160 EARLY HISTORY OF CAPE MAY COUNTY. 



and proportions, and upon terms so inconsiderable, as to fill up the 

 full measure of his desires, and gratify his ambitious and venture- 

 some propensities. 



After the most careful investigation and patient research in the 

 State and County archives, and the early as well as the more recent 

 chronicles of our past history, we find no data to prove that Cape May 

 was positively inhabited until the year 1685, when Caleb Carman 

 was appointed, by the Legislature, a justice of the peace, and Jona- 

 than Pine, constable.* 



These were independent appointments, as Cape May was not 

 under the jurisdiction of the Salem Tenth. This simple fact, how- 

 ever, that the appointment of a justice and constable for the place, 

 was necessary, goes to prove that there were inhabitants here at 

 this time; yet whence they came, in what number, or how long 

 they sojourned, are inquiries that will most probably ever remain in 

 mystery and doubt. Fenwick made his entry into " New Salem," 

 in 1675, and soon after extinguished the Indian title from the Dela- 

 ware to Prince Maurice River.f He made no claim and exercised 

 no dominion over Cape May ; and we have nothing to show at the 

 time of his arrival, that the country from Salem to the sea-shore 

 was other than one primeval and unbroken forest, with ample na- 

 tural productions by sea and land, to make it the happy home 

 of the red man, where he could roam, free and unmolested, in the 

 enjoyment of privileges and blessings, which the strong arm of 

 destiny soon usurped and converted to ulterior purposes. 



Gordon, in his history of New Jersey, says : " Emigrants from New 

 Haven settled on the left shores of the Delaware so early as 1640, 

 some of whose descendants may probably be found in Salem, Cum- 

 berland, and Cape May counties." 



As far as regards Cape May, we have no tradition of any such 

 settlement. History tells us that Hudson, in the Half-Moon, en- 

 tered the Delaware Bay, the 28th August, 1609, " but finding the 



* Learning &, Spioer's coUeolion. f Johnson's Salem, p. 13. 



