History of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Pt. 1, Part 38

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

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as he lay on the floor helpless from his broken leg. The daughter, notwithstanding her wounds, slipped out and made her escape to the woods, and the ruffians, fearing that she would give the alarm and so bring a party of militia upon them, did not wait long to plunder the house, but beat a hasty retreat towards their hiding- place in the Pines.

An account of this murder was given in the Gazette, as follows: "July 31, 1779 .- Thomas Farr and wife, in the night, near Crosswicks Baptist meeting-house, and daughter were badly wounded by a gang supposed to be under lead of Lewis Fenton. About the same time Fenton broke into and robbed the house of one Andrews, in Monmouth County. Governor Livingston offered £500 reward for Fenton and £300 and £250 for persons assisting him." Two months later Fenton met the fate he deserved, the fol- lowing account of his death being given in a communication printed in Collins' Gazette, of September, 1779: "On Thursday last (Septem- ber 234, 1779) a Mr. Van Mater was knocked off his horse, on the road near Longstreet's Mills, in Monmouth County, by Lewis Fenton and one De Bow, by whom he was stabbed in the arm and otherwise much abused, besides being robbed of his saddle. In the mean time another person coming up drew the attention of the robbers and gave Van Mater an opportunity to escape. He went directly and informed a serjeant's guard of Major Lee's Light Dragoons, who were in the neighborhood, of what had a wagon and horses and ordered three of his

The outlaw Fenton, who was a comrade of Fagan and Burke in their crimes, was a black- smith by trade, to which he had been appren- ticed in Freehold. His depredations were as numerous and as long continued as those of the others, and his record was foul and bloody with many murders. One of the most diabolical of these was the killing of Thomas Farr and his wife, an aged couple, who lived in Upper Free- | happened. The serjeant immediately impressed hold township, near Imlaystown. The murder was committed in July, 1779, by Fenton, men to secrete themselves in it under some hay. Thomas Burke and several other villains of the Having changed his clothes and procured a gang, who came to Farr's house in the dead of guide, he made haste, thus equipped, to the place the night for purposes of robbery. The inmates : where Fenton lay. On the approach of the were Mr. and Mrs. Farr and their daughter, wagon Fenton (his companion being gone) rushed out to plunder it. Upon demanding what they had in it, he was answered a little wine and spirit. These articles he said he wanted, and who, as it appears, were on the alert and had the doors barricaded with logs. The assailants attempted to beat open the front door by using a rail as a battering-ram ; but failing in this, while advancing toward the wagon to take pos- they fired in on the defenders, wounding the session of them one of the soldiers, being pre- viously informed who he was, shot him through the head, which killed him instantly on the spot. Thus did this villain end his days, which, daughter and breaking one of Mr. Farr's legs. They then went to the back door, and being successful in gaining entrance, they immediately ·shot Mrs. Farr and beat her husband to death ; it is to be hoped, will at least be a warning to

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others, if not to induce them to throw themselves on the mercy of their injured country." About two weeks before Fenton's death four of his gang were captured and placed in Monmouth jail, from which some of them, if not all, were soon after taken to the gallows.

The outlaws of the Pines were very bitter in their hatred of Captain Benjamin Dennis, who often led the militia to punish them for their depredations, and the feeling of enmity towards him was particularly intense on the part of the villain Fenton, on account of the killing of Fagan and Stephen Burke. Determined to have his revenge for this, he, a short time before his death, waylaid and murdered the captain while he was on his way from Coryel's Ferry (Lambertville, Hunterdon County) to Shrews- bury, in July, 1779. His daughter Amelia, who escaped from Fagan and Burke when they attempted to rob her father's house, afterwards became Mrs. Coryel. Mrs. Dennis, who on that occasion escaped so narrowly with her life, had previously been the victim of a murderous assault by a party of Hessians, who came to her house and beat her with their muskets until they supposed she was dead. This was in June, 1778, when the British army under Sir Henry Clinton was on its march through Mon- mouth County. After the murder of her hus- band she became the wife of John. Lambert, who was afterwards for a time Acting Governor of New Jersey. She lived fifty-six years after the murder of her first husband by the Mon- mouth County outlaws.

Many murders and robberies, other than those which have been noticed in the preceding ac- counts, were committed by the banditti who infested the Pines of Monmouth (then em- bracing what is now Ocean County), and who at length became so numerous and audacious that "the State government offered large re- wards for their destruction ; and they were hunted and shot like wild beasts until the close of the war, when they were almost totally extirpated."

The Refugees (or Loyalists, as they called themselves) were renegade Americans, organized as allies of the British, with officers commis-

sioned by the " Board of Associated Loyalists," which was constituted at New York, having for its object the examination of American prisoners of war and suspected persons, and the planning of measures for procuring intelligence and otherwise giving aid to the royal cause. Of this body, the first president was Daniel Coxe, a Jerseyman, who (as was said by a Refugee officer) received the appointment to deprive him of the opportunity of speaking before the board, as he had in a great degree "the gift of saying little with many words." He was succeeded as president of the board by William Franklin, a natural son of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and the last Royal Governor of New Jersey.

Most of the Tories of Monmouth County who entered the service of the British were found in the First Battalion of the brigade known as the "New Jersey Royal Volunteers," other- wise often called " Skinner's Greens," from the name of their brigade commander and the color of their uniforms. Following are given the names of officers of this corps, as far as they have been ascertained, viz .:

Brigadier-General Cortland Skinner, brigade com- mander.

First Battalion.

Elisha Lawrence (previously sheriff of Monmouth County), colonel.

B. G. Skinner, colonel in 1781.

Stephen Delancey, lieutenant-colonel.

Thomas Millidge, major.

William Hutchinson, captain.

Joseph Crowell, captain.

James Moody, lieutenant.

John Woodward, lieutenant.

James Brittan, lieutenant.

Osias Ausley, ensign.

Joseph Brittan, ensign.

Second Battalion.

John Morris, colonel.

Isaac Allen, lieutenant-colonel.

Charles Harrison, captain.

Thomas Hunlock, captain.

John Combs, lieutenant.

Third Battalion.

Abraham Van Buskirk, lieutenant-colonel.

Robert Timpany, majer.

Philip Cortland (N. Y.), major.

Jacob Van Buskirk, captain.

James Servanier, lieutenant.

Philip Cortland, Jr., ensign.

John Van Orden, ensign.

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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

The following-named were also officers in the brigade, but the battalions to which, respectively, they belonged cannot be designated :

Elisha Skinner, lieutenant-colonel.

John Barnes, major. R. V. Stockton, major. Thomas Lawrence, major.

John Lee, captain.

Peter Campbell, captain.

John Barbara, captain.

Richard Cayford, captain.

William Chander, captain.

Daniel Cozzens, captain.

--- Keating, captain. '

- Troup, lieutenant.

- Fitz Randolph, lieutenant.

Peter Meyer, ensign.

Dr. Absalom Bainbridge, surgeon.

Though the terms Loyalist and Royalist would properly include all who favored the cause of the crown, yet they were generally limited in their application to those who joined the Royal Vol- unteer organization, to distinguish them from the viler and more detestable bands of maraud- ing and plundering Refugees, of whom Gover- nor Livingston, in a message to the Legislature of New Jersey in 1777, said :

".They have plundered friends as well as foes; effects capable of division they have divided ; such as were not, they have destroyed. They have warred on decrepit old age and upon defenseless youth ; they have committed hostili- ties against the ministers of religion, against public records and private monuments, books of improvements and papers of curiosity, and against the arts and sciences. They have butchered the wounded when asking for quar- ter, mangled the dead while weltering in their blood, and refused to them the rite of sepulture ; suffered prisoners to perish for want of sustenance, violated the chastity of women, disfigured private residences of taste and ele- gance, and, in their rage of impiety and barbar- ism, profaned edifices dedicated to the worship of Almighty God."

But the Tories were not all as hardened vil- lains as those described by Governor Living- ston. The best class of them were too honora- ble to engage in midnight expeditions to rob "and murder their former friends and neighbors.

Men of this class (which, however, formed a small part of the whole Tory league) rarely com- mitted acts dishonorable as soldiers ; yet the fact that they had previously stood well, and that some of them had held influential positions in the community, exerted a most injurious influence on the patriot cause among their former friends and acquaintances. The example of such men served to entice many to the ranks of the enemy and to cause others secretly to wish them well, or, at least, to strive to remain neutral at a time when their country most needed their services, and in a county which was suffering most severely from the devastation of a bloody parti- san warfare.

During the first year or two of the war the patriot cause was seriously endangered by Tory sympathizers, many of whom had sons, brothers or other relatives in the British army, but who, themselves, remained at home because age or other disability unfitted them for service in the field. These men endeavored for a time to injure the American cause by their insidious wiles and secret scheming wherever and when- ever opportunity offered ; but when their con- duct became known, they received peremptory orders to leave, and did so, seeking safety within the enemy's lines, while those who remained quietly and strictly neutral at home (as a few of them did) were seldom molested, though a strict and continual watch was kept over their conduct. Another fact to be remembered is that many men of good standing and influence, who stood with the patriots at the outbreak of the war and remained true to their country for a year or two afterwards, became alarmed at the disasters sustained by the Americans in the campaigns of 1776, and, abandoning their friends and country, sought safety and advancement by joining the enemy. Some of these are noticed in the following brief mention of a few of the more prominent of the better class of Monmouth County Loyalists :

John Brown Lawrence was a lawyer and a member of the Provincial Council of New Jer- sey. On account of his official relations to the royal government he was arrested by the com- mittee and imprisoned in Burlington County jail, charged with holding treasonable intercourse

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with the enemy. On that charge he was brought to trial and acquitted. After the war he re- ceived from the British government a large tract of land in Canada, and settled upon it. His son was that celebrated Captain James Lawrence who commanded the American frigate "Chesa- peake " in her encounter with the British frigate "Shannon," whose last words were "Don't give up the ship," and whose monument, with that of his brave lieutenant, Ludlow, may be seen on left of the main entrance to Trinity Church-yard, in the city of New York.

Clayton Tilton, of Shrewsbury, was a Tory who joined the corps of Loyalists and received a commission as captain. He was taken prisoner by the Americans in the spring of 1782, at or about the time when Philip White was captured. He was confined in the jail at Freehold, but was soon exchanged for Daniel Randolph, Esq., who was made prisoner with Captain Huddy at the Dover block-house. It is supposed that he went with the British when they evacuated New York, as mention is made of a person of the same name, a New Jersey Loyalist, having mar- ried the widow of Thomas Green, at Musquash, New Brunswick, soon after the close of the war.

John Wardell, of Shrewsbury, an associate judge of Monmouth County, sided with the Tories and took refuge in the British lines. His name is among those whose property was sold under confiscation in 1779. He had been a neighbor, in Shrewsbury, of the notorious Cap- tain Richard Lippincott, and was on the most intimate terms of friendship with him.

Elisha Lawrence, son of John, the surveyor, and brother of Dr. John Lawrence, was born in 1740. At the outbreak of the Revolution he was sheriff of Monmouth County. Early in the war he joined the enemy and raised (chiefly by his own efforts) about five hundred men, over whom he was placed in command, and was commis- sioned by the British, colonel of the First Bat- talion, New Jersey Royal Volunteers. In 1777 he was taken prisoner on Staten Island by Col- onel Ogden, acting under orders of General Sul- livan. In the list of persons of Upper Free- hold whose property was confiscated and ad- vertised for sale in 1779 are the names of "Elisha Lawrence and John Lawrence, sons of

John, late of Upper Freehold." At the close of the war he left New York with the British, retaining his rank of colonel, and was retired on half-pay. The English government granted him a large tract of land in Nova Scotia, to which he removed, but finally went to Eng- land, and thence to Cardigan, Wales, where he died.

Thomas Leonard, a prominent citizen of Freehold township, was denounced by the Committee of Safety for his Tory proclivities, and every friend of freedom was advised to sever all connection with him for that reason. He joined the British in New York, and at the close of the war went to St. John's, New Brunswick.

Joseph Holmes, by adhering to the Royalists, lost £900. At the close of the Revolution he went to Nova Scotia, and settled at Shelburne. John Lawrence, of Upper Freehold, Mon- mouth County, was born in 1709. He was a justice of the court and a surveyor, and in his last-named capacity he ran the division line between East and West Jersey in 1743. It was known as "Lawrence's Line," in, contra- distinction to "Keith's Line " of 1687. Being advanced in years at the beginning of the Revolution, Mr. Lawrence did not bear arms, but he accepted from the British the important service of issuing Royalist protections to such Americans as he was able to induce to abjure the cause of their country and swear allegiance to Great Britain, for which he was arrested by the committee, and confined for nine months in Burlington jail. He died in 1794, at the age of eighty-five years.

John Lawrence, Jr., M. D., son of John Lawrence, was born in 1747, graduated at Princeton, studied medicine in Philadelphia, and became a somewhat prominent physician of Monmouth County. In 1776 he was arrested by order of General Washington, and was or- dered by the Provincial Congress of New Jersey to remain at Trenton on parole, but he was afterwards permitted to remove to Morris- town. As his father and brother were holding positions under the British, he was narrowly watched as a suspected Tory and a dangerous person. Soon afterwards he joined the British

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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

in New York, where he practiced medicine, and was also captain of a company of volunteers for the defense of the city. After the close of the war (in 1783) he returned to Monmouth County, where he lived unmolested. He died at Trenton, April 29, 1830.

Rev. Samuel Cooke, D.D., Episcopal clergy- man at Shrewsbury, was educated at Cambridge, England, and came to America as a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gos- pel in Foreign Parts, in September, 1751, locat- ing in Shrewsbury as the successor of the Rev. Thomas Thompson, in charge of the churches at Freehold, Middletown and Shrewsbury. The Revolution divided and dispersed his congrega- tions. As a minister of the Church of England he thought it his duty to continue his alle- giance to the crown, and joined the British in New York. At the court-martial convened in June, 1782, for the trial of Captain Richard Lippincott for the murder of Captain Joshua Huddy, he was a witness, and was styled " the Reverend Samuel Cooke, clerk, deputy chap- lain to the brigade of guards." His property in Monmouth County was advertised to be sold, under confiscation, at Tinton Falls, March 29, 1779. In 1785 he settled at Fredericktown, New Brunswick, as rector of a church there. In 1791 he was commissary to the bishop of Nova Scotia. He was drowned in crossing the St. John's River in a birch-bark canoe in 1795, and his son, who attempted to save his life, per- ished with him.

Thomas Crowell, of Middletown, joined the Loyalists and was commissioned captain in that corps. His property was confiscated and or- dered to be sold at the house of Cornelius Swart, in Middletown, March 22, 1779. During the war, Governor Franklin, president of the Board of Loyalists, ordered him to execute, without trial, a Monmouth County officer (one of the | Smocks ?), but the Refugees who captured him made such earnest protest that the order was not enforced.

Lawrence Hartshorne, of Shrewsbury, made himself so obnoxious as a Royalist that he was compelled to leave the county and go to the British at New York. He was a merchant and gave the enemy much valuable information.

Colonel George Taylor, of the New Jersey Loyalists, was a resident in Middletown, and quite prominent on the patriot side in the be- ginning of the war, but soon afterwards went over to the British, and was rewarded by a col- onel's commission. He was a son of Edward Taylor, who was a member of the Colonial Assembly in 1775, and a leading member of the Provincial Congress of New Jersey in 1775 and 1776; but when his son, Colonel George Taylor, deserted to. the enemy, the father's pa- triotism gave way, and he became in sympathy, if not in secret acts and services, an adherent and supporter of the Royalist cause. The suspi- cion with which he was regarded by the patriots is expressed in the following notification, ad- dressed to him by General David Forman :

" MIDDLETOWN, MONMOUTH CO., July 2, 1777.

"SIR :- Several complaints have been made to me respecting your conduct, particularly for acting as a spy amongst us, and from several corroborating cir- cumstances, especially that of giving information to a party of Tories and British, commanded by your son, George Taylor, late militia Col. in this county, now a Refugee, by which means your son and his party escaped the pursuit of a body of militia sent to attack them ; I do therefore enjoin it upon you that you do for the future confine yourself to your farm at Middletown, and do not re-attempt traveling the road more than crossing it to go to your land on the north side of said town, unless by liberty obtained from the legislative body of this State, or this order be recalled, under the risk of being treated as a spy.

"Yours, &c., " DAVID FORMAN, "Brig .- Gen."

On the 26th of November, 1777, the Council of Safety " Agreed, that Edward Taylor and Jere- miah Taylor, of Middletown, and George Taylor and Josiah Parker, of Shrewsbury, be sum- moned to appear before the Council as persons disaffected to the present Government." On the 3d of December following, the Council " Agreed, that Edward Taylor give a Bond in £100 to stay within a mile of the College at Princeton, and not depart beyond these limits without the leave of the Council of Safety, & that he be set at liberty when Thos. Canfield, a prisoner at New York, shall be discharged by the Enemy and suffered to return home." On the 27th of May, 1778, " Agreed, that Edward

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Taylor be discharged from the Bond he gave to confiscated, but purchased it again after the war. He was a lawyer by profession, and was at one time chief justice of Jamaica. He died at Amboy in 1806. the Council of Safety Some time in the beginning of December last & have leave to return home for 3 weeks upon entering into another Bond to return within that time to this town [Prince- ton] & remain here until the future order of the Council of Safety, unless he shall in the mean time procure the releasement of John Willett, now a prisoner in New York." June 13, 1778, "Mr. Edward Taylor having procured the re- lease of John Willett upon parole that whenever required to do so he shall repair to whatever place any of the King of Great Britain's Com- manders-in-Chief shall judge expedieut to order | ject received the special attention and action of

him; Agreed, that the said Mr. Taylor be dis- charged from his bond and have liberty to return to his place of abode until the said John Willett shall be recalled into the enemy's lines ; when the said Edward Taylor is to return to Princeton, there to continue within a mile of the college until he shall be discharged by the Council of Safety or the Executive authority of this State; he pledging his Faith and Honour not to do or say anything contrary to the interest of this State or the United States, & to be sub- ject to all the laws of this State already in being, or that hereafter may be made."

John Taylor, at one time sheriff of Mon- mouth County, and a gentleman of great wealth, was born in 1716. When Admiral Lord Howe arrived in this county to offer terms of recon- ciliation (in 1777), he appointed Mr. Taylor "His Majesty's Lord High Commissioner of New Jersey." This office, as well as the fact that his sons adhered to the crown, and were in the British army, made Mr. Taylor very obnoxious to the Whigs. Once he was tried for his life as a spy, but was acquitted. His prop- erty was applied to the public use, but not con- fiscated, as he was paid for it in Continental money ; yet such was the depreciation of that currency that the payment was but little better than confiscation. He died at Perth Amboy, in 1798, aged eighty-two years. His daughter married Dr. Bainbridge, and two of their sons -William and James Bainbridge -were com- modores in the American navy in the War of 1812-15.

William Taylor, son of John, had his property

The Tories of Monmouth County (more par- ticularly than those of any other part of New Jersey) became troublesome and dangerous from the very beginning of the war of the Revolu- tion, as appears from the records of the Council of Safety and of the Provincial Congress. Tory- ism was rampant in the county as early as 1775, and it increased so rapidly in boldness and ac- tivity 1 that early in the following year the sub- the Congress of New Jersey, the minutes of which body show the following entry under date of July 3, 1776 :

"WHEREAS, authentick information has been re- ceived by this Congress that a number of disaffected persons have assembled in the County of Monmouth, preparing, by force of arms, to oppose the cause of American freedom, and to join the British troops for the destruction of this country ; and it being highly necessary that immediate measures be taken to sub- due these dangerous insurgents: It is therefore unani- mously resolved, That Colonel Charles Read, Lieuten- ant-Colonel Samuel Forman and Major Joseph Haight do take two hundred of the militia of Bur- lington County and two hundred of the militia of

1 " At one time the Refugees gained the ascendancy, and had possession of the village of Freehold for a week or ten days, but were at last driven out by the Whigs. Some of them took to the swamps and woods, and, like the Pine Robbers, secreted themselves in caves burrowed in the sand, where their friends covertly supplied them with food. The most ferocious of them were hung. Those more mild, or merely suspected, were put on their parole of honor, or sent prisoners to Hagerstown, Md., to prevent their com- municating with the enemy, and at the close of the war had their property restored."

This statement, found in Howe and Barber's " Historical Collections of New Jersey." is doubtless unfounded. The court-house and vicinity were held for a time in 1769 and 1770 by a mob, which had gathered to " drive out the law- yers," as they said ; and this was probably the origin of the tradition which formed the basis of the above state- ment. But this riot was five years before the commence- ment of the Revolution. During the war, although the Refugees made raids nearly exerywhere else in the county, they never dared attack the county seat (though at one time such a project was on foot among them), for it was always guarded by troops,-General David Forman's militia. "Light-Horse Harry" Lee's troopers, Major Mifflin's l'ennsylvanians, or some other force sent for that par- ticular purpose.

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History of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Pt. 1, Part 38

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