The first records of settlement and government here in Cape May County appear in Burlington Court records in 1685. In 1681 Burlington became the administrative and judicial center for West Jersey. The political division of the Provinces of West Jersey and East Jersey existed for 28 years between 1674 and 1702.
Dr. Daniel Coxe (1640-1730) was credited with shaping the earliest socioeconomic and political life in Cape May County. Coxe was an Anglican physician in the court of Charles II of England, a Governor of West Jersey (1687-1688), and a real estate developer who never set foot in North America but acted on his vision of creating a model mercantile and agricultural community here.
Coxe accumulated 22 shares of West Jersey proprietorship in 1687. Coxe, through his land agent, secured 95,000 acres of the Cape May peninsula from the Lenape Indians for which he paid 16 gallons of rum, 32 knives, tobacco boxes, looking glasses, flints, combs, clothing and “six Jews harps.”
The famed Coxe Hall, a two story manor house, was constructed on the bay side of Lower Township on the northern bank above New England Creek later called Coxe Hall Creek. A part of Coxe Hall still exists at Historic Cold Spring Village.
Coxe brought many families to the Jersey Cape; probably at least 200 British, Dutch, French, Swedish and African-American people lived on the Jersey Cape from 1688 to 1692, and it is reported 47 of these became landowners or were called freeholders of land. In the end, Coxe’s business plans for the Cape May peninsula were not realized. Political factors in Britain and a myriad of other factors here such as food shortages caused Coxe to sell his Cape May properties in 1692 to 48 London proprietors known as the West New Jersey Society. The West New Jersey Society divided its lands into 1600 shares.
Coxe’s interest in the Cape May peninsula was more than simple land speculation. A member of the Royal society, Coxe fit the mold of John Locke and other late-seventeenth century British social and constitutional architects who sought to rationalize their world, create an orderly society and experiment with their environment… He held ideas about community planning, including the protection of the Cornwall Cape in Britain against beach erosion. He sought to blend the remnants of feudal organization with that of a vigorous landowning, merchant society free from feudal restrictions as part of what he called a ’New Empire in America.’
Dr. Jeffrey Dorwart
Cape May County was formally created on November 12, 1692 by an Act of the General Assembly of the Province of West New Jersey. It was among the four counties formally created with their initial boundaries defined by that legislative act: Burlington, Gloucester, Salem and Cape May.
The first county boundary in 1692 encompassed the entire peninsula into parts of now Cumberland (previously Salem) and Atlantic (previously Gloucester) Counties. There was a boundary revision in 1694. In 1710 the Cape May County boundary had its essential definition but there were changes documented in 1822, 1844, 1845, 1878 and 1891.
The first recorded court session was held in Coxe Hall in May 1692. The West Jersey Assembly authorized that the first Freeholders of the county be chosen, five “good and sufficient men.” The first Freeholders were George Taylor, Jacob Dayton, John Shaw, Timothy Brandreth and John Crawford. County Clerk’s records show the earliest deeds granted land from the West New Jersey Society.
