Hunterdon County, New Jersey — Inferior Court of Common Pleas, the original ALIAS CAPIAS AD SATISFACIENDUM in James Cole v. Benjamin Cooper, tested the first Tuesday in May 1789 at Trenton before Joseph Read[in]g Esq., Judge, returnable August Term 1789, with its DORSE. Loose court paper, case file 34791, FamilySearch Hunterdon, New Jersey. Court Records 1713-1860, IGN 008351249, images 211 (dorse) and 212 (recto) of 957.

What this document records

🎯🎯 the writ to arrest benjamin coopers body

THIS IS A WRIT TO TAKE THE MAN, NOT THE GOODS. Read off the recto at 4-7×; […] marks an expansion, [illegible] a defeat.

“Hunterdon ss: The State of New Jersey to the Sheriff of the County of Hunterdon [Gree]ting: We > command you that you take Benjamin Cooper of your Bailiwick he may be found & him safely keep so that > you may have his Body before the Judges of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas at Trenton in & for the > County of Hunterdon on [the] first Tuesday in August next to satisfy James Cole the [illegible — > struck through and over-written] pounds eight shillings & eight pence ^(with interest)^ which the > s[ai]d James Cole lately before the Judges af[oresai]d recovered against him & al[so] one pound fifteen > shillings & six pence which in the Court by the Judges af[oresai]d were adjudged to the s[ai]d James > for the Damages which he had sustained by occasion of detaining that Debt whereof the s[ai]d Benjamin > is conv[icte]d and have you then there this Writ. Witness Joseph Read[in]g Esq. Judge of the s[ai]d > Court at Trenton af[oresai]d the first Tuesday in May in the year of our Lord Seventeen h[undr]ed > Eighty nine.” “with interest” is a caret insertion above the line. “conv[icte]d” is the period's word for a judgment entered against him — not a criminal conviction; the identical wording appears in [A.177]. The pound figure on the recto is NOT READ.** It sits at the line break, struck through and written over; at 9× it remains a blot. The dorse supplies it — see below — but the two are recorded separately rather than merged.

📋 the dorse the docket the bill and the sheriff

The dorse carries the docket panel, read at 3-8×:

“Hunt[erdon] P[lea]s. [a?]lias > * James Cole } Ca: S[a:] > * vt } in a[ction of] d[ebt] > * Benj[ami]n Cooper } > * Pl[ainti]ff [attorney — flourished, not read] > * Ret. to August term 1789 > > * Bill dated 28ᵗʰ Apr 1782 > * *for — — — — — — £30 . 8 > * Int. ~~from Oct till~~ [interlined, illegible] > * £2 . 2 . 7 . p[e]r year > * Costs taxed at —— [£1?] 15 > * *Add costs on ye Writ — 4 — > * Besides [sheriff's?] fees — 50 > > Jn[o] Lowrey Sh[erif]f” A stamped archival number 34791 sits at the head of the sheet — inside this reel's stated volume range no. 34711-35103, so the stamp is the case-file number, the same convention as [A.177]'s 19880 in the 19721-20060 reel. The writ-type word is read as [a?]lias — the letters -lias are clear, the initial is a tall looped stroke. Nothing is built on it here. An alias writ is a re-issue after an earlier one came back unexecuted; if that is what this word says it would mean a first capias had already failed, and that argument belongs on Benjamin Cooper, not in this entry. Jn[o] Lowrey is a DIFFERENT sheriff from [A.177]'s J. Anderson** (1783). Six years separate the two writs. → [name.583].

✅✅ it corroborates a 114 which was pure ocr

[A.114] ALREADY HELD THIS SUIT — from machine text alone, with read_zoom: NONE. This is the first time any of it has been read off an image. [A.114] cites three minute-book/docket stages at three other IGNs; this is the loose ORIGINAL WRIT behind the capias stage, exactly as [A.177] is the original behind [A.81]'s minute entry. | [A.114], from OCR | this writ, read at 4-9× | |---|---| | bond dated “the twenty eighth Day of April … 1782” | dorse: Bill dated 28ᵗʰ Apr 1782 | | “thirty pounds eight shillings and eight pence in silver or gold” | dorse £30 . 8 + recto “pounds eight shillings & eight pence” | | “a capias ad satisfaciendum in 1789” | dorse Ca: S[a:], teste May 1789 | | a “Bill obligatory” | dorse Bill dated… — the docket uses the same word | This matters beyond tidiness. [A.114] carries a standing warning that “the sums are the values most at risk, and one has already been fixed” — an earlier reading of the 1789 writ page had guessed “about £2,000”, a figure that would have made Cole a second catastrophe rather than a modest creditor. ⇒ The £30 8s 8d correction is now confirmed from the manuscript, and the OCR-only caveat can come off that value. ONE THING DOES NOT MATCH, AND IT IS RECORDED AS A DIFFERENCE, NOT RECONCILED. [A.114] places the capias at October Term 1789, IGN 008218330 image 41. This writ is returnable to AUGUST Term 1789, at a different IGN. The catalog does not assert whether these are two writs or one mis-read date; → t1.

🆕 the series is many reels and that changed a conclusion

Hunterdon, New Jersey. Court Records 1713-1860 IS NOT ONE REEL — it is a numbered series of loose case files spread over many reels, each with its own DGS, its own groupId and its own case-number range. | DGS | groupId | images | case-file range | what is in it | |---|---|---|---|---| | 008351212 | TH-909-78523-18257-81 | 884 | no. 19721-20060 | [A.177], file 19880 | | 008351249 | TH-909-78524-134327-77 | 957 | no. 34711-35103 | [A.178], file 34791 | This is why a “volume swept, only Cooper is A.177” conclusion would have been wrong. A Cooper sweep of DGS 008351212 returns exactly 3 hits — two are [A.177]'s own faces, the third a false positive — and it would have been natural to write that up as the Hunterdon court-records result. [A.178] sits on a different reel of the same series and would never have appeared. Navigation for both is recorded in films/.

🔎 the false positive recorded so it is not re-chased

One Cooper hit in DGS 008351212 is NOT a Cooper — image 655, where the HTR reads “and Ellen Cooper of Joseph Lobeyham”. The manuscript, read at 3× on the native image, says and Ten Clem Gaus[h]er of Joseph Lobeyheaux — a £55 writ in an unrelated suit. No artifact was filed for it and none is needed; it is written down only so nobody spends the download again.