Simon Wade, subsistence farming with family; using period plough with wooden beam and iron share.
Simon Wade was a local Patriot. He was a member of the Second Sussex Regiment. During the Revolutionary War Simon served in a powder manufactury.
His family had earlier settled in Connecticut. Like the Baptists from Plains and Augusta, there were people who moved to our area from Connecticut for various reasons. Simon’s brother, Nathan Wade, was killed in the Battle of Minisink.
“Powder” referred to here is the making of gunpowder. During the war gunpowder was a critical and often scarce resource for the colonists. It was used in muskets to fire the lead ball. This is how warfare was executed during the 1700s.
The domestic production of gunpowder was always insufficient to meet the need of the Continental Army. General Washington frequently expressed his concern about the lack of gunpowder. Gunpowder is made from sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter (potassium nitrate).
Simon was a carpenter by trade and came to this area in the employ of Robert Ogden II. He lived in what was then Hardyston Township and is now in Ogdensburg, with the homestead known as the oldest one in the town. Simon married Abigail Beardslee (Beardsley) and his son Charles married the daughter of Samuel Tuttle.
Putting some reasoning to this, the carpenter Simon may have made charcoal from the plentiful wood here. Since Robert Ogden II was a stout Patriot and head of the Committee of Safety, he may have done so for the reputed powder mill located near the Ford Mansion in Morristown, and perhaps the charcoal was collected by Lafayette during his foraging in our county.
As part of our celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we are placing markers on the graves of Revolutionary War Patriots. In the North Hardyston Cemetery there are 7 known Patriots. Showing how tightly knit the community was, Simon is buried here, as are the fellow Patriots who were the father of Simon’s wife, Charles Beardsley and father of Simon’s later born son Charle’s wife Ebenezer Tuttle. Today, the location of Simon Wade’s house going into Ogdensburg is known as “Beardslee’s Hill” and the Beardslee barn stood in North Church as recently as ten years ago.
Another Patriot buried in North Hardyston Cemetery is Isaac Cary, whose farm was adjacent to the cemetery and had church at his “Cary meeting house” and is where the North Church (Presbyterian, distinguished as such from the Sparta Church of Ogden’s sponsorship) was, with the area retaining its heritage and now referred to as the “North Church” section of Hardyston.
I have performed research on this using the Sussex County Library and local resources. I think it would be great if teachers and students in Sussex County do research on the Patriots buried in cemeteries in their community. Let me know if I can help get this program going in your school.
Bill Truran, Sussex County’s historian, may be contacted at billt1425@gmail.com He is the author of “Honest Ogden.”
