Hunterdon County, New Jersey — Inferior Court of Common Pleas, the original WRIT OF EXECUTION in Daniel Cooper v. Benjamin Cooper, tested 9 May 1783 at Trenton before Joseph Reading Esq., Judge, returnable the first Friday in August next, with its DORSE — the docket panel, the sheriff's levy return and a Supreme Court no-error certificate. Loose court paper, FamilySearch Hunterdon, New Jersey. Court Records 1713-1860, IGN 008351212, images 379 (dorse) and 380 (recto) of 884.

What this document records

🎯🎯🎯 this is the writ behind the sheriffs sale and the catalog had only its shadow

[pr.53] IS NAMED FOR THIS CASE, AND THIS IS THE INSTRUMENT ITSELF. Until now the catalog reached Daniel Cooper v. Benjamin Cooper only through [A.81] — the levy entry in the Common Pleas MINUTES, August Term 1783, Vol. 13 — and [J.9], the newspaper advertisement of the sale that followed. This is the court's own original loose paper commanding that levy. And the two fit exactly. The writ is tested 9 May 1783 and is returnable “on the first Friday in August next” — which is the August Term 1783 that [A.81] records. ⇒ writ → levy → sale is now documented end to end, with only the sale's outcome still unfound.

📜 the operative words re-read at 4x

Re-read off the manuscript at 4×, not taken from the machine transcript:

“You should cause to be made the sum of Two Thousand two hundred and thirty six Pounds lawfull > Money of New-Jersey which Daniel Cooper, lately in Our Inferior Court of Common Pleas held at > Trenton in and for the County of Hunterdon recovered against him of Debt…” “…Witness Joseph Reading Esquire, Judge of the said Court at Trenton aforesaid the ninth ____ > day of May in the Year of Our Lord, One Thousand seven hundred and Eighty three.” £2,236 — and the catalog has never had the figure. [A.81] itemises what was seized; it does not state the judgment debt. Set against [D.599]: Benjamin's whole Lebanon assessment in 1784 was £89 16s, and his entire estate inventory at death in 1795 came to £171 5s 3d ([A.4]). No conclusion is drawn from that comparison — a judgment debt and a tax levy are different measures — but the order of magnitude is recorded because it is the first number the case has ever carried.

📋 the writ as the machine transcript renders it

Given as FamilySearch's transcript has it, flagged as machine output, because its boilerplate is not relied on. Its known slips are corrected in brackets.

“Hunt[erdon] on [ss]: The State of New Jersey to the Sheriff of the County of Hunterdon Greeting. > You are hereby commanded that of the Goods and [chattels] of Benjamin Cooper, otherwise called > Benjamin Cooper [of Leb]anon Township in the County of [Hunterdon] and State of New Jersey you should > cause to be made the sum of Two Thousand two hundred and thirty six pounds lawfull Money of New > [Jersey] which Daniel Cooper, lately in Our Inferior Court of Common Pleas held at [Trenton] in and > for the County of Hunterdon recovered against him of Debt, as also four pounds six Shillings > which to the said Daniel in the said Court were adjudged for his Damages which he had sustained by > Occasion of the detention of that Debt whereof the said Benjamin is Convicted as appears of > Record. > > …so much of the Goods Chattels and personal Estate of the said Benjamin as may be found within thy > Bailiw[ick] as may be sufficient to satisfy the same. But if so much thereof thou canst not find, > then and in that case you are commanded to seize sell and dispose of so much (and no more … as may > be) of the Hereditaments Real Estate House[s] and Lands of the said Benjamin as will be sufficient to > satisfy the whole of the residue… > > And have you the monies before the said Judges at Trenton aforesaid on the first Friday in August > next to render unto the aforesaid Daniel for his Debt and Damages aforesaid, and have you also then > and there this Writ.” The escalation clause is the point. It is a fieri facias de bonis et terris: goods and chattels FIRST, and land only if the goods fall short. ⇒ That is why [J.9] advertises the beds, books, horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, waggon and ploughs ALONGSIDE the plantation — the writ required the personal estate to be exhausted first. It also means the land was sold because £2,236 could not be raised from the chattels, which is a measure of how far the debt exceeded his moveable wealth.

🎯🎯🎯 the dorse carries the sheriffs levy return verbatim

IMAGE 379 IS THE DORSE, AND IT CARRIES THE SHERIFF'S RETURN — the itemised levy, in his own hand, signed. Transcribed by eye at 7–18× (see read_zoom); line breaks are the manuscript's own. […] marks an expansion, [?] an uncertainty, [illegible] a defeat.

“By Virtue of the within Writt I have Levied on 3 B: B: > 2 Tables, Desk, Book Case & Sundry Books & Trunks & [2?] Kitchen > & 10 Common chairs & Kitchen Tables & Sundry Kitchen Furniture > 1 Negroe Boy 8 Horses & Horned Cattle. 10 Hogs, Waggon Geers > Sleigh, Fand[?] Mill, Plow & Harrow, Sider Mill, 5 Hogsheads > & Barrells 423 Acres of Land. Bounded by Lands Peter Scomp > & others, Crop of Wheat & Rye on the Ground, a crop Indian Corn > oats & flax, to the Value of £5-0-0 30 Acres of [illegible — struck through and blotted] Land > which Remain* J. Anderson Sh[f]f” [A.81] INDEPENDENTLY CORROBORATES THIS RETURN, AND EACH DOCUMENT RESOLVES THE OTHER'S GAPS. [A.81] is the minute book entry of the same levy — a different clerk, a different volume, the same event. Set side by side: | dorse ([A.177], image 379) | minute book ([A.81]) | what the pairing settles | |---|---|---| | 3 B: B: | “3 beds & bedding” | the abbreviation is expanded — B: B: = beds & bedding | | 423 Acres of Land | “[4]23 [?] Acres” — leading digit flagged uncertain | 423 confirmed, from a second hand | | to the Value of £5-0-0 | “Value £5 [?]” — figure flagged faint | £5 confirmed | | 1 Negroe Boy | “one Negro Boy” | both records carry him | | 8 Horses & Horned Cattle | “4 Horses, 8 Cattle” | the two do not agree — recorded, not reconciled | | oats & flax | “Oats & Hay” | likewise | | Bounded by Lands Peter Scomp & others | (absent) | only the dorse gives a bounding owner | | (absent) | “& Sundry other Articles” | the minute book's catch-all for the dorse's long list | The two livestock disagreements are left standing.* Either clerk could have miscounted or mis-copied, and the catalog has no basis to prefer one — but the dorse is the sheriff's own return and the minute book is a clerk's abstract of it. A marginal line on the same sheet, written across the upper fold at 90° to everything else, reads “some Table Lining” — table linen. *Whether it is an addendum to this inventory or an unrelated jotting is not determinable from the page, so it is recorded as what it is: a marginal phrase, not an inventory line. This is the LEVY, not a sale return. It states what was seized, and “which Remain” — it does not say what anything fetched, and it names no purchaser. ⇒ [pr.53]'s standing unknown — who bought the plantation in 1784 — is still unknown, and t2 closes without answering it.

🎯🎯 423 acres and the number lands on the nose

THE LEVY SAYS 423 ACRES — and that is the number the catalog already had, from twelve and fourteen years later. | source | date | acreage | |---|---|---| | [A.177] dorse — the sheriff's levy | 1783 | 423 acres | | [K.46] — Daniel Cooper of Morris Co. to John H Cooper John H. Cooper | Jan 1795 | the same plantation | | [K.52] — John H. Cooper to Nicholas Stillwell, mortgage (img0412) | 29 Jan 1797 | 423.3 acres | The tract is therefore one continuous identifiable parcel across the whole sequence, and the sheriff's 1783 description of it — “Bounded by Lands Peter Scomp & others” — is the earliest bounding call the catalog holds for it. [name.580] is filed for that reason: a bounding owner is how a tract is re-found in a deed index when its own chain goes cold, which is exactly [pr.53]'s and [K.46] t3/t4's problem. [J.9] advertises “four hundred acres” in April 1784. No discrepancy is asserted — a newspaper advertisement rounds and a levy does not — but the two figures are recorded side by side rather than reconciled.

🚨 an enslaved boy was seized under this writ

THE LEVY'S FOURTH LINE BEGINS 1 Negroe Boy. He is listed between the kitchen furniture and the horses, in the ordinary order of a chattel inventory, because that is what the law of 1783 New Jersey made of him. The catalog records this because it happened and the document says it. He is given no name, no age and no further description anywhere on the sheet, and the return does not say what became of him. Nothing about his fate is inferred — not from [J.9], which advertises the sale, and not from [A.4], Benjamin Cooper's 1795 inventory. ⇒ A person appears once in this record and then not again. Follow-ups exist and are real, not gestures. [J.9]'s advertisement should be re-read for whether the boy was advertised with the goods (→ t5), and [A.4] for whether any enslaved person appears in the 1795 estate. If a name is ever recovered he gets a people/ file like anyone else.

📋 the docket panel on the dorse and it names the attorney

The dorse's second block is the court's own docket endorsement, read at 3–10×:

“Hunterdon Pleas. Burcham Att[orne]y > * Daniel Cooper } Fi: fa. > * vs de bonis et > * Benjamin Cooper } Terris in > * Debt. > * *Ret[urna]ble August Term 1783. > * Bond dated 1ˢᵗ March > * 1773 for — — — — 1118 — · · — > * *Int. thereof till paid > * Costs taxed at ——— £4. 6. 0 > > Besides Execution fees. > Attest* > J. Anderson Sh[f]f > > Rec'd 20ᵗʰ May 8 P M” *Burcham Att[orne]y RESOLVES t1's second signature. The short mark at the lower left of the recto — which FamilySearch's transcript garbles into “Burchan A. Clock” — is the same hand writing the same thing: a surname plus Atty. Filed as [name.582]. Surname only; Burcham / Burchan cannot be fully separated. (The recto's other signature, possibly …Stockton, is still unread — t1 stays open for it alone.) Bond dated 1ˢᵗ March 1773 for 1118, and the recto's judgment is 2236. 1118 × 2 = 2236 exactly. The docket's Costs taxed at £4. 6. 0 likewise matches the recto's “four pounds six Shillings” damages exactly. ⇒ the two faces of the sheet corroborate each other arithmetically, each read independently. What the doubling MEANS is not argued here — that belongs on Benjamin Cooper with the rest of the debt-collapse synthesis. This docket corrects a two-month-old catalog reading. [A.81] summarised this same block on 2026-07-14 as “Bond dated 1st March 1773 for 8[%] Int[erest]”, and the phantom 8% rate propagated into Benjamin Cooper. The 8 is the last digit of 1118; Int. thereof till paid is the next line. Both files were corrected 2026-09-11. 1 March 1773 is FLAGGED, NOT CONNECTED. The bond predates by roughly six months the September 1773 counterfeiting conviction and reprieve that [I.89] (Tuttle) reports for a Benjamin Cooper. The catalog asserts no relation whatever between the two — a bond is an ordinary instrument and the proximity may be pure coincidence. It is written down only so that nobody has to notice it twice. Rec'd 20ᵗʰ May 8 P M — the HOUR is recorded because priority ran from it. Competing executions ranked by the moment the writ reached the sheriff. Benjamin Cooper Benjamin Cooper was under at least one other 1783 judgment ([K.37], the Vanderveer scire facias), so the timestamp could matter if a second execution ever surfaces.

🆕 a supreme court certificate and a findable record book

The dorse's third block is not Common Pleas at all — it is the SUPREME COURT, written across the upper fold:

“I have inspected this Process, and there is > not any Error therein apparent to me > David Brearley > > Recorded in the Clerk's Office of the > Supreme Court in Book O of Rolls > and Process Pages 457–8 > Wm [illegible surname]” Book O of Rolls and Process, pages 457–8 IS A CITATION TO A SURVIVING SERIES. ⇒ a second, independent, recorded copy of this proceeding exists in the New Jersey Supreme Court's rolls, at a stated page. → t4. David Brearley is already in the catalog — Benjamin Cooper records him as the Chief Justice behind the 1783 scire facias at [K.37]. That he certifies this paper too is recorded as a fact about the document; no inference is drawn about the two cases' relationship. What the certificate MEANS is deliberately not stated. A no-error certificate of this form belongs to review on a writ of error, but this entry does not assert that a writ of error was brought, nor what came of it — the page says only what is quoted. The recording clerk's surname (Wm ____, faint and heavily flourished) defeated every contrast pass; a stamped archival number 19880 sits beside it.

⚠️ what is not read

ONE signature at the foot of the RECTO is still not read. At the lower right, a flowing signature the machine transcript does not resolve, ending in what may be …Stockton. Not recorded as a reading. A Common Pleas writ of this date would be signed by the clerk who issued it — so the name is worth having. → t1. t1's SECOND signature is resolved — the lower-left mark is Burcham Att[orne]y, per the docket panel above. t2 is CLOSED: the dorse was found (image 379), read in full, and carries the sheriff's levy return. It does not name a purchaser, so what t2 was hoping for is still absent. Still not read on the dorse: one word struck through and over-blotted before “Land” on the penultimate line of the levy; the Supreme Court recording clerk's surname; and whether “Fand Mill” (line 5) is “Fan'd Mill” / “Fanning Mill” — the glyphs are clear but the abbreviation is not.

🔎 how it was found the route is worth keeping

Found by FamilySearch FULL-TEXT search, not by paging a film. The query was "Benjamin Cooper" Hunterdon, run 2026-09-11 while working [K.46] t1. CORRECTION, 2026-09-11 (later). This key first said “the volume that carries it … was not previously in the catalog at all.” That was wrong. [A.81] cited IGN 008351212, images 379 and 380 on 2026-07-14 — the same two frames — and quoted the writ at length. So this entry re-found a volume the catalog had already used, and the dorse it treated as an open question (t2) had in fact been summarised in [A.81] for two months. The re-read was still worth it: [A.81]'s one-line summary of image 379 mis-transcribed the bond (see [A.81]'s 2026-09-11 correction block) and caught none of the three endorsement blocks in full. The lesson is the ordinary one and the catalog keeps re-learning it — grep the catalog for the IGN before declaring a source new. What IS true and worth keeping: the volume's span covers both this case and the 1795-1802 Orphans' Court window [pr.86] is asking the Hunterdon Surrogate to search by post, and it has still never been swept for Cooper. Navigation is now recorded in films/film.008351212.yaml. The searchable Hunterdon volumes now known, recorded so the route is not re-derived: Court Records 1713-1860 · Other Records / Miscellaneous Records / Loan Books / Court Records 1713-1860 · Mortgages 1766-1811 · Miscellaneous Records 1700-1900 · Deeds 1796-1802 · Death Records 1753-1923 · Genealogies 1700-1900, 1769-1977, 1790-1960.