Rev. Jesse Justice (c 1762 – 1826) – 52 Ancestors # 27, Independence

Jesse Justice was my 4th great grandfather (on two different lines) and one of the first ancestors I was aware of having served in the Revolutionary War.  He was born about 1762 in Gloucester County, New Jersey to Andrew (or Andreas) Justice and Catherina Stanton.  He was only 15 or 16 when he enlisted as a Private in June 1777, in Capt. Nathaniel Borman’s Company in the 2nd Regiment of the State of New Jersey.  The only records I have found to date are several muster rolls and pay rolls that show he served through at least August 1780.  There is also a bounty land warrant record dated 1799 that may have been his which I haven’t followed to see if he used it.

A third cousin in Ohio has been a fount of information about local history and some of our relatives.   He wrote more than 15 years ago: “My grandmother wrote the tradition of her great grandfather, Pvt and Rev Jesse Justice
serving in one of the Delaware river forts protecting Philadelphia from
the British Navy.  I guess it was July-Aug,1777 [?]   It might have been at Red Bank, or across, on the island, at  Fort Mifflin, but my best guess is that he served at Billingsport Fort. She wrote a boy and girl would row to below the fort at night, and whistle, and that a rope would be lowered from the fort, and that a basket of home cooking attached to the rope, and pulled within the fort.
That’s a NJ tradition written about in sw Ohio.”

By 1798, Jesse had become a Methodist minister and was riding circuit in New Jersey.  He had married Elizabeth Wilson (perhaps his second wife, since there is some reason to think that he had married a Steelman woman after the War and that she had died) and they had two children.  In 1804-1805 he sold two farms in New Jersey and migrated to Clermont County, Ohio along with a group of New Jersey families.  My cousin also noted that it was said that “the
Bantam,Ohio boys loved to hear Rev. Jesse Justice preach, for his sermons were sprinkled with his Rev War service tales.”  I wish there were more of these tales that had survived to the present.  His name also appears as the minister who married the couple on various marriage registers in the county, although he did not perform the ceremony for any of his own children.

Jesse farmed and ministered churches in the immediate area until his death in 1826.  He prospered.  On the 2nd of July 1826 he wrote his will and he died a month later, August 6 1826.  He had a significant amount of land, which he divided among his sons – a total of about 400 acres.  [So the bounty land, and land records are something I need to follow up on.]  He also provided nicely for his wife, Elizabeth, including the house, improved land, and some animals.  He also requested that she be provided with firewood, cut to the fireplace and delivered at the door, to be taken from the lands of his sons.   Since Elizabeth outlived Jesse by more than 20 years, I suspect she appreciated this.