John Reid, the gard’ner

John Reid, author of The Scots Gard’ner, was born in 1655 at Niddry Castle near Kirkliston in West Lothian, where both his father and grandfather were gardeners to the Seton family. He was apprenticed in 1668 to Andrew Wardlaw, a merchant in Edinburgh, but by the 1670s had turned decisively to horticulture. His early career was spent in some of the great gardens of Scotland’s landed estates – first as under-gardener to Quaker Hew Wood on the Duke of Hamilton’s estate, then as gardener to James, Earl of Perth at Drummond Castle, and later to Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh at his estate at the Shank near Gorebridge, Midlothian.

Reid became a Quaker while in Hamilton and married Margaret Miller at the Friends’ in 1678. Around this time he began writing The Scots Gard’ner, the first practical guide to gardening and horticulture published in Scotland. It was issued in Edinburgh in 1683, shortly after his departure for East Jersey. The book distilled his knowledge, providing advice on soils, kitchen and flower gardens, orchards, and the setting-out of grounds.

‘Overseer’ for the first emigrants

John had gained the confidence of influential employers and also leading Quakers including Robert Barclay, prime mover in the East Jersey venture. This resulted in his appointment as one of two ‘overseers’ appointed by the Scots Proprietors to travel with the first shipload of emigrants aboard the Exchange of Stockton which left from Aberdeen in August 1683. Their role was to manage the initial settlement, ensure that provisions and resources were properly distributed, and supervise early agricultural activity. He was indentured for four years but, like his fellow overseer John Hamton, he was granted an salary of £25 and provided with a house and livestock. Hamton was also a gardener and a Quaker, gardening being an activity of great appeal to the early Quakers as a source of spiritual meaning and a way to contribute to society.

Surveyor, landowner and public official

Gardening was a highly skilled occupation requiring going beyond botany to encompass mathematics, physics and the science of weather. Not only did Reid make a practical contribution to the laying out of land and cultivation but his skills led him to be appointed Surveyor-General of East Jersey. He helped to establish the system of surveys and boundaries that underpinned East Jersey’s land administration and later assisted in defining the line dividing East and West Jersey, work for which his accuracy and fairness were commended.

Gardening was a highly skilled occupation requiring going beyond botany to encompass mathematics, physics and the science of weather. Not only did Reid make a practical contribution to the laying out of land and cultivation but his skills led him to be appointed Surveyor-General of East Jersey. He helped to establish the system of surveys and boundaries that underpinned East Jersey’s land administration and later assisted in defining the line dividing East and West Jersey, work for which his accuracy and fairness were commended.

Reid also played a role in the governance of East Jersey as a member of the Board of Proprietors from 1692, serving as proxy for William Dockwra, holding this position until 1705. He also served as a County Court judge and as commissioner of roads.

Religion and family

Reid was one of the Quakers who, following the criticisms of George Keith over doctrinal practices left for the Church of England. He received his first Anglican Communion in 1703 and remained a communicant thereafter.

Reid died in 1723 at Freehold, Monmouth County and was buried at Topanemus, at the Old Scots Burying Ground. His library, inventoried after his death, reflected both his scientific and literary tastes, containing books on law, theology, astronomy and history, as well as Scotland’s sovereignty asserted by Sir Thomas Craig and the novels of Aphra Behn.

He had travelled in 1683 with his wife Margaret to East Jersey with three daughters under four. Tragedy struck when the youngest, Margaret died within three months of their arrival, and six months later another child was stillborn. Two years on they had a son, John, who trained as a lawyer and practised in Westchester, New York. Their daughters were schooled in Philadelphia and the elder, Anna, married John Anderson, the master of the Unicorn, one of the ships that had been part of the Darien expedition in 1698, and later a prominent New Jersey politician. Their other daughter, Helen, married Reverend John Bartow. He had been sent in1702 as a missionary by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in London and two years later became Anglican rector of Westchester.

Other close kin also emigrated in 1683: two of John’s brothers: James who travelled as a free emigrant with his wife and two children, and George, an indentured servant, as well as John’s brother-in-law, James Miller of Gartshore and wife, Margaret Robinson.

See database entry for John Reid

John Cockburn was a mason from the Borders who emigrated as an indentured servant and was one of the very first freemasons in Colonial America.

He emigrated aboard the Shield of Stockton, leaving Leith on 3 July and landing at the Patuxent Rover, Delaware on 29 September. From there he and all the other passengers made their way to East Jersey, overland or by boat.

Cockburn was imported by merchant John Campbell on behalf of Captain Andrew Hamilton who was later, in 1686, sent over by the Scots Proprietors to investigate how the colony was being run. Hamilton may have been a freemason too. One clue is that Hamilton chose advocate Sir John Harper of Cambusnethan to be the primary witness at the baptism of his son John in Edinburgh in 1685. Harper had been a leading member of the Lodge since joining in 1670 as a ‘speculative’ mason as distinct from an ‘operative’ mason like Cockburn.

George Scot, in his promotional tract, The Model of the Government of the Province of East-New-Jersey, made particular use of two letters that Cockburn sent to Scotland in March 1685, within six months of his arrival. Scot’s intent was to counter accusations that accounts of East Jersey as a destination for emigrants were overblown by unnamed ‘Gentlemen’ to their own advantage, not that of the working man.

In these letters to his uncle James Brown, shoemaker, and George Fae [or Fall], a mason and freemason, both in Kelso, he extolled how pleasant a country he had found East Jersey to be, and how much work there was to be had by masons. He hoped his sister Katharin would join him and perhaps another relation called Francie.

Cockburn was Presbyterian but not a committed Covenanter. He expressed concern in his letter to his uncle, commenting that, “there is nothing discourages us more than want of Ministers” and hoped some would soon arrive from Scotland.

Cockburn found employment on his arrival alongside fellow immigrant John Hume, commissioned by merchant, David Mudie, to build ‘a big Stone house’. He continued to find plenty of work not just in East Jersey, such as repairing the Governor’s house in 1692, but also in New York where he was recorded as living in January 1695.

As an indentured servant he was entitled to a grant of ‘headland’ at the end of his contract and he petitioned the Board of Proprietors for this in August 1686. As skilled worker, he was entitled to a shorter term indenture and possibly a larger grant of land than the standard 30 acres.

Over time, Cockburn accrued more of a landholding in East Jersey, buying up the headlands of other indentured servants, such as those of Robert Anderson and brothers George and John Sharp brothers in 1694. Many preferred to pursue their trade unencumbered by property they would have to farm. In 1695 he held 220 acres around Newark and had property dealings in Perth Amboy.

John Cockburn is regarded as one of the first freemasons in Colonial America, along with the Quaker John Skene from the Newtyle family in Aberdeenshire who emigrated to West Jersey in 1682 and served as the colony’s Deputy Governor until 1688. Skene had been a member of the Aberdeen Lodge along with several other freemasons involved in the East Jersey project, including John Forbes who emigrated then returned home when he succeeded his brother to the family estate of Boyndlie in Tyrie, Aberdeenshire.

See database entry for John Cockburn

Read more

Stevenson, David, The First Freemasons: Scotland’s Early Lodges and Their Members (Aberdeen University Press, 1988), p116

George Scot, The Model of the Government of the Province of East-New-Jersey in America (Edinburgh: John Reid, 1685),  pp265-267 (reprinted in William A. Whitehead, East Jersey under the Proprietary Governments, 2nd edition, Newark: M.R. Dennis, 1875)

Cameron Alasdair Macfarlane, ‘“A Dream of Darien”: Scottish Empire and the Evolution of Early Modern Travel Writing’ (unpublished Doctoral thesis, Durham University, 2018)