168 EARLY HISTORY OF CAPE MAY COUNTY. 



Hall ; but there's yet no Town. Most of the inhabitants are fisher- 

 men, there being a whalery at the mouth of the Bay, on this as 

 ■well as the opposite shore." 



Cape May County, by an Act of Assembly on the 12th day of 

 November, 1692, was instituted as fpllows, via: "Whereas, this 

 Province hath formerly been divided into three counties for the 

 better regulation thereof; and whereas Cape May (being a place 

 well situated for trade) begins to increase to a considerable number 

 of families ; and there being no greater encouragement to the settle- 

 ment of a place than that there be established therein an order by 

 government, and justice duly administered : Be it therefore enacted 

 by the Governorj Council, and Representatives in this present As- 

 sembly met and assembled, and by the authority of the same, that 

 from henceforth Cape May shall be, and is hereby appointed a 

 County, the bounds whereof to begin at the utmost flowing of the 

 tide in Prince Maurice River, being about twenty miles from the 

 mouth of said river, and then by a line running easterly to the most 

 northerly point of Great Egg Harbor, and from thence southerly 

 along by the sea to the point of Cape May ; thence around Cape 

 May, and up Maurice River to the first point mentioned ; and that 

 there be nominated and appointed such and so many justices and 

 other ofiicers, as at present may be necessary for keeping the peace, 

 and trying of small causes under forty shillings. In which circum- 

 stance the same county shall remain until it shall appear they are 

 capable of being erected into a County Court; and in case of any 

 action, whether civil or criminal, the same to be heard and deter- 

 mined at the quarterly sessions in Salem County, with liberty for 

 the Justices of the County of Cape May, in conjunction with the 

 Justices of Salem County, in every such action in -judgment to sit, 

 and with them to determine the same." 



The time and place of holding the county elections were likewise 

 directed, and the number of representatives that each was entitled 

 to : Burlington to have 20, Gloucester 20, Salem 10, and Cape 



