Failed Prisoner Exchange Stokes Tensions between Whigs and Loyalists

In September 1778, Thomas Crowell, a Loyalist from Middletown now living in New York, traveled to New Brunswick under a British passport. During the trip, he illegally traded sugar for foodstuffs and was arrested for it. By April 1779, Crowell was back in New York. He recruited seventeen men and became a captain in the King’s Militia Volunteers, but this group dissipated. In October Crowell was appointed a warden of the Port of New York. In Middletown, his family was thrown off the family estate and reduced to poor relief. They left Middletown and came to New York as refugees. This may have radicalized Crowell; he joined the vigilante Associated Loyalists as a captain and would soon become a central figure in a failed prisoner exchange that nearly resulted in a murder.

As noted prior articles, the Continental and British governments conducted prisoner exchanges based on a negotiated cartel. But these exchanges deprioritized captured New Jersey militia officers and officeholders who commonly waited many months for an exchange. In Monmouth County, Colonel Asher Holmes and others negotiated local prisoner exchanges with the Associated Loyalists beginning in 1780. However, these locally-negotiated exchanges were prone to dangerous complications.

Thomas Crowell Seeks a Prisoner Exchange

On December 30, 1780, William Franklin, Chairman of the Associated Loyalists "recommended the delivery of sundry prisoners taken by the Refugees [Loyalists], to Capt. Crowell, for the purpose of procuring the release or exchange" of Loyalists jailed in Monmouth County. Crowell landed in Monmouth County under a flag of truce but soon learned “of the execution of the Refugees” he had come to liberate. This is revealed in a January 3 letter from Asher Holmes (leading Monmouth County’s  state troops) to Crowell.

Holmes wrote of the executions of John Farnham, Jonathan Burdge & Robert Paterson, “your letter came too late for they was executed before it came to hand (or had it been sooner it would not have answered any purpose).” Holmes further explained:

As to an exchange of prisoners of war, I am as ready to go into it as any man, but such a person as one guilty of murder, horse stealing or robbery, & coming into our County without being under an officer or military command, must expect to suffer the penalty of the law of that place when such depredations are committed.

Angered by the executions and news that other Loyalists were loaded in irons in the Monmouth County jail, Crowell loaded his prisoners—Hendrick Smock, Hendrick Johnston and James Tanner—in irons and revoked the parole of Lt. Colonel John Smock (Hendrick’s brother, recently paroled home via a locally-negotiated exchange). Holmes threatened counter-retaliation:

As to the treatment you threaten Hendrick Smock, Hendrick Johnston and James Tanner with, we have those in our power who must expect the same, vizt Samuel Stevenson, Joseph Pew, Daniel Hullett, John White, Andrew King, and James Tucker.

John Smock also wrote Crowell on January 3. He sought to avoid, or at least delay, having his parole revoked, and returning to prison in New York:

I, this moment, rec'd yours, and what you write concerning my brother, Hendrick Smock, Hendrick Johnson and James Tanner, being put in the dungeon & in irons. I am exceedingly sorry to hear [that] the matter of which they are put in such confinement is & has been entirely out of my power to remedy, and also understand by the above that you are directed to call me in.

Smock promised, “I shall immediately repair to New York” when properly ordered, but because Crowell’s order had not come through the Commissary of Prisoners, Smock questioned Crowell’s authority to revoke his parole. Smock promised to go to the Commissary of Prisoners to discuss, he patronized Crowell, “your indulgence to this request shall be very much obliged.”

With Crowell’s proposed exchange failed and retaliation looming against prisoners on both sides, another Monmouth Countian in the Associated Loyalists, landed at Black Point. Clayton Tilton came to propose another exchange.  He wrote Holmes:

It is proposed to give Col John Smock, Hendrick Johnston & James Horner for Joseph Price, John White, Dan'l Hulletts, James Tucker, Andrew King, Samuel Stevens & Humphrey Wade; for the rank of Lt Col [John Smock]. They have a right to insist on 60 privates if exchanged agreeable to the cartel; which will be the case if Col Smock goes in.

Tilton also threatened to revoke the parole of another officer, "We think Capt. David Anderson has not acted up to his parole, nevertheless if the above is complied with, shall agree with his proposals."

Failed Exchange Escalates Tensions

As Holmes and Smock negotiated with Crowell and Tilton, both sides were notifying their higher-ups. Crowell notified William Franklin, who forwarded Crowell’s letters to General Henry Clinton, the British Commander in Chief. Franklin wrote:

We now beg leave to inform your Excellency that the proceedings thereon were this day laid before the Board by the President [Franklin] and the enclosed letter, notifying of the execution of the Refugees, delivered by the officer who has just returned from Monmouth with the flag of truce sent by Capt. Crowell to procure their release.

Franklin deferred to Clinton on whether to further retaliate against the three Monmouth prisoners for the hanged Loyalists. As these prisoners were not taken by Associated Loyalists, he noted that the Associated Loyalists lacked jurisdiction to retaliate against these men: “The propriety of retaliation in the present instance must be, of course, submitted to your Excellency’s determination.”

Meanwhile, the New Jersey Assembly considered the failed prisoner exchange and the mistreatment of Monmouth County prisoners:

In consequence of the due execution of the laws of this State, upon certain persons in the County of Monmouth for willful murder and horse-stealing, a certain Thomas Crowell, styling himself a Captain of the King's Militia Volunteers, has procured Messrs Hendrick Smock, Hendrick Johnson and John Tanner, good citizens of said County, to be confined in irons in the lower dungeon of the Provost of New York; threatening that they shall receive the same fate as the criminals executed on the 3rd instant; and as the said Crowell has also ordered Lt Col Smock immediately to repair for New York, probably with a design to treating him in a similar way.

Influenced by Monmouth County delegates Nathaniel Scudder, Thomas Henderson, and Thomas Seabrook (elected to the Assembly in a tainted election) the Assembly then passed two resolutions promising retaliation for the mistreatment of the Monmouth prisoners:

1. "This Legislature will, with the utmost effect, retaliate for all such ill-directed and unwarrantable severities... until their enemies shall confine themselves to military matters within the lines of regular military conduct";

2. "The Commissary of Prisoners be directed to cause three of the prisoners of war belonging to this State to be immediately ironed in the same manner."

The Assembly also resolved to raise the affair with the Continental Government. The Legislative Council, the Upper House of the legislature, passed similar resolutions.

Retaliation Is Averted

The Board of the Associated Loyalists recorded receiving an offer to conduct an alternative prisoner exchange on January 15, 1781:

Clayton Tilton, having received a letter from Col Asher Holmes and Major [Elisha] Walton of the New Jersey troops, offering to exchange some refugees, prisoners at Monmouth gaol, for some rebel prisoners taken by Refugees who were not associators.

It was determined that William Franklin should write the British commander for permission to make the exchange; permission was needed because the prisoners in question were not taken by the Associated Loyalists and were, therefore, not the property of the Associated Loyalists to exchange. Three days later, the Associated Loyalists wrote Henry Clinton to request a flag to conduct the exchange.

The exchange occurred. On February 5, the minutes of the Associated Loyalists recorded:

Clayton Tilton reported that he had, with the flag allowed him, with prisoners taken by the refugees, and after much difficulty and dispute, exchanged them for four of their own people, and had also exchanged two other of his men who were prisoners, for two men he had taken before & paroled.

Holmes followed up on the successful exchange with a proposal to Governor William Livingston to let Sarah Wikoff (wife of Lt. Colonel Aucke Wikoff, jailed in New York) visit New York with Huldah Van Mater (wife of Loyalist Daniel Van Mater and Holmes’s sister). Holmes wrote of Mrs. Wikoff:

Since the Col. [Wikoff] has been a prisoner, the enemy have plundered his family several times and distressed them to a great degree. His wife is therefore very earnest to see her husband, and as the Enemy will not let her land unless the wife of some refugee is gone with her, Mrs. Huldah Van Mater is recommended for that purpose, as a person as important as any woman that has a husband that has joined the enemy.

It is not known if either Governor Livingston or the British permitted this visitation.

This exchange defused a tense situation. Subsequent testimony offered during the court martial of Richard Lippincott (an Associated Loyalist captain who hanged Monmouth County’s Joshua Huddy) reveals that Crowell’s failed prisoner exchange nearly led to a murder. Crowell testified that:

It was proposed to have executed one of them [local Whig] by way of retaliation, the Board of Directors having promised the deponent that orders should be given for the purpose, but the order was not given, nor did the execution take place; but he [Crowell] in consequence of the declaration made by the Board of Directors, dated 28th December 1780, should have thought himself justifiable in executing one of those Prisoners even had he received only a verbal order.

Crowell’s testimony was corroborated by another Monmouth Loyalist, Moffat Taylor, who stated that Captain Barnes Smock was the man to be executed and that Corwell would have done the deed if the Board of Associated Loyalist signed the order—but the Board refused to do put the order in writing.

The tense prisoner negotiations in Monmouth County occurred as the Associated Loyalists were trying to expand their ranks and clarify their authority. On January 3, 1781, the Loyalist New York Gazette advertised that the Associated Loyalists had a commission from General Clinton to 1.) keep all of their captures, and 2.) conduct their own prisoner exchanges. Further, new Associated Loyalists who served through the end of the war were promised "two hundred acres of land in North America” and would enjoy “the support of British arms, provisions, and shipping” while conducting British-authorized raids.

While we do not know the names of the men exchanged by Tilton and Holmes, we know that this exchange averted a tragic escalation that might have included the deliberate mistreatment of several prisoners and the murder of at least one. That escalation would, however, occur in 1782 when Clayton Tilton was captured and loaded in irons, and Richard Lippincott hanged Joshua Huddy.

Caption: The British Provost Jail housed prisoners captured by the Associated Loyalists. A failed prisoner exchange of Monmouth militiamen nearly ignited retaliatory mistreatment of prisoners of both sides.

Related Historic Sites: New York City Revolutionary War Trail (Sugar House Prison)

Sources: Thomas Crowell, letter, Library of Congress, MMC - Courtland Skinner, box 10; Crowell’s appointment is n the New York Royal Gazette, October 16, 1779; Jones, E. Alfred. The Loyalists of New Jersey, (Newark, N. J. Historical Society, 1927) p 57. Gregory Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution (Westport, Conn. and London, 1984), p 190. Rutgers University Special Collections, Great Britain Public Record Office, Loyalist Compensation Claims, D96, AO 13/108, reel 8; William Franklin to Henry Clinton, William Clements Library, Henry Clinton Papers, William Franklin to Henry Clinton, January 6, 1781; Asher Holmes to Thomas Crowell, U. of Michigan, Clements Library, Henry Clinton Papers, box 138, folder 42; Library of Congress, Rivington's New York Gazette, reel 2906; John Smock to Thomas Crowell, U. of Michigan, Clements Library, Henry Clinton Papers, box 138, folder 44; Clayton Tilton to Asher Holmes, Clements Library, U Michigan, Henry Clinton Papers, January 4, 1781; Clayton Tilton to Asher Holmes, U. of Michigan, Clements Library, Henry Clinton Papers, box 139, folder 11; The Library Company, New Jersey Votes of the Assembly, January 6, 1781, p 102-103; Journals of the Legislative Council of New Jersey (Isaac Collins: State of New Jersey, 1781) p64-5; Clements Library, Proceedings of the Board of Directors of the Associated Loyalists, January 1781, p. 11-3; Rutgers University, Special Collections, Loyalist Compensation Applications, Coll. D96, PRO AO 10/20, reel 7 and AO 13/112, reel 10; Clements Library, Proceedings of the Board of Directors of the Associated Loyalists, February 1781, p. 3; Asher Holmes to William Livingston, Carl Prince, Papers of William Livingston (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987) vol. 4, p 142; Thomas  Crowell’s testimony in Howard Peckham, Sources of American Independence: Selected Manuscripts from the Collections of the William L. Clements Library  (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978) pp. 570, 579-80.