USA > New Jersey > Morris County > History of Morris County, New Jersey > Part 27
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At the time of Ford's arrest and escape several other persons were taken up on suspicion of being connected with him in his "money-making scheme." On the 4th of August 1773 a special term of oyer and terminer was held for the purpose of eliciting information respecting the parties implicated and the extent of their guilt. On the 14th one of those concerned, that he inight mitigate his own punishment, made a partial confession, and was followed by another who gave a full and explicit state- ment of all the details. The swamp was examined and the press found, together with a set of plates for printing the bills of Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey; a quantity of type and other materials, and a leather wrapper in which the money was kept. The late Sheriff Robertson of Morris county became the owner of the house in which Ford lived, on the Hammock, and in repairing it found some of Ford's counterfeiting tools in the walls, where many years before he had secreted them.
But the confessions of which we have spoken led to other results than the discovery of the counterfeiters' paraphernalia. Men who occupied high positions in so-
ciety were arrested. Their names have already been given-Cooper, Budd, Haynes, Reynolds and Ayers. The last was of Sussex, and was tried in that county. The other four were arraigned in the old court-house at Morristown on the 19th of August 1773. A thousand people were thought to be within its walls, and among them all scarcely an eye could be found which did not exhibit some tokens of sympathetic sorrow. Having pleaded guilty, the sentence was now to be pronounced upon them, viz. that upon the 17th of September follow- ing they should expiate their crime upon the gallows. One of the magistrates before whom the case was tried was father of one of the culprits. The best families and society in the county had representatives in the number of the condemned. But the sentence thus faithfully pro- nounced was not to be as faithfully executed. The re- spectability of the culprits and their influential connec- tions were made to bear with great effect upon the par- doning power. The day fixed for their execution ar- rived, and Reynolds, who seems to have been really the least guilty of the lot, but who alone unfortunately for himself had no influential friends, suffered the ignomini- ous death to which he had been sentenced; while the other three were remanded, and finally in December, after a number of respites, Governor Franklin gave them a full pardon.
Dr. Budd continued to live in Morristown until his death, from putrid fever, December 14th 1777, at the age of thirty-nine. So great was his reputed skill in the practice of his profession that he still found many ready to employ him. One of his patients, a very inquisitive woman, the first time she had occasion for his services after his pardon, asked him very naively "how he kind of felt when he came so near being hanged." His answer is not recorded.
This " money-making scheme " of Ford and his com- panions has a wider than local interest from its con- nection with the robbery of the treasury of East Jersey, at Perth Amboy, on the night of the 21st of July 1768, in which £6,570 9s. 4d. in coin and bills were stolen. Cooper, Haynes and Budd, under sentence of death for counterfeiting, as above narrated, made confessions which pointed to Ford as the planner and prime mover of this bold and successful villainy, the first of whom admitted having received £300 of the stolen money. Ford strenuously denied the charge; but his denial could scarcely counterbalance the confessions just noticed. He was never tried for the crime, having fled, as already seen, beyond the reach of the law before the confessions were made.
The career of this bad man is the one foul blot upon our local history, bringing disgrace to the town, and sor- row of heart to the estimable family of which he was a most unworthy representative.
THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.
PATRIOTS OF MORRIS COUNTY.
The period of the war of the Revolution forms a chapter by itself in the local history of Morristown, a chapter to
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MORRISTOWN PATRIOTS IN 1775.
which the leading historians of those eventful years have paid too little attention. This neglect will justify a somewhat full account of this memorable period. Rev. Samuel L. Tuttle, pastor of the Presbyterian church of Madison from 1854 to 1862, and Rev. Joseph F. Tuttle, D. D., pastor of the Presbyterian church of Rockaway from 1848 to 1862, and since that time president of Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Ind., have done much to preserve the revolutionary history of this region, Valuable articles from their pens upon this subject may be found in The Historical Magazine, published at Mor- risania, N. Y., by Henry B. Dawson, in the numbers for March, May and June 1871. To these articles we are largely indebted in the preparation of this sketch.
When the war of the Revolution began the village of Morristown numbered, it is said, about 250 inhabitants, while in the region about was a thriving and somewhat populous farming community. From the rolls of the church, which good Pastor Johnes so carefully kept, and from the records of the court, we are able to determine pretty fully these early names. Colonel Jacob Ford sen., Colonel Jacob Ford jr., Dr. Jabez Campfield, Major Jo- seph Lindsley, Jacob Johnson, Silas Condict, Rev. Timothy Johnes and John Doughty were among the leading citizens, while the names of Prudden, Pierson, Fairchild, Freeman, Howell, Allen, Day, Dickerson, King, Wood, Lum, Cutler, Beach, Tichenor, Hathaway, Frost, Blatchley, Crane, Coe, Munson, etc., are of fre- quent occurrence.
The Hathaway and Johnes families owned and oc- cupied property to the north of the town, the Ford fam- ily to the east, General John Doughty to the south, and Silas Condict and his brothers to the west. Colonel Jacob Arnold, of " Light Horse " fame, was keeping tav- ern on the west side of the park, in the building now owned by P. H. Hoffman; while Colonel Jacob Ford had just built the mansion in which Washington passed a winter, and which is now known as the "Head- quarters."
The financial condition of the people at that time was far from prosperous, but they were none the less zealous in their attachment to the cause of freedom and desire for the prosecution of the war. While the great mass of the inhabitants were Whigs, there were nevertheless a few tories. An amusing incident is told of "an English immigrant," residing in Hanover, "a man of considerable property and not a little hauteur, who had drunk deeply into toryism," who held " many an ardent controversy " with "Parson Green " on the subject of American inde- pendence. Ashbel Green, the parson's son, heard the talk and afterward saw this tory standing up in the church on a Sunday, while the minister read his confession of the sin of toryism; being earnestly moved thereto by the rumor that some of the hot bloods of Morristown had threatened him with a coat of tar and feathers. This was in the forenoon; in the afternoon the culprit rode rapidly to the said " neighboring town " to get Dr. Johnes to read for him the same confession there, which the doctor at last convinced him was unnecessary.
courts were less forbearing to tories, from the records of which it appears they had either to " repent or perish."
On the 11th of January 1775 the Legislature met at Perth Amboy. The representatives from Morris county were Jacob Ford and William Winds. It is quite evident from the proceedings that the Assembly and the governor were by no means in accord. In fact their views were as wide apart as the poles. Cortland Skinner, of Perth Amboy, was speaker. On the 13th of January the governor addressed the Assembly; his speech was short, but was pointed and filled with suggestive warn- ings of the fatal consequences of treason. The speech was read twice after its delivery and then "committed " to a committee of the whole house. Before this action a " committee of grievances," consisting of ten members, was appointed, Jacob Ford, from Morris county, being a member. This committee or any three of them were authorized to meet at such times and places as they might think proper to appoint, either during the sitting of the Assembly or at any other time. The address of the governor had given the Assembly much trouble, as that body in a committee of the whole house had spent several days considering it and in preparation of a reply. In his rejoinder the governor declined further. argument.
The following resolution, passed at a meeting of the county committee of observation held in Hanover, Feb- ruary 15th 1775, is but the prelude to the drama of sacri- fice and suffering so soon to be enacted:
" Resolved unanimously, that this committee will, after the first day of March next, esteem it a violation of the seventh article of said association if any person or per- sons should kill any sheep until it is four years old, or sell any such sheep to any person who he or they may have cause to suspect will kill them or carry them to market; and further. that they will esteem it a breach of said article if any inhabitant of this township should sell any sheep of any kind whatsoever to any person dwelling out of this county, or to any person who they may have cause to suspect will carry them out of this county, with- out leave first obtained of this committee."
No toothsome lamb to tickle the palates of these stout- hearted patriots, while the wool from the backs of the live animals was needed to make the necessary garments for themselves and their families. No woolen fabrics for them from the looms and factories of their oppressors, while they could shear and children could pick and wives and daughters could card and spin and weave the wool of the native sheep into cloth. No linen or cordage from across the water if they could raise hemp and flax. The same committee at the same meeting also provided pro- tection of a certain sort for the consumer of domestic manufactures. While they urged the care and growth of fabrics for home consumption and placed the tariff of public opinion most strongly on the wares of their great enemy, they protected the consumer from exorbitant prices. So they resolved that " if any manufacturer of any article made for home consumption or any vender of goods or merchandise in this township shall take advan- tage of the necessities of his country, by selling at an unusual price, such person shall be considered an enemy The to his country; and do recommend it to the inhabitants
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HISTORY OF MORRIS COUNTY.
of this township to remember that after the Ist of March next no East India tea is to be used in any case whatso- ever."
At the beginning of the war one of the most enterpris- ing of Morristown's "leading citizens " was Colonel Jacob Ford. The past and present prominence of the Ford family in local history warrants the insertion of the fol- lowing genealogical note. In the diary of the late Hon. Gabriel H. Ford, son of Colonel Jacob Ford jr., was found the following entry:
Thursday, 22st June 1849 .- A census was taken in the years 1771 and 1772 in the British provinces of America, and deposited, after the Revolution, as public archives, at Washington; but their room becoming much wanted, those of each province were delivered to the members of Congress from it, to cull what they chose, preparatory to a burning of the rest. General Mahlon Dickerson, then a member from New Jersey, selected some from the county of Morris, and sent me yesterday a copy verbatim of one entry, as follows; "Widow Elizabeth Lindsley, mother of Colonel Jacob Ford, was born in the city of Axford, in old England; came into Philadelphia when there was but one house in it; and into this province when she was but one year and a half old. Deceased April 2Ist 1772, aged 91 years and one month." I always un- derstood in the family by tradition from her (whose short stature and slender, bent person, I clearly recall, having lived in the same house with her and with my parents, in my grandfather's family, at her death and before it) that her father fled from England when there was a universal dread of returning popery and persecution, three years before the death of Charles the Second, A. D. 1682, and two years before the accession of James the Second, in 1684; that while landing his goods at Philadelphia he fell from a plank into the Delaware river and was drowned between the ship and the shore, leaving a family of young children in the wilderness. That she had several children by her first husband, whose name was Ford, but none by her second husband, whose name was Lindsley; at whose death she was taken into the family of her son, Colonel Jacob Ford sen., and treated with filial tenderness the remaining years of her life, which were many. I am in the 85th year (since Jan- uary last) of my age, being born in 1765, and was 7 years old at her death.
Her son, Colonel Jacob Ford sen., was, as we have seen, one of the judges of " the inferior court of common pleas for Morris county " in 1740, and for many years thereafter he appears to have delivered the charges to the grand jury, and was not infrequently a member of the lower house in the Provincial Assembly. His second son and namesake was not less prominent than his hon- ored father. Though a young man he had been previous to the war intrusted with difficult missions by the State, which he had faithfully executed. But his name comes into special prominence as the builder of an important powder-mill, on the Whippany River, near Morristown, the exact location of which we regret we have been un- able to ascertain. Early in the year 1776, as may be gathered from the Boteler papers in the New Jersey his- torical library, he " offered to erect a powder-mill in the county of Morris, for the making of gunpowder, an article so essential at the present time "; and the Provincial Congress agreed to lend him £2,000 of the public money for one year, without interest, on his giving " satisfactory | on parade, only a week before the arrival of Morristown's.
security for the same to be repaid within the time of one year in good merchantable powder "; the first installment " of one ton of good merchantable powder " to be paid " on first of July next, and one ton per month thereafter till the sum of £2,000 be paid." This " good merchant- able powder " did excellent service in many a battle thereafter, and was one of the main reasons of the re- peated but fruitless attempts of the enemy to reach Mor- ristown. That the brilliant services of Colonel Ford were appreciated at the time may be seen by reference to the American Archives, Vol. III., 1,259, 1,278 and 1,419.
Such an attempt was made but a few months after the powder-mill was put into operation. But the man who was capable of making "good merchantable powder " was capable of using it and thus defending his invaluable mill. On the fourteenth of December 1776 the enemy reached Springfield, where they were met by Colonel Ford's militia, numbering seven hundred, with such spirit that they were glad to relinquish their design of reaching Morristown, and retreat the next day, under General Leslie, " toward Spank-Town." On the 13th of the same month, the day before the engagement at Springfield, a company of British dragoons had pene- trated as far as Basking Ridge, where they captured Gen- eral Charles Lee.
These incidents lead to a correction of the prevalent mistake that no portion of the American army was in camp in this vicinity until after the battle of Prince- ton. On the 20th of December 1776 Washington wrote to the president of Congress that he had "directed the three regiments from Ticonderoga to halt at Morristown, in Jersey (where I understand about eight hundred militia had collected), in order to inspirit the inhabitants, and, as far as possible, to cover that part of the country." These were "eastern regiments," and were led hither under the command of Colonel Vose. They were: "Greaton's regiment, about 250 men; Bond's do., 100; Porter's do., 170; in all 520 men." In a letter of General McDougall to Washington, bearing date December 19th 1776, he says he came to Morristown the day after Gen- eral Lee was captured at Basking Ridge, and that Vose arrived at Morristown "day before yesterday," which was therefore the 17th of December. General Washing- ton did not reach Morristown until the 7th of the follow- ing month. The importance of Colonel Ford's powder- mill in the estimation of both friend and foe was doubt- less the main reason why Washington ordered these eastern regiments to remain in Morristown at a time when he so greatly needed them. The absence of a Morris county regiment in the north, who were in the regular service under the command of Colonel William Winds, it should be said, had largely diminished the local means of defense, and rendered necessary the presence of these eastern regiments. Colonel Ford's militia doubtless re- mained under arms until the arrival of Washington. On the 22nd of December he led them home from Chatham, where they had remained to watch the movements of the enemy. On the 31st of the same month they were
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WASHINGTON AT ARNOLD'S-THE SMALLPOX HOSPITALS.
greater guest. It is not probable that they had disbanded before that time.
WASHINGTON'S FIRST WINTER IN MORRISTOWN.
Washington reached Morristown January 7th 1777. The memorable campaign which had just closed; the re- treat through New Jersey, known as " the mud rounds;" the brilliant victories of Trenton and Princeton, need not be here related. On the 4th of January the battle of Princeton was fought, and three days afterward the American army went into winter quarters at Morristown and vicinity ... Washington himself located at the Arnold tavern. This historic building is still standing, though considerably altered since it sheltered its illustrious guest. It is situated on the west side of the Green, or what is now called Park place, and is occupied on the first floor by the grocery store of Adams & Fairchild, the clothing store of P. H. Hoffman and jewelry store of F. J. Crowell, At that time it was a two-storied house. The first floor was divided into four rooms, with a hall running through the center from front to rear. Wash- ington, according to Mr. Tuttle, occupied the two rooms on the south side, where is now the grocery store, using the front room as a general office and sitting room and the back for a sleeping apartment.
The present owner of the building, P. H. Hoffman, says Washington slept in the front room over his store; where the grocery store is was only one room-the par- lor. The hall through which the great man was wont to pass was recently fitted up as a store, and is now occu- pied by the jeweler above mentioned. Among the tradi- tions concerning the occupancy of this house by Wash- ington is one that he was initiated into the mysteries of freemasonry in this building, though some accounts say it was in a different building but occurred while his headquarters were in this one. This tradition will, how- ever, appear further on to have no foundation in fact.
Those were dark days for Washington and his fellow patriots. He had scarcely settled in his new quarters before trouble began. Four days after his arrival he was called to mourn the loss of the brave and noble Colonel Jacob Ford jr. On the parade of the 31st of December, to which reference has already been made, Colonel Ford was seized " with a delirium, in his head and was borne off by a couple of soldiers, after which he never rose from his bed." He died January 11th 1777, at the early age of nearly thirty-nine years, being born February 19th 1738.
Death made fearful inroads that memorable winter, both in the army and among the citizens. On the 11th of January 1777, the same day the younger Ford died, the death of Martha, widow of Joshua Ball, from small- pox, is recorded, the sad forerunner of the darkest year this community ever saw. There were two more deaths during the month from the same disease; and then the roll rapidly increased until in that one year it had reached 68 deaths from smallpox. No age or condition was spared. The infant, the mother, the father, the youth, the aged, the bond, the free, were reckoned among its victims.
But smallpox was not the only disease working havoc in that dread year. Putrid sore throat, dysentery, and other maladies swelled the death roll of the parish to the astounding number of 205, exclusive of all who died in the army.
"An establishment," says Sparks, "for inoculation was provided near Morristown for the troops in camp; one at Philadelphia for those coming from the south, another in Connecticut, another in Providence." Rev. Samuel L. Tuttle, in his " Sketch of Bottle Hill during the Rev- olution " (Historical Magazine), however, has clearly shown that this was not " an establishment," but a series of inoculating hospitals in the towns of Morris and Han- over. From him we learn that one of these hospitals was the house which stood at that time on the farm of the late John Ogden, about two miles south of Morris- town. The house was then owned and occupied by Elijah Pierson, and for several months it was continually filled with both soldiers and citizens, who repaired thither in order to guard themselves, by inoculation, against the smallpox. "I have been informed," says Mr. Tuttle, " by some of the Brookfield family, residing but a little distance from the Lowantica camp ground, that they received it from their Revolutionary ancestors, who lived and died on the ground, that during the same winter there was a small encampment on the hill back of the Bonsall mansion, a short distance north of the place last described [Pierson's]; and it has seemed to me not improbable that there was an arrangement also made for inoculating the army."
The old First Presbyterian and Baptist churches, the predecessors of the present buildings, were not exempt from the necessities of this terrible scourge. They, too, were turned into smallpox hospitals for soldiers. Under date of September 16th 1777, when the plague had been stayed, we find in the trustees' book of the former church the following minute:
Thus died, in the midst of his usefulness and in the "Agreed that Mr. Conklin, Mr. Tuthill, Mr. Lindsly & Mr. Stiles or any two of them wait upon some of the Docts. of the Hospital in Morristown & apply for a resignation of the meeting house, and if obtained then to apply to the Commanding Officer at this post to remove the troops thence; & at their discretion to proceed further in cleansing and refitting the house for Public Worship & to make report of their progress in the premises at their next meeting." vigor of his manhood, one of the most promising and brilliant men whom Morristown and Morris county ever produced. On January 27th 1762 he married Theodo- cia, daughter of Rev. Timothy Johnes, who afterward became the hostess of Washington in his second winter at Morristown, in the house now celebrated as the " Headquarters." Colonel Ford was buried, by the order of Washington, with the honors of war. On the 19th of It would appear that the progress made in the premises 13th 1778 appears this entry: the same month his father, Colonel Jacob Ford sen., died was not altogether satisfactory, for under date of July of fever, at the age of 73, being born April 13th 1704.
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HISTORY OF MORRIS COUNTY.
" July 13th 1778 the Trustees met at Docr. Tuthill's; |his army. On reaching here he writes: "The situation present, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Tuthill, Mr. Stiles, Mr. Linds- is by no means favorable to our views, and as soon as the purposes are answered for which we came I think to re- move, though I confess I do not know how we shall pro- cure covering for our men elsewhere." That he did not soon remove, and that he returned here for another winter, would indicate that as he became more familiar with the topography of the county his early impression of " the unfavorable situation " was changed. ley, Mr. Mills & the President; agreed that Mr. Tuthill, Mr. Stiles & Mr. Mills be a committee to wait on Doct. Draper & inform him of the Law of this State Relative to Billeting of Soldiers, & that the committee or either of them be Impowered to prosecute such Person or Per- sons who may take possession of the meeting house or other property of the Trustees contrary to the said Law, & that they make report what they have done in the premises to this Board at their next meeting."
As the army left here in May 1777 we may infer from this last minute that the church was retained as a hospital for those incapacited by sickness from the severities of active warfare. If this be so the pastor and people were obliged for a year and a half to worship, as we know they did a part of the time, in the open air.
An incident of special interest to the writer of this article may be mentioned in this connection. He has heard his mother relate the old stories which her father, Nehemiah Smith, told her when a child of his experience in the Revolutionary war. Although she does not re- member the name of Morristown, yet these stories are so circumstantial as to leave no doubt in her mind that he was a smallpox patient in the old church of which the writer was lately the pastor. In the work of inoculation, to which the people seriously objected, Washington was greatly aided by the influence of the ministry, especially of Dr. Johnes and Parson Green.
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