Sleeper, John, 1731-1794

John Sleeper was a Quaker minister from southwestern New Jersey who spent much of his life in Otsego County, New York. He was born in on the 14 of 10th month (O.S.), 1731, to Jonathan and Hannah Sleeper of Mount Holly, New Jersey. In 1754 he married Hannah Haines, daughter of Nehemiah and Ann Haines, from the nearby township of Chesterfield; the couple had 12 children together.

Sleeper and family remained in Burlington County, New Jersey, until 1775, when they removed to the present site of Laurens, Otsego County, New York. The Otego Patent of 69,000 acres of land was issued Feb. 3, 1770, to Charles Reade, Thomas Wharton, Richard Smith, and 66 others; Smith is reputed to have induced John Sleeper to settle on this tract for the purpose of founding a Quaker colony. Sleeper acquired land from Reade and Company, and he and his family left New Jersey in the summer or early fall of 1775. He built his log house and the mills in Unadilla Township, New York. The village of Laurens later grew up where he settled and the site of his log house is on its Main Street. In New Jersey John Sleeper had been a carpenter and preacher, but in New York he became a farmer, surveyor, millwright, stone mason, and blacksmith. He and his family built the mills. In the War with the British, he was considered a neutral and his house was often the stopping place for both indigenous people and settlers. Joseph Brant was among those who stopped there and knew the Sleeper family well. After the 1778 attack on Cherry Valley, in which the family's buildings were burnt, John Sleeper and his family returned to New Jersey and remained until 1784, when they retraced their steps to Laurens and rebuilt the house and mills which had been destroyed. Sleeper died in 1794.