David Forman's Campaign Against William Taylor's Loyalists

As discussed in a prior article, Colonel David Forman raised four companies of so-called Flying Camp (short term enlistees assigned to the Continental Army) in the spring of 1776. He then commanded a regiment of men from Monmouth and Middlesex Counties for five months' service during the disastrous New York campaign. With enlistments expiring on December 1 and the Continental Army retreating across New Jersey into Pennsylvania, Forman was permitted on November 24 to take his regiment home to Monmouth County to crush a growing Loyalist insurrection.

Forman’s orders from George Washington were broad but explicit:

You are hereby ordered to march, with your regiment under your command, into said County of Monmouth, and on your arrival there, you are authorized to apprehend such persons as appear to be concerned in any plot or design against the liberty or safety of the United States, and you are further authorized, immediately to attack any body of men whom you may find actually assembled or in the arms of purposes aforesaid; and if you should find their numbers superior to your force, you have full authority to call in and take command of such a number of New Jersey militia as you may judge sufficient. I would recommend for you to be cautious in proceeding against any but such as you have the fullest grounds of suspicion, and not give the least molestation to the property of any during your march.

In order to curb illegal trade between Monmouth County and the British, Forman was also encouraged to move "[live]stock and cattle or provisions... in danger of falling into the hands of the enemy" away from the coast and issue certificates to the owners for “reclamation.”

David Forman’s Campaign

There is no detailed account of Forman’s weeklong campaign against Monmouth County’s Loyalists, but they pursued their charge vigorously against the Loyalist association of William Taylor of Freehold. Taylor had previously rallied Loyalist-leaning neighbors against the Declaration of Independence and he was now the leader of a simmering Loyalist insurrection. After the war, he described Forman’s campaign and his narrow escape:

In November 1776, Mr. Washington detached a regiment from his army, under command of Col David Forman, to take up and secure your memorialist and other friends of Government in Monmouth County, they actually took near 100 of your memorialist's friends and relations, and removed them 200 miles to Fredericktown in Maryland, and there closely confined them in gaol. Your memorialist, getting every intimation of their intentions, was obliged to leave his home and property... after laying concealed for a few days, joined that part of the Royal Army under Lord Cornwallis, on the banks of the Raritan.

Taylor attempted to return to Monmouth County in February 1777. He was caught and detained by the Continental Army. But George Washington ordered his release because of confusion over a passport granted him from British authorities under which he traveled. After his detention and release, Taylor settled in as an attorney in the government-in-exile of New Jersey Royal Governor William Franklin.

Another Loyalist, John Taylor of Shrewsbury [not the John Taylor of Middletown who was William Taylor’s father] was less fortunate than William Taylor:

In November 1776, he was made a prisoner by the Americans, a regt. [under Col David Forman] being detached from Washington's Army to take up the friends of his Majesty's Government in that party of the country, carried to Philadelphia & there confined in close gaol.

Similarly, John Wardell of Shrewsbury (a judge of the county court at Freehold and one of the county’s leading citizens) was also arrested by Forman. He was jailed in Philadelphia where he was subjected to, according to his account, “the foulest cruelties.”

A few of Forman’s men wrote of the campaign in their postwar pension applications. Samuel Mundy of Middlesex County recalled:

The Colonel of the regiment received orders to take his regiment to Perth Amboy & cross over into Monmouth County to disarm certain disaffected persons in that county - immediately after  this service he was discharged with the rest by the Colonel, their term of service expired.

Isaac Vrendenburgh, also from Middlesex County, corroborated Mundy’s account, “by request of our Colonel crossed over at Amboy and proceeded to Monmouth County where we apprehended a large body of Tories and Refugees, and were then discharged."

Two Monmouth County members of Forman’s regiments, David Baird and James Johnson, also recalled the campaign. Baird recalled returning home where his company "made many prisoners of the Tories and sent them to Philadelphia." Johnson recalled that the regiment "took something like 100 Tories… and sent them to Lancaster.” The prisoners sent to Lancaster continued to Frederick, Maryland.

Forman only sent a short report on the campaign to George Washington. In it, he noted breaking up a Loyalist ring led by William Taylor. He reported that "[We] took nearly 100 of his friends and relatives, who were removed 300 miles to Fredericktown, Maryland, and there confined to jail. Taylor himself, however, had previously escaped." It is unclear why some of the Loyalist prisoners were sent all the way to Frederick while others remained in Philadelphia.

Charles Read’s Campaign

Concurrent with Forman’s campaign, the New Jersey Government ordered four militia companies into Monmouth County under Colonel Charles Read of Burlington County (two of the four companies were from Burlington). They were to arrest Loyalist insurrectionaries. Read had led a similar campaign against Upper Freehold Loyalists in July. While Forman seems to have focused on Loyalists in Freehold and Middletown townships, Read made 70 arrests in Shrewsbury Township.  A Loyalist newspaper, New York Gazette & Weekly Mercury, reported on Read’s campaign:

About 70 men were taken up in Shrewsbury in New Jersey by the rebels and sent as prisoners to the Burlington goal, where they suffer in a very cruel manner; they were paraded through the country, pinioned with ropes around their necks, and often tied to fences like horses, when their leader chose to make a halt.

It is possible that Read’s captures were the rank and file of Samuel Wright’s Loyalist Association since two of Wright’s men were captured and named names immediately prior to Read’s arrival.

As for Read, the arrest of the Shrewsbury Loyalists was his last act in the service of the Continental cause. An antiquarian source claims that Read and Forman had a tense meeting during which Forman demanded that Read sign a loyalty oath to the New Jersey and Continental governments. Read refused and joined the British shortly after that.

Forman’s regiment dissolved on December 1. The regiment would not be available to check the next wave of Loyalist insurrections that would soon flame up in Upper Freehold, Freehold and Middletown, and along the shore. These would be far more formidable than the localized associations toppled by Forman and Read.

Related Historic Sites: Fort Frederick (Maryland)

Sources: Rutgers University, Special Collections, Loyalist Compensation Applications, Coll. D96, PRO AO 13/109, reel 8 and D96, PRO AO 13/112, reel 10; Jones, E. Alfred. The Loyalists of New Jersey, (Newark, N. J. Historical Society, 1927) p 241. Gregory Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution (Westport, Conn. and London, 1984), p 906. Rutgers University Special Collections, Great Britain Public Record Office, Loyalist Compensation Claims, D96, AO 13/112, reel 12; National Archives, Revolutionary War Veterans' Pension Application, Samuel Mundy of NJ, www.fold3.com/image/#25890437; William Horner, This Old Monmouth of Ours (Freehold: Moreau Brothers, 1932) p 213; John Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1932) vol. 6, p 307; The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 8, 6 January 1777 – 27 March 1777, ed. Frank E. Grizzard, Jr. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998, p. 467; National Archives, Revolutionary War Veterans Pension Applications, New Jersey - David Baird; Library of Congress, NY Gaz & Weekly Mercury, reel 2904; Carl Prince, Papers of William Livingston (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987) vol. 1, p 193; National Archives, Revolutionary War veterans Pension Applications, New Jersey - James Johnson; Franklin Ellis, The History of Monmouth County (R.T. Peck: Philadelphia, 1885), p228; William Dwyer, The Day is ours! - November 1776 January 1777: An Inside View of The Battles of Trenton and Princeton (New York: Viking Press, 1983) p 38.