University of Virginia Library

54. In New Jersey
BY A GENTLEMAN (1756)

THE province of New Jersey, of which I come now to give you some description, has been settled a little more than a hundred years. It is as well cultivated as any of the colonies, yet is in a careless condition,

or at least seems so to one who has not seen newly settled places.

The farms which lie interspersed in the bosom of thick woods, resemble the face of the sky after a tempest, when the clouds are breaking away and dispersing. The pleasantest spots that you see here are but homely beauties. Almost everywhere you pass upon the roads, you are either in woods, or have woods on one side of you. And the view which is on the open side is terminated by trees within the breadth of a field or two. So that the horizon is hardly any where clear, and to view the country from an eminence it seems to be almost all woods.

The roads in most places are very good, but then you travel in a maze. You have neither milestone nor Mercury for your direction. Only here and there is a tree marked with the initial letter of the name of the next town, but so ill cut that one can hardly know it to be an alphabetical character.[201] A few scattered houses make here a village. And in those towns where the buildings stand in line they are not near together.

The people are naturally brisk and of a lively temper. They stand much upon a footing of equality with each other. Those of the common sort by conversing freely with persons in office acquire a knowledge of things and business. Thus they receive a brightening by which they are far superior to our country men of the same rank.

Religion is here divided into many sects and parties. The men who are extremely kind husbands go commonly the way of the wife in this matter.

The poor people in general live better here than in most places, I believe. This is because of the plenty

and cheapness of provisions. They are able to place their children in good families by the time they are six or seven years of age, and they have little experience of what it costs to bring them up. So that very few of them turn beggars, or go to seek their bread from home: if they do go, they carry their working tools upon their backs.

You must certainly think that thefts and robberies cannot but be rife among us, as these colonies are obliged to take all the rogues and villains that are yearly transported from the several jails in England. But I can assure you it is far otherwise. People think so little of the danger of these things that many families never fasten their doors when they go to bed. And the good housewives that have cloth in bleaching never take it in at nights. As to picking of pockets, the practice is utterly unknown, and the roads are perfectly uninfested and secure.

But the wonder of this will evaporate when I tell you that none of the Newgate gentry[202] are landed here, but always either in Virginia or some of the southern colonies, where however they are no calamity. For the masters of the transports make them all bind themselves to him by indenture for four years.[203] Thus they are obliged to honest labor.

The spring here is commonly late, but when the year does begin to dress, the ornaments of Nature are out all at once. In a few days the scene is quite changed. The vast orchards are clad in a thick bloom which makes the country look and smell like paradise.

The country is well watered with fine streams and rivers, and every house has a well. The woods, though abounding with very beautiful birds, are the

dullest of all sylvan scenes. The mocking bird is the mimic of them all, and a complete joker in his way.

Nothing is so beautiful and diminutive as that little feathered spark, the humming bird, who with the most gallant address courts the daughters of the garden in a coat of plumage composed of the finest feathers.

In summer time for about two months the air is bespangled every night with a kind of flies which they call fire-flies. They abound in swamps and woods of a wet soil. In those gloomy places they make an extraordinary appearance. Their light is not steady; and in the silent night, hovering about in their bright form they almost give the mind an impression of a haunted place.