History of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Pt. 1, Part 37

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co.
Number of Pages: 974

USA > New Jersey > Monmouth County > History of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Pt. 1 > Part 37

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

hoven's and Garret Vanderveer's ; John Ben- ham's house and barn they wantonly tore and broke down, so as to render them useless. It may not be improper to observe that the two first houses mentioned as burnt adjoined the farm, and were in full view of the place where General Clinton was quartered. In the neigh- borhood below the court-house they burnt the houses of Matthias Lane, Cornelius Covenho- ven, John Antonidas and one Emmons; these were burnt the morning before their defeat. Some have the effrontery to say that the British officers by no means countenance or allow of burning. Did not the wanton burning of Charleston,' and Kingston, in Esopus, besides many other instances, sufficiently evince to the contrary, I think their conduct in Freehold may. The officers have been seen to exult at the sight of the flames, and heard to declare they could never conquer America until they burnt every rebel's house and murdered man, woman and child. Besides, this consideration has great weight with me towards confirming the above, that, after their defeat, through a retreat of twenty-five miles, in which they passed the houses of the well affected to their country, they never attempted to destroy one. Thus much for their burning. To enter into a minute detail of the many insults and abuses those inhabitants met with who remained in their houses would take up too much time in your paper ; I shall, therefore, content myself

conduct to one of my neighbours, a woman of seventy years of age and unblemished reputa- tion, with whom he made his quarters.2 After ; he had been for some time in her house, and taking notice that most of the goods were re- moved, he observed that she need not have sent off her effects for safety ; that he would have secured her, and asked if the goods could not

1 The writer of the above was wholly mistaken about the " wanton" burning of Charlestown at the battle of Bunker Hill. Charlestown was accidentally set on fire at that time by shells from the frigate " Glasgow " and other British vessels enfilading the " Neck."

2 Said to have referred to Mrs. William Conover, who then lived in the house since known as the Murphy house. where Clinton made his quarters on the nights of the 26th

193

MONMOUTH COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTION.

be brought back again. The old lady objected, but upon repeated assurances of General Clin- ton in person that they should be secured for her, she consented, and sent a person he had ordered, along with a wagon, to show where they were secreted. When the goods were brought to the door, in the latter part of the day, the old lady applied to General Clinton in . person for permission to have them brought in and taken care of, but he refused, and ordered a guard set over the goods. The morning fol- "lowing, the old lady, finding most of her goods plundered and stolen, applied again to him for leave to take care of the remainder. He then allowed her to take care of some trifling arti- cles, which were all she saved, not having (when I saw her and had the above information from her) a change of dress for herself or hus- band, or scarcely for any of her family. In regard to personal treatment, she was turned out of her bed-room and obliged to lie with her wenches, either on the floor, without bed or bedding, in an entry exposed to the passing and repassing of all, etc., or to sit in a chair in a milk-room, too bad for any of the officers to lie in, else it is probable she would have been deprived of that also. If the first officers of the British army are so divested of honour and humanity, what may we not expect from the soldiery ?"

The depredations by Clinton's army were, of course, much greater in the vicinity of Free- hold than elsewhere, because his entire force lay within about three miles of the court-house through the two days and nights preceding the battle. After the army had left the vicinity of the village, and taken the road leading to Mid- dletown, many of the people who had suffered from their outrages pursued and wreaked their vengeance by firing on the soldiers from the cover of the woods and thickets. Several iso- lated graves along the road to Middletown were to be seen seventy years afterwards, supposed to be the last resting-places of some of Clinton's men killed in this way.

The departure of Clinton's army from Sandy Hook Bay left New Jersey free from the pres- ence of armed enemies upon her soil, and the

militiamen of the State were then allowed to return to their homes, to remain until some other exigency should require them to be again called to the field. Washington moved his army (as has already been noticed) from Mon- mouth field to Englishtown, to Spottswood, and thence to New Brunswick, from which place, after a brief stay, it was moved to and across the Hudson River, to a position in Westchester County, N. Y. Washington made his head- quarters at White Plains, and there narrowly watched the movements of Clinton, suspecting it to be the design of the latter to move into the New England States. "Sir Henry gave currency to the reports that such were his inten- tions, until Washington moved his headquarters to Fredericksburg, near the Connecticut line, and turned his attention decidedly to the pro- tection of the eastern coast. 'Clinton then sent foraging parties into New Jersey, and ravaged the whole country from the Hudson to the Raritan and beyond." 1

Finally, being convinced that the enemy had no designs on New England, Washington re- solved to place his army in winter-quarters at different points, and in the most advantageous positions. This was done in December, 1778. Five brigades were cantoned on the east side of the Hudson, one brigade at West Point, one at Smith's Cove, near Haverstraw, one at Elizabethtown, and seven brigades at and in the vicinity of Middlebrook, Somerset County. Maxwell's brigade (in which were a consider- able number of soldiers of Monmouth County) was stationed during the winter at Elizabeth- town, to watch the British and Tory troops on Staten Island, and prevent, as much as possible, their depredations in the contiguous part of New Jersey. In May, 1779, this brigade was ordered to join the army of General Sullivan, which marched from Easton, Pa., to the Seneca country, in New York, for the purpose of pun- ishing the Indians of that region for their par- ticipation in the massacres of the preceding year at Wyoming and Cherry Valley,-a pur- pose which was most successfully and com- pletely accomplished.

1 Lossing.

194

HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY. .

About the 1st of June, 1779, the American army left its winter-quarters, and moved to the Hudson River. General Wayne moved from his encampment south of the Raritan to the Hudson, where, on the 15th of July, he stormed and captured the British fortifications at Stony Point. In the latter part of October a detachment of the Queen's Rangers,1 under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe,-the same officer who commanded that battalion on the 28th of June, 1778, when it fought Butler on the ground now the Monument Park, at Freehold,-made a daring foray up the valley of the Raritan, for the purpose of destroying some boats on that river, which object they accomplished, and also did much other damage, but lost their commander, who was taken pris- oner by a party of Americans under command of Captain Guest. After Simcoe's capture the Rangers became scattered, and reached South River bridge in a very demoralized condition. The American army went into winter-quarters about December 20, 1779,-the Northern Divi- sion, under General Heath, locating on the east side of the Hudson, below West Point, and the main body with the commander-in-chief, at Morristown. In January, 1780, Lord Stirling commanded a partially successful expedition to Staten Island. On the 6th of June following, a British force of about five thousand men, under Knyphausen, crossed from Staten Island to Elizabethtown Point, and advanced towards the interior, but was driven back to the Point. Again, on the 23d of the same month, a large force, under Sir Henry Clinton, advanced from the same place to Springfield, and burned the town; but being resolutely met by the Con- tinental troops and the Jersey militia, thought it prudent to retire, which he did the same day, and crossed back to Staten Island.

In the same month (June, 1780) a large force of French troops arrived, under General Count Rochambeau, to take the field as auxiliaries of

the Americans, and to operate under the orders of Washington, who thereupon projected a joint attack on the British in New York, but afterwards abandoned the project. On the Hudson the most notable events of the year were the culmination of Arnold's treason and the capture of the unfortunate Major Andre. Early in December the American army went into winter-quarters.

In the summer of 1781 the American army and its French allies concentrated on the Hud- son River, for the purpose, as it was understood, of making a combined attack on the British in the city of New York. They remained in the vicinity of Dobbs' Ferry for about six weeks, during which time Washington abandoned the project (if he ever entertained it seriously) of attacking the city, and resolved instead to move the armies to Virginia to operate against Corn- wallis. He, however, concealed his new plan, and wrote letters containing details of his pre- tended object to move against the city, intending that these should fall into the hands of Sir Henry Clinton. The result was as he had intended it to be. The letters were intercepted and taken to Clinton, who was completely de- ceived by them, and, continuing to watch the American force on the Hudson, failed to rein- force Cornwallis, as the latter had requested him to do. Meanwhile, Washington completed his preparations, and in the latter part of August crossed the Hudson at Verplanck's Point with the American and French armies, and marched rapidly across New Jersey to Trenton, some of the troops passing through the Ramapo Valley and Morristown, and others passing the Ringwood Iron-Works. The French forces took the route by the Hacken- sack Valley to Newark and Perth Amboy, at which place they built ovens, constructed boats, collected forage and made other movements indicating an intention to move on New York ; but these were suddenly abandoned, and the march was resumed to Trenton, where all the forces arrived before Clinton was aware of the significance of the movement.

Crossing the Delaware at Trenton and the neighboring ferries in the morning of Septem- ber 1st, the armies marched on towards Phila-

" The celebrated corps known as the " Queen's Rangers" was mostly made up of Americans, Tories, enlisted into the corps in Westchester County, N. Y., and in neighboring por- tions of Connecticut. Colonel Simcoe had assumed com- mand of this body in 1777, and afterwards brought it up to

. a condition of excellent discipline and great efficiency.

195

MONMOUTH COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTION.

delphia, which city they passed through on the 2d, and on the 14th of September reached Williamsburg, Va., from which point Wash- ington and Rochambeau went on board the French flag-ship, the "Ville de Paris," in the York River, and there, with the French admiral, Count de Grasse, concerted the plan of the campaign which ended in the surrender of Lord Cornwallis with his army at Yorktown, on the 19th of October.

CHAPTER X.

MONMOUTH COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTION. (Continued.)

THROUGH all the years of the Revolutionary conflict, Monmouth suffered far more severely than any other county of New Jersey from the forays and depredations of bands of men who were partisans of the royal cause, though in general they did not belong to the regular or- ganization of the British army, These men, who were known by the name of Tory Refugees, were inveterate enemies of the patriots and of the cause of American liberty, who had fled to the enemy's lines, and made a principal rendez- vous on Staten Island, under protection of the encircling war-vessels of the British. They had also a camp on Sandy Hook, called Refugees' Town, fortified to some extent and also pro- tected by the guns of the royal fleet. The Staten Island base of operations was for them a peculiarly convenient one from which to sally out on the marauding expeditions, by which they continually harassed the people inhabiting the neighboring territory of the county of Monmouth.

Besides being thus unfortunately situated for the peace and security of its patriot inhabitants of that time, Monmouth (then the richest of the counties of New Jersey) offered also the advan- tage of extensive woods and almost impenetrable swamps for hiding-places, which, together with the facilities of the rivers and inlets of the ocean 'coast and the bays of Raritan and Sandy Hook

for the sending of plunder to New York, brought hither some of the worst villains and desper- adoes of the whole country, who became notori- ous as the " Pine Woods Robbers of Mon- mouth, " who not only never hesitated at the shedding of blood to secure booty, but often committed cold-blooded murders for the mere gratification of malice or revenge. They always professed to be stanch Royalists, and they were always bitter and inveterate enemies of the patriots ; but their principal object was rob- bery, and they plundered Tories as well as Whigs whenever an opportunity offered to do so in safety. They were, however, much more careful and secret in their outrages against the former, because they depended on the British and Tories in New York as purchasers of the plunder, and therefore they must not sacrifice the friendship of their patrons by open depre- dations on their friends and allies, the Tories of Monmouth. These robbers infested the whole county, but particularly the region known as " The Pines," and hence the general term " Pine Robbers" which was applied to them. They had their hiding-places and headquarters in caves burrowed in the sand; along the borders of swamps, and in other spots so secluded and masked by nature as to be comparatively safe from detection ; and from these places they went forth, usually by night, in bands and individ- ually, to rob, burn and murder ; so that, for de- fense against these worse than Indian prowlers, the people of the county were obliged to keep their firearms constantly by them at their work in the fields, at their meetings for worship, and by their bedsides at night.

Among the worst of the ferocious gang of desperadoes who had their lair in "The Pines " of Monmouth, whence they sallied out on their forays of robbery and murder through the county during the Revolution, were Jacob Fagan, Lewis Fenton, Ezekiel Williams, Richard Bird, John Giberson, John Wood, John Farnham, De Bow, -Davenport, Jonathan and Stephen West, John Bacon and two brothers named Thomas and Stephen Burke, the last-men- tioned of whom also sometimes assumed the alias of Emmons, and generally accompanied Fagan or Fenton, or both of them, in their ne-

196

HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

farious expeditions. Fagan was a resident of the southeast part of the present county, living on or near the Manasquan River before he en- tered on the career of crime which he continued in safety for two or three years, but which was finally closed by the avenging bullets of a detach- ment of Monmouth militia under command of Captain Benjamin Dennis, whose daughter, A me- lia, then a girl of fifteen years, was an eye-witness of, and an actor in, the beginning of the affair which resulted in the death of the outlaw. The circumstances were narrated by her, years after- wards, as follows: She said that on a certain Monday in September, 1778, Fagan, Burke and a man named Smith came to the house of Cap- tain Dennis (on the south side of Manasquan River, four miles below the Howell Mills) to rob it of some goods captured from a British vessel. Mrs. Dennis and her daughter, Amelia, were in the house at the time of their arrival, and they knew Fagan, who had formerly been a near neighbor. Smith, although then in com- pany with two of the most notorious villains in the country, was in reality an honest man, who had joined the robbers for the purpose of be- traying them. On reaching the vicinity of the house, Fagan and Burke remained concealed, and sent Smith forward to reconnoitre, and see if the way was clear. Entering the house, he at once warned Mrs. Dennis of the danger, where- upon the girl Amelia, hiding a pocket-book con- taining eighty dollars in a bed-tick, slipped out of the back-door, and with her little brother made good her escape to a swamp near by. Scarcely had she gone when the two robbers en- tered, searched the house (including the bed) for booty, and failing to find any, endeavored, by threatening the life of Mrs. Dennis, to frighten her into disclosing the place where the valuables were concealed, and, failing also in this, they proceeded to put their threat in execution, though the narrative states that Burke was op- posed to murdering her. Fagan's determina- tion, however, prevailed, and she was hung by the neck with a bed-cord to a young cedar-tree; but the work was so carelessly done that in her struggles she freed herself and escaped, just as the attention of the robbers was attracted by the "approach of John Holmes in a wagon belonging

to Captain Dennis. The girl, Amelia, also saw him from her hiding-place and ran towards him, upon which the robbers fired at her, but without effect. Holmes, alarmed by the firing, aban- doned the wagon and fled to the swamp, and the baffled bandits, after plundering the wagon, left the place.

In the evening of the same day the man Smith stole away from the other two, and mak- ing his way to where Captain Dennis was on duty with a detachment of militia, informed him of the affair, and that it was the intention of the robbers to make another descent on his house. Upon this, the captain, seeing that his family could no longer remain there in safety, removed them the next day to Shrewsbury, un- der guard of some of the militiamen, and at the same time concerted a plan with Smith for the capture or killing of the villains Fagan and Burke. In pursuance of this plan, Smith ar- ranged with his supposed confederates to make a second visit to Dennis' house, on the Wednesday evening next following the first attempt. Cap- tain Dennis, fully apprised of their plan, lay in concealment with a party of his men, at a place agreed on by himself and Smith, on the way which the robbers would pass on their way to the house. They came at the time appointed ; Smith first, in a wagon intended for carrying away the plunder, then Fagan and Burke on foot, as a rear-guard. As they passed the ambuscade, at a preconcerted signal from Smith (a chirrup to the horse he was driving), the militiamen fired on the two robbers, who in an instant leaped into the brushwood and disap- peared, Burke being little, if any, hurt, but Fa- gan (as was afterwards ascertained), carrying a mortal wound. On the following Saturday some hunters (who had probably discovered his dead body in the woods) were drinking at a tavern in the vicinity, and made a bet with some of the people there that Fagan had been killed. This resulted in a so-called search, in which his body was found, recognized and buried. The welcome news spread rapidly through the region from Colt's Neck to Free- hold, and on the following day "the people as- sembled, disinterred the body, and after heaping indignities upon it, enveloped it in a tarred

197

MONMOUTH COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTION.

cloth, and suspended it in chains, with iron bands around it, from a large chestnut-tree about a mile from the court-house, on the road to Colt's Neck.1 There hung the corpse in mid- air, rocked to and fro by the winds, a horrible warning to his comrades and a terror to travel- ers, until the birds of prey picked the flesh from the bones, and the skeleton fell piecemeal to the ground. Tradition affirms that the skull was afterwards placed against the tree with a pipe in its mouth in derision. " 2

The killing of Fagan was mentioned in Col- lins' New Jersey Gazette of October 1, 1778, as follows :

" About ten days ago Jacob Fagan, who having previously headed a number of villains in Monmouth County that have committed divers robberies, and were the terror of travel- ers, was shot, since which his body has been gibbetted on the publick highway in that county to deter others from perpetrating the like de- testable crimes."

The robber Stephen Burke, who so narrowly escaped at the time when his confederate, Fa- gan, was killed by the militiamen, was himself killed (with his fellow-robbers, West and Wil- liams) by Captain Dennis' detachment in Jan- uary, 1779. An account of the affair (embraced in a letter from Monmouth County, written, as is supposed, by Dr. Thomas Henderson) was given in Collins' Gazette, of the 29th of that month, viz .:

"The Tory Pine-Robbers, who have their haunts and caves in the pines, and have been for some time past a terrour to the inhabitants of this county, have, during the course of the present week, met with a very eminent disaster. On Tuesday evening last Captain Benjamin Dennis, who lately killed the infamous robber Fagan, with a party of his Militia, went in pur- suit of three of the most noted of the pine-rob- bers, and was so fortunate as to fall in with them, and kill them on the spot. Their names

are Stephen Burke, alias Emmons, Stephen West and Ezekiel Williams. Yesterday they were brought up to this place, and two of them, it is said, will be hanged in chains. This signal piece of service was effected through the instru- mentality of one John Van Kirk, who was prevailed upon to associate with them on pur- pose to discover their practices and lead them into our hands. He conducted himself with so much address that the robbers, and especially the three above named, who were the leading villains, looked upon him as one of their body, kept him constantly with them and entrusted him with all their designs.

"Van Kirk, at proper seasons, gave intel- ligence of their movements to Captain Dennis, who conducted himself accordingly. They were on the eve of setting off for New York to make

- sale of their plunder, when Van Kirk informed Captain Dennis of the time of their intended departure (which was to have been on Tuesday night last), and of course they would take to their boats. In consequence of which, and agreeable to the directions of Van Kirk, the captain and a small party of his militia planted themselves at Rock Pond, near the sea-shore, and shot Burke, West and Williams in the manner above related. We were at first in hopes of keeping Van Kirk under the rose ; but the secret is out, and of course he must fly the country, for the Tories are so highly exas- perated against him that death will certainly be his fate if he does not leave Monmouth County. The Whigs are soliciting contributions in his favour; and from what I have seen, I have no doubt that they will present him with a very handsome sum. I question whether the de- struction of the British fleet could diffuse more universal joy among the inhabitants of Mon- mouth than has the death of the above three most egregious villains."

The killing of Burke, West and Williams was narrated by William Courlies, of Shrews- bury, who joined the British in the fall of 1778, and who testified before a British court-martial as follows : "The deponent was carried prisoner to Monmouth in January, 1779, on the night of the 24th of that month. He saw Captain Dennis, of the rebel service, bring to Freehold

1 It was related by Dr. Samuel Forman, of Freehold, that in the time of the Revolution he (then a youth) assisted in the erection, near the court-house, of a gallows, on which no less than thirteen Pine Robbers, murderers and Refugees were hung at different times during the war.

2 Hist. Coll. of New Jersey.

- -

198

HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

Court-House three dead bodies; that Captain Dennis being a neighbor of his (the deponent's), he asked where those men were killed. He replied they were killed on the shore, where they were coming to join their regiments. Two of them, he said, belonged to Colonel Morris' corps, in General Skinner's brigade; the other had been enlisted in their service by those two belonging to Colonel Morris' corps. He said also that he (Captain Dennis) had employed a man to assist them in making their escape at a place where he (Dennis) was to meet with them on the shore; at which place he did meet them ; that, on coming to the spot, he (Dennis) sur- rounded them with his party; that the men at- tempted to fire, and not being able to discharge their pieces, begged for quarters, and claimed the benefit of being prisoners of war. He or- dered them to be fired on, and one of them by the name of Williams fell; that they were all bayoneted by the party, and brought to Mon- mouth; and that he (Dennis) received a sum of money for that action, either from the Gover- nour or General Washington,-which of the two he does not recollect."

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Pt. 1, Part 37

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885 Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co. Number of Pages: 974

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co.
Number of Pages: 974