Sep 17, 2009 - Sale 2186

Sale 2186 - Lot 157

Price Realized: $ 2,280
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
SLAVES, HORSE THIEVES, AND DUTCHMEN IN BERGEN COUNTY (NEW JERSEY.) Demarest family archive. Approximately 360 manuscript documents, 0.6 linear feet, various sizes and conditions. Vp, 1728-1889
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Additional Details

Fresh from a descendant's attic, these are the papers of four early generations of an old northern New Jersey farming family. The major figures are Teunis Helling (1706-1791); his son-in-law Garret Demarest (1725-1798); Garret's sons Abraham G. Demarest (1767-1860) and Samuel G. Demarest (1773-1852); and Samuel's son Garret S. Demarest (1804-ca. 1890), who all lived in Bergen County, mostly in the towns of Harington, Washington, Hillsdale, and Hackensack. The collection includes 4 deeds for slaves owned by the family in New Jersey as late as 1816 4 other documents relating to slavery in New Jersey, 1804-27 A militia commission from the French and Indian War, 1763 a War of 1812 commission and company pay book Licenses for Samuel G. Demarest's tavern and distillery, 1810-19 The minute book and two broadsides from the Washington Association for the Detection of Horse Thieves and other Felons, 1841-71 Draft petition to form Washington Township, circa 1840. Some of the early papers from the Helling family are in Dutch or pidgin Dutch-English, although the Demarests were of French Huguenot ancestry.
These papers apparently descended through Garret S. Demarest (1804-ca. 1890), a farmer, surveyor, and justice of the peace who left no children. The papers then went to his sister Catherine Demarest Hopper (see lot 158), and were acquired from the family in recent years. See also lot 98. A more detailed inventory is available upon request.