Genealogically speaking…
Tempered Spirits:
Lower Penns Neck Temperance Society
Among the articles with which John Fenwick used in purchasing the lands
from the Lenni Lenape were ten and a half ankers of rum—an anker being
equal to about thirty-two gallons. The Proprietors of West Jersey, six years
later, ordered that anyone selling intoxicating liquors to Native Americans
should forfeit three pounds for each offense. “Thus early in the history
of Salem County did the alcohol question enter into the financial and social
affairs of the inhabitants.”i
The first temperance society in this country was organized in Moreau, New
York in 1808. “The temperance movement of the early 19th century was
an organized effort to encourage moderation in the consumption of intoxicating
liquors or press for complete abstinence. The movement lay in a matrix of
unrest and intellectual ferment in which other social ills such as slavery,
neglect and ill treatment of marginalized people, were addressed by liberals
and conservatives alike. Sometimes called the First Reform Era, running through
the 1830s and 40s, “it was a period of inclusive humanitarian reform.”ii
In 1833 there were no less than twenty-five inns and taverns in Salem County
supporting a population of fourteen thousand. A county temperance society,
in this year, was holding quarterly meetings and local societies were being
formed in various townships. Collectively, these societies were asking their
members and those engaged in the use or business of liquor to relinquish it.
Such was the case of The Lower Penns Neck Temperance Society formed on April
7, 1832, by no less than 110 members that held their annual meetings at the
Methodist Episcopal Church. The Constitution of this society is very explicit
[transcribed as in the original]:
Article 3. We whose names are hereunto annexed being fully convinced that
the use of ardent spirits of any kind is hurtfull to persons in health and
is the cause of forming intemperate appetites and habits and while the use
of them is continued the evil of intemperance cannot be prevented do therefore
solemnly promis and agree that we will not use them ourselves nor allow them
to be used in our families as far as we can prevent it unless as a medecin
in cas of extreme necessity that we will not provide them for the Entertainment
of our friends nor for persons in our employment and that we will in every
reasonable manner oppose and discountinance both there sale or use in the
community and we furthermore agree that any person drinking formented liquor
to intoxication shall be dealt with as an offending member.iii
The offending members, according to Article 7, were dealt with by ‘admonition
and friendly advice’ and if they remained incorrigible they were expelled
by a vote of the society and their names erased from its rolls. The names
of the charter members of this temperance society follow as recorded in the
manuscript.
Lydia Sparks
David Sparks
Thomas Urison
Samuel Thompson
Samuel Lippincott
John Powers
Edith Thompson
William Casperson
Eliza Snitcher
Sarah Fogg
Martha Ann Bilderback
John Torton
Michael Powers
George Hancock
Jedediah Garrison
George Hannahs
Joseph Bilderback
Susan Dunn
Martha Elwell
George Snitcher, Jr
Sarah Pippen
Wesley Stiles
Lawrence Whitsel
Sarah Torton
Emeline Garrison
Ellen Dunn
Thomas Keen
Edward Dalbow
|
John Snitcher
Howard Hewett
Judith Shaw
Catharine Casperson
Elizabeth Hancock
Mary Downing
Margaret Wright
Sarah Snitcher
Ann Snitcher
Mary Lummis
Elizabeth Howell
Mary Finley
Mary Humphreys
Seagrave Hewett
James Thompson, Jr.
Charles Pedrick
Elizabeth Montgomery
David Keen
Eliza Pippen
Margaret Keen
Furman Fenton
Edward Hancock
Thomas Pennington
Samuel Humphreys
Isaac Holeton
John Perine
William Armstrong
George Armstrong
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Samuel Darling
George Peterson
John Lummis
Rebeca Ann Hancock
Hannah Wright
Jane Peterson
Elizabeth Brown
Elizabeth Gibeson
Mary Hendle
Mary Torton
Sarah Lippincott
Samuel Hewett
John Peterson
Joseph T. Newcomb
Michael Elwell
Mary Redstrake
Sarah Wright
Henry Snitcher, Jr.
Edward Redstrake
Edith Snitcher
Sarah Sparks
Edith Sparks
Joseph Humphreys
Reuben Parvin
Joseph Powers
Charles Newell
John H. Wright
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John Bilderback
Isaac Fogg
Thomas Tuft
Charles Lloyd
Samuel Pedrick
Ephraim F. Shaw
Edward Handley
John Fox
John Bilderback
Tolton Thomas
Joseph Whitsell
Susan Thomas
Thomas Dunn
Michael Powers
John Whitsell
Samuel Vannaman
William Palmer
John Murphey
Thomas D. Bradway
John Tuft
John Trulender
Eliza Bradway
Sarah Palmer
Samuel Dunn
Eliza Sparks
Joseph Hancock
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The Lower Penns Neck Temperance Society met in this building during the 1840’s.
Built in 1842 at the corner of Fort Mott Road and South Broadway, Pennsville,
New Jersey, this was the third structure built by the Methodist Episcopal
Church founded in 1775 by the Reverend Benjamin Abbott. An initial log structure
was built in 1777 and replaced by a larger building in 1811. This 1842 structure
was razed in 1886. iv The cemetery remains at this
location today and the gravestones were recently documented and plotted by
Joel Concannon of Pennsville, New Jersey for an Eagle Scout project.
[Permission Trinity Methodist Church]
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I Thos. Cushing, M.D. and Charles E. Sheppard, Esq.,
History of the Counties of Gloucester, Salem and Cumberland New Jersey
…
(Philadelphia: Everts & Peck, 1883), 363.
ii www.U-S-History.com, Online Highways.
iii Salem County Historical Society, Manuscript #334.
iv Program booklet, “Trinity Methodist Church,
Opening of New Sanctuary, Sunday, September 28, 1958, Pennsville, New Jersey.”
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