Rusk: The Adventures of Gilbert Imlay 
5 
said to have been copied from the tombstone in 1833, accord- 
ing to which February 9, 1758, was the date of his birth.- 
The place of his nativity was, in all probability, Monmouth 
County, New Jersey, where the Imlay family® was established 
as early as the first decade of the eighteenth century. The 
Patrick Imlay^ whose name appears at various times from 
1705 to 1727 in connection with legal actions concerning the 
Old Presbyterian Tennent Church, of which he seems to have 
been one of the most influential members, was very likely the 
great-grandfather of Gilbert. Patrick had a son named Rob- 
ert; and it is clear from the record of wills that a Robert 
Imlay of Upper Freehold, Monmouth County, who died in 
1754, was the father, by his wife, Alice, of the Peter Imlay 
who had by 1761 three children, all probably under ten years 
of age at that time — Robert, Peggy, and Gilbert.® It is sig- 
nificant that while such names as Robert and Peter are com- 
mon among the New Jersey Imlays of this period, there is, 
so far as I have been able to discover, only one Gilbert Imlay 
mentioned in the extant wills. Long breaks in the chain of 
evidence between 1761 and 1777 — for the statement made in 
2 For the record of the burial and for the inscription, see Richard Garnett’s article 
in The Athenaeum, August 15, 1903, and below (footnote 93). Cf. also the will of Alice 
Imlay, cited below (footnote 5), which seems to show that the Gilbert Imlay men- 
tioned in that document was not more than eight years old in June, 1761, and that he 
may have been several years younger at that time. 
3 Numerous wills in the office of the Secretary of State of New Jersey show that there 
were many Imlays both in Monmouth County and in Burlington County during Revolu- 
tionary times. See also Collections of the New Jersey Historical Society, IX, and Pro- 
ceedings of the Netv Jersey Historical Society, new series. III. A number of important 
men of this name who were active in New Jersey during this period and somewhat later 
are mentioned in the following records: Charles Lanman’s Biographical Annals of the 
Civil Government of the United States; The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress 
of the United States, Fifth Congress ; Catalogus Eorum Qui Munera ct Of jicia Gesserunt, 
Quique Alicujus Grades Laurea Donati Sunt, in Collegio Neo-Cmsaricsnsi, Princetonice , 
hleitman’s Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Amny during the War of the 
Revolution. New Jersey was not, however, the only colony or state in which there were 
prominent Imlays: cf. Journals of the Continental Congress 177A-1789, Vols. VIII, XVII, 
and XIX ; The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, for the 
Fifth Congress; Senate Journal, for the same Congress; Pennsylvania Archives, second 
and third series ; and Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of Netv- 
York; Procured in Holland, England and France, Vol. VIII. 
For Patrick Imlay see Symmes’s History of the Old Tennent Church, p. 27 (excerpt 
from Minute Book of the Monmouth County Court for 1688 to 1721, p. 239) and pp. 31-32 ; 
and Deed Boo'ks F2 (p. 535) and D (p. 93), in the Office of the Secretary of State 
of New Jersey. For information concerning records in which Patrick Imlay is men- 
tioned, for abstracts of the Imlay wills in the office of the Secretary of State of New 
Jersey, and for transcripts from the files of the Adjutant-General of New Jersey, I am 
indebted to Mrs. Elizabeth Satterthwaite, of Trenton. 
^Cf. the account given in J. W. Townsend’s Kentuckians in History and Literature, 
which contains, I think, a correct statement of the names of Gilbert Imlay’s grand- 
father, father, and brother, but seems to be inaccurate in many other details — for 
