Person:David Trowbridge (1)

He homesteaded the area known as Trowbridge Mountain, having derived it's name from the fact that David, several of his sons and his grandsons built their farms there.

ABOUT DAVID TROWBRIDGE Following the death of his father Joseph at a young age, David came to Hanover, New Jersey with his mother Anne, his stepfather, Caleb Fairchild, and his sister Anne by 1730. Shortly after his marriage to Lydia Holmes, David was quit-claimed land by his stepfather and mother on April 1, 1736. Later he settled in a section of Morris Township, Morris County, New Jersey that became to be known as Trowbridge Mountain, named so because David and his family built their farms there.

According to tax records of the time, David farmed 143 acres of land, and owned 16 horses and livestock, and 40 sheep. He also is said to have produced applejack called "New Jersey Lightning". Back in the 1700s, it was very common for the residents of northern New Jersey to produce this product. In fact at one point there were so many distilleries and taverns in Morris County that a conflict erupted between the Mendham Presbyterian Church and one of it's members, a certain William Phoenix. When he applied for a burial plot, his request was denied by the church elders. In retaliation, he built his own cemetery right next to the burying ground, put up a stone wall, and forbade any members of the church burial in it. But eventually the feud was forgotten, and Mr. Phoenix's burial ground was absorbed into the Presbyterian one.".

David, his wife Lydia, and his son Shubael, were founding members of the First Presbyterian in Morristown, New Jersey. According to local records, they may have been buried in the Old Presbyterian Burying Ground behind the church. Unfortunately, those same records also indicate the only headstone still standing in the family plot is the headstone of Shubael's son, Augustine Bayles Trowbridge. The Trowbridge family plot is located just behind the first cemetery gate on the left approaching from Park Ave., just behind the sanctuary of the church. Augustine's headstone is stacked on the ground, with his grandson, William Harvey Trowbridge's headstone on top of it. His wife Elizabeth's headstone is standing.

The children of David & Lydia settled all over the United States. They moved into such states as: Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Vermont, Ohio, Michigan, New York, Illinois, Kentucky, and Indiana. Many, if not most Trowbridges around the country are descendents of David and Lydia Trowbridge.

There are some discrepancies n the Francis Bacon Trowbridge book, the Trowbridge Genealogy, about the names of the children of David and Lydia. Francis Bacon Trowbridge includes a note under the entry for David Trowbridge and Lydia Holmes regarding the source of information about their children: "Children copied from family bible of David Trowbridge which was found in the mountains eight miles from Dover NJ by William A Eardeley of Brooklyn NY, a genealogist who visited that area. Many children buried in Whippany NJ churchyard."

This list is known to have several inaccuracies, such as the daughter listed as Tabitha II, who is listed as died at the age of 22, and buried in the Old Burying Ground in Whippany, New Jersey (the same cemetery mentioned above). There is evidence that she may have been the wife of Daniel Trowbridge's son David. And a son by the name of Crispus shows up in several deeds pretraining to the disposition of David's estate, but not in other family records. Evidence has come to light that he may have been a Loyalist during the Revolutionary War, and thus could have been disowned by the family.

ABSTRACTS FROM THE WILL OF DAVID TROWBRIDGE: "1768, Nov. 9. Trowbridge, David, of Morris Township, Morris County, Farmer; will of. My lands and goods to be divided among my eight children, with this reserve, that my wife, over her equal proportion, is to have her choice of one cow, and any one jade (horse) belonging to the estate, and she is to have the possession of my estate, as long as she is my widow. Son, Shubal (Shubael) Trowbridge, has built and improved on 11 acres, and he is to have a deed for the same land. Executrix - my wife, Lydia. Witnesses - James Smyth, William Locy, John Losee. Proved December 9, 1768."

EXCERPTS FROM "THE HISTORY OF MORRIS PLAINS" BY JULIA BEERS:

In 1929, Julia Beers, a member of one of the original families to settle the Morris Plains area, wrote "The History of Morris Plains", which was published after her death in 1955. Born in the 1860's, she wrote about a Morris county that vanished a long time ago. Her book contains a lot of valuable information on the Trowbridge family, especially the location of the David Trowbridge farm. She writes: "On the early maps of New Jersey, an Indian path is designated running from the south shore of the Shrewsbury River in a westerly direction, crossing the Raritan a little to the westward of Amboy and thence in a northerly direction to Minisink Island in the Delaware. Many branches of the Minisink Path spread out through New Jersey from this trail. The Dutch and Swedes must have traveled it long before the English settlers came to New Jersey. There are traces of Indian camping grounds, and no doubt there were Indian villages in the Watnong Mountains northwest of Morris Plains. Indian arrowheads are found there even at this time. A perfect arrowhead of New York Brownstone tells a tale of either of attack from New York Indians, or of a visitor from that state, we hope the latter! Hundreds of years ago, or farther back than that, the Plains must have been a marsh, for the Indian camps are found among the surrounding hillsides, notably the south side. The early settlers also chose these places to build their log huts, which wer built without cellars. A cave was dug in an embankment to house produce from garden and field. The Indians camped on the many sources of the Whipponong River above Morris Plains. And that is where the white settlers built their log huts and started to make a living from the soil, which the Indians were incapable of doing. Now descendents of those white settlers have vanished from the land and other invaders have captured the hill and plain, for "to the strong belong the spoils." New Jersey Records show that the English settlers bought and paid for all the land they acquired from the Indians. We have no doubt that Morris Plains settlers did the same, or acquired land that had been bought by the original proprietors. The Original White Settlers: Pierson, Losey, Trowbridge, Raynor Probably the first English settler to come to the region now known as Morris Plains was Thomas Pierson. In 1685 he established a saw mill on Thomason's Pond and a residence on the road to the present state hospital. This mill was operated as recently as the 1860s. The Losey, Trowbridge, and Raynor families may have come here about the same time, settling on the north side of the Minisink Path on the east slope of the mountain known in that day as Trowbridge Mountain. Trowbridge owned the place that Jesse Pierson purchased. Tradition tells us that Trowbridge bought this place from the Indians. Above this tract was a road to the left called the Raynor Road. The land still showed evidence of cultivation in 1880. Whoever the Raynors were, they must have left there at an early date. Jesse Pierson built his house opposite the present TB Hospital [now Morris View Nursing Home] and turned the Trowbridge house into a wagon shed. There was a lane or Indian path that started from there and traversed the lower part of the mountain, emerging on Pigeon Hill Road. There are signs of habitation on this lane, but they must have been of very early date. We have no record of the people who may have been there. This road was used by the settlers to avoid the steep hill between the Losey and Trowbridge lands. Losey must have given the land for the present road to the Welfare House, thereby losing two acres of land. I don't know what the former hill was like. It must have been impossible. I think the present one is nearly so. Losey's son built the house now occupied by Reeds. The road was changed for their benefit. ... Recently there was a tree uprooted by the elements on the old Losey place. In its stones were two stones, one oblique in form, the other small and square. Someone must have been buried there, probably during the Revolutionary War when Morristown was occupied by the soldiers. It might have been William Losey [named as a witness in David Trowbridge's will and father-in-law of Joseph Trowbridge] who bought the land from the Indians. Tradition tells of three long houses built in Spring Street. These people may have been some of our early settlers who moved to the mountains north and west of Morris Plains." Some interesting notes on what Julia wrote. The location of the David Trowbridge house, it was located along what the Minisink Trail, this is now West Hanover Avenue in Morris Township, across the street from the former Morris County Sanitarium. The Sanitarium is now the Morris View Nursing Home where Karen Ann Quinlan spent her last days. When David built his house along an Indian trail, it was common for the first settlers to build their farms along these trails, which the Leni Lenape Indians built following the routes of big game, such as the elk, deer and moose. She also writes elsewhere in her book that Trowbridge Mountain is located on West Hanover Avenue, west of Ketch Road in Morris township. The hill is very steep, especially going towards Mount Freedom in Randolph. There are also indications from other wills and deeds from Lydia, Shubael, and Samuel Trowbridge that David Trowbridge also owned property along what is now Trowbridge Road, in Morris Plains, just off of Granniss Avenue, and in Succasunna. In her will (see below), David Trowbridge's widow, Lydia, indicated that her house was located in Watnung Plains, the name of Morris Plains prior to the 1920's. It's location could have been Trowbridge Road in Morris Plains, because many streets in Morris County are often named after the largest tract owners along the road, such as the above mentioned Raynor Road was named after the Raynor family.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} Trowbridge, Francis Bacon. The Trowbridge Genealogy: History of the Trowbridge Family in America. (New Haven, Conn.: The Compiler, 1908).
2. ↑ David Trowbridge, in Find A Grave.

   Trowbridge Mountain on West Hanover Ave. in Morris township, NJ. It is probable that the Trowbridge family was buried here on the site of the farm.