in 1693. In 1715 the town was founded and was made the county-seat; it was long commonly known (from the county) as Monmouth Court-House, but afterwards took (from the township) the name Freehold, and in 1869 it was incorporated as the Town of Freehold. An important battle of the War of Independence, known as the battle of Monmouth, was fought near the court-house on the 28th of June 1778. A short distance N.W. of the court-house is a park in which there is a monument, unveiled on the 13th of November 1884 in commemoration of the battle; the base is of Quincy granite and the shaft is of Concord granite. Surmounting the shaft is a statue representing “Liberty Triumphant” (the height to the top of which is about 100 ft.). The monument is adorned with five bronze reliefs, designed and modelled by James E. Kelly (b. 1855); one of these reliefs represents “Molly Pitcher” (d. 1832), a national heroine, who, when her husband (John C. Hays), an artillerist, was rendered insensible during the battle, served the gun in his place and prevented its capture by the British.[1] Joel Parker (1816–1888), governor of New Jersey in 1863–1866 and 1872–1875, was long a resident of Freehold, and the erection of the monument was largely due to his efforts. A bronze tablet on a boulder in front of the present court-house, commemorating the old court-house, used as a hospital in the battle of Monmouth, was unveiled in 1907. Freehold was the birthplace and home of Dr Thomas Henderson (1743–1824), a Whig or Patriot leader in New Jersey, an officer in the War of Independence, and a member of the Continental Congress in 1779–1780 and of the national House of Representatives in 1795–1797.
The name Freehold was first used of a Presbyterian church established about 1692 by Scottish exiles who came to East Jersey in 1682–1685 and built what was called the “Old Scots’ Church” near the present railway station of Wickatunk in Marlboro’ township, Monmouth county. In this church, in December 1706, John Boyd (d. 1709) was ordained—the first recorded Presbyterian ordination in America. The church was the first regularly constituted Presbyterian church. No trace of the building now remains in the burying-ground where Boyd was interred, and where the Presbyterian Synod of New Jersey in 1900 raised a granite monument to his memory; his tombstone is preserved by the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia. John Tennent (1706–1732) became pastor of the Freehold church in 1730, when a new church was built by the Old Scots congregation on White Hill in the present township of Manalapan (then a part of Freehold township), near the railway station and village called Tennent; his brother William (1705–1777), whose trance, in which he thought he saw the glories of heaven, was a matter of much discussion in his time, was pastor in 1733–1777. In 1751–1753 the present “Old Tennent Church,” then called the Freehold Church, was erected on (or near) the same site as the building of 1730; in it Whitefield preached and in the older building David Brainerd and his Indian converts met. In 1859 this church (whose corporate name is “The First Presbyterian Church of the County of Monmouth”) adopted the name of Tennent, partly to distinguish it from the Presbyterian church organized at Monmouth Court-House (now Freehold) in 1838.
See Frank R. Symmes, History of the Old Tennent Church (2nd ed., Cranbury, New Jersey, 1904).
FREEHOLD, in the English law of real property, an estate in
land, not being less than an estate for life. An estate for a term
of years, no matter how long, was considered inferior in dignity
to an estate for life, and unworthy of a freeman (see Estate).
“Some time before the reign of Henry II., but apparently not
so early as Domesday, the expression liberum tenementum was
introduced to designate land held by a freeman by a free tenure.
Thus freehold tenure is the sum of the rights and duties which
constitute the relation of a free tenant to his lord.”[2] In this
sense freehold is distinguished from copyhold, which is a tenure
having its origin in the relation of lord and villein (see Copyhold).
Freehold is also distinguished from leasehold, which is an estate
for a fixed number of years only. By analogy the interest of a
person who holds an office for life is sometimes said to be a freehold
interest. The term customary freeholds is applied to a kind of
copyhold tenure in the north of England, viz. tenure by copy
of court-roll, but not, as in other cases, expressed to be at the
will of the lord.
FREELAND, a borough of Luzerne county, Pennsylvania,
U.S.A., about 20 m. S. of Wilkes-Barre, in the E. part of the state.
Pop. (1890) 1730; (1900) 5254 (1339 foreign-born, many being
Slavs); (1910) 6197. Freeland is served by the Lehigh
Valley railway and by electric railway to Upper Lehigh (1 m.
distant, served by the Central Railroad of New Jersey) and
to other neighbouring places. The borough is built on Broad
Mountain, nearly 2000 ft. above sea-level, and the chief industry
is the mining of coal at the numerous surrounding collieries.
Freeland is the seat of the Mining and Mechanical Institute
of the Anthracite Region, chartered in 1894, modelled after the
German Steigerschulen, with elementary and secondary departments
and a night school for workmen. The borough has
foundries and machine shops of considerable importance,
and manufactures silk, overalls, beer and hames. Freeland
was first settled about 1842, was laid out in 1870, and was
incorporated in 1876.
FREEMAN, EDWARD AUGUSTUS (1823–1892), English
historian, was born at Harborne, Staffordshire, on the 2nd of
August 1823. He lost both his parents in infancy, was brought
up by a grandmother, and was educated at private schools and
by a private tutor. He was a studious and precocious boy, more
interested in religious matters, history and foreign politics than
in boyish things. He obtained a scholarship at Trinity College,
Oxford, and a second class in the degree examination, and was
elected fellow of his college (1845). While at Oxford he was much
influenced by the High Church movement, and thought seriously
of taking orders, but abandoned the idea. He married a daughter
of his former tutor, the Rev. R. Gutch, in 1847, and entered
on a life of study. Ecclesiastical architecture attracted him
strongly. He visited many churches and began a practice,
which he pursued throughout his life, of making drawings of
buildings on the spot and afterwards tracing them over in ink.
His first book, save for his share in a volume of English verse,
was a History of Architecture (1849). Though he had not then
seen any buildings outside England, it contains a good sketch
of the development of the art. It is full of youthful enthusiasm
and is written in florid language. After some changes of residence
he bought a house called Somerleaze, near Wells, Somerset, and
settled there in 1860.
Freeman’s life was one of strenuous literary work. He wrote many books, and countless articles for reviews, newspapers and other publications, and was a constant contributor to the Saturday Review until 1878, when he ceased to write for it for political reasons. His Saturday Review articles corrected many errors and raised the level of historical knowledge among the educated classes, but as a reviewer he was apt to forget that a book may have blemishes and yet be praiseworthy. For some years he was an active county magistrate. He was deeply interested in politics, was a follower of Mr Gladstone, and approved the Home Rule Bill of 1886, but objected to the later proposal to retain the Irish members at Westminster. To be returned to Parliament was one of his few ambitions, and in 1868 he unsuccessfully contested Mid-Somerset. Foreign rather than domestic politics had the first place with him. Historical and religious sentiment combined with his detestation of all that was tyrannical to inspire him with hatred of the Turk and sympathy with the smaller and subject nationalities of eastern Europe. He took a prominent part in the agitation which followed “the Bulgarian atrocities”; his speeches were intemperate, and he was accused of uttering the words “Perish India!” at a public meeting in 1876. This, however, was a misrepresentation of his words. He was made a knight commander
- ↑ Her maiden name was Mary Ludwig. “Molly Pitcher” was a nickname given to her by the soldiers in reference to her carrying water to soldiers overcome by heat in the battle of Monmouth. She married Hays in 1769; Hays died soon after the war, and later she married one George McCauley. She lived for more than forty years at Carlisle, Penn., where a monument was erected to her memory in 1876.
- ↑ Digby’s History of the Law of Real Property.
