I was just looking at Thomas Gordon's 1833 New Jersey map and noticed a name in bold black print right above McCartys'ville at Harrisville lake named Hallock's, i checked in the search engine on the name and found nothing, anyone have any information on that name ?
Jim
Jim:
John Hallock arrived in the Tuckerton area from New York about 1812 and purchased the Mordecai Andrews plantation on the west side of Tuckerton Creek. He began raising
Palma Christa or, more properly
Ricinus communis (castor plants) and, from the bean or seed, he manufactured castor oil. He introduced the cultivation of this bean to other local farmers, and thereby “…laid the foundation for the castor bean aristocracy of Tuckerton” (Blackman 1880:221). During the first half of the nineteenth century, Hallock
et al. sent great quantities of castor oil to market in Philadelphia and New York City, where physicians widely prescribed the viscous fluid as a cathartic.
The traditional method of extracting castor oil from the bean used the decoction process using boiling water. However, this methodology produced a foul-tasting oil because it also extracted flavor components from the bean. The shell of the castor bean is used in produced the deadly poison, Ricin. Hallock devised a method of extracting the oil by expressing it in an Archimedes-screw press, which he patented in 1818. Initially he used animal power to turn the screw on his press. In 1822, he patented an improved press. To prove the viability of his new and improved press, he sold a moiety or half-interest in his plantation to Nathan Bartlett in 1823 to fund another purchase.
In that same year, a fire reduced the slitting mill and forge on the Oswego River at current-day Harrisville to ashes. During 1795, Isaac Potts had constructed this facility on the site of Evi Belangee's 1750 skit mill. Hallock used the proceeds of his plantation moiety sale to buy a moiety in the burned millseat. He constructed a new mill building to house two of his improved oil presses. In his new mill, Hallock expressed both castor oil and linseed oil. In the last paragraph of his patent filing, he states:
“This machinery may be used double…by placing an upright shaft between two machines having a horizontal wheel near the bottom of the said shaft and a wallower [gear] near the top thereof, with a spur wheel on each screw reaching into the wallower, so that when the said machines are in operation, one screw shall work up and the other screw work down at the same time, and so to be reversed.”
This is how his double press appeared:
To raise additional capital, he sold a ¼-interest in the millseat to Samuel J. Read with Philo Andrews holding the other half-interest. By October 1825, Hallock had racked up a crushing load of debt, which forced him into recievership and liquidation. Hallock assigned all of his assets to his friend, Timothy Pharo, to sell. At the assignee sale in 1826, Samuel Read purchased Hallock's ¼-interest in the millseat, raising his interest to one-half. By 1828, Read gained complete control of the millseat through a court-ordered sale. Sometime between 1826 and 1828, an unknown purchaser removed the oil presses from the mill. Hallock remained resident in the mill until 1828.
At that same time, the so-called schism in the Society of Friends caused by the Hicksites occurred. The orthodox Quakers at the Little Egg Harbor Meeting in Tuckerton drove Hallock, a Public Friend or Quaker minister, from their presence when he aligned himself with the Hicksites. He went to live with a friend and possible relative, Japhet Leeds, at Leeds Point, where he again established an animal-powered castor oil mill. He later traveled out to the midwest where he remained until his death. In 1832, Samuel Read sold the 3000-acre tract to William McCarty and the rest, as they say, is history.
Best regards,
Jerseyman
