Excerpted from:

1838 Township Business: The Dog Tax
by Marfy Goodspeed on May 15, 2013
in Delaware Township

BEGIN

Notice to Sportsmen

There was one other category of notice in the Hunterdon Gazette that appeared
regularly every fall. That was "Notice to Sportsmen," informing them that
they, their guns and their dogs were not welcome on the property of the
undersigned, usually a list of 10-20 names of property owners. Presumably,
people did not post their land in those days, and had to resort to the local
newspaper to give warning that violators would be treated as trespassers
"under penalty of law."

The first such notice appeared in the June 24 1835 edition of the Hunterdon
Gazette:

    Caution to Sportsmen! The subscribers hereby caution all persons
    against trespassing on their lands with dogs and guns, as the law will
    be enforced against all who may be found so trespassing after this date.

It was signed by Elijah Carman, Andrew Hogeland, Joseph Sergeant, Samuel
M. Higgins, Aaron Hogeland, John Higgins and Gershom Sergeant. They were
principally Raritan Township landowners.

A second notice posted on August 12, 1835 included Cornelius Williamson,
Mahlon Higgins, William Rockafellow, Asher Fulper, Amos Hunt, Henry Suydam,
John Barton, Isaac Barton and Christopher Kuhl. Once again, mostly Raritan
landowners.

The first notice from Delaware Township landowners was published in the
October 21, 1835 edition of the Gazette. They were Jacob Knight, Green
Sergeant, Amos Hogeland, John Curl {sic, Corle or Carrell}, Cornelius Lake,
Joseph Leigh and Daniel Hortman.6

6.  The only notice in the 1838 edition of the Gazette concerned only
    Raritan township landowners.

END