USA > New Jersey > Morris County > Annals of Morris County > Part 8
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But such were the advantages for watching the enemy and alarming the people, and sueb also the natural strength of its mountain rani- parts, that the enemy were always met by large bodies of as brave men as ever bore a firelock to the defence of altar and home. The enemy supposed himself unobserved, but invariably found himself confronted by a foe that seemed to him to spring out of the very ground or to drop down from the clouds. There were sev- tral inducements which led the cuemy greatly to desire the possession of, or at least a closer acquaintance with, the county of Morris. It was well known that Col. Jacob Ford, Jr., whose widow was Washington's hostess the second winter, had built a powde . mill on the Whip- pany river, which was making considerable amounts of "good merchantable powder," the amount of which Col. Benoni Ifatha vay was careful to exaggerate by what nught be called " Quaker powder kegs," that were filled, not with powder, but with sand, and these, uuder careful guard, were conveyed to the magazine !
There was not only the well-guarded Powder Magazine in some safe place, but the general magazine on the south side of Morris Green, w hose treasures of food and clothing and other articles for the army were in fact never enough to be of any great value, yet Colonel Hatha- way so managed the deposits made there that they seemed to all but the initiated very form- idable.
A dozen miles north of Morristown were sev- eral forges that were formshing iron for the army for horse shoes, wagon tire and other purposes. And at Ms. Hope and Hiberma, cach abont four miles from the village of Rockaway, were two blast furnaces. The
former was the property of John Ja- cob Facsch, a patriotic German, and the other belonged to General Lord Stirling, and under the management first of Jos. Hoff, and after his death of his brother Charles, sons of Charles Hoff, of Hunterdon. At both these furnaces large quantities of shot and shell were cast for the army, and at Hibernia Hoff made repeated attempts to cast cannon, and in one of his letters to Lord Stirling says he "did cast one very good one, only it was slightly de- fective at the breech."
These mannfactories of army munitions were supplemented by large breadths of arable land, a considerable part of which was of excellent quality, and which all together produced an immense amount of the provisions needed by armies. And not only so, but the aeres of Mor- ris were the key to the richer acres of Sussex. Indeed, it is difficult to exaggerate the impor- tance of onr county in all these respects, and when we add the fact that it was a perpetual threatening to the enemy who made New York their base, we can sec why so many attempts were made by the enemy to penetrate it.
Some of the attempts were by Tories, led by Claudius Smith, who once threatened Mt. Hope and who actually robbed Robert Ogden be- tween Sparta and Hamburg, Charles Hoff at Hibernia, and Robert Erskine at Ringwood. The most imposing attempt to visit Morris county was in 1780, under Knyphausen, and he reached Springfield, where he was suddenly confronted by a part of Washington's army then in motion for the Hudson and great num- bers of the Morris minute men. Dr. Ashbel Green says his father, Parson Green, witnessed the fight from the adjoining hills, and romor says Parson Caldwell did not stick to the hills, but mingled in the fray, which gains some no- toriety from his distributing the hymn books of the neighboring church, accompamed with the exhortation to "put Watts into them," be- lieving that the best hymn of Watts would make a good wad in a patriotic gun! Here,' too, it was that Benoni Ilathaway's wrath was so excited because his commander ordered his' troops to the top of " a Hy Mountain" ir stead of against the enemy.
It was here also that Timothy Tuttle, with a company of men, making their way through a rye field, poured a deadly volley into a detach- ment of the enemy taking dinner. The pepper made their soup too hot for comfort, and they left it in a hurry. And here, too, it was that an American officer was badly wounded, and one of his men, named Mitchell, ran in be- tween the confronting armies and on his own strong shoulders carried his captain to a place of safety. As his act was porceived the enemy fired a volley at hum, concerning which he aft-
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erwards remarked, with amusing simplicity, "I vow I was skeared !"
And here I may quote a couple of verses from an old newspaper of the day to show how ihe vain effort of Knyphausen to reach Morris county was regarded by the men who drove him back :
" Old Knip
And old Clip Went to the Jersey shore The rebel rogues to beat ; But at Yankee Farms They took the alarms At little harms, And quickly did retreat.
Then atter two days' wonder Marched boldly to Springfield town, And sure they'd knock the rebels down; But as their foes
Gave them some blows, They, like the wind, Soon changed their mind, And in a crack Returned back
From not one third their number !"
The remarkable fact remains that the enemy never reached our county, except now and then a marauding party from Orange county, like those led by Clandias Smith and the Babcocks.
I have mentioned the rapidity with which the alarms of invasion were circulated through the county, and the readiness with which Mor- ris county men hurried to the place of danger. There were two organizations in the county which had much to do with this splendid fact. The first of these was what was known as the "association of Whigs."
Among the papers of the late Colonel Joseph Jaeksou, of Rockaway, I found the original pa- per containing the articles of " the association of Whigs in Pequanac Township, 1776," with one hundred and seventy-seveu autograph sig- natures, except a score or so made their " marks." The articles rehearse the reasons for thus associating in the somewhat lofty and intense style of the day, and declare that " we are firmly determined, by all means in our power, to guard against the disorders and con- fusions to which the peculiar circumstances of the times muy expose us. And we do also fur- ther associate and agree, as far as shall be con- sistent with the measures adopted for the pre- servation of American freedom, to support the magistrates and other civil officers in the exe- rution of their duty, agreeable to the laws of This colony, and to observe the directions of our committee acting."
The Committee of Safety for Pequanoc con- sisted of Robert Gaston, Moses Tuttle, Ste-
phen Jackson, Abram Kitchel and Job Allen. Each of these had a paper like the one quoted. and circulated it. The one hero referred to was in the hands of Stephen Jackson, and per- haps as many more names were on the papers held by the other members of the committee.
In cach township of the county this organi- zation existed in such strength as to include most of the loyal men.
Besides this there was an organization known as "the minute men," who were regularly eu- rolled and officered, and they were pledged to be always ready to assemble at some precon- certed rendezvons. In critical times the min- ute men took their guns and ammumtion with then everywhere, even to the church. This little fact is the hinge of an anecdote I had from Mrs. Eunice Pierson. She described Gen. Wmn. Winds as a powerful and imperious man, a devout Christian, who took his part in the lay services of the old church at Rockaway when there was no minister, uttering all ordi- nary petitions in quiet tones ; but when he prayed for the country raising his voice till it sounded like thunder. Although he had been a leading officer in the army, after his retire- ment he became a minute man, always carry- ing his wagon whip and his gun into the church. One Sunday during sermon he ap- plied the whip to an unruly boy, and on another Sunday a courier dashed up to the church door, shouting the alarm that the one- my was marching towards the Short Hills.
Of course in a trice the meeting adjourned in confusion, not waiting for a benediction. Gen. Winds seized his gun, and rushing out of the house ordered the minute men into line ; but, lo and behold! not a man bad his gun ! "Then," said Mrs. Pierson, "Gen. Winds raved and stormed at the men so loud that you might have heard him at the Short Hills l" You may remember that Dr. Ashbel Green speaks of Winds' voice as "stentorophoric. It was ar- ticulate as well as loud, and it exceeded in power and efficiency every other human voice that I ever heard." And yet, caught unarmed that time, the general rule was the contrary. Whenever the signal gun was heard or the om- inous tongue of flame shot up from the beacon hills, or the clattering hoofs of the courier's horse over the roads by day or by night to tell the people of the invading en- emy, these minute men were in an incredibly short time on their way to the appointed places of meeting.
I recall au illustration which may show this whole movement of the minute men in a beau- tiful manner. In Mendham there was a minute man named Bishop. The battle of Springfield occurred June 23, 1680. The harvest was unu- sually early that summer, and this man that
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morning was harvesting his wheat when the sound of the signal gun was faintly heard. They listened, and again the sound came boom- ing over the hills. "I must go." said the far- iner. "You had better take care of your wheat," said his farm hand. Again the sound of the gun pealed out clear in the air, and Bishop exclaimed, "I can't stand it. Take care of the grain the best way you can. I am off to the rescue l" And in a few minutes was on his way to Morristown. And he says that as he went there was not a road or lane or path along which he did not find troops of men who, like himself, were hurrying to the front.
We have only to recall " the association of Whigs," with their committees of safety," and the organization of "minute men," which were formed in every part of the county, to un- derstand how it was that our Morris yeomen were always ready to resist any attempt of the nemy to invade the county. In fact, they were resolved that the enemy should never reach the county if they could prevent it. Their spirit was expressed in the familiar reply of Winds to the young English officer who came to Chat- ham bridge to exchange some prisoners. Said the young Englishman, "We mean to dine in Morristown some day." " If you do dine in Morristown some day," retorted Winds in not the most refined language, "you will sup in hell the same evening !"
We cannot understand the remarkable effect- iveness of the people of this county during that long war without recalling the fact that all the resources of the county were concentrated and handled by the "Association of Whigs," and the "Minute Men."
There is another influence to be added and in the grouping I certainly mean no disrespect to either party. I now refer to the women and the clergy of Morris County. In the wars of civil- ized nations both these will be found a power- ful agency, but in some wars their influence has been very positive and direct. It was so in the war of the Revolution and pre-eminently so in this county. At the very beginning of the conflict Mr. Jefferson asserted the necessity of enlisting the religious sentiment of the coun- try by appointing fast days and inducing the ministers to preach on the great issues of the day. He admitted that he could see no other way to break up the apathy and hopelessness which were destroying the popular courage 80 necessrry at such a crisis.
It is a very interesting fact that a skeptical statesman should have sagaciously perceived and recommended sneh an agency. At once the force thus invoked did that which it was already doing, but now with the authoritative endorsement of the highest character. The ministers of the several churcees-preeminent
among them-it is not invidious to say Congre- gational and Presbyterian-on fast days, and in their ordinary services dwelt on the very themes which had evoked the eloquence of Jefferson in the Declaration, of Henry, and Lee, and Adams. and Rutledge in legislative balls, and of others not less mighty in their appeals to the peo- ple. It is not saying too much to declare that when we consider that with all the reverence in which in those days they were held as God's ambassadors, and the high character they pos- sessed as men of learning, purity and public spirit, their appeals carried greater weight with vast multitudes than any words of the mere pol- tician or statesman. In that day far more than in this the minister was clothed with a sort of divine authority, and when the American clergy from the pulpit denounced the tyranny of Great Britain and commanded their bearers to go to the rescue of their "poor bleeding eoun- try," it was in a measure as if God himself had spoken by them.
The ministers in Morris County during that period were chiefly Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed. The leading Presbyterian minis- ters were Johnes at Morristown, Green at Han- over, Kennedy at Baskingridge -- a part of which was in this county -- Lewis and his soc- cessor Joline at Mendham, Horton, Aaron Richards and Bradford at Bottle Hill, Wood- bull at Chester, and Joseph Grover at Parsip- pany, David Baldwin, Congregational, at Ches- ter, and Dominie Myers at Pompton Plains. There were other ministers in the county, but I have named the principal ones. Of these we may single out Johnes and Green as fair sanı- ples of them all. The eulogy which Albert Barnes pronounced on Dr. Timothy Johnes ix fully sustained by the facts. An able and sometimes a truly eloquent preacher, he was a remarkable pastor, and his ability in that respect was tasked to the utmost during the- two years the American army was in. Morris County. If anyone doubts this statement let him cxannne the "Morristown Bih of Mortali- ty," which is simpty a record of funerals which he himself had attended. In the year 1777 he attended 205 funerale, of which more than half were caused by small pox, putrid sore throat. and malignant dysentery. During a part of the time his church was occupied as a hospital for the sick. The same was true of the church - es at Snecasunna and Hanover. The latter was used for "a small pox hospital for patients who took the disease in the natural way." The fact that the Morristown church was ocen - pied as a hospital accounts for the other oft- told fact that Washington once received the communion elements from Dr. Johnes at a saerimental service held in a grove at the rear of the Doctor's own honse. The story has been
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discredited by some, but I have heard it from too many who were living when it occurred to doubt its truth.
Dr. Johnes threw himself with the greatest ardor into the cause of his countrymen, and his influence was widely felt over the country.
The Rev. Jacob Green-"Parson Green" as he was commonly called-was a marked man. One of the moat thorough and assiduous pas- tors he was also an able preacher. Besides this he had an extensive practice asa physician, and unable to educate his children otherwise he opened and managed a classical school with the aid of a tutor. He did not a little also in olber kinds of secular business, such as milling and distilling, and as if these were not enough to use up his energy he drove quite a law busi- uess, wrote articles on political economy for. the newspapers, served in the Legislature, and was for a considerable time Vice President of the College of New Jersey. He was held in the greatest reverence and died in the midst of his labors which had been extended in the one par. ish ever a period of forty-four years.
In the pulpit, the house, the newspaper, and in all places Mr. Green espoused the cause of Independence with thegreatest zeal. Such was his known influence in the parish and county as a citizen, a minister and a physician, that before he issned orders to inoculate his soldiers Washington invited this country parson to a consultation about this important measure. Convinced by Washington of its necessity, both Green and Johnes-and no doubt Kennedy, Woodhull and the other Morris county minis- ters-took the matter in hand to inoculate their own people. They arranged hospitals and dic- tated every plan with a precision and positive- ness that was not to be disobeyed by their par- ishioners, and such was the weight of this au- thority that it is said very few of the members of these churches disregarded it, and that few of them died of the foul disease. Of the 68 funerals from this disease attended by Dr. Johnes only six were members of his church, and these died before the local arrangements for inoculation were perfected.
I mention this as a sign of the authority of these ministers, and to show what an influence they exerted in favor of the cause of American Independence. How they wrought in the good canse is matter of record. The Associated Whigs and the Minute Men of Morris heard many "a powerful prayer and discourse" from these ministers to make them of good courage.
With these men we must associate the women of Morris County. There were some tories in the county. Thomas Millege, the sheriff elect, was one, and he was not the only one. There were some in Rockaway Valley who impudent- ly declared their expectation that the British
would triumph, in which event they had ar- ranged which of the farms belonging to the Whigs they would take as their share of the spoils ! But so shrewdly and bravely did Mrs. Miller concentrate the Whigs of that region through meetings beld in her own house as to defeat the rascals and clear them out.
So often has the story of the Morris County women been told that I fear any reference to it may seem tedious to you. It was no uncon- mon thing for these women to cultivate the fields and harvest the crops whilst the men were away to the war. On more than one occa- sion not a dozen men, old or young, were left in the Whippany neighborhood. The sanse Was true m many other neighborhoods. Anna Kitchef was a fair representative of all the Mor- ris County women, in both scorning "a British protection" when her husband and four broth- ers were in the American army, and in keeping the great pot full of food for the patriot sol- diers.
Yes, she spoke for a thousand like herself when she said so proudly to the Deacon wbo urged her to get a protection, " If the God of battles will not take care of us we will fare wille the rest !" Brave Anna Kitehell and over in Mendham the second winter the army wax repeatedly reduced to the very verge of starva- tion, and with roads blocked up with snow for miles, so that at one time a correspondent of a Philadelphia paper says there was "an enforce !! fast of three days in the camp." The poor fellows were only saved by their own personal appeals to the farmers of the county. Col. Drake once told me that for months that winter not a rooster was heard to crow in the region an closely had they been killed and the balance were only kept safe in the cellars! And the hungry, bare-footed and thinly clad soldiers went to the Morris County kitchens, and Hannah Carey, the wife of David Thompson. - she once scalded an impudent tory -- spoke for all the women who presided over these Morris County kitchens, as she ladled ont the food from her great pot, "Eat away, men, yon are welcome because you are fighting for the country ; and it is a good cause you are engaged in !" Brave Hannah Thompson! brave Anna Kitchel! brave women of Morris County ! The men fought well for the country and so did the women !
In the New York Observer recently appeared a spirited anecdote of a Mrs. Hannah Arnett of Elizabethtown, who heard her husband and several other dispirited patriots discussing the question of giving up the effort to national independence. When she saw the fatal conclu- sion to which they were Crifting she burst into the 100m, and in spite of the remonstrances of her husband, rebuked their weak cowardice and
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ANNALS OF MORRIS COUNTY.
said to him, "What greater canse could there be than that of country. I married a good man and true, a faithful triend, and loyal Christian gentleman, but it needs no divoree to sever me from a traitor and a coward. If you take the iufamons British protection which a treacherous enemy of your country offers you-you tose your wife and I-I lose my husband and my home !" Hannah Arnett spoke for the patriot women of America ! and she was as grand as any of them !
The burdens of the war fell very heavily on New Jersey. It was "the battle field of the Revolution." The presence of the armies in pursuit, retreat or battle, put the counties below the mountains in a chronic distress. Indeed such were the hardships endured at the hands of the enemy in these lowland counties, that the people held in the greatest detestation "the Red coats and the Hessians." From their presence the Morris County people were free, and yet it should not be forgotten that the almost intolerable bordens, consequent on the presence of the American army two winters, fell on them. During the winter and spring of 1777 -the army reached Morristown about the 7th of January, 1777-the soldiers were billeted on the families of Morristown or Hanover, Bottle Hill, and other parts of the county. Twelve men were quartered on Parson Green, sixteen on Anna Kitchels' husband Ural. a score on Aaron Kitchel, and so throughont the farming district. To these families it was al- most ruinous, since all they had was caten up in the service, so that when the army marched uff it left the region as bare as if it had been swept by a plague of loensts.
To this we must add the almost inconceiva- ble terror and hardship of the enforced universal inoculation of the people because the soldiers were inoculated. The late Rev. Samuel L. Tuttie, of Madison, so carenHy investigated this matter in that parish that he found ont where the small-pox hospitals were and some grave yards where our soldiers were buried. Dr. Asbbel Green in his autobiography says that the Hanover church was a hospital for those who had the disease the natural way, and in fearfully picturesque langnage he describes the horrors of the scenes he had witnessed in that old church. It is true that it was a singu- lar fact that scarcely one who was inoenlated lied, whilst scarcely one who took the disease in the natural way got well. But in either ease the horrors of this loathsome disease laid on our Morris county people a burden whose weight must have been crushing. And thus you see a hungry and sick army in those homes of our ancestors the first winter.
Of the second winter I have already spoken, but refer to it again to rernud you of the fact that during that almost onparalleled winter
when gaunt famine bung over the American camps, and when the paths and roads about them were marked with blood from the feet of the ill-shod soldiers, the forests of Morris county gave timber for rabins and wood for fuel, their barns yielded forage to the army horses, the yards furnished meat and the granaries and cellars gave forth food for the soldiers. There is no arithmetic or book-keep- ing that can announce the value of these con- tributions at such a crisis, and yet so gener- ously and unselfishly did our fore- fathors respond to this call of their country that it is said that receipts for the supplies were declined by most and that a very small fraction of the whole value was covered by the receipts. In u word the magnificent fact rises before us to-day that the Morris conuty people of the Revolution did what they did with such ample charity in both those dreadful winters substantially with- ont reward. They gave their men to fight, their women to suffer, and their property to lu. consumed for country and hberty without money and without priec. Nominally what 'hey had was worth fabulous prices in a eur- rency rendered worthless by over-issue and counterfeiting, but they seemed for the time to forget the ordinary uses of money and to open to the patriot soldiers all their stores to make them strong to fight the great fight that was to win for them a country.
Of course I have not told all that crowds upon the memory of those beroie times, but it is time to arrest this discourse already pretracted unduly. We are not to forget the more con spicuous names and deeds which belong to our Revolutionary history and which alter a cet- tury shine ont like stars at night in the clear sky. They will not be forgotten. From a thon- sand platforms THEIR praises will be rehearsed this day, whilst the boommg cannon and the pealing bells, and the glad rhonts of our people shall proclaim how we prize the great menand decds of that berose period.
We have followed to-day a bnmbler impulse and recalled the fore-fathers of our own county in the Revolution. We have our heroes, and onr shrines are where they wronght for their country. Each old parish has its heroes, and each old ebnrch was the sbrine at which brave men and women bowed in God's fear, consecret ing their all to their country. And surely no lescendant of them can stand on the Short Hills at the point where the unsleeping sel - tinels of the old county stood a hundred years ago, nor wander along the Loantira Valley, or over Kimball Mountain where American sol- diers suffered and Morris county men and women enstained them. nor tread the tawny that environ the old Ford mansion and enter its honored halls where onee dwelt Washington
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