The Coopers of Long Hill

Document C.70 · Marriage Records and Bonds · transcription: verbatim

Marriage — NATHANIEL JOHNSON of Newark × NANCY CRANE of Livingston, ~18 Jan 1818 (Ancestry indexes 1817), Essex Co., NJ, by Rev. James Willcock of Union. Primary-source-locks [p.861]'s marriage — and CORRECTS L.4's 'Jan 1810' by ~8 years. Combined with Nathaniel's 1805 marriage to Rhoda Meeker, it proves the 1850 household's pre-1818 children (Sarah L. 1809, Thomas 1814) are NOT Nancy's. [verbatim]

Transcription and notes

Data from the record [verbatim]

(register of "Persons married by James Willcock of Union, Essex County") "…[Dec 7, 1817 — Moses Passel × Polly Campbell] … [Jan] 18. Nathaniel Johnson of Newark to Nancy Crane of Livingston … [Jan] 31. Joseph Osborn Shoemaker to Moriah Woodruff both of Camptown … 1819. …"

Date: the entry sits between the Dec 7, 1817 entry and the '1819' year-marker, so it is ~18 January 1818 (the register does not repeat the year). (Ancestry's index reads '18 Jan 1817' — off by the year-boundary; the register position gives 1818.) Parties: Nathaniel Johnson of Newark × Nancy Crane of Livingston (both Essex Co.).

Why it matters

  1. Primary-source-locks [p.861]'s marriage. "Nathaniel Johnson of Newark" = our Nathaniel (b. 2 Sep 1779 Newark, d. 20 Sep 1851 Newark, First Presbyterian Churchyard, father Jotham Johnson — per his Find A Grave). "Nancy Crane of Livingston" (Essex Co., the Crane family's own ground) = [p.861], daughter of Mary (Cooper) Crane [p.732].
  2. CORRECTS L.4's marriage date "Jan 1810" → Jan 1818 (~8-year error; the L.4 parse carries digit-misreads on faint leaves). Nancy (b. ~1786) was ~32 at marriage.
  3. Reshuffles the [D.495] children. Nathaniel had a prior marriage — × Rhoda Meeker, 23 Feb 1805, Essex Co. (NJ Marriage Records). ⇒ the two elder children in his 1850 household — Sarah L. (b. ~1809) and Thomas (b. ~1814) — were born before the 1818 Nancy marriage and are surnamed Johnson, so they are Nathaniel's by his first wife (Rhoda), NOT Nancy's → NOT Cooper descendants. Only Hannah B. (b. ~1827, post-1818) is Nancy's (a Cooper descendant). (A birth/baptism search for Thomas b.1814 in the US Presbyterian Church Records = NULL 2026-07-19 — no independent confirmation of the mother, but the surname+chronology are decisive on their own.)

Cross-references