USA > New Jersey > Monmouth County > History of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Pt. 1 > Part 41
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At the little village of Dover (now Tom's River) there was erected, soon after the opening of the war, a block-house of logs, surrounded by a low stockade. This work stood on a slight elevation of ground, a short distance north of the bridge, and about twenty rods east of the road leading to Freehold, on land now be- longing to Captain Ralph B. Gowdy and Thomas Singleton.3 The stockade was built of logs, seven feet high, set perpendicularly in the ground and pointed at the top. It was nearly square, and every few feet between the logs was an opening large enough to sight and discharge a firelock. On one side of this inclosure was the block-house or barracks, and on the other side a little room, half concealed under ground, which was called the powder magazine. On each of the four corners of the stockade, raised high on a strong, well-braced bed of logs, was a small brass cannon mounted on a pivot, and this was intended to be the main protection against an assaulting force. No method of ingress or exit was ever made in this rude fort, and a scaling-ladder was a constant necessity.
This work and the contiguous village were occupied by the Americans during the greater part of the war as a military post, for the pur- pose of defense from Refugee raids against the salt-works in the vicinity, of checking contra-
band trade between Cranberry Inlet and New York, and to assist the patriot privateers in guarding the prizes which they brought into the old inlet from time to time. The block-house was garrisoned by detachments of the Monmouth militia and State troops, commanded at different times by several different officers, among whom were Captains Ephraim Jenkins, John Stout, James Mott and Joshua Huddy, the last-named being the most famous of all on account of his tragic fate, which made his name familiar in every part of America.
Captain Huddy took command of the block- house and post at Tom's River, with his com- pany, about the first of the year 1782. About the 20th of the following March, rumors of a probable attempt to capture this post reached the brave Huddy, who, with his company2 of two non-commissioned officers and twenty-three privates, made immediate preparations for a stubborn defense.
Late in the evening of Saturday, the 23d of March, Captain Huddy received information that an attacking party of British and Refugees had arrived at the mouth of the inlet. He notified the people of the village, and some of them came in to assist in the defense. Late in the night he sent a reconnoitering party down the river, but they returned without having seen the enemy, who had landed from their boats and were advancing up the road under guidance of a renegade wretch, named William Dillon, who, some time before, had been under sentence of death at Monmouth Court-House as a spy, but was pardoned, and immediately went back to the Refugees, and soon afterwards piloted a British party into Cranberry Inlet for the re- capture of the "Love and Unity,"3 a British
1 " The block-house was at that time a very prominent object in the little village. On Jake's Branch, a half-a mile south of the place, stood the old saw-mill and flour- mill of Paul Schenck and Abram Schenck, now the property owned by John Aumack. On the northeast corner of what is now Water and Main Streets was the public inn kept by Abiel Aikens. There were also a few houses, in which lived Captain Ephraim Jenkins, Aaron Buck, Mrs. Sarah Stud- son (widow of Lieutenant Joshua Studson, who was killed December, 1780, while on duty on the coast), Daniel Ran- dolph, David Imlay, Jacob Fleming and Major John Cook. The manager of the salt-works lived in the town near his store-house. This was about all the village where this fight took place. To a small wharf on the river-bank one of Captain Adam Hyler's barges was tied, in which some traffic was made along the coast between this point and the Raritan River at Brunswick, where he resided .- Adjutant-
. General William S. Stryker.
" The following was the roll of the block-house garrison at that time, viz. :
Captain Joshua Huddy ; Sergeants David Landon and Luke Storey ; Matrosses, Daniel Applegate, William Case, David Dodge, Jamas Edsall, John Eldridge, John Farr, James Kennedy, James Kinsley, Cornelius McDonald, James Mitchell, John Mitchell, John Morris, John Niver- son, George Parker, John Parker, Joseph Parker, John Pellmore, Moses Robbins, Thomas Rostoinder, Jacob Still- wagon, Seth Storey, John Wainright and John Wilbur.
3 . Friday, Sept. 18, 1778 .- Two British armed ships and two brigs came close to the bar off Tom's River [Cran- berry Inlet ], where they lay all night. Next morning, be-
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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
vessel, which had been taken by the American privateeers. And now he was engaged in simi- lar treason to his country by guiding its enemies on their bloody errand against Huddy and his command.
At daylight on Sunday, the 24th, the British party, of about one hundred and twenty men, exclusive of a reinforcement which they had received of the gang of the Pine robber Daven- port, whose headquarters were in the wilderness of old Dover township. Huddy's force had · been increased by four or five men from the village and vicinity, yet the assailants outnum- bered them about five to one, so that resistance seemed hopeless. But he returned a defiant answer to the summons to surrender; where- upon the assault was commenced, and the fight continued until Huddy's ammunition was ex- hausted, and he was at last compelled to sur- render.
The Royal Gazette, the Tory newspaper of New York, published by the notorious Riving- ton, gave the following, as "The authentic ac- count of the expedition against the rebel post on Tom's River, New Jersey, under the Honor- able Board of Associated Loyalists "
" On Wednesday, the 20th inst. [March, 1782], Lieutenant Blanchard, of the armed whale-boats, and about eighty men belonging to them, with Captain Thomas and Lieutenant Roberts, both of the late Bucks County Volun- teers, and between thirty and forty of the other Refugee Loyalists, the whole under com- mand of Lieutenant Blanchard, proceeded to Sandy Hook under the convoy of Captain Stewart Ross, in the armed brig 'Arrogant,' where they were detained by unfavourable
winds until the 23d. About 12 o'clock on that night the party landed near the mouth of Tom's River and marched to the block-house at the town of Dover [now Tom's River], and reached it just at daylight. ' On their way they were challenged and fired upon, and when they came to the works they found the rebels, con- sisting of twenty-five or twenty-six twelve months' men and militia, apprized of their coming and prepared for defence.
" The post into which they had thrown them- selves was six or seven feet high, made with large logs, with loop-holes between, and a num- ber of brass swivels on top, which was entirely open ; nor was there any way of entering but by climbing over. They had, besides the swivels, muskets, with bayonets, and long pikes for their defence. Lieutenant Blanchard sum- moned them to surrender, which they not only refused, but bid the party defiance; on which he immediately ordered the place to be stormed, which was accordingly done, and though de- fended with obstinaey, was soon carried. The rebels had nine men carried in the assault, and twelve made prisoner, two of whom are wounded. The rest made their escape in the confusion. Among the killed was a major of the militia, two captains and one lieutenant. The captain of the twelve months' men sta- tioned there is amongst the prisoners, who are brought safe to town. On our side, two were killed,-Lieutenant Iredell, of the armed boat- men, and Lieutenant Inslee, of the Loyalists, both very brave officers, who distinguished themselves in the attack, and whose loss is much lamented. Lieutenant Roberts and five others are wounded, but it is thought none of them are in a dangerous way.
"The town, as it is called, consisting of about a dozen houses, in which none but a piratical set of banditti resided, together with a grist and saw-mill, were, with the block-house, burned to the ground, and an iron cannon spiked and thrown into the river. A fine, large barge (called Hyler's barge) and other boat in which the rebels used to make their excursions on the coast, were brought off. Some other attempts were intended to have been made; but the ap- pearance of bad weather and the situation of
tween seven and eight o'clock, they sent seven armed boats into the inlet, and retook the ship "Washington," formerly the " Love and Unity," which had been taken by the Americans ; they also took two sloops near the bar, and captured most of the crews The captain of the ship and most of his officers escaped to the mainland in one of the ship's boats. After they got ashore, a man named Robert McMullen, who had been condemned to death at Freehold, but afterwards pardoned, jumped into the boat hurrahing for the British, and rowed off and joined them. Another Refugee, named William Dillon, who had also been sentenced to death at Freehold and pardoned, joined this party of British as pilot."-Collins' New Jersey Guzette.
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the wounded (being without either surgeon or medicines) induced the party to return to New York, where they arrived on the twenty-fifth."
Immediately after the surrender of the stock- ade and its garrison, the Refugees proceeded to burn the little village, in which all the houses were destroyed, except two,-those of Mrs. Studson and Aaron Buck. The latter was a . prominent Whig; but his wife was a niece of Dillon, the British guide, and that was doubt- less the reason for sparing the house. Mrs. Studson was the widow of Lieutenant Studson, who had been murdered by the outlaw, John Bacon; and the lieutenant in command of the British party had enough of humanity to inter- fere and save her house. Captain Ephraim Jenkins, who was one of the killed in the fight, lived at Tom's River, and had volunteered to help defend the block-house. His house was burned, and his family scattered to be cared for by strangers. Abiel Jenkins was another whose house was burned. He lost all his property during the war, and in his old age (1808) the Legislature passed a bill for his relief.
Among the prisoners taken with Captain Huddy were Jacob Fleming and Daniel Ran- dolph, Esq., of Tom's River,-the latter of whom had been a resident of the village at Monmouth Court-House. Their captors took them to New York, and lodged them in the noted Sugar-House prison, from whence Huddy was taken, on Monday, April 1st, 1782, to the prison of the provost-guard in the city, and there closely confined until Monday, April 8th, when he, with Daniel Randolph and Jacob Fleming (who were soon afterwards exchanged for the Tories, Aaron White and Captain Clay- ton Tilton) were taken on board a sloop1 and
placed in irons. They were kept ironed on board the sloop until Tuesday evening, April 9th, when they were transferred to the guard- ship at Sandy Hook, and there confined between decks until Friday, April 12th, on the morning of which day Huddy was taken by a party of Refugees to Gravelly Point, and there hanged at about ten o'clock in the forenoon of that day, having executed his will under the gallows, and signing it on the head of the barrel from which, a few minutes later, he was launched into eter- nity.2 On his breast the murderers fastened a placard, bearing this inscription :
" We, the Refugees, having long with grief beheld the cruel murders of our brethren, and finding no- thing but such measures daily carrying into execu- tion, we therefore determine not to suffer without tak- ing vengeance for the numerous cruelties ; and thus
It will be seen by the wording of this order that the hanging of Captain Huddy was not contemplated by Lippin- cott's superior officers, but that it was their intention to have him exchanged for Captain Tilton, and Randolph and Fleming to be exchanged for " two other Associated Loy- alists."
2 Following is a copy of Captain Huddy's will :
"In the name of God, Amen: I, Joshua Huddy, of Middletown, in the County of Monmouth, being of sound mind and memory, but expecting shortly to depart this life, do declare this my last Will and Testament.
" First, I commit my soul into the hands of Almighty God, hoping he may receive it in mercy ; and next I com- mit my body to the earth. I do also appoint my trusty friend Samuel Forman, to be my lawful executor, and after all my just debts are paid, I desire that he do divide the rest of my substance, whether by book debts, notes or any effects whatever belonging to me, equally between my two children, Elizabeth and Martha Huddy. In witness whereof, I have hereunto signed my name, this twelfth day of April, in the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hun- dred and eighty-two.
" JOSHUA HUDDY."
The will was written on a half-sheet of foolscap paper, on the back of which was this indorsement, viz. : " The Will of Captain Joshua Huddy, made and executed the same day that the Refugees murdered him,-April 12, 1782. This historical document was found many years afterwards among the papers of the executor, Samuel Forman. It was signed by Captain Huddy, but had evidently been written by another hand,-contrary to the accounts that have fre- quently been given, that it was written in full by himself on the barrel-head.
Captain Iluddy's daughters subsequently became Mrs. Green and Mrs. Piatt. The last-named, Martha, removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, and lived to a very advanced age lenving descendants.
1 The order to the Commissary of Prisoners to deliver Captain Huddy and the others to Captain Lippincott, to be taken on board the sloop, was as follows:
"NEW YORK, April 8th, 1782.
"SIR, Deliver to Captain Richard Lippincott, the three following prisoners : Lieutenant Joshua Huddy, Daniel Randolph and Jacob Flemming, to take down to the Hook, to procure the exchange of Captain Clayton Tilton and two other Associated Loyalists.
"By order of the Board of Directors of Associated Loyalists.
"S. S. BLOWERS, Secretary."
. " To Mr. Commissary Challoner."
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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
begin, having made use of Captain Huddy as the first object to present to your view ; and we further deter- mine to hang man for man while there is a Refugee existing.
"UP GOES HUDDY FOR PHILIP WHITE."
It was the notorious Captain Richard Lip- pincott who commanded the party of Refugees who hanged the patriot Huddy. Tradition says that among that party there were some who protested against the execution, knowing, as they did, that Huddy was innocent of the charge brought against him. Three of these absolutely refused to take part in the murder, and when the malignant Lippincott drew his sword and declared he would run any man through who dared disobey his orders, these three promptly brought their bayonets to the charge and defied him, swearing that neither his orders nor even those of the British commander-in- chief should ever compel them to assist in tak- ing the life of any man for a crime of which they knew him to be innocent.
The specific charge made against Huddy was that "he had taken a certain Philip White, a Refugee in Monmouth County, cut off both his arms, broke his legs, pulled out one of his eyes, damned him and then bid him run for his life," -a charge which was false in every one of the particulars alleged, for White had been taken while Huddy was a prisoner in the hands of the British in New York. This he told them, and proved the statement by several other prisoners. This, however, had no effect to change his fate, for they were determined to take his life at every hazard.
The true story of the killing of Philip White is, that he (who was one of the most malignant of the Monmouth County Tories) was, with his brother Aaron, taken prisoner by the light- horse, at Long Branch, on the 29th of March (while Huddy was a prisoner in New York), and sent under guard, to be taken to the jail at Freehold. Their guards were William Borden, John North and John Russell (the latter being the son of the old Mr. Russell who was mur- dered by Refugees, as before mentioned). The instructions given to the guards were to shoot Philip White if he should attempt to escape; .and he was informed that such orders had been
given. But he had committed so many atroci- ties on the patriots of Monmouth that he felt that he had better take the chance of being shot in an attempt to escape than the chance of being hanged at the court-house for his many crimes. Therefore, when the party reached a point on the Colt's Neck road between the houses of Daniel Grandin and Samuel Leonard, he jumped from his horse and ran for the woods, which he had almost reached, when a ball from Borden's carbine passed through his body, and he fell; but recovered, and again made for the woods. Borden intercepted him in his flight, and called to him to surrender, and he should have quarter ; but this he disre- garded, and ran to a bog, upon which Borden struck him with the butt of his carbine, and, as he continued in his attempt to escape, John North came up and gave him a blow with his sabre. He was then retaken, but died very soon after. Borden testified that White re- ceived no wound except the shot and sabre-cut, and that he was uninjured in limb. And it was fully proved by the affidavits of Judge David Forman and others, who saw White's body at the court-house, that it was unmuti- lated and without any indications of broken limbs, as the Refugees alleged in their pretended charges against Captain Huddy.
When Lippincott and his party had wreaked their vengeance on the brave Captain Huddy, they left his body hanging on the gallows; and it remained there until late in the afternoon of the same day, when it was discovered by a party of Americans, who carried it to the house of Captain James Green, at the court-house, where it lay until the 15th, and was then buried with the honors of war, the funeral being held in the court-house, where the ser- mon was preached by the Rev. John Wood- hull, pastor of the Tennent Church, in presence of a great concourse of people who attended the obsequies.
While the corpse of Captain Huddy was lying in the house of Captain Green, at Freehold, on the 14th of April (the day preceding the fun- eral), a large meeting, numbering fully four hundred of the most respectable people of the county, gathered at the court-house, and pre-
MONMOUTH COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTION.
219
pared and adopted an address to General Wash- ington. This address-which is here given en- tire because it narrates many of the circumstances of Captain Huddy's capture, imprisonment and barbarous execution-was as follows :
To his Excellency, George Washington, Esq., Com- mander-in-chief of the combined armies of America and France, acting in North America, etc., etc.
"The inhabitants of the County of Monmouth, being assembled on account of the horrid and almost unparalleled murder of Captain Joshua Huddy by the Refugees from New York, and, as we presume, by ap- probation, if not by the express command of the British Commander-in-chief, Sir Henry Clinton ; 1 hold it as our indispensable duty, as well to the United States in general as ourselves in particular, to show to your Excellency that the aforesaid Cap- tain Joshua Huddy, late commanding the post at Tom's River, was, after a brave and gallant defence, made a prisoner of war, together with fifteen of his men, by a party of Refugees from New York, on Sun- day, the 24th of March last past. That five of the said Huddy's men were most inhumanly murdered after the surrender; that the next day, at night, to wit, on Monday, the 25th of March aforesaid, the said Cap- tain Huddy and the other prisoners who had been spared from the bayonet, arrived at New York, and were lodged in the main guard during that night ; that on Tuesday morning, the 26th of the same month, the said Huddy was removed from the main guard to the Sugar-House, where he was kept closely confined until removed from thence to the Provost-Guard on Monday, April 1st, where he, the said Captain Huddy, was closely confined until Monday, the 8th of April, instant; when the said Captain Huddy, with two other prisoners, was removed from the Provost jail at New York, on board of a sloop, then lying at New York dock, was put in the hold of the said sloop in irons, and then the said Captain Huddy was told he was ordered to be hanged, although the said Captain Huddy had never been charged, or brought to any kind of trial. That the said Captain Huddy demanded to know upon what charge he was to be hanged; that a Refugee by the name of John Tilton then told him that he (the said Captain Huddy meaning) was to be hanged for that he had taken a certain Refugee by the name of Philip White, and that he (the said Captain Huddy meaning) had, after carrying him, the aforesaid Philip White, five or six miles, cut off his (the aforesaid Philip White's) arms, broke both his legs, pulled out one of his eyes, and most cruelly murdered him, the aforesaid Philip White ; and fur- ther said that he, the aforesaid Captain Huddy, was
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ordered to be hanged for the murder aforesaid; that Captain Huddy replied that he had never taken the aforesaid Philip White prisoner; and further said that he, the aforesaid Philip White, was killed after he, the said Captain Huddy was taken prisoner him- self, and was closely confined at New York at the time the said Philip White was killed. Which, in fact and in truth, was exactly as the said Captain Huddy had related; for he, the aforesaid Philip White, was in New York on Wednesday, the 27th of March last past, and did, on the night of that day, sail from New York to Sandy Hook, where he lay until Friday, the 29th of March ; that late the same night he, in company with Aaron White, John Fen- nimore, Negro Moses, John Worthey, and one Isaac, all Refugees, weighed anchor at Sandy Hook and ran down to Long Branch, in the township of Shrews- bury ; that the aforesaid Philip White (so as aforesaid mentioned to have been killed by Captain Huddy) and the said Negro Moses landed on Long Branch, in Shrewsbury aforesaid, on Saturday morning, the 30th of March, he, the said Joshua Huddy, being then a close prisoner in the Sugar-House at New York. That he, the said Philip White, was taken prisoner on the same 30th of March, in the afternoon, and as a guard was conducting him, the said Philip White, to jail, the said Philip, in attempting to escape, was killed by his guard.
: "That on Friday, the 12th instant, a party of Refu- gees, said to have been commanded by a Captain Richard Lippincott, brought the said Captain Huddy over to the Highlands of Middletown, hanged him at ten o'clock in the forenoon of the same day, and left him hanging until four o'clock in the after- noon, with the paper herewith annexed 2 pinned upon his breast ; at which time a party of the inhabitants, having been informed of the cruel murder, went to the place of his execution and cut the unhappy vic- tim from the gallows.
" These being a statement of indubitable facts fully proven, we do, as of right we may, look up to your Excellency as the person in whom the sole power of avenging our wrongs is lodged, and who has full and ample authority to hang a British officer of the same rank, to a similar end ; for what man, after this in- stance of the most unjust and cruel murder, will pre- sume to say that any officer or citizen, whom the chance of war may put into the hands of the enemy, will not suffer the same ignominious death, under some such groundless and similar pretence ?
" And we do, with the fullest assurance, rely upon receiving effectual support from your excellency, be- cause : First, the act of hanging any person without any (even a pretended) trial is, in itself, not only dis- allowed by all civilized people, but is considered as barbarous in the extreme, and most certainly demands
1 This presumption was soon afterwards found to be with- out foundation, as the barbarous act was disavowed and se- verely condemned by Sir Henry.
2 The label which the Refugee murderers had fastened to Huddy's breast, as before mentioned.
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redress. Secondly, because the law of nature and of nations points to retaliation as the only measure which can, in such cases, give any degree of security that the practice shall not become general. Thirdly, because the honorable the Continental Congress did, on the 30th day of October, 1778, resolve in the fol- lowing words: 'We, therefore, the Congress of the United States of America, do solemnly deciare and proclaim that if our enemies presume to execute their threats, or persist in their present career of barbarity, we will take such exemplary vengeance as shall deter others from a like conduct. We appeal to that God who searcheth the hearts of men, for the rectitude of · our intentions, and in His holy presence declare that as we are not moved by any light and hasty sugges- tions of anger or revenge, so, through every possible change of fortune, we will adhere to this our deter- mination.' Fourthly, because the minds of the people are justly irritated, and if they have not compensation through a publick channel, they may, in vindicating themselves, open to view a scene at which humanity itself may shudder.
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