Chesterfield, Burlington County, New Jersey in the 1680s

Work

Clearing creekside farms

The daily economy is not described in a local 1680s account, but ordinary work here would have centered on clearing land, raising grain and livestock, maintaining fences, and moving produce toward creek and river transport. The creek mattered because the settlement stood along Crosswicks Creek^4,1.

Faith

Friends shape the calendar

By August 1684, Friends were meeting for worship at the home of Francis Davenport⁶. Their institution became more formal when Crosswicks, or Chesterfield, Monthly Meeting of Friends was founded in 1688^1,6.

Law & power

Quaker law experiment

Local people lived inside West Jersey’s new proprietary government, where the governor and council were not supposed to make laws without the consent of the General Assembly¹². The promised protections were unusually broad: trial by twelve neighborhood men¹¹ and liberty of conscience in religious matters^10,11.

In the air

Conscience and authority

The arguments of the day were not only local land questions but the shape of liberty itself, because West Jersey’s 1677 Concessions and Agreements protected liberty of conscience^10,11. The colony also insisted that laws required the consent of the General Assembly¹².

Home & table

Houses poorly recorded

The built scene is hard to recover: no online source found in this search gives a surviving street-by-street description of Chesterfield’s houses, barns, fences, or fields in the 1680s. What is clear is that European settlement began in 1677^1,2 and was still new.

Money

No local price book

No reliable local price list, wage table, tax roll, or probate inventory specifically for Chesterfield in the 1680s was found online in this quick search. Trade outward ran through the provincial port system, since vessels bound for West Jersey had to enter and clear at Burlington after April 1, 1682⁸.

Who lived here

Lenape and English Quakers

This was not empty land: the area was inhabited by Unami Lenni Lenape people^1,3. The newcomers were largely English Friends, and many early Quaker settlers here are described as coming from Derbyshire, England¹.

Roads & news

Burlington carries news

Provincial news came through Burlington, because Burlington became the capital of West Jersey in 1681^7,8 and the West Jersey Assembly first met there in November 1681^8,9. Shipping news also gathered there after vessels bound for West Jersey had to enter and clear at Burlington⁸.

Year by year

1. 1677Quaker immigrants began settling the Chesterfield area along Crosswicks Creek. here^1,2
2. 1681Burlington became the capital of West Jersey. nearby^7,8
3. 1681The West Jersey Assembly first met at Burlington and began passing provincial laws. nearby^8,9
4. 1682Vessels bound for West Jersey were required to enter and clear at Burlington after April 1. nearby⁸
5. 1684Friends were meeting for worship at Francis Davenport’s house at Chesterfield. here⁶
6. 1686A deed referred to Crosswicksum Creek and an Indian town on its banks. here⁴
7. 1688Chesterfield Township was formed on November 6. here^1,2
8. 1688William and Mary replaced James II in England’s Glorious Revolution, news that would have mattered across English America. the world

Pictures from the time

What the sources say

• European settlement at present Chesterfield began in 1677, when Quaker immigrants fleeing religious persecution in England arrived in the township area. from the sources^1,2
• Before and during early English settlement, the area was inhabited by Unami Lenni Lenape people, and local accounts say the first settlers shared the area with Lenape residents. from the sources^1,3
• The settlement stood along Crosswicks Creek, a Delaware River tributary and an important local boundary and route. from the sources^4,1
• A deed dated January 14, 1686 referred to the “small river called Crosswicksum” and to an Indian town on its banks. from the sources⁴
• The name Crosswicks comes from a Lenape-language form often given as Crossweeksung, meaning “separation” or “house of separation.” from the sources^4,5
• By August 1684, Friends were meeting for worship at the home of Francis Davenport at Chesterfield, also called Crosswicks in later accounts. from the sources⁶
• Crosswicks, or Chesterfield, Monthly Meeting of Friends was founded in 1688. from the sources^1,6
• Chesterfield Township was formed on November 6, 1688. from the sources^1,2
• Many early Quaker settlers here are described by township sources as coming from Derbyshire, England, the home county associated with the Earl of Chesterfield. from the sources¹
• No online source found in this search gives a surviving street-by-street description of Chesterfield’s houses, barns, fences, or fields in the 1680s. not known
• Burlington became the capital, or chief town, of West New Jersey in 1681. from the sources^7,8
• The West Jersey Assembly first met at Burlington in November 1681 and passed provincial laws for the new colony. from the sources^8,9
• West Jersey’s 1677 Concessions and Agreements protected liberty of conscience in religious matters. from the sources^10,11
• The same West Jersey frame of government required trial by twelve neighborhood men before a person could be deprived of life, liberty, estate, or privilege. from the sources¹¹
• In West Jersey, the governor and council were not supposed to make laws without the consent of the General Assembly. from the sources¹²
• A West Jersey law of 1681 required vessels bound for West Jersey to enter and clear at Burlington after April 1, 1682. from the sources⁸
• Alice Fulwood’s 1686 request to Chesterfield Monthly Meeting for permission to marry a non-Quaker shows that non-Quaker settlers were present locally by that year. from the sources⁶
• In July 1686, the Chesterfield Friends organized what one local church history calls their first local charity. from the sources⁶
• As across early West Jersey farming settlements, ordinary work here would have centered on clearing land, raising grain and livestock, maintaining fences, and moving produce toward creek and river transport. inferred
• No reliable local price list, wage table, tax roll, or probate inventory specifically for Chesterfield in the 1680s was found online in this quick search. not known
• No source opened here gives the number of inhabitants in Chesterfield in the 1680s. not known

Sources

1. Environmental Resource Inventory: Chesterfield Township, Chapter 2 Brief Township History. Chesterfield Township, 2026
2. Historical Information. Chesterfield Township Historical Society
3. Crosswicks Community House History. Crosswicks Community House
4. Beyond Manhattan: A Gazetteer of Delaware Indian History Reflected in Modern-Day Place Names. New York State Museum, 2019
5. Design Guide History: Chesterfield Township. Chesterfield Township Historical Society
6. Churches of Trenton and Vicinity. Trenton Historical Society, 1929
7. Part V – West Jersey’s Earliest Settlements. New Jersey State Archives, 2014
8. West New Jersey in 1681. Goodspeed Histories, 2009
9. Leaming and Spicer: Grants and Concessions. Rutgers School of Law
10. Introduction to the 1677 Concessions and Agreements. West Jersey History Project
11. 1677 West Jersey Concessions—Chapters XVI through XXIV. New Jersey Historical Commission, 2014
12. Province of West New-Jersey, in America, November 25, 1681. The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, 1681

Chesterfield in other decades

Nearby, about the same time