The first volume issued by the New Jersey Historical Society as their Collections was published in 1846, and contained “East Jersey under the Proprietary Governments.”[736] The author wrote his work fully sensible of the necessity for verifying much that had been allowed to pass as history, by seeking for and using original sources of information; and the volume elucidates many events that are alluded to in the preceding chapter.
[Editorial Note].—The New Jersey Archives will contain every essential document noted in An Analytical Index to the Colonial Documents of New Jersey in the state-paper offices of England, compiled by Henry Stevens, edited with notes and references to printed works and manuscripts in other depositories, by William A. Whitehead, New York, 1858.
In 1843 a movement was made in the State Legislature to emulate the action of New York in securing from the English Archives copies of its early historical documents; and in the next year the judiciary committee made a report on the subject, which is printed in the preface of this Index, p. vii. This, however, failed of effect, as did a movement in 1845; but it made manifest the necessity of an historical society, as a source of influence for such end; and the same year the New Jersey Historical Society was formed, of which Mr. Whitehead has been the corresponding secretary from the start. This society reinforced the movement in the State Legislature; but no result being reached, it undertook of its own action the desired work, and in 1849 gave a commission to Mr. Henry Stevens to make an analytical index of the documents relating to New Jersey to be found in England. This being furnished, the State legislature failing to respond in any co-operative measures for the enlargement of it from the domestic records of the State, Mr. Whitehead undertook the editing, as explained in the title, and appended to the volume a bibliography of all the principal printed works relating to New Jersey up to 1857. Mr. Stevens’s enumeration began with 1663-64, the editor adding two earlier ones of 1649 and 1651. But a small part of the list, however (13 pp. out of 470), refers to the period covered by the present chapter, and many of those mentioned had already been printed.
The Sparks Catalogue shows “Papers relating to New Jersey, 1683-1775,” collected by George Chalmers, which are now in Harvard College Library.
Some of the later general histories of the State may be mentioned:—
The History of New Jersey from its Discovery to the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, by Thomas F. Gordon, Trenton, 1834. There is a companion volume, a Gazetteer.
Civil and Political History of New Jersey, by Isaac S. Mulford, Camden, 1848. The author says “no claim is advanced for originality or learning,” his object being to make accessible scattered information in a “simple and compendious narrative,” which is not altogether carefully set forth. A new edition was issued in 1851 in Philadelphia.
The History of New Jersey, by John O. Raum, 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1877, is simply, so far as the early chronicles are concerned, a repetition mostly of Smith and Gordon, though no credit is given to those authorities.