USA > New Jersey > Morris County > Morristown > Historic Morristown, New Jersey : the story of its first century > Part 12
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the conclusion that Samuel Ford did not have to climb up chimney to make his escape. Subsequent develop- ments, as will be seen, more than confirmed the grounds of suspicion that Sheriff Kinney had a hand in Ford's escape, and it would be gratifying to the writer to be able to say, or to think, that the developments above suggested do not encourage the belief that Sheriff Kinney, as an individual, had also been an accomplice, silent, it is true, with Ford, in his long-continued coun- terfeiting operations. Ford might have been captured, after his escape from the Morris County Jail, but for the circumstances about to be related. He made his escape on July 16 or 17, 1773. For more than a month thereafter it was quite generally known that he was se- creted in the near vicinity of Morristown. In this knowledge, it is practically certain, the High Sheriff of Morris County, shared. On August 5-nearly three weeks, it will be noted, after Ford's slick escape- Sheriff Kinney publicly offered a reward for the appre- hension of the escaped counterfeiter. Not until the month of September, did the Pennsylvania Gazette be- gin to publish items concerning the pursuit of Ford, and the same periodical did not get the Governor's proclamation for publication, until December 1, 1773. But we will now
Search not to find what lies too deeply hid,
Nor to know things where knowledge is forbid.
Ford, after his escape from jail, fled to a lonely spot on the mountains in the vicinity of Hibernia, where he
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had once been engaged in the iron industry. Here he secreted himself in a deserted colliery cabin known as "Smultz's Cabin," and here we will for the present leave him, where, quoting the apt lines of Longfellow :
The leaves of memory seem to make A mournful rustling in the dark.
At a special session of the Court of Oyer and Ter- miner of Morris County, held on the fourth of August, in the year 1773, a preliminary examination of wit- nesses was conducted. The evidence then and there adduced against the persons confined in the county jail, for alleged complicity with Ford in his counterfeiting operations, was such that their trial and conviction be- came a foregone conclusion. In view of this latter fact, presumably, Benjamin Cooper, one of the prisoners, on the fourteenth day of the month last named, made a partial confession. This he was moved to do in the hope of a mitigation of his evidently anticipated punish- ment. A second confession, by another prisoner, pre- sumably Dr. Bern Budd, included a complete and ex- plicit account of all the details of the "money-making" scheme. There is evidence which indicates that this lat- ter confession was suppressed. It is a matter of record that "In 1773, Lord Stirling complained that Samuel Tuttle and Colonel Samuel Ogden had acted in an un- fair and partial manner 'in taking the examinations and depositions of several witnesses of and concerning sev- eral criminal matters,' inquired into by them as Judges of the Morris County Court of Oyer and Terminer ; he
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also charged that they had 'suppressed the testimony of some material witnesses (in connection with the Ford counterfeiting operations?) for bringing certain crim- inals to Justice.' These charges being made to the Council of the Province, Col. Ogden in behalf of him- self and Judge Tuthill demanded an inquiry. But Lord Stirling withdrew the charges, and the matter was dropped." These confessions led to an examination of the shop on the "Hammock," where a press and plates for printing the bills, not only of New Jersey, but of Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York, were found. A quantity of type and other material used in the counterfeiting business, as also a leather wrapper in which the false bills were kept, were among the fruits of the raid on the "Hammock."
After Ford's flight from New Jersey, and settlement elsewhere, of which an account will, in due course, be given, his former home near the scene of his criminal operations was purchased by Sheriff Robertson. While subsequently repairing the house, counterfeiters' tools were found secreted in the walls.
On the nineteenth of August, in the year 1773, the trial of Cooper, Budd, Haynes and Reynolds was begun in the Morris County Court; Ayers was tried and con- victed in Sussex County. The Morris County Court room was crowded during the trial, by an eager and sympathetic throng, nearly every one of whom was re- lated, in some way, to the prisoners who were being tried for their lives. To the indictment found against them, each prisoner pleaded guilty, and they were sen-
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tenced to be hanged on the seventeenth of the month fol- lowing. One of the judges of the court which had tried and sentenced these men, was the father of Benja- min Cooper. The writer has seen the statement that the sentences were passed upon the prisoners in the "meeting-house," by which is doubtless meant the Presbyterian meeting-house. It is said that when Mrs. Budd heard of the sentence of her husband, she started at once for Perth Amboy, where, on her knees before the Governor, she pleaded for her husband's pardon, with what effect, however, is not known. Quite differ- ent was the deportment of Dr. Budd's mother, a woman of extraordinary dignity and stateliness. When she witnessed the grief of her daughter-in-law, she re- marked, by way of reproof : "He has broken the laws of the land, and it is just that he should suffer by them." Mrs. Budd, the doctor's mother, was, however, a kind- hearted, sympathetic woman. The day fixed for the execution of the sentenced criminals arrived. The scaffold had been carefully erected on the Green. Over the business of executing four men Sheriff Kinney is said to have been greatly excited-so excited, indeed, as to be almost beside himself. But before he was re- quired to perform the dreaded execution, an order arrived at Morristown, from Governor Franklin to remand Budd and Cooper and Haynes to jail. Rey- nolds, however, the least guilty of the number, for lack of "friends at court," was executed on the day set- September 17. The fellow-Irishman upon whose tes- imony Reynolds was arrested shed bitter tears of re-
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gret when he was informed of the sentence of his acquaintance. To the last moment Reynolds protested his innocence. Among the witnesses of the execution of Reynolds was David Gordon, a nephew of Sheriff Kinney. From Rev. Dr. Joseph F. Tuttle, the follow- ing is quoted :
"My aged friend, Mr. Gordon (the Gordon above men- tioned), says he remembers that Reynolds, one of the four condemned counterfeiters, protested to the last his inno- cence. He admitted that it was right that he should die, for he had done many things worthy of death. One of his great crimes as rehearsed on the scaffold, and only one made an impression on Mr. Gordon's mind. With much feeling, Rey- nolds recurred to his boyhood. His grandmother sent him to procure her some snuff. He performed the errand, but only expended a part of her money, as she ordered. With the rest he procured some cake or candy for himself. He said that dishonest act had distressed him greatly, and if guilty of no other crime, for this he ought to die. 'But as for the indictment on which I am convicted and sentenced I am entirely innocent.'"
Mr. Gordon informed Dr. Tuttle that the scaffold on which Reynolds was executed was erected "im- mediately in front of the courthouse," by which, as the present writer believes, he means, on the side of the court house nearest the Presbyterian Church. Inas- much as, at the period under consideration, there was a road on the easterly side of the courthouse, it is easy to conceive that by "immediately in front of the court- house," Mr. Gordon refers to what was really the rear of that structure. That the scaffold was erected lit-
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erally in front of the courthouse would mean that it was erected in the public highway; for the courthouse, as a matter of fact, fronted on what was then known as Court Street, a narrow road to the westward of the courthouse. An examination of the map made in the year 1777, by order of Washington, will confirm the view above stated. Another incident related by Mr. Gordon is given in the words of Dr. Tuttle :
"It seems that (just previous to the hour fixed for the executions) a son of the Sheriff, a lad of some ten or twelve years of age, and himself (Mr. Gordon), forgetful of the dreadful nature of the business in hand, were indulging themselves in some athletic sport. Mrs. Kinney called her son into the house, and rebuking him for his shameless lev- ity at such a time, severely chastised him. The sheriff com- ing up just at that moment, nervous and agitated with the hanging business, seized the boy by the arm, and called out spitefully: 'Why don't you put it on him?' His wife very wise- ly concluded, that however well calculated he might be in that mental agitation to hang four men, he was not at all fitted to advise concerning the whipping of one boy, and she forthwith desisted. As for Mr. Gordon, he thought the Sheriff would be at him next, and he was greatly frightened about it."
In the month of December, 1773, after several res- pites, Governor Franklin granted a complete pardon to Budd, Cooper and Haynes.
Such was Dr. Budd's reputation for skill in his profession, that notwithstanding his conviction and sentence for crime he promptly resumed his practise in Morristown. One of the first patients he was called
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to attend was a woman who was supposed to be near the end of her life. Dr. Budd had scarcely crossed the threshold of the sick room, when the woman sum- moned sufficient strength to inquire, with unaffected simplicity : "How did you kind of feel, doctor, when you came so near being hanged?" Turning with a smile, and a blush to her husband, the doctor remarked : "Well, well, I guess your wife has a fair chance to re- cover."
About the middle of September, 1773, after Samuel Ford had been in hiding for nearly two months Sheriff Kinney repaired quietly to Rockaway (it was on Sunday), where he leisurely summoned a posse for the pursuit of the escaped counterfeiter. Kinney, ap- parently for the purpose of making a showing of earn- estness, pressed into service as a guide Abraham Kitchel, a brother of Samuel Ford's wife, Grace.
Kitchel, while the posse was on its way to Hibernia, remarked to Sheriff Kinney: "I know where Ford is, and will take you to the spot, but you know you dare not, for your own sake, arrest him." This remark has but a single meaning, which our readers will not be slow in discovering. A boy-James Kitchel, son of Abraham-upon seeing the sheriff arrest his father as a guide to Ford's hiding place, was so frightened, that he started on a run for home; but on the way he stopped at the house of Joseph Herriman long enough to tell him of the occurrences of the morning. Herriman at once threw off his coat, and ran at the top of his speed by a short cut to "Smultz's Cabin," and
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notified Ford of his peril. When Sheriff Kinney and his posse, reached the cabin, Ford was gone. As the posse entered the doubly deserted cabin, Abraham Kitchel remarked to Kinney: "There, sheriff, is where Ford has been secreted, and you would rather give your horse, saddle and bridle than to find him here now."
By the Privy Council of New Jersey Sheriff Kinney was subsequently declared "blameable for negligence in his office, respecting the escape of Ford;" and the same body advised the Governor "to prosecute the said indictment at the next court." But the writer has neither seen nor heard of any record of his trial. A well known, and much read poet, has said: "Where there is a mystery, it is generally supposed that there must also be evil." That there is mystery, on the sur- face, at least, in the failure of the county officials, "to prosecute the said indictment at the next court," must be patent to all readers of this story.
Ford fled southward, paying his way with money of his own manufacture. He settled among the moun- tains of Green Brier County, Va., now a part of West Virginia, where he assumed the name of Baldwin, his mother's maiden name. There, with a partner, he en- gaged in the business of a silversmith. During a serious illness, when death was anticipated, he made a full confession of his former crimes to his partner's wife. Upon his recovery and after the decease of his part- ner, he married the widow. He acquired considera- ble property. Several children were the result of his latest matrimonial venture. The Virginia Bald-
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wins, who became prominent in State affairs, may have been descendants of the man who is said to have "left his country for his country's good."
When the whereabouts of Ford became known to the New Jersey authorities he was, legally speaking, beyond the reach of the law, so far as arrest for the robbery of the treasury at Perth Amboy was concerned ; owing to the fact that he had left the province before the confessions of his accomplices had been made. He was visited, after the lapse of a few years, by his eld- est son by Grace Kitchel. The young man's name was William. He was accompanied by Stephen Halsey, who subsequently married one of William's sisters. To these visitors Samuel Ford appeared to be in a most melancholy frame of mind. He professed repentance for his past sins, and declared his intentions to lead a good life. To New Jersey he never returned. When informed of the confessions of Budd, Cooper and Haynes, in which they declared him to be the prime mover of the Perth Amboy robbery, Ford strenuously denied it. In a letter to Benjamin Cooper, written while he was in hiding near Hibernia, he berated him for his "atrocious falsehood" in charging him with the robbery of the provincial treasury, and added: "You describe me as being the chiefest promoter and first introducer of the money-making affair," by which he means the counterfeiting operations. He continues : "Did you not in the time of our depressed circum- stances at the furnace (Hibernia) first move such a scheme to me ?"
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Ford's property at the "Hammock." what little there was left, was sold by Sheriff Kinney even to a tin cup containing milk for the babe. During the sale, Ford's son (probably William), said to the sheriff: "I have seen you in my father's shop." Dr. Joseph F. Tuttle's "The Early History of Morris County, New Jersey," in connection with his statements of the career of Samuel Ford, Jr., says : "And I cannot refrain from expressing the feeling, which an examination of all the accessible records, as well as traditions, leave on my mind, that whilst Samuel Ford was a great villain, he was acting his villainy in very respectable company, a part of which did not get to court and scaffold, as some others did." And finally, quotes the present writer :
"Good nature and good sense must ever join; To err is human, to forgive, divine."
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CHAPTER VII.
"Slaves, who once conceived the glowing thought Of freedom, in that hope itself possess
All that the contest calls for ;- spirit, strength, The scorn of danger, and united hearts,
The surest presage of the good they seek."
OR nearly a score of years prior to the commencement of the Revolution, F the policy of Great Britain, with re- spect to the American colonies, had been anything but just. During the period mentioned there were en- acted by the British Parliament no less than twenty-nine laws in restriction of infant col- onial industries. The mere mention of a few of these laws, as illustrative of the blind tyranny of the mother country, makes them, in the light of the twentieth cen- tury, appear little less than ludicrous. Among them were the prohibition of the use of waterfalls, of the setting up of machinery for manufacturing purposes, such as looms and spindles, and of working of iron
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HISTORIC MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY
and wood in certain forms specified. Markets for boards and fish were shut out, sugar and molasses, and the American vessels in which they were carried, were seized, and the King's arrow was set upon trees which were afterward permitted to rot in the forests. In short, the attempt was made to prevent trade of any sort by the American colonies with any country, ex- cept above it floated the British flag.
To a few of the acts of the British Parliament thus, in a general way, alluded to, it seems desirable to refer specifically, and by name. And first, to what are known as the 'navigation acts,' passed in the years 1761 and 1766, which forbade colonial trade with England, and with English colonies, except in English vessels. The restrictions of these laws were made still closer by the subsequent enactment of further laws of a similar character. The American colonies should produce commodities which could not be produced in the mother country and which the mother country needed, the colonies should consume what the mother country had to sell; they should never be competitors with the mother country, and should trade with no other nation-such, in brief, was the British idea of her colonies, and of their mutual obligations. Great Britain was willing to purchase from her American colonies tobacco and naval stores. for these she was herself unprepared to produce. As soon, however, as the colonists on this side of the Atlantic, embarked in the manufacture of woolen goods, they were at once forbidden to export the wool, or the goods, into which
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it was made, from one colony to another. When the colonists began to manufacture hats, the exportation of this commodity from one colony to another was per- emptorily forbidden, and by promptly enacted laws an attempt was made to limit the number of apprentices to hatters. Even the slow growth of the iron industry in the American colonies, excited alarm among the iron manufacturers of Great Britain. This resulted in the enactment of a law permitting pig iron and bar iron to be imported into Great Britain free of duty; but the same law sought to prohibit the erection of mills for the manufacture of slitted iron, or rolled iron, or any plating forge in which a tilt-hammer (trip-hammer is the more common name in America) should be used, or any furnace for the making of steel. An at- tempt was made in the British House of Commons to abolish mills existing at the time of the above-named enactment, but by a small majority this failed. The supply of a neighborhood with the coarser articles, was deemed by the mother country the limit of the endeavor of colonial manufacturers.
One of the most obnoxious features of the navigation act was what were known as "writs of assistance," con- ferring authority to employ British ships and officers and seamen in the capacity of custom-house officers and informers. It became lawful, therefore, for the commanders of British armed vessels to stop and ex- amine any merchant vessel approaching the American shores, and upon suspicion alone to seize such vessels in the name of the King. These "writs of assistance"
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were really search warrants, without the mention of name or place, and, armed with these, the holders thereof could seize merchant vessels, and break open stores and private dwellings, in search of goods on which it had been suspected the duty had not been paid. This was a clear violation of the principle that "the Englishman's house is his castle," which the American colonists had been taught to believe by their mother across the sea. To the execution of the "writs of assistance" there was the most earnest resistance on the part of the American colonists. Remonstrances forwarded to the King were unavailing. Leading American merchants united in the adoption of a reso- lution to import no more British goods until the laws above mentioned should be repealed. While the right of the British Parliament to enact laws with regard to commerce between the mother country and the American colonies, and the right, therefore to lay du- ties on imported goods, was admitted, it was also rec- ognized that if, without their consent, any species of direct tax could be laid on the colonies, they would be at the mercy of King George III. The principle of no taxation without representation could, therefore, as the ยท American colonies clearly perceived, have no exceptions whatever, and to this they faithfully adhered.
'Tis true that during the French and Indian wars the navigation acts, and the law authorizing the writs of assistance, were not very strictly enforced, and as a consequence, between the American colonies and the West Indies, a trade far from insignificant was quietly
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developed. Dried fish and lumber were taken to the West Indies, and large quantities of sugar and rum, and of molasses, from which New England rum was made, were brought back, and this trade became lucra- tive.
At the close of the French and Indian wars, in the year 1763, waged for supremacy in America, Great Britain was confronted with an accumulated national debt of nearly one and a half billions of dollars. In her extremity-for such an enormous debt presented an alarming state of affairs, before which British statesmanship might well stand appalled-she very nat- urally looked to the American colonies for aid toward the liquidation of this immense indebtedness. This aid the mother country would doubtless have been granted but for the stubborn insistence upon her inherent right to lay upon the American colonies a direct tax, as a partial means of raising the money needed toward the liquidation of the national debt. The children on this side the Atlantic would have counted it a pleasure to come voluntarily, or upon request, to the aid of their beloved mother, despite the facts that they had already contributed their full share toward the prose- cution of the wars so recently terminated, and that the mother country had also reaped her full share of the advantageous termination of those wars.
But the attempt to force aid from the American col- onies, by the laying of a direct tax, while they were stubbornly refused representation in the British Par- liament, was stoutly resisted by them. When, there-
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fore, the news of the enactment by the British Par- liament, in the year 1765, of the "stamp act" reached America, the indignation of the colonists knew no bounds. The provisions of this act required that stamps, to be furnished by the British Government, and paid for by the colonists, should be affixed to all deeds, bonds, warrants, notes and similar instruments, and upon newspapers, almanacs and other printed matter. "Caeser had his Brutus, Charles the First his Crom- well, and George the Third may profit by their ex- ample," were the words of young Patrick Henry in the Legislature of Virginia when the news of the enact- ment of the "stamp act" reached that body. They were thrilling words-words interrupted during their eloquent utterance by the shout of "Treason !"-first, by a single listener, and then from every portion of the House of Burgesses, in which this remarkable scene occurred. But the speaker did not for a moment falter ; instead, he closed with the exclamation: "If this be treason, make the most of it !"
The more formidable opposition manifested in the Massachusetts Assembly to the "stamp act," took the form of a recommendation of a Colonial Congress, which was subsequently held in New York, representa- tives from nine colonies being present. A declaration of rights, a petition to the King and a memorial to Par- liament were, after mature deliberation, adopted. In all parts of the American colonies the resistance to the enforcement of the "stamp act" was most earnest, and assumed various forms. A single instance only of indi-
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vidual resistance to the enforcement of his odious act can be given. This was the case of William Winds, of Morris County, New Jersey. He was a justice of the peace, residing in Rockaway. His commission had been granted by the King. He regarded the "stamp act," however, as a species of oppression, and bravely re- solved to disregard it. This he did by substituting white birch bark, on which he wrote warrants, writs, bonds, executions and other legal instruments, for the ready stamped paper furnished by the King. And such was the commanding influence of Squire Winds, that no officer of the law in the county of Morris was ever known to decline serving his legal instruments inscribed on white birch bark. This was nullification in good earnest, and it has no parallel, all the circum- stances considered, so far as the writer is aware, as an example of individual resistance to the unjust en- actment of a powerful but tyrannical government. The repeal of the odious "stamp act," in the year 1766, was but a postponement of the armed revolt of the Ameri- can colonies then brewing, and which occurred a few years later.
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