Edmund Drake Halsey was born in Rockaway, Morris County, New Jersey on September 11, 1840, the youngest of seven siblings. His mother was Sarah Jackson, granddaughter of Colonel Stephen Jackson, friend of General George Washington and founder of an early Rockaway iron mine and foundry. His father, Samuel Halsey, was a New York state lawyer and politician until moving to Rockaway to become an eventual partner in the family's iron mining business, the Rockaway Manufacturing Company. Edmund Halsey graduated from Princeton College in 1860 and practiced law for two years in Morristown, New Jersey before enlisting with the Union Army. He quickly rose to the rank of lieutenant and served with the army until January 1865, when he was honorably discharged after contracting pleurisy. In November of that year he resumed the practice of law in Morristown and became involved with litigations concerning important interests such as the Morris Canal, the Orphans Court, and local mining companies as well as the legal management of area estates and properties. He married Mary Darcy of Newark, New Jersey. They were to have seven children, though only one, Cornelia, would live long enough to have children of her own. Edmund Drake Halsey died October 17, 1896 in Rockaway and is buried in that town's Presbyterian Church cemetery.
This collection of papers contains legal abstracts, surveys and search notes for properties in the town of Denville, and the townships of Rockaway, Pequannock and Hanover, New Jersey from the 19th century. A few of the files contain information about property ownership as early as 1793 and as late as 1906.
The documents of this collection have been arranged in chronological order.
This material is open for research without restriction under the conditions of the North Jersey History Center archives access policy. These records may be copied for use in individual scholarly or personal research, however, as with all materials in the History Center, researchers are responsible for obtaining copyright permission to use material from the collection. Be aware that some of the loose pages that comprise Edmund D. Halsey's Papers are fragile and brittle. They may be photocopied, but researchers are advised to both handle and photocopy them with care. Pages that have been sleeved in plastic must not be removed from their protective enclosures.
Finding Aid to the Edmund D. Halsey Papers, 1793-1906. H 929 MSS Hals
Processed, described and encoded by Mary McMahon Dawson, September 2007.