ORIGIN    OF   GLOUCESTER   COUNTY   IN    NEW   JERSEY      9

APPENDIX

By Charles S. Boyer.

Dr. Carlos E. Godfrey, Director of the Public Record Office of
New Jersey, has been doing very efficient service in definitely estab¬
lishing the dates on which the several townships of the State were
formed and the authority therefore. In the course of his investiga¬
tions he has unearthed much material relating to the founding of
Gloucester Town, a subject which has, heretofore, not been ac¬
curately established by any of the historians.

Dr. Godfrey has located in the early minutes of the Burlington
County Court the following order:

Burlington   Court
held yc 4th; of the 7th :  moneth  1685
 

Order
for 3d
tenth
for
their

Towne &
Towne
bounds
 

Ordered by y« Court That ye fTreeholders within yc
third Tenth in yc Province afores^ shall or may take
up & lay forth 2000 Acres of Land for their Towne
bounds & 400 Acres for their Towne, And y' each
person & persons who are allready seated in y« s'l.
tenth shall or may take up their respective propor¬
tions thereof according to their purchase, And that
every such purchaser shall take forth a warrt. for
the takeing up of his particular proportion thereof,
which is to be returnable at y^ next Court following
yc Survey thereof, & is to be Accompted as part of
their share or quantity of Land to them apperteyning
wthin y*^ s^. Tenth: of which order aboves<l all persons
concerned in y^ s^ third tenth are required to take
notice, & to forbeare to offer or make any obstruc¬
tions  or disturbance  in  >*  s^.  premises.
 

From this it will be seen that a town was contemplated fully
four years before Mickle (1st edition p. 35) states it was actually
laid out and furthermore that the division of the land as shown
by the map in Mickle's "Reminiscences of Old Gloucester" was
done in accordance with a regularly constituted court order and not
upon the initiative of the local authorities.

Whether this order carried with it any authority to institute a
township government is not clear and so far none of the early
records have been found which indicate that a township govern¬
ment was actually set up. There is a gap. still to be investigated,
between this order and the patent of 1773.

We are, however, certain that a township of Gloucester Town
was brought into existence in the latter year, as is evidenced by
the following Letters Patent, on file in the Secretary of State's
office, Trenton, N. J., for the incorporation of the Township of
Gloucester Town: