In our Fall l989 issue, we traced the story of William Ford, one of three early Warren settlers whose homes are shown on General Erskine's Revolutionary War map No. 70C. Jeremiah Sutton, a Ford neighbor on what is now Mt. Bethel Road, is the subject of the following article by Society Vice President Shirley Morgan Christopher. A hundred years ago a historian wrote that "much of the early individual history was but a meagre record -- this was much regretted as they lived during a period of time when some of the most thrilling and exciting occurences ever visited a people." Jeremiah Sutton was such an individual: An early resident of Warren, he is completely omitted from local history to this day. Jeremiah Sutton did not leave a personal history although he was among Warren's pioneers. Through research, however, we can now document his presence in our area from c. l740 to l787, the year he and his family moved west. Sutton family research is complicated by the fact that two branches of the family, both descended from a common ancestor, settled in the Somerset hills. Confusing matters further is the family's habit of using identical given names in each generation. At the time of the Revolution, at least three Jeremiah Suttons were in this area, all cousins of differing degree. The two branches of the family enjoyed one distinction at least, for one was of the Baptist persuasion, the other of the Presbyterian. The Sutton family tree begins with William, progenitor of the Middlesex-Somerset-Morris County Suttons. On July ll, l666, in Eastham, Mass., he married Damaris, daughter of Richard and Alice Bishop. It was in that same year that tidings began to spread throughout New England of the founding of a colony in the Jerseys where settlers were welcome, the Indians friendly, the soil and climate excellent and civil and religious liberty guaranteed. About l672 William, a Quaker, left Eastham seeking reprieve from Puritan domination. He settled in Piscataqua, or Piscataway, where, thanks to fair dealings with the Indians, only the wolves and the dense forest threatened. By l682 William Sutton owned several hundred acres of land burdened only by a yearly quit-rent of a half penny. A pillar of the tiny community, he served as freeholder, constable and town clerk. Member of the Quaker congregation that met in nearby Woodbridge, he served his church on the boards of discipline and inquiry. Interestingly, William's sons strayed from the Quaker fold, joining the Baptist or Presbyterian churches. William Sutton first appears in the Jersey records in l677 when he purchased l20 acres of land. On March 10, l697/98, the East Jersey Proprietors leased a large tract to William, Thomas, Judah, John and Charles Sutton and others. Sutton's name does not appear after 1713, indicating that he probably died about that time. He was the father of ten children: Alice, Thomas, Mary, John, Judah, Richard, Joseph (died young), Benjamin, Daniel and Joseph. William Sutton's second son, John, born April 20, l674 in Piscataway, married Elizabeth (Conger?) about l695 and moved to the Passaic Valley, buying land in Harrison's Neck Nov. ll, l741. He is probably the same John Sutton who sold land at Piscataway on Dec. 3lst of that year. His will, dated Dec. 17, l746, was probated Dec. 20, l750. He died on Dec. 19, l750, aged 76, and lies buried with his wife in the Baptist Cemetery, Stelton. His eight children were: John, born Sept. 19, l70l, David, born July 31, l703, Moses, born Feb. 2, l696/97, died l740, Aaron, born July 2, l699, married and died before l746, James, born May 9, l709, Jesse, born July 6, l711, Mary, born Aug. 15, l717 and Ephraim, born Dec. 7, 1719. John Sutton's youngest son, Ephraim, lived on Sutton's Hill (the Second Mountain) west of William Allen, another of Warren's pioneers. He married Phebe (Marks?) and had at least four children, James. David, Jesse and William. Ephraim's will, dated Aug. ll, l783, was probated Dec. 7, l790. His son, William, married a Dutch girl named Lavina and had the following children: James, Enoch, who married Betsey Clark, daughter of Elias Clark, Henry, Mary, who married John Sibbens, David, who married Sallie Parker, daughter of Judah Parker, William Jr., Catherine, Sallie and John. According to John Littel's history of the Passaic Valley, "the family [presumably William's] all removed to Ohio together." John Sutton's eldest son, John, married Mary Martin in l724. His will, dated Aug. 25, l758 and probated Jan. 22, l761, names his wife, his brother David, his daughters Elizabeth, Anne, Lois and Mary, and sons Jeremiah, born l737 or before, Abner and Philip. John's will left 70 Pounds to each of his daughters, his land to his three sons and one-third of his personal property and one-third of the income from his land to his wife, Mary. An inventory of his estate conducted by William Worth and Nathaniel Ayres listed personal property valued at 252 English pounds. John's children, Lois, Mary and Abner, were among the founding members of the Mt. Bethel Baptist Church on Oct. 29, l767. Abner Sutton, born May 8, 1741, near Basking Ridge, married Mary Davison, May 31, l768, and died Feb. 26, l791, the father of eight children: Sarah, who married Isael Coon before l804, a son who died young, David, George, Jeremiah, born Aug. 9, l774, died l848, John, who died at the age of 3, Rozanna and John. Abner Sutton, ordained Jan. l775, was Mt. Bethel's second pastor, serving until his death. "He was a solid divine," wrote one church historian, responsible for an amazing 76 baptisms in l786 alone. Sutton and his wife lie buried in the Mt. Bethel Baptist church yard. The Rev. Abner Sutton's son and brother were the first Jeremiahs in the Sutton family tree. It is clear that Abner's son, who would have been five when General Erskine made his map, could not have been the Jeremiah Sutton we are searching for. A second branch of the Sutton family descended from William's son, Daniel, born in Piscataway Feb. 25, l681/82, and married Patience Martin, l704, and after her death, Lydia Collier, l724. Daniel was a freeholder in l719 and as late as 1729 was living in the town of his birth. In l736, however, when he served as executor of his brother's estate, he is said to be a resident of Somerset County. He is probably the Daniel Sutton who was dismissed from the Piscataway Baptist Church in l752 and admitted that same year to the Morristown Baptist Church, where his death is recorded in l761 at age 79. In all likelihood he lived near Basking Ridge. Daniel fathered eight children: Anne, Zebulon, Zacharias, John, Dorothy, Patience, who married Jonathan [or John] Doty, Esther and Daniel. Daniel's son Zebulon, born Sept. 1, l707, lived in Mendham. He married Mary Doty about l731, attended the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church and had eight children: Patience, Jonathan, Jeremiah, Uriah, Peter, Mary, Joseph and Anna. On Feb. 28, l746/47, he moved his family to Basking Ridge, leasing from James Alexander [the father of William Alexander, the Lord Stirling of Revolutionary War fame] l30 acres bordering on the Passaic River next to John Doty's 300 acres. Zebulon remained in the area until about l769 when the lands he had leased from Alexander were sold to others. Presumably he moved to Hardyston Township in Sussex County c. l770. "Zebulon Sutton was among the early arrivals," wrote Snell in his history of Sussex and Warren Counties, "and located upon what was known as the Rutherford lands [in Hardyston] which he cultivated and rendered productive." Zebulon's son, Jonathan, removed from the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church between l787 and l790 to the newly-formed Presbyterian Church of Hardyston, now Sparta. Curiously, Snell relates that "Two brothers named Sutton came from France before the Revolution and settled in Morris County, where they died." In fact, the Suttons were Quakers from Tenterdon, Kent, England. Jonathan's sons, Jacob and Zebulon, figured prominently in the early history of Sparta and the family may well have been drawn to Sussex County by the fact that Lord Stirling purchased land there in l766. Zebulon's son, Jeremiah, was born Oct. 29, l738 in North Branch, attended the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church and served as a private in the Somerset County Militia during the Revolution. His brothers Jonathan, Uriah and Joseph [all of them present at the Battle of Monmouth] also served the patriot cause. Was Zebulon's son, Jeremiah, or his cousin, John's son, Jeremiah, the Jeremiah Sutton whom Erskine places just to the west of William Ford? The evidence shows that John's son, Jeremiah, lived on Long Hill, west of the Passaic River, not on Second Mountain in what is now Warren. An entry in the diary of the Rev. Hezekiah Smith, a well-known Baptist clergyman, for March 5, l764, reads as follows: "Preached a sermon at Jeremiah Sutton's at Long Hill from Isa 9:67." As it is unlikely that Smith would have preached at a Presbyterian's home, the diary entry is evidence that in l764 the Baptist Jeremiah Sutton did not live in Warren. It is certainly possible that Jeremiah could have subsequently moved from Long Hill to Second Mountain. If we accept that suggestion, however, then we are unable to locate the home of the Presbyterian Jeremiah, whom we know lived in the general vicinity of Basking Ridge. References to Jeremiah Sutton in the early records of the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church abound. An "exact list" of pewholders dated Nov. 12, l769, lists Jeremiah in Pew 70, Peter Sutton in Pew 71, Uriah Sutton in Pew 73, Joseph Sutton, Pew 72, Jonathan Sutton, Pew 55 and Zachariah Sutton, Pew 80. An annual pledge list of Oct. 31, l770 includes the names of Jonathan Sutton and "Jeremiah Sutton, Jun." The 'Junior" is misleading unless we recall that during the l8th Century "Junior" did not always mean the son of a father of the same name. Often, it simply distinguished one cousin from an older cousin of the same name. In this case, recall that the Presbyterian Jeremiah was born in l738, his Baptist cousin was born in l737, perhaps earlier. In April 1783, Jeremiah Sutton and Jacob Lewis replaced panes of glass in the meeting house and parsonage. In April 1784, l785 and l786, Jeremiah was paid 3 Pounds for "one years taking care of the meetting house...." and is mentioned several times in the records for l786. On May 30, l787, an entry written next to Jeremiah's name simply states, "moving away." Where did Jeremiah Sutton go? A history of Butler County, Pennsylvania tells us that "Jeremiah Sutton, a native of New Jersey, settled in Westmoreland county, Pa., about the close of the Revolutionary war, having served through that struggle as a member of a New Jersey regiment. About l800 he came to Butler county, settled in Concord township, and purchased l00 acres of land, which he cleared and improved, and spent the balance of his life thereon. He married in New Jersey, and had one daughter, Polly,... and three sons, Platt, Joseph and Jeremiah." Sutton and his family had become part of a post-war westward migration that was eventually to see tens of thousands of New Jerseyans heading west for new opportunities in Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio. Sutton died sometime before Dec. 14, l814, and lies buried in Butler County with his children, all members of the Presbyterian church there. The name of Jeremiah Sutton appears in the New Jersey records as witness to a deed by John Boyle dated July 23, l764, for land along the "Pasiac River," to the will of Rachel Jones of Bernards Town, widow of Daniel Jones, Sr., on Feb. 2, l767, and with Nathaniel Ayres as having inventoried the estate of Isaac Vail of Bernards Township on April 24, l770. To which cousin these references pertain cannot be determined, though we note that Nathaniel Ayres and Isaac Vail probably lived in what is now Warren Township, not across the Passaic River on Long Hill. A similar perplexity confronts us when we review the l778 Bernards Township tax ratables, which lists a Jeremiah Sutton as the owner of 85 acres, 2 horses, 5 cattle and one pig. Jeremiah Sutton also appears on the Bernards Township tax lists for l785, l796 and l797 but not on the list for l793. This may be because the l785 Jeremiah is the Presbyterian who moved to Pennsylvania in l787 and the l796-97 Jeremiah is the Baptist son of the Rev. Abner Sutton, who would by that date be 22 or 23 years old. In this regard, we should note that if the Baptist Jeremiah had in fact moved from Long Hill to Warren [then Bernards Township], two Jeremiah Sutton's might be expected to appear on the l785 tax list. Such is not the case, however. Other Suttons listed on the l778 Bernards tax list are: Daniel, Ephriem, who owned 60 acres, 2 horses and 2 cattle, Abner and Zachariah, both householders [meaning they were landless], Zebulon, a single man, Jonathan and Peter. The l793 tax list contains the names of Enoch, John, Peter and the Widow Sutton. Which Jeremiah Sutton lived in the house on Second Mountain on what is now Mt. Bethel Road? My conclusion is that Jeremiah Sutton, the Presbyterian, is the most likely candidate. If I am correct, then it is not difficult to imagine a Sunday morning in l769 when Jeremiah Sutton and his neighbors, Henry Alward and Thomas Terrill [both of them also pewholders at the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church that year], with their families, setting off together for the journey to church northward across the Passaic River. [References: E. F. H. Sutton, Genealogical Notes of the Sutton Family in New Jersey, l900; History of Butler County, Pa., l895 Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church Records; New Jersey Archives, passim; Chamberlin, Early Germans in New Jersey; Littell, First Settlers of the Passaic Valley; DAR Patriot Index; Snell, History of Sussex and Warren Counties; Proceedings, Cent. Anniv. Presby. Ch. of Sparta l886; Marj. Oliver, The Suttons of England & No. Carolina, l974] |