NOTES: Josh sent me a photocopied article which looks like it might come from a local historical society, but I don't have a precise reference yet. The information looks pretty good so I pass it along verbatim; if someone will give me the citation, I'll gratefully add it here:
"The Ongs appear to be among the early settlers of
Burlington, N.J., for in the year 1694, Edward Andrews married Sarah Ong,
and at the marriage was Sarah Ong, Sr. It is probable that her husband
was not living, for the Jacob Ong who was at the wedding must have been
the brother of Edward Andrews' wife, Sarah Ong, Jr. [N.B. Our charts
indicate that Jacob's mother's name was Mary
(Underwood), not Sarah, but we don't know Mary's date of death.
Does this marriage record suggest that Mary was dead before 1694, and that
Isaac remarried a woman
named Sarah? Of course Isaac himself was still alive in 1694 (but
not by much, and he may not have been fit enough for a wedding), another
slight discrepancy with this account.]
It is believed that Jacob Ong came to Egg Harbor
with the Andrews families; he was a brother in law of Edward Andrews.
Jacob Ong and his wife Elizabeth were Elders in the Friends Meeting of
Egg Harbor.
Jacob Ong appears to have been a man of considerable
note in the settlement. He also appears to have had a passion for
emigrating from place to place. In the year 1725 he left Egg Harbor,
and went to reside in Pennsylvania. In the year 1728 he returned
to Egg Harbor, where he stayed about seven years, when a desire for a change
of residence having seized him, he in the year 1735 bade Egg Harbor a final
farewell, and established himself in Pennsylvania, where it is probable
that he died, as this is the last recorded account of Jacob Ong.
It is probable that the place in Burlington called
Ong's Hat, and
Ong's Run, took their names from Jacob Ong, or some of his posterity. [I
have linked one telling of the Ong's Hat story, though it is implausibly
set in the 1890's, long after the Ongs had completely departed the area.--JCS]
The Ong family all left Egg Harbor with the exception of Mary, daughter
of Jacob Ong, Sr., who married Thomas Ridgway, Jr. In Egg Harbor
the name of Ong soon became extinct. . . .
It is probable that Jacob Ong owned and lived on
some one of the old time farms of Little Egg Harbor and by his moving about
from place to place it is likely he was a mechanic and went to different
places to work at his trade." [The term "mechanic" here refers to
any of the various crafts--blacksmith, cooper, carpenter, tanner, etc.--which
a new settlement might perticularly demand, and the New Jersey Quakers
were known for these skills, so the suggestion is reasonable.]