Robert Earle – Bergen County New Jersey Branch

There were Earles in Bergen County, N. J., before the arrival of Edward of Secaucus.

The book “History of Bergen and Passaic Counties” states that there was a “Robert Earle, one of the pioneer settlers of Bergen County, N. J., located in Ridgefield, purchasing a large tract of land, beginning at North River, from thence to the Hackensack, running thence to Bull’s Ferry, to Five Corners (or Bergen), near Fort Lee, as early as 1650. He gave land to white inhabitants and formed a settlement. The only descendant of whom there is any knowledge was Robert, who married Mary Smith and then located in Ridgefield Township. What became of the others is not known, only that they moved out of Hudson County.”

There is undoubtedly some foundation in fact for this settlement, for it is too specific to be a fiction. But the question naturally arises, how is it that the owner of so large a tract of land did not leave some traces of himself in the records of Bergen County?

There ought to be deeds and wills showing the disposition of this property, but we have not been able to find them, though a careful search has been made of records at Trenton and Hackensack, and all that region, for everything relating to the name of Earle. It is true that there is a Robert Earle who appears in historical records later, who may have been the descendant of the Robert we are discussing, but he is usually identified with a great-grandson of Edward, who bore the name Robert.

There appears to be confusion in the history at this point which we shall allude to in its proper place. All we feel authorized to say now is that there was an early settler in Bergen County by the name of Robert Earle, who was a large landowner. What became of him or his descendants, or what disposition was made of his property, is not known.

The records of the Holland Society of New York show that two children of Ritsert (Richard) and Elisabeth Earle were baptized in the Bergen Church, on Nov. 4, 1666, and that among the witnesses and sponsors was a Samuel Edsall.

Ten years later the name of Samuel Edsall appears as one of the administrators from whom Edward Earle purchased the Secaucus estate. We do not know whether there was any relationship between Richard and Edward, but it is interesting to learn that several years before Edward appears in Bergen County there was one bearing his surname, in intimate association with Samuel Edsall (and also the Bayards), with whom Edward came to have important dealings.

Richard may have been a descendant of Robert, and Edward may have been led to Bergen County through the influence of kinspeople. Other evidence of the presence of Earles in Bergen County before the arrival of Edward, is to be found in the large number of names on the church records in that county which cannot be identified as descendants of Edward of Secaucus.