Mortgage — JOHN H. COOPER (Lebanon Twp) to NICHOLAS STILLWELL (Readington), 29 Jan 1797 — the 423³⁄₁₀-ac former-Benjamin-Cooper plantation (= the K.46 tract) mortgaged for £250 specie [verbatim]

Transcription and notes

Filename: (image held in the family archive) = Hunterdon Co. Mortgage Book 2. From the Sue Bennett (Hunterdon Co. Clerk) care package, received 2026-07-07 (pr.53).

A NEW John H. Cooper primary source (his second-latest firm attestation, after the 1795 deeds): two years after receiving the plantation from Daniel Sr ([K.46]), John H. Cooper mortgaged it — so as of Jan 1797 he still held the 423³⁄₁₀-ac Lebanon core tract and was raising cash against it.

Data from the document [verbatim]

• Endorsement: "John H Cooper / to / Nicholas Stillwell." (Maintainer marginal note: "Lender is: Nicholas STILLWELL (Morris!)".)
• Instrument + date: "Mortgage Deed dated 2[9]th day of January 1797 From John H. Cooper of the Township of Lebanon in the County of Hunterdon and State of New Jersey To Nicholas Stillwell of Readingtown [Readington] in the County aforesaid."
• Property: "for all that tract of Land Situate in Lebanon aforesaid and is butted and bounded as follows Beginning at a White Oak tree Marked on four Sides Standing on the South side of Rockaway River near Potterstown at the North foot of a Hill and is also a Corner of a Lot of Land on which Jacob Angle formerly lived …" — the identical metes-and-bounds as [K.46] (same white-oak beginning, Jacob Angle + Tunis Eyck corners, the New Road), "Containing four Hundred and twenty three acres and three Tenths" [423³⁄₁₀ ac]. ⇒ the mortgaged land IS the K.46 plantation.
• Debt terms: "the principall sum due and herein expressed is two Hundred and fifty Pounds Specie Money payable on the first day of March 1799 with Interest Agreeable to a certain Bond Bearing equal date therewith Proviso when paid the Deed to be Void" [£250, due 1 Mar 1799].
• Execution: signed "John H. Cooper [L.S.]" — a full literate signature (not a mark). "Sealed and Delivered in the presence of Richard Stillwell [+] Elizabeth [ her mark] Gearhart."
• Acknowledgment / recording: "Acknowledged on the 8th Day of February AD 1797 by the Grantor before Nath.l Hunt." "Recorded 18 Feb.y 1797."

Notes (interpretation — flagged, not asserted)

• John H. Cooper was literate — he signs "John H. Cooper" in his own hand here (and again on both [K.51] Miller deeds), independently confirming the distinctive "H." middle initial in his own hand (previously locked only via the A.1 estate bond). (His grandfather Daniel Sr signed [K.46] by mark — but Daniel Sr was ALSO literate, per his 1750 autograph [A.68]; his 1795 mark was deathbed infirmity at ~100, not illiteracy. So this is not a literacy contrast.)
• Timeline of the Lebanon core tract: Daniel Sr → John H. (5 Jan 1795, [K.46]) → John H. mortgages to Stillwell (29 Jan 1797, this; £250 due 1 Mar 1799) → DISPOSITION NOW DOCUMENTED (2026-07-14): by Aug Term 1799 the Hunterdon Common Pleas minutes (IGN 008218330 img 711) record a levy on the tract "whereon John H Cooper formerly lived, subject to all lawful prior claims" — i.e. after the 1 Mar 1799 mortgage came due, the land (John H. having left — "formerly lived") was sold/levied subject to the prior Stillwell mortgage claim. ⇒ John H. defaulted and gave up the 423-ac core tract ~1799. This is distinct from the June-1795 Tewksbury pieces John H. sold to Jacob Miller ([K.51]).
• Downstream (2026-07-14): by 1806 Nicholas Stillwell & Catherine his wife were conveying (part of) that land onward to Mathias Clickner (deed ack. 30 May 1806, rec. 29 Nov 1806; Hunterdon Deeds 1805–08) — and, tellingly, John H. Cooper himself WITNESSED that deed (with Gabriel Stucker). So Stillwell took the tract on the ~1799 default and sold it on; John H. stayed local and on cordial terms (see [p.105]).
• Nicholas Stillwell of Readington → name.461 (mortgagee; the maintainer flags a possible Morris connection). Witness Richard Stillwell is presumably kin.
• No wife named / no dower release — John H. mortgages in his own name alone; the instrument does not name a wife (the [pr.96] wife-identification hope is not advanced by this document — see the same for [K.51]).

Cross-references

• K.46 — the 1795 Daniel Sr → John H. deed for this same 423³⁄₁₀-ac tract
• K.51 — John H.'s June-1795 sales of other pieces of Benjamin's plantation to Jacob Miller
• p.105 John H. Cooper of Lebanon Twp — mortgagor (Benjamin's son) · name.461 Nicholas Stillwell — mortgagee
• pr.53 (Sue Bennett thread) · pr.96 (John H. record-hunt) · pr.14