Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Land Conflicts in New Jersey
Land conflicts in New Jersey during the colonial period stemmed from its
unique status of having numerous resident proprietors. Other proprietary colonies
had one or a few feudal owners, remotely resident in England. Both
West and East New Jersey, however, had numerous resident proprietors alert
to their own interests, and when the provinces became a united Crown colony,
the proprietors' title to land still remained.
The bulk of the problem centered in East New Jersey, where the proprietors
tended to hold onto their granted titles and tried to enforce quitrents
rather than subdivide and sell the land quickly. The proprietors had trouble
with two types of settlers: the recipients of the old Richard Nicolls patent
during the mid-seventeenth century, and squatters, who believed no more was
required for owning the land than settling and purchasing the tract from the
Indians. The Nicolls patentees were largely in Elizabethtown, while the small
farmers and squatters were farther west in the Oranges and in Hunterdon
and Morris counties.
The East New Jersey Council of Proprietors began a concerted attempt to
enforce their titles and quitrents during the late 1720s. Leading the proprietors
were Lewis Morris and James Alexander. The proprietors received a
severe setback when their attempt to eject an Elizabethtown settler was
defeated after a jury trial in Lithgow v. Schuyler (1734). Foiled in their
attempt to oust the Nicolls patentees, the proprietors decided to try to collect
quitrents, which had accumulated to a total of 10,000 pounds in arrears.
The West New Jersey proprietors also began to crack down on squatter-settlers,
especially in Hunterdon County. When agents of proprietor Daniel
Coxe, Jr., tried to collect quitrents, the Hunterdon settlers drove them off with
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