USA > New Jersey > Somerset County > Within a Jersey circle : tales of the past, grave and gay, as picked up from old Jerseyites > Part 16
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The young men thoroughly resented this high-handed treatment and made up their minds to be avenged. This they decided to compass in a peculiar way, namely, by fooling the deacon about his daughter. It seems his only daughter, Eliza, though of distinctly mature years and as "homely as a hedge fence," as "Gat" put it, was extreme- ly susceptible to the thought that every young fellow that looked at her was in love with her. As her father was even more gullible on that score than she was the boys made up their minds that this harmless little vanity was a vulnerable point of the deacon's and that through it they would wound his pride by having a laugh at him.
Their plan was for all six of them to pretend they had fallen victims of Eliza's attractions and to call nightly upon her, each to press his suit. Pursuant to this they cast lots as to the order of their calls, and it fell to "Gat" to go first. He went and was well received. Next night No. 2 called with a like result, and next No. 3. When No. 4 came the deacon and his daughter began to smell a rat, and without ceremony he was ordered about his busi- ness. But according to contract they had all to call on the deacon's daughter in their turns.
When No. 5 knocked at the door he was admitted. Al- most immediately he was bundled out. Then, knowing full well there was wrath in store for No. 6, "Gat" and another of the boys crept up before-hand and hid in a big empty flax box near the door to see what would hap- pen. The sixth and last young fellow to call, though
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rather fat, was supple. He declared that he would run before the fiery deacon could get at him. On his arrival and when his inevitable ejection came, he dashed wildly down the stoop, pursued, not only by the deacon, but by the old lady with a broom. But as bad luck had it, the little gate would not open. Then with the fair enemy close at his heels he made a desperate vault and bravely cleared the obstruction-all but part of his pants, which caught on one of the pickets.
In this critical position, a perfectly helpless mark for the old lady's broom, which she wielded with surprising vigor, the young fellow hung and took his basting. The stout cloth at length gave way and he dropped to terra firma again. Then he took to his heels homeward. The suppression of laughter in the flax box was meanwhile painful in the extreme, until "Gat" and his companion heard the last wallop and saw their friend escape. Then they emptied the box of themselves by tipping it over and fled, with farewell love messages shouted back for Eliza. They considered themselves thus fully revenged on the wrathful deacon, who stood in his door flourishing a stout stick at the practical jokers.
Very early in life "Gat" acted a minor part in a ro- mantic affair. That is to say, at the tender age of about ten or twelve he became an unconscious accessory before the fact in a case of elopement. Among the verdant hills and valleys that buttress Sourland Mountain on its north- eastern side dwelt Marjory, a maiden about ten years "Gat's" senior. Her mother died when Marjory was only ten years of age, leaving her to become a little mother to her four younger brothers and sisters. This pathetic duty
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she discharged so well for ten or more years, and she looked so wisely also after the whole household, that her wid- owed father prized her as the very apple of his eye. Per- haps he treasured his eldest rather selfishly, for like many parents he seemed to forget the flight of years and that new conditions grew up demanding new considerations at his hands.
Among other things that he might have known and made reasonable allowance for was the fact that Marjory was naturally of an extremely sociable and sentimental nature, which, for her happiness, called for the society of young people like herself. But anything in that way nev- er occurred to him as at all necessary. He had a good home and every comfort that Marjory or any of his chil- dren could possibly need. Such a home was all he cared for himself. How, therefore, could any of his family re- quire anything more than he did himself? When friends, especially young men, came home from church with Mar- jory, and tried to edge into further acquaintance, they found anything but encouragement at her father's hands. In fact they were so coldly received that the visits were rarely repeated.
The possible consequences of this unreasonable line of conduct on a father's part are proverbial. Her would-be suitors, whom Marjory ought to have been allowed to entertain openly at her home, saw her clandestinely. When the right man came along-"Rory," we'll call him, for he is living yet and so is Marjory, and they might not like their names given in full-he proved to be a stalwart, rosy-cheeked son of Erin, proved to be as brimful of ro- mance and sentiment as the girl herself. When two
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hearts so sympathetically attuned as these meet, events are bound soon to develop. And so it was in this case. There was only one way out of the difficulty-they de- cided to cut such a Gordian knot by elopement.
Marjory's second-story window was not a very dizzy height, but it was too high to take at a leap. For, though his beloved was the nearest approach "Rory" knew to a real angel, he also knew from several test balances he had made of her good, solid avoirdupois on his knee, that for her to attempt actual flight would only be to tempt Prov- idence. So he either made or borrowed a rope ladder, which Marjory secreted in her room, and the following Thursday at midnight was set as the time for their flight.
It was here that "Gat" became an innocent agent in the plot. He had been often sent down the mountain by his grandmother to Marjory's house on messages, and was quite a little favorite of hers. His appearance there on the Wednesday morning, the day before her intended flight with "Rory," she hailed as truly providential, for her uncle was coming to visit her father, and was ex- pected the very night that she and "Rory" had set for their elopement. It occurred to her that their great pro- ject would have to be postponed, or it would be discov- ered, for her father and uncle always sat up till long past midnight when they first met.
So "Gat" was entrusted with a letter to be delivered to "Rory," informing him of the rock ahead, and saying that if the following night would do she would be ready at the appointed hour. Little "Gat" was solemnly bound over as a good boy and true to serve this personally on "Rory," and on none other, under the most awful pains
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and penalties, and further, to bring back from the said "Rory" an answer signed and sealed under his own hand. Thus was "Gat," even as early as his tenth year initiated into the serving of processes heavily laden with human des- tinies. The momentous Friday came, and hardly had the tall old hall clock chimed the witching hour of midnight, when Marjory heard a low whistle beneath her window, the preconcerted signal that her lover was there awaiting her. With heart going pit-a-pat, she first inquired in a whisper :
"Who's there?"
"Faith, and it's all that's left of your own "Rory," "Marjory Mavaurneen !" came the reassuring answer.
Having nervously secured one end of the rope-ladder, the young woman lost no time, but scrambled out and commenced the descent, "Rory" standing beneath with outstretched arms ready to receive her. When less than half way down the girl gave a sharp scream. The rope had broken and she fell, not, however, to her death, but safe and sound, though somewhat forcibly, into her lover's waiting arms.
Suddenly sounds of a man's bare feet were heard stump- ing on the adjoining room floor. Then came the sound of steps on the stairs.
Away, hand in hand, like two children, the lovers scampered, with all their speed, down the long lane to the road, where Rory's fastest horse stood saddled and ready.
With one bound he was in the saddle; with another of equal dexterity, Marjory was on behind him, and away they went.
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"Hallo! Stop thief! Help, neighbors, help!" cried the enraged father, who, half-clad and cudgel in hand, came tearing down the lane in pursuit, but his only answer was the clatter and ring of the fast-moving horse's hoofs on the frequent stones of the Pennington road over the Sour- land Mountain.
The lovers were married and lived in Pennington for many a year. And, contrary to all assumed, sombre pre- cedents as to the unallowed nature of such unions-more especially one made on a Friday-theirs was a happy and prosperous married life. It is still so; and, as hale and wonderfully well preserved octogenarians, they look with complacent delight on their offspring, even unto the third generation.
IN THE "RED COATS'" POWER.
HOW FIVE JERSEYMEN, DRILLING NEAR THE PRESENT TOWN OF SOUTH BRANCH, WERE CAPTURED BY THE BRITISH.
One day in June, 1777, five men were drilling and practising target shooting in a wood, near the South Branch River. It was at a place a little above the vil- lage then called Branchville and now known as South Branch. They had met there every day for some time and were very earnest in their work, first learning the military steps and turnings for marching and afterward firing with long-barreled muskets and the round, leaden balls of those days, at a barked spot on a tree.
On the day in question, which, to be accurate, was the 16th of June, having finished their drill evolutions, four of the men grounded their muskets and began loading them. First they measured the charges of powder in the palms of their hands and poured them into the ca- pacious barrels; then they rammed them down with pieces of paper doubled up into wads, and next they hammered the charges home with their ramrods, until the latter bounced back clear out of the barrels. The balls being put in and driven down beneath more paper wads, the guns were loaded. After that the flint-mailed hammers were raised and some extra powder poured into the flash pans. This was called priming. Having fin- ished loading, the four men, under instructions of the fifth, formed in firing line.
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One of the four, a tall, lanky youth called Hank, was exceedingly awkward at drill but a "dead shot" and proud of it. He was about to shoot when right in the line of the target and not much beyond it, he saw some- thing.
"Tom, do you see that 'redcoat'?" he asked in an ex- cited whisper. "That's my target! I'm going to shoot him!"
"No, don't!" ordered Tom, who was the instructor. "That's one of our men in disguise, most likely. Hold on a bit till I see."
Hank frowned. He wanted to show his marksman- ship on the real thing, and again he leveled his gun, de- claring that he would shoot the man.
"Don't do it, I tell you!" Tom commanded, and again Hank was restrained. But as Tom shifted his ground for a better view, "Lanky Hanky," as they called him, covered his man with his gun and was on the point of firing when one of his mates interfered. It was lucky he did, for at that moment a crackling of many feet over the twigs behind them was heard and they found them- selves surrounded and taken prisoners by a strong com- pany of British soldiers. If Hank had shot the man the five of them would have been shot or hanged on the spot and this story would never have been told.
"Tom," the instructor of Hank and the others, was Thomas Van Camp, who had served in the Continental army from the first skirmish down to the glorious ac- tions of Trenton and Princeton. His time having then expired he had repaired to his ancestral homestead, which is now the home of his grandson, Peter Van Camp, to whom I am largely indebted for this story.
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Thomas Van Camp's activity in collecting and drilling men for the army he had fought with, showed that he was a true patriot. But for the time his lamp was ex- tinguished ; for he and his recruits were in the hands of the enemy. And, as he used many a time to tell his grandson, who now retells it, the worst of their capture was that, being all big fellows, they were subjected to far more indignities than if they had been of smaller stature. For instance, they were made to run the gaunt- let, one at a time, between two facing lines of their enemies, every one of whom administered the best kick he was capable of to each runner as he passed down the line. The redcoats seemed to hugely enjoy the work, too; for with every kick they would shout some taunt.
"Why don't you fight, you lumbering rebels," they cried. "You're big and ugly enough," etc.
But the captives soon had the satisfaction of seeing their enemies themselves cowed. For they had only pro- ceeded a short distance further up stream when suddenly, like a clap of thunder, a cannon belched from the hills to their left and a ball came whistling over their heads and tore up the earth only a few yards beyond them. Simultaneous musketry fire from a wood ahead of them seemed to fill the invaders with terror, for sheltering themselves in a convenient wood, they beat a double- quick retreat along the river, taking good care, how- ever, that their prisoners were well surrounded and made to scamper away along with them. For some time that well-planted cannon kept guessing their whereabouts, by shot after shot. Just opposite the Van Camp home- stead, where the river is now crossed by a fine bridge, a
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ball went crashing among the trees right over their heads. This brought down a heavy limb which pinned several Britishers under it, hurting one or two badly, and nar- rowly missing Thomas Van Camp.
The men thus sent back the way they came were a force some seventy strong. They had been sent on a reconnoitering and foraging expedition by General Corn- wallis, who, with Colonel De Heister, was posted with two divisions of their army at Middlebush and Som- erset Courthouse. They had marched there from New Brunswick in the hope of drawing Washington from his stronghold at Middlebrook, which event they awaited with impatience but in vain. At the same time General Sullivan, by order of Washington, having come from Princeton, had left small corps of observation on Haunts Rock, on the Sourland Mountain, and encamped with his main body at Clover Hill. It was from there that the gun was sent by Sullivan, and it, with a few sharp- shooters, successfully defeated the purpose of the for- agers.
Nearly a hundred years after this occurrence, two can- non balls were unearthed on the Van Camp farm. They are still in the possession of Peter Van Camp, the grand- son of that same patriot soldier, Thomas, at whose cap- tors while he was among them, these very balls were fired. As there is no record of any other engagement ever having taken place in the vicinity, there seems to be no doubt as to the origin of these balls.
When Cornwallis saw that Washington was not to be enticed from Middlebrook he marched back to New Brunswick, determining to move on Philadelphia by way
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of the sea. Thomas Van Camp and his fellow-prisoners were shipped under hatches in a vessel and taken to Long Island. There Hank and three of his mates received bad treatment in prison for five months; but Van Camp, who was wonderfully good natured, did whatever was re- quired of him, and knew so well how to humor his jailors that he got off after two months of imprisonment. He was paroled on leave to go and see an aunt, and needless to say the moment his feet touched the Jersey shore he took to his heels through swamps, rivers and woods, till he got back to his home.
Peter Van Camp tells me that his grandfather lost his gun and other equipment at the time of his capture, but the musket used in the Revolution by his great uncle, John Van Kampen, as well as the latter's sword, after he was made an officer, is still preserved at the old home- stead. Mr. Van Camp has also a very old French gun, supposed to have been among the first firearms ever used in Jersey. It was brought here by his great-great-grand- father early in the seventeenth century, and is said to be at least 250 years old.
It does not appear that Thomas Van Camp re-entered the army. Subsequent to his capture and release from the British lines, tradition and history seem to conflict a good deal as to his movements. In the second series of New Jersey Archives (as pointed out to me by Arthur S. Kim- ball, a relative of the Van Camps, through the Halls) there appears a letter, dated at Newark, February 7, 1778, which says :
"A correspondent informs us that one William Pace, of Schoolie's Mountain, and Thomas Van Camp, of Som-
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erset County, both bound for Staten Island, the latter with a quantity of flour, and the former with four quar- ters of beef which had been stall-fed two years, and was intended for a British general, were apprehended and brought before the President and Council of Safety the twenty-eighth of January last. It not fully appearing to the board that their respective cargoes were to have been carried into the enemy's lines, which would have been high treason. Van Camp was adjudged to forfeit his flour and to pay the fine prescribed by law for asking more than the regulated price, and also the fine for asking a higher price in continental currency than in specie and Pace to forfeit his fat beef and to pay the fine for asking for it more than the regulated price, and both being bound over they were dismissed.
"Evidence being produced the day after that one Jacob Fitz-Randolph, who lives at the Blazing Star, had met them (Van Camp and Pace) at Spanktown (now Rah- way) and engaged to take their cargoes if they would bring them to his house, and to convey them to Staten Island so soon as the ice would permit; the said Pace and Fitz-Randolph have since been committed to gaol for pro- curing provisions for the enemy, and as dangerous to the present government; and a warrant is issued to apprehend the said Van Camp."
History failing to note any further penalty as inflicted upon Thomas Van Camp, we may fairly assume that his actions were satisfactorily explained to the authorities.
Tradition here enters and informs us that Thomas Van Camp conveyed Martha Washington in a supply wagon from Princeton to Morristown in the month of Decem-
18
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ber, 1779. Although there is no official record of this, it had undoubtedly as good a chance of being authentic as most other family traditions have. And as to Thomas's attempted contraband transaction, perhaps he was not the first loyal citizen up to that time or since then who has been tempted into making large profits at the expense of an enemy of his country-if he really did attempt that. But the natural inference seems to be that he was ulti- mately exonerated from everything, except, perhaps a lit- tle pardonable venality in those hard times.
The present Peter Van Camp, Thomas's grandson, is the oldest surviving descendant of two very old and im- portant families, the Halls and Van Camps, or Van Kampens. He lives at the original Hall homestead, one of the first places of the kind established in Somerset County. The Halls of this line especially have an ancient and decidedly interesting lineage.
I have on several occasions noticed how remarkably old people in these regions seem to carry their weight of years. But wonderful as former instances have appeared to me, I am bound to admit that they are surpassed in the person of Peter Van Camp. He is eighty-three years of age, or as he humorously puts it :
"Yes, next year I'll have come of age four times."
And yet he is so alert in mind and body, and so very far from looking his great age, that no man could hon- estly guess him to be over sixty. Though he does not now do the heaviest work on his farm, he takes full care of his own horse, cows and chickens, does his own garden- ing and raises what are admitted to be the finest pigs to be seen for miles around.
A HAUNTED MEADOW.
STRANGE HAPPENINGS WHICH ARE SAID TO HAVE OC- CURRED NEAR THE GRAVE OF AN ECCENTRIC JER- SEYMAN.
Across the South Branch River, opposite the place where Peter Van Camp lives, there once resided an eccen- tric character, named Joseph S. Pittenger. He was a harness maker, and at one time had a good business; but sometime in his career he became so odd in his behavior that he was afterward best known as "Crazy Joe." When he died he was buried in the peaceful little graveyard on Mr. Van Camp's place, which, with the adjoining mea- dow, has long been regarded as haunted.
"Crazy Joe," or his restless spirit, is said to be largely responsible for the reputation of the place. It has been declared by most reputable persons of the vicinity that ever since his interment some person or thing has risen from the grave or come forth from the darkness in such questionable shape, and has disported itself in so extra- ordinary a manner as to be easily recognizable as the veri- table, dead Joseph Pittenger-himself or his ghost.
Pittenger's sobriquet of "Crazy" was largely acquired through several exceedingly strong and unaccountable an- tipathies which he developed and seemed to have carried to his grave. Perhaps the full intensity of his objection was leveled against three very dissimilar things; namely cows, widows and geese. While living his abjuration of these was shown in his intense dislike of butter from the
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first, of the "weeds" of the second and the feathers of the geese.
If, while eating at a friend's house, butter were un- thinkingly brought on the table, Pittenger would hold up his hands to hide it from his sight, at the same time mak- ing exclamations almost as tragic as Macbeth's at sight of Banquo's ghost. As to widows, tradition has it that meeting a buxon young widow once on the highway, and, in sight of several witnesses, he literally carried out what had long been currently reported as his practice under such circumstances. That is, on seeing her, suddenly stopping, he spread out his hands as he was wont to do at butter; then removing his hat, he deliberately took up handful after handful of dust from the road and strewed it thickly on his bare pate. After that he vaulted the fence as if mad dogs were after him and disappeared in a cornfield.
His antipathy in this direction has been said to have had its beginning in his rejection by a rich widow whom he was courting by characteristic methods. They were in the habit of walking a good deal together in the country lanes, at which times, whatever might be the state of the weather, Pittenger very frequently walked along in silence, with his hat in his hand instead of upon his head. Being asked by his fair companion why he did so, he answered that he would be candid with her. Then he declared that at all such times he was petitioning the fairies, in which he truly believed, that they would influence her to love him instead of Jacob, his hated rival. At this, it is said, she turned on her heel, saying that she considered him more fit for a madhouse
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than to be her husband, and straightway she married the said Jacob. This was such a heavy blow to Joseph that many neighbors declared their belief that that and noth- ing else was the cause of all his subsequent vagaries.
What turned him against geese has never had any plausible explanation. But his virulence against the feathers of those harmless birds is authenticated in sev- eral quarters. It is well known that in olden times feather beds were much more common than they are now- adays. And on sundry occasions when Joseph slept at friends' houses he was given a room with a good goose- feather bed to rest upon. But just as soon as the eccen- tric mortal discovered the nature of his bed he took out his jack-knife, ripped open the ticking and dumped the contents, worth probably a dollar a pound, out of the window.
Another oddity of his was to hitch up his horse to a sulky of a summer evening and drive for hours together around one or other of the fields, with sleighbells jingling on his horse, as if he was in his sleigh in midwinter.
Now, there is nothing more certain than is the fact that in a field adjoining the little graveyard, which field has long been called the "haunted meadow," some such freaks as these are still enacted at the dead, witching hour of night.
"Have you ever seen anything of this kind?" Peter Van Camp was asked recently.
"Well-I-" he was saying hesitatingly when his wife broke in.
"Now, Peter," she exclaimed, "you saw it. You know you did !"
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"Well, anyway," he said, "I'm not going to say any- thing about that. I'm not going to stand for any ghosts."
Most men in these times, like Mr. Van Camp, hesi- tate about admitting any acquaintance with demonstra- tions of the supernatural. But there need be nothing of the kind, for, after a generation of ridicule heaped upon occult matters generally the very vanguard of science has arrived at the turning of the ways, and al- ready freely admits certain evidences of powers and ex- istence which are not accounted for in our recognized code of natural laws. Although Mr. Van Camp de- clined to tell something which it was plain enough to be seen that he knew, he was far from denying such know- ledge. Some neighbors were, however, more communica- tive, and explained as nearly as they could what others, as well as themselves, had seen. I say as nearly as they could, for in observing such matters people are usually under a high strain of nervous excitement, not so much, perhaps, from actual fear as from a feeling of awe, which undoubtedly possesses every mind in presence of plain evidences of another existence than that in which we live.
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