NJ Supreme Court Case File — Daniel Cooper Sen.r Esq. v. William Earl of Stirling & Benjamin Cooper Esq., Morris 1771 — Case 5839 — Debt on Bond (penal £2,000 NY money; condition £1,000) — manuscript pull (NJSA Order 202605-87245 / pr.77). CORRECTION to K.30: the plaintiff/creditor is Daniel Cooper SENIOR, not Daniel Jr (confirmed by the NJSA finding-aid party row AND the bond text 'the s.d Daniel Cooper Sen.r'). Penal bond dated 10 April 1771, Stirling + Benjamin Cooper jointly bound to Daniel Sr to pay £1,000 by 12 April 1771; autograph signatures 'Stirling (L.S.)' + 'Benj.n Cooper (L.S.)'; judgment for plaintiff + £4.16.10 costs; sheriff (Jonathan Stiles) levied on the Hibernia Furnace ~2,000-acre tract at Pequannock Twp (already under prior executions, unsold). Recorded Process Book 11 p.416.

Transcription and notes

Manuscript pull received 2026-06-16 via NJSA Order 202605-87245 (pr.77). Index source: K.30 record #13. File: (image held in the family archive) (12 pp).

CORRECTION — the plaintiff is Daniel Cooper SENIOR, not Junior

K.30 (both the 63-record and 29-record NJSA exports) rendered this case as "Daniel Cooper Jr. v. Benjamin Cooper + Lord Stirling", and the catalog built synthesis on a Daniel-Jr-suing-his-brother reading. The manuscript refutes the suffix:

• The NJSA finding aid's party row reads: "Cooper, Daniel Sr. (Esquire) — PLAINTIFF."
• The bond text itself (PDF p.5) names the obligee as "the s.d Daniel Cooper Sen.r" of "the County of Morris & Province aforesaid."

So the creditor is p.1 Daniel Cooper Sr (age ~76 in 1771), not Daniel Jr. The finding aid does carry one internal inconsistency — the attorney row reads "Ogden, Abraham (Attorney) (for Daniel Cooper Jr.)" — but the authoritative party designation and the manuscript both say Sen.r; the "Jr." in the attorney row is treated as an NJSA-indexing slip.

This is not an intra-family suit between brothers; it is Daniel Sr (father) as creditor of a joint obligation by Lord Stirling + his son Capt. Benjamin Cooper.

Source identification (NJSA finding aid, p.0–p.1) [verbatim]

The bond (PDF p.5) [verbatim / closely transcribed from cursive]

The penal bond, closely transcribed:

"KNOW all Men by these Presents that We William [Earl of] Stirling & Benjamin Cooper of the Province of [New Jerse]y are held & firmly bound unto Daniel Coop[er] of the County of Morris & Province af[oresai]d in the [Sum of two thousa]nd Pounds Current Money of New York to be [paid to] the s[ai]d Daniel Cooper Sen.r … or to his certain Attorney[,] Executors[,] Administrators or Assigns: To which Payment [tru]ly to be made we do bind ourselves[,] our Heirs & [Executors &] Administrators firmly by these Presents[,] Sealed [with our] Seal & Dated the Tenth Day of April in the [year of o]ur Lord one Thousand seven hundred & seventy [one], the eleventh year of the Reign of our Sovereign [Geo]rge the Third…"

Condition (immediately following):

"THE Condition of this Obligation is such [that if] the above bounden William Earl of Stirling [& Benj]amin Cooper[,] their Heirs[,] Executors[,] Admini[strators] or any of them shall & do well & truly pay [or cause] to be paid unto the above mentioned Da[niel] Cooper or to his certain Attorney[,] Executors[,] Ad[minis]trators or Assigns the just & full Sum of one [thousa]nd Pounds Current Money af[oresai]d on or before [the twelf]th Day of April instant without any Frau[d or] Delay[,] then this Obligation to be void or [else to remain in full force]…"

Signatures (foot of bond, autograph, each with locus sigilli):

"Stirling (L.S.)" "Benj.n Cooper (L.S.)"

= penal bond of £2,000 NY money, condition to pay £1,000 by 12 April 1771 (two days after the bond date). Standard double-penalty form.

Outcome / execution (per finding aid + case papers)

• Judgment for the plaintiff Daniel Cooper Sen.r, with costs £4.16.10.
• Execution: Sheriff of Morris Jonathan Stiles levied on the Hibernia Furnace tract (~2,000 acres, Pequannock Township) — but the tract was already under prior executions and went unsold.
• Recorded Process Book 11, page 416.

Catalog synthesis (interpretive — not data)

The Stirling + Benjamin Cooper joint £1,000 obligation runs to Daniel Cooper SR. This reframes the K.30 §4 reading and the pr.52 context: in April 1771, Lord Stirling and Capt. Benjamin Cooper were jointly indebted to Daniel Cooper Sr (£1,000, penal £2,000), and Daniel Sr enforced it via judgment + a sheriff's levy on the Hibernia Furnace tract — the same Stirling/Benjamin iron-works property documented in K.9. This places Daniel Sr (not Jr) as the creditor inside the Stirling–Benjamin–Hibernia financial nexus two years before the pr.52 1773 Cooper–Stirling letter, and adds to the K.33 picture of Benjamin's chronic indebtedness around the failing Hibernia operation. The bond does not state the consideration behind the £1,000 (loan? iron-works advance? prior account?).

Cross-references

• K.30 — index source (record #13); this entry corrects the K.30 "Daniel Cooper Jr." attribution to Daniel Cooper Sr. (see K.30 §4 + record-13 row — to be annotated).
• K.33 Benjamin Cooper Supreme Court search — Benjamin's Hibernia/Stirling debt nexus 1769-1791; 5839 confirmed there as a Benjamin co-defendant.
• K.9 Benjamin's Hibernia/Pequannock Lord Stirling iron-works partnership — the Hibernia Furnace tract levied here.
• pr.52 Cooper-Stirling 1773 letter acquisition — the 1771 bond is a 2-years-prior Cooper–Stirling financial document.
• p.1 Daniel Cooper Sr (plaintiff/creditor) · p.2 Capt Benjamin Cooper (co-obligor) · p.79 Daniel Cooper Jr (NOT the plaintiff — correction).