Edward Antill (colonial politician)

His early work in cultivating grapes and producing wine received an award of the Royal Society of Arts and makes him among the earliest winemakers in Britain's North American colonies.

[1] His father had left young Edward large tracts of land at Piscataqua (now Piscataway Township, near New Brunswick, in Middlesex County, New Jersey.

[3] On December 2, 1767, the Royal Society of Arts awarded Antill a £200 prize that had been pending since 1758 challenging colonial landowners in North America to plant of vineyards and produce quality wine.

Their children included: Edward Antill died on August 15, 1770, and buried the following day near the southeast corner of the churchyard at Christ Church in New Brunswick.

He grew apples trees for a distillery on the site, and built a large brewhouse, 60-feet by 38 feet, with copper boiler pot holding 22 barrels.

The Georgian-Dutch Colonial home of Edward Antill (later called Ross Hall ) in Piscataway built 1739, destroyed 1954. Antill owned a 370-acre plantation with meadows, an orchard, and a vineyard of 800 vines for which he received an award from London's Royal Society of Arts in 1767.