have been hunting for a wife. I am sure among all my numerous acquaintances there is not one that esteems me more than you do, and I love you with the genuine warmth of true friendship. You then, Dear Sir, must be pleased when I tell you that I am engaged to Mrs Erskine, a Lady high in estimation for her good sense, affability and sweetness of Temper & blessed withall with a plentifull Fortune. I assure you that I do on the most deliberate principles of honour think that comfort and felicity will attend the choice I have made.' 9761 Elizabeth Erskine was the widow of Robert Erskine, F. R. S., who was sent to this country in 1772, by "The London Company" to take charge of the "New York and New Jersey Iron Works," sometimes called "The American Ringwood Company in Bergen county.' Erskine was eminent in many branches of science and by resolution of Congress, July 25, 1777, was appointed "Geographer and Surveyor General to the Army of the United States," at Washington's Head-quarters. He was born in Scotland September 7, 1735, and died at his house at Ringwood, N. J., October 2, 1780, and is buried there, a monument being erected to him by order of Washington. The Marquis de Chastellux stopped at Ringwood, December 19, 1780, and called upon Mrs. Erskine. He says, "I entered a very handsome house, where everybody was in mourning, Mr. Erskine being dead two months before. Mrs. Erskine, his widow, is about forty, and did not appear the less fresh and tranquil for her misfortune." In the Pennsylvania Journal for July 6, 1782, the adjournment of the New Jersey legislature is noted and among the important acts passed was 63 61 The Ringwood Iron Works and the Durham Iron Works in more recent times became the property of Edward Cooper and Abraham S. Hewitt of New York, whose family still own them and this letter is in the possession of Mrs. Abraham S. Hewitt. 62 History of the Presbyterian Church in Trenton, N. J., by John Hall, p. 316. 63 William Nelson in Mag. of Amer. Hist., Vol. iii, p. 579. one "To vest in Robert Lettis Hooper, the younger, and Elizabeth his wife and the survivor of them with powers of agency, to take charge of and manage the estate of the American Company, commonly so called in the counties of Bergen and Morris and elsewhere in this state, for the purposes mentioned therein." Mrs. Elizabeth Hooper died in 1796 and her husband survived until the next year when he died on the 30th of July, 1797, in his sixtyseventh year, at his residence called Belleville, near Trenton. His will dated July 12 and proved August 7, 1797, shows that he left no issue as the residuary estate went to his sister Isabella Johnson of Perth Amboy.65 Hooper's elegant seat "at the Falls of Delaware about a mile above Trenton," containing 100 acres, was purchased by him April 3, 1779. It had previously been the residence of Sir John St Clair and then of Lord Stirling." After Hooper's death Belleville passed into the hands of the Rutherfurd family and was advertised for Sale by John Rutherfurd in 1806. 66 64 64 Among the records of Christ Church, Philadelphia, there is a baptism, May 1, 1789 of Robert Lettice Hooper, son of Robert and Eve Hooper, born July 2, 1788. There is also a burial, September 3, 1790 of Robert Lettes son of Robert Hooper. As these records were usually made by the Verger, a person of ordinary or no education, and not by the rector, I think there can be little doubt but that this was the infant of Robert Lettis and Elizabeth Hooper. 65 In the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record for 1902, p. 248, in "Some Annandale Johnstons in America" it is stated that John, son of Andrew and Catharine Van Cortland Johnson, married "Isabella daughter of Rev. Morris Lettice Hooper of Trenton, N. J." She was of course the daughter of Robert Lettis Hooper, the 2nd of the name. 6 Sir John St Clair was Lieutenant-Colonel of the 22nd Regiment and Deputy Quarter-Master-General of all the British Forces in America. He came with Braddock and was wounded near Fort Du Quesne. He married Elizabeth Moland of Philadelphia, March 17, 1762, and died at Bellville, Elizabethtown, N. J., November 26, 1767, to which place he must have removed from Trenton and named his new home after his old one. There is an original miniature of him painted by Copley and signed “J. S. C. 1759", in the Hist. Soc. of Penna. Vide PENNA. MAG. OF HIST. AND BIOG, Vol. ix, p. 1. 67 Hall's History of the Presbyterian Church in Trenton, N. J., p. 102. Robert Lettis Hooper was in every sense of the word a man of affairs and he seems never to have been idle or even slothful. When towards the close of the war it became necessary for the inhabitants of Trenton to meet to consider a plan of Association to prevent trade and intercourse with the enemy, they got together on July 11, 1782, and chose Hooper chairman, who the following day issued an address "on behalf of the Committee" urging the people to desist from such actions. He was one of the Justices for Hunterdon county and Judge of the Common Pleas in 1782, 1787 and 1792; succeeded John Cleves Symmes as Vice-President of the Council of New Jersey in November, 1785, which he continued to hold for three years, being Chairman of the Joint Meeting of the Legislature in 1788, and during the absence of the Governor acted in his place." He was an Honorary member of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey, elected at the second meeting of the society held at Princeton, N. J., September 24, 1783, along with Elias Boudinot, President of Congress, William Livingston, Governor of the State, Frederick Frelinghuysen and Thomas Henderson. Among the members of the Union Fire Company, instituted May 8, 1747, we find "Robert Lettis Hooper Vice President of the Council and the man who first laid out Mill Hill and Bloomsbury for a town." He was also the first Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of New Jersey of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, which was instituted by a charter from England December 18, 1786, and he was the first Senior Warden of Trenton Lodge No 5, which was chartered in 1787, to which by his will 6 Raum's History of Trenton, pp. 366–371, where all the proceedings will be found. Letter to James Wilson, Nov. 9, 1785. "Our Governor must leave Council next Friday and will not return before Monday. I must take the chair and being so circumstanced I cannot come to you." Hist. Soc. of Penna. 70 Raum's History of Trenton, p. 398. he gave "my silver hilted sword now in their possession, in testimony of the esteem and affection I bear to the fraternity and to that Lodge in particular, and that the said sword be new mounted by my Executors and paid for out of my Estate." This is doubtless the sword bequeathed to him by George Taylor; but the Lodge has no record of it. Hooper possessed a distinctly interesting personality and was quite a picturesque character, ever open to any scheme that presented an opportunity for adventure or profit, but, from the records that we have examined in the course of the investigations for this memoir, there was apparently more of the former than of the latter gained, unless it was in his last matrimonial speculation entered into when he was past his fiftieth year. Certainly his career as we have related it warrants the surprise expressed at the opening, that it has not been told before, and we shall close this relation with the words of his obituary in Claypoole's Daily Advertiser for August 11; 1797: "He had long the charge of important offices, civil and military, which he executed with fidelity and was very much respected in his private relations of life.""1 Rob. Letts Hooper & "It is a great pleasure, as also a plain duty, to express my appreciation of the assistance I have received in the gathering of material for this article from John W. Jordan, LL.D., Librarian of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; William Nelson, Esq., Corresponding Secretary of the New Jersey Historical Society; Dr. B. F. Fackenthal, Jr., President of the Thomas Iron Company; and F. C. Griffith, Esq., of Trenton, N. J. THE FIRST ABOLITION SOCIETY IN THE BY EDWARD RAYMOND TURNER Professor of History, University of Michigan. It was not merely an accident that the first abolition society was organized in Pennsylvania, since opposition to slave-holding had arisen there in the earliest colonial days. In 1688 Pastorius and some Friends of Germantown issued the first formal protest against slavery ever made in North America, while in 1693 the Keithian Quakers gave out in Philadelphia the first declaration of this kind printed in our country. In the years following the Friends took up the work, so that by 1776 most of their own slaves had been set free. Meanwhile abolitionist writers like Ralph Sandiford, Benjamin Lay, and Anthony Benezet, circulated far and wide such books as The Mystery of Iniquity, All Slave-Keepers Apostates, and Notes on the Slave Trade, arousing fierce opposition at times, but gradually making converts. Toward the end of the colonial period not only the Friends, but the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, and the Baptists, were denouncing the system. By 1780 more than half of the negroes in Pennsylvania were free. In that year, owing to the pressure of popular opinion, the State legislature approved the first law for the abolition of slavery ever passed in the United States. Accordingly it may be seen that in Pennsylvania both in colonial and Revolutionary days there was a large number of people who were determined to oppose slavery by every means in their power. Particularly was this true of the Quakers. Between 1770 and 1780 slavery among the Friends of Pennsylvania became extinct, but * For the most part the original records upon which this study is based, were obtained at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. |