Ancestors
Robert Colver
1713-1783 · Groton CT
Born 1713, Groton, Connecticut
Died 1783
Father: John Culver
Mother: Sarah Long
Robert Colver, also written Culver, was born at Groton, Connecticut, on 10 June 1713, a son of John Culver and his wife Sarah Long. His family were Rogerenes, followers of John Rogers of New London, Connecticut. The sect rejected the established Congregational church, its Sabbath laws and its courts, and its members were fined, jailed and whipped for it. About 1735 his father led a party of Rogerenes from Groton, Connecticut, to Schooley's Mountain in Morris County, New Jersey. They moved on toward the shore, and some years later came back to the mountain.
In 1748 Robert, described as "of Monmouth Co.", bought 265 acres on Schooley's Mountain from William Cook, just west of the land of the German settler William Henn. In 1895 part of that farm belonged to Mrs. William Martenis "and contains the Colver graves." His brother Thomas settled near Drakestown.
His children were David, the first born, Timothy, Joseph, Robert, Mercy, who married a Hill, Anne, who married a Waeir, Lavinah, who married Frederick Sovereign, and Esther, who married Jacob Hann, the son of the German neighbours.
In July 1777 the Council of Safety cited both "Robert Colver" and "Robert Colver Senr" to take the oaths of abjuration and allegiance to the new State. A Robert Colver took them on 19 July. On 23 July a Robert Culver of Morris County refused them and was bound over to the county court. The minutes do not say which Robert refused. The Rogerenes refused oaths on principle, which fits the older man, but it is not stated.
He made his will on 1 January 1783 as Robert Colver of Roxbury, Morris County, and died on 7 January, aged sixty-nine years, six months and twenty-seven days by his gravestone on Schooley's Mountain. The will was proved on 16 January. An 1895 genealogy gives 7 May, which the stone and the probate both contradict.
Sources
Calendar of New Jersey Wills, Administrations, etc., vol. VI, 1781-1785 (New Jersey Archives, first series), p. 87; archive.org calendarofnewjer00unse_0. Original: Lib. M, p. 181.
T. F. Chambers, The Early Germans of New Jersey: Their History, Churches, and Genealogies (Dover, N.J., 1895), p. 297; archive.org earlygermansofne00cham, leaf n412.
T. F. Chambers, The Early Germans of New Jersey: Their History, Churches, and Genealogies (Dover, N.J., 1895), p. 298; archive.org earlygermansofne00cham, leaf n413.
T. F. Chambers, The Early Germans of New Jersey: Their History, Churches, and Genealogies (Dover, N.J., 1895), p. 174; archive.org earlygermansofne00cham, leaf n255.
Minutes of the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey (Jersey City, 1872), p. 90; archive.org cu31924096849587.
Minutes of the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey (Jersey City, 1872), p. 94; archive.org cu31924096849587.
Minutes of the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey (Jersey City, 1872), p. 98; archive.org cu31924096849587.
John R. Bolles and Anna B. Williams, The Rogerenes (Boston, 1904), p. 272; archive.org rogerenessomeh00boll.
Donald Lines Jacobus, "Culver and Winthrop", The American Genealogist, vol. 22 (October 1945), pp. 107-110 (archive.org sim_american-genealogist_1945-10_22_2), p. 110, citing Middletown Land Records 14:328-329 and Hartford District probate file 3397.
W. Herbert Wood and Donald Lines Jacobus, "Additions and Corrections to the Colver-Culver Genealogy", The American Genealogist, vol. 31 (July 1955), pp. 129-144 (archive.org sim_american-genealogist_1955-07_31_3), p. 143.
Calendar of New Jersey Wills, vol. VI, 1781-1785, p. 87 (archive.org calendarofnewjer00unse_0); T. F. Chambers, The Early Germans of New Jersey: Their History, Churches, and Genealogies (Dover, N.J., 1895), pp. 174 and 297-298 (archive.org earlygermansofne00cham); Minutes of the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey (Jersey City, 1872), archive.org cu31924096849587, pp. 90, 94 and 98; John R. Bolles and Anna B. Williams, The Rogerenes: Some Hitherto Unpublished Annals Belonging to the Colonial History of Connecticut (Boston, 1904), archive.org rogerenessomeh00boll, pp. 272-273.
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Cite: Heirology, "Robert Colver (1713-1783)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/robert-colver-1713-1783-183f4a.