Founding of Newark Woodcut

The Landing at Newark May 1666 reads the inscription below this woodcut that was first published in the History of Newark 1878, by Joseph Atkinson. The caption under the drawing says "According to tradition, the first of the Milfordites to set foot on Newark shore was Elizabeth Swaine, a fair young girl in her nineteenth year, daughter of Caption Swmuel Swaine, and the affianed bride of Josiah Ward, whose gallantry secured for her the honor of the first landing"

This drawing depicts the landing of the 30 families from New Haven of which Martin Tichenor and his family might have been part.

The history behind why Martin and his Puritan brethren decided to leave New Haven is quite interesting. In 1665 New Haven and Connecticut were merged into one colony. The new constitution allowed baptism of children irrespective of the parents church membership. This was displeasing to the strict church members of New Haven, as the Puritan practice permitted this ordinance only for the children of "the elect". This act created an religious environment that was intolerable for them.

When Governor Carteret of New Jersey sent agents to New England, seeking homesteader for colonization, and carrying the constitution of the Government that granted the religions freedoms sought by the Puritans, they accepted the offer. A yearly quit-rent of a halfpenny per acre was to be paid to the lord Proprietors of New Jersey for the land. In May 1666 about 30 families traveled by sea and arrived at the Passaic River. As they unloaded their goods, they were met by a tribe of Hackenssack Indians who claimed the land. The Puritans learned that the Governor had not attended to the treaty price with the Indians, as he had guaranteed. Reluctantly it was decided to return to Milford. As they prepared to reload their goods, the Governor arrived and acknowledged his failure to fulfill this part of the contract.

The Governor implored the Puritans to stay and arranged for them to purchase the land from the Indians for "fifty double-hands of powder, one hundred barrs of lead, twenty Axes, Twenty Coats, ten Guns, twenty pistolls, ten Kettles, ten Swoards, four blanks, four barrells of beere, ten paire of breeches, fifty knives, twenty howes, eight hundred and fifty fathem of wampum, two Ankors of Licquers or something Equivolent and three Troopers Coats". The Indians also agreed to a Bill of Sales that allowed the Puritans to pay in the Spring of 1667 when Branford and Guilford arrived. And so is the founding of Newark by Martin Tichenor and 29 other Puritain Families.

Check out these sites For more information on the founding of Newark or the life of a Puritan in New Haven Colony. They were developed by the Horse Neck Founders, Inc., an association of decedents of Puritans who founded Newark with Martin Tichenor. In 1701 Martin's son Daniel with 35 other families went on to purchase 13,500 acres west of Newark for for $325 (or about 2.5-cents an acre) from Loantique, Taphow, Manshum Indians. Read about it in The Horseneck Purchase.