Chesterfield, Burlington County, New Jersey in the 1720s

Work

Wheat, cattle, pork

The everyday economy is farm work: winter wheat is the chief cash crop⁴, with corn, rye, barley, oats, cattle, hogs, and orchards in the South Jersey mix. Some surplus moves outward as cattle, salted pork, dairy products, beeswax, and grain⁴.

Faith

Meeting orders life

The center of authority is not a steepled church but the 1706 Crosswicks Friends meeting house¹. Chesterfield Friends keep records of marriages, births, burials, discipline, and removals^1,3, so religion also manages reputation and belonging.

Law & power

Courts at Burlington

Serious legal business points to Burlington, where the county courts sat³. Property disputes depend on a jury of twelve men of the neighborhood³, while county rule runs through justices, sheriffs, clerks, and other officers.

In the air

Peaceable Friends, imperial colony

The settlement’s public memory begins with Quakers fleeing persecution in England¹ and seeking a place to worship in peace. At the same time, this is British America, with courts, ports, trade rules, and offices tied to provincial authority.

What people feared

Scarcity and court trouble

For farmers, danger includes exhausted soil and poor husbandry: across South Jersey, fields rather than crops were rotated and little fertilizer was used⁴. Legal danger is also real, because property right could end in county court at Burlington³.

Home & table

Farm households, few details

The township is rural, with farms raising grain, livestock, and orchard fruit⁴. But the surviving online material is thin on interiors: no 1720s Chesterfield house inventory was found.

Money

Cash hard to see

Market goods exist, especially cattle, salted pork, dairy products, beeswax, and grain⁴, but exact local prices are elusive. No 1720s Chesterfield wage or retail-price list was found in this search.

Roads & news

Road, port, meeting

News and strangers come by the Old York Road between Burlington and Perth Amboy⁵, by the county seat and port at Burlington, and through Quaker correspondence. Crosswicks is about 15 miles north of Burlington¹, close enough for errands but not town life.

Year by year

1. 1720The South Sea Bubble collapsed in Britain, a world event that merchants, creditors, and imperial officials in the colonies could hear discussed through Atlantic news. the world
2. 1721Smallpox inoculation was publicly tested in Boston, a nation-scale medical controversy likely to travel through colonial newspapers and correspondence. the country
3. 1723New Hanover Township was formed from part of Chesterfield Township, changing the local map of northern Burlington County. here
4. 1726Burlington County’s provincial count recorded 5,238 inhabitants, including 343 Black residents. nearby²
5. 1727George I died and George II became king of Great Britain, the sovereign under whom New Jersey’s provincial government operated. the world
6. 1728Sir William Keith wrote to the Lords of Trade about colonial manufactures, a reminder that British policy discouraged manufacturing in agricultural colonies. the country
7. 1729Friends living farther away at Quakertown asked Chesterfield Monthly Meeting for permission to meet for worship in one of their houses each First Day. nearby^1,3

Pictures from the time

What the sources say

• Chesterfield Township was formed in 1688, after Quaker immigrants had begun settling the area in 1677. inferred⁵
• In 1684 Francis Davenport gave six acres at Crosswicks for Quaker use, and the Chesterfield Monthly Meeting’s first surviving minutes date from that year. inferred¹
• The meeting house used in the 1720s was the larger Crosswicks Friends meeting house built in 1706, replacing a small wooden house of 1692. inferred¹
• Crosswicks lay on Crosswicks Creek, about 15 miles north of Burlington according to the Friends’ own history of the settlement. inferred¹
• The Old York Road ran through Chesterfield Township on its route from Burlington to Perth Amboy. inferred⁵
• The township was named for the 2nd Earl of Chesterfield, whose Derbyshire seat linked him to the region from which many early settlers came. inferred⁵
• Chesterfield Monthly Meeting recorded Quaker community business such as marriages, births, burials, discipline, and the movement of members between meetings. from the sources^1,3
• The present brick Crosswicks Friends meeting house did not exist in the 1720s; it was built in 1773 at a reported cost of £3,750. inferred¹
• Burlington County’s court of common pleas and general sessions of the peace met at Burlington, and a jury of twelve men of the neighborhood was required for determinations of property right. from the sources³
• In the 1726 provincial count, Burlington County had 5,238 inhabitants, including 343 people classed as Black, and its density was about five persons per square mile. from the sources²
• As across South Jersey, farming and cattle raising formed the economic base, with winter wheat the chief cash crop and corn, rye, barley, oats, cattle, hogs, and orchard fruit also important. from the sources⁴
• South Jersey farmers sent cattle, salted pork, dairy products, beeswax, and grains toward Philadelphia, New York, coastal markets, and the Caribbean. from the sources⁴
• South Jersey farming in this period often rotated fields rather than crops, used little fertilizer, and let cattle graze in open or lightly fenced fields. from the sources⁴
• Burlington was one of New Jersey’s legal ports of entry, so imported goods, official trade, and government news could reach Chesterfield through Burlington. from the sources⁴
• Local legal authority in the county rested with justices of the peace, sheriffs, court clerks, juries, and appointed county officers rather than with a large professional legal class. from the sources³
• The leading men of early West Jersey were often farmers and Quaker preachers, and law practice was not yet a separate profession in the region. from the sources³
• West Jersey Quakers had entered the region after persecution in England, and Crosswicks Friends later remembered peaceful coexistence with Lenape people as part of their local tradition. inferred¹
• No online source found in this search gives a 1720s inventory of houses, barns, tools, or room arrangements specifically in Chesterfield. not known
• No online source found in this search gives 1720s Chesterfield wages or retail prices for flour, shoes, nails, rent, or hired labor. not known
• Because Burlington, not Chesterfield, held the county courts and port functions, many official errands from Chesterfield would have led south toward Burlington. inferred

Sources

1. History. Crosswicks Friends Meeting
2. A Century of Population Growth in the United States: From the First Census to the Twelfth. United States Census Bureau, 1909
3. Colonial Days and Ways. Trenton Historical Society, 1929
4. South Jersey Heritage: The Husbandry of Land and Sea. West Jersey History Project
5. Historical Information. Chesterfield Township Historical Society

Chesterfield in other decades

Nearby, about the same time