A History of the city of Newark, New Jersey : embracing practically two and a half centuries, 1666-1913, Volume I, Part 28

Author: Urquhart, Frank J. (Frank John), 1865- 4n; Lewis Historical Publishing Company. 4n
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: New York, N.Y. ; Chicago, Ill. : The Lewis Historical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1186


USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Newark > A History of the city of Newark, New Jersey : embracing practically two and a half centuries, 1666-1913, Volume I > Part 28


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The Springfield battle monument erected by the State in 1905, and which stands in front of the present Presbyterian church, which replaced that burned by the British, bears an inscription in part as follows:


"The first British advance stayed at the bridge, east of the village, June 7, 1780.10 * * The Americans under General Greene on that day, near the stream west of the church, checked the enemy, who in their retreat burned the church and village." From this church 12 Parson Caldwell took psalm books during the fight and flung them to the Americans for wadding, crying, 'Put Watts into 'em, boys!'"


There is a monument, bearing the figure of a minute man, in Elizabeth, erected by the State in the same year, 1905, whose tablet tells that General Sterling (a British officer) fell at the spot, fatally wounded on the morning of June 8, 1780, while accelerating the retreat of Knyphausen. A monument was also dedicated by the New Jersey Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, at Roselle Park, in the spring of 1913, to mark the British advance out of Elizabethtown in the Connecticut Farms affair.


1º There is a tradition that they were stopped, or materially hindered by Captain Eliakim Littell of Springfield and his sturdy little company of Essex militia, who served their two or three guns with great efficiency.


11 Connecticut Farms.


12 At Springfield.


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CHAPTER XVI.


SUFFERINGS OF NEWARK LOYALISTS-A FEW OF NEWARK'S PATRIOTS.


CHAPTER XVI.


SUFFERING OF NEWARK LOYALISTS-A FEW OF NEWARK'S PATRONS.


T THE case of the Newark loyalists has never been adequately presented; that is, from a purely dispassionate standpoint. Many of them suffered grievously for principle. Forty or fifty years ago (1865-1875) there were still living in this city a few old persons who still declared their loyalty to Great Britain, holding dear their devotion to the crown as an heirloom from their parents and others of their families who had conscientiously refused to espouse the cause of their fellow-Americans in the time of struggle. As has been said in a previous chapter, the lines circum- scribing the two factions in which Newark was split at the time Trinity Episcopal Church was established, applied very closely in defining the opposing groups in the days when the War for Inde- pendence was first in the making, and later waged.


When the bedraggled and dispirited remnants of Washington's army left Newark on its further retreat across the State, in Novem- ber, 1776, the Newark loyalists were jubilant. They were ready to receive Cornwallis's soldiers as their deliverers and hailed them as tangible proof-positive that the rebellion was practically over and that they had thus been vindicated in their loyalty. But the British treated them with scant courtesy; they rifled many of the Tory homes quite as readily as they did those of the Whigs. The loyalists' high spirits were swiftly dashed to the ground, and their real troubles began, when, after the return of Washington to the upper section of the State, they again found themselves in the hands of the patriot forces and helpless to protect themselves against the hardships inflicted upon them by their neighbors and by the officers of the new State government.


CONFISCATION OF TORY ESTATES.


Throughout New Jersey the Council of Safety, organized before the war began, appointed Commissioners of Forfeited Estates, whose chief duty was to take the regularly prescribed


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measures for the confiscation and sale of the property of offensive loyalists. The Essex commissioners were: Joseph Hedden, jr., justice of the peace, (whose martyrdom is described in the preced- ing chapter) ; Samuel Hayes and Thomas Canfield.


These commissioners had to do a stern work and more than one patriot flinched from it and declined to serve when appointed. The law, the duties required and the methods employed have been clearly set forth by William Nelson of Paterson in a letter to the author, a part of which is as follows:


"Under the statutes it was made unlawful for persons to take up arms against New Jersey; it was unlawful for them to enter and remain within the lines of the enemy; it was unlawful for them to give active aid and comfort to the enemy. For any one of these offences they were liable to be indicted after six months' published notice that either of these offences was charged against them. After the lapse of the six months embraced in the notice they could be indicted in any county where they resided, or where they had real or personal property. Those persons owning prop- erty in Essex, Morris, Sussex, Hunterdon and Middlesex, could be indicted in each of these counties.


"Frequently, indictments were found in several counties against the same persons. Having been indicted by the Grand Jury of the county in which they owned real or personal property, they were tried in those counties, and upon conviction their prop- erty was declared forfeited to the State and then immediately taken possession of by the Commissioners of Forfeited Estates for the respective counties. These commissioners advertised the property in some newspaper circulating in the county in' which the property was found, and after due advertisement the property was sold at publie sale, and deeds were given to the purchasers, the proceds of sale being turned into the treasury of the State. The State, however, realized but the merest trifles from these forced sales. There was always a question as to just what title was conveyed, and there were other considerations which restrained men from buying the property of their former neigh- bors. However, a large number of estates did pass into the hands of the buyers. Stevens Point, at Hoboken, for example, was owned by William Bayard. He took refuge within the lines of the enemy and his property was sold and passed into the hands of the Stevens family, about 1792.


"In many cases, I have no doubt, the law for the forfeiture of estates was evaded by transfer of such estates to friendly hands before the decree of forfeiture could be made. I have in mind the


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title to a considerable tract, of fifteen or twenty acres or more, not far from the Erie Railroad station in Newark. A study of the title to this property and the surrounding circumstances all lead one to infer that the property was conveyed by the owner for the purpose of evading the consequences of the forfeiture acts, and that it was held practically in trust until after the war, and then was re-conveyed to the family of the former owner who had been a Tory during the Revolution.


"The profit to the State of these sales of the forfeited lands was so small that it has often provoked the query, 'Was it worth while'


"As I have noted above, the penalty of forfeiture was only incurred in case of active and actual siding with the enemy. A man could think as he pleased, but if he committed no overt act he was not liable under the statute.


"Many eminent citizens were suspected of Toryism, and in fact did not conceal their dissent from the active measures adopted by the Revolutionary patriots. They were known to sympathize with the enemy, but as they did not give active aid and comfort to the enemy, did not take refuge within the enemy's lines, and did not bear arms against the State, they were allowed to go unmolested, except on occasion that they might be lodged in the Morristown jail or some other jail for a brief detention.


"Altogether, these laws were very mild and were fully justified by the laws of Nations, as well as by the laws of common sense and self-protection."


Several of the prominent families left Newark for New York late in 1776 or early in 1777, and a few of their younger members joined one refugee corps or another. Many of these loyalists subsequently found their way to Nova Scotia, whither large num- bers of Tories from the various colonies were transported by the British. After the war they were partially compensated for their losses by the British government.


JUDGE DAVID OGDEN, IRRECONCILABLE.


One of those who suffered most severely was Judge David Ogden, son of Colonel Josiah Ogden, whose harvesting of his grain on Sunday caused the split from the First Church, resulting in the founding of Trinity. In 1784 Judge Ogden filed a claim against the State of New Jersey, which, of course, was not satisfied. He


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estimated his losses incurred because of his loyalty to the King as £20,265.84 1-7. He would never admit that the colonists had the slightest possible chance of winning their independence, until it was actually achieved.


He was appointed Chief Justice of the Province a little while before the people assumed control of affairs. He was made the agent of the New Jersey loyalists, after his removal to London, to prosecute their claims against New Jersey for compensation for their losses. So confident was he of the ultimate subjugation of the patriots that he devised a plan for the government of the colonies in America. He proposed a parliament, with a lower house composed of representatives of the people, not more than forty from each province, and with an upper house of barons, not more than twelve or less than eight from a colony. His plan includes the following significant paragraph :


"That the American parliament have the superintendence and government of the several colleges of North America, most of which have been the grand nurseries of the late rebellion, instilling into the tender minds of youth principles favorable to a republican and against a monarchical government, and other doctrines incom- patible with the British constitution." 1


As Judge Ogden had lived most of his active years in Newark, he was more familiar with what is now Princeton than any other American college. He had seen it struggle into life in Elizabeth- town and must have watched its growth during the eight years it was here in Newark. It is very safe to assume, therefore, that his ideas concerning the influence of the American institutions of learning upon the spread of the spirit of independence had been to a great extent moulded out of his observations in his home community, and certain it is that the men of Princeton were an ever-potent force in the Revolution from beginning to end.


We to-day can have no idea of the heartaches and bitterness engendered between the Newark Whigs and Tories, old neighbors, many of them, for half a century and longer. Many of the latter enrolled in regiments of their own kind to help suppress the rebel-


' See "The American LoyalIsts," by Lorenzo Sabine, pp. 476-77.


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lion and felt, no doubt, that they were acting from just as high and as patriotic motives as their former fellow townsmen against whom they were now arrayed. The Tory refugee posts on Bergen Hill and at Staten Island were the objects of many a midnight attack, and on their part the refugees led not a few of the expedi- tions conducted by the British through this territory.


THE LONGWORTHS.


The following extract from an article in Hugh Gaine's New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury for July 7, 1777, gives a little glimpse of the "other side," although through a somewhat highly colored medium :


"A specimen of Rebel Humanity, experienced at Newark in New Jersey, by the Wives of Thomas Longworth, Isaac Long- worth, Uzal Ward and some others, whose Husbands left that place last January, and took refuge in this city. The Committee of Newark ordered the wood to be cut off their land, their grass and hay to be destroyed, and their persons to be insulted, and they were not permitted to remain in the Province longer than Thurs- day, the 26th ult., when Guards were placed round their house and their effects secured by order of their titular Governor, William Livingston. To expostulate was needless, as the Guards told the women if they refused to obey, violence would be used. The cries of mothers, children and slaves, obliged to leave their Homes for differing in sentiment from their neighbours, would have excited pity in the breast of any but savages. The mandate must be obeyed. The wife of Mr. Thomas Longworth, having two young children to take care of, was favored with a straw bed. They all arrived here last Sunday week."


Isaac Longworth was one of Newark's most active and public- spirited citizens, and held several public offices in the years imme- diately preceding the war, including town clerk, surveyor of the highways and county collector. He was made a member of the Newark Committee of Correspondence on May 4, 1775, but soon changed his views and declared his allegiance to the king. He was one of fifty-five civilian loyalists, who, in July, 1783, petitioned for lands in Nova Scotia, as consideration of their services to the king. Thomas Longworth returned to Newark after the war and


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died here in 1790, at the age of 72. His son, David Longworth, published the first New York City directory, in 1786, and his grandson was Nicholas Longworth, for many years a leading citizen of Cincinnati.2 Ex-Congressman Nicholas Longworth is a lineal descendant.


THE REV. DR. ISAAC BROWNE.


The Rev. Dr. Isaac Browne, rector of Trinity Church, was another uncompromising loyalist. One account says that he left Newark with his infirm wife in such haste after the departure of Cornwallis from Newark, that he was forced to leave his furniture and other personal effects behind him, as was also the case with the Ogden family. Another story was that Rector Browne was detained in jail for a time before being permitted to join his family. According to an item in Hugh Gaine's Gazette and Weekly Mercury of New York for February 10, 1777, Dr. Browne wrote to Washington, asking leave to withdraw his family from Newark. "Instead of complying with the Doctor's wishes," says the news- paper, "he [Washington] sent a Party of his Rebels to drag him away to Morristown. He is now confined there in Jail, his Family is almost distracted, and all his Property seized. So much for the public faith of Mr. Washington."


Judge Ogden died at the age of ninety, at Whitestone, Long Island. Dr. Browne died in poverty in Annapolis, Nova Scotia, in 1787.ª An eloquent illustration of how families were divided in those troublous times is furnished by the fact that the Ogdens of Elizabeth, relatives of the Newark family, were staunch patriots, furnishing a number of valuable officers to the cause of the country.


2 See New Jersey Archives, vol. i, Second Series, pp. 419-420.


3 In 1779 Dr. Browne wrote: "The condition of the Church in America is greatly to be pitied. The judgments of God fall very heavily on the inhabitants of this land in general, and seem to be yet increasing daily, and no prospect of redress that I can see, either from Heaven or men, for the inhabitants have not yet learned righteousness, and consequently remain very proper instruments to execute the Divine vengeance on one another." In the last letter which he wrote to the Society for the Propagation of the


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JONATHAN ODELL.


Of all the Tories who elaimed Newark as their home, or birth- place, none was more fearless or determined in upholding the King than Jonathan Odell. He was born in Newark and was graduated from the College of New Jersey while it was here, in the class of 1754. For a time he was a surgeon in the British army. Later he took holy orders and became rector of St. Mary's Church at Burlington, N. J. During the turmoil immediately preceding the war, he expressed his detestation for the cause of the people so caustically that he was arrested and came under the ban of the Provincial Congress. He finally fled to the protection of the British troops and to New York. He was made chaplain of a corps of loyalist troops and was frequently called upon by the British officers to furnish information concerning New Jersey and Penn- sylvania. He wrote many political denunciations of the patriots, and was to the Tories what Freneau, another Jerseymen, was to the cause of liberty. He attacked by name in his verses nearly every leading Jerseyman on the side of the people, even dircting some of his most venomous lines against the head of his alma mater, Rev. Dr. Witherspoon. Odell never lost his hatred for the Conti- mental cause. After the war he retired to Nova Scotia, living to an advanced age and unreconciled to the establishment of the United States of America to the end. Odell's mother was a daughter of the Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, first president of the College of New Jersey.


DAUNTLESS NEWARK PATRIOTS.


There are no records or other data in existence from which a comprehensive narrative of the services rendered by individual Newarkers during the war can be compiled. The historian has to depend chiefly upon material gathered here and there, from family


Gospel in Foreign Parts, Oct. 4, 1782, he describes the loyalists as "daily suffering for the truth's sake, driven from their homes, their property seized, plundered and sold, and themselves consequently reduced to the most extreme . poverty." He grleves that he is a "dead weight to the Society in consequence of age and infirmlty." From "Historical Notes of the Missions of the Church of England in North America Previous to the Independence of the United States." London, 1845. Collated for this work by Miss Agnes Vinton Luther.


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records, occasional letters, and a mass of stories which are usually distractingly vague and generally unsatisfactory and unreliable. The names of a few have come down to us, however, whose bril- liancy time and neglect have not sufficed to obliterate. After that of Judge Joseph Hedden, jr., the martyr, there was no Newarker who proved more useful than Dr. William Burnet.


DR. WILLIAM BURNET.


He attended what is now Princeton College when it was located in Newark, studied medicine in New York and began his practise here. From the outbreak of the War for Independence, Dr. Burnet took a leading part in furthering the interests of the people against tyranny. He was made chairman of the Committee of Safety for Newark, and in the summer of 1776 gathered together a force of about three hundred militia for the assistance of Washington in New York. His private estate was very seriously depleted by British or Tories, and his large library was packed in casks and carried to New York by them. At another time fifty head of cattle belonging to Dr. Burnet were taken. He was one of three commissioners appointed for the State to issue bills of credit and to make purchases of arms and ammunition, and early in Febru- ary, 1776, he was commissioned as surgeon of the Essex militia. He was a member of the National Congress for 1780-81 and at that time was commissioned as a hospital surgeon and physician of the army, and early in March, 1781, was made Chief Physician and Surgeon of the Hospital Department of the Eastern District, resigning his seat in Congress to take up this last work, which he continued throughout the remainder of the war. He was one of the prime movers for the establishment of a hospital in Newark in 1776, as described in a previous chapter.


He was at times a member of Washington's official family when the latter was guarding the Hudson, and one of his sons was authority for the statement that the father was dining with General Benedict Arnold at West Point when the capture of the spy, "James Anderson," (Major Andre) was announced to Arnold and the rest of the company. Dr. Burnet told his son that Arnold


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preserved perfect composure, proceeding with the dinner as if the announcement was of no moment whatever. After a time Arnold excused himself, saying business of importance called him abroad and urging his companions to enjoy themselves until he should return. A little later he was being rowed rapidly away toward the British warship Vulture which lay at anchor some distance below West Point. After the war Dr. Burnet took up farming. His home was at the northeast corner of Broad and Chestnut streets. Later he bought six acres on the east side of Broad street, through which East Kinney street was subsequently run. Soon after the war he was made presiding judge of the Essex County Court of Common Pleas. He was president of the New Jersey Medical Society in 1766 and also in 1786. He was an excellent Latin scholar and when first made president of the Medical Society read an essay in Latin on the use of the lancet in surgery. He died at the age of sixty-one, in 1791.' One of his sons, William Burnet, jr., who practised medicine with success in Belleville, was also a surgeon in the Continental Army.


One of Dr. Burnet's sons by his second marriage was David G. Burnet, or Burnett. He left college, presumably Princeton, before completing the course, and joined an expedition to free the South American Colonies from Spain. He led an adventurous life, finally identifying himself with a movement for the settlement of Texas, of which he became the first president. He was elected United States Senator from Texas after the Civil War, but was not ad- mitted to a seat as the State had not yet been reconstructed. He had one child, a son, who was killed in the Confederate service. David G. Burnet died at Galveston, Texas, on December 5, 1870.5


CAPTAIN WILLIAM SANFORD PENNINGTON.


No character of the period in New Jersey fits in more perfectly with our conception of the typical "boy of 76" than that of William Sanford Pennington. Although warned by a rich uncle that if he


' See Wickes' History of Medicine and of Medical Men in New Jersey.


" See "Notes on the Burnet Family," by Thomas T. Kinney; Proceedings of N. J. Hist. Soc., vol ii, No. 2, Third Series, 1897.


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took up with the "rebels" he would be cut off without a shilling. young Pennington, then scarcely nineteen, promptly enlisted in a company of Continental artillery. It is said of him that he proved so efficient that after an action during which General Knox, chief of artillery, noticed his coolness under fire, he was given a com- mission as first lieutenant, at Knox's solicitation. During the greater portion of the war he was stationed on or near the west bank of the Hudson. When the army marched south he went with it and was through the trying but glorious times that culminated in the fall of Yorktown and the surrender of Cornwallis.


In January, 1781, six regiments of the Pennsylvania line mutinied and under the direction of non-commissioned officers, marched away from Morristown bent on presenting their- griev. ances to Congress in person. They had not been paid for months, were galled at seeing others enlisted under much more favorable conditions than those accorded them, and their case was truly little short of intolerable. At Trenton they were met by a committee from Congress and by a thousand soldiers under St. Clair to oppose their crossing the Delaware. They were promised prompt pay and an immediate supply of certain specified articles of cloth- ing, of which they were in desperate need ; disarmed, and discharged the service. They were then asked to re-enlist with the same bounties offered recruits. They all returned to the service within three months and served most efficiently in the southern campaigns to the end of the war. The British commander in New York had been quickly informed of the defection of the Pennsylvania line by Tories and he sent three emissaries to induce them to join his colors. The mutineers angrily turned the emissaries over to Gen- eral Anthony Wayne, who gave them a trial which ordered them hanged, and the mutineers assisted in carrying out that sentence.


No sooner was this difficulty adjusted than the three regi- ments of the New Jersey Continental line (Maxwell's Brigade) followed the example of the Pennsylvania regiments and suddenly left their camp at Pompton, under their sergeants, bound for Tren- ton. But Washington determined to put a stop to such irregular-


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ities. How he did it is concisely told by young Lieutenant Penning- ton in his journal (would that more soldiers of the Revolution had kept diaries !) as follows:


"Monday 22nd [January, 1781], we received information that the Jersey line had followed the example of Pennsylvania in mutinying, in consequence of which a detachment of artillery, con- sisting of three 3-pounders, to be commanded by Captain Stewart, was ordered to parade immediately. I was ordered to join the above detachment, vice Alling.


"25th -- This day the detachment marched to Smith's Cove, and halted for the night.


"26th-This day we marched to Ringwood and joined a detach- ment of Major General Howe.


"Saturday, 27th-This day the above detachment marched at one o'clock and at daylight surrounded the Jersey encampment near Pompton, where the mutineers were quartered. No other terms were offered to them but to immediately parade without their arms. General Howe likewise sent them word by Lieutenant Colonel Barber, that if they did not comply in five minutes he would put them all to the sword; rather than run the risk of which they surrendered. Upon this the General ordered a court martial in the field to try some of their leaders; three of whom, Grant, Tuttle and Gilmore, were sentenced to suffer death. Grant, for some circumstance in his behaviour, was pardoned. Tuttle and Gilmore were immediately executed. The mutineers returned to their duty and received a general pardon."




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