Grove and Goshen, as well as a part of Hamptonburgh, and other territory to the southward. An act of the provincial assembly, passed October 20, 1764, divided the precinct by a straight line running approximately north and south from a point on the southerly boundary of what then was a part of the precinct of New Windsor but now lies within the limits of the town of Hamptonburgh, to the southerly bound of the precinct, passing part of the way along the same line as now divides the towns of Goshen and Blooming Grove (see map). All territory to the eastward of such line was called the Precinct of New Cornwall and all to the westward continued to be known as the Precinct of Goshen. In 1779, the town of Blooming Grove was formed out of the Precinct of New Cornwall, substantially as shown on the map, and in 1788 the title of the remaining part of the Precinct of New Cornwall was changed to the town of New Cornwall. In 1797 the name was shortened to Cornwall. The town of Highland, as shown on the map, was not erected until 1872; and care should be taken not to confuse it with the old Precinct of the Highlands which, as above shown, lay wholly to the northward of Murderer's Creek. This brief historical review may serve to make clear the particular localities referred to in contemporary references of the earlier and middle parts of the 18th century. T PART II. The Moffats of Earlier Days. HE late Rev. James C. Moffat, of the Princeton Theological Seminary, wrote in a personal letter, in 1877: "Our name is derived from a locality in Annandale in the south of Scotland. At the head of Annandale, and the foot of the Hartfell mountain, spreads a broad plain in which two small rivers meet and form the Annan. That plain was, in the language of the ancient Celtic inhabitants, called Mor fad, or perhaps rather Mahar fad, signifying the long plain. When Saxon invaders took possession of that part of the country and later when the Normans became principal owners there, the meaning of the Celtic names disappeared from the common language, and their pronunication underwent a change having no regard to the sense. Mahar fad, in the mouths of those who did not know its meaning, was softened down to Moffat; and other things connected with the place received names accordingly. One of the little rivers which meet in its bosom was called 'Moffat Water'; the valley through which it flows to join its confluent became 'Moffat Dale'; the town which rose on the northern edge of the plain was the town of 'Moffat'; and the mineral springs in the neighborhood are the 'Moffat Wells.' "In like manner, as in early Saxon times, surnames either did not exist or were given in reference to some mark whereby a man could be distinguished; and a very obvious mark was the place of his residence. Thus, John, of Moffat, or William, of Moffat, became designations of Johns or Williams residing there. "In the days of the National Covenant there was a goodly number of our name among the dales of the south, eastward from Dumfries. Several of them are mentioned in Wodrow's history among the sufferers in the persecution; and in a history of the Covenanters, or Traditions of the Covenanters, by a Mr. Simpson of Sanquhar there are mentioned some adventures of a William Moffat of Hartfell. "Our forefathers, if not distinguished by rank, were many of them godly men." 16 Sir Bernard Burke, Ulster King of Arms, wrote of the Moffats in his "Encyclopedia of Heraldry," 3rd Edition, published in 1844: "A very ancient Border family, influential and powerful so far back as the time of Wallace, and conspicuous for the deadly feud which existed between them and the Johnstones. So early as 1268 Nicholas de Moffat was Bishop of Glasgow, and the armorial bearings of the different branches seem to indicate some connection with the church." An English publication, entitled "A Short History of the Moffats of that Ilk,"-one of the border families of Scotland of the middle ages, has recently come from the press in the Island of Jersey, written by Robert Maxwell Moffat M. D.;2 and we draw from its pages a somewhat interesting statement of the conditions and mode of living of our medieval ancestors. The correctness of the statement will be assumed. "The system of clanship," the author writes, "prevailed among the Borderers, much as it did among the Highlanders. The chief landowners were given baronial rights,-were in fact barons, but not necessarily Lords of Parliament, though they sat in the Estates of the Realm in Parliament. This included the services of the freemen on their lands, whose disputes and quarrels they settled and whom they protected from enemies. * * * Life was of the roughest description, and even Princes in those days fared less sumptuously than the middle classes of the twentieth century. "All the borderers were mounted men, and Bruce's army was nearly all cavalry, containing a Knight or Esquire to every five troopers. Froissart in 1323 describes their life: "The bold and 'hardy troopers armed after the manner of their country, and 'mounted on little hackneys that are never tied up or dressed 'but turned immediately after the day's march to pasture on 'the heath or in the fields, brought no carts and carried no bread. "They can live on flesh half sodden, without bread, and drink 'the river water without wine. They dress the flesh of the 'cattle in their skins after they have flayed them. Under the 'flaps of his saddle every man carries a broad piece of metal 'behind him with a little bag of oatmeal. When they have 1908. Jersey: LABEY & BLAMPIED, Printers and Bookbinders, The Beresford Library, 'eaten too much of the sodden flesh, they set this plate over the 'fire, knead the meal with water and make a thin cake of it, 'which they bake on the heated plate to warm their bodies.' "From the 12th to the close of the 16th century, the family [of Moffat] appears to have flourished as minor barons and freeholders, tenants in capite,-possessing a fair share of power and influence, and leading the usual life of such Border families. They served Wallace until his fall, then transferred their allegiance to Bruce, whose fortunes they followed till the culminating victory of Bannockburn seated him securely on the throne, and finally established the independence of Scotland. *** * "When the Johnstones extended their possessions to upper Annandale about the beginning of the 15th century, the Moffats looked upon them as interlopers and resented their growing influence, and thus arose a keen struggle for local power and the feud between the two clans which continued through several generations and ended only when the Moffat clan became 'broken' and ultimately dispersed.3 How or when the Moffats lost their Chief it is not easy to say; but about 1560 they had only 'Principals' or heads of branches. This of course weakened the clan, as it necessarily led to divided councils and want of concerted action. ** * "The final overthrow of the Moffats appears to have been brought about by the Johnstones taking advantage of an assembling together of the Moffats in a large building wherein they had met for council or prayer. The Johnstones set fire to the building and, on the Moffats attempting to escape from the flames, attacked and killed many of their 'principals.' This disaster deprived the clan of its leaders and ultimately led to its breaking up. "At this time, too, many of the Moffats were undergoing a condition of affairs common enough to every border family in turn, viz.: outlawry; and as the killing of outlaws was not murder, the Johnstones do not appear to have been called upon to answer for their act, and the Moffats were apparently then too weak to avenge it privately. There had been no recognized A "broken" clan is one which has no recognized chief,-no one to whom the obedience and sworn allegiance of every other member is due. chief since about 1560, and it was probably some time after that that this event took place. Previously the chieftainship was vested in the family of Moffat of Grantoun, i. e. of that Ilk. From 1569 the Moffats of Knock appear to have been the most influential, till 1608. After this time some of the surviving branches settled in Glencairne, Lauderdale, and other parts, while some went to England and Ireland, and some to the Continent." From which branch of the Border family Rev. John Moffat was descended, we have no knowledge and but little on which to base conjecture. On October 3rd, 1710, a Samuel Moffat was admitted to membership in the Presbyterian church at Woodbridge, New Jersey 4 but the early records of that church, unfortunately, are no longer extant. "Tombstone Inscriptions from the churchyards at Woodbridge, Piscataqua and Perth Amboy," collated many years ago by the late William A. Whitehead and preserved in the library of the New Jersey Historical Society at Newark, New Jersey, contains the following records of deaths from the Woodbridge churchyard: 1734 June 5: Ruth, wife of Samuel Moffat and daughter 1746 July 21: Margaret, wife of William Moffat. The family records5 of Samuel Moffat who settled in 1752 at Blagg's Clove in Ulster County, New York, (see map), buying land there from Hugh Gregg, show that on June 5, 1735, he (Samuel Moffat) was married at Woodbridge, New Jersey, to Anne Gregg; and the gravestones still preserved in the old Bethlehem churchyard in Orange County, New York, record the birth of Samuel Moffat at Ballyleag (sic) in county Antrim, Ireland, on July 18, 1704, (old style), and his death 'DALLEY: History of Woodbridge, New Jersey, page 168. "For the family records and for much of the information concerning the socalled Blagg's Clove Moffats, I am indebted to Rev. T. Clemence Moffatt, of Clyde, Kansas, one of the descendants of that branch. |