The Culver Family Estate

3rd Generation John Colver

John Colver was born about 1670 in New London, Connecticut, baptized as an adult 30 June 1695 in Stonington, Connecticut and died December 1760 in Schooley's Mountain, Morris County, New Jersey. He married 1756, Sarah Long, daughter of Thomas and Sarah (Wilcox) Long, born about 1673, died March 1756, Schooley's Mountain. Both are buried in the Schooley's Mountain Burying Ground on the original Culver tract.

John Colver, Jr. was a leader ofthe religious sect known as the Rogerenes. The Rogerenes were the first religious body in the section of Schooley's Mountain, New Jersey. John brought with him to this wilderness in 1732, his children and their families, to the number of21 persons. Other families affiliated with them were the Tuttles, Manns, Weirs, Waterhouses, Lambs, Perchers, Salmons and Owens. Later, the group was also known as "Culverites" to people of the surrounding area. The group left Schooley's Mountain after 3 years and moved to Barnegat, Monmouth County, New Jersey, staying for 11 years before returning again to Schooley's Mountain where some of them, including John Colver, Jr., and members of his family settled permanently. Where they worshipped on the mountain is not known, but they had a house of worship, referred to in History of New Jersey, near the point where the road from Mountain Pond joins the highway from Rustic to Mount Arlington. They had a graveyard near Silver Spring about a furlong from Lake Hopatcong.

Sanford's History of Connecticut (page 141) states the following: Some trouble was caused in the neighborhood of New London, by a sect known as the Rogerenes, that flourished mostly in the neighborhood of New London. While their doctrines were abnoxious (sic) to their neighbors, the principal annoyance came through the indecencies of dress and behavior that marked the more than eccentric actions of this peculiar people. Holding the views of the Seventh Day Baptists they added notions of their own, both eccentric and immoral.

The Rogerenes were strenuously orthodox in their belief, holding to the doctrines ofthe Trinity, of the salvation of Christ, the new birth, the resurrection and eternal judgment. But to these, they added their peculiar views in which they largely resembled the Society of Friends (Quakers). To them, all days were alike and it was lawful to labor after worship on the Lord's Day. They were opposed to the taking of oaths, and to audible prayer, except when moved by the Spirit. Any resort in sickness to physicians or the use of medicine was sinful. They abhorred such adjuncts to the worship of God as church steeples, pulpits and cushions, a paid minister, or even a separate church building. Nor did they approve of monuments to the dead. They gloried in suffering for their belief and even courted the penalties of the whipping post, fines and imprisonment. They were accustomed to attending the services of the churches, and carry their work into church with them. This, the Rogerenes were said to have done in the year 1770 in the churches both in Mendham and Basking Ridge. This sect was originally initiated in the year 1674 by John Rogers whose father,

James, was a baker in New London and the richest man in the colony, next to Governor Winthrop. The sect is still in existence.

John and his wife were among five people imprisoned 22 April 1716. As early as September 1704, Isaac Lamb and his wife, John Colver, Sr. and David Wheeler and his wife, Abigail were summoned for not coming to the Meeting on the Lord's Day. Sarah, wife of John Colver, Jr., of Groton and Esther Colver of Groton, were charged 7 September 1719 with other Rogerenes, of "behaving in a profance manner both by word and action, at the Meeting House in New London. John and Sarah Colver were members of the Rogerene party that went from Groton to Lebanon August 1725 to baptize converts. Sarah was known as the "singing sister."