Hopewell Hull: 1636-1693
A Colonial Era Middle Child
While researching my eighth-great-grandfather Joseph Hull, I
marveled at his enormous family. He and his two wives produced a stunning sixteen
children, seven with his first wife and nine with his second. I wondered how
anyone could keep track of so many children—wouldn’t the ones in the middle of
the litter get forgotten? So, given this week’s “52 Ancestors” prompt, I
decided to delve into the life of one of the middle children: Joseph Hull’s
eighth child Hopewell Hull, the first of his children born in the New World.
While I don’t have a lot of information about Hopewell’s life, there are some
fascinating little details that make him stand out.
My eighth-great-uncle Hopewell Hull was born sometime in
1636, some months after his parents’ arrival in New England in 1635. I believe
his unusual name came from an interesting source: The Hopewell of London, a
ship that regularly carried passengers from England to the New England colonies
in the 1630s. The Hull Colony, as Joseph Hull’s 106-member group of colonists
was called, seem to have sailed on a different ship, the Marygould, but perhaps the Hull
family had some sort of contact with the Hopewell that inspired their choosing
that name for their first son born in their new homeland. The Hopewell had set
sail for New England at around the same time in 1635 as the Marygould, so the
two ships may have been in port at the same time. Certainly the name evokes the
attitude of colonists in a new world, hoping for the best.
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| Ship similar to the Hopewell, same year as Hull family sailed to New England |
At some point in early adulthood, Hopewell and his brothers Benjamin and Samuel turned to the Quaker faith, despite having a father who was ostensibly an Anglican minister. The brothers were living in the Piscuataqua River Valley in New Hampshire, and decided to seek a new home where they wouldn’t be persecuted for their Quaker faith. As described by Evelyn Hunt Ogden in Founders of New Jersey, Hopewell, along with John Martin, Hugh Dunn and Charles Gilman, “explored southwest [of Elizabethtown NH] along Indian paths to the Raritan River; there they found a few log huts on the site of an old Indian village…Pleased with the area, they purchased 40,000 acres, from Daniel Pierce, on 18 December 1666, a third of his share in his Woodbridge acquisition.”
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| John Seller Map of New Jersey colony--1677 |
These dry lines make light of the difficulty of Hopewell’s
journey. The men traversed nearly three hundred miles south to reach the Raritan
River area of New Jersey. The area was wild and unsettled, with native tribes
to contend with and pirates raiding the mouth of the Raritan River. They were
probably drawn to the area after a Quaker group led by William Penn bought land
west of there to set up as a Quaker colony—the New Jersey area was divided into
West Jersey, which followed Quaker rules, and East Jersey, which did not.
Hopewell chose to purchase in the East Jersey area. Within two years,
Hopewell’s brothers Benjamin and Samuel moved to the new settlement, which they
named Piscataqua in honor of their previous home. So Hopewell was one of the
original founders of what is now called Piscataway, New Jersey. Walter C. Meuly
notes, “The founders were pious people to whom the promise of liberty of
conscience in New Jersey was all-important. They were also enterprising,
sturdy, pioneering families who were already experienced in wilderness
settlement.”
Hopewell and Benjamin established “plantations” near the
Raritan River. While they had hoped that they would be able to practice their
Quaker faith in peace, they still had conflicts with colonial government.
Hopewell married Mary Martin, the daughter of his fellow Piscataway founder
John Martin, sometime in 1669. They apparently married in a Quaker ceremony so
there is no record of the exact date. According to Orra Eugene Monette’s
research on the first settlers of Piscataway, “… probably they were before [December
1669] properly married, in accordance with the Friends' Ceremony, which was not
at that early date recognized as legal by the Courts of the Jerseys, for on 29
Dec 1669, an order was issued declaring their co-habitation illegal and they
were obliged to remarry." In fact, Governor Carteret declared their
unapproved marriage was “null void and of No Effect” and that living together
under such a marriage was the same as committing fornication, and that any
children of such a marriage would be bastards. It is no wonder that Hopewell
and Mary felt compelled to obey his directive. As a result, Hopewell has the
distinction of marrying the same wife twice in a single year’s time, the second
time under penalty of law.
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| Full text of Governor Carteret's order regarding the Hull marriage |
Hopewell and Mary had at least eleven children. Their eighth
child and first son, born in 1685, was named Hopewell in honor of his father.
However, the child name I find most appealing is that of their second daughter,
born in 1672. She was named Hopestill, a delightful variation on the emotional
connotation of Hopewell’s name. I think it says a lot about Hopewell and Mary’s
beliefs and attitudes.
Despite the prejudice against Quakers, Hopewell was a vital
member of his community. According to Monnette, he was “unquestionably the
foremost pioneer of New Piscataway…He was a farmer, planter and yeoman.” The
town records mention him frequently, and he held a variety of offices. He was a
deputy to the New Jersey General Assembly in 1675 and 1693. He was a constable
in 1684 and an “overseer of the highways” in 1683 and 1686-7. By 1692, he owned
and paid taxes on 284 acres of land.
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| Reid map of East Jersey--1686 |
Hopewell died in March of 1693 at age 57. He left a farm and
several additional parcels of land, and the inventory of his personal
possessions included 15 shillings worth of books, four cows, four oxen, a
four-year-old heifer, twenty-six bushels of Indian corn, and six bushels of
rye. He should be remembered for his courage and sense of adventure in setting
off for a new, unsettled area, combined with a stubborn refusal to give up his
Quaker faith. He was a middle child, but not a middling individual. He was a
leader.
Sources:
Colonial Families of
the United States of America, Vol. III, George Norbury Mackenzie and Nelson
Osgood Rhoades, New York, Boston. The Grafton Press, 1907.
History of Piscataway
Township 1666-1976 by Walter C. Meuly. Township of Piscataway, N. J. :
Piscataway Bicentennial Commission, 1976.
“The Hull Family in America: New Jersey Branch”; Orra Eugene
Monnette. The Old Northwest Genealogical Quarterly, Vol 13, 1910.
The Great Migration
Begins: Immigrants to New England 1634-1635, Vol 3. , Robert Charles
Anderson, George Freeman Sanborn, Melinde Lutz Sanborn. NEHGS, 1999.
https://www.nj.gov/state/archives/eventadventurersdocs.html
http://www.smplanet.com/teaching/colonialamerica/colonies/newjersey
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