USA > New Jersey > Morris County > Morristown > Historic Morristown, New Jersey : the story of its first century > Part 20
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"Lost by Colonel Lindsley on the ground at Monmouth, in the action of the twenty-eighth of June, a light coloured bay mare, near 15 hands high, a small star in her forehead, three of her feet mostly white, paces and trots, is branded with a 9 on the left shoulder, shod all around, is 5 or 6 years old, has a bright eye and good courage. Whoever will deliv- er said mare to the subscriber living near Morristown, shall have twenty dollars reward and all reasonable charges paid by Eleazar Lindsley."
Eleazar Lindsley, of Morristown, was second major and lieutenant-colonel of the Eastern Batalion of Mor-
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ris County. In the Continental line he was lieutenant- colonel of Spenser's regiment.
"Good encouragement will be given to any man who will hire as a journeyman for one, two, three or six months or a year. The person will be exempted from military duty. En- quire of Daniel Smith, saddler, Morris-Town," is another ad- vertisement which appeared during the year 1778, as also the following:
"Strayed or stolen from the house of Captain Arnold in Morristown, on the 9th of August, a bay horse about 14 hands and an inch high, branded with W E on the near thigh about 12 or 13 years old, trots and paces a small travel. Who- ever takes up said horse and brings him to Captain Arnold, in Morristown, or Israel Woodward living in Upper Free- hold, Monmouth County, shall have twenty dollars reward, and reasonable charges."
During the same year, 1778, there appeared in the newspaper last mentioned, the following announce- ments and advertisements, the dates of which are omitted by the present writer :
"Bond and Pain, of Morristown, advertise a quantity of dry goods and a few barrels of brimstone for sale. Persons indebted to the estate of Dr. Bern Budd, of Morris County, are notified to pay up. Anthony L. Bleeker, of Morris- town, notifies the public that he has indigo and Scotch snuff for sale, and John Van Court, of the same place, advertises a stolen horse. Ogden & Curtis, of Morristown, advertise a shop for the sale of dry goods, etc., next door to the Court House. Geradus Duyckinck, advertises a drug store in Mor- ristown. We hear from Morristown that his Excellency, the Governor, upon intelligence that a number of people in Schooley's Mountain had enlisted in the enemy's service,
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had several of them apprehended and committed to gaol. At the funeral of the widow of the Rev. Azariah Horton, in Chatham, the Rev. Timothy Johnes, of Morristown, offic- iated, preaching the sermon. Inquisitions against the follow- ing persons in Morris County, who had absconded and gone over to the enemy, were published: Thos. Milledge, Wm. Demayne, Anthony Hollinshead, Stephen Skinner, Ashur Dunham, Ezekiel Beach, Adam Boyle, John Thorborn, Hugh Gain, Nicholas Hoffman, Joseph Conlife, John Stew- art and John Throp. The publication is authorized by Alex- ander Carmichael, Commissioner. In the same paper, Aaron Kitchell, Commissioner, published the following additional list: Philip Van Cortlandt, Edward, Charles and Richard Bowlby, Jacob Hylor, Humphrey Devenport, William How- ard, George Beaty, Thomas Huske, Lawrence Buskirk, Ja- cob Demarest, Samuel Ryerson, Isaac Hornbeck and Nicho- las Vreeland. Stephenson & Canfield, advertise a store in Morristown, opposite Captain Peter Dickerson's. Mary Moore, of Morristown, advertises rock salt. Nathaniel Lew- is, of the county seat, announces a horse strayed or stolen. Arnold, Kenny and Co., announce the opening of a store in Morristown, next door to Col. Henry Remsen's. Jacob Arnold offers for sale a farm between Mendham and Mor- ristown. John Dickerson, offered a reward of $200 for the arrest of thieves who robbed his silversmith shop in Morris- town."
Of one meeting of the New Jersey Council of Safe- ty, it is highly desirable, owing to the intimate relation of a portion of its transactions to local interests, to speak particularly. This meeting was held at Spring- field, about ten miles southeast of Morristown, on Wednesday, the seventh day of January, in the year 1778. There were present on this interesting occasion
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the following members: His excellency the Governor, Colonel Jacob Drake, Colonel Edward Fleming, Silas Condict, William P. Smith and Benjamin Manning. From the minutes of this meeting the following ex- tract is presented:
"Ordered, that in addition to the orders already given to Mr. Caldwell, with respect to the erection of Beacons for the purpose of alarming the county in the case of invasion, he be further desired to direct that one be set up at Mor- ristown and another at Longhill, and one or two to the northward of New Ark, and that he be requested to appoint proper persons to take the care of and attend them and that the person so provided, shall be exempted, when known, from military duty."
As a proof of the fact that the orders of the Council of Safety promulgated at their meeting at Springfield, on the date above mentioned, were promptly exe- cuted; and as an illustration, also, of the enterprise of the New Jersey press of the Revolutionary period, the following extract from the New Jersey Gazette of January 28, in the year 1778, will be found of special interest :
"That near Morris Town a beacon forty feet high has lately been erected in form of a block house (with a six- pounder on the top) filled with dry wood and other combus- tible stuff, for the purpose of catching fire soon, in order to the more quick discharge of the cannon, on the report of which, and the light from the building, the country is to take the alarm, and those who do not turn out may, by their laws, be instantly put to death by their next neighbor, and escape
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with impunity. Buildings of a similar construction are also erected at Long Hill and on the heights at Bound Brook."
From a life-long resident of Morristown, the pres- ent writer learns that for many years he has under- stood from information derived from an aged person, that in Revolutionary days there was a beacon sta- tion on the summit of what is now popularly known as "Fort Nonsense." This is mentioned as a corrobora- tion of the foregoing statement concerning the estab- lishment of a beacon station in Morristown, during the Revolution.
Soon after the close of the Revolution, one Jonath- an Ruchman, who had served in the State militia, made application for a pension, the grounds upon which his claims were based being that, as he person- ally testified, he had "performed one month's duty near Morristown, at Fort Nonsense, Captain Cory, in May (1778). Was very loth to go on account of plant- ing corn. Before Monmouth battle." In view of the circumstance that during the Revolution the various companies of State militia were accustomed to render one month's service, alternately (as Ruchman's testi- mony implies), it is at least probable that other com- panies besides Captain Cory's performed their allotted month's service "near Morristown at Fort Nonsense" during the spring and summer of the year 1778.
"Lossing in his "Field Book of the American Rev- olution" says that while in Morristown, in the year 1848, he visited Fort Nonsense, where he saw the re-
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mains of what he terms "block houses;" and of "earth- works and ditches" also. The block houses of whose remains this famous author speaks were, as he sur- mises, large enough to accommodate a company of soldiers, and a company, as during the Revolution companies were composed, consisted of from fifteen to fifty men as circumstances required. Concerning the appearance of Fort Nonsense hill, in the year 1848, Lossing says: "The embankments and ditches, and the remains of the blockhouses of Fort Nonsense, are very prominent."
Only one or two men, as may be reasonably inferred from the order of the New Jersey Council of Safety with regard to the establishment of a signal station "near Morristown," were required to "take the care and attend" to said station. From the testimony of John Ruchman, just quoted, taken in conjunction with the statement of Lossing, the reader will do no vio- lence to his reason, if he concludes, that there were on duty on Fort Nonsense hill, in the month of May, cer- tainly of the year 1778, an entire company of militia, composed of from fifteen to fifty men. This company, say of twenty-five men, it is very evident, was not re- quired at that point to attend to the signal station there established. What then was this company of State mi- litia there for, except for the protection of the county seat of Morris against British attack, daily anticipated by the inhabitants? And if that were the object of the presence of this company of militia and probably of other companies, during the spring and summer of the
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year 1778, on Fort Nonsense hill, is it not a most nat- ural conclusion that as a means of repelling the appre- hended British attack, rude earthworks were thrown up either by Captain Cory's company, or by one of the other companies which seem to have "performed one month's duty" there?
On the northernmost and highest point of the mountain range terminating above and to the rear of the present Morris County Courthouse, at Morristown, may still (1905) be seen the gradually disappearing traces of what are generally conceded to have been earthworks, evidently "thrown up" or, more scientifi- cally expressed, constructed, for military purposes. A picture of a section-the southwesterly-of these earthworks may be seen in this volume. The photo- graph from which the accompanying picture was made was taken at about 7 o'clock on the morning of May 8, of the present year.
Two theories as to the origin of the earthworks on Fort Nonsense hill are entertained. One is, briefly stated, that they were constructed during the second encampment of the American army in Morristown, by order of Washington, to divert the attention of his soldiers from the privations and sufferings and home- sickness incident to that terrible winter. The other is, that they were constructed by the State militia during the spring and summer of the year 1778, for protection against anticipated British invasion of Mor- ris County. The writer frankly confesses that he is inclined toward the acceptance of the latter theory ; and
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this inclination is encouraged by facts already men- tioned.
That Washington would have set his soldiers to work on the summit of the hill to the rear of the Mor- ris County Courthouse, during one of the coldest win- ters ever experienced in this region, merely for their diversion, seems highly improbable. That these sol- diers, half fed and poorly clad, could have survived the extreme rigors of that winter, had they been employed as above suggested, seems still more improbable; in- deed, such a theory seems to border on the impossible. "Why," exclaimed a Morristonian not long since, as the popular theory concerning the origin of the earth- works on Fort Nonsense hill, was mentioned, "if Washington's soldiers had attempted to throw up earthworks on the summit of that hill in the winter of 1779-80, every rag of their scanty clothing would have been blown from their bodies."
The writer is of the opinion, however, that Fort Nonsense hill, with its rude fortifications thrown up probably by the State militia during the spring and summer of the year 1778, and its blockhouses erected probably at the same time, were utilized by Washing- ton during the winter of 1779-80, perhaps as a picket- post, or a signal station, or both.
Mr. McClintock in "Topography of Washington's Camp of 1780 and its Neighborhood," says:
"The facts adduced (by himself) concerning the beacon station prove, however, that the supposed useless 'fort' was of genuine and constant service to the patriot cause, and fur-
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nish additional grounds for the respect paid to the spot by the monument and the annual salutes. Washington must certainly have made some use of it, if only because of the shelter afforded by the buildings. The extant records men- tion as having definite locations at or near Morristown, the 'provost guard' and the 'main guard,' the latter being the post of the detachments regularly sent from camp for picket duty in and around Morristown. Possibly one of these posts was located at Fort Nonsense."
"Truth, in its own essence, cannot be But good."
"Camp Valley Forge, April 16th, 1778. 1
"Sir-I have desired the bearer, Lieut. Kinney, to call at Wick Hall and request Mrs. Wick to try if any of her keys will open my Father's under desk drawer but one, in order to get my Beaver hat Sold to Mr. Kinney, and to put some things in the drawer belong- ing to me which will be delivered by him.
"You doubtless expect to received a budget of news on the arrival of a letter from Camp, herein; at this time, however, you will be disappointed, for our Camp affords no news, and I do not expect anything extra- ordinary will be done till our reinforcements arrive. 5,000 are expected next week from Virginia. As soon as they appear here, I expect the Jersey Brigade will be ordered to West Jersey. The Commissioners from ours and How's army met last week to settle a cartel for the exchange of Prisoners, but could not agree as the Enemy's Commissioners would not pledge the faith of the British nation for the faithful performance
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of the cartel but How's personal honor only, which by no means would answer, as How might be removed and then we might whistle for the performance of the exchange. This you may depend on that we have 1100 Prisoners besides Burgoyne's army _nore than they have, so that an exchange on their flimsy princi- ples would never answer.
"As to our situation, etc., etc., Doct'r Leddel has seen, and I suppose already informed you of it, to whom, with his Family, I desire to be particularly re- membered. You can show the Doctor my Letter, and at the same time I must desire he would write me word, as well how both your familys are, as how Poli- ticks go on in your part of the country, and also how Independence (my horse I mean) comes on.
"I imagine you live quiet and peaceable to what you have done some time past. I reckon either you or Mrs. Wick would as soon part with your lives as to have another family as noisy as the one you was lately troubled with. However, be that as it will, I shall posi- tively make Wick Hall my Headquarters, at any rate when I am so happy as to come into your corner of the globe, but when that will be God only knows; but if I am not killed or taken prisoner this campaign, I think it is very probable I shall have the pleasure of seeing you next Autumn.
"I have grown exceeding fat and hearty and am, I think, as well as ever, except my arm and fingers which have not yet recovered their perfect usefulness.
"Lieut. Kinney will satisfy you in any questions you
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think proper to ask him about the Army and his Ma- jor.
"With my most respectful Complyments to Mrs. Wicks, Miss Tempe-Polly Wick, not forgetting little Polly, and due regards to Mrs. Spencer and her fam- ily when you have an opportunity of seeing them.
"Remain, Sir,
Your Most Obedt hble Servt.,
JOS. BLOOMFIELD."
Joseph Bloomfield, the writer of the above letter, was a major of Colonel Elias Dayton's Regiment, 3d Battalion (2d. Establishment) of New Jersey troops of the Continental Line. During the encampment of Washington's army in Morristown in the winter of the year 1777, Major Bloomfield was quartered in the family of Henry Wick. The above letter was ad- dressed to "Mr. Henry Wick, at Wick Hall, Morris County. Favored by Lieut. Kinney." Lieut. John Kinney was Ensign, afterward Second Lieutenant of the second company of Colonel Dayton's regiment.
The following brief letter was written by Dr. Bloomfield, father of the major, and was directed to "Mr. Henry Wick, at Wick Hall, Morris Town:
"Sir-We are allwell and desireto be remembered to you and Family. Let my Boy have 30 wt. of Pork. Be so kind as to take care of my Gemmons (his horse, probably). I congratulate you upon ye good news
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from France. We will flogg ye Rogues yet. I hope we have gone through the worst of it. I am Sr Your humbl Servt MOSES BLOOMFIELD. "Princeton, May ye 7th, 1778."
Moses Bloomfield was a Surgeon in the Continental Army, and had evidently enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. Wick during the first encampment of Washing- ton's army in Morris County. Major Joseph Bloom- field was Governor of New Jersey from the year 1801 till the year 181I.
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CHAPTER XV
"Across the old Morris Green they march And take the 'mountain road' To their winter quarters mid the hills And there make their abode.
"With beat of drums and flying flags And never-ending tramp Of horse and man they pass to reach That bleak mid-winter camp." Ballads of New Jersey in the Revolution.
OLLOWING the departure, in the month of May, of the year 1777, F of the recuperated and inspirited American army from its comforta- ble winter quarters in Morristown and vicinity, event upon event, mil- itary and political, had successively crowded in the career of the newly cemented colonies. On the whole, these events had been positively favorable to the cause of freedom, and distinctly presaged its ultimate tri- umph upon the already consecrated soil of the Wes- tern Continent.
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Passing over minor successes of, and not a few re- verses to, the American arms, the surrender of the entire British army under Burgoyne at Saratoga, on the seventeenth day of October, in the year 1777, should be specially noted. The extreme privations and sufferings of the patriot army in its winter quar- ters at Valley Forge, were followed, in the subsequent February, by the acknowledgment on the part of France of the independence of the American colonies. An alliance between the two countries was also formed the sincerity of which was practically demonstrated by the dispatch, about the middle of the month of April, in the year 1778, of a French squadron to America, in command of Count D'Estaing. On the twenty-eighth day of June, in the year last mentioned, Washington, despite the peculiar odds against him, defeated the British army under Clinton at Monmouth, New Jer- sey, with great British losses in killed and wounded, augmented by many desertions from the enemy's ranks. D'Estaing failing to come to his support, Gen- eral Sullivan alone repulsed the British force under General Pigot at Quaker Hill, Rhode Island, with a loss of over two hundred on either side. At Kettle Creek, Georgia, the Carolina militia, under Colonel Pickens, signally defeated a force of Tories in com- mand of Colonel Boyd, the latter being among the slain. The capture, at midnight, on July 15, in the year 1779, of Stony Point, by "Mad Anthony" Wayne, sent a thrill of patriotic exultation through the colo- nies; and well it might, for with the loss in killed and
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wounded and prisoners on the part of the enemy, of more than six hundred, and of only fifteen killed and eighty-three wounded on the American side, this im- portant strategic position had been recaptured, liter- ally, at the point of the bayonet; that is to say, with- out the firing of a gun by Anthony's men.
Wayne's characteristic report of the victory, dis- patched before daybreak of July 16, to the comman- der-in-chief, deserves mention; it was this:
"The fort and garrison, with Colonel Johnson, are ours; our officers and men behaved like men who are determined to be free."
"I do most sincerely declare that your assault on Stony Point is not only the most brilliant, in my opinion, through- out the whole course of the war, on either side, but that it is the most brilliant I am acquainted with in history,"
wrote General Charles Lee, to Wayne, after this mem- orable battle.
Less important, perhaps, from a strategical point of view, and yet a brilliant achievement, was the capture, on the nineteenth day of August, in the same year, of Paulus, New Jersey, by Major Henry Lee, with 150 of the British garrison as prisoners of war. Again was Sullivan successful, this time in western New York, in defeating a combined force of Indians and Tories at Chemung, on the twenty-ninth day of August, in the year 1779, and capturing immense quantities of much- needed corn. On the English coast, two British fri- gates, in the month of September of the last named
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year, surrendered to Paul Jones, whose remains, after more than a century's rest in French soil, thanks to the patriotic endeavors of a typical American are now in- terred in the soil of the land whose naval battles he helped to fight.
The following brief letter, introduced, by reason of its tardy discovery by the writer, somewhat out of chronological order, will, as he believes, be found of such particular interest as to justify its introduction at this stage of our story.
Dear Genl.
My best compliments waits on your Hounor Lets you know that I Cald at your Qutrs. last Evening but as your Hounor was Not at Home would Gladly have Cald this morning but my Horse is so Lame he Can hardly go. If aney thing Special Should be much Oblgd to your Hounor to Let me know it by a Line and I will attend imdtly.
I am Dear Sir your Most Obedient and Humble Servt
ELEAZR LINDSLEY, Lt. Col.
Minnisink,
March IIth, 1779. To Genl Hand.
With the close of the campaign of the year 1779, the solution of the perplexing problem of selecting winter quarters for the decimated and fatigued American army, was assigned to Washington's efficient quarter- master-General, Nathanael Greene. Late in the month
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of November of the year above mentioned, General Greene was'in Morristown, with a view to the exami- nation of grounds for the accommodation, in the ap- proaching winter, of the patriot army. On the thir- tieth day of the same month, and of the same year, General Greene wrote one of the New Jersey quarter- masters that "we are yet like the wandering Jews in search of a Jerusalem, not having fixed upon a posi- tion for hutting the army."
It appears that Greene had previously suggested two positions to Washington, "the one near Aquaca- nock, the other near Mr. Kemble's" about four miles south of Morristown. On reaching Morristown, in the month of January, nearly two years previously, Wash- ington had expressed his dissatisfaction with this local- ity as a position for winter quarters, in the following language, constituting a portion of one of his letters: "The situation (Morristown) is by no means favorable to our views, and as soon as the purposes are answered for which we came, I think to remove, though I con- fess I do not know how we shall procure covering for our men elsewhere."
From the following subsequent communication of Greene to the same State quartermaster, we learn that between the two positions for winter quarters sug- gested and described by the former to the comman- der-in-chief, Washington chose Morristown, although his quartermaster-general preferred Aquacanock.
"The general has fixed upon a place for hutting the army near Mr. Kimball's, within about four miles of this town.
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His reasons for this choice are unnecessary to be explained, but, whatever they are, they will prove very distressing to the quartermaster's department. * * I beg you will set every wheel in motion that will give dispatch to business."
If Washington had, at the opening of the year 1777, questioned the desirability of Morristown and vicin- ity as a suitable position for winter quarters, he was two years later in no doubt as to which of the two places suggested by his quartermaster-general, Aqua- canock or Morristown, to fix upon as the resting place of his army during the winter of 1779-80. The marked demonstration he had received of the ardent patriot- ism, and of the devoted loyalty of Morris County, to the cause of freedom, during the first encampment of his army here, was alone sufficient to have settled in his mind the question as to which of the two positions named he should select. But to one who has carefully examined the positions of the camping grounds act- ually selected, there appears the following additional and scarcely less potent reasons for such selection. These camping grounds, which were sufficiently re- moved from the village to insure freedom from annoy- ance by the unrestrained portion of the soldiery, were yet near enough to general headquarters for the con- venience of the commander-in-chief, and the subordi- nate officers who were required to be in daily com- munication with him. So far as protection from the severities of winter weather was concerned, finer posi- tions for the encampment of the several brigades of the patriot army could not have been chosen. As a
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