Founding a Nation: pg. 1

John Falkinburg and Mary Somers

In 1584, the first English expedition to the new world landed at Roanoke Island on the Outer Banks in what what is now North Carolina. Sir Walter Raleigh who funded the expedition was given a charter by Queen Elizabeth I to “discover, search, find out and view such remote heathen and barbarous Lands, Countries, and territories... to have, hold, occupy, and enjoy.” The first permanent settlement by the English in North America was the Jamestown Colony, settled in 1607. The Pilgrims founded the Plymouth Colony in 1620. By 1630 the total population of the English colonies had grown to about 4,600. The year 1700 saw the total grow to about one quarter of a million persons with the largest numbers in Virginia and Massachusetts, which together accounted for nearly 44% of the total population. The population of the New Jersey Colony at this time accounted for less than 6% of the total in 1700. [3.1]

Who were these colonists? We have met the northern europeans and the English Quakers who settled along the Delaware River. Although New Netherlands was ceded to the English, large numbers of Dutch remained in New York, western Long Island, the Hudson Valley, and the Delaware River communities. The Plymouth Colony was established by the Pilgrims, a small Protestant sect, persecuted in England for their religious beliefs. They were followed by the Puritans who left England in larger numbers. The Puritans were members of the Church of England who sought to reform the Church and strip it of any vestige of Roman Catholic tradition. The Puritans migrated to New England embedding their beliefs in religious and political structures. In England, the mother country, rapid and radical change was taking place. The struggle culminated in the English Civil War in which forces loyal to the king battled against an army raised by Parliament. Under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, King Charles I was defeated¹. He was tried and executed on 30 JAN 1649 for high treason. Under Charles, the Church of England was moving closer to its Catholic roots, but under Cromwell’s leadership, the Anglican Church found itself in the midst of its own reformation with the stripping of all decoration from sanctuaries and the investiture of Puritan reform. A new stream of colonists seeking to establish the more traditional practices of the Church of England came to America. Among them was the grandfather of George Washington, an Anglican minister who found his parish taken over by Puritan reform. Those emigrating to America included all sorts of persons: enemies of the Crown marked for execution during the crisis of monarchy, gentry who established plantations in the southern colonies, and idealists who sought to unchain government from the yoke of hereditary monarchy. We have been introduced to individualists like Henry Jacobs Falkinburg who carved out a new life in this new world. In the current section, we will learn how our family was affected by the revolutionary spirit of a new nation.

English, French and Spanish Colonies in the New World

The period leading up to the American Revolution can only be understood if we view the larger picture of European colonialism. We so often think about the United States as emerging from the English colonies. However, the French and Spanish claims to the new world had enormous impact on the founding of our the nation. The map below shows the claims made by the three European powers in the new world. England, France and Spain had been adversaries for centuries, as they struggled for control of Europe. It should not be surprising that this should spill over into the colonies in the new world. The tension between the British and French exploded in the Ohio Valley in the early 1750s pitting the British against a coalition of French and Native American fighters in the French and Indian War. A young Colonel of the Colonial Virginia Regiment named George Washington developed military prowess in non-traditional warfare in this Ohio wilderness. He had plans to attack the French at Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) but retreated and built Fort Necessity in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, today near the Maryland boarder. The French attacked Washington at this vulnerable location, and Washington had to retreat in defeat. The French and Indian War grew to a larger conflict in Europe, known as the Seven Years War. When the conflict ended in 1763 much of the landscape of colonial America was radically changed. France lost its claim to the Ohio Valley and much of its presence in North America. Spain, an ally of France, lost Florida.

The war severely impacted the economies of both Britain and France. The national debt of Great Britain exploded to 4.5 million pounds. Servicing this debt consumed more than half the budget of the nation. In order to fill the coffers, the Crown shifted a tax burden to the British colonies in North America. The sugar tax placed a three-cent burden on refined sugar products as well as increasing taxes on coffee and other goods. It banned the importation of rum from the Caribbean and wine from France. The hated Stamp Act required payment on every document, newspaper or pamphlet. Finally, the Townshend Acts, whose protest every schoolchild knows led to the Boston Tea Party, placed taxes not only on tea, but glass, lead, paints and paper. George Washington and other colonists were angered by this and felt that this was not a just reward for help by the colonial regiments in fighting and defeating the French. Another undercurrent was at play. Many plantations in the South were being forced into bankruptcy by London brokers who managed the selling of Tobacco and at the same time supplied English goods to the colonists. The stage was set for rebellion.
The conflict of the French and Indian War did not penetrate to the coastal community of Little Egg Harbor. At most, the residents might see British regular troops sailing from New York and Boston down to Virginia to join with Virginia colonials in marches to the Ohio Valley. The French and Indian war began after Henry Jacobs Falkinburg II and Penelope Stout raised their family in Little Egg Harbor. The families would have been affected by the new taxes imposed by Great Britain, and they would likely have grumbled at these, but in this Quaker community there was little rabble rousing. David Falkinburg, third son of Henry and Penelope was born in 1739. When he was of age, David opened the first tavern in the town. John Mathis financed the venture and later he would help finance the American Revolution. [3.2] Taverns became a place where men from the community would gather and discuss the events of the day (as well as partake of libation). They were often places where plans of action were hatched, and I can’t help but believe that David Falkinburg’s tavern was a place that heard many complaints against the new taxation and eventually became a secret planning place for acts of rebellion.

Notes
1	Charles I, the second son of James II was named the Duke of York. New York City and State bear the legacy of his name.
References
3.1	_______ Estimated Population of American Colonies, 1630-1780, 1998 World Almanac and Book of Facts, p. 378, Source: Bureau of the Census, U.S. Dept. of Commerce
3.2	Stemmer, Peter H., “Great John Mathis and Mathistown”, Bass River Gazette (January, 1999) p. 1.