Navesink Maritime Heritage Association member Charles Gross celebrates the 350th birthday of the Monmouth Patent by handing out a copy of the document to Brian Clarke of Colts Neck at the Exit 109 Academy bus stop April 8. COURTESY OF CHARLES GROSS More than three centuries ago, New York Gov. Richard Nicolls gifted a parcel of land to 12 individuals from Gravesend, Brooklyn.
The grantees all received rights to the parcel of land — which ran from Sandy Point to the mouth of Raritan Bay upstream approximately 25 miles, and then extended southeastward to the Barnegat Bay.
The land grant in April 1665 became the foundation for the establishment of Monmouth County. And 350 years later, a local group is celebrating the historic gift.
“The Monmouth Patent is such an amazing document and is the founding legal document for the settling of Monmouth County,” said Charles Gross, a member of the Navesink Maritime Heritage Association.
“The patent granted religious freedom and local self-government to settlers of Monmouth County.”
Dated April 8, 1665, the patent lists William Goulding, Samuel Spicer, Richard Gibbons, Richard Stout, James Grover, John Bowne, John Tilton, Nathaniel Silvester, William Reape, Walter Clark, Nicholas Davies and Obadiah Holmes as recipients of the land grant.
According to Gross, the gifting of the grant didn’t come without its fair share of challenges.
“At the time, New Jersey was still part of New York, and ownership was a big issue,” Gross said.
When the Duke of York gave New Jersey to property owners John Berkeley and George Carteret in June 1664, many were angered.
“The rent taxes Berkeley and Carteret imposed caused major disputes and sometimes even caused riots among the settlers,” Gross said.
It wasn’t until August 1664 — when he arrived in New Amsterdam with four British frigates — that Nicolls would end up becoming governor of the territories.
“It is amazing to think that this all took place eight months after the English fleet Nicolls commanded captured New Netherlands from the Dutch,” he said.
Gross said timing was also a big issue when it came to gifting the land.
“It is easy to forget that, at this time, settlers were coming by boat to the land and that it took at least three months to get across the ocean,” he said.
“Nicolls encouraged the settlers though, with promises of no taxation for seven years if the settlers could attract 100 families to join them within three years.”
Religious freedom was also a huge incentive that drew settlers to the new land. “Many early Monmouth settlers came to escape religious harassment,” he said.
When the King of England abolished the proprietary system in New Jersey in 1702, settlers were granted even more freedoms than before.
“The settlers wanted more freedom from the very beginning, and this patent gave it to them,” Gross said.
“The settlers now had the ability to create their own laws by majority vote, as long as they weren’t ‘repugnant to the public laws of [England].’ ”
Monmouth County, named for Monmouthshire in South Wales, Great Britain, was established on March 7, 1683, by the general assembly as one of the four original counties of the Province of East Jersey.
To encourage residents to learn more about the county they live in, Gross — dressed in Colonial garb — handed out copies of the patent at the Exit 109 commuter bus stop on April 8, the official 350th birthday of the patent.
He said the site is located on property where Grover lived along the Swimming River.
“I think I could talk about James Grover forever, but I find it really interesting that the Grover House had to be moved when the Garden State Parkway was built,” Gross said.
The 18th-century house was moved in 1953 from its original site on Newman Springs Road due to the parkway’s construction.
The house was then moved again in 1996 to its current location at the entrance of Stevenson Park.
Gross said the Navesink Maritime Heritage Association, which is dedicated to preserving knowledge and appreciation of Monmouth County’s maritime heritage, plans to rehabilitate the West Front Street structure.
“The building was started in 1730 and has been added to over time,” he said. “The association has entered into an agreement with Middletown Township to do maintenance on the building.”
According to Gross, the association plans to modernize many of the building systems while maintaining and preserving its history.
“We will be modernizing the heating system in the building and many of the electrical supplies, and we will be maintaining the interior of the building,” he said.