Rachel YORKE ⁸⁹²

  General Notes:

FIRST SETTLERS
of
YE PLANTATIONS
of
PISCATAWAY AND WOODBRIDGE
OLDE EAST NEW JERSEY
1664-1714

Foundation History
PISCATAWAY
Undoubtedly Piscataway, New Jersey, derived its name by corrupt spelling or designation from Piscataqua, New Hampshire, from which section some of the first settlers came.

Perhaps these migrations were under way a few years prior to the formal issuance of a charter for Piscataway, which was December 18, 1666. It appears from various authors that the first great land grant was a purchase from Governor Nicholls of New Jersey in 1664.

Page 47 of "East Jersey under the Proprietary Governments."

"Governor Carteret, so soon as he became established at Elizabethtown, sent messengers to New England and elsewhere, to publish the concessions of the proprietors and to invite settlers. In consequence of this invitation and the favorable terms offered, the population of the province was soon largely increased; Elizabethtown and the surrounding country receiving, probably, the greatest accessions, until other locations could be selected. The ship Philip, in which the governor had come from England, returned thither in about six months, and the next year brought out 'more people and goods' on account of the proprietaries; and other vessels similarly laden, followed from time to time."

Three of the important names appearing in these early conveyances (1664) were John Bailey, Daniel Denton and Luke Watson. The individual claims of Denton and Bailey were subsequently acquired by Governor Carteret and John Ogden, and from subsequent conveyances the earlier towns were established.

The first conveyance of lands under Carteret, which related to the Foundation of Piscataway, was made to JOHN MARTIN, CHARLES GILLMAN, HUGH DUNN and HOPEWELL HULL, May 21, 1666. These men were granted the right as associates of the Woodbridge Patentees, and on December 18, 1666, were deeded by these New England neighbors from Newbury, Massachusetts, one-third of their purchase obtained the week before. These four pioneers associated with themselves ROBERT DENNIS, JOHN SMITH, JOHN GILMAN and BENJAMIN HULL.


Settlement of Piscataway;
A recent statement is the following:

"On December 18, 1666, John Martin, Charles Gilman, Hopewell Hull, and Hugh Dun, of the Piscataqua section of New Hampshire, not far from Portsmouth, acquired for colonization purposes a tract of 40,000 acres of land on the Raritan River, New Jersey, where they founded the township and village of Piscataway named after their New Hampshire home. It is in present Middlesex County. Less than two years afterward they were joined by Francis and Mary Drake, who came from the vicinity of Portsmouth. This couple were the progenitors of notable lines of descendants who served their state and nation well, in both peace and war, in Colonial and Revolutionary War periods and later." ****

(The Drake Family of New Hampshire and New Jersey, by C. I. Kephart, D. A. R. Magazine, Vol. 64, No. 9, Sept. 1930, P. 561).

The foregoing statement is quoted with approval and is a succinct and accurate presentation of historical fact. The allocation of the Drake family with the original grantees as thus first made, is true, and adds to the significance of the Piscataqua, New Hampshire migration, to which members of the family of the first Colonial Governor of New Hampshire, THOMAS ROBERTS, should be likewise attached, as well as the two children of Richard Yorke, of Dover, RACHEL YORKE, who became the first wife of Captain BENJAMIN HULL, (First Settler of Piscataway) and her brother, SAMUEL YORKE.

Rachel married Benjamin HULL, son of Rev. Joseph HULL and Agnes, in 1667 in Oyster River, Strafford Co., New Hampshire, USA. (Benjamin HULL was born on 24 Mar 1639 in Hingham, Plymouth Co., Massachusetts, USA and died in 1713 in Piscataway, Middlesex Co., New Jersey, USA.)