USA > New Jersey > Monmouth County > A history of Monmouth and Ocean counties : embracing a genealogical record of earliest settlers in Monmouth and Ocean Counties and their descendants, the Indians, their language, manners and customs, important historical events. > Part 34
USA > New Jersey > Ocean County > A history of Monmouth and Ocean counties : embracing a genealogical record of earliest settlers in Monmouth and Ocean Counties and their descendants, the Indians, their language, manners and customs, important historical events. > Part 34
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We have taken the liberty of stating these facts in order to convince the world that our retreat from the Court House was not occasioned by the want of numbers, position, or wishes of both officers and men to maintain that post. We also beg leave to mention that no plan of attack was ever communicated to us, or notice of a re- treat, until it had taken place in our rear, as we sup- posed by General Lee's order. We are, &c.,
ANTHONY WAYNE. CHARLES SCOTT.
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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH AND OCEAN COUNTIES.
INLETS.
On account of Barnegat Inlet being at the lower end of the bay and the distance vessels from the head of the bay have to sail to get out to sea, the need of an outlet nearer the head of the bay is seriously felt.
While Cranbury Inlet was opened it afforded great facilities for vessels to trade in and out of the bay. As this inlet is laid down on a map of 1755 (Lewis Evans) it is probable that it was opened-broke out from 1750 to 1755. It was closed about 1812. During the war of the Revolution it was much used. The question of the exact year when this inlet was opened has been in litiga- tion in our County Courts in a question involving title to land on the beach in its vicinity ; no decisive information was obtained upon trial.
Two or three attempts have been made to open inlets towards the head of the bay. One by a man named Ortley about 1821; after working a long time (three or four years, I have heard it said,) and spending much money on the effort, he finished the work one set day ; and that evening he and his friends had a merry time drinking and rejoicing over the completion of the work. But a sad disappointment awaited them in the morning, for the running tide, instead of working the inlet deeper, had made a bulkhead of sand and the inlet was soon filled up.
Another effort was completed about July 4, 1847. A large number of men (about three hundred), under the supervision of Anthony Ivins, Jr., worked about three days to open one opposite Toms River; when they opened it it was at high water in the bay and low water outside ; they expected the running tide would work the inlet deeper, but they, too, were doomed to disappoint- ment, as the tides immediately filled it up with sand, again.
Barnegat Inlet is continually slowly shifting and changing, and always has been from our earliest accounts.
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SALT WORKS.
Six or seven years ago the old lighthouse washed into the sea, but a new building had already been built in anticipation of this event.
Shrewsbury Inlet (Monmouth county) opened in 1778 and closed in 1800. In 1830 it opened again, but was again closed some thirty years ago.
At Little Egg Harbor a new inlet broke through Tucker's Beach about the year 1800 and Brigantine Inlet closed up.
SALT WORKS.
During the war of the Revolution, salt works were quite numerous along Barnegat Bay ; two or three at Barnegat, Newlin's at Waretown, Brown's at Forked River, and one or two Government works near Toms River being among the number.
From the following items it would seem that off Toms River the State of Pennsylvania had salt works and also that there was one there built by Congress.
In the Pennsylvania Council of Safety, Nov. 2, 1776, it was
" Resolved, That an officer and twenty-five men be sent to the salt works at Toms River (erected by this State in Toms River, N. J.) as a guard, and twenty-five spare muskets and two howitzers and a sufficient quan- tity of ammunition to defend in case of attack."
In Continental Congress, 1776, the President of Congress " was requested to write to Gov. Livingston of New Jersey, for two companies of militia to guard salt works near Toms River."
Mention of Government salt works near Toms River is occasionally met with in ancient deeds an l of a wind- mill connected therewith.
During the war nearly all the salt works along our bay were either destroyed by the British or by storms, (some notice of which will hereafter be given.) Those destroyed by storms appear to have been built up again.
I know of no salt works along our coast of late years,
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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH AND OCEAN COUNTIES.
except at Absecon (Atlantic county), some fifteen or twenty years ago, which probably was not much used then.
In the New Jersey Gazette, July, 1778, is a notice from the Board of Proprietors, signed James Parker, President, calling upon owners of salt works along the bay, who wish to buy wood of them from their outlands, to meet them at Freehold in August and they would dispose of it in parcels near salt works.
CHARACTER OF THE REFUGEES.
GOV. LIVINGSTON'S DESCRIPTION AND GALLOWAY'S TESTIMONY.
It must not be supposed that evils inflicted by the refugees upon our ancestors were such evils as are usually incident to war. Our ancestors suffered these in addition. It is not probable that all who were called Jersey Refugees were native Jerseymen ; too many were, it is true, but the thrift and industry of the inhabitants of old Monmouth, which county at one time was the richest in the State, the advantage of deep swamps and forests for hiding, the proximity of Raritan Bay, and the sea- board rendering it convenient to send plunder to New York, all formed attractions to villains from other places -villains whose chief object was plunder, often robbing Tories as well as Whigs, who scrupled at no crime to obtain booty, at no outrage to gratify revenge. Their character is clearly set forth in the following extracts, one from a Whig, the other from a Tory :
Said Gov. Livingston, in his message to our Legisla- ture in 1777:
" The Royalists have plundered friends as well as foes; effects capable of division they have divided; such as were not, they have destroyed. They have warred on decrepid old age and upon defenceless youth ; they have committed hostilities against the professors of literature and against ministers of religion; against public records and private monuments, books of improve-
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CHARACTER OF THE REFUGEES.
ments and papers of curiosity, and against the arts and sciences. They have butchered the wounded when asking for quarter, mangled the dead while weltering in their blood, refused to the dead their right of sepulture, suffered prisoners to perish for want of sustenance, violated the chastity of women, disfigured private dwell- ings of taste and elegance, and in the rage of impiety and barbarism profaned edifices dedicated to Almighty God."
The following is the testimony of Gallaway, a Penn- sylvania Tory of wealth and position, who at first was a Whig and afterwards turned Tory, and had property confiscated to the amount of £40,000 sterling. Speaking of Refugee outrages he says :
" Respecting indiscriminate plunder, it is known to thousands."
"In respect to the rapes, a solemn inquiry was made, and affidavits taken by which it appears that no less than twenty-three were committed in one neighborhood in New Jersey, some of them on married women in presence of their husbands, and others on daughters, while the unhappy parents with unavailing tears and cries could only deplore their savage brutality."
After reading such authoritative statements of the character of these wretches, who will wonder that our ancestors were aroused, determined to drive them from the soil they polluted.
Our ancestors in old Monmouth did all that was possible for brave men to do to bring these villains to justice. Besides those hanged and killed at other places, thirteen were hanged on one gallows near Freehold Court House.
The particulars of the capture, etc., of several of these villains in Monmouth is extant, but not necessary to introduce here, as they are given in some modern works.
At the close of the war the Refugees generally went to Nova Scotia, but some went to the Bahamas by invita- tion of General Browne. In September and October,
.
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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH AND OCEAN COUNTIES.
1782, many left New York for Halifax and the Bahamas by his invitation.
BACON-SUMMARY OF PRINCIPAL OUTRAGES BY HIM.
John Bacon, the Refugee leader, bad as he was, yet probably was the best one of them of whom we have any accounts. In the previous accounts it will be seen he worked at Manahawkin before the war ; was engaged in affairs at Cedar Creek, Manahawkin, Forked River ; killed Studson at Toms River or Cranbury Inlet, killed Steelman, Soper and others, on the beach, etc. He plundered also the house of Reuben Soper's father, above Barnegat, and when shot, had on, it is said, a shirt stolen from Soper. The day before he was killed at West Creek, it is stated, he was on the beach around a wreck and being very officious in ordering men about, they found out who he was and planned to trap him at night. A woman, overhearing it, told Bacon and he escaped to the mainland just in time to be at Rose's house when Crookes' party came up. One tradition differing from Governor Fort's statement, says he begged for quarters and held up the table before him, but was shot through the table. Bacon's wife, it is said, lived at Pemberton where he left two sons. (See elsewhere.)
REVOLUTIONARY REMINISCENCES.
Colonel Creiger, of the American schooner, General Putnam, cruised in and out of Barnegat five days about June, 1776.
April, 1778. About the first of this month the British under Captain Robertson, landed at Squan with a strong force and destroyed a number of salt works on the coast ; one building (probably the one near Toms River,) they said, belonged to Congress and cost £6,000. The New Jersey Gazette said of this affair :
"About one hundred and thirty-five of the enemy landed on Sunday last about ten o'clock on the south side of Squan Inlet, burnt all the salt works, broke the kettles, etc .; stripped the beds, etc., of some people there
423
ALMOST HANGED BY MISTAKE.
who I fear wished to serve them; then crossed the river and burnt all except Derrick Longstreet's. After this mischief they embarked. The next day they landed at Shark River and set fire to two salt works when they observed fifteeen horsemen heave in sight which occa- sioned them to retreat with the greatest haste ; indeed they jumped into their flat bottomed boats with such pre- cipitation they sunk two of them. One of the pilots was the noted Thomas Oakerson. The enemy consisted chiefly of Greens, the rest Highlanders."
The owners of salt works along our coast must have experienced a streak of ill luck about this time, as a letter in the New Jersey Gazette, dated April 1, 1778, says : "The late storm destroyed many of the small salt works along our shore with all the salt in them." (The storm here' referred to must have been of unusual severity. Some accounts relating to it confirm the re- ports that it caused many shipwrecks on our coast.)
May 22, 1778. A British vessel with a cargo of Irish beef and pork was taken by Capt. Anderson and sixteen men in an armed boat and brought into Toms River. Several other prizes abont this time were sent into Egg Harbor. Twenty-one prisoners (13 from these vessels) were sent to Trenton .- N. J. Gazette.
ALMOST HANGED BY MISTAKE.
The following interesting story has claims to be mentioned in annals of Ocean county as Colvin, men- tioned in it, lived in the county many years, and it was owing to a citizen of our county that the man referred to was not hanged. The story may be familiar to some, but it is worth repeating :
Two brothers named Bowne, and a brother-in-law named Colvin, living in Manchester, Vermont, got into an altercation one day in a field, and the brothers beat Colvin so severely with hoes that he fell bleeding pro- fusely, and the brothers were afraid they had killed him.
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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH AND OCEAN COUNTIES.
The brothers at night went to look after Colvin's body, but it had mysteriously disappeared, much to their surprise. The Bownes were generally suspected of having murdered him, but nothing was done until some seven years afterward, when some bones, thought to be human bones (and afterward found to be sheep bones), were found partly burned ; this and other evidence caused the arrest and trial of the Bownes. One was sentenced to be hanged and the other sentenced to imprisonment for life. The chief evidence was a confession of guilt by the younger Bowne who was sentenced to prison, though the elder stoutly denied the accusation. While the two
brothers were in jail after trial, a man residing at Pol- hemus' Mills, Ocean county, happened in New York City and met with a paper containing an account of the trial ; while reading it he became convinced that the man said to be murdered (Colvin) resided near him at Polhemus' Mills, with Tabor Chadwick. He sent word to the Ver- mont Sheriff, who came on privately to Polhemus' Mills, identified Colvin and took him back, arriving at Man- chester only the night before the day appointed for execution of the elder Bowne. The villagers at the hotel were earnestly discussing the trial, some justifying it, others condemning it, as no dead body was found, and some insisting that Colvin would yet turn up alive. While thus debating, the stage drove up and the Sheriff and Colvin got out. The latter was instantly recognized and his arrival caused the most intense excitement ; guns were fired, bells were rung and people ran through the streets crying, "Colvin has come." The jailer, upon refusing to liberate the prisoners without Judges' orders, was brought to submit by a cannon planted in front of the jail. The younger Bowne, in explanation, said he thought they really had killed Colvin, though he could not account for the disappearance of the body, and he was told he would not be hanged if he confessed. Colvin, always after was partially insane, and returned to this county where he died. He fancied he owned everything around him-otherwise his insanity was hardly observable.
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THE MURDERER, PETER STOUT.
There are people in Ocean county, yet living, who remember Colvin. In the New York Tribune (about 1855 or thereabouts, I believe,) was a long account-two columns-of this Colvin affair taken from the lips of one of the Bownes last living-forty years after the trial. I understand the case is reported in " Greenleaf's Vermont Reports." It must have occurred near sixty years ago.
THE MURDERER, PETER STOUT.
Since the Revolutionary war the only murder I now remember of having been committed within the limits of Ocean county, was the murder of a lad named Thomas Williams, by Peter Stout, at Goodluck. The lad was driving cattle to the meadows along the north side of Stout's Creek one morning and met Stout and began to ridicule him, calling him " eelhead," etc., which it seems was a name sometimes applied to Stout. Stout let the boy pass him and then slyly ran up behind him and struck him over the head with an axe, which he was car- rying on his shoulder. The mother of the boy, anxious at his long absence, went in search and found the body. She carried it home-a distance of half a mile-but was so distracted that she never remembered anything from the time she saw the body until she came to her senses at home, and found herself rocking the lifeless body. An inquest was held and among the Coroner's Jury was Peter Stout. An idea is often current in various places that if the murderer was in the room, and touched the body with his fingers, the blood would start afresh from the wounds ; this was started here and all the Jurymen touched the body except Stout, who reached out his hand part way then jerked it back, turned on his heel and went off whistling. Some blood being observed on his hand he said he had been killing a chicken. He was tried at Freehold, found guilty and hanged. He made a confession which was afterward printed in pamphlet form. His body was buried on the south side of Stout's Creek.
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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH AND OCEAN COUNTIES.
Very many people-and among them relatives of the lad Williams-opposed the hanging of Stout, as he was deficient in sense, and generally thought to be almost crazy at all times. The spot of the murder is still pointed out nearly opposite a pathway across Stout's Creek. This murder occurred Nov. 19, 1802. Young Williams is buried in Goodluck graveyard. The follow- ing is the inscription on his tombstone :
THOMAS WILLIAMS.
DIED NOVEMBER 19, 1802. Aged 14 years, 9 months and 18 days.
INTERESTING EVENTS.
An Inquisition was held in Monmouth county Aug. 26, 1778, to inquire into charges against persons disaf- fected, and a number of names in Monmouth and Ocean are given as having been found guilty. The Commis- sioners who tried the charges were Samuel Forman, Kenneth Hankinson and Jacob Wikoff.
Oct. 14, 1778. We learn that on Wednesday last the enemy left Egg Harbor after burning several vessels and houses belonging to gentlemen who have distin- guished themselves by their attachment to the American cause. They have, it is said, bent their course towards Toms River, in order to destroy our salt works." The burning of houses, spoken of in the foregoing, refers to the burning of Chestnut Neck, Atlantic county, when Pulaski's guards were murdered.
Vessels of the enemy would occasionally get stranded on our beach during the war, as in the following instance :
. Dec. 9, 1778. We learn that a few days ago a British armed vessel, bound from Halifax to New York, and richly laden came ashore near Barnegat. The crew, about 60 in number, surrendered themselves prisoners to our militia. Goods to the amount of £5,000 have been taken out of her by our people, and it is said a number of prisoners have already arrived in Bordentown ; other particulars not yet come to hand.
Dec. 28, 1778. Capt. Alexander, of the sloop Eliza-
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INTERESTING EVENTS.
beth of Baltimore, was taken by the British, but was permitted to leave in his small boat and landed at Cran- berry Inlet Dec. 28th.
March. 1779. The sloop Success came ashore in a snowstorm at Barnegat about March, 1779. She had been taken by the British brig Diligence, and was on her way to New York. She had a valuable cargo of rum, molasses. coffee, cocoa, etc., on board. The prize master and three hands were made prisoners and sent to Princeton.
The New Jersey Gazette says that in January, 1779, a Refugee named John Giberson was shot near Toms River. My impression is that this item is incorrect as to the place named; tradition locates the place where he was shot just below Tuckerton on a place once occupied by a branch of the Falkinburgh family. Mickle's Reminis- cences of Gloucester gives a very minute account of the affair which is moreover substantially corroborated by tradition in this section. Mickle gives the name as William Giberson, not John. During the year 1780 Edward Giles, of Philadelphia. in the schooner Shark. was taken by a sloop of ten guns. Giles was left in schooner and a prize crew of four men put on board of her. Giles had on board of her some choice old liquor with which he managed to get his four captors drunk and then run the schooner into Little Egg Harbor. He helped take the four to Philadelphia.
(Verily it does seem that a proper use of good liquor sometimes effects good, as here it is shown that a man captured a vessel and four men with only a bottle of choice rum !)
About the middle of December, 1780, a British brig in the West Indian trade was taken and brought into Toms River. This brig had run short of water and provisions, and, mistaking the land for Long Island, sent a boat and four men ashore to obtain supplies. The militia hearing of it manned two boats and went out and took her. She had on board 150 hhds of rum and spirits. which our ancestors pronounced "excellent." so they
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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH AND OCEAN COUNTIES.
must have considered themselves competent judges of such articles !
The British brig Molly was driven ashore in a snow- storm near Barnegat ; her prize crew were taken prison- ers by our militia and sent to Philadelphia.
March 19, 1782. The privateer Dart, Capt. William Gray, of Salem, Mass., arrived at Toms River with a prize sloop taken from the " Black Jack" a British galley belonging to New York. The next day his boat with seven men went in pursuit of a brig which was near the bar. A letter from Toms River written a few days after they left said they had not been heard from since.
THE COASTING TRADE.
The coasting interest must have been quite impor- tant at an early date, as numerous small vessels would be required to carry the lumber to market from the various mills on the different streams in the county. On some of the streams, as on North Branch Forked River and on Oyster Creek, the lumber was made up into small rafts and floated down to the bay where the vessels were anchored, and there taken on board. About the close of the last century and the beginning of the present, the cedar rail business began to fail and the owners and masters of vessels feared they could get no remunerative employment for their schooners and sloops. And to add to their anxiety, about this time they began to hear rumors that Fulton, Fitch and others had made inven- tions by which vessels could be run by steam and not be dependent on capricious winds and tides, and that they would soon displace sailing vessels. The coasters were incredulous, and ridiculed the idea of a vessel being driven by " a kettle full of boiling water." Nevertheless steamboats proved a success, and not only a success but proved the salvation, instead of the ruin, of the coasters interests, for the steamboats required pine wood for fuel which the vessels supplied from various points along the bay, and eventually from Virginia.
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BLACKS IN THE REVOLUTION.
CHARCOAL.
Between 1830 and 1840, the supply of pine wood suitable for market began to fail, and the coasters again began to inquire "what business could next be found for vessels." This was satisfactorily answered to many by the starting of the charcoal trade. The long ranks of cordwood near all our landings, so well remem- bered by oldest residents, gave place to piles of charcoal, the dust from which made it almost impossible to tell whether a seafaring man was white or black. Then came the demand for coasting vessels to carry hard coal, anthracite and bituminous, from Philadelphia, Alexandria and other places to other ports.
Before any very large business was done in ex- porting charcoal, considerable quantities of it were made for the use of furnaces and forges. The " coaling grounds " for Federal Furnace and David Wright's Forge are named in 1795 in ancient deeds for lands near Hurri- cane and Black Swamp; the Federal company's coal- ing ground on Hurricane Neck is named in 1797. In 1825 " Jack Cook's Coal Kiln Bottom" and " Morocco Kiln" are named.
BLACKS IN THE REVOLUTION.
In looking over the Revolutionary history of Ocean and Monmouth (as well as of some other parts of the State) our notice is frequently attracted to the number of blacks who aided the British and Refugees through- out the war. In some of the reminiscences herewith published, the fact of the Blacks being with the enemy has been noticed, as for instance at Forked River ; the Refugee leader, Davenport, had forty with him ; at Toms River, the Blacks aided the British; and the history of Monmouth furnishes numerous instances proving that the Blacks were active and valuable aids to the enemy as in the case of the noted Col. Tye and his company, who were with the British in the attack on Capt. Huddy's house at Colt's Neck. It is no difficult matter
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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH AND OCEAN COUNTIES.
to tell why the Blacks aided the enemy-they received their liberty by so doing. The question naturally arises in the mind, " Would not our ancestors have gained by freeing the Blacks and thus securing their aid against the British ?" They undoubtedly thought they could not afford the expense. It will be remembered that although Rhode Island and Massachusetts freed many slaves to join the American army, yet their value was paid to the owners-Rhode Island giving $750, and Mas- sachusetts $1,000 each, for them, making it quite a costly undertaking. New Jersey, and particularly Old Monmouth was noted for liberality in furnishing men and money and it was thought, doubtlessly, that to buy the blacks of their owners to fight on our side would prove more costly than they could afford. Suppose there were two thousand able bodied male slaves in the State : these at the price paid by Rhode Island-the lowest price then paid-would amount to a million and a half dollars-a very serious tax to a people already taxed seemingly to the utmost. The question then was not about freeing the slaves of the enemy ; that was a point about which there seemed but little dispute ; the British used run- away slaves and no protest against their right to do so (although protest was made against Lord Dunmore afterward selling them). But when we read how valua- ble these blacks proved to the enemy, informing them who had money, plate, horses, cattle and valuables of any description ; where they lived; acting as pilots or guides through by-roads and paths-helping destroy all they could not carry away and fighting with desper- ate, undisputed bravery. These considerations alone, to say nothing of the many valuable lives lost, would seem to show that our ancestors, in the mere selfish view of dollars and cents, were clearly the losers by their policy -certainly so in Old Monmouth.
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