Legal and property papers related to the 1911 sale of Watchung Ave. parcel, circa 1780s-1939 (bulk 1890-1911)

The file begins with a 1939 letter inventorying the contents "received of William Newcorn [...] loaned to him in re sale of property located on Watchung Ave., Plainfield to the United States Government" for a post office expansion. William Newcorn was not a meeting member, but a Union County judge and politician.

The inventory lists at least a hundred documents, and includes a number of mortgages, deeds, and indentures. The papers returned include several title abstracts for the property, a legal opinion related to post-Separation Hicksite/Orthodox ownership dispute, and property papers collected by former member and trustee Clarence Vail. Because of the complications of title research, files include more general memoranda of law along with genealogical research into relevant families (Matthias Brown, Elijah Shotwell, etc.).

Additional property papers received from attorney Craig Marsh are also part of this file, although they are not inventoried and presumably were not borrowed by William Newcorn.

The documents have been unfolded, flattened, and foldered, and the wrappings have been discarded. Foldering is based upon the original order in which the materials were received.

These papers were deposited by Rahway and Plainfield Meeting in 2020, and provide a very comprehensive accounting of both the kinds of property disputes that were common and enduring after the 1828 Separation as well as an example of the complicated title history of many 17th- and 18th-century Quaker properties in the United States.