchet murder of her master, James Sherron, high sheriff. It was customary for the courtroom crowd to vote as to whether the death penalty should be invoked.
... Eliza Windsor, with force and arms upon the body of Elizabeth Rumsey, .
an assault did make, and her with a paddle over the head did strike, and also over the neck, and her collar bone did break, to the great damage of the said Elizabeth Rumsey. .. .
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