USA > New Jersey > Monmouth County > Old times in old Monmouth > Part 26
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It is true in this instance we have acted without the orders or knowledge of the honorable board ; but we hope, when they are pleased to take into consideration the motives which induced us to take this step, and that Huddy was executed in the county where so many acts of cruelty have been committed on Refugees, they will not think our conduct reprehensible, more especially when your excellency peruses the following state of facts. ( The facts al- luded to are not found in the originals.) Many of the above facts are ascertained by affi davits ; and such as are not are too notor- ious to be denied even by General Forman himself, the most persecuting rebel in the country. By a strange fatality, the loyal. ists are the only people that have been treated as rebels, during this unhappy war; and we are constrained by our suffer- ings to declare that no efforts have been made by the Government, under whose protection we wish to live, to save our
brethren from ignominious deaths. It is our fixed determination, however repug- nant to our feelings (having on all occa- sions treated our prisoners with tender- ness, and often indulge them with paroles which they have frequently violated) that should the rebels, to answer their malig- nant purposes, continue to punish the loy- alists, under their usual distinction of pris- oners of state from prisoners of war, they shall feel a severe retaliation in every mn- stance-the just vengeance due to such enormities. Blood shall flow for blood, or the loyalists will perish in the attempt.
We have the honor to be on behalf of the associated loyalists of Monmouth County, your excellency's most obedient servants."
This paper prepared by the Board for Lippencott to sign, it will be seen by ref- erence to the evidence of different witness- es already quoted, was false in every es- sential particular. While it is true that the written order to get Huddy out of the Provost jail, into the charge of Lippencott makes the pretext that it was to have him exchanged for 'Tilton, yet the real object as expressed by verbal orders of Governor Franklin was to have him taken within the limits of Monmouth and there execu- ted. They were not frustrated in any at- tenipt to bring off Tilton by force, for if any such attempt had been made it would have been shown on the trial, nor was any attempt to have him exchanged mention- ed. It was not Lippencott who suggested the hanging of Huddy-he was only a tool, perhaps too willing, of Governor Franklin and his associates. There was no reason to fear that "Tilton was reserved for a fate similar to Phil White's ;" no evidence was produced to show that the Monmouth patriots considered him other than a pris- oner of war captured under usual circum- stances and to be held for exchange. Gen- eral Forman, or Black David as they pre- ferred calling him, and his associates never executed a refugee unless under circum- stances justifiable by the rules of warfare, as has already been shown in other chap- ters. The Pine Robbers, Fagan, Fenton, Burke and others of that class met their fare for burglary, murder and other crimes, for committing what Sir Guy Carleton called "unauthorized acts of violence " and what be pointedly condemned. Ste- phen Edwards came into the American lines as a spy ; treasonable papers were found in his possession ; so positive was the proof against him that one of the
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warmest friends of his family, who would have been glad of any pretext to save him, was compelled to vote for his condemna- tion.
Kut the most noticeable falsehood which the Board asked Lippencott to sign was that he "had acted without the knowledge or consent of the Board !"
On this point, in addition to the evi- dence already quoted, we copy the testi- mony of Henry Stephensen, a surgeon in the British legion, relating a conversation between himself and two members of the Board that took place at the office of Riv- ington's Royal Gazette, the Tory paper at New York. Mr. Stephenson was asked :
" Did he recollect a conversation be- tween himself and several other gentle men, at Mr Rivington's (soon after the confinement of the prisoner for the crime now charged against him) respecting a pa- per that was sent to the prisoner by some one of the honorable board of directors, to be signed by the prisoner, assigning rea. sons for the execution of the said Joshua fluddy ; and was deponent then censur- ing a part of said paper which expressed the execution of Huddy to be without the knowledge of the Board ? During the con- versation, did Messrs. Stewart and Alex- ander, both members of the Board, come into Mr. Rivington's and what further con- versation passed on the subject ?"
Surgeon Stephenson deposed in answer as follows :
" Yes, he recollects a conversation. He was at Mr. Rivington's one evening, some little time after the prisoner was confined in the provost, and was mentioning to some gentlemen that a report had pre- vailed in town that the board of directors had drawn up an instrument in writing, which they wished Captain Lippencott to sign, purporting that Captain Huddy was executed without their knowledge or con- sent. Just at the time they were talking on the subject Mr. Alexander and Mr. Stewart, two of the board, came in; and after mentioning the above report, depo- nent put the following question to them : ' First, Did you gentlemen send such an instrument in writing to Captain Lippen- cott to sign or not ? They replied, there had been a paper sent to him but that Captain Lippencott might alter it as he thought proper, or words to that effect .-- Mr. Alexander particularly mentioned that he had objected to the words " with- out their knowledge or consent," being in -
serted. The second question was 'Though Huddy was executed, was it not done by your knowledge and consent or approba- tion.' They assented and said it was."
The office of Rivington's Royal Gazette was quite a noted resort for British officers and it is evident they criticised pretty free- ly the action of the Board. Both Alexan- der and Stewart had personal knowledge of the falsity of the statement "without knowledge or consent of the board," as when, on the 8th of April, Lippencott ap- peared before the Board in response to Gov. Franklin's request to consent to take command of a party to hang Huddy, both of these men were present and fully talked over the matter. Mr. Alexander objected to putting in the words but was overruled by the other members, who quieted his scruples by telling him Lippencott could alter it if he chose. They well knew the fearful predicament into which they had got Lippencott.
This paper was gotten up by the Board to shield themselves, because, to their sur- prise, no sooner was the news of Huddy's execution heard in New York than the regular British officers generally de- nounced it as "'a reproach to the name of Englishmen," and a desire was expressed to have an investigation to find out the real author or authors to hold responsible. Alarmed at the threatening aspect of af- fairs they drew up this paper to be signed . by Lippencott. It would seem as though they thought as Lippencott found his ac- tion so severely denounced by the regular British and that they were arrayed against him, that he would want to retain the ac- tive friendship of the Board to stand be- tween him and the regular British author- ities. and that to secure their active servi- ces in his behalf he would probably con- sent to sign this paper. And their calcu- lation proved correct, for he had com- menced copying it off when he was arrest- ed. The truth then flashed upon him that the Board to save themselves wanted to sacrifice hun, and then he determined to let matters take their course and simply look out for himself, and, as he expressed it, "to have the saddle put on the right horse."
An idea of the feeling among the regu- lar British officers in regard to Huddy's death may be inferred from the testimony of Surgeon Stephenson, but it was most emphatically shown by the action of Sir Henry Clinton himself, who was so indig- nant at the barbarous murder of Huddy
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that he had ordered Lippencott's trial by Court Martial before he received General Washington's letter demanding his surren- der. There is good reason to believe that Sir Henry thought the really guilty party was the Board of Associated Loyalists, and especially its head, Governor Franklin, who so cowardly fled to England leaving both Lippencott and Asgill to their fates ; and Clinton's successor, Sir Guy Carleton, was so satisfied of the disgraceful conduct of the Board that he broke it up.
As before stated, the decorum of the court martial virtually threw the blame of Huddy's murder on Governor Franklin and his associates, and this decision was subsequently endorsed by competent Amer- ican authority, as will be seen by the fol- lowing extract from a report made to Con- gress in 1837 by a select committee of that body which had thoroughly investigated the whole subject :
"The immediate agent in this deed of blood was Richard Lippencott, a native of New Jersey and then a captain in the British service. He was the instrument of a board of associated loyalists in New York, at the head of which was William Franklin, once Royal governor of New Jersey. The members of this body, after the murder had taken place, endeavored for a time to deny that they had directed it ; but the evidence adduced on the trial of the perpetrator, as well as subsequent publications of the loyalists themselves, abundantly prove that. without the cour- age to act themselves, they had the base ness to authorize the deed to be commit- ved, and the meanness to attempt the con- cealment of their privity to its perpetra- tion."
A BOY TRIED FOR MURDER.
THE STATE AGAINST AARON, A SLAVE OF LEVI SOLOMON'S.
The defendant, Aaron, a black boy about eleven years of age, was indicted in the Court of Oyer and Terminer of Monmouth in October, 1817, for the murder of Ste- phen Connelly, a child little more than two years old. The indictment in the usual form charged the prisoner with the mur- der on the 26th of August, 1817, by throw- ing the child into a well. It appeared in evidence that the prisoner was born in July, 1806, was of ordinary size and in the opinion of some witnesses, possessed com-
mon capacity and intelligence ; by the tes- timony of others he was more cunning and smarter in his play than usual for boys of his age. Stephen Connelly was a stout healthy child, and on the 26th of August, in the after part of the day, was found in a well about 18 or 19 feet deep, having a curb two and a half feet high, so that he could reach the top with his hands, and it was in such a state that all the witnesses thought it impossible for him to get over it. The well was in a cornfield and or- chard about one hundred rods from two public roads and the same distance from the house in which Stephen lived. The corn was so high and thick that a person at the well could not be seen except by looking along the rows. It was in the neighborhood of a number of houses.
Stephen was seen playing in the road with the prisoner a short time before he was missed by the family ; and when they were searching for him the prisoner was up in a cherry tree. Being asked if he had seen him, he said, " yes, he is gone up the road ;" being told to come down and help look for him, he looked along the road and called aloud three or four times but did not get down. After the body was found and taken out of the well, he came up and seeing it lying there he said, " so you've found Stephen." There was yel nothing in his manner which excited at- tention or suspicion. That night he went to bed earlier than usual. and without his supper. The next morning he told a young lad, an apprentice to his master that he saw Stephen fall into the well; and that he was ten or twelve paces off; that he went up and saw Stephen splash the water and then went to pick apples which his master had directed him to do. Being asked why he did not tell it he gave no answer. On his trial (May, 1818) the pri -- oner was defended by Garret D. Wall, L. H. Stockton and Joseph W. Scott. For the state appeared R. Stockton, jr., Depu- ty Attorney General and R. Stockton.
His counsel objected to any evidence of his confessions as improper and incompe- tent, he being under the age of twelve years. After argumen+ the court admit- ted the confessions in evidence. It then appeared that at the coroner's inquest the prisoner was summoned; at first he ap- peared terrified but soon became composed. He then repeated the story he had told before, adding that Stephen climbed over the curb and fell in; and that he did not. tell anybody for fear they would think he
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did it. He was very closely pressed by the jury with questions as to his own guilt and told that he had better tell the whole truth to them. He steadily denied doing the act. After examining him some time, the jury went to the well that he might shew them how Stephen got over. He shewed them. His master and one of the jurors then took him aside and asked him about it. He then told them he had done it; that Stephen went to the well and put his hands on the curb and he took hold of his legs and threw him over; that he gasped and caught his breath and made the water splash as he fell ; and that he (prisoner) being frightened, ran away to picking apples ; that he denied it before because he was afraid they would send him to jail. He repeated the same thing to the whole jury. He was urged and questioned closely but all the witnesses denied that either promises or threats or improper contrivances were used to induce him to make. the confession, but he was frequently and constantly told to tell the truth and that would be best for him. He seemed to understand what he was about and to understand his answers.
He continued for three or four weeks to make the same confession to the gaoler and many other persons; and then he began to deny the fact and con- tinued the denial until the time of trial .- When he first denied, the gaolor asked him why he had owned it before; he said that one of the jurymen told him the dev- il would get him if he denied it, but if he confessed it he would not be sent to jail. This was explicitly denied by the ju- ror referred to ; he was further asked who had been to see him, and he replied his master but that he did not tell him to deny it.
At the time of his first confession, and frequently afterwards, he gave as a reason for the act that he did it to spite the fath- er of Stephen because he had driven him out of the shop and threatened to whip him ; at other times he said he said he had no reason for it.
The case was ably argued and the court gave a minute charge to the jury who found the prisoner guilty.
Supreme Court and its decision on the va- rious points was made by Chief Justice Kirkpatrick. In regard to the liability of minors under fourteen years of age to punishment, the Chief Justice quoted va- rious authorities from which the Court de- cided that upon this naked confession of Aaron's he could not be convicted of a capital offence-"that the confession · is a simple, naked confession, disclosing no ·fact, pregnant with no circumstances to give it authority or in any way to corrobo- rate it. It did not even lead to the dis- covery of the body of the deceased, for it was found before ; it opens no proof of malice or hatred or ill will against the child but rather to the contrary; it is a mere naked confession of an infant under the age of eleven years obtained by some degree of pressure. at least, after a firm denial and as such (I speak with great de- ference to the learning of the Court which tried the cause) I should incline to think it ought not to have been admitted as evi- dence; and if admitted that it ought not to have been the ground of conviction."
A new trial was granted at which the prisoner was discharged; and we have been told by an old gentleman, a regular attend ant of the Freehold Courts in that day, that it was believed the boy was afterwards sold as a slave in the West Indies.
THE INLETS OF OLD MONMOUTH
OLD CRANBERRY INLET.
A century ago Cranberry Inlet, nearly opposite Toms River, was one of the best inlets on the Jersey coast. The question as to the exact year when it was opened was brought before one of our courts a few. years ago in a suit involving title to land - in the vicinity, but no decisive information was elicited upon the trial. It is probable, however, that it broke through about 1750. It is laid down on Lewis Evans's map, 1755, and Jeffrey's ( English) map, same year, and on the latter and other maps it is called New Inlet. On Jeffrey's map Toms River is called Goose Creek, and Bar- negat Bay is called Flat Bay Sound. Cran- berry Inlet closed about the year 1812, though for several years previous it had commenced filling up, gradually shoaling more and more each year until it was fi- nally closed up. During the Revolution- ary war it was a place of considerable im-
A motion was then made for a new trial, it being desired by the court that the opening of the Supreme Court of N. J., at bar upon several legal questions (given in Ist Southard reports) might be known .- The trial took place in May, 1818. In Sep- tember following it was taken up by the portance as it afforded conveniences to
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our privateers on the lookout for British vessels bound in and out of New York .- Though we have no exact account of the depth of water on the bar, yet in its best days it must have been equal to the best inlets now on our coast, as we find that loaded, square-rigged vessels occasionally entered it. David Mapes, the much es- teemed and noted colored Quaker of Tuck- erton, when a boy, resided in this vicinity, and was employed by Solomon Wardell to tend cattle on the beach when the inlet broke through. He slept in a cabin and one morning on awakening was surprised to see that the sea had broken across the beach during the night.
(In a previous article relating to Capt. Adam Hyler, by the accidentally omission of one line in the copy it was made to ap- pear that Cranberry Inlet opened into Raritan Bay. Though most of our reader's would infer it was from a typographical error yet it reminded us that a brief no- tice of this Inlet, so frequently referred to in Revolutionary times, but now among the things of the past, should be given to explain events related in previons chap ters referring to it.)
ATTEMPTS TO OPEN NEW INLETS.
The closing of Cranberry Inlet caused great inconvenience to persons along Bar- negat Bay engaged in the coasting trade as it compelled vessels from the upper part of the bay to sail several miles out of their way to Barnegat Inlet to get to sea. About the year 1821 an attempt to open a new inlet near the head of the bay was made by a man named Michael Ortley .- He worked at it off and on for several years and spent considerable money in the undertaking; at length, one day a large company of men volunteered to aid him in completing the enterprise. In the evening after finishing it, Mr. Ortley and his friends had quite a merry time in cel- ebrating the completion of the work. But great was their disappointment the follow- ing morning to find that the running of the tide which they had supposed would work the inlet deeper, had on the contrary raised a bulkhead of sand sufficiently large to close it up, and the result was the inlet was closed much more expeditiously than it was opened.
Many supposed that if an effort was inade to open an inlet farther down the bay in the vicinity of old Cranberry, it would prove more successful. Acting up- on this supposition, another effort was
made to open one about opposite Toms River. The work was completed July 4th, 1847, by some two or three hundred men under the direction of Anthony Ivins, jr. In this undertaking, care was taken to let in the water when it was high tide in the bay and low water outside ; but this enter- prise also proved a failure as it filled up about as soon as Ortley's.
SHREWSBURY INLET.
Shrewsbury inlet was open in 1778; it closed again about 1800; again opened about 1830; and again closed about ,1847. Just before the closing of the inlet at this time, the writer of this was engaged in the coasting trade and one time in sailing down the beach noticed a little steamer, called the Cricket, from New York, wrecked on the bar. This wreck seemed to hasten the closing of the inlet by gathering the sand around it as it washed in and out.
BARNEGAT INLET.
This inlet has always been open from our earliest accounts: It was first noticed by a Dutch navigator, probably Capt. Mey in the celebrated little yacht Restless in 1614, who on account of its dangerous bar Called it " Barendegat," which means breakers inlet or an inlet with breakers .- The character of the, inlet has always been the same as at present except during the few years when Cranberry was open when it was much shoaler than before or since. It has shifted up and down the beach two or three miles and is still shifting and changing. A few years ago it washed down the old lighthouse built in 1834 and now exhibits a decided inclination -to wash down the new one.
LONG BRANCH IN 1819 .- BATHERS AT FAULT.
The company at this salubrious retreat is represented to be very numerous and respectable this season. The New York Advocate says there is a kind of military or naval regulation there which strangers of- ten contravene' from ignorance ; that is when the stipulated time for ladies bath- ing arrives, a white flag is hoisted. upon the bank, when it is high treason for a gentlemen to be seen there ; and when the established time for gentlemen arrives, the red flag is run up which is sometimes done by mistake and produces rather ludicrous misunderstandings .; A wag lately hoisted both flags together waich created some awful squinting and no little confusion .--- (Niles' Register, 1819. Sup., p. 159.)
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TOWNSHIPS IN' MONMOUTH-WHEN ES- TABLISHED.
When the county of Monmouth was es- tablished in 1683 it was divided into two townships, Middletown and Shrewsbury. Stafford was established in 1749. Upper Freehold, Freehold and Dover were de- fined by an act passed June 25, 1767, to take effect in March of the following year. Howell was established in 1801 and Mill- stone in 1844; Jackson, now in Ocean county in 1844 ; Plumsted, now in Ocean, in 1845, and Union, now also in Ocean, in 1847; Atlantic, in 1847; Raritan, Marl- boro and Manalapan in 1848; Ocean, 1849; Wall, 1851; Holmdel and Matavan in 1857.
THE FIRST TEMPERANCE SOCIETY IN THE U. S.
()ld Monmouth has the honor of organ- izing the first Temperance Society in the country, which was established at Allen- town in 1805 and called " The Sober So cietv," and was composed of fifty-eight members. (Newark Daily Adv. and Hist. Rec. 1859).
A VALUABLE MONMOUTH DOG.
In the Journal of a Quaker named James Craft, published in Historical Rec- ord, Oct., 1851, it is said :
" 1780, 2nd mo. 20th : Money very plen. ty. £300 given for a dog in Monmouth."
COL. JONATHAN FORMAN AND DAUGHTER.
The following is from the Utica N. Y. Observer, 1859.
" Died, at her residence in Utica, Sept. 16th, 1859, Mrs. Mary Ledyard Seymour, wife of the late Hon. Henry Seymour. She was the daughter of Col Jonathan Forman. and was born at Monmouth, New Jersey, Feb. 18th, 1785. Her father at the age of 19, left Princeton College to join the Amer ican army. He entered it as a lieutenant, and served during the war, rising to the rank of colonel. The mother of Mr -. Sey- mour was a niece of Col. Ledyard who was in command of Fort Griswold, opposite New London, Conn., at the time of its capture by the British. She aided in tak ing care of the wounded of that massacre, by which nineteen of her relatives per ished. When Mrs. Seymour was about twelve years old she removed to Cazeno vid, in Madison county, at that time a "frontier settlement." There was then no carriage road west of Whitestown, and
in many places they were obliged to use axes to make their way in that direction. It is said that the carriage of Col. Forman, was the first conveyance of the kind that passed beyond the site of Whitestown .- He drove to Chittenango and the family went thence to Cazenovia on horseback .--- Her parents died many years ago, but her uncle, Major Samuel S. Forman, of Syra- cuse, still lives, in his 96th year. Miss For- man was married to Mr Seymour at Caze- novia on the 1st of January, 1807. Mr. Seymour was then a merchant in the town of Pompey, Onondago County. He con- tinued in business there, exercising a wide and beneficial influence in that county un- til 1819, when he removed with his family to Utica. His subsequent honorable and useful career is known to the people of the State. He died in August, 1837, at his dwelling in Whitesboro street, in this city, where Mrs. Seymour has ever since resided."
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