History of Monmouth county, New Jersey, Part 40

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Swan, Norma Lippincott. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia, R. T. Peck & co.
Number of Pages: 1148

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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 Samnel 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."

1 The order to the Commissary of Prisoners to deliver Captain Huddy and the others to Captain Lippincott, to ' Will of Captain Joshua lluddy, made and executed the same be taken on board the sloop, was as follows:

The will was written on a half-sheet of foolscap paper, on the back of which was this indorsement, viz. : " The 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 This historical document was found many years afterwards among the papers of the executor, Samuel Forman.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 Huddy's daughters subsequently became Mrs. Green and Mrs. Piatt. The last-named, Martha, removed I to Cincinnati, Ohio, and lived to a very advanced age + leaving descendants.

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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- crimes. Therefore, when the party reached a pineott 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 eharge made against Huddy was . and that he was uninjured in limb. And it that " he had taken a certain Philip White, a 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. Refugee in Monmouth County, ent 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 effeet 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 eseape; 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 point on the Colt's Neck road between the houses of Daniel Grandin and Samnel 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,

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-

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MONMOUTH COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTION.

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 Huddly 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 doek, 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

ordered to be hanged for the murder aforesaid; that Captain IInddy 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 20th 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 vie- 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- canse : 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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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

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 declare 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 reetitude 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 publiek channel, they may, in vindieating themselves, open to view a seene at which humanity itself may shudder.

" The above was read to, considered and approved of by upwards of four hundred respectable eitizens.

" Ordered by them that the committee by us ap- pointed do, in our names, sign it.

" Ordered that General Forman and Colonel Holmes be requested to wait on his Excellency, General Wash- ington, with it, and that they do wait hls Excelleney's final determination.

" Monmouth, April 14, 1782.

" John Covenhoven, Samuel Forman,

Thomas Seabrook, William Wilcocks,

Peter Forman, Asher Holmes,

Richard Cox, Elisha Walton,

Joseph Stillwell, Stephen Fleming,

Barnes Smock, John Smock,

John Sehanck, Thomas Chadwick."

The committee appointed to wait on General Washington placed in his hands, besides the foregoing address, the affidavits of Aaron White, John North, William Borden and John Russell in relation to the killing of Philip White, and also the affidavit of Daniel Randolph (who had been a prisoner in the hands of the British with Huddy) to the facts embodied in the address in reference to Huddy's imprisonment and execu- tion. When General Washington received their papers he at once transmitted them to the Pres- ident of Congress, notifying that body of his in- tention to retaliate, and asking their approba- tion of such a step.1 He also ordered the as-

sembling of a council of war, which was accord- ingly held at the headquarters of General Heath, at West Point, on the 19th of April. The coun- cil unanimously decided on retaliation unless Lippincott should be given up, the victim to be selected by lot from the British prisoners (officers) who had surrendered at discretion, and not under convention or capitulation. This de- cision was submitted to Congress and approved by that body.

Washington notified Sir Henry Clinton (April 21st) of the decision of the council of war, and demanded the surrender of Lippincott. Clinton replied on the 25th, refusing to give up Lippincott, but said he had ordered a court-mar- tial of that officer to investigate the cireum- stances of the execution of Huddy. In May, Clinton was succeeded in command, at New York, by Sir Guy Carleton, who wrote Wash- ington condemning the Huddy murder and en- tirely disavowing it on behalf of the British authorities. In fact, the British were inclined to surrender Lippincott to Washington, but the influence of the American Loyalists prevented it.2

The demand for Lippincott's surrender hav- ing been refused, Washington ordered the selec- tion of a victim from among the British officers taken at Yorktown, and then confined at Lan- caster, Pa. The lot fell on Charles Asgill, a captain in the Guards, a member of a noble fam- ily in England, and at that time only nineteen years of age, who, immediately after the selec- tion by lot, was conducted to Philadelphia and thence to Chatham, accompanied by his steadfast friend, Major Gordon, of the British army, who was to remain his companion to the end.

There was great excitement and exasperation among the people when it was definitely an- nouneed that Lippincott would not be given up, and a plan was then proposed to capture him in the midst of his friends in New York, and bring him away by force. To effect this purpose, Captain Adam Hyler, of New Brunswick, hav-

1 The papers having been referred to a committee, and that committee reporting on the 26th of April, Congress

passed a resolution unanimously approving " the firm and judicious conduct of the commander-in-chief in his applica- tion to the British General of New York, and do assure him of their firmest support in his fixed purpose of exemplary retaliation."

2 Thatcher.

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MONMOUTH COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTION.

ing ascertained that Lippincott resided in Broad Street, New York, left the Kills at dark in a single boat, with a crew disguised as a British press-gang, and arrived at Whitehall, New York, about nine o'clock. Here he left the boat in charge of a few men and passed directly to Lippineott's house, where, on inquiry, it was as- certained " he had gone to Cock Pit," and so the expedition failed ; but the promptness with which the dangerous and desperate service was performed proved the devotion of the brave men who undertook it.1

In the mean time the execution of Captain Asgill was suspended, and every effort was used, every plan that ingenuity couldl devise or sympathy suggest, was adopted to save the in- nocent victim. His friend, Major Gordon, ap- pealed to the French Minister, then in Phila- delphia ; he wrote to the Count de Rochambeau, and dispatched messengers to numerous in- fluential Whigs throughout the colonies to interest them in behalf of the unfortunate captain ; and so eloquent and importunate were his appeals that it was said by General Graham that " even the family of Captain Huddy became themselves suppliants in Asgill's favor." These untiring exertions unquestionably contributed to postpone the fate of the vietim, until finally the court of France made successful intercession.

" The public prints all over Europe resounded with the unhappy eatastrophe, which for eight months impended over the life of this young officer.2 The extreme grief of his mother [Lady Asgill], the sort of delirum that clouded the mind of his sister at hearing the dreadful fate which menaced the life of her brother, interested every feeling mind in the fate of that unfortunate family. The general curiosity in regard to the events of the war yielded, if I may say so, to the interest which young Asgill inspired ; and the first question asked of all vessels that ar- rived from any port in North America was

always an inquiry into the fate of that young man. It was known that Asgill was thrice conducted to the foot of the gibbet, and that thrice General Washington, who could not bring himself to commit this crime of policy without a great struggle, suspended his punish- ment ; his humanity and justice made him hope that the English general would deliver over to him the author of the crime AAsgill was con- demned to expiate. Sir Henry Clinton, cither ill advised, or insensible to the fate of young Asgill, persisted in refusing to deliver up the barbarous Lippincott. In vain the King of England, at whose feet the unfortunate family fell down, had given orders to surrender up to the Americans the author of a crime which dis- honored the English nation ; George the Third was not obeyed ! In vain the States of Hol- land entreated the United States of America for the pardon of the unhappy Asgill. The gibbet, erected in front of his prison, did not cease to offer to his eyes those dreadful preparations, more awful than death itself. In these eir- cum-tances, and almost reduced to despair, the mother of the unfortunate victim bethought herself that the minister of a King armed against her own nation might succeed in ob- taining that which was refused to her King. Madame Asgill wrote to the Count de Vergen- nes a letter, the eloquence of which, independent of oratorical forms, i- that of all peoples and languages, because it derives its power from the first and noblest sentiment of our nature."

For more than six month- the brave young Asgill remained under suspended sentence and within the shadow of death. Then came his deliverance, wrought out chiefly by his mother's piteous petition to the gallant Frenchman, Ver- gennes, through whose influence the King and eourt of France was induced to ask the Govern- ment of the United States to forego retaliation. Such a request from its great ally could not be disregarded, and the distressing case was closed by the following action of Congress, viz. :

"THURSDAY, November 7, 1782.

"On the report of the Committee, consisting of Mr. Rutledge, Mr. Osgood, Mr. Montgom- ery, Mr. Boudinot and Mr. Duane, to whom

1 Naval Magazine, November, 1839.

" This quotation is from the Memoirs of Baron de Grimm, whose attention was the more particularly called to the story of Captain Asgill's doom, to die in retaliation for the murder of lluddy, by it being made the foundation of a tragedy called " Abdir," written by De Sauvigny, and rep- resented in one of the theatres of Paris in January, 1789.

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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

were referred the letter of the 19th of August New York, whence soon afterwards he sailed to England and rejoined his family. The letters ad- dressed by his overjoyed mother to the Count de Vergennes and Major Gordon, expressing in the most touching manner her deep gratitude to last, from the Commander-in-Chief, the report of a committee thereon, and the motions of Mr. Williamson and Mr. Rutledge; and also another letter from the Commander-in-Chief, with a copy of a letter to him from the Count de Ver- them for what they had done in her son's be-

gennes, dated July 29th last, interceding for Captain Asgill : Resolved, That the Commander- Captain Asgill at liberty."

in-Chief be, and he hereby is, directed to set | tion here. Very few facts have been found

A copy of these proceedings and the resolu- tion was forwarded by Washington to Captain Asgill, with the following admirable letter:

" Sir .- It affords me singular satisfaction to have it in my power to transmit to you the en- closed copy of an Act of Congress of the 7th instant, by which you are relieved from the disagreeable circumstances in which you have so long been placed. Supposing that you would wish to go to New York as soon as possible, I also enclose a passport for that purpose. Your letter of the 18th came regularly to my hands. I beg of you to believe that my not answering it sooner did not proceed from inattention to you, nor a want of feeling for your situation; but I daily expected a determination of your case, and I thought it better to await that, than to feed you with hopes that might in the end prove fruitless. You will attribute my deten- tion of the enclosed letters, which have been in my possession for a fortnight, to the same cansc. "I cannot take leave of you, sir, without as- suring you that, in whatever light my agency in this unpleasant affair may be viewed, I was never influenced by sanguinary motives, but what I considered to be throughout the whole of it a sense of duty, which loudly called on me to use measures, however di-agreeable, to pre- vent a repetition of those enormities which have been the subject of discussion; and that this important end is now likely to be answer- ed without the effusion of the blood of an innocent person, is not a greater relief to you, than it is to me.

---

"G" WASHINGTON."

"CAPT. CHARLES ASGILL."

Upon his release Captain Asgill proceeded to

half, are intensely interesting in their pathetie earnestness, but their length forbids their inser- concerning the subsequent career of the bright young officer who stood so long in full view and continual expectation of an ignominious but undeserved death.

In December, 1836, ahnost fifty-five years after the murder of Captain Joshua Huddy, his youngest and only surviving child, Martha Piatt, then an aged widow, living in Cincinnati, Ohio, petitioned the Congress of the United States, asking pecuniary relief. In her memo- rial, after reciting the above-named facts and the circumstances of her father's death, she proceeds : "His widow, left desolate, with two daughters of tender age, in common with the high-souled females of the Revolution, trusted in Providence, and hoped that the country for which her husband's life had been sacrificed would not forget her or her children. While, in obedience to these claims, a British officer was selected by lot as the victim of re- taliation, and while the melancholy interest which youth and innocence associated with the name of Captain Asgill excited the deep sympathy of the American people, while the heart-rending appeal of his noble mother to the Count de Ver- gennes in behalf of her devoted son induced the mediation of the French Court to obtain his release, the name and fate of Captain Huddy are only remembered as among the many in- stances of cruelty incident to a state of war. And the widow and children of that martyred hero have been left hitherto without the least token of the gratitude of their country. Your petitioner appeals to the justice of Congress. She is now seventy years of age; her mother is dead and her sister also. She alone survives to feel anew the horrors of that dreadful moment when she was told that she was fatherless and that her gallant sire had met the death of a

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History of Monmouth county, New Jersey, Part 40

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Swan, Norma Lippincott. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Philadelphia, R. T. Peck & co. Number of Pages: 1148

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Swan, Norma Lippincott. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia, R. T. Peck & co.
Number of Pages: 1148