USA > New Jersey > Morris County > Morristown > Historic Morristown, New Jersey : the story of its first century > Part 11
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III
II " & 5
HISTORIC MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY
Where "Peter Mackee's land," with reference to the Presbyterian house of worship, was situated, it would be interesting to know; that it was in the near vicin- ity of that house of worship is highly probable, and that it may have been in front of the "meeting house Dore" is possible. As to the residence of "Doct tuthill Esq.," we can speak with certainty; it was situated on the left hand side of what is now South street, and about midway between what is now the southwest corner of the Green and what is now James street; or, to be somewhat more definite, it stood about opposite where Boyken street intersects with South street. Inasmuch as he was a leading man in the community, the reader will be interested to learn a few facts concerning "Doct tuthill Esq." And first as to his bearing the double title of "Doct," and "Esq." After his graduation from Yale College, he evidently studied medicine, which accounts for the application of the former title. On the nine- teenth day of March in the year 1759, when he was thirty-five years of age, he was appointed a judge for Morris County, by Governor Barnard, and on the twenty-first of April, in the year 1768, he was reap- pointed to the same office; and here we have the expla- nation of the title of "Esq.," applied to this prominent Morristonian of former days.
It would be exceedingly interesting to know who were the teachers in Morristown's early schools; but this is a pleasure our readers are required to forego, since there is now, apparently, no way of ascertaining. We do know, however, that in the year 1779, there ap-
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THE STORY OF ITS FIRST CENTURY
pear on the roll of membership of the Presbyterian Church of Morristown, the names of "Mrs. Dow" and "Dorothea Cooper, school madams," who had evidently united with the church by certificate from some sister organization; and from this circumstance we may be permitted to infer that they were teachers in the school- house on the parsonage land, wherever that may have been. Of the schoolhouse on the Green, no description has come down to us, nor is there now any knowledge of the methods employed in teaching. From the follow- ing description of a school situated a few miles from Morristown, at the period under consideration, given by an aged eye-witness, there may, however, be drawn an inference of the modus operandi of the school on the Morristown Green. This gentleman of four-score years and two (Mahlon Johnson) thus spoke, just prior to the opening of the Civil War :
"The school building was constructed of logs, and instead of glass for windows sheep skins were stretched over aper- tures made by sawing off an occasional log. These windows had one virtue-they were an effectual screen to prevent pu- pils from being interrupted in their exercises by what was going on outside. The time was regulated by an hour-glass, and they drank their water from a tumbler made of cow's horn or ground shell. Arithmetic was not taught in classes, but the pupils ciphered when they were not reading, spell- ing or writing. The latter branches were taught in classes. A chalk line or a crack in the floor was the mark they were required to toe. The common school was hardly considered a school in those days unless the whack of the ruler or the whistle of the whip was frequently heard."
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HISTORIC MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY
The taverns and tavern-keepers of early Morristown were more numerous than the average resident of this now historic town apprehends, as may be inferred from the following announcement in the year 1764:
"Whereas Samuel Tuthill, of Morris Town, in Morris County (the identical Samuel Tuthill of whom we have just been speaking) purposes to leave of the Business of Tav- ernkeeping, he will sell the Farm where he now lives, con- taining about 90 Acres, being well proportioned with Wood Land, plough Land, and Meadow, and a fine Stream of Wa- ter running through the Whole; with a good Orchard on the same, consisting of 257 bearing Apple Trees, besides a Va- riety of other Fruit Trees; and also a large Dwelling House on the Place, convenient for a Tavern and other Public Bus- iness; standing about Twenty Two Rods from the Court House, in Morris Town, being in the most publick Part of the Country. Any Person inclinning to purchase, may ap- ply to Samuel Tuthill, on the Premises, who will give a good Title."
Before bidding adieu to the period of Morristown's history so briefly reviewed, let us draw aside a little wider the veil separating the past from the present, and take a final view of affairs in Morristown as indi- cated by the following extract from the New York Mercury of December 20, in the year 1762 :
"On the 25th. of November last broke out of Morris County goal, in New Jersey, a prisoner named John Smith, an Irishman, tall, slender, and thin visaged, much pock marked, about 35 years of age, with brown hair: Had on, a brown jacket, a check shirt, and linen trowsers. Whoever shall take up the said Smith, and bring him to me, or my
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THE STORY OF ITS FIRST CENTURY
goaler, in Morris Town, shall have five pounds reward, and all reasonable charges, paid by "SAMUEL TUTHILL, Sheriff."
That the "good old days" in Morristown's history were not exempt from crime, is a fact that, in a striking manner, is brought home to those of the present gener- ation, by such announcement as the following, from the New York Mercury of April 30, in the year 1764 :
"Morris Town, April 19, 1764.
"FIFTY POUNDS REWARD.
"Whereas my House in Morris Town, was broke open on Monday Night the second Instant, the Lock broke off my Desk, and my Pocket Book taken out, with about £27 in Cash, and several Writings of the greatest Consequence to me: Particularly some Receipts, one of which was from John Tuttle to me, for £200 York Currency; and as a certain Per- son was heard to say (that Morning before this Theft was made) that the above Receipt would never be seen again, I have the greatest Reason to suspect this infamous Robbery has been committed on Account of the aforesaid Receipt, with a villanous design to defraud me of the Money depend- ing on said Receipt, together with my Character: Therefore whoever will discover the audacious Perpetrator of this hor- rid Crime, shall receive on Conviction the above Reward, from
"DAVID GOULD."
"Contentment, rosy, dimpled maid,
Thou brighest daughter of the sky-"
must have been a stranger to the individual named in the announcement: "Runaway a few days ago from the sub- scriber of Morris Town, in East New Jersey, a servant man,
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HISTORIC MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY
named Ebenezer Haulbeet, a carpenter by trade, about 25 years old, about 5 feet 8 or 9 inches high, light complexion, flax colour'd straight hair; rode a white horse, which it is supposed he would soon part with, as he is very fond of swaping horses. He is supposed to be gone to Connecticut, somewhere near or about Sharon, where he has relations of the same name. Whoever takes up said servant, and secures him in any county goal, so that I may obtain him again, shall have five pounds reward, paid by me.
JOSEPH KING. "June 18" (no year given, probably 1764).
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CHAPTER VII.
"Who swerves from innocence, who makes divorce Of that serene companion-a good name, Recovers not his loss; but walks with shame, With doubt, with fear, and haply with remorse."
HE oft-repeated saying that "truth is stranger than fiction" was never T more aptly, nor, indeed, more amply illustrated than in the following con- densed account of the counterfeiting operations of Samuel Ford, and his partners in the crime, which was carried on by them in Morristown, chiefly, during the decade immediately preceding the commencement of the Revolution.
Samuel Ford, the leader of this notorious gang of counterfeiters, was the son of Samuel Ford, whose fath- er was John Ford, who, in the year 1721, settled in what is now known as Monroe, situated about two miles to the eastward of Morristown, upon a large tract of land given him by John Budd as an inducement to open up
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HISTORIC MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY
a settlement in that region. From one of Samuel Ford's blood relations, who was familiar with his personal appearance as a young man, we learn that "he was a handsome man," but as we shall in due time ascertain, he did not become a shining exemplification of the significant saying that "Handsome is that handsome does ;" indeed, to quote again from the relation men- tioned, "he was a great grief to his friends." Samuel Ford, Jr., married Grace, the daughter of Joseph Kitchel, Esq., of Hanover Township, and she was a sister, therefore, of the Hon. Aaron Kitchel, who was United States Senator from New Jersey from the year 1807 until the year 1811, and who, before and during the Revolution, had played an important part in county affairs. Colonel Jacob Ford, Sr., was an uncle of Sam- uel Ford, Jr., who, as may be inferred from the fact of his highly respectable family relations on both sides, was the one "black sheep" of the flock.
Prior to the year 1765-it may have been as early as the year 1762-we find Samuel Ford, Jr., engaged in the iron industry at what is now known as Hibernia, four miles north of Rockaway, in company with Lord Stirling and Benjamin Cooper; the latter the son of Daniel Cooper, one of the early judges of the Morris County Court. It is said that the Hibernia works were originally built and owned by Samuel Ford, Jr., and Lord Stirling, and that Benjamin Cooper joined them in the business subsequently. If the declaration of Samuel Ford, made in after years, is accepted as truth- ful (and the writer recognizes no reason for doubting
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THE STORY OF ITS FIRST CENTURY
it), Benjamin Cooper, during a period of financial em- barrassment in their business at Hibernia, suggested to him the idea of making and using counterfeit money to enable them to meet their pecuniary obligations, and so continue the business. It is not improbable-indeed, the writer ventures the opinion that it is highly prob- able-that either Samuel Ford, alone, or in conjunction with Benjamin Cooper, soon afterward began the man- ufacture at "Hiberny" of counterfeit money, but with what measure of success as to the execution or circu- lation of it the writer has no opinion to express.
It is a matter of record that on the twenty-eighth day of October, in the year 1765, Samuel Ford sold sev- eral tracts of land at Hibernia to James Anderson and Benjamin Cooper. His wife Grace joined with him in the transfers. The deed given to Anderson was ac- knowledged "before me, Joseph Tuttle, Esq., one of the Judges of His Majesty's inferior Court of Common Pleas, held at Morristown, July 9, 1766." To this lat- ter circumstance special reference will be made at a later stage of this history, in connection with the en- deavor to account for the absence of the records of the Morris County Court from the year 1754, to the year 1796-a most significant fact when considered in the light of the highly sensational occurrences of the inter- vening period, one of which, we are about to relate. That Samuel Ford disposed of his interest in the iron business at Hibernia in the year 1765, seems evident from the consideration of two facts; first, that the con- veyance of the tracts of land above mentioned to James
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HISTORIC MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY
Anderson speaks of "outhouses, buildings, barns, fur- naces, &c., mines and minerals, &c.," as included in the deed; and, second, that as early as the year 1768 the firm conducting the Hibernia iron works is spoken of as "Benjamin Cooper & Co.," and Lord Stirling was understood to be the "Company." For the property sold by Samuel Ford at Hibernia, he received from James Anderson the sum of £265 13s. 4d., and from Benjamin Cooper the same, having sold to each the same quantity of land.
Not long after the sale of the above-mentioned prop- erty at Hibernia-it may have been late in the same year (1765), or early in the year following, probably the former-Samuel Ford made a trip to Ireland, and from the circumstance of the close proximity of the two occurrences, it is safe to infer that this sale of prop- erty was made for the express purpose of raising funds with which to defray the expense of his transatlantic trip. At the period under consideration, Ireland was reputed to have the most skilful counterfeiters in the world. The object of Samuel Ford's visit to the Green Isle was, as subsequent events clearly disclosed, the perfection of himself in the business of making counter- feit money, and in this branch of business he became, as we shall shortly learn, an expert. While in Ire- land he won the affections of an interesting Irish girl, whom, with undue haste, he married. She is said to have had a respectable sum of money, which we may reasonably assume was appropriated by the bridegroom in the conduct of his unique business. Ford remained
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THE STORY OF ITS FIRST CENTURY
in Ireland several months, returning with his young Irish bride to America, as near as can now be ascer- tained, in the early part of the month of June, in the year 1766.
Upon learning that Ford had a wife and children in this country, his bride of a few months was almost beside herself with grief and disappointment; and that she promptly separated herself from one who had so basely deceived her, it is almost superfluous to mention. There is good authority for adding that this broken- hearted Irish girl subsequently married one of her own countrymen, and for many years resided in Whippany, New Jersey.
It is a fact pregnant with significance that simul- taneously with the landing of Ford in this country, on his return from Ireland, there appeared in one of the New York periodicals the announcement of the arrival at that port of a ship with "a large sum of counterfeit Jersey bills of credit." Equally significant is the fact that on the twenty-eighth day of June, in the year 1766, the Governor of New Jersey issued a warrant on the New Jersey Treasury to the Honorable John Stevens, for dispatching an express into the province to inform the inhabitants of a large sum of Jersey bills of credit having arrived in a vessel from England; the vessel evidently set sail from some port in the country last named. This counterfeit money was unquestionably the product of Samuel Ford, and his instructors, in the Emerald Isle.
In the year 1767, Samuel Ford was a resident of New
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HISTORIC MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY
York, and here he was arrested "on a charge of utter- ing false New Jersey bills of credit." There is no record, however, of his having been brought to trial for his alleged crime.
With the consummate skill as a maker of counterfeit money acquired in Ireland, Ford now resolved to en- gage in the business-"a money-making affair" he pleasantly termed it-on an extensive scale; and we next find him living in a secluded spot on what is now the Columbia road, a little more than half a mile beyond the "Washington Headquarters." The house in which he lived with his wife and children, whom he had mean- while joined, has disappeared, and on its site there now stands another dwelling. His counterfeiting quarters was a hut or shop situated on a small island about in the centre of what has for many years been known as the "Hammock." The "Hammock" was in Samuel Ford's day a piece of swamp land, which, during the greater portion of the year was covered by a foot or more of water; indeed, a gentleman who for many years has resided in the vicinity, says : "I have seen five feet of water on the 'Hammock.' I have hunted ducks there." This same gentleman when asked by the writer how long this piece of swamp land has been known as the "Hammock," replied, with apparent irri- tation, that its long-continued designation should for a moment be questioned. "Why, bless you," he ex- claimed, "ever since I was a baby I have known it by that name," and he has reached three-score and ten, after honorable service in the Civil War, and thrilling
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THE STORY OF ITS FIRST CENTURY
adventures in the extreme West. Lest some of our readers, in expectation of fine sport and buoyed also by dreams of well-filled game bags, set out on some aus- picious morning for the "Hammock," the writer will promptly inform them that it was long since filled in. Its location, however, and the location of the miniature island once rising in its centre, upon which Samuel Ford's shop was situated, are still discoverable.
While engaged in his counterfeiting business at the "Hammock," Ford was in the habit of leaving his home at daylight each morning with gun over his shoulder, as if starting out on a hunting expedition. His real objective, however, was the little shop on the Hammock Island, where he was wont to attend to his "money-making affair." In order to reach this shop it was necessary for him to crawl on his hands and knees, a portion of the way at least. Owing to his reputation in the neighborhood for idleness, his peculiar course of life aroused no suspicion. The one unaccountable thing in connection with his life which impressed his neigh- bors was the fact, that a man with no ostensible means of livelihood, save a few acres of swamp land, could dress well, live well and always have plenty of money. Doubtless Ford could have solved the knotty problem for his wondering neighbors had he been so disposed ; that he was not disposed was undoubtedly owing to pru- dential considerations. There is evidence, which can- not, the writer believes, be gainsaid, that Ford's coun- terfeiting shop was visited, once at least, by Thomas Kinney, of Morristown, who was subsequently the
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sheriff of Morris County. Mr. Kinney's visit (or vis- its?) to the counterfeiting establishment of Samuel Ford, was not, of course, generally known at the time. It is not improbable; and this opinion is not expressed save as the result of thorough and impartial investiga- tion, that other men of prominence in Morristown and Morris County (the mention of whose names even sug- gestively might produce at least a mild sensation) vis- ited the little shop on the "Hammock" while hunting ducks or other more precious game, perchance.
In the year 1768-it was probably during his resi- dence near the "Hammock"-Ford, on the night of July 21, with the aid of accomplices, robbed the treasury of East Jersey, then situated at Perth Amboy, the ac- count of which follows: In the office adjoining the sleeping-room of Mr. Skinner, the treasurer, was an iron chest containing the provincial funds then in his custody. It was the purpose of Samuel Ford and his accomplices-comprising, according to seemingly reli- able evidence, three soldiers employed as guards on the premises-to carry off this chest and afterward open it and secure its contents. If this failed, the robbers were to take the key to the iron chest from Mr. Skinner. The desperate character of this robbery, as deliberately planned by the perpetrators, may be inferred from the fact that it was resolved that, if necessary to the suc- cess of their undertaking, Mr. Skinner, the treasurer, or any other person obstructing the execution of their plans, should be murdered. It was also mutually agreed that if the prospective robbers were suspected, or dis-
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THE STORY OF ITS FIRST CENTURY
covered, and brought to trial, they should turn "King's evidence" and endeavor to implicate Mr. Skinner as an accomplice in the crime. The penalty for the contem- plated crime was, at the time, death by hanging; and when one of the gang, apparently more humane than the rest, expressed his disapproval of trying to impli- cate the treasurer, Samuel Ford exclaimed: "No, d-n him, he will only be condemned; he has friends enough to save him from the gallows."
Finding that the iron chest containing the coveted money was too heavy and too large to carry off, the robbers concluded to open it on the premises, and then and there rifle its contents. This was accomplished by means of an old rusty and cast-off key, accidentally found in the drawer of an old desk which the robbers had broken open, in the expectation of finding money. The key in use for opening the iron chest was in the room occupied by Mr. Skinner, presumably somewhere about the clothing he had laid aside for the night. It is the opinion of not a few persons familiar with the details of this crime, that the accidental finding of the cast-off key to the iron chest containing the provincial funds, was the means of preserving the life of the sleep- ing treasurer, who, upon awakening, would not have given up the key to the iron chest without a struggle for its possession, which would almost certainly have re- sulted in his death at the hands of four desperate rob- bers, three of whom had basely betrayed the trust of guardianship reposed in them by the treasurer. But, by the aid of the old key the iron chest was opened, and
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its contents secured and carried off by the robbers. It is safe to assume that of the sum secured, £6,570, 9s, 4d, in bills and coin-Samuel Ford received the lion's share. The three soldiers were doubtless suitably re- warded for the valuable assistance rendered by them.
Benjamin Cooper, Samuel Ford's former partner in the iron industry at Hibernia, received, as he subse- quently acknowledged, £300 of these ill-gotten gains. But why should Benjamin Cooper receive a portion of the fruits of this daring robbery if he had not been a partner, either active or silent, in the crime whose pen- alty was death by hanging? Or, did he receive it as "hush money?" That other persons in Morris County, one at least of the number a Morristonian, were con- nected directly or indirectly with the robbery of the treasury at Perth Amboy and shared in the ill-gotten gains, there is in the mind of the writer scarcely a doubt. One, as we have seen, confessed to having re- ceived a portion of this stolen money; but how many more did not make a confession? Let us find the an- swer to this query in the words :
"Justice is passionless and therefore sure; Guilt for a while may flourish; virtue sink 'Neath the shade of calumny and ill; justice At last, like the bright sun, shall break majestic forth, The shield of innocence, the guard of truth."
The failure of the provincial authorities to discover the perpetrators of the Perth Amboy robbery, in close connection therewith, is a sufficient explanation of the
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THE STORY OF ITS FIRST CENTURY
fact that Ford and his accomplices in the crime were unapprehended, and the circumstances of this highly sensational occurrence were not made public until sev- eral years afterward under the shadow of the scaf- fold.
There is some evidence that soon after the Perth Amboy robbery, Ford made a second trip across the Atlantic, going this time to England. No account of the particulars of this second transatlantic trip, how- ever, so far as the writer is aware, has descended to us.
Early in the year 1773, large quantities of counterfeit money, consisting of bills of credit and coin, were found to be in circulation in the New Jersey province. By reason of a combination of circumstances, which will now be particularized, suspicion was at length fastened upon Samuel Ford, Jr., as the person chiefly respon- sible for this alarming state of affairs. On the six- teenth day of July, in the year 1773, therefore, he was arrested and placed in the Morris County Jail on the Green. It will be remembered that the Morris County Courthouse, a portion of which was used as a jail, was at the time mentioned a one-story structure, with the large, old-fashioned open fire-place and immense chim- ney, spoken of in connection with the account of Uriah Brown's mysterious nocturnal escapes. Simultane- ously, or nearly so, with the arrest of Ford, several oth- er persons were also arrested on suspicion of having been identified with him in the manufacture and circu- lation of counterfeit money. Their names were Benja-
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min Cooper, of Hibernia; Dr. Bern Budd, of Morris- town; Samuel Haynes and one Ayers, both of Sussex County, and David Reynolds, a native presumably, of the Emerald Isle-an Irishman certainly. These were likewise lodged in the jail on the Green. If the arm of the law had been long enough and strong enough, doubtless this quintet of suspects would have been con- siderably swelled, but-well, the words following have, at least, some measure of application to this case :
Laws are like spider webs, small flies are ta'en,
While greater flies break in and out again-and some flies that ought to be in, never get in.
One of the most unfortunate features of this coun- terfeiting affair is the fact, that most of the persons implicated and arrested were well connected, and some at least of them moved in the best society of the day.
On the night of his arrest, or on the day following, Ford escaped from the county jail. That he was aided in effecting his escape was the common opinion of the day; and that one John King, who seems to have been at the time under-sheriff, or jailer, at the Morris County Jail, was Ford's confederate in the occurrence, was also the prevalent opinion. Certain it is that in the month of February following, Deputy Sheriff King was cited before the Privy Council of New Jersey. Nor was the sheriff of Morris County at the time, Thomas Kin- ney, free of suspicion, as a confederate of Ford, in effecting his prompt escape from the old, one-story jail on the Green. In this connection one can scarcely avoid
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