Greenwich Township, Warren County, New Jersey in the 1760s

Work

Farms and iron

Daily work centered on farms in a Delaware and Musconetcong gateway³, while the nearby iron district mattered too. At Oxford Furnace⁹, three blasts in 1761–1764 produced 640 tons of pig iron and 95 tons of castings.

Faith

Houses before churches

Greenwich Lutherans had asked for gospel preaching in 1760^6,7, and the later St. James congregation probably had roots about 1750⁶. The Presbyterian congregation was older, founded in 1744^1,8, but its stone church came only in 1775.

Law & power

Freeholders and distant courts

This was Sussex County^1,2 in the 1760s, not Warren County. Political weight rested with freeholders³ who could be polled for Assembly elections.

In the air

King, colony, congregation

The royal world was not abstract: Oxford Furnace firebacks¹¹ carried the Hanoverian royal arms and mottos. At the same time, local religious organization was still being built through requests for preaching^6,7.

Home & table

Families on new farms

The settlement stream included Quaker, German, and Scots-Irish settlers³, many moving north from the Philadelphia side of the Delaware valley. A precise description of 1760s Greenwich dwellings is not available from the online sources found here.

Money

Ratables begin to show

The state archive’s surviving duplicate tax ratables begin for Sussex County in 1768¹² and include Greenwich Township. A reliable local 1760s price list for wages or goods was not found online in this quick search.

Who lived here

Mixed migration streams

County heritage writing identifies Quaker, German, and Scots-Irish settlers³ using Greenwich as part of a northward migration corridor. The Lutheran evidence points especially to German-speaking religious life^6,7 in the neighborhood.

Roads & news

Roads toward the rivers

Greenwich sat in a gateway³ between the Delaware and Musconetcong river valleys, so strangers and news came along migration and market routes. County business followed the changing map after Sussex County was created in 1753².

Year by year

1. 1758The Treaty of Easton helped end much of the frontier violence between colonial authorities and the Lenape in the wider Pennsylvania-New Jersey borderlands. nearby
2. 1760Greenwich Lutherans sent letters asking for preaching of the gospel. here^6,7
3. 1761Oxford Furnace began a run of three blasts that by January 1764 produced 640 tons of pig iron and 95 tons of castings. nearby⁹
4. 1763Knowlton Township was formed from Oxford Township, continuing the subdivision of the older Greenwich area. nearby⁵
5. 1763The Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years’ War, confirming British victory over France in North America. the world
6. 1765The Stamp Act crisis began arguments over Parliament’s right to tax the colonies. the country
7. 1768Duplicate tax ratables for Sussex County begin in the state archive series and include Greenwich Township. here¹²
8. 1770The Boston Massacre became colonial news that would have traveled through newspapers, taverns, churches, and market routes. the country

What the sources say

• In the 1760s Greenwich Township was in Sussex County, because Warren County was not created until November 20, 1824. from the sources^1,2
• Greenwich had first appeared in official records on October 9, 1738, when the area was part of Hunterdon County. from the sources²
• The old township lay in northwestern New Jersey near the Delaware River, with later Warren County bounded west by that river and south and east by the Musconetcong. from the sources^3,4
• A county heritage account describes Greenwich, at the confluence region of the Delaware and Musconetcong Rivers, as a gateway for northward migration from Philadelphia. from the sources³
• The same county account names Quaker, German, and Scots-Irish settlers among the migrants entering this Delaware-valley gateway. from the sources³
• Sussex County was created on June 8, 1753, and Greenwich was shifted into it before the 1760s began. from the sources²
• By 1754, portions of old Greenwich had already been taken to form Mansfield and Oxford Townships, so the 1760s township was smaller than the 1738 township. from the sources^2,5
• Knowlton Township was formed from Oxford Township on February 23, 1763, another boundary change in the same local world. from the sources⁵
• The first public notice of Lutherans in the Greenwich neighborhood came in 1760, when letters from Greenwich Lutherans asked for gospel preaching. from the sources^6,7
• St. James Lutheran, later called the Straw Church, probably began as a congregation about 1750, but its early records were lost. from the sources⁶
• Old Greenwich Presbyterian Church is described locally as founded in 1744, while its stone church was not built until 1775. from the sources^1,8
• Greenwich had enough freeholders by 1738 to be polled for election of Hunterdon County representatives to the General Assembly. from the sources³
• Oxford Furnace, nearby in what had been old Greenwich before township divisions, was erected in 1741 and first made pig iron on March 9, 1743. from the sources^9,10
• In the early 1760s Oxford Furnace made three blasts, producing 640 tons of pig iron and 95 tons of castings between March 1761 and January 1764. from the sources⁹
• Oxford Furnace firebacks of the 1740s through 1760s carried the royal arms and mottos of the Hanoverian kings of Great Britain. from the sources¹¹
• New Jersey State Archives lists duplicate tax ratables for Sussex County beginning in 1768 and specifically includes Greenwich Township. from the sources¹²
• Landholding mattered politically: the county heritage account uses the term freeholders for the men polled in 1738. from the sources³
• The current names Stewartsville, Upper Stewartsville, Coopersville, Kennedy Mills, Port Warren, and Still Valley are later ways of describing communities within modern Greenwich, not all safe names for the 1760s landscape. from the sources¹
• No online source found in this quick search gives a reliable 1760s price list for flour, livestock, labor, or household goods specifically in Greenwich Township. not known
• No online source found in this quick search gives a house-by-house description of Greenwich Township dwellings in the 1760s. not known

Sources

1. County Municipal Histories. Warren County, NJ Heritage
2. Greenwich Township, Warren County, New Jersey. Wikipedia
3. Warren County Historic Sites Survey. Warren County, NJ
4. Sussex County, New Jersey. Wikipedia
5. Oxford Township, New Jersey. Wikipedia
6. History of Sussex and Warren Counties, New Jersey: Greenwich Township. Genealogy Trails, transcribing Everts & Peck, 1881
7. The Early Germans of New Jersey: Their History, Churches, and Genealogies, Part 61. LDSGenealogy
8. Old Greenwich Presbyterian Church, Stewartsville, Warren County. Wikimedia Commons
9. History of Oxford Furnace. Warren County, NJ Heritage
10. Shippen Manor and Oxford Furnace. Warren County Parks
11. Oxford Firebacks. Warren County, NJ Heritage
12. New Jersey State Archives: Duplicate Tax Ratables, 1768–1846. New Jersey State Archives, 2023

Greenwich Township in other decades

Nearby, about the same time