Just belatedly uploaded to the REAA the arms from the seal of the Proprietors of the Province of East Jersey. The province was created by the split of New Jersey between two sets of proprietors in 1674. In 1702, both sets of proprietors gave their governmental powers back to the British crown, although they retained their status as feudal superiors over the land. The East Jersey Proprietors continued to own ungranted lands until dissolving themselves in 1998, when they transferred their remaining holdings to the state of New Jersey for recreational and conservation use.
Both sets of proprietors had seals, but that of West Jersey was non-armorial.
http://www.americanheraldry.org/pages/uploads/Roll/ejersey.gif
Fascinating find. Did these individual proprietors hold manorial rights or privilages over these territories?
Out of curiousity, what does the West Jersey seal look like?
Luis Cid;104262 wrote:
Fascinating find. Did these individual proprietors hold manorial rights or privilages over these territories?
This is a simple question with a rather complicated answer.
Without going into all the historic details, each group of proprietors (East Jersey and West Jersey) collectively enjoyed full rights of ownership, control, and government over its respective territory, subject to the limitation that they could not govern in a way repugnant to the laws of England. So, in a sense, it was more than manorial, but it was also less, because they granted (sold) land to settlers in free and common soccage, making the buyers freeholders and not tenants, as would have been the case on a manor. So unlike a true manorial system, the proprietors could not control resale of the land, or its use, and the buyers were not tied to the manor the way tenants would have been. There were no courts baron or courts leet, as on a manor; everything was done through the usual system of English common law, equity, and civil law courts on a county and colony-wide basis.
The governing power was exercised by governors appointed by the two groups of proprietors in cooperation with various governing bodies, courts, and all the usual paraphernalia of running an English colony. Both sets of proprietors soon discovered that the governing thing was a pain in the ass, when the reason for buying their respective domains was merely to make money. So in 1702 both boards of proprietors transferred the governing function back to the British crown, retaining only the ownership of the land that had not yet been granted and the right to collect quitrents on the land that had.
Quitrents were abolished after the Revolution, but the two boards continued to exist as landholding corporations. As I think I mentioned, the East Jersey Proprietors only wrapped up business in 1998, and I believe the Council of West Jersey Proprietors is still in existence, even though there’s not much land other than swamp and dunes left ungranted.
arriano;104263 wrote:
Out of curiousity, what does the West Jersey seal look like?
I’ve seen two different designs. Perhaps it was changed at some point, but this is the one I find in most sources.
http://americanheraldry.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1424&stc=1&d=1431035288
On the other hand, since this is the one carved on the proprietors’ meeting hall, maybe it’s the official one.
http://s681.photobucket.com/user/YHWHsway/media/2011 Misc Motorcycle Pics/WestJerseyProprietorsinsignia.jpg.html
This is the East Jersey seal with the arms on it.
http://americanheraldry.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1425&stc=1&d=1431035590
Thanks Joe, nice bit of history and heraldry.
Most interesting - Thanks!
Curious - how similar / different in the other proprietary colonies?
(Sorry if this sounds like a "compare and contrast" essay question on a college final exam! My various proprietary roots were in PA, MD, and the Carolinas; though they’d as likely have been squatters as not)
Similar to Pennsylvania and Maryland (minus the nominal existence of manors in Maryland) up to 1702, then more like the Fairfax proprietary in the Northern Neck of Virginia or the Granville tract in North Carolina.
Thanks!
East Jersey was to a great extent initially settled by Scots - this was at least partially why New Jersey was split into two. There is also the belief that it was dominated by Quakers, though this is not really the case. Early negotiations were led by the Quaker Barclay family, but the Lords Proprietors were a mixed bunch from the ultra-Protestant Lord Neil Campbell, though Jacobites like the Earl of Perth (whence Perth-Amboy), Quakers like the Barclays and the Haigs, Catholic Gordons and everything in between.
A great many were armigerous and they formed a large part of the paper that I presented at the Congress in Maastricht, which covered other early Scottish colonies and colonial ventures such as Stuart’s Town in Carolina and the remarkably unhinged Margravate of Azilia in Georgia.
James Dempster;104303 wrote:
East Jersey was to a great extent initially settled by Scots - this was at least partially why New Jersey was split into two. There is also the belief that it was dominated by Quakers, though this is not really the case.
West Jersey (adjoining Pennsylvania) was more predominantly Quaker. The influence in East Jersey was more diverse, as James says, but I’ve been under the impression that settlement in East Jersey was rather strongly Puritan and Presbyterian, with a lot of New Englanders moving down the coast.
For those so inclined, the NJ state archives has a guide to the records of the two proprietorships that explains a lot of the history.
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