Pettit Family Genealogy and History
Pettit Family History, Genealogy, Message Board, Research Papers and Blog
Benjamin Pettit of Essex Co., NJ owned lot #45 on Stony Hill. This land is shown on an 1845 map produced by historian John Littell. Neighbors that can be identified on this map include the Badgley, Frazee, Valentine, and Willcox families.
Now it is time to take this data and plot it out on a map. In doing so we will identify the most likely location of Joshua Pettit’s land in Scotch Plains, NJ and see where it would be located today.
The Valentine family was decimated by smallpox in the late winter of 1766. Two minor Pettit grandchildren were named as heirs. The Valentine, Baker, Osborn and Pettit families lived very near each other in the Stony Hill and Scotch Plains area near the Green Brook.
The reason Joshua Pettit’s petition cannot be found in the record books of the Court of Common Pleas is because he was not a free man. He was in one of the jails in Essex County for the “crime” of being an insolvent debtor.
The precise location of Joshua Pettit’s land in Essex County, New Jersey has long been a mystery. In this article we will attempt to determine where his land was relative to the geography of the 1700’s and where it can be found today.