[Ed. Note: The Warren Township Historic Sites Committee’s newest publication, The Kirch-Ford House, written by your editor, brings together for the first time previously scattered information about the Terrill family. Herewith an excerpt from the pamphlet about one of early Warren’s most influential families.]

 

            The first of this family to own property in Warren Township was John Terrill, who was born circa 1700 or before (as he was the executor of his father’s will in 1725, by which time he had to have been at least 21). He made his will on August 4, 1761, reciting that he was a resident of Elizabeth Borough in Essex County, an area that encompassed much of present-day Union County and parts of Warren Township as well. His will was probated on January 12, 1764, evidence that he probably died December 1763/January 1764. His wife is not mentioned in his will, an indication she may predeceased him. His children were:

• Thomas, the eldest, to whom he left 10 shillings.

• Amos, to whom he left his homestead [probably in Rahway] and salt meadow. If he is the Amos Terrill who died July 13, 1802 in his 57th year, he was born in 1745.

• Jacob, to whom he left salt meadow. He married Sarah, who died February 23, 1804, in her 64th year.

• Jemina, who married James Miller.

• Mary, who married Jacob Hampton.

• Sarah, unmarried in 1761. (The three daughters inherited their father’s personal estate.)

The Somerset County Road Book, Volume I, includes a two-rod wide road laid out by John Bowman, James Castner, Benjamin Coon and Henry Sedam on June 10, 1760. Described as “an outlet” for Cosart, the road begins at “the corner of Jacob Cosart and John Terel[‘s] land.”  There is no evidence that John Terrill ever lived in Warren Township, but that he owned land here adjacent to Jacob Cosart’s in 1760 is obvious. This fact, combined with the paltry bequest of 10 shillings to his eldest son, Thomas, in 1761, gives rise to the possibility that sometime between 1760 and 1761, perhaps in recognition of his advancing age,  John Terrill deeded the land referred to in the Road Book to his son, Thomas. Research has failed to discover when John Terrill acquired this land in Warren, or from whom it was purchased. 

John Terrill was probably the son of Thomas Terrill, a blacksmith born in Milford, Connecticut, who moved to Southold, Long Island, where he was a freeholder and townsman from 1675 to 1683. In 1684 his first wife, Margret Dayton, died, leaving behind two children, Ephraim and Mary. He moved with his family to Rahway in 1698 and purchased a farm there, land that was still owned by Terrills as late as 1897. In Rahway he married Mary Hampton, the daughter of John Hampton of Freehold, and raised a large family. Thomas’ will, dated May 24, 1720, probated April 26, 1725, names his sons Josiah, John and Ephraim. John was his executor. Mary, his wife, died October 16, 1727.

A John Terrill is mentioned as doing survey work in Hanover Township in February 1737/38 and he is probably the same person who was charged with trespassing on Daniel Cooper’s and James Alexander’s properties at this time. A 1744 list of Elizabethtown Petitioners includes the names Samuel, Isaac and John Terrill. On April 1, 1745, James Alexander reported at a meeting of the East Jersey Board of Proprietors held in Perth Amboy that an ejectment suit he had instituted “against people of or claiming under Elizabeth Town & commenced by order of this Board” had ended successfully. One of those sued was a Mr. Terrill, who may have taken a deed from the Elizabethtown Associators for a plot “in the County of Somerset [on] lands over or between the Blue Hills” claimed by the Proprietors. A list of Elizabethtown freeholders dated September 1, 1755, includes Ephraim, John, Daniel, Samuel and Isaac Terrill. We have no way of knowing whether this John Terrill was the son of Thomas, but if so, it is some evidence that John Terrill was a member of the Elizabethtown Associators, descendants of the original settlers of Elizabethtown, or those who acquired land titles through them. This group of men, and their sons and grandsons, struggled for over three generations with the East Jersey Proprietors over title to lands to the west of Elizabethtown, lands the Proprietors claimed by grant from the King and the Associators by right of Indian purchase.

In 1684 Deputy Governor Gawen Lawrie purchased an extensive tract of land from the Indians in the vicinity of the Green Brook and the Watchung Mountains. The Elizabethtown Associators claimed this area, which extended west to what is now Mount Bethel Road, and at a town meeting in March of 1735 they decided to lay out the so-called Lawrie Purchase in lots of 100 acres each, ignoring the fact that much of the land was already claimed by the Proprietors or those who had purchased from them. The Terrill farm was at the westerly edge of the Lawrie Purchase.

An extensive search of the records of the East Jersey Proprietors turned up no deed from them to anyone named Terrill for land in what would become Warren Township. Likewise, no deed into any Terrill for the family’s land has been found either in County or State records. The deed may never have been recorded because it was lost, but more likely because it had been taken from the Associators, and was thus suspect. New Jersey archivists estimate that only about one-quarter of Colonial deeds were ever recorded. Where was the land owned by John Terrill? Jacob Cosart’s will of February 4, 1772, names his sons, Samuel and Anthony Cosart, and his “friend,” Thomas Terrill, as co-executors. Edward Terrill and two known Warren residents, Thomas Coon and Philip Winans, were witnesses.  Cosart (b. 1701) may have named his friend and nearest neighbor, Thomas Terrill, as one of his executors. Early 19th Century deeds place the Cosart property to the east of that owned by Terrill, further evidence that John Terrill was the first owner of the land at the corner of Reinmann and Mount Bethel Roads.

            Thomas Terrill, John’s eldest son, was probably born in Rahway, perhaps in the 1730s (we have no evidence of his birth date). Edward Terrill, witness to Jacob Cosart’s will, may have been a cousin. Thomas died without a will in August or September 1777 as on September 11th of that year his widow, Tryphena, applied to the Somerset County Surrogate for letters of administration to his estate. Administration was approved after she and Nathaniel Ayres executed a bond in the amount of  £1,257, sixteen shillings and ten pence “procklymation money,” double the estimated value of the personal estate.

            The few extant records of the time provide fleeting glimpses of Thomas Terrill’s public life: On February 1, 1768, he and Nathaniel Ayres made an inventory of the Estate of John Cox; a road survey made on May 9, 1770, by Elisha Ayres and others, possibly of what later became Mount Bethel Road, mentions “an Aple tree standing in a Field in possession of Thomas Terrill;” another road survey dated April 11, 1774, of what clearly is Reinmann Road ends at “the front of the house of Thomas Terril at the Main Road to Quibbletown…;” in 1771, he and Benjamin Coon were the executors of John Hampton’s will; again, in 1771, he and Rouloff Sebring were the executors of John Harris’ will; and in 1772 he served as executor of Jacob Cosart’s estate. A 1769 list of pewholders of the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church includes Thomas Terrill. He was a Justice of the Peace in 1765 and 1770, and probably for several years before and after those dates.  Terrill’s death intestate indicates that he died unexpectedly, with no opportunity to make his last will and testament. Terrill was survived by his son, Thomas, and his widow. Whether he had any other children is unknown.

            In April 1779 Terrill’s widow filed her account with the Surrogate, valuing the personal estate at £585, eight shillings and three pence. Included, besides “waring apparel” and the usual household furnishings and farm implements, are nine horses, 27 steer and cows, 35 sheep, six pigs, “Harry the Negrow man,” valued at £90, and “Linan sheets,” all the mark of a wealthy farmer. Among the other noteworthy items are unsettled book accounts (monies owed to Terrill) worth £50, “a Balance dew from Ford of £5,” house rent owed by Joseph Moore, a kiln full of bricks and “18 thousand Bricks.”  The Surrogate prepared the papers for signature by “Sayrafima Foard, the Administratrix of Thomas Terril,” but she signed the document “Tryphena Terrill,” a bureaucratic error confirming other evidence that the widow Terrill remarried soon after her husband’s untimely death.

            Her second husband was William Ford, a private in the Third Regiment, Middlesex County Militia (he served for one month in October 1777), born 1731, died 1815. A baptismal entry in the Record Book of the New Providence Presbyterian Church  --  “August 9, 1786 [baptized] Phineas Ford, son of Mr. Ford on Stoney Hill, who lives in the house of Terrill, Esq., deceased.”  -- is  proof  that William and Tryphena Ford lived in the Terrill house. They were probably married by 1778, as a May 1778 list of tax ratables for Bernards Township (in which the western portion of Warren was then located) includes “William Foard, 250 acres, 4 horses, 12 cattle, 1 pig, 1 sheep, 1 riding chair.” Other Bernards Township tax records for 1785-89, 1792 and 1794 also list William Ford. A person named William Ford was paid for pasturing cattle for the Continental Army in 1778-1779 during the second Middlebrook encampment. Both Thomas Terrill Jr. and William Ford are listed in a 1793 Bernards Township militia census.

            A 19th Century application by George Ford Reeves (b. 1845) for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution recites that William Ford, the son of Charles Ford, was born in 1731, married first Ann McCohn in 1762, then second Tryphena Terrell, a widow. They had a son, William Washington Ford, born 1782 (or 1792). By 1794 Ford was a pewholder in the Second Presbyterian Church, Metuchen, to which place he and Tryphena had probably removed by that date. He was buried in Metuchen’s Colonial Cemetery.

            On March 24, 1789, when Thomas was 17, N.J. Governor William Livingston  appointed Jedediah Swan as his guardian.

            Thomas Terrill, born January 31, 1772, married Mary Dunn (born 1771, died February 12, 1833) about 1790 (she was the daughter of Reuben and Christina Dunn) and died December 11, 1830. His body was buried in the Mount Bethel Baptist Church graveyard, where also rest his wife, children and grandchildren. A leading figure in what would soon become Warren Township, Terrill led an active life as farmer, judge, country banker and public official. He served as a justice of the peace from 1816 to 1824, a County Judge in 1828, County Commissioner of Deeds in 1821 and 1827, a member of the School Board and the first clerk of Warren Township when it was founded in 1806. He was reelected Township Clerk in 1807 - 1808, 1811 – 1825 and 1830, a total of 17 years. Terrill was also an active member of the Mount Bethel Baptist church, serving as

one of the trustees when it was incorporated in 1819. He also enjoyed the best seat in the Meeting House, paying $28 annually for a pew on the east side of the sanctuary, directly behind the minister’s seat.

            Judge Terrill left a personal estate valued at $2,223.89, half of it in the form of promissory notes, most of the borrowers township residents. His extensive real estate holdings would have added several thousands in value to that, making him Warren’s wealthiest resident at the time of his death in 1830.

Thomas and Mary were the parents of nine children:

1. Lewis, born January 11, 1791, he married Aula Van Lew of New York and lived and died there on February 22, 1822, childless.

2. Squier, born September 10, 1792, he married Rebecca, the daughter of Alexander Kirkpatrick in December 1819, and they had nine children. He served as justice of the peace 1830-1849, County Judge and held many other local offices. He died January 4, 1867. Squier Terrill’s farm, which he bought in 1820, was on King George Road near the confluence of the Dead and Passaic Rivers where Lucent’s buildings stand today.

3. Gertrude, born 1793, she died unmarried on September 11, 1834.

4. Lucinda, born August 7, 1797, she married Clarkson Stelle, the son of Oliver Stelle on December 27, 1820, has six children, and died January 22, 1838.

5. Charity, she married Robert Kirkpatrick, another son of Alexander Kirkpatrick on March 3, 1826. They had four children.

6. Harriet, she married David Coon, the son of Israel Coon, on August 25, 1824, had sons George, Walter and Firman,  and died October 12, 1831.

7. John, born February 28, 1803, died October 28, 1816.

8. Drake, born 1806, married Elizabeth, the daughter of Ephraim and Anna Stelle, and died March 18, 1843. They had six children.

9. Madison, married Mary, the daughter of Isaac Stelle, on January 7, 1832, and they had six children.

[Thanks to George Bebbington for his valuable research and assistance.]

 

©   Warren Township Historical Society