THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY.
By John Whitehead Esq.
I.
The courts of New Jersey were not established upon any settled plan nor upon any perfected system until about the beginning of the eighteenth century. This was due, in a very great measure, to the peculiar circumstances connected with the early settlement of the colony. The first white population was by no means homogeneous. The Dutch, with a few Norwegians and some Danes, went into Bergen County, on the Hudson River; the Puritans, from New England, settled on the Passaic River, at or near Newark; a few English came direct from England and established themselves in and around Elizabeth Town and Perth Amboy; the Quakers peopled the central part of the State; and the Swedes and some few Danes sailed up the Delaware Bay and River, and landed in the southern counties. Each of these nationalities brought to its new home its peculiar idiosyncrasies, and each strove to impress itself and its own customs and laws upon the others.
It was perhaps, however, due more to the unsettled state of the country, and to the fact that the new settlers were necessarily so intent upon securing for themselves and their families the absolute necessities of life, and in softening the asperities of their condition, that they had no time to provide for the wrangles of suitors. There was no necessity that their attention should be given at once to the perfecting of a system of jurisprudence; but there was need that means should be taken to preserve life, and their wives and children must be fed. The early division of the colony into two distinct, independent districts or provinces was also a hindrance in the way of an early settlement of so important an adjunct to civilization as the establishment of tribunals for the adjustment of disputes between citizens, arising from the varied interests of a bustling, thriving community. It is true that that division was not made until 1676, and that forty years, at least, prior to that time settlements had been made; but those settlements were few and scattered at different points, and it must not be forgotten that the population was made up of people possessing many different characteristics.
The settlers in East Jersey were restless, restive under restraint, and would brook no interference, either real or fancied, with their rights; while those of West Jersey were more peaceable and more disposed to submit, yet when occasion demanded were sturdy in insisting that their privileges should be respected and preserved. But though there was no settled system of jurisprudence.no tribunals established by legislative authority, where suitors could be heard, their antagonistical claims adjusted, and justice done to all parties according to law, still courts of a certain kind were to be found about the beginning of the last half of the seventeenth century. No legislature had met which had the authority to establish courts when these tribunals first came into existence; so they had received no legislative sanction. Some of them, in fact, were created by the immediate action of the people, and all the powers they ever possessed came directly from the people.
The first court in New Jersey was a local or municipal tribunal established at Bergen, in what is now Hudson County, and near Jersey City. It was created Sept. 5, 1661, when New York and New Jersey were under the dominion of the Dutch, and when Petrus Stuyvesant was governor. The patent for forming this court was signed by Stuyvesant in behalf of their "High Mightiness-
