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Note: From The Blew Hills by Mrs. Rawson- "The well-known common of a New England town generally centered that town, surrounded by its oldest and finest dwellings, and was actually common land for all. Originally the Common was a common pasture land for stock which could not be turned loose in the forests for fear of wild animals; a protected area for man and beast alike, walled in by houses and barns against prowling beasts just as wagon trains to the west circled themselves at night against a possible Indian attack. In Scotch Plains the "Commons"-notice the plural- were of quite different nature, being for more than two hundred years nothing but pasture land with a few houses encroaching now and then along the edges; they did not form the center of the village but lay some half-mile to the northwest. As far as is known our friend Robert Fullerton, 1684, was the first white owner of these Commons, with possibly a bit belonging to Peter Sonmans on the western limit and a slice for the Alexanders on the eastern. The next name with which they are associated is that of Swem or Swan, one Amos Swan, who not only kept a tavern on the upper end but dealt in thoroughbred horses as well. Amos had a brother, Jedidiah, and both of them married daughters of Recompence Stanbery II. Jedidiah was a man of some means and importance in the village life and a captain in the Revolutionary War, but although more outstanding than Amos in his day, his day was shorter, for he died childless while Amos gave five children to the world to carry on after his day was over. Propinquity did its work in this family as in so many others on the plains and elsewhere, and three of Amos' daughters married into well known pioneer families of Darby, Miller and Osborn. What more natural, when the same setting sun shone in their nearby windows and the same moonlight stirred their neighboring breasts? Amos' son Samuel, became the owner of much of the Commons, and in 1816 they were still in his name. The original Amos had an outstanding modern business characteristic, for he believed in advertising, something which most of his generation fought shy of except when they wanted to find a runaway slave, or had lost a pocketbook on the highway. In 1778, Amos was running his ads in The New York Gazetteer and Weekly Mercury, published sometimes in Newark and sometimes in New York City. Readers of these advertisements soon became familiar with his famous stallion, TRAVELLER, always in capitals, who was most thoroughly described, and we are glad that Amos was as thorough in telling just where his tavern stood. Today a tiny and ancient cottage stands on this very spot, a cottage believed to have been the Swan home-since one extra room could turn a private home into a tavern, until the law of seven featherbeds to each publick house became a legal demand and nuisance. The late owner of the cottage, old Mr. Yoerg, who had been head gardener at the Coles estate, had it for life use from his old employer, J. Ackerman Coles, and put his great skill to work on these tiny grounds beneath the Blew Mountains, with velvet lawn, unusual shrubs, rustic bridge over silver brook, and masses of flowers. As we shall see, Amos Swan's advertisements make certain the site of the farm and cottage. On the Springfield Road, a stone's throw away, his neighbor Dennis Cole's farmhouse stood, "a half mile" from the village center, with Amos's tavern on the same arc although within the Commons green. As we knew the old place it was marked by a great rustic arched gateway which started us off on our climb to the tower. In 1775 Amos Swan was known through his advertisements as a "tavern keep" at "his plantation on the Scotch Plains a short half-mile from the Meeting House on the road leading to Springfield," where he dispersed run and grog and night's lodgings. By 1778 his advertisements showed a new side line and his famous stallion TRAVELLER was introduced to the public. At this date Traveller was "rising eight years old and will cover the ensuing season at the plantation of Amos Swan on the Scotch Plains. .. Traveller is of full size 15 hands and a half high, well set to his heights, his colour is a dark claret, and very beautiful. He sprang from the best blood of Great Britain; his pedigree is the same as True Briton, they being brothers. His carriage, beauty, behavior and spirt make him the equal if not superior to any horse within this state. He is to cover at ten Dollars a mare and a Dollar to the groom, the money to be paid at the time of covering or before if required. Good pasture will be provided for Mares at Half a Dollar per week." Two years later Amos was bringing another favorite to the attention of newspaper readers under the sign of "To cover". Young PASTIME was a more expensive luxury,or perhaps American prices were going up, for he was available at $20.00, the money to be paid at the stable door, "He is six years old this grass. Certified in his qualifications by J.Ridout." All this on our old playground among the red cows.
The Swan Tavern- This was not just a high-sounding, artistic name to attract the public but the family name of those two brothers, Jedidiah and Amos, who had to be sure, arrived under the name of Swem but in the New World had become Swans. Amos, like the other taverners, may have feathered his nest by being ready for business at the outbreak of the war but he seems not to have been as monied as Jedidiah, the Financier.Amos' tavern stood almost within shouting distance of our back garden and we trod his land for years without knowing of him or his stallions, but how we did love his tiny cottage under the hillside, and its singing brook! It looks as though Amos took life easy, or else his horse-breeding interfered with his taverning, for when a man lets a bill run unpaid for six years and at the end of that time is still trusting his client, he would seem to have been at least not a grasping soul. The bill which he sent to David Squier was long in years although it added up to very small potatoes:
1775 April To Sundry 4.11 1777 July To Rum & Lodging 3.9 1781 January For Grog 1.0 ______ 9.8 Interest on above 6.11 _______ 16.7 Shillings, not dollars
Above from The Blew Hills also.
Rhoda Stanbery listed as daug Rhoda Swan will Rec 1777 #130 lists daug Phebe mar Ezra Darby #280 Rhonda daug Rec b Apr 5 1752 d 1831 mar 1st Amos Swan 2nd Thomas Nesbit #283 285 list of children w/ Amos Swan #287 288
Note: Children of second marriage, it is unknown if the middle names are middle names or married names (names obtained from will). (Below entry answers that question) Items Of Ancestry by a Descendant IMR RHODA STANBERY was born 5 April, 1752; married, 1st, Col. Jedidiah Swan and 2d, Thomas Nesbitt, b. 27 January, 1760; d. 3 February, 1816. Children:
i. PHEBE4 SWAN, ii. HANNAH SWAN, iii. FANNY NESBITT, m. David Mecker. iv. MARY NESBITT, b. 12 November, 1790; m. Henry DeGroot, q. v. v. ELIZA NESBITT, m. Robert McCarter. vi. HUGH NESBITT, b. 1796; m. Mary A. Balston; d. 7 October, 1827. vii. THOMAS NESBITT, d. in youth.
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