| 4. | Andrew Heath was born on 14 Apr 1667 in Burselm, Staffordshire, England; died on 20 Dec 1720 in Hopewell Twp, Hunterdon Co, New Jersey. Notes:
Andrew Heath, the progenitor of the Hunterdon County family, emigrated to the Colonies from Staffordshire, England in 1682. He arrived in Bucks County, Penna., on 28 July 1682. He came with William Yardley, Yardley's wife Jane Heath Yardley and their three children,Enoch, Thomas and William. They had been passengers on the ship "Friends Adventure". Andrew came as a bonded servant to William Yardley, a minister among the Friends who had been imprisoned several times. There is an assumption that Andrew was the nephew of Mrs. Yardley. They settled in Lower Makefield Township on a large tract of land, the site of Yardleyville, the name later shortened to Yardley. On 29 July 1686 Yardley released Andrew after four years of bonded service, giving him fifty acres of land plus wages, the condition under which all indentured servants were brought from England at the time.
Andrew's name appears several times in the Bucks County Court Book between 1685and 1699 as a witness, lawyer, etc. In one case he brought charges against a man for selling whiskey to an indian. The last time his name appears in the Court Books in 1699 at which time Andrew, his step-daughter, Joyce, and her husband John Richardson conveyed four hundred acres in Bucks County to John Snowden.
Andrew moved to New Jersey about 1699 when the deed books show he purchased 1700 acres of land in Burlington County, which became in 1711 Hunterdon County. He purchased the land from John Hutchinson between the years 1699 and 1792. On 04 February 1699 he purchased 420 acres near the Falls of the Delaware(now Trenton) and lived on the farm owned in 1877 by Joseph B. Anderson in the present Ewing Township, Mercer County. The present Trenton State Hospital is situated on a portion of this acreage. Other recorded land purchases in New Jersey by Andrew were: 15 June 1701, 400 acres in Upper Freehold Township, Monmouth County; 11 November 1708, 200 acres in Glouster County; 22 November 1713, 200 acres and on 14 August 1714, 420 adres along the Delaware River from the Mahlon Stacy estare.
After moving to New Jersey Andrew and his family resided in Hopewell Township,then part of Burlington County. James p. Snell wrote that Hopewell owes its name to Andrew. He and several other men banded together to build a public meeting house, soliciting and obtaining several acres of land from Thomas Hutghinson in 1703. A log church was built, called Hopewell Church, the first Episcopal Church in the area. The ministers were circuit riders, traveling into New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It was in 1705 that one of the ministers baptized four of Andrew's children: Andrew, Elizabeth, John and Sarah. In 1725 St, Michael's Church in Trenton was established, absorbing the Hopewell Church.The old burying ground near the State Hospital was on the easterly side of the highway in Ewing Township between the houses of John Hutchinson and Andrew Heath.
Andrew's parentage remains questionable, but P.W. Adams records that an Andrew Heath. the son of Roger and his second wife, Jane, was baptized on 14 April 1667 at St. John the Baptist Church in Burselm, Staffordshire, England. Roger Heath, the son of William and Margaret Heath was baptized on 12 March 1619/20, and on 07 December 1652 he married first Mary Simpson who died in 1665 leaving two sons. Roger later married Jane in 1666 and Andrew was the first born of the second marriage. It is quite possible Roger and Jane were our subject's parents since Busselm and Leeke, William Yardley's hometown are closely situated, and Yardlry's wife, Jane Heath was related to Andrew, perhaps his aunt. It should be noted however, that none of Andrew's children were named after the presumed parents or grand-parents, which is contrary to the custom of the time.
If Andrew was baptized in 1667 he wa probably about fifteen years old when he left England. His indenture to Yardley could have been arranged in order to pay for his passage, then common practice, and also to have assurance of a home and a guardian in the New World. According to T.F. Chambers there was a tradition that there were four brothers who emigrated , one being Andrew. Presumably one brother was killed in a quarrel at Trenton and another went to Canada; no other record has been found to substantiate this contention.
John Heath, the son of Thomas Heath of Stafford, Staffordshire, England was born there and emigrated to the colonies in 1741. He lived in Perth Amboy, Middlesex County, New Jersey, and his grandson, Daniel, settled in Mine Brook, Somerset County where his descendents remained for several generations. A connecton between the Hunterdon County and Somerset County families is not known but it is not unlikely that they may have a common ancestor in Staffordshire. The Heath family o Burselm were owners of potteries and coal mines.
Andrew's will dated 03 January 1716/17 at Hopewell, probated 29 December 1720, names his wife Hannah(a widow), and her children from a former marriage: Daniel, Samuel and Hannah Clark. It appears that Hannah was his second wife, his first wife being Elizabeth Barret Venables, a widow. Elizabeth, then the wife of William Venables, arrived in the colonies on the same ship as Andrew with her husband and two young daughters, Joyce and Frances. Wiliam Venables died within a year but she apparently did not marry Andrew until after 1688, the year the Bucks County Court Book refers to her as Elizabeth Venables. Since her name does not appear on the deed, she died prior to 1699, the date of the conveyance of the four hundred acres by Andrew and her daughter, Joyce, and Joyce's husband, as mentioned earlier. Andrew's will names his six children in the following order: Martha(under 18), John, Elizabeth, Andrew, Sarah(under 21), and Richard.It has been deduced that four of the children were the issue of his first marriage to Elizabeth Venables.
Andrew was well-known in New Jersey as he had been in Pennsylvania. He was an active man, owning an in, operating a farm, building a church and serving as a Burlington County judge, Meetings of the Court of Commons Pleas and the Quarterly Sessions were held at Andrew's house in Hopewell. On 02 November 1703 he was appointed interpreter by the Council of Proprietors of Burlington County to accompany the West Jersey Proprietors while they negotiated with the Lenni-Lenape Indians above the Falls of the Delaware.
REFERENCES; Court Proceedings of Bucks County, Pennsylvania 1685-1699
Pennsylvania Magazine
Early Germans of New Jersey,
J.P. Chambers, Dover NJ 1895, pg. 398
Fare to Midlands
H. C. Beck , E. P. Dutton, NYC, 1939, pg. 134
Heath Manuscript- William R. Heath
Hunterdon County Historical Society Library
History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Davis, pg.58
History of St. Michael's Church, Trenton, NJ
History of Hunterdon & Somerset Counties NJ
J. P. Snell 1881, pgs. 196,731
History of New Jersey
Buam, Volume I, pg. 91; Volume II, pgs. 313-319
New Jersey Deeds 1699-1703
New Jersey State Library Collection
Notes on Some North Staffordshire Families
Percy W. Adams
Welcome Claimants, Welcome Society of Pennsylvania
George E. McCracken, Drake University
West Jersey Deeds AAA pg.259
Andrew married Hannah Clark, Mrs about 1701. Hannah was born about 1665; died after 1720. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]
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