USA > New Jersey > Morris County > History of Morris County, New Jersey > Part 46
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During all this winter the inhabitants of this region were kept in a continual state of commotion. A com- pany of armed sentinels were kept stationed night and day on Prospect Hill, a crest of the Short Hills, a little off the main road leading to Springfield and nearly in front of the " Hobart mansion." This point commands a view of the whole region east of the mountain, includ- ing New York Bay, Staten Island, Newark, Elizabeth and Springfield, so that all the movements of the enemy in all these directions could be at once seen. It also commands a view of the whole region west of the moun- tain to the hills behind Morristown, embracing Basking Ridge and the hills on the south, and over to Whippany, and across the State line to the mountains of Orange county, N. Y. These sentinals had here an eighteen- pounder cannon, known everywhere then by the name of " the old sow," which was fired as an alarm gun; here also they constructed a beacon light of dry rails, built around a high pole and surmounted by a tar barrel.
hastily arming themselves, when the report of the old cannon shook the hills, or when the beacon light blazed from the peak and was answered from hill to hill far up the country. All eyes at night would be cast toward the Short Hill summit ere the people went to sleep.
Mr. Tuttle draws another animated picture, thus:
"There was continual excitement and solicitude. The alarm gun was firing, or the beacon light was burning, or the sounds of the fife and drum were heard, or compan- ies of soldiers were passing and repassing, or the minute men of the vicinity were hurrying back and forth, or the commander in chief and his suite and life-guards were going from or returning to headquarters, or some general parade was taking place upon the camp ground, or some tory spies were seen prowling about, or some company of the enemy's troops under the conduct of tory guides was committing depredations in various parts of the country, or some other thing of a similar character was continu- ally occurring to keep those who resided here in a state of excitement and fear. And it was no unusual thing to see General Washington and his accomplished lady, mounted on bay horses, and accompanied by their faith- ful mulatto 'Bill,' and fifty or sixty mounted guards, passing through the village, with all eyes upon them."
Army life is no friend to good morals. The encamp-
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REVOLUTIONARY PATRIOTS OF CHATHAM.
ment of the American army here was no exception to this rule. The autobiography of Dr. Ashbel Green gives sad proof of the corruption of the army, both officers and men. Gambling was almost universal in the camp, and prevailed also in the private houses where the soldiers
But not all were thus led who came under these hostile influences of the day. The effect of that winter's en- campment was disastrous to the social and religious con- dition of the whole region; not more fatal was the small- pox, against which such barriers were erected, than the spirit of infidelity and general wickedness which seems to have spread among all classes of the people.
Other evils were experienced. In various ways many lives were lost, some of them those of valuable citizens. " It is a fact that does honor to our ancestors dwelling in this township that, while they were doing so much to promote the welfare of the country, by opening their doors and their granaries to the American forces, all of them who were able to bear arms were engaged in one way or another, in actively opposing the movements of the enemy. A large number of our most valuable citi- zens enlisted in the army at the very commencement of the war, and continued with it through all its various stages, to its close." Others enlisted as "minute men," ready for service at a moment's warning, and were often called to service. Mr. Tuttle in his Fourth of July ad- dress gives the names of some of these men; and it seems fitting that in this history of Chatham township, which will be read by some of the descendants of these men, their names should be handed down.
were relieved and the enemy routed), Samuel, Paul and John Bonnel, Robert Pollard (who was shot through the body at Connecticut Farms, and yet survived many years after the war was concluded), Ephraim Sayre, James Brookfield, Samuel Day, Ellis Cook, Caleb Horton (son of the first pastor of this village), Joseph Bruen, Ben- were billeted. Young Green, who early imbibed the jamin Harris, Captain William Day, Benjamin Bonnel spirit of his father, became a patriot and was enrolled (who assisted in carting the guns which were captured by our troops in a British sloop which was grounded in the Elizabethtown Creek, to the armory at Morristown), Lieutenent Stephen Day, Captain John Howell, Colonel Seeley, and others. Of the famous company of life- guards which accompanied Washington through all his movements during the war, four, at least, are known to have been residents of Bottle Hill, their names being Samuel Pierson, Benjamin Bonnel, Nathaniel Crane and Daniel Vreeland, all of whom lived several years after the war in this vicinity." among the minute men, although the highest office to which he attained was that of orderly sergeant in the mil- itia. Being remarkably intelligent, and connected as he was, he became familiar with many officers of rank in the American army. He testifies that infidelity prevailed extensively among them, and indeed we know from other sources that it was well nigh universal. Green himself caught the skeptical spirit and was not rescued from his infidelity for several years. Dissatisfied with his state of mind, after reading some of the ablest defenses of Christianity, it occurred to him that the fairest way to settle the question was by an examination of the Bible itself. Accordingly he took up the New Testament as if it were a new book, with candor and with that vigor of thought for which he was always remarkable, and he had not gone through with the four Evangelists before he abandoned his skepticism, and gave his life to the high ends which occupied all his subsequent years.
Of these men, Samuel Pierson was a fine horseman, and a man of great courage and strength, whom Wash- ington intrusted with several important and perilous commissions. In carrying out one of these during the battle of Monmouth Pierson was compelled to ride right in front of the enemy's line of battle, and in full range of their guns ; two horses were shot under him, one of which in falling injured the rider's leg, but he was mounted on a third horse, and carried out the command- er's orders. Washington warmly commended him, and said, " I feared when you set out with the orders that I should never see you again."
In this important and bloody engagement a number of the leading men of this town took part, among whom was Ephraim Sayre, a deacon of the church, who at this time was an officer in the commissary department. When the news of the battle was received here there was great rejoicing, the young men of Rev. Ebenezer Bradford's classical school leading the demonstration by the burning of tar-barrels, firing of guns, and illuminations.
The courage and privations of the women of Chatham township deserve lasting record. Besides the burdens of which we have spoken, and the anxiety and sorrow over husbands and sons in battle and camp, exposed or dead, many of them all through the war actually per- formed the labors of men upon the farm. They plowed and harrowed the fields, sowed and cut the grain and the grass, threshed out the grain, and took it to the mill ; no- bly enduring these hard toils to support the large families dependent on them while husbands, fathers, brothers and sons were far off in camp or field.
The assessments made for provisions for the army were burdensome, and sometimes were made somewhat imperiously. The late J. H. Woodruff, of Columbia, tells of an account given by his grandmother, "when an offi- cer came to their house and went through it from cellar to garret, inspecting all their provision; and after calculating how much the family would need before the next crop came in informed them that an officer would be there soon, to whom they must give so much of this and so much of that, or he would take it by force.
" Among them were Lieutenant Silas Hand, John Mil- ler, Samuel Denman, John Cook, George Minthorn, Ja- bez Tichenor, Lieutenant Noadiah Wade, Surgeon Peter Smith, Captain Benjamin Carter, Lieutenant John Rob- erts, Luke Miller, Josiah Burnet, Jeremiah Carter, Cor- nelius Genung, Captain Thompson of the New Jersey artillery (who had both legs shot off at the battle of Springfield, and who died urging his company never to While the winter of 1776-7 was the last in which there was a regular encampment of the army in this town, yet give up to the enemy), Captain Eliakim Little, also of the New Jersey artillery (whose company by desperate fighting held the enemy at bay for two hours, until they | the inhabitants were by no means free from the sights
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HISTORY OF MORRIS COUNTY.
and sounds of war. During the next winter head- quarters were at Middle Brook, about ten miles north- west of New Brunswick. Many officers and privates were, however, located here: some of them perhaps in the cabins which remained on the Lowantica, but the
the Passaic at Chatham was kept well guarded. This bridge was an important pass, and trusty men were placed there to know the plans and purposes of all who passed over-for the times were perilous, and there were traitors and tories all about. Young Ashbel Green was greater number billeted as before in private houses, and sentinel there at one time, and there is record of one put into the best rooms. Several of the distinguished officers of the army made their headquarters here.
In the fall of this, the opening year of the war, the New Jersey Journal-the first newspaper ever published in the State-was removed from Elizabethtown to Chatham. Its editor, Sheppard Kollock, was a bold and earnest patriot, and neither he nor his journal was safe after the British entered Elizabethtown. Mr. Kollock judged that Chatham was as safe a place as any, and a place from which he could make his influence felt abroad. Hither he brought his types and presses, and occupied the west end of the old tavern house; in the garden of which, until recent years, old types used to be dug up, which had been swept out by the printer boys. After about three years Mr. Kollock purchased the building in Bottle Hill where Rev. Mr. Bradford's famous classical school had been held, Mr. Bradford having removed from the place. This building was carried down to Chatham vil- lage, was turned into a printing and press room, and from it was issued that staunch old paper which went out into all parts of the land, exerting a powerful influence in up- holding the cause of independence and strengthening the hands of Washington. At the close of the war Mr. Kol- lock removed back to Elizabethtown, where the old paper still lives in pristine vigor. The old edifice which was put to such honored uses by Bradford and Kollock is still standing in Chatham, opposite the Presbyterian church, and is occupied as a dwelling house. Its connec- tion with Methodism in Chatham will be mentioned on a future page.
In the year 1779, on the 13th of December, a large de- tachment of our army passed through Chatham up toward Bottle Hill, and pitched their tents for the night on either side of the road, reaching from the old meeting-house on the hills to the grounds now occupied by Mr. Seaman. Mrs. Sarah Richards, who is remembered by many here, used to describe the scene as she saw it the next morn- ing, when the soldiers were preparing breakfast, and the smoke curled through the valley and over the hills. A large number of officers took breakfast at her father's house. In an hour or two they struck their tents and marched toward Kimball Hill, where they were joined by the main body of the army, coming down from the north, and where they all went into winter quarters.
During that winter also a number of officers and many privates were quartered here as before; and Washington, having resumed his headquarters at Morristown, was seen often to pass through Bottle Hill and Chatham, to take his stand on Prospect Hill, where with his glass in hand he would spend hours in taking observations. On one of these occasions he was seen to be accompanied by America's distinguished friend the Marquis de la Fayette. The signals were kept in readiness, and the bridge over.
man who was summarily shot down in attempting to pass the guard.
The mention of Lafayette recalls a bright episode of those dark days. Lieutenant D'Anteroche, one of the aids of the marquis, fell in love with Miss Vanderpool, of Chatham. The country was in such a distracted state, and the inhabitants here were so closely watched, that there could be no large gatherings of any kind, and so they could have no home wedding, but came with their friends to the parsonage at Bottle Hill and were there married, by Rev. Mr. Bradford. The country between Chatham and New York was so annoyed by the enemy that no purchases could be made for the bride's trous- seau, and so it was sent to her from France by the lieu- tenant's friends.
It was while the army was encamped on Kimball Hill that the daring attempt was made to capture General Washington. On a dark and stormy night a party of British cavalry, landing at Elizabeth Point, started toward Morristown, which is but about seventeen miles' ride. They evaded the sentries at Short Hills, crossed the Passaic unperceived, and reached Bottle Hill; but by that time the storm had increased, and a crust of ice covering the snow cut their horses' feet, and compelled an unwilling and hasty return. They were guided by an American, but who he was, and whether he was a traitor or was compelled to this ignoble service is not known. The attempt when it became known startled the army and the people.
It was during this winter that gallant Lord Stirling made his partially successful raid on the enemy on Staten Island, passing on his way to and from Green Village, Bottle Hill and Chatham by daylight, and crossing from Elizabethport in the night.
The winter of 1779-80 was a dark period of the war. Part of the American army was stationed at West Point, but the principal division was again in this part of New Jersey, with Washington at his well known "headquarters" in Morristown. The winter set in early, and was exces- sively severe, the cold increasing until the bay of New York was frozen over. It is said to have been the se- verest winter ever experienced in this part of the coun- try. Speaking of this time Irving says: "The dreary encampment at Valley Forge has become proverbial for its hardships; yet they were scarcely more severe than those suffered by Washington's army while hutted among the heights of Morristown. The transportation of sup- plies was obstructed, the magazines were exhausted and there was neither money nor credit to replenish them. The men were sometimes without meat, sometimes with- out bread, sometimes without both. Clothing and blankets were scarce, and Washington writes: ' Both offi- cers and men have been almost perishing with want.'"
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BRITISH RAIDS TOWARD CHATHAM.
At one time, when the deep snows obstructed the main routes, the army was wholly subsisted by local help. " Provisions came in with hearty good will from the farmers in Mendham, Chatham, Hanover and other places, together with stockings, shoes, coats and blankets, while the women met together to knit and sew for the soldiers." A venerable matron of Green Village used to tell how " on winter mornings the ordinary work of the family would often be suspended, and the time spent in baking buckwheat cakes for the soldiers, who would come and beg for a warm breakfast." It is such a picture as this that brings up to our eyes and hearts the sad yet grateful memories of those old days.
The winter passed and the summer opened with great excitement and alarm to this region. Lieutenant Gen- eral Knyphausen was in command in New York, while Sir Henry Clinton was absent with the army and the fleet in the south. A recent outbreak in the American camp had come to his ears, and encouraged him with the hope that with a superior force he could push out to Morris- town, capture the main depot of army supplies, and drive " the rebels" out of the Jerseys. He calculated also on "the general discontent among the people of New Jer- sey, and expected to rally back the inhabitants to their allegiance to the crown." On the night of June 5th, with five thousand men, part of them the famous Cold- stream guards, all splendidly appointed, with a fine sup- ply of light artillery, Knyphausen, having sailed down the bay to Staten Island, crossed the Kill von Kull and landed at Elizabethport. Before dawn they were on their way, and had come to the forks of the road leading into the town when a solitary American sentinel chal- lenged the dark mass approaching, and, receiving no an- swer, fired. That shot was a fatal omen, for it unhorsed Brigadier General Sterling, who was in advance and who was carried to the rear mortally wounded. The delay caused by this gave a little time for the alarm to spread, and for Colonel Dayton with his hastily armed militia to come together and begin to harass the advancing armny, firing at them from behind walls, thickets and fences. Swift news came up to the Short Hills, the old eighteen- pounder began to thunder, the ready tar barrel was pres- ently in a blaze, and signals went from hill to hill. The whole country was at once intensely excited, and the minute men and the militia flocked together under com- mand of General Maxwell, a ready and able officer.
Washington at once set his forces in motion to secure the passes of the Short Hills. Maxwell pushed forward to Connecticut Farms, and was joined by Colonel Day- ton, who was retreating and annoying the enemy step by step. The British artillery, however, came to the front, posted, and which constituted the strength of that part of
and our forces were pushed backward until Springfield was nearly reached, and Knyphausen paused to recon- noitre. He found the village occupied by Maxwell, who had rallied his forces there, the militia drawn up to dis- pute his passage over the river, and Washington with his whole force strongly posted among the passes of the Short Hills. It was now toward evening, and this great array of disciplined troops had been held in check and
delayed by less than two thousand hastily armed militia till it was too late and. very perilous to advance farther. A halt was called, ground chosen for the night and pick- ets sent out. Washington expected an attack in the morning, but, as a British officer with the army wrote, " about 10 o'clock the whole army got in motion and moved off." He describes the retreat as a very wretched one. " It was the darkest night I ever remember, with the heaviest rain, thunder and lightning known for years; the horses were frightened and the whole army had once |or twice to be halted. Nothing can be imagined more awful. The terrible thunder, the darkness, the houses of Connecticut Farms in a blaze, dead bodies on the road, and the dread of the enemy completed the scene of horror."
The whole vaunted expedition was a wretched failure. Its main trophies were the ashes of the houses and church of Connecticut Farms, first pillaged and then burned; and the dead body of the courageous and accomplished wife of Chaplain Caldwell, deliberately shot through the breast by a British soldier, as she was sitting with two little children and a maid in an inner room of the house. She was connected with the choicest families of New Jersey, and universally and deservedly loved. Caldwell was with Washington that night in the Short Hills. His wife had remained in the village against his advice. Next morning he hastened to Connecticut Farms and found the village in ashes and his wife dead. The most reliable account of this sad affair says that Mrs. Cald- well was sitting on the bed, her youngest son (Elias Bou- dinot, a two-year-old boy) playing on the floor, and the babe (Maria) in the arms of the nurse. The nurse, look- ing out of the window, said, " A red-coat soldier has jumped over the fence, and is coming with a gun." The little boy called out, "Let me see !" and ran toward the window. Mrs. Caldwell rose from the bed, and at that moment the soldier fired his musket at her through the window; it was loaded with two balls, which both passed through her body. She died instantly. The babe, Maria, grew to maturity, married a New York merchant, died in a good old age, and was buried in the old graveyard of the First Presbyterian church in Elizabeth, beside her father and mother.
Knyphausen was greatly stung by his defeat, and lin- gered a few days on Staten Island. Just then Sir Henry Clinton, returning from the south with his fleet and army, sailed up the harbor and landed his troops upon the island. Sir Henry determined on a second attempt, " hoping to get possession of the difficult passes and de- files among which Washington's army was so securely the county." On the 23d of June, with a force five thousand strong, a large body of cavalry and fifteen or twenty pieces of artillery, his army crossed the Kill von Kull, and by early morning had pushed up toward Spring- field. Washington, two days before, having reason to fear for the safety of West Point, had moved with the main body of his troops toward Pompton; but, suspicious that the threat upon West Point was a feint, moved
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HISTORY OF MORRIS COUNTY.
warily and slowly, and took the precaution to leave Gen- eral Greene in force at Short Hills. When about eleven miles beyond Morristown, at Rockaway Bridge, he learned that Knyphausen was again advancing toward Morristown. He detached a brigade to Greene's help and fell back himself, so as to be in supporting distance. As the morning broke the British approach was seen, and again .the eighteen-pounder and the tar barrel on Pros- pect Hill were fired, and again the whole country was
aroused as before. The burning of Connecticut Farms and the brutal murder of Mrs. Caldwell had exasperated the people almost to fury, so that in greater numbers and under better discipline, and flushed with their recent success, the militia and minute men joined the force under Greene. The issue was as before. The British entering Springfield found the continentals strongly posted, with the militia guarding all the passes, and learned also from their scouts of the approach of Wash- ington. There was some severe fighting before and in the village, when the enemy took up their line of retreat, burning Springfield as they passed through and the Presbyterian church, the only one in the place. They were pursued by a portion of the regulars and the mad- dened militia, who hung upon their rear, galling them until they reached Elizabethtown.
It was in the heat of the engagement here that a well known incident occurred, with a touch of humor. Par- son Caldwell found that wadding had failed some of the troops; rushing into the church he ran out again with his arms full of hymn books, and, flinging them among the troops, shouted out, " Put Watts into them, boys !" A very good use of the hymn books, since "the battle The gallant conduct of Parson Caldwell in this battle, was no doubt the Lord's." During that night the British and his great loss, endeared him to the troops and the forces crossed the creek and passed to Staten Island; then destroyed their bridge of boats, and never made another attempt to occupy New Jersey. These years of trial had been a school of war indeed, had made veterans out of farmers, and stirred all patriotic hearts to their depths.
Alexander Hamilton, speaking of the close of the campaign of 1777, and of the way in which Washington held the greatly superior forces of Cornwallis in severe check, says: "There was presented the extraordinary spectacle of a powerful army straitened within narrow limits by the phantom of a military force, and never per- mitted to transgress those limits with impunity." Irving speaks of the British army as "held in check by Wash- ington and his handful of men, castled among the heights of Morristown;" and in closing his account of these memorable days, writes thus: "These ineffectual at- tempts of a veteran general to penetrate these fastnesses, though at the head of a veteran force, which would once have been deemed capable of sweeping the whole conti- nent before it, were a lasting theme of triumph to the inhabitants; and it is still the honest boast among the people of Morris county that 'the enemy were never able to get a footing among our hills.'"
The reminiscences of these battles, of course, were many. Hundreds who were not called to take arms
rushed down to the summit of Short Hills to witness the engagements, among them old Parson Green, of Hanover. The late Deacon Ichabod Bruen, who died at a very advanced age, used to relate how when he was six years of age the alarm gun was heard one morning in Mr. Bradford's school, and the school was at once dismissed. The little boy ran home-the home was the house that stands on the hill, next cast of the residence of E. W. Samson, now owned and occupied by Henry Brunz- and found that his father, who was a minute man, had gone to Springfield, and his mother was busy loading up a wagon at the door with their best articles of furniture, fearing it might be necessary to carry them to a place of safety.
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