DIARY
OF
RICHARD GARDINER
For the
Proprietors of New Jersey
October 1752 –
March 1753
Transcript from a photocopy of the original manuscript
Held at the New
Jersey Historical Society in Newark, NJ
Transcribed by Liese Uptegrove-Adé.
Note: I have tried very hard to resist the urge to correct the spelling found in the manuscript ledger, and attempted to retain the actual spelling of words as they were written by Richard Gardiner in the texts.
Any words that took too much guesswork have been noted with an *asterisk* before and after each individual word, and will need to be compared with the original document.
Unfortunately, the first 2 pages of the document are missing, because due to the delicateness of the Richard Gardiner’s ledger, it was not possible to copy them without damaging it, so the diary transcript begins here on page 3.
What is the Diary
of Richard Gardiner about?
Richard Gardiner was a surveyor who was hired by the “New Jersey Proprietors” to find out who was living along the Wallkill River, around the “disputed border” region between Northern NJ, and Southwestern NY. The “Proprietors” were trying to get their foothold back in the lands that they felt the Patentees had unrightfully claimed, and their intension was to induce everyone that they found to have settled there, to sign a Lease and pay fees (£) in order to remain on the land, or, be kicked off.
The land in question falls largely around the Minisink region, which encompassed parts of NY and NJ. It involves mainly what is known today as Sussex County, New Jersey, and Orange County, New York. You will note that in Richard Gardiner’s letter (near the end of this material) is headed with “New Town, Morris County, 1752”, because Sussex County (formed from Morris County) was not established until 1753.
By 1755, there began big trouble with the Indians, and big trouble with the borders between NJ and NY, which became known as the “Border Wars”, neither of which are covered in these transcripts of 1752 and 1753.