Clover Family Compendium
New Jersey Clover Records
On this page:
Difficulties of research in New Jersey.
Estate Records [See Hunterdon County for Hunterdon County records.]
Church Records
New Jersey Genesis Periodical
Marriages
Death Records
Obituaries
Supreme Court Case
Military Records
NJ Tax Records
NJ Census Records
NJ Map showing counties. You should look at this briefly at least.
Checklist
Other pages associated with New Jersey:
New Jersey Tax Lists .
Clovers of Salem County, New Jersey A long article which I previously published in a newsletter detailing the complicated situation in this county.
Hunterdon County, New Jersey records. Please also check the entire New Jersey site.
Somerset County, New Jersey records. Please also check the entire New Jersey Site.
The Jerseyman Article on Church Records including German Church Records from Hunterdon County.
The Jerseyman Article on Naturalizations
Family of John Peter Clover
Peter Clover, son of John Peter Clover
Peter Clover's will.
The Complicated Cooper Question An article which I previously published in the Clover Family Chronicles dealing with the Cooper mythology floating around the internet.
New Jersey Research problems:
One of the constant problems with the research on the John Peter Clover family is the many errors and myths which have crept into the records. There are always mentions of the land holdings of John Peter Clover in this myth. In the province or colony of New Jersey, a person could not legally own land until that person was a citizen. In fact, the sole benefit of naturalization was to make a person eligible to own land.(1) When the head of the household was naturalized, his wife and children were considered naturalized. Ergo, when a Peter Clover was naturalized in Philadelphia on 10 April 1766,(2) whether it was Peter, Jr. or John Peter, it is clear that this person could not legally have owned land before that date. If John Peter had been naturalized before that, Peter, Jr, would not have needed to be naturalized. Therefore, any statements about John Peter or Peter Clover owning land prior to that date are unlikely. It would only have been possible if Peter Clover, junior were born in the colonies after his parents emigrated. He could have then owned land.
In a message dated 8 June 2001, Haworth A. Clover stated that he had carefully searched the deeds of Hunterdon County and found no trace of any Clover records. There are Sharpenstine records, but no Clover records. [In fact the name, Clover Hill, did not come into use for another century.] However, I later found mortgage records for Isaac Clover. He has also searched the local church records where the story was the same. There were Sharpenstine records, but no Clover records. He also tells me that there are no records of a ship with John Peter Clover on it. Numerous accounts state that he came to America on The Three Brothers, but he is not on the manifest of this ship. What has happened with many of these stories is that dear old aunt whoever told the story, but attached it to the wrong relative. These stories then get passed on to descendants who are sure that their dear old aunt knew what she was talking about. The story about the silver shoe buckle is also apocryphal. Most of the stories were really about Metlers, Blooms, etc, instead of Clovers.
At this late date, I wish I could contact him to find out if he actually researched the church records in the church or if he relied on microfilm and what is at the New Jersey Archives.
There are also comments about how upset the other children were because Peter Clover inherited all of John Peter’s property. He probably did inherit his father’s blacksmith business, but his brothers should not have been upset about this because they would have thought it was normal. The law of primogeniture was not repealed until after the revolution. Since Peter was the oldest son, he would have been expected to inherit. So this is another apocryphal story.
The earliest date in the records for John Peter Clover’s estate is 15 December 1766, when an inventory of £307.2.10 was made by James Martin and Christopher Vought for the estate of Peter Clover. (3) I point this out because I continually see lists of his children which show that he sired children some years after his death in 1766. Peter may have been the oldest son, but he was not the oldest child. His sister, Mary (Clover) Conine, was born by 1736 or 1838, and some of the other sisters were born before Peter. When you look at the list of John Peter’s children, you see that most of them are not in the probate records as having guardians. Ergo, they were married or too old. This is important because it means that John Peter Clover had to have been born long before 1724, which is the date commonly published as his birth date. This date is absolutely wrong. The latest possible date for his birth would have been about 1716. This whole situation needs to be rethought by researchers. At this point, probably the only way to calculate his probable age is to figure out the ages of his children.
The county history article specifically states that John Peter Clover emigrated “early in the 18th century.” It does not say where he married or where any of his children were born. (4) I have seen no contemporary evidence on this point. If any exists, please send it. I have other evidence which leads me to believe that he was in the colonies for some time before most people think he was here.
Research in New Jersey is just plain difficult. The early U.S. censuses are missing. The pre-revolutionary censuses are not complete, because most people believed, and rightfully so, that the censuses were an attempt to ferret out information which would be used to tax them. Many of the colonial records were burnt during the revolution. In his definitive book on research in New Jersey, Kenn Stryker-Rodda states that digging in the Garden State is often like digging for potatoes and finding nothing but dust. In New Jersey, he defines a genealogical source as anything containing a name and a bit of information. If it contains a place and a date also, it is considered a major find.(5) These difficulties are apparent in research of the early Clover years in New Jersey.
Because so much has been written, but so little is actually known about John Peter Clover and Catherine Sharp, I need to create articles about their children and grandchildren. Paul and Philip have been well researched, but the rest have, for the most part, been ignored. I am hopeful that looking at them may turn up some new data which will help throw new light on the early years of this family. I also hope that some of you will share the research that you have done on the children and grandchildren of John Peter Clover. I do not mean just the dates. I am interested in details of their lives, tax records, deeds, wills, obituaries, county histories, etc. This is the kind of thing that makes the story come alive. I know many of you have fat file folders about Philip, Paul, and Sarah Corbett. If you share with me, it will be extremely useful and will help steer me away from errors, as well as saving me time and effort. I am starting here with Peter Clover because he was the oldest son.. I have included references to some material here which has previously been printed in the Clover Family Exchange, because I wanted to have this material in one place.
Endnotes to this article:
(1) Kenn Stryker-Rodda, Litt.D, FASG, CG, New Jersey: Digging for Ancestors in the Garden State, (Detroit: The Detroit Society for Genealogical Research, 1970), 17.
(2) See The Clover Family Exchange, Volume 8: 47.
(3) New Jersey Calendar of Wills, 1761-1770, New Jersey Colonial Documents, Volume
IV, (Somerville, New Jersey: The Unionist-Gazette Association, Printers, 1928), 81.
(4) This article was published in the Clover Family Exchange, Volume 5: 1: 9.
(5) Kenn Stryker-Rodda, Litt.D, FASG, CG, New Jersey: Digging for Ancestors in the Garden State, (Detroit: The Detroit Society for Genealogical Research, 1970), 14.
City Directories
Paterson, NJ 1859 City
Directory - CTranscribed by Anne Mount West
http://www.distantcousin.com/directories/nj/1859/patterson/c.html
Edward A. Clover, segar maker (House) 48 Matlock
Samuel Clover 1891 Camden, New Jersey
Samuel Clover ( printer )& Robert Clover blacksmith
580 Benson
Residence Year: 1891
New
Jersey Estate Records
