My
8th Great
Grandfather
George Mount
1625-1705
Generation No. 11
GEORGE3
MOUNT
(RICHARD2,
GREGORY1)
was born March 18, 1625/26 in Boughton Aluph, Kent, England, and
died August 31, 1705 in Middletown, Monmouth County New Jersey.
He married KATHERINE
BORDEN
1662 in Providence, Providence, Rhode Island, daughter of BENJAMIN
BORDEN
and JOAN
FOWLE.
She was born 1638 in Providence, Providence, Rhode Island,
and died 1705 in Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey.
Middleton was settled by English who migrated from western Long Island and New England, beginning at the 1665 proclamation of the Monmouth Patent by royal governor Richard Nicholls. This grant, issued to 12 Britons, contained several provisions governing settlement. The new settlers were required to secure the land from the local Indians, a population that was, in time, displaced. Additional people were required to settle here in order to foster permanence. Three “villages” were established near-simultaneously, including the short-lived Portland Point located near Atlantic Highlands, Shrewsbury, south of the Naversink River, and the village of Middletown, which was, in a rough geographic sense, in the “middle” of the aforementioned.
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Monmouth County was organized into municipalities in 1693 when its
three original townships were formed.
One, Middletown, then embraced all of Monmouth County north
of the Naversink River and east of Freehold Township.
New Jersey’s early townships were too large for
administrative ease and were divided by the 1840’s.
Middletown was split in 1848 by the formation of Raritan
Township, a section that included the future Holmdel, Hazlet and
Aberdeen townships and the boroughs of Matawan, Keyport, Union Beach
and most of Keansburg.
Middletown Township’s borders later remained relatively stable,
changing only for the secession of Atlantic Highlands and Highlands
in 1887 and 1900 respectively, and for a few other minor
adjustments.
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Middletown residents divided their loyalties during the Revolution.
Some significant landholding families remained loyal to the
English crown, but did so in the midst of rebellious forces that
fought for independence.
The conflict in New Jersey was a virtual civil war.
Enemy participation in the major battle in New Jersey were
headed towards Middletown.
The British forces, who had fought the colonials near
Monmouth Court House on June 28, 1778, continued their eastward
journey after the battle.
They reached an encampment in the Middletown hills and stayed
prior to fulfilling their planned objective, a departure by sea for
New York City. The war’s
two most notorious acts of local violence occurred after the end of
formal fighting, the June 1780 murder by loyalists of Joseph Murray
in his field at today’s Poricy Park, and the April 1782 execution of
Joshua Huddy at Highlands.
Much of the Township’s spiritual and educational life began in
Middletown village where many Christian denominations have been
represented from early times.
The Baptist Church in New Jersey was founded in 1688 at
Middletown. The
Episcopical Christ Church was founded as a joint congregation with
Shrewsbury, an organization that claims its origins from recorded,
informal worship dating from 1702.
Christ Church built churches in Shrewsbury and Middletown in
1732 and 1746 respectively; the two branches separated in 1854.
A second Episcopal church, All Saints Memorial, built in 1864
in Naversink, is a National Historic Landmark.
The Dutch Reformed was founded in Middletown village in 1836.
Presbyterian and Methodists have early Middletown roots, but
their houses of worship did not endure.
The Roman Catholic Church in Middletown was founded at New
Monmouth in 1879 and is now the predominant faith, numbering three
churches in the Township and a fourth on the border.
In addition, Middletown Catholics worship in at least five
surrounding municipalities Public education’s traceable roots in
Middletown barely existed through the first third of the 19th
century. Funding by the
State throughout the state, which began in 1829, is regarded as
effectively changing public policy to widely available free
education. A key
landmark to education is a private school, the Franklin Academy; it
opened in 1837 and survives as a residence on Kings Highway.
One-room schools were built in the latter 2/3 of the 19th
century, replaced by more substantial buildings in the first decade
of the 20th. Middletown
was the region’s first rural township to build a high school,
opening one in Leonardo in 1913.
Library service began with the 1914 openings of the private
Naversink Library and was followed by the establishment of the
Middletown Public Library in 1920.
Local neighborhoods, their flavor and identity are fundamental to
the history of Middletown.
The significance of neighborhoods is magnified here since it
tends to distinguish and define Middletown by the character of its
respective parts, albeit at a cost of municipal identity.
Middletown’s neighborhoods arose at varied times over its
long history and have singular character.
Some smaller sections have a diminished presence on the
landscape. The standing
of some small parts as neighborhoods has vanished, their names
recalled only by street signs.
However, one key faded example, Holland, reflects a second
significant early people.
Holland, which was settled by the Dutch c.1700, survived
after being split by the 1848 township division around Laurel
Avenue, but Holland disappeared through late 20th century change.
The neighborhood of Harmony is but a memory.
Some neighborhoods changed names, while other settlements
arose in the midst of the lengthy distances that separated earlier
populated places. Chapel
Hill, earlier known as High Point, was centered around an 1809
chapel. The neighborhood
is extant, although the chapel was destroyed.
Garrets Hills, site of Revolutionary War observations, was
located near it to the east.
Fairview, once Heddens Corner, is located midway between
Middletown village and Red Bank.
The two names coexisted for decades, the new one taken from
Fair View Cemetery which was laid out in 1851 as a beautiful park.
The first sectional identity on Raritan Bay was Shoal Harbor.
That name, which reflected locally shallow waters, was
changed to Port Monmouth in 1860 when New York transportation
interests built a dock there at the point of origin of Monmouth
County’s first major railroad, the Raritan and Delaware Bay.
The line was conceived as a subterfuge for an alternate New
York-Philadelphia route.
Several bay shore neighborhoods took distinct identities, including
the westernmost, East Keansburg, which was named for proximity to
Keansburg, a borough formed in 1917 from parts of Raritan and
Middletown townships.
East Keansburg, was renamed North Middletown by municipal ordinance
around 1988. Belford was
established in 1891 to mark the opening of a railroad station and
post office east of Port Monmouth.
Leonardo succeeded Leonardville in 1897, the year a post
office opened; both names reflect the influence of the Leonard
family. Locust was
earlier known as Locust Point.
That name suggested its maritime origins, but the “point” was
dropped in the 1890s during a period when the post office
streamlined the names of many offices.
Three other sections changed names, one twice.
In addition, other smaller neighborhoods disappeared, while a
once-large section was divided.
Chanceveille was established by 1815 between Middletown
village and Shoal Harbor, but the name was changed to New Monmouth
in the 1850s. Naversink,
which embraces a peripheral part of the once-vast mountainous area
in the Township’s original northeast section known as the Highlands
of the Naversink, was established
c1830 as Riceville.
Its village, which grew up around small, close lots, has
attained the stature of a National Register Historic District.
Lincroft was by the end of the 17th century an important
crossroads juncture for both north-south and east-west travel.
Lincroft was initially called Sandy New and later Leedsville,
before the present name was adopted by its post office in 1891.
Red Hill was a small African American settlement that arose
around 1890 along the road of the same name.
It was, for practical purposes, gone a century later, its
village character effaced by development, its memory preserved only
by two small churches.
Everett, formerly Morrisville, was a second neighborhood shared, in
time, with Holmdel after the 1848 township split, but it too, is
forgotten following the passing of its village make-up.
Nut Swamp had been a prominent place since the 18th century.
A National Register of Historic Places one-room school still
stands at the former village center at Middletown-Lincroft and
Dwight roads, but the village character is otherwise gone and the
community name has been forgotten.
Much of Nut Swamp was absorbed by Oak Hill, a neighborhood
which grew from a fine late 1950s housing development.
Other parts of Nut Swamp have been or are now in Lincroft and
River Plaza. The latter
is a c.1900 crossroads community formed around two old paths, the
road to Nut Swamp and the “back road” from Red Bank to Holmdel,
today’s West Front Street.
The waterfront and shipping demonstrated an early impact of
transportation on development.
For many decades the Township’s population center was located
near the shore of Raritan Bay; many of its residents were engaged in
maritime trades. One
significant activity was the shipping of produce from Middletown’s
large farms. Early water
transport by sail was difficult, slow and unreliable, while travel
by land was arduous; most roads were merely narrow paths.
Numerous small docks rather than large ports were established
in order to minimize the trip inland.
One of the most important of these numerous docks, the
commercial center of Middletown Point, was located at the present
Matawan. Indeed, the
separation of that neighborhood by municipal division in 1848
resulted in the loss to Middletown of a business center, one which
was never replaced in the Township.
A second maritime pursuit was commercial fishing in its many
forms. These included
fish processing, or the breakdown of the inedible menhaden for
commercial usage. This
industry was once the Township’s largest employer.
The influence of the railroad was mixed and varied over time.
Neither the aforementioned Raritan and Delaware Bay nor the
1875 New York and Long Branch, the present New Jersey Transit North
Jersey Coast line had significant impact on local growth when first
opened. The Central
Railroad of New Jersey, which jointly owned the New York and Long
Branch with the Pennsylvania Railroad, was forced to relocate its
streamer dock in 1892 from Sandy Hook and chose Atlantic Highlands
as its replacement. The
opening of their Atlantic Highland Division line which connected the
New York and Long Branch with Seashore branch, spurred growth along
the Township’s bay shore.
The erection of a trolley network in the first decade of the
20th century, which connected the Township with towns to the north,
Highlands and Red Bank, spurred development along its route.
This included the opening of the Township’s first suburban
housing tracts in Fairview.
The New Jersey state highway system was expanded in the
1920’s aided growth and facilitated the erection of many small
summer houses, especially along the bay shore.
The road system was overwhelmed in the late 1940’s when post
World War II suburbanization led to the construction of the New
Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway.
These superhighways, which opened in 1952 and 1954
respectively, increased traffic capacity and propelled the region’s
and Township’s growth.
Interestingly, the automobile fulfilled the railroad’s local transit
role; Middletown became a major station after its parking facilities
were expanded in the 1970’s.
In the post-Civil War era, country houses and gentlemen’s farms were
developed, substantially along the Naversink River shore.
The desire of the residents there to preserve the character
of this area led to the adoption of the Township’s first zoning laws
in 1935. The law
initially governed only that region, but zoning was adopted on a
voluntary sectional plan; the process was completed in the 1950s
when Naversink joined.
Effective land use may be dated from the adoption of the Township’s
first Master Plan c1960s.
This process resulted in heightened awareness of the value of
open space and preservation of historic character.
As a result of the aforementioned post-World War II building
boom, the population exploded, educational facilities were expanded,
roads were improved and infrastructure enhancements, such as sewage
treatment plant, were made.
Middletown in the third quarter of the 20th century
transformed from agarian-rural to metropolitan-suburban, It had
become a bedroom community, shaped by commutation capabilities.
Office and research facilities increasingly moved to suburban
areas, including Middletown in the century’s fourth quarter and
resulted in an additional component to the Township’s land use
patterns. Establishing
parks, maintaining open space and historic preservation became key
public issues in this quarter century.
The 20th century closed with the needs of governance aiming
to shape a broad, diverse Township into a single entity, a guiding
principle where the realities of public life are meeting the
historic culture of sectionalism.
George Mount was the founder of the Mount family of Monmouth County
New Jersey. He came to the area from Rhode Island about 1672. It is
believed that he arrived in America at Salem in the Colony of
Massachusetts about 1650. At what time he removed to Rhode Island is
not known, but it may have been very soon after his advent in
America. Since the establishment of the Baptist Colony in Rhode
Island by Roger Williams, many of the settlers in the Bay Colony
removed there to avoid the undue hardship associated with non belief
in the religious rule of the Puritans. In addition to the outcast
status of the non believer, it became quite dangerous as evidenced
by the Witch Trials a few years later. The majority of the women
burned for witchcraft were of religious beliefs other than that of
the Puritans.
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Those who moved to Rhode Island soon became aware that as liberal as
he was in religious beliefs, Roger Williams was a Civil Dictator.
Thus it is of no surprise to find the name of George Mount among
those of the "Association: which was formed in the late 1660's in
Rhode Island to purchase land from the Indians on the Monmouth Tract
in New Jersey. This tract was part of the land deeded to the English
by the Dutch in the settlement of the English-Dutch War which ended
in 1664. At this date the Duke of York granted the province of New
Jersey to two English Officers. One, Lord Berkeley, was an Army
Officer while the other, Sir George Carteret, was a Naval Officer.
In the establishment of rules for settlement, one rule which brought
more settlers to the Jersey Colony than any other was that of
complete religious freedom.
WILL of GORGE MOUNT, of Middletown, "being Sick and weak of body."
Dated February 16, 1702. Proved by oath of Richard Hartshorne and
Jeremiah Stilwell, Esqrs., "two of the evidences," before J. Bafs,
Shrewsbury, 31 August, 1705, and by Jeremiah Stilwell, one of the
wits., who saw the testator and wits., Richard Hartshorne and Joseph
Cox, sign; before Edward, Viscount Corn bury, Shrewsbury, January
25, [?] 1708.
Gives: "unto my loving wife Katherine Mount all my land Housing and
salt Meadow During her natural Life"; "unto "my loving wife all my
Money and personal estate where so ever excepting Six Sheep which I
give to my Daughter Katherine "and all so one Cow ... to my Daughter
Katherine ... "; "unto my grandson Mathias Mount & his heirs if "he
shall live with his grandmother Katherine Mount and be helpful to
manage her Affairs during her natural life, and "not otherwise, one
hundred Acers land, Housing and orchards beginning at the newfound
[?] or North River and so running "into the woods the whole breadth
of my land whereon I now live that will Make one hundred Acers ...
to have it "when he attains the Age of twenty-one years and if My
Grandson should Dye before he attunes ... twenty one "years ... to
my grandson Thomas Mount when he shall Attain the Age of twenty one
years for him ... "and his heirs"; "to my Grandson Thomas Mount and
his heirs Sixty five Acers of land when he shall Attain ... "twenty
one years which land Joins to the Hundred Acers ... which I have
given to his brother Mathias Mount "And if my grandson Thomas Mount
should Dye before ... twenty one years ... I Devise the ... Sixty
"five Acers to my grandson Mathias Mount when ... twenty-one ..."
Constitutes "my loving wife Sole Executrix ..."
Wits.: GORGE MOUNT [his mark]
Richard Hartshorne
Jeremiah Stilwell
Joseph Cox
INVENTORY of GORGE MOUNT, by Richard Stout and James Cox, Middleton,
Sept. 18,1705.
Proved by James Cox, appraiser, before Thomas Revell, Esq.,
Surrogate. [No date.]
Items of Interest:
Cattle, household goods etc.
Records at ancestry.com for George Mount & Katherine Borden
Children of GEORGE
MOUNT
and KATHERINE
BORDEN
are:
1. KATHERINE4
MOUNT,
b. 1663, Providence, Rhode Island; d. Abt. 1702, Cranbury, New
Jersey.
More About KATHERINE
MOUNT:
Burial: Cranbury, New Jersey
2. THOMAS
MOUNT,
b. 1664, Providence, Rhode Island; d. 1676, Providence, Rhode
Island.
More About THOMAS
MOUNT:
Burial: Providence, Rhode Island
(Killed by the Mohawalk Indians)
3. RICHARD
MOUNT
SR.,
b. 1665, Providence, Providence, Rhode Island; d. January 25,
1722/23, Cranberry, Middlesex County New Jersey; m. REBECCA WALL, 1687,
Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey; b. 1665, Gravesend, Kings, Long
Island, New York; d. 1723, Cranberry, Middlesex County New Jersey.
4.
MATTHIAS4 MOUNT (GEORGE3, RICHARD2, GREGORY1) was born 1667 in Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey, and died 1695 in Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey. He married MARY WALL 1681 in Middletown, Monmouth County, New Jersey, daughter of WALTER WALL and ANN WALL. She was born 1663 in Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey, and died 1700 in Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey.
Mary Wall married Mathias Mount, Rebecca Wall married Richard Mount.
Rebecca and Mary Wall were cousins who married Mount brothers.
Calendar of New jersey Wills 1670-1760, Page331, Middletown
the personal estate of (£29.05.11); made by Safety Grover, Francis
Har-
burt, Jarat Wall and ------- Lawrence.
1695- Jan 10, Bill of John Brown against George Mount, "by the
appointing of Mary Mount for board to make her husbands coffin."
1695 Jan 10, Do of William Purdane against Richard Mount for digging
a grave for Matthias Mount.
1695-Feb. 8, Bond of Captain Samuel Leonard of Shrewsbury for the
faithful administration of the balance of money on the estate by
Mary Mount.
Matthias Mount, Son of George Mount, Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey 1667 Matthias Mount & Mary Wall, Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey 1681 Matthias Mount, Son of George Mount, Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey 1695
Mary Wall Wife of Matthias Mount, Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey 1663 Mary Wall, Wife of Matthias Mount, Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey 1700
Children of MATTHIAS
MOUNT
and MARY
WALL
and Grandchildren of George Mount & Katherine Borden Are
i. MATTHIAS5
MOUNT,
b. 1690, Middletown, Monmouth County, New Jersey; d. 1739, Cranbury,
Middlesex County, New Jersey; m. ANN
NESBITT,
1725, Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey; b. 1695, Middletown,
Monmouth, New Jersey; d. June 23, 1792, Cranbury, Middlesex County,
New Jersey.
Matthias Mount, son of Matthias and Mary Wall Mount, was born about
1692 and little if known of him. In the will of George Mount, his
grandfather, probated August 31, 1705, he names as beneficiaries
He married Ann Nesbit, daughter of Joseph Nesbit. They had four
children: Margaret, who married James Barbour, Mathew Rue, and James
Dey; Matthias; Humphrey, b. abt 1708, d. after 1752 (4
children--Britton, Dorcas, Mary, William); Nesbit.
1702-3. He received one hundred acres on Neversand River, in the
will of his grandfather, George Mount, "where I now live." adjoining
sixty-five acres left to his brother Thomas. He was living in 1739,
when he signed his consent to the marriage of his daughter Margaret
to James Herbert
More About MATTHIAS
MOUNT:
Burial: Cranbury, Church Cemeter
More About ANN
NESBITT:
Burial: Cranbury, Church Cemetery
ii. TIMOTHY
MOUNT,
b. Abt. 1692, Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey; d. January 31, 1753,
Monmouth, New Jersey; m. ELIZABETH
White,
Abt. 1698, Monmouth County, New Jersey; b. Abt. 1716, Monmouth, New
Jersey; d. Aft. 1758, Monmouth, New Jersey.
1753 December27, He had his will proved Jan 31, 1753 in which he
appointed his friends, Thomas Mount and James Grover as executors.
He left three daughters not yet twenty one years of age.
Will of Timothy Mount 1692-1753
In the name of God Amen, I Timothy Mount of Middletown, in the
county of Monmouth and
eastern division of New Jersey being weak in body but of sound mind
and memory on the 27 th day pf December in the year of our lord
1752do make ordained that this is my last will and testament in the
manner following; my will is that in the first place after my death
my body be buried at the discretion of the executor herein after
named and that all my just debts and Funeral expenses are to be
paid.
My will is that I give and devote to my beloved wife Elizabeth all
of my estate while she
is a widower. I give also to Elizabeth White my wife the sum of
seven pounds. I give all
my estates to be equally divided between my daughters Hannah,
JEMIMAH, and Elizabeth when each of them shall reach the age of 21
years.
Also it is my will that my land be sold and be disposed of by my
executor hereafter named and they have the full power of authority
to dispose of the land and I do here by nominate and appoint
Friend Thomas Mount, and James Grover to be my executors of this my
last will and testament.
iii. THOMAS
MOUNT,
b. 1692, Middletown, Monmouth County, New Jersey; d. 1782; m. ANN,
Abt. 1710, New Jersey; b. 1698, Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey.
He was the son of Matthias Mount, born prior to 1694-5 and was not
of age on February 16, 1702-3 at the probation of the will of his
Grandfather, George Mount. He received sixty-five acres on the
Neversand River, as a legacy from his grandfather, George Mount,
adjacent to the land of his brother Matthias, but seems to have
settled at Shrewsbury. He joined the Baptist church in Middletown,
March 1, 1731.
iv. MARY
LEE
MOUNT,
b. 1694, Middletown, Monmouth County, New Jersey; d. August 04,
1745, Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey; m. JOHN
MOUNT,
1716, Upper Freehold, New Jersey; b. 1689, Middletown, Monmouth, New
Jersey; d. March 29, 1772, Rockingham, North Carolina.
New Jersey Colonial Documents 1772, March 29. WILL: Mount, John, of
Middletown Township, Monmouth Co., Grandson, Joseph Mount, son of my
son, Matthias, 5 shillings, and no more, as I have given his father
land by deed; Daughters, Catherine, Phoebe and Alice, 40 shillings
to each and a like sum to Cloe, daughter of my son, John.
His will was dated March 9, 1772 and proven August 24, 1773 (New
Jersey wills Book K, page 453).
May 23, 1760: ... John Mount of Middletown, yeoman, conveyed land to
James Grover, Yeoman, of the same place, in the settlement of a
dispute, beginning at a point in land that formerly belonged to
Safety Grover, now deceased ... thence to George Mount's line.
Witnessed by John Stillwell, Joseph Mount, and John Anderson
(judge).