Warren Co. Orphans' Court minutes v. 4 (1851–1857) — the volume's own alphabetical index, C block, and the minute at p. 222 it points to: the final settlement of Joseph Cooper's estate.

Transcription and notes

Provenance, the same-reel-different-item trap, and the two-step index lookup are in the source: and coverage: headers and are not repeated here.

Same reel as film.5679606, different item. Item 1 is v.3 ("Court Minutes 1844-1857" in the catalogue) and is not full-text indexed; item 2 is. See the film file for why that distinction cost a day.

Images downloaded 2026-08-09 and saved to Death/Wills and Probate/New Jersey/Warren County/Warren County NJ Orphans Court Minutes v3-4 1844-1857/: - (image held in the family archive) (4553 × 3644) — the main C block - (image held in the family archive) (4550 × 3575) — the continuation - (image held in the family archive) (4472 × 3472)

Transcribed by eye at 3–8× from the saved JPEGs — not from FamilySearch's machine transcript.

Data from the document — the INDEX, C block (item 2, image 6) [verbatim]

The C block occupies both pages of image 6 and nothing else. Columns are surname + given name + "decd" | nature of the action | minute-book page. Three Cooper lines, all reading "Cooper Joseph":

left page: "Cooper Joseph " Rule to Limit 82. final do 173 ———— 82"

right page: "Cooper Joseph decd Settlement — 222"

Their neighbours, transcribed to fix their position in the block:

(left page, around the first entry) "Conover Aaron " Order for Sale of land — 73 / Chamberlin John " Order for division — 77 / Cooper Joseph … / Caskey Robert C " final do do — 83 / Conover Aaron " do do — 84"

(right page, around the second) "Cummins Rebecca J. & Anna Maria Minors Guardianship — 213 / Cooper Joseph decd Settlement — 222 / Chambers Saml " Final rule to Limit — 224"

No other Cooper appears anywhere in the C block — the block was read line by line across both pages (see the completeness note below).

At the foot of the C block, written vertically in the outer margin:

"See Letter E"

Correction (same day). This was first transcribed here as "See Letter Q" — with a stated letterform justification against the clerk's capital E in "Estate". That was wrong; the maintainer read E and the reading is confirmed by what the pointer actually leads to (below). A contested glyph is settled by following it, not by arguing about its shape.

Data from the document — the C OVERFLOW the pointer leads to (item 2, image 8, right page) [verbatim]

The E block occupies image 8's left page; its right page carries the continuation of C, covering exactly the book pages the main block could not hold. 14 lines, then blank:

"Cole Samuel decd — Order for Sale of Real estate to pay debts — 495 Cline Jacob " — Final Settlement — 503 Cummins Peter " — Settlement 1st Account — 504 Do do " — Order in reference to Suit on bond of Saml Cooke — 5[1]5 (struck through) Carter Mary " — Rule to Bar — 521 Cummins Peter " — do do — 522 Court Special Term Nov 10th 1857 — 526 Crane Ros[s][?] decd — Order for division of Real Estate — 539 Cole Samuel " — Report of Administrators sale of land confirmed — 541 Cline Elizabeth — Settlement — 542 Carpenter John J " — do — 543 Cole Samuel — Rule to bar — 549 Crane Ros[s][?] " — Order for sale of land — 549 Coats Joseph " — Citations returned & rule for hearing on caveat to will — 550"

No Cooper. Note "Saml Cooke" in the struck Cummins line — a Cooke, not a Cooper, and the nearest thing on the page to a false positive.

Image saved as (image held in the family archive).

Data from the document — minute-book page 222 (item 2, image 148) [verbatim]

The page is headed 222. Entries are formulaic, each a two-part minute:

"In the matter of the account of Edward Chandler administrator of Joseph Cooper deceased Final Settlement The like rule in all things as above"

Its immediate neighbours on the same page, for context:

"In the matter of the account of Amos Stiff & Archibald Christian administrators of Richard Stiff deceased — Final Settlement — The like rule as in the preceding account" "In the matter of the account of Josiah Dewitt & Charlott Brands Executors of Daniel Brands decd — Final Settlement" "In the matter of the second account of Reeder T. Slack administrator of Mathias Slack deceased — Final Settlement" "In the matter of the account of Silas Smith administrator of Mary Smith deceased — Final Settlement" "In the matter of the account of Samuel Fitts administrator of Mary Fitts deceased — Final Settlement" "In the matter of the account of Daniel Obiet[?] Admr &c of Lucy Bodine deceased — Final Settlement" "In the matter of the first account of Cummins C. Harris Executor of John Schmuck deceased — Final Settlement" "In the matter of the account of Ephraim Galloway Executor of Jane Galloway deceased — Final Settlement"

The entry does NOT enumerate heirs. "The like rule in all things as above" incorporates a rule stated in full at the head of the sequence; the full wording is on an earlier page and has not been read.

Completeness of the C-block negative — now CLOSED

The main C block's page column runs monotonically 6 → 491 across both pages of image 6; the overflow on image 8's right page picks up at 495 and runs to 550, where it stops with the rest of the page blank. Every line of both was read. ⇒ Joseph Cooper is the only Cooper indexed in this volume, across its whole page range. That is a real negative, not a gap in the search — and it matters because v.4 covers 1851–1857, the years in which [p.13] Aaron Cooper Sr's four minor children needed a guardian.

Residual caveats, stated honestly. 1. It is a negative about the index, not proof no proceeding exists — a clerk can omit an entry. 2. The index has not been read end to end. Item-2 images 1–12 and 14–28 are accounted for (see film.5679606.yaml index_map); 13, 15, 24, 26, 27 and 29+ have not been opened. The C question is closed, but the clerk demonstrably wrote overflow onto whatever nearby page had room, so this is not a guarantee about stray lines elsewhere. 3. A Cooper guardianship might legitimately never reach the minutes — the Letters of administration and guardianship series ([A.122]'s source) is a different record.

Cross-references

• A.94 Joseph Cooper 1852 Letters of Admin — names Edward Chandler as administrator; the link that makes this identification certain.
• A.41 · A.53 — the 1852 probate reference and inventory.
• A.122 — a different Warren Co. Cooper administration, found in the sibling Letters of administration and guardianship series.
• p.112 Joseph Cooper of Independence Twp Warren

Open follow-ups

• Read minute-book pages 82 and 173 (the Rule to Limit and the final rule) — item-2 images ≈ 68 and ≈ 113 by interpolation. Rules to limit creditors do not normally name kin, so the expected yield is low.
• Read the full "rule as above" at the head of the final-settlement sequence, so what the formula incorporates is on record.
• Open the last un-opened index images (13, 15, 24, 26, 27, 29+) to make the end-to-end read complete. Low expected yield now that the C block is closed.