Our eighth great-grandparents, John Marsh (1661-1744) and Elizabeth Clark (1664-1739), were founding members of Rahway Village in 1685 when John Marsh received a grant of 800 acres along the Rahway River (pictured above). John Marsh was present at the early settlement of three towns. His father, Samuel Marsh, was in New Haven. Connecticut in 1646, where although not a first settler was an early settler. John Marsh was born in New Haven. Samuel Marsh was one of the eighty associates who in 1665 bought the Elizabethtown Grant of East New Jersey that comprised about 500,000 acres. This tract was purchased from the Lenape.
John built a sawmill in Elizabethtown and is credited with building the first permanent sawmill in New Jersey. John Marsh and Elizabeth Clark were married in Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth), New Jersey about 1682. They settled in Rahway where they were parents of twelve children. After settling in Rahway, John built a dam on the Rahway River and built another sawmill there. He also had a grist mill. He sold out the mills in 1692 and was in New York for a time before returning to Tremley Point on the Rahway River where he remained for the rest of his life.
Rahway began as an outgrowth of Woodbridge and Elizabethtown in the form of outlying plantations. We have several ancestors who were first settlers in Woodbridge and Elizabethtown. The land for Rahway was obtained from the Lenape and it is tradition that Rahway was named for the Lenape chief Rahwack. In a bitter irony, John and Elizabeth Marsh's daughter Elizabeth, who is our ancestor, was killed along with her husband and 13-year old son by the Lenape in 1750.
A little family trivia: Cousin Emily Marsh's parents were Franklin Marsh and Mary "Ella" Tappan. Both Franklin Marsh and Ella Tappan are direct descendants of our ancestors John Marsh and Elizabeth Clark. The Esler, Tappan, and Van Winkle lines of our ancestors all converge in Rahway. Rahway is the birthplace of grandmother Vera Esler Abbott. Elm Street in Rahway in the early 1900's is pictured below.
