Excerpt from Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey, Vol. 23: Calendar of New Jersey Wills, Vol; I. 1670-1730; Edited, With an Introductory Note on the Early Testamentary Laws and Customs of New Jersey A suggestive picture of the primitiveness of those early days is the story of John Clarke, the peddler, murdered in 1691 at Salem, whose pack had to be administered on, after his boat had been taken up and his murderer arrested. Other inquests hint at suspicious deaths. And what a gruesome bequest is that of George Gordon, of Perth Amboy, in 1686, who give his body to his physician for dissection. The inventories and appraisements give valuable informa tion as to the character and worth of farm products in New jersey before 1730, and as to the occupations of the testators and others. These are but a few of the topics suggested merely in glancing over the Index of Subjects at the end of the volume. A careful perusal of the contents of the documents here so care fully abstracted by Mr. B. Fernow will abundantly repay the reader. In preparing this work the abstracts of wills were made from the originals, and where they are recorded a reference to the book of record is given. As the earlier wills were recorded in many different volumes. It was thought best to arrange the wills in the alphabetical order of testators' or intestates' names, which also saved forty or fifty pages of index, and at the same time covered the whole Colony for the period preceding 1731. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.