Historic Morristown, New Jersey : the story of its first century, Part 21

Author: Sherman, Andrew Magoun, 1844-
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Morristown, N.J. : Howard Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 576


USA > New Jersey > Morris County > Morristown > Historic Morristown, New Jersey : the story of its first century > Part 21


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position favorable for the repelling of attack by the enemy, even though with greatly preponderating num- bers, it could not have been surpassed by any locality in Morris County, nor in the entire State, for that matter. When to these cons derations there are added the fact of the excellent facilities afforded for the pro- curement of water, one of the most indispensable req- uisites of the camp, as well also as the excellent means of intercommunication between the eleven brigades of the American army, scattered as they were over an area of several square miles. the wisdom of the selec- tion finally made is most admirable to contemplate, and exhibits military sagacity of the highest order.


The camping grounds, ris already stated by the quartermaster-general, were "about four miles" from Morristown, in a southwesterly direction. Access from the village of Morristown to the locality chosen was over the course of two roads, the Jockey Hollow road, then commencing at the southwestern corner of the Green, and the Basking Ridge road, then com- mencing a little southwest of the lower side of the Green. The latter road, was the one mostly used by the patriot army.


On the southeastern slope of Kemble's (Kimball, as sometimes spelled by General Greene) Mountain, which strictly speaking, is the southwesterly portion of the mountain range terminating above and to the rear of the present Morris County Courthouse, Stark's bri- gade was encamped. This camp faced the Basking Ridge road, and lay about two-thirds of the distance


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up, between the road and the summit of the mountain to the northwest. The huts composing Stark's en- campment could be distinctly seen from the road be- low. The view from the site of Stark's brigade en- campment must have been an inspiration even to cold and hungry men, especially as the spring of the year 1780 was seen approaching, with its signs of reviving nature. To the southwest as far as Bernardsville, to the northeast as far as Caldwell, and to the southeast for several miles the eye could reach, taking in with its enraptured survey, hill and valley and wooded and cleared lands, and constituting what is unsurpassed for beauty and grandeur and wide extent of varied coun- try. The eye-witness of this magnificent scene has a feeling akin to that of the disciples of the inner circle, when they exclaimed: "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles: one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias."


On the slope of the mountain mentioned, there now stands a monument marking the site of the camping ground of Stark's brigade of about (at its maximum strength) 800 men. On the bold front of this rugged monument (so strikingly symbolic of the character of the famous officer whose name it perpetuates) appears the following laconic inscription: "Stark's Brigade Oc- cupied This Slope." By whom, and under what cir- cumstances was this substantial monument erected, do our readers inquire? Following is the answer to such inquiry. The present owner of the land on which Stark's brigade was encamped in the Revolution, is


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Emory McClintock, LL. D., who has a fine residence a short distance to the northeast of the camping ground. In the construction of the road now passing the Stark monument, it was necessary to disturb three piles of stones once included in the chimneys of Rev- olutionary soldier-huts. These stones, in accordance with Mr. McClintock's instructions, were sacredly gathered, and as sacredly built into the monument now marking the site of the encampment of the bri- gade of the New England general, who, on the eve of the battle of Bennington, fought on the sixteenth day of August, in the year 1777, promised his men the plunder of the British camp. And, as he entered the battle next day, he exclaimed: "Now, my men! There are the redcoats! Before night they must be ours, or Molly Stark (his wife) will be a widow." Molly Stark, however, was not made a widow; for "before night," the British were "ours." For his gallantry at Ben- nington, Congress made Stark a brigadier-general.


"I needed a road at about that level, and laid it out through the woods so as to disturb only three piles of chim- ney stones-those, namely, which remained in rows where they fell after serving in the hut-chimneys of the soldiers. All of the stones visible in the monument, except the one inscribed, came from those three piles, and all the stones in the three piles form part of the monument,"


is Mr. McClintock's modest statement to the writer. Propriety forbids, for the present, the adequate ex- pression of the writer's admiration of the practical pa- triotism' exhibited in the timely erection of the Stark


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monument, as a marker of the brigade encampment in the Revolution, of one of the most famous of its offi- cers.


"For as the light Not only serves to show, but render us Mutually profitable; so our lives,


In acts exemplary, not only win


Ourselves good names, but do to others give


Matter for virtuous deeds, by which we live."


Fain would the writer linger much longer upon this phase of our story; but this would be to deprive other phases of the attention due them. Only this will be added to what has already been said: To the east of the Stark brigade encampment a short distance, was an excellent spring, still flowing, which furnished the soldiers with water, the spring having been enlarged by the sinking of a hogshead.


If ever the writer distinctly heard the voice of in- dwelling divinity saying to him, "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the ground whereon thou stand- est is holy ground," it was when for the first time, a few weeks since, he looked upon the unmistakable traces, still visible, of several of the dug-outs on the mountain slope, about a hundred and fifty feet to the northeast of the Stark monument, marking the site of some of the rude huts occupied in the winter of 1779- 80 by a portion of Stark's brigade. And scarcely less enthusiastic over this accidental "find" was William A. Dunn, the superintendent for a period of more than a


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quarter century of the Morris Aqueduct, who had pre- viously pointed out to the writer the sacred spots.


Perhaps it should here be said that the parade ground of Stark's brigade was a somewhat level tract of land below the camping ground and between it and the Basking Ridge road. The following extract from a general order issued by Washington to his army during its encampment southwest of Morristown, will serve, among other purposes, as an indirect verification of the statement made in the present chapter concern- ing the traces of "dug-outs" on the mountain-side above the Basking Ridge road:


"Where huts have been built on the declivity of Hills and are Sunk into the ground, particular care is to be taken to have the Snow removed and trenches dug Round to carry off the water, without which the Soldiers will sleep amidst Con- tinual damps, and their Health will consequently be injured; this must be done Immediately."


This order was issued on the sixteenth day of Feb- ruary, in the year 1780.


A little more than half way (or about two and a half miles) from the Morristown Green, down the Jockey Hollow road, and on the left and in sight of the road, was the camping ground of Clinton's New York bri- gade. The camp seems to have run parallel to the Jockey Hollow road. The camping ground of this brigade may be more definitely located by the reader familiar with the neighborhood, if it be stated that its site is situated a little


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to the northeast of what has for many years been known as the "Tuttle House," owned at present by the Morris Aqueduct company. The level piece of ground just northeast, and in the front and rear of the "Tuttle House," seems to have been used as the parade ground of this brigade. The spring from which the soldiers of Clinton's brigade procured water for camp purposes, may still be located; it lies at the base of the hill on which the encampment was situated, and but a short distance to the rear, in a southeasterly direction. This spring is still (1905) partially open.


With regard to the camping ground of Clinton's brigade, a local author, who has made a special study of the subject, says:


"In one way or another they made use of pretty much all the ground between the road and the hillside, which slopes down to the brook (the Primrose), but their huts were arranged in lines in view of and parallel to the road, not far from the edge of the hill, as is clearly noted in a contempora- neous map of the Wick farm now (1894) in the hands of Mr. (E. D.) Halsey. The New York huts and those used a year later by a body of troops from Pennsylvania happened to form part of a legal description and so came to be indicated on the farm map. Washington's own map, drawn by Ers- kine-no doubt less accurate-places the New York camp as a whole near the road. The southwestern end of it was on ground somewhat lower than the northeastern, and between that point and the road is a level field, which may well have served as the brigade parade, a word then used for what we now call parade-ground."


The Hon. Charles F. Axtell, a native, and a life-long


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resident of Morristown, whose ancestor, Major Henry Axtell, rendered excellent service in the Revolution, has recently informed the writer that as a boy he spent many hours down the Jockey Hollow road, and thus became familiar with the historic Revolutionary grounds with which it abounds. "I have often seen a pile of stones, which I have always understood once composed the fireplaces and chimneys of soldier huts in the Revolution, lying just northeast of the "Tuttle House." When asked how far from the road this pile of hut chimney-stones lay, he replied: "O, about a stones-throw, and in a clump of bushes; I have played around it many an hour."


A monument to mark the site of this camping ground of the New York brigade? Alas! there is none, and the same must here be said of all the camping grounds of the eleven brigades of the patriot army, save that of Stark. The traces of these camp sites are rapidly becoming effaced, and if they are to be defin- itely located for the benefit of coming generations of freedom-loving Americans, the patriotic societies and public-spirited citizens of our great country should be- stir themselves.


Still farther down the Jockey Hollow road, and off to the right about an eighth of a mile, approximately, and to the rear of what is still known as the "Groff house," on the hill, were the camping grounds of the two Pennsylvania brigades, the first brigade occupy- ing the right, and the second brigade the left, of the encampment.


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"The first brigade"-the writer now quotes from "Topog- raphy of Washington's Camp of 1780 and its Neighborhood," by Mr. McClintock-"had the ground between Sugar Loaf and the smaller hill west of it, and got its water from a spring northwest of Sugar Loaf, the water from which goes to join a brook which crosses the Mendham road on its way to the Whippany river. A by-road may still be traced upwards from the Mendham road near the brook, which would give access to the camp; and the Sugar Loaf road was no doubt also used. Either the by-road in question or the Sugar Loaf road must have been ascended from the Mend- ham road when Luzerne, the French minister, and a commit- tee of Congress were escorted by Washington, with a bril- liant cavalcade, to view the camps on April 25, 1780. The route announced from the Headquarters, by way of the Park of Artillery to the first of the camps to be visited, those of Pennsylvania, would naturally lead that way. The party came back to Morristown by way of Mr. Kemble's house and the Basking Ridge road. Washington's map indicates that the Pennsylvania lines of huts ran nearly north and south, inclining a little to the southeast. The camp of the second brigade lay south, a little southeast, of that of the first, the huts all having the same general alignment. If the map is correct, this brigade did not occupy the highest part of the ridge south of Sugar Loaf, but the sloping ground just west of the ridge."


It should be here remarked that the positions of the various brigades of Washington's army, as given in the present chapter, are those occupied by them on their arrival in Morris County, in the early part of the month of December in the year 1779. Later in the winter, some of the brigades changed their camp- grounds. Failure to recognize the fact just stated has


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led, and is still likely to lead, to no little confusion re- garding the position of some of the brigades of the patriot army during the winter of the years 1779-80. As an illustration of this statement, it may be said that while upon the entrance of the American army in- to the county of Morris at the opening of the above mentioned winter, the two Pennsylvania brigades established their camps in the position stated, one at least of these brigades, later in the same winter, occupied the vacated camp and huts of Hand's brigade of whose location mention will in due time be made. On at least one diagram of the camping grounds of the American army, to the south of Morristown, the Pennsylvania troops are represented as occupying a position at the southwestern corner of the Jockey Hol- low and Menham roads; whereas, in point of fact, this position was occupied by the Pennsylvania troops only after its abandonment by Hand's brigade.


One of the most interesting and important features of the locality contiguous to the site of the Pennsyl- vania encampment, is a clump of tall locust trees, cov- ering a piece of ground about 25 by 150 feet in width and length, respectively. If to any persons the mark- ing of the sites of the various brigade camping grounds may at present seem impracticable, surely the erection of some suitable marker on the spot just allud- ed to, should receive prompt attention, for the reasons following: In the vicinity of this clump of locust trees, the site of which, can still be definitely located, stood, in Revolutionary times, an hospital. A short distance


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to the westward of the locust grove just mentioned, may be seen an old apple tree, one among several in the same field. Under this tree, and to the southward, is the site of a spring; the spring itself, however, so far as external appearances indicate, having been ob- literated, covered, indeed, in the processes of the Mor- ris Aqueduct company in furnishing water to the growing population of Morristown and vicinity. Near this old apple tree and spring stood, in the winter of 1779-80, the division hospital of the Pennsylvania troops, and from the spring alluded to, then active, water was procured for the sick soldiers. It is the opinion of not a few persons that the old apple tree now marking the site of the Revolutionary hospital mentioned, was in its youth, and bore fruit while the Pennsylvania division were encamped in the locality a century and a quarter ago. In this hospital occurred numerous deaths during the eventful winter of 1779- 80. The remains of these deceased American soldiers, at least 100, it is estimated, were interred in a double row of graves, running parallel to each other.


No mounds or other visible indication of these pa- triot graves now mark, or, perhaps, ever marked, the resting places of the men who sacrificed their lives in the cause of Freedom; and, except for the sacred thoughtfulness of a friend of the patriot dead, the pres- ent generation would perhaps be as totally unaware of the spot where they sleep as were the American peo- ple of the resting place of the remains, until very re- cently, of Paul Jones, who, like his compatriot naval


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officer in the Revolution, Captain Jeremiah O'Brien, "plowed the seas in search of the enemy, and hurled retaliation upon his head."


As a means of preventing in future years the dese- cration of the grounds holding the remains of those who now quietly sleep therein, some thoughtful person (John B. Wick, a collaterial descendant of Henry Wick, the original proprietor of the Wick farm, it is said) planted in the early part of the nineteenth cen- tury, the young locusts, since grown to their present proportions. These noble locusts must, and will, in the due course of nature, disappear, leaving the rest- ing places of our patriot dead there interred, unknown and unrecognized by succeeding generations. A gran- ite monument bearing a suitable inscription, and in- cluding a just tribute to the planter of the perishing locusts, should be erected without delay. And if the piece of ground holding the remains of those who per- ished for their country were purchased, with right of way to and from the same, the commemorative deed suggested would be complete.


The failure of the Hon. Samuel B. Axtell, (a native of Morristown), Representative in Congress, at the time, from San Francisco, to secure the passage of a bill by him introduced, providing for an appropriation by the General Gov- ernment, for the erection of a suitable monument to mark the resting place of the patriot dead who lie near the site of the Pennsylvania encampment, should not prevent a second attempt to rouse the slumbering sen-


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timent of Congress to the passage of a bill having for its object the same commendable work.


As the writer, a few weeks since, in company with the long-time superintendent of the Morris Aqueduct, who, as might be expected, is thoroughly familiar with the grounds, passed over the roadway through the now dense woods, once pressed by the feet of the pa- triot soldiers of 1779-80, in their passage to and from the Pennsylvania camps to the main road, his kindled imagination again peopled those woods with the living forms of the men long since gone to their reward. And even as he writes these lines he can almost hear the rustling of the leaves beneath the feet of the soldiers far from home and loved ones, engaged in the unequal, but eventually successful, struggle for American inde- pendence as they wended their way to and from camp.


Returning to the Jockey Hollow road, and continu- ing southwestward a short distance, there may be seen on either side of, and from the road, the sites of the camping grounds of the First and Second Maryland brigades, the former on the right and the latter on the left of the road. The First Maryland Brigade was en- camped on the slope of a hill facing southeast. This slope is now partially covered with stunted cedar trees. On the westerly side of the Morris Acqueduct reservoir about eastward of the camp site, was the spring, not now to be seen, however, which furnished the First Maryland Brigade with water. The site of the spring, as the writer is informed by one who saw it before its obliteration, is now


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marked by a certain patch of particularly green grass growing on the side of the reservoir cobblestone em- bankment. Nearly opposite, and on the other side of the Jockey Hollow road, and extending up the hill toward what is known as the "Harvey Loree Place," was the camping ground of the Second Maryland Bri- gade, which faced northwestward, but which was, how- ever, protected from the winds by the hills and woods just beyond.


At the southeast side of a piece of meadow land, and on the edge of a piece of woods, and just behind a rude rail fence, may still (1905) be seen the remains of a stone oven, used probably by both of the Maryland brigades for bread baking pur- poses. The ruins mentioned consist of a circular heap of stones, which indicate that the once round oven col- laped, by reason of its own weight, inward, which ex- plains the fact just stated, that the heap of stones is circular in form. An examination of the stones shows the marks of contact with fire and smoke in the pro- cess of baking. This oven was, of course, duplicated and reduplicated, all over the various camping grounds ocupiced by the American army during the winter of 1779-80, so that to see the ruins of one is to see the ruins of the many still visible, or certainly, until quite recently, visible at various points.


Leaving unmentioned, for the present at least, a spot of great historic interest on the left, as we proceed down the Jockey Hollow road toward the Mendham road (the road running from the Basking Ridge road


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to the southeast, toward Mendham off to the north- westward), we reach the camping ground of Hand's Brigade, said to have been the smallest, numerically, in the patriot army at the period under consideration. This camping ground was on the slope, and ex- tending up toward the summit of a hill facing the southwest, toward the Mendham road; its side, how- ever, running along and parallel to the southeastern side of the Jockey Hollow road. The camp faced the Mendham road. A row of stones now lying in ex- tended heaps along the road last mentioned, were un- doubtedly utilized for some purpose by Hand's Bri- gade while encamped on these grounds. Rev. Dr. Joseph F. Tuttle says they were used in "the hut fire- places and were drawn off to clear the ground for plowing" the side hill.


Up the hill slope to the northeastward of the Mend- ham road, a level piece of ground at the summit was cleared by the troops for the free movements of light artillery which was planted there for use in case of at- tack by the enemy; for from the summit of this hill, known as "Fort Hill," cannon could sweep the entire face of the surrounding locality. Two or three lines of fortifications, partly of stones and partly of logs and brushwood, were also thrown up on the summit of "Fort Hill." Traces of the former may still be seen by the careful observer.


The spring which supplied Hand's Brigade with water was on the opposite side of the Mendham road from camp


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The road leading from the corner of the Jockey Hol- low and Mendham roads toward the Basking Ridge road, was in Revolutionary times nearly straight in its course. The present road, however, is somewhat cir- cuitous. Down the straight road of the Revolutionary period toward the Basking Ridge road, about half the distance, and off a little to the left, or northeast, the camping grounds of the First and Second Connecticut brigades were established. These camp grounds lay on the slope of Fort Hill; the camp of the First Con- necticut brigade on the right, facing southeast, and that of the Second brigade on the left facing east. The location chosen was an almost ideal one. It was the writer's rare privilege to go over these camp grounds for the first time not long since, with one who has inade a special study of the topography of Washing- ton's camp grounds of 1779-80. The numerous heaps of hut-chimney stones, some of which lie just where they fell with the collapse of the log-huts they once made comfortable, mark with almost startling definite- ness the camp-streets, once alive with the presence of the brave men who helped to achieve the independ- ence of the American colonies. Several times during the above mentioned morning tramp over these camp grounds, did the alert guide turn to the writer, and ex- claim with evident enthusiasm: "Here was a camp- street;" and the distinct alignment of the hut-chimney stones to be seen, evidently undisturbed since they fell in heaps, was a sufficient corroboration of the opinion expressed.


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A large, circular heap of stones, not a few of which still show the effects of fire, was, as guide and writer agreed, the ruins of a bake oven, similar to those on the Jockey Hollow road, already spoken of


Than the camping grounds of the two Connecticut brigades none are more distinctly marked; and a per- sonal examination, by the lover of Revolutionary his- tory, of no other camp of the patriot army during the winter of 1779-80, furnishes greater satisfaction than those on the easterly and southeasterly slope of Fort Hill. Twice, since his initial visit to the camping grounds of the Connecticut brigades, has the writer, with growing interest and with fresh discoveries, gone over these grounds.


To locate the camping ground of the New Jersey brigade, in which many of our readers will be specially interested, we must retrace our steps, going to the northwestward along the Mendham road until we reach what is now, and what was even in Revolu- tionary time, known as the Wick House. The relation of the history of this very interesting house must be deferred until a later stage of our story. Off to the southwest, across the Mendham road and over fields lying beyond it a short distance, the New Jersey troops were encamped on either side of a small brook, which, to the southeast, ran into a larger one.




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