USA > New Jersey > Memorial cyclopedia of New Jersey, Volume I > Part 59
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At the battle of Germantown we planted our cannon at the gate before Chew's house,-by the
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stone gate-posts, which are there now. Just in- side the gate lay six British grenadiers dead. We were ordered to fire grape-shot. After we fired awhile it seemed as if we were not making as much impression as we ought; and as the fog was so thick we could not see very much, one of our officers rode up to the house where the Brit- ish were, and when he came back he said, "Boys, use cannon ball: it is a stone house;" but the fog lifted pretty soon, and as there were but a few of us we had to retreat. If we had known it was a stone house when we first commenced we would have knocked it to pieces, likely. The old shot shows to this day. The shutters are patched, and one shot went through it to the kitchen. I was in a great many skirmishes around Philadelphia while the British had it in possession. As they would send out foraging parties around it the Americans would send out parties to capture them. It was late in the fall and we often had the Schuylkill river to wade. The officers would order us to hold up our am- munition to keep it dry. As I belonged to the artillery I generally rode over on my gun. One of those nights I thought my time was about to come. The English heard of our being after them and threw up intrenchments across a road in the wood; and as they had cannon it was ex- pected, of course, that they would plant some to sweep the road; and as my gun came in the road as we marched up in order of battle ex- pecting them to fire, I could see their camp fires blazing high. But the Americans kept march- ing up, marching up; but they did not open their batteries. At last an officer rode up and looked over the breast-works. When he came back he said, "Damn them! They have given up the bag : have left everything there to deceive us,-even their supper cooking!" But the officer would not let us eat it, hungry as we were, for fear of poison. On the IIth of September, 1777, the battle of Brandywine was fought. I was in that, and wintered at Valley Forge, 1777-8, with Washington : was starved and frozen. A soldier's life was worse than a dog's. The saying is. "A dog's life is hunger and ease;" a soldier's was hunger and hardships.
It is thought that Mr. Harris was also in the battle of Monmouth. the 28th day of June, 1778. Soldiers in both armies died from heat and want of water. They fared badly also for clothing, their shirts would be all gone except wristbands and collars. Horse beef, and it was often spoiled, they had for meals. Resuming the narra-
tive of Mr. Harris, within quotation points, we proceed :
In the fall of 1779 I was with General Sullivan up the Susquehanna to destroy the Indians' corn. As they were partly civilized and farmed a good bit, it was thought that they had an extra amount planted to feed Burgoyne's army, that was ex- pected to come from Canada down that way; and also to retaliate for the massacre of Wyom- ing. But General Gates defeated Burgoyne at Saratoga, New York. It was splendid corn, about forward enough for roasting or boiling, when we cut it up and set fire to their wigwams. It ruined them and they never recovered from the blow. A part of the army, I among them, was sent across the mountains to Fort Pitt, now Pittsburg. What route we went I cannot tell. There was not even a wagon road further than Gettysburg. We got our supplies from there by pack-mules, as we would start a train when the path was reported clear of Indians. They could run almost equal to a deer or lie flat as a rabbit and hide where there was almost nothing. I did not admire the Indians' character. They would lie and steal anything they could lay their hands on. We had a great many skirmishes with them, but not much we could call battle. Their warfare was to get behind trees and shoot from cover. In one of our skirmishes I was not feel- ing very good and an Irishman said to me, "Braize up, Harris : this day a golden chain or a wooden leg." I told him I thought the prospect for a golden chain was not very bright, fighting Indians, when they could carry all they had on their backs and run with it. I went with General Sullivan in the fall of 1779 west of the Alleghany mountains. I never got back or heard from home during the war, but was in the neighborhood of Pittsburg most of the time. We made an ex- pedition down the Ohio river. That was the hardest campaign of all. It was not very much work to go down with the current, as we were in a flat-boat of some kind, with oars to row it. It was reported that a settlement of white peo- ple was along the river on the Ohio side at one place, perhaps Marietta, but we did not know certainly. We were in two divisions and I was in the first; and our officers ordered every one to be ready with his finger on the trigger, and so we drfited by, never seeing any one. The other party, carelessly thinking the advance had stopped, rowed up to the shore and the Indians sprang out and killed and took every man! We heard the reason the Indians did not attack us : they thought we were only a small advance party and they felt able for the main body and ex-
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pected our general was in the rear; and as he had a red head they wanted his scalp particu- larly; but they were deceived in that; and if they had attacked us they would have met with a warm reception. We went as far as Louis- ville, then called the Great Falls, but were not there but a short time before we were ordered back to Pittsburg, just at the setting in of win- ter, and the river low and full of ripples. We would have to jump out and push our boats over and then get in and row, sitting with wet cloth- ing on and almost freezing. As we went down one of our number died, and we had no shovels to bury him. We placed him in a hollow in the ground made by the blowing down of a tree, and put what dirt we could on him; but as we came back we saw that the wolves had dug him out and picked his bones! We would stay out in the middle of the river all day pulling up till. toward night, we would work in shore and land a party to scour the woods for Indians and post our sentinels around, and camp for the night. The wolves would come up around the sen- tinels and howl and appear as if not farther off than the length of our guns; but we dared not shoot them : it would be giving a false alarm. We also had another thing to contend with, worse than any I have mentioned-hunger: we came very near starving. There was a settlement at Wheeling, West Virginia, and a temporary mill that would grind corn, which was run by man power. So we made great calculations when we reached there; but pretty soon after we got to work the soldiers got hold of some whisky and got so drunk that they could not work, got nothing done and we came nearer starving than before! Pittsburg was a hundred miles yet be- fore us. We were working up the Ohio. In one canoe was a sick Irishman and the current catched and upset it. We lamented his fate, sup- posing he was drowned, of course; but when we came to turn up the canoe there he was in it. not any the worse, only wet! Some one asked him if he could take a little whisky. He said, "By the Lord! try me." During the winter of 1777-8. at Valley Forge, we were so badly off for clothing one could track the soldiers over the frozen ground by the blood from their bare feet! and no blankets! would lie down around our camp fire to sleep and our hair would freeze fast to the ground! We finally arrived at Pittsburg, a poor place then, not even a frame house in it. There was a line of soldiers' barracks, or frame- work. There were several log houses, with a quarter of an acre of ground attached, which formed the city at that time. There was no road across the mountains, and from Gettysburg to
Pittsburg everything was carried by pack-mules. Not much there but whisky, and it would take a month's wages to buy a gill with the money we were paid withi! About eighty doilars good mon- ey would buy a quarter of an acre of ground with a log house on it then, but i would not have had One even for a gift if I had to stay there; it was such a poor place, and I thought always would be.
Mr. Harris was discharged at that place, September 30, 1783, William Irving, brig- adier-general, in command. His dis- charge is still in possession of one of his descendants. His pay for the last two or three years was the Continental money that was issued by Congress. He was in seven general battles, including that at Flatbush, Long Island, August 27, 1776, besides many skirmishes, but was never wounded: was once, however, knocked down by a spent ball. He came home poor and for a year or two was in very poor health, his constitution much impaired by exposure while in the army, being afflicted with chills and fever. In after life his company was much sought, and he, having a retentive memory, would interest his friends by relating incidents and occur- rences he had experienced while in the army.
In 1785 he married Lydia, a daughter of Captain William Smith, of the militia in the battle of Quinton's Bridge, who had some of his hair shot away from the back part of his head. a bullet grazed his loins, and his horse received two bullets in him ; yet he carried his rider safely over the bridge and then fell dead under him! Mr. Harris's wife was more than ten years younger than himself. He bought Round Island, in 1706, of Joshua Eaton. The island contained thirty acres of upland. likewise a considerable quantity of salt marsh, and was about two miles south of Alloway's Creek Neck. He lived there nine years. In 1804 he purchased Ragged Island, of Elijah Fogg, it being a short distance from Round Island. He removed
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to the former and remained there until his death, which event took place March 29, 1814, from typhus fever.
DICK, Dr. Samuel,
Officer in Revolution, Congressman.
Among the patriotic men of the last cen- tury who took an active part in the troub- lous times of our country, was Dr. Samuel Dick, of Salem, New Jersey. He was of Scotch-Irish descent. His paternal grand- father was a Presbyterian minister whose home was in the North of Ireland, and the Doctor's father was John Dick, who mar- ried Isabella Stewart, a Scotch lady of su- perior mind and character. It is supposed that John Dick and his wife came to Amer- ica between the years 1730 and 1740. Sam- uel, their third child, was born on the 14th of November, 1740, at Nottingham, Prince George's county, Maryland. In 1746 the Rev. John Dick was stationed in New Castle, Delaware, as a minister in the Pres- byterian church, and continued his pastoral labors in that vicinity until his death in 1748. His son, Samuel was a child of un- common promise, and commenced the study of the Latin language when but five years of age. He was educated by Samuel Finley, afterward president of Princeton College, by Governor Thomas Mckean, of Dela- ware, and by the Rev. Dr. McWhorter, of New Jersey, and under their preceptorship laid the foundations of a classical knowl- edge which few in our country have sur- passed.
The medical education of Dr. Samuel Dick, according to the State Medical Society report, was "acquired at one of the medical schools of Scotland." He served in Canada as assistant surgeon in the colonial army in the war between the English and French, which was terminated in 1760 by the con- quest of that province by the English, and was present at the surrender of Quebec. In 1770 he came with his mother to Salem, New Jersey, and in that place practiced his
profession until his death. On October 5th, 1773, in Philadelphia, he married Sarah Sinnickson, a daughter of Andrew Sinnick- son, a gentleman of wealth and prominence in the county.
In 1776 Dr. Dick was a member of the Provincial Congress of New Jersey, and was one of the committee of ten, composed of Green. Ogden, Cooper, Sergeant, Elmer, Hawkes, Covenhoven, Symmes, Condit and Dick, appointed to prepare a draft of the constitution of the State. By that Congress he was given a commission as colonel of militia, in the Western Battalion of Salem county, dated June 20, 1776, in which ca- pacity he was an active and zealous officer in the Revolutionary War. In 1780 Dr. Dick was appointed surrogate of Salem county, by Governor Livingston, by whom he was highly esteemed as an officer and as a man. This office he held for twenty-two years. On November 6th, 1783, Dr. Dick was elected by the State of New Jersey to Congress, and was a member of the law- making body of the nation when the treaty was ratified by which Great Britain ac- knowledged the independence of the United States. In the years 1783, 1784, and 1785, he was a member of the Continental Con- gress held in Annapolis, New York, and Philadelphia, respectively, and was selected with others to transact important business. He was made one of the "Grand Committee of 1784," consisting of Messrs. Jefferson, Blanchard, Gerry, Howell, Sherman, De Witt, Dick, Hand, Stone, Williamson and Read, to revise the institution of the Treas- ury Department and report upon such alter- ations as they might think proper (Journal of Congress, volume ix). He was also one of the committee elected to sit during the recess of Congress for transacting the bus- iness of the United States, consisting of Messrs. Blanchard, Dana, Ellery, Sherman, De Witt, Dick, Hand, Chase, Hardy, Spraight and Read (Journal of Congress, volume ix). With some of these gentlemen Dr. Dick formed friendships which contin-
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ued through life. He was from early manhood intimately acquainted with Dr. Benjamin Rush and also with Dr. James Craik, a Scotchman who settled in Vir- ginia, held a position in the army of the Revolution, and was the family phy- sician of General Washington. In 1789 Dr. Dick was again nominated as a candidate for Congress, but declined to accept the proffered honor. The following letter from Governor Livingston on the subject shows the estimation in which Dr. Dick was held by the distinguished gentleman of that time :
ELIZABETHTOWN, January 25, 1789.
DEAR SIR :- Be persuaded that it is not through wilful neglect that I have not until now acknowl- edged the receipt of your letter of the 7th inst. I make it a rule to answer every letter from the meanest creature in human shape as soon as I have leisure to do it; and I cannot therefore be supposed inattentive to those gentlemen of dis- tinction and gentlemen who are endeared to me by old acquaintance and the amiableness of their characters. But the conjunction of bodily indis- position and a greater variety of public indis- pensable business than I have for a considerable time past met with, made it impossible for me to do myself the pleasure of discharging so agree- able an office as that of answering your letter sooner than I now do.
But my dear sir, I wish you had given me a more agreeable commission to execute than what I find I must according to the tenor of your let- ter carry into execution. Your requests it is true, shall always with me from real volition carry with them the nature of a command. But I am sorry that your present one must "aut volens, aut nolens", be considered mandatory. For it seems you have left me no other choice than the alternative of erasing your name from the list of nominations, or to write against it, "Dr. Dick declines to serve." I had a particular reason to wish you to stand as a candidate, and finally appear to be one of the four elected. Because (without compliment I dare say it) though we have had many in congress who in other respects were possessed of such qualifications as men in that station ought to be endowed with, a great part of them have been totally destitute of the knowledge of mankind, and that certain "poli- tesse" which Lord Chesterfield calls attention, without which the greatest talents in other things will never make a man influential in such as-
semblies. But if it must be so, that either you cannot or will not go, I'mitti submit.
Believe me to be with great sincerity,
Your most humble servant,
WILLIAM LIVINGSTON.
TO DR. SAMUEL DICK, Salem, N. J.
In private life Dr. Dick was highly re- spected. He was a man of brilliant talents and great attainments, fine taste and pol- ished manners, a skillful surgeon and phy- sician, a discerning politician and zealous patriot. He died in- Salem, New Jersey, November 16, 1812, leaving a widow and five children, all now deceased. His only descendants were the children and grand- children of his daughter, Isabella Stewart Dick, who was married in 1804 to Josiah Harrison, a member of the New Jersey bar. She left four children : Maria and Henri- etta : Lydia, who married James Mecum, and had six children,-Isabella, George, Ellen, James Harrison, Maria and Charles ; and Julia, wife of Robert C. Johnson, by whom she had two sons, Robert and Henry H. Johnson. The Mecum family have in their possession a very beautiful silver- hilted sword which was carried by Dr. Dick in the colonial as well as the Revolutionary War. This sword has a genuine Andrea Farrara blade, which could not have been made later than 1477 or 1480, this cele- brated Toledo sword-maker having been invited by James III. of Scotland to come to his country about that time, according to "Gurthie's Geographical and Historical Grammar," published in London in 1797, page 166.
TAYLOR, Edward,
Old-time Physician.
Edward Taylor, M. D., only son of Ed- ward Taylor, was born in Upper Freehold township, Monmouth county, May 27, 1762. After graduating at Princeton College, he studied medicine with Dr. James Newell, of Allentown. During the winter season
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he attended lectures at the University of one "S. T., 1832," and upon the other "E., Pennsylvania, and visited the wards of the T., 1835," as full an epitaph as was per- initted by the usage of the society of which they were inembers. hospital until he received his degree of M. D., March 25, 1786. He commenced prac- tice at Pemberton, Burlington county, New Jersey, but soon after removed to his native ROBERTS, Thomas, place, where for many years he engaged with remarkable activity and usefulness in Missionary Minister. the labor and responsibilities incident to a Rev. Thomas Roberts was born in Den- bighshire, North Wales, on June 12, 1783. His father died when he was about five years of age. . Having worked upon a farm from the time he was thirteen until about seventeen, he spent three years in learning the cooper's trade. Before the age of twen- ty he had completed his apprenticeship and shortly after went to England. large country practice, often extending from the Delaware river to the sea-coast, travel- ing on horseback by day and night, regard- less of weather. Notwithstanding this life of intense mental and physical exertion, by temperate habits he preserved his medium- sized, compact frame in an unusually healthy condition until near the close of his life, which was terminated by a local disease after a short illness.
Identified with the formation and early history of the Monmouth Medical Society, Dr. Taylor was its vice-president in 1816 and president in 1820, when he read a valu- able address upon "The Causes, and Treat- ment of Pneumonic Inflammation." In or about the year 1823, under a conviction of duty, he accepted the position of superin- tendent of the Friends' Asylum of Frank- ford, Pennsylvania, which he ably filled for nine years, and then returned to his old home in New Jersey, where he died on May 2, 1835. "His end was peace." Few men have occupied a higher position in the esti- mation of those who knew him, for morality and strict integrity, adorning by his life and conversation the doctrines he professed, and rendering himself beloved and honored by all, but more especially by the members of his own Society of Friends. In the old burying ground of that society, near Cox's Corner, two adjoining mounds, thickly cov- ered with myrtle, attract attention. They are the graves of Dr. Edward Taylor and his wife, Sarah, whose death preceded his own. At the head of each mound, just appearing above the deep green, is a small brown stone, and by depressing the surrounding foliage there could recently be seen inscribed on
Very soon, in a way undiscerned by him- self, his steps were directed to the land wherein. many labors, trials and triumphs awaited him. He sailed in 1803 from Dub- lin for America, and after a passage of five weeks reached New York. In May, 1804, he sailed for Madras, in the East Indies, in company with four Baptist missionaries ; from there to Prince of Wales Island, near the Straits of Malacca; and thence to Madras, from which city they returned to New York in 1805.
Mr. Roberts was baptized on March 8, 1807, and being urged to use his gift in ex- hortation, complied, being then without the most distant idea of preaching the gos- pel. In 1808 he removed to Utica, New York, and united with the First Baptist Church, meanwhile laboring in Utica. Tren- ton and Holland Patent. He also preached at Albany to the few Baptists who assembled in the courthouse, conducting service in the morning in English and in the evening in Welsh at a private house. He subse- quently removed to the Great Valley (Pennsylvania) Baptist Church, and for eight years labored fervently with this peo- ple. In 1821, under the auspices of the Act- ing Board of Foreign Missions, he organ- ized a mission to preach the gospel and establish schools among the Cherokee In-
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dians, where he labored for two years, when it was deemed necessary for him to return to present the claims of the mission. While traveling in New York and New Jersey to solicit aid among the churches for the Cherokee mission, he visited Mid- dletown, Monmouth county, where he was afterward called, and remained in this chosen field for thirteen years, preaching with marked acceptance and profit to the church and community. In 1837 he re- moved to South Trenton, New York, and took charge of the Holland Patent Church, also preaching for two years at South Trenton and at Deerfield Corners. In April, 1843, he removed to Utica, to be near his charge, and on the 18th of Octo- ber of the same year was deprived of the companionship of his devoted wife. Re- moving in May, 1844, to Middletown, in the fa"' of the same year he took charge of the Pennypack church in Pennsylvania, where he continued four years as pastor, having married Eleanor, widow of Rev. David Jones, the former incumbent. He devoted the following three years to the pastorate of the Holmesburg church, and in 1851 returned with his wife to Middle- town. He supplied the Navesink Baptist church until a pastor was installed, after which he preached by invitation among the many churches of his acquaintance. His wife having died in 1859, Mr. Roberts found a home with his youngest son, con- tinuing to preach for the churches in the vicinity, as strength permitted, and as a patriarch among his children was wel- comed with veneration and love. After eighty-two years of life he died, September 24, 1865.
While in New Jersey, Mr. Roberts met and married Elizabeth, daughter of John Rutan, May 25, 1806. To this union were born ten children : Thomas, married Mary Griggs, of Freehold; Elizabeth, wife of Richard A. Leonard; John, married M. Lavina Patnam; Elisha, married Naomi Jones; Mary, wife of Edmund Morris;
William S., died in youth ; Nathaniel, mar- ried Phoebe M. Rowland ; Sarah, married Richard A. Leonard; Daniel, married Eleanor V. Arrowsmith; and a daughter who died in infancy.
JOHNES, Rev. Timothy,
Prominent Old-Time Clergyman.
The first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Morristown was the Rev. Tim- othy Johnes, who entered upon his pastor- ate, August 13, 1742, and continued his labors with that congregation until his death.
He was of Welsh descent, and was born in Southampton, Long Island, May 24, 1717. He was a graduate of Yale College, of the class of 1737, and in 1783 his alma mater conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. In his "History of the Presbyterian Church," Mr. Webster says: "Of the period between his leaving college and going to Morristown we have seen no notice, except that in this perilous time, when some haply were found fighting against God, those who separated from the first parish in New Haven worshipped in the house of Mr. Timothy Johnes." From this it would appear that he studied theol- ogy in New Haven, Connecticut. He was no doubt licensed by the Congregational body, and came to Morristown, New Jer- sey, by means of the letter of presbytery to the president of the college, or by a subse- quent request to the same. Tradition as- serts that he labored for a short time on Long Island in some of the vacant churches. He began his labors in Morristown, August 13, 1742, was ordained and installed, Feb- ruary 9, 1743, and continued pastor until his death. In 1791 he fractured his thigh bone by a fall, which confined him for months to his bed and made him a cripple for the remainder of his life. After more than a year's confinement he was able to attend public worship. Aided by one or two of his elders he reached the desk,
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