The Hunterdon County, New Jersey Militia in 1792, and Wright Brewer

A post on the Hunterdon County militia rolls has been in the drafts file for a while. An email from Hank Graham, which included news of a new Y-DNA tested descendant of Jan Brouwer, has spurred me to finish it and get it online.

The Hunterdon County, New Jersey Militia, 1792 can be accessed online at the Internet Archive.

This post might go hand in hand with the post from February 28, 2014, "Hunterdon County, New Jersey Taxpayers, 1778-1797." As was pointed out then, genealogical research in Hunterdon County, New Jersey is a tough go. Research is greatly hampered by the fact that the U. S. census records for the State of New Jersey for the years 1790, 1800, 1810 and 1820, are lost. Tax records, as well as Militia Rolls, even if they just contain names and towns in which an individual lived, can somewhat fill in for the missing census records.

This pamphlet of forty-four pages was published in 1936, and was taken from what was previously published in the Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey, Vol. 9, nos. 2 and 3, in 1934. There is some background information on the militias, followed by list of officers which in turn is followed by the militia rolls broken down by township. There is no index. One will have to thumb through the entire pamphlet, township by township, looking for any names of interest. The Internet Archive does have a tool for searching within the document. Be patient with it, it does work. A search for BREWER takes me to page 12, Amwell Township, where we find Phines Brewer, William Brewer, and Wright Brewer. Then at page 30, in Lebanon Township, we have Mathias Brewer. A separate search using BROWER yielded no results. Likewise for a search with BROUWER, no results. I wasn't expecting any here as outside of the immediate New York City area, post American Revolution, that spelling variation is rarely, if ever, found.

It was Wright Brewer, that prompted the email from Hank Graham. This is the first I have heard of this given name. "Wright" is certainly a surname, and no doubt this individual had a Wright family among his immediate ancestors, and so is in itself a clue. I do not find any men named Wright in Amwell's militia roll, although there is a Thomas "Wrick." Using the search tool I find no other men named Wright in the county. WRIGHT is certainly a common surname, and those who have spent time researching families in both Monmouth County, New Jersey, and Hempstead, Long Island, will have come across the name. Descendants of Jan Brouwer are found in both of these locations.

A direct male descendant of Wright Brewer has taken a Y-DNA test with the Brewer DNA Project. His test results firmly place him among the descendants of Jan Brouwer of Flatlands, L. I. Wright Brewer is therefore a descendant of Jan Brouwer, however, we do not yet know his line back to Jan.

The introduction to the pamphlet tells us that officers were charged with the enrollment of "every free and able-bodied white male citizen between the ages of eighteen and forty-five." The year here is 1792, so we then know that Wright Brewer was born between 1747 and 1774.

In 1789, we can find Wright Brewer, on the Hunterdon County Tax Rolls, at Kingwood. Also at Kingwood in 1789 is a David Brewer. A Samuel Brewer is found there in 1778 and 1780, and a Richard Brewer is found at Kingwood in 1778. "Powal Brewar" (Paul Brewer?) is at Kingwood in 1785. Kingwood is a township on the western border of Hunterdon County along the Delaware River and the State of Pennsylvania. Amwell Township was one of the earliest New Jersey Townships, although it no longer exists today. It was dissolved in 1846 when split into East and West Amwell Townships. Prior to that, in 1838, Raritan and Delaware Townships were created out of Amwell Twp., and going back further, Lebanon Twp. was created in 1731 and Readington Twp. in 1730, both out of Amwell. Raritan and Delaware adjoin Kingwood on the east and southeast. Kingwood had been created in 1746 out of Bethlehem Twp. Taking into account the dates of the militia roll and the tax list, it appears that Wright Brewer moved from Kingwood Twp. to Amwell Twp. sometime between 1789 and 1792.

On the 1800 U. S. census we can find Wright Brewer enumerated as "Right" Brewer, at Beaver, Northumberland Co., Pennsylvania. He is the head of a household of two males under age 10, one male 10-15, one male 16-25, one male 26-45, one female 16-25 and one female over age 45. I would assume that Wright is the male age 26-46, and so we can narrow the range for his year of birth to 1755 to 1774. I'm thinking it is closer to the later as the household includes a female over age 45 (probably his wife) and two persons in the 16-25 range (possibly children). Northumberland County is in the eastern half of Pennsylvania, about mid-state latitude wise. This, then represents a move westward for Wright Brewer between 1792 and 1800. The county is much smaller today, due to the creation of other counties, than it was in 1800. But still, it was located in the middle eastern section of the state in 1800.

1810 finds Wright Bruer on the U. S. census at Ohio, Allegheny Co., Pennsylvania. His household is three males age 16-25, one male over age 45, one female 26-45 and one female over age 45. This would help us reduce the range of years for Wright's birth to 1755 to 1765. Allegheny County is in the southwestern part of Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh is in Allegheny County). The 1820 U. S. census also finds Wright Brewer in Ohio, Allegheny County. He is listed on the census sheet directly under an Elias Brewer, who has a family and appears to be age 26-44 (Elias can be found on the 1850 U. S. census at New Sewickley, Beaver Co., Pennsylvannia, age 65, so born about 1785, in New Jersey). The name of Wright Brewer, continues in later generations beginning with a son of Elias, who was born about 1823.

Being born between 1755 and 1765 would place Wright Brewer in the same generation as David Brewer (Fayette Co., PA; Tyler Co., VA; Jennings Co., IN) and Elias Brewer (Fayette Co., PA; Tuscararwas Co. OH; Washington Co., IN) who were mentioned in yesterday's post, and who both apparently made their ways to western Pennsylvania from New Jersey. The three are likely great-great grandsons of Jan Brouwer of Flatlands, Long Island. Just exactly how they relate to each other, and their lineage back to Jan Brouwer, remains to be discovered.

BGB 676