History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of many of their Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 116

Author: W. Woodford Clayton, Ed.
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia: Everts
Number of Pages: 1224

USA > New Jersey > Middlesex County > History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of many of their Pioneers and Prominent Men > Part 116
USA > New Jersey > Union County > History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of many of their Pioneers and Prominent Men > Part 116

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Not only was the gloom impenetrable from these and other canses, but the suffering of the people of Middlesex County was intense and their destitution deplorable. A cold and boisterous winter had set in early and with unusual rigor. Numbers had been forced to flee from their homes at this inclement season, leaving their families without protection and support, and were either in hiding or were wanderers in a desolated country. A hostile army ocenpied their towns and villages, and harried their farms with

473

MIDDLESEX COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTION.

oppressive exactions. Their horses and cattle were stolen ; their stores of hay, flour, corn, bacon, and provisions were plundered ; their houses, churches,1 stores, mills, barns, and fences were burned or de- vastated ; their household goods were spoliated and carried away; their wives and children were mal- treated and insulted, and despoiled of their clothing, rings, trinkets, and even the cradles in which the helpless infant was rocked to sleep. Nowhere was any alleviation of the distress to be found, nor could any prospect of its termination be descried. And yet amid all this desolation, rapine, and insult,-and perhaps because of them, -- the people of Middlesex and of the town of Brunswick remained steadfast to their apparently ruined cause. Here and there a few whose names are preserved but need not now be repeated became "adherents of the enemy," as they were then styled ; but the great body, almost the en- tire population of the county, continued unfaltering in their devotion to freedom and independence. The journals of the "Committee of Safety," and of its successor, the "Council of Safety," give the names of over one thousand persons in New Jersey who were disaffected and were required to give bonds and take the oath of allegiance to the Revolutionary au- thorities ; and of this number, notwithstanding the overshadowing influence of the British army, which was quartered on the county nearly seven months, only twenty-six were inhabitants of Middlesex County. Besides, it furnished over fifteen hundred soldiers for the State and Continental military establishments. And on a subsequent occasion, when Sir Henry Clin- ton was about to march through the State, just before the battle of Monmouth, and needed guides for his army, he applied for them to Col. Simcoe, whose " Rangers" were largely made up of refugee Jersey- men. But although that dashing partisan had a book in which he says " was inserted the names of every soldier in his corps, the counties in which they were boru, and where they had lived, so that he was seldom at a loss for guides in his own corps," and although he " had also," as he tells us, " many refugees with him" outside of those who belonged to his corps, "who served as guides," he was obliged to reply to Sir Henry that "he had none who knew any of the roads to New Brunswick," which could not have been the case if he had had any from Middlesex County in his corps.2 In addition to this unintentional tribute to the patriotism of the people of Middlesex, on two other occasions Col. Simcoe refers, in his journal,3 to the " vindictive spirit" uniformly exhibited by them towards the British troops, and describes them as

"most virulent in their principles," and as " attack- ing from their coverts the British foraging parties in 1776, and insulting their very outposts," adding that they had thus " acquired a great degree of self-confi- dence and activity."

The British occupied New Brunswick and its vicin- ity, including Six-Mile Run, Middlebrush, Piscata- way, Woodbridge, and Bonhamton, from Dec. 2, 1776, till June 22, 1777. On the morning of the day last named they retreated by way of Piscataway to Perth Amboy,-" burning many houses as they passed along."4

During their stay they levied severe contributions upon all who espoused or were connected with those who espoused the side of independence, and their outposts and foraging parties pillaged the people with- out mercy. In retaliation for their " vindictive spirit," the " virulence of the principles," and " their activity in attacking the British foraging parties," to which Col. Simcoe bears testimony, their property was ruth- lessly destroyed. Within the brief period of six and a half months the British spoliated over six hundred and fifty persons and burned more than one hundred dwellings, mills, and other buildings within the present limits of Middlesex County, valued at £86 218. 4d .; and counting eight shillings to the dollar, and considering that one dollar in 1776 was equiva- lent in purchasing power to three dollars at this day, the loss was equal to $646,605 of our present currency. The proportional loss may be more clearly understood if it is borne in mind that the total population of the county in 1775 was about twelve thousand. If from this number are deducted thirteen hundred negroes and seven hundred adult white males who were not heads of families, the population among whom all this devastation was distributed did not exceed ten thousand, of whom, if we adopt the established aver- age, only one-fifth, or two thousand, were householders. If this estimate be correct one in every three was pillaged, and one in every twenty had a house burned.

In the forays of the enemy the dinner prepared by the family was often ravished from the table by the Hessians, whose avidity for plunder and brutal out- rage drew upon them the execrations of the people. No respect was paid to age or sex, and even articles of female wear, indeed everything, however minute, which had any value were swept into the capacious maw of these rapacious mercenaries. Again and again our ancestors were required to furnish provisions for large parties of Hessians and forage for their horses, and the demand was enforced at the point of the bayonet. On one occasion thirty Hessians imposed theniselves upon a single family at Woodbridge5 and demanded breakfast and supper; the cowardly plunderers usurped the seats of the family at the table,

1 The British spoliated six churches in Middlesex County, viz. : " The Dutch Reformed Church at New Brunswick, £300; Christ Church of New Brunswick, £40 15s .; St. James' Church in Piscataway, €110 168. 9d .; the Presbyterian Meeting-House at New Brunswick, £400; the Princeton Meeting-House, £160 4s. 2d .; and the Congregation of Met- uching, £14 58."

2 Simcoe's Journal, p. 66.

3 Pp. 109 and 316.

4 Marshall, vol. i.

5 See inventory of damagea in Middlesex, p. 248.

474

HISTORY OF UNION AND MIDDLESEX COUNTIES, NEW JERSEY.

forced them to wait upon them, and not content with this indignity drank or stole twenty gallons of rum, five gallons of brandy, and a barrel of cider, which the good man of the house had stored in his cellar in brighter days, and when they decamped they robbed his wife of her stockings and the blankets from their beds, broke his doors and windows, and drove off three cows and his "fine 8 year old Mare." Nor was this a solitary in- stance. Such outrages were of daily occurrence among the people of Middlesex, who were thus welded by fire and rapine into " vindictive" patriots, whom no adversity could subdue and no disasters could entirely dishearten.

Damages by the British .- The foregoing view of the condition of affairs in Middlesex County in 1776 is presented as a suitable introduction to a description of an interesting relic of the Revolu- tionary war, from which many of the facts related have been drawn, to which public attention has never been directed hitherto, and which affords us a close view of the social surroundings of our ancestors. This relic is a record of the " Damages done by the British and their Adherents to the Inhabitants of Middlesex County" during the Revolutionary war, and is preserved in the State Library at Trenton. It is in the form of a bound folio manuscript volume, of between three and four hundred pages, and contains the inventories of over six hundred and fifty persons whose property was plundered or destroyed by the British be- tween 1776 and 1782, but mainly in 1776 and 1777. Each inventory is entered in detail in this volume, with the valuation of every article, and is certified to under oath or affirmation by the person damaged or his rep- resentative before one of the appraisers appointed by the State for the purpose.

The authority for these inventories is to be found in an act of the Legislature, originally offered March 8, 1780, when it was lost, which was finally passed Dec. 20, 1781, and they were made, as the preamble recites, in the expectation that the losses would be reimbursed by the State, as they were afterwards in some of the other colonies. In New Jersey they never were re- imbursed, and the only fruit of the labor has been to preserve a record of the injuries sustained by our ancestors, and to present a vivid picture of their sufferings, their social surroundings, furniture, dress, etc.

This act provided that two separate registers of in- ventories should be made, the one being of the prop- erty damaged or destroyed by the "enemy and their adherents," and the other of the property damaged or destroyed by the "Continental army, or by the militia of this or of the neighboring States;" that the appraisers were to value and appraise the articles inventoried at the prices current at the opening of the war in 1775; that the inventories were to be certified to by oath or affirmation ; that nothing was to be ad- initted in the inventories for which any restitution had been made or satisfaction received ; that no in-

ventory was to be received from persons who were of a suspicious character, or who failed to substantiate that they had been friends of the government estab- lished under the authority of the people; that forged or feigned inventories would render the utterers liable to severe penalties ; that the losses sustained by pri- vateers or vessels of war, merchant ships or trading vessels, their tackle, furniture, or cargo from the en- emy were not to be admitted to be inventoried ; and that the appraisers were each to receive as compensa- tion for their services "seven shillings and sixpence by the day," and "pine pence per sheet" of ninety words for registering the inventories and vouchers.

The volume of records now under consideration is the one which relates to the damages done by the "enemy and their adherents,"' and the appraisers appointed by the act for Middlesex (Benjamin Man- ning, Joseph Olden, and Nathaniel Hunt) faithfully performed the duties assigned to them. They were all gentlemen of consideration, and noted for probity and patriotism. Benjamin Manning resided in Pis- cataway, and was one of the delegates to the Assem- bly from Middlesex from 1778 till 1785. Joseph Olden resided in Windsor township, near Princeton, and was a grand-uncle of ex-Governor Charles S. Olden. Nathaniel Hunt also resided in one of the Windsors, and early in the war served as colonel of the Second Regiment of militia of Hunterdon County.

In conformity with the act the inventories that were presented were sworn to by the claimants before one of the appraisers, the usual form of the affidavit being as follows : " Edward Van Harlingen declares on oath that the above inventory is just and true to the best of his Knowledge. That he has not received any satisfaction for any of the articles therein con- tained. And that he hath good reason to believe that the above articles were taken, carried off, and destroyed by the enemy." When personal property only had been plundered or destroyed, the oath of the party injured alone, or of his representatives if dead, was taken in the above form. When a claim was made for real property burnt or damaged, in addition to the oath of the claimant, an additional oath was required from one or more carpenters who had "viewed" the premises and estimated the loss, and was commonly in this form : " Joseph Vickers and John Voorhees, being carpenters, declare on their oaths, that they knew the buildings of Gette Voorhees, widow, which were destroyed by the En-

1 I have examined the record of the " property damaged or destroyed by the Continental army or by the militia," etc., in New Jersey. The entire record is contained in one small volume, which is preserved in the State Library, The counties from which there are returns ure Ber- gru, Morris, Essex, Somerset, and Burlington. No damages seem to have been committed in Middlesex by our armies, for the reason prob- ably that their operations were princ. pally confined to the hilly portion of the State lying to the north, nud also because the British lind so com. pletely stripped the people of Middlesex as to leave nothing worth faking for the patriot troops.

475

MIDDLESEX COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTION.

emy, and also do adjudge the damages to the amount of £235 to the best of their knowledge." Ordina- rily, when several buildings were destroyed, the affi- davit of the experts contained a detailed valuation, as follows : " Isaac Cotheal, being a Carpenter, declares on Oath that he Knew the buildings of James Colyer as destroyed by the Enemy, and Judge the value of them as follows, to wit,-Grist-Mill, £200 ; Saw-Mill, £50; House, Slaughter- do, & Smith Shop, £30; and ye other House and Barn, £110." If a building was only partially damaged the form varied as follows : " Joseph Vickers being sworn saith that he in con- junction with John Voorhees, being called upon to view the damages done the buildings of the Revd Johannes Light, and having viewed the same, do adjudge the said damages done to said buildings to ye amt of £19.0. to the best of their Knowledge." Where woodland was destroyed a third person was called upon to estimate the loss, and his affidavit was annexed in this form: " John French being sworn saith that he Knew the Timber land of James Rich- mond as above mentioned, which was destroyed by the Enemy, and do judge the said damages was worth £160.0. to the best of his Knowledge." When valu- able horses were inventoried, the oath of the claim- ant was supplemented by the affidavit of a neighbor, which was almost invariably in the curious form fol- lowing : " John Bennet declares on oath that he was knowing to the Enemies taking and destroying the articles contained in the above inventory of Barent Stryker. And that he personally Knew the said horse (or mare), and do adjudge he was worth £15."

Some of the affidavits annexed to these inventories reveal very interesting facts illustrating the events of that period, and afford glimpses of the personal for- tunes of our ancestors, showing the straits to which they were often reduced, and presenting brief but vivid pictures of the dismay which attended the in- roads of the British marauders. For example : On the approach of the British to New Brunswick in 1776, John Dennis, who was a wealthy merchant and an active patriot (having been a delegate to the Provincial Congress for Middlesex County in 1775, a member of the first Committee of Safety, and one of the com- missioners for emitting and signing the colonial bills of credit), distributed a large part of his property among various persons in the town and country adja- cent, in the hope that it might thus escape the notice of the enemy. Among other things, he sent " sundry trunks, barrels," etc., containing valuable goods, to the farm-houses of Jeremiah and John Field in Pis- cataway township, who secreted a part in their cel . lars and barns, and a part they buried under a stack of buckwheat ; but the enemy, guided by some sure intelligencer, discovered and plundered or destroyed the whole. Mr. Dennis presented ten different in- ventories of as many separate lots, recording very heavy damages to his property left in the town as well as to that stored in different places. He was also

the owner, or part owner, of a number of vessels which were carried off by the enemy. One of these was a sloop named the "Cluster Valle," another was the sloop " Mary and Elizabeth," and another the schooner "General Lee." They all had considerable ; cargoes, which shared the fate of the vessels. Each of these ten inventories has a separate affidavit an- nexed. In one of these Mr. Dennis "and his wife Mary" make oath that they left their honse in New Brunswick on the 1st day of December, 1776, " when the enemy was on the other side of the river." In another he declares that he "locked up his store- house" in New Brunswick " at 8 o'clock on the morn- ing of the Ist of December," and that the enemy " took possession of said store-honse at near twelve o'clock the next day." In this inventory Mr. Dennis records the loss of a great quantity of wine; and Jo- seph Robinson (of whom a further record appears elsewhere in this paper) certifies as a witness that he " knew numbers of pipes" were in the store-house, and, further, that "he was in the Store-house when the wine was almost over his shoes on the floor. when he saw the Enemy take some of the hoggs' fat" (of which Mr. Dennis had left a considerable stock in the same store-house) "to stop the holes in the pipes," thus " robbing Peter to pay Paul." Mr. Dennis had also stored eighteen tierces of flaxseed in the barn of Dr. Jaques, near New Brunswick ; and John Whitlock testifies to its wanton destruction by " a party of the Enemy." He says that in March, 1777, he saw these tierces, " some with all and some with a part of the heads knocked out and the flaxseed laying all over the yard," that " a rain fell a few days after and the flaxseed lay matted or caked together between two and three feet high." Concerning the sloop " Mary and Elizabeth," Mr. Dennis and John Lyle, Jr., tes- tify that she was a new sloop, and when the enemy occupied the town she "lay at the dock of Capt. Gibbs,1 near his garden fence, in the slip before his door." (This is the slip between Agnew's & Rolfe's saw-mill.) Concerning the "General Lee," George Leach testifies that "she was built on Gano's dock," that she was seized by the British when they entered the town, and that he (George Leach) "was com- pelled by the Enemy to carry the said schooner to New York." Mr. Dennis' own affidavit concerning the loss of this vessel contains a touch of grim humor, as follows: "John Dennis declareth on oath that the above schooner was taken by the Enemy and their Adherents, and that he this deponent saw said schooner in the hands of the Enemy, in Perth Am- boy harbour, when he was put on board a boat as a

1 Capt. Richard Gibb resided in New Brunswick in the house lately koown as John Hicks', 143 Barnet Street, and had a farm near by which the old inventory says was called Lungfield's farm. This was at or near the present site of Weston's mills. His houses at both places were pillaged, and the one at " Longfield's," which he says in his inven- tory was three-quarters of a mile from town, was totally destroyed. His losses are inventoried at over £440.

476

HISTORY OF UNION AND MIDDLESEX COUNTIES, NEW JERSEY.

prisoner to be conveyed to the Provost gaol in New | very early in the morning, which was December 7, York. He further declareth that he never hath re- 1776, and that all her bedding and sundry other things had been plnndered and taken away by them." ceived one farthing as a recompence for no part of the same, excepting one year's close confinement in a louth- some Gaol, and further saith not."

John Fisher, of New Brunswick, was convinced that he had "just reason" to believe "that his goods were taken by the enemy, as stated in his inventory, be- canse all the above articles was left in New Bruns- wick when the British troops took possession of that place, and they was all gone after they left there." Peter Obert, of Sonth River, in presenting his dam- ages, declares that " he was at a small distance and see the Enemy take, carry off, and destroy the above- said articles," which must have been very tantalizing to Peter, although he contrived to save himself from being carried off also. Samuel Sayre, of Woodbridge, who was robbed of three fine horses, testified that he had "since seen some of the sª horses in the enemy's possession when he was a prisoner among them." " When I was a prisoner" is a not infrequent record in these inventories. John Mercerau, of Wood- bridge, testifies that among other things the British took from him a "Stage Coach, for which he had been offered £60 without the wheels." John Ward, also of Woodbridge, swears that his " two likely cows 5 years old and forward with calf" were "taken by a party of the enemy under ye command of Col. Simco, a British officer," and his affidavit is corroborated by Adolph Jones, who makes oath that he "saw Col. Simcoe and his men drive away the two cows" of said Ward. We have several other glimpses of this active and daring partisan leader. Cornelius Van Duyn1 deposes that in December, 1776, " he was in Bound- brook with a horse, when he was surprised by the British Light Horsemen in the night, and fled a few hundred yards out of the town, and on his return the horse was gone, and he verily believes the said Horse- men took him." As Col. Simcoe states in his journal that he was with the British army while it was in winter-quarters at New Brunswick in 1776, it is prob- able that he commanded this party, especially since it appears by another affidavit, given in connection with inventory of Ennis Graham, that the "Queen's Rangers," of which Simcoe was colonel, were at Bound Brook on the 19th of December, 1776. Two weeks earlier than this a body of "German troops" made a foray upon Bound Brook, and among others whom they plundered was Elias Van Court. His affidavit gives a graphic description of the rapacious character of these hated mercenaries. He states that he was absent from home at the time, and that on his return a few hours after their departure, "he found his wife in great distress, who is since dead. She told this Deponent that about forty Hessians had the night before quartered in their house and gone away

In October, 1779, Col. Simcoe made his famous i raid from Perth Amboy through Woodbridge, Quib- bletown, and Bound Brook, his ostensible object being to destroy the boats belonging to our army which had been collected at Van Vechten's bridge, but his real aim being to take Governor Livingston prisoner. The early part of the march was prosecuted very quietly, and without any depredations beyond seizing all the good horses he could find ; and his party gave out that they were a detachment from Washington's army in order to prevent any alarm from spreading. They thoroughly succeeded in keeping up this delu- sion until after they had left Quibbletown, when their real character was discovered by a man who knew Col. Simcoe. After this they began to plunder without stint, and from Bound Brook to Somerset Court-House, and on their return from thence to New Brunswick, they left behind them a trail of burning hay-stacks, barns, aud honses. Rachel Lad- ner testifies to their firing a hut and some stacks, in which property of Archicald Van Norden was de- stroyed. William Cock also deposes that "a party of Horsemen under the command of Col. Simcoe of the British Army put fire to the Court-honse at Hillsbor- ough, and that the said Cock's honse kecht fire from the same and burnt down." Nelly Smock substan- tiated this recital. In singular requital for the out- rages committed by his men, it was the previous burning of a honse by the British which led to the capture of Simcoe and a portion of his command, as the finale of this expedition, by throwing them out of their way into an ambuscade, at the precise spot he had aimed to avoid. Col. Simcoe himself tells the story. In his " Journal" (pp. 117, 118) he says, " His guide misled him ; nor was the reason of his error the least uncommon of the sinister events which attended this incursion. When the British troops quitted the camp at Hillsborough and marched to Brunswick, among other houses which were unwarrantably burnt was the one which the gnide relied upon as marking the private road the party was to take. He knew not of its being burnt, and that every vestige had been destroyed, so that he unintentionally led them into the ambuscade .. . on the high grounds beyond the barracks at Brunswick."

The march of the British forces through Wood- bridge and Piscataway to New Brunswick in Novem- ber, 1776, and their retreat through the two former in June, 1777, were marked by devastated and burned dwellings and other buildings, two hundred and forty-four persons having been plundered, and forty houses, mills, barns, etc., having been burned in Woodbridge, and one hundred and thirty-one per- sons pinndered and thirty-one houses, mills, barns, etc., burned in Piscataway. The affidavits accom-

1 This and the four following affidavits are to be found in the " Records of Damages" in Somerset County.

477

MIDDLESEX COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTION.

panying many of these inventories fairly place us in the light of these burning dwellings. Thus Thomas Edgar bears witness "that on or about the last of June, 1777, he saw the House late of Samuel Parker, as above mentioned, in flames, a-burning, immediately after the enemy past it, and that he verily believes they set it on fire, and that he believes the said house was worth £200 as money went in the year 1775." Hiram Frazee also testifies "that he saw the house of Thomas Force on fire, and see at the same time a number of people at the said house which he took to be British troops, as they then (in November, 1776) was a-passing along the road." And, again, Phineas Randolph testifies that in December, 1776, he saw the new, two-story, well-finished house of Justus Dunn " a-burning, and at the same time a number of the Enemy around it, and have good reason to be- lieve they set it on fire and burnt it." Instances of this kind might be cited in great numbers, but these will serve for examples. One notable circumstance runs through them all, namely, that those whose property was the most mercilessly pillaged or de- vastated were the most confirmed and obnoxious patriots.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of many of their Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 116

Author: W. Woodford Clayton, Ed. Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Philadelphia: Everts Number of Pages: 1224

Author: W. Woodford Clayton, Ed.
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia: Everts
Number of Pages: 1224