The first public measures for the establishment of roads was in 1675; two men in each town being clothed with authority to lay out the common highways; and in March, 1683, boards were created in the different counties to lay out all necessary highways, bridges, landings, ferries, etc., and by these boards the first effective intercommunication was established. The present generation have in constant use many of the roads laid out by them. In July, 1683, instructions were given to Deputy-Governor Lawrie to open a road between the new capital, Perthtown, and Burlington; but, although his instructions were complied with, and the road opened in connection with water communication between Perth and New York, the route by way of New Brunswick was the most travelled.
The character of the legislation and laws for the punishment and suppression of crime was very different in the two provinces. The penal laws in East Jersey partook more of the severity of the Levitical law, originating as they did with the settlers coming from Puritan countries, while those in West Jersey were exceedingly humane and forbearing. In the one there were thirteen classes of offences made amenable to the death penalty, while in the other such a punishment was unknown to the laws.
As might reasonably be expected from its proximity to New Amsterdam, the first church erected in New Jersey soil, of which any mention is made, was at Bergen. This was in 1680, the congregation having been formed in 1662. The first clergyman heard of in Newark was in 1667, a Congregationalist, and the first meeting-house was built in 1669. Elizabethtown’s first congregation was formed in 1668. Woodbridge succeeded in getting one established in 1670, and its first church was built in 1681. The Quakers immediately after their arrival in West Jersey, in 1675, organized a meeting at Salem (probably the one which Edmondson says he attended), and in 1680 purchased a house and had it fitted up for their religious services. It is said that the first religious meetings of the Quakers in New Jersey were held at Shrewsbury as early as 1670, the settlers there, about 1667, being principally of that denomination. Edmondson mentions a meeting held at Middletown in 1675. The first General Yearly Meeting for regulating the affairs of the Society was held at Burlington in August, 1681. Local meetings were held there in tents before a house was erected. John Woolston’s was the first, and its walls were consecrated by having worship within them. The Friends at Cape May in 1676, Cohansey in 1683, and Lower Alloway Creek in 1685 secured religious services.
Middletown, in Monmouth County, had an organized Baptist congregation in 1688; and Piscataway in Middlesex County one in 1689.
To what extent education had been fostered up to this period it is difficult to determine. The first schoolmaster mentioned in Newark was there in 1676; but Bergen had a school established under the Dutch administration in 1661. The first general law providing for the establishment and support of school-masters in East Jersey was not passed until 1693.
The currency of both East and West Jersey during the whole period of their colonial existence, for reasons which are not very apparent, was more stable than that of the neighboring colonies. The coins of England and Holland, and their respective moneys of account, were used, and Indian wampum afforded the means of exchange with the Aborigines. Barter was naturally the mode of traffic most followed, and tables are now found showing the value set upon the different productions of the soil that were used in these business operations, marking the diminution in value from year to year as compared with “old England money.” In 1681 an act was passed in West Jersey for the enhancing, or raising, the value of coins, which was extended also to New England money. About that time an individual, named Mark Newbie, increased the circulating medium by putting into circulation a large number of Irish half-pence of less value than the standard coin, which he had brought with him from Ireland; and, as thought by some, continued the manufacture of them after his arrival. The act of 1681, however, was repealed the following year, and another passed making Newbie’s half-pence equal in value to the current money of the Province, provided he gave security to exchange them “for pay equivalent on demand,” and provided also that no person should be obliged to take more than five shillings on one payment.[713] No repeal of this act appears in the records. It became inoperative probably in 1684, when Newbie disappears from the documentary history of the period. This supposition is in some measure confirmed by the passage of an act in May of that year, making three farthings “of the King’s coin to go current for one penny,” in sums not exceeding five shillings.[714]
The only attempt to regulate the value of gold and silver in East Jersey was in 1686. Its object was to prevent the transportation of silver from the Province by raising it above its true value in all business transactions. Its evil tendencies, however, were soon developed, and before the end of the year, at a subsequent session of the same Assembly, it was repealed.
The first grist-mill is mentioned in 1671, and was followed by another in 1679, hand-mills being generally used. The first saw-mill was erected in 1682. In 1683 Deputy-Governor Rudyard, in a letter to a friend, says that at that time there were two saw-mills at work, and five or six more projected, abating “the price of boards half in half, and all other timber for building; for altho’ timber cost nothing, yet workmanship by hand was London price or near upon it, and sometimes more, which these mills abate.”
The cider produced at Newark was awarded the preference over that brought from New England, Rhode Island, or Long Island. Clams, oysters, and fish received well merited commendation for their plentifulness and good qualities.
In 1685 the iron-mills in Monmouth County, belonging to Lewis Morris, were in full operation; but it was not until some years had elapsed that “the hills up in the country,” which were “said to be stony,” were explored, and the mineral treasures of Morris County revealed. Gabriel Thomas, in 1698, mentions rice among the products of West Jersey, adding that large quantities of pitch, tar, and turpentine were secured from the pine forests, and that the number of whales caught yearly gave the settlers abundance of oil and whalebone.