Meeting house filled with history
More than 100
people attend
picnic and service
By Jane MEggitt
Correspondent

VERONICA YANKOWSKI Joshua Pennypacker, 11, New Egypt, studies a grave marker in the cemetery of the Old Yellow Meeting House, Upper Freehold, on Sunday. The meeting house’s annual reunion drew more than 100 people and featured tours of the cemetery by the Allentown/Upper Freehold Historical Society.

A walk through the cemetery of the Old Yellow Meeting House in Upper Freehold offers a glimpse into local history dating back to Colonial times.

At the 87th annual reunion held at the Old Yellow Meeting House on July 28, more than 100 people turned out for the church service and luncheon, which featured tours of the cemetery on the grounds.

This year, trustee Liz Dey and the Allentown-Upper Freehold Historical Society’s John Fabiano conducted tours of the cemetery both before and after the service. Three signs were also unveiled that will be part of a self-guided tour of the grounds.

Robert Haver, chairman of the Friends of the Old Yellow Meeting House, said his group had 185 members, mostly descendants of those buried in the churchyard, who are members of the Upper Freehold Baptist Church, and "a fair share of individuals from the local community."

VERONICA YANKOWSKI Liz Dey of the Allentown/Upper Freehold Historical Society leads a tour detailing the history of the cemetery at the Old Yellow Meeting House on Sunday.

The group was incorporated in 1975 and is dedicated to the "preservation, care and appropriate use of this historic structure," he said.

The Old Yellow Meeting House, the parsonage and the cemetery are all listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Dating from about 1737, the meeting house is the oldest Baptist church building in New Jersey. A schism in the mother church in Middletown sent about one-third of the congregation to worship in Upper Freehold.

In 1766, the Upper Freehold group petitioned the Middletown church for release, and "constituted a Church of Christ in gospel order at Upper Freehold, generally called Crosswicks." The new church in turn spawned several others: Jacobstown Baptist in 1785, Bordentown in 1821 and Freehold in 1834.

Dey, who now attends the Allentown Presbyterian Church but whose home church was Upper Freehold Baptist Church, led the morning cemetery tour.

She noted how the cemetery has been in continuous use from 1720 until the present day. Many early graves were unmarked or decorated with locust slabs that have since disintegrated, she said.

She spoke of how, during the American Revolution, strong factions of Tories, those loyal to the crown, and Whigs, those desiring independence, lived in the Upper Freehold area.

Prominent families were split apart by differing allegiances, she said. The first resident minister of the Old Yellow Meeting House, David Jones, was known as "the Fighting Parson," and served in the war under General "Mad Anthony" Wayne. Jones preached a famous sermon about the Revolution, "Defensive War in A Just Cause — Sinless."

One of the first deacons in the new church, Thomas Farr, was killed, along with his wife, by the infamous "Pine Robbers" — Tories who plundered and killed those who favored the American side during the Revolution. Farr’s house was situated on the grounds of the meeting house but was torn down in 1830. He and his wife are probably buried in the cemetery, Dey said.

The earliest marked grave in the cemetery is that of John Salter, who died in 1723 and whose headstone, imported from New England, is still in beautiful condition. Salter’s sister, Hannah, married Mordecai Lincoln, who operated the iron forge of another Salter brother, Richard. Mordecai and Hannah were the great-great-grandparents of the 16th U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln.

Three men named Elisha Lawrence are also interred in the cemetery. Fabiano said that the town of Lawrenceville was named for this illustrious family, although none of them actually lived there. The town’s name had originally been Maidenhead, and while searching for a new name, the town fathers chose to honor the Lawrences.

The three Elishas all were owners of the family homestead, Chestnut Grove. When the first Elisha Lawrence died, in 1724, the meeting house was the only public burial ground within 25 miles, a great distance in those days.

The second Elisha Lawrence was the father of John Brown Lawrence, whose son, Capt. James Lawrence, uttered the immortal words "Don’t give up the ship" in the War of 1812 in the battle between the Chesapeake and the Shannon off of Boston Harbor.

Gen. Elisha Lawrence, another son of Elisha Lawrence II, held several offices in Upper Freehold. He was the town clerk, assessor and president, a position akin to mayor, in 1798-99. During the Revolution, he served as a colonel and quartermaster in the Monmouth militia. His headstone refers to him a "general" but this may have been an honor later bestowed upon him.

At the age of 67, John Lawrence, son of the first Elisha and a surveyor, declared at a meeting in Imlaystown that "it is our first wish to live in unison with Great Britain, but we are determined to oppose Great Britain to raise revenue in America and risk any consequence rather than submit to it."

Later on he switched sides and accepted the duty of granting protection to "those he could induce to swear allegiance to Great Britain."

Dr. John Lawrence, the grandson of the first Elisha Lawrence and son of John Lawrence, was one of the first men in the United States to receive a medical degree, graduating from Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. He was respected as a physician because after the Revolution he was permitted to return and practice medicine, although he had to forfeit his property for being a loyalist.

The Rev. John Coward was an early pastor of the meeting house. His daughters married the Coxes, Scudders, Browns, Randolphs and Hendricksons, and one son and three of his daughters are laid to rest in the cemetery with their father. Several members of the Cox family, for whom Cox’s Corner is named, are also in the cemetery.

Gen. James Cox enlisted as a private in the Continental Army in the N.J. Regiment. He soon rose to the rank of 1st lieutenant and fought at Germantown and Monmouth. By the end of the war, he was a brigadier general and commanded the Monmouth Brigade until his death. He also served in the New Jersey Assembly for several terms.

The Holmes family has many generations buried in the cemetery and their descendants still live and farm in Upper Freehold today.

Jonathan Holmes, for whom a local road is named, fought in the Revolutionary War and died in 1777 while home on leave. Hiding from the British, he slept in the barn while his horse had been hoisted via a pulley system into the house. Holmes died of pneumonia, and his father, Joseph, followed him five days later. A report states that, in 1899, "the gravestone of this Joseph Holmes was used as the door stop of a pig pen, as is what has happened to other gravestones in plots on family farms once they pass out of the family." A Cox burial ground near their home and an Imlay graveyard in Imlaystown have also disappeared from the abuses of time.

Dey and Fabiano spoke of many others who lay beneath the grounds of the Old Yellow Meeting House during the tour, and Dey said that at least seven Civil War veterans were buried in the cemetery.

She pointed out the grave of Edward Ely, the secretary of war who had granted prominent men in the North permission to raise mounted regiments for three years’ service to the Union.

William Halstead, then 70, a well-known politician, raised a regiment called "Halstead’s Horse." Ely joined, but the state did not recognize the regiment because the raw recruits knew nothing about modern warfare, said Dey.

Commanders were changed, and the soldiers were drilled and trained, and state recognition eventually came, Dey added.

All proceeds from the event went to the maintenance of the grounds of the Old Yellow Meeting House. The grounds are open to the public during daylight hours. A candlelight service is planned for Thanksgiving eve.