Lt. Colonel Gurney's Campaign Against Monmouth Loyalists

On January 2, 1777, Pennsylvania troops, under Lt. Colonel Francis Gurney, routed the newly-raised Loyalist militia of Monmouth County in a short battle just east of Freehold. Yet even with the Loyalist militia scattered, other aspects of the embryonic Loyalist regime remained in place in Middletown and Shrewsbury—at least until Gurney toppled them.

Dispersing the Remaining Armed Loyalists

A week after the battle near Freehold, a group of armed Loyalists caught the attention of the Continental Army. On January 9, General Israel Putnam, stationed at Crosswicks, wrote: “The Tories of Monmouth County are again in arms, Col. Gurney marched today to suppress them; the militia of the neighborhood of Cranbury are embodied and impatient to join and assist them." Two days later, Putnam reported to Congress on the continued Loyalist threat:

The Tories of Monmouth are making great head, ravaging and plundering and disarming the well-affected inhabitants. I have sent off 200 men with Colonel Gurney, he will be joining some of the militia. I have no doubt of hearing of his success in a day or two.

The location of the armed Loyalists is not stated but it is probable that they were based near present-day Matawan. A Loyalist association led by the wealthy merchant Thomas Kearney was operating there. This part of Monmouth County was near the British Army base at Perth Amboy and there are mentions in antiquarian sources of a stockyard there for supplying the British. One of Gurney’s soldiers, Robert Strain, recalled seizing a ship, presumably near the stockyard. “They went to Middletown NJ where they took a prize supposed to be worth 100,000 pounds, and which supplied the whole army all winter."

Gurney likely scattered the Loyalists near Matawan and then moved on. By January 14, he was in Shrewsbury where he scattered another Loyalist party. He then wrote to Putnam to request a cannon and wagons:

I must beg you Immediately send me one field piece. I find the enemy have not got their vessels out of the creek [Shrewsbury River], and should the Artillery come in time have no doubt of taking them. We have more plunder or rather King’s stores than we can get wagons to carry off. I wish you would send forward all the wagons you can collect. I would advise a company to be sent to the Court House in order to press wagons and bring them down.

Gurney also warned about a future confrontation with Loyalists: “I am just now Informed that the Enemy have landed a party at Red Bank to the northward of Black Point, and am determined to march that way immediately with about one hundred men.” The next day, a party of Pennsylvanians under Colonel Richard Humpton chased a Loyalist group into a waiting boat. The Loyalists “were obliged to make a precipitate retreat on board the English men of war.”

The Curious Case of the Good Intent

Gurney also wrote the Pennsylvania Court of Admiralty (New Jersey lacked an Admiralty Court until 1778) a lengthy letter about the schooner, Good Intent, commanded by Captain Sands. The vessel was “employed to transport supplies to the Fleet and Army of the King of Great Britain” until it beached near Black Point. Gurney took possession of the vessel and claimed its cargo of sugar, spirits, and clothing as a “lawful Prize & Booty of War.” He asked the court to consider the capture so that it “may be adjudged and condemned as forfeited and a lawful Prize."

According to depositions taken by Gurney, the Good Intent went from Jamaica to Sandy Hook and communicated with the Light House. But it was too far away to be protected when a French privateer under Captain Morderet chased it. The Good Intent beached at Black Point. A sailor from the Good Intent testified:

That after landing they all went up to a small house & there slept that Night. That the next Day they applied to the Inhabitants for assistance and about eighty or a hundred came down for that Purpose & got on Shore a very considerable Part of the Cargo.

From Sandy Hook, the British saw the activity. They “sent a Tender & two armed Boats to prevent the same means from saving any more of the Cargo & Destroy the Vessel.” But the crew of the Good Intent and locals (many of whom were likely disaffected from Continental cause) now fought the British in order to preserve the valuable cargo and vessel. The sailor testified that the British “were beat off by the Americans. This deponent & two of the Crew took arms to assist in beating off the Enemy.”

With his vessel in the hands of Whigs, the owner of the Good Intent, D. Chenier, issued a public notice:

To all Persons whom it may or shall concern in the Monmouth County in the Jerseys, Be pleased to deliver Capt. Sands the sundry articles saved from the Schooner Good Intent cast on Shore from Jamaica as he commanded that Vessel.

The status of the Good Intent was not quickly decided. As late as 1779, the Pennsylvania Court of Admiralty was seeking to determine who was entitled to the vessel and its cargo. Benjamin Randolph, a merchant from Toms River, testified that he was releasing his claim to the vessel’s cargo, some of which was stored with him. Randolph suggested that he was the one who told Gurney of the vessel and Loyalist stores at Shrewsbury. Randolph also said he “went to Black Point, took some Prisoners & returning found some stores at the House of one Hartshorne [probably Esek Hartshorne].” Randolph suggested that the French privateer did not have a valid claim to the vessel because he accepted a lesser payment: ”While the wagons were loading, Morderet asked leave to put a little box of his on the wagons and go to Philadelphia and had leave.”

It is unknown whether the Good Intent and its cargo were condemned to Gurney, Sands, or Morderet. It is unlikely that Chenier received any compensation for the lost vessel. Like the Betsy, profiled in an earlier article, the Good Intent shows how complicated it was to determine ownership of captured vessels.

Capturing Loyalist Stores

While Gurney was at Shrewsbury, Col. Humpton’s Pennsylvania soldiers entered Monmouth County and seized Loyalist stores on January 15. The Pennsylvania Journal & Weekly Advertiser reported: “A party of Col. Humpton's Regiment… went to Shrewsbury in Monmouth, where they took a large quantity of cloth and other stores collected by a sett of Tories, who infest that county.”

Sergeant William Young, a prisoner of the British at Perth Amboy, reported on January 18: “Colonel Gurney has taken 90 baggage Wagons… 9 of the 90 wagons taken from the Enemy by Colonel Gurney are ammunition wagons.” General Putnam also wrote of Gurney’s windfall on the same day:

He has taken a good quantity of stores that were sent there for the Tories enlisted under Morris [John Morris] and Lawrence [Elisha Lawerence] – thirty-five wagon loads of which have arrived at Crosswicks, and the Col supposes that about one hundred wagon loads still remaining; he discovers more daily -- they chiefly consist of rum, wine, pork and broad cloth.  I have thought it best to let Lt. Col. Gurney stay down where he is, until the militia of that county are well-embodied, so as to be able to defend themselves.

On January 20, Putnam noted receiving three prisoners from Shrewsbury – two were junior officers in the New Jersey Volunteers, John Throckmorton and Charles Cook. The third was none other than Colonel Charles Read. Read was the Burlington County militia colonel who led campaigns against Upper Freehold Loyalists in July and Shrewsbury Loyalists in November. After being confronted by Monmouth County’s Colonel David Forman and refusing to take a loyalty oath to the Continental government, Read sought to go over to the British. But he was taken by the Continental Army and detained. Read had been “discharged on giving his word not to quit Phila without leave.”

Caesar Rodney at Trenton wrote on January 23 that Gurney had taken "a very large quantity of stores that were lodged there [Shrewsbury] and guarded by Skinner's Jersey Volunteers. Forty wagon loads of them arrived at Princetown, a great quantity of clothes and other English goods." The next day, General Putnam wrote Gurney about "Mr. Crane at Toms River” who “has collected a number of men and seized a quantity of wine.” Putnam asked Gurney to coordinate with Crane on the seizure.

The enthusiasm with which the Pennsylvanians confiscated goods placed them at odds with leading local Whigs at least once. On January 29, Gurney wrote Daniel Hendrickson, the colonel of the Shrewsbury militia: "I am sorry that your man did not stay by the wagon; there is not the least foundation for us keeping the wagon, and let it be found where it will; you shall not only have it and the horses, but be paid for the hire of the team." Gurney, it appears, seized Hendrickson's wagon and team by accident.

Gurney’s campaign was important enough to be reported in the newspapers of far-away cities. The Providence Gazette reported that “a party of our men under the command of General Putnam have taken 96 wagons at Monmouth, in New Jersey, loaded with baggage and belonging to the parcel of Tories." The Virginia Gazette half-correctly reported that Gurney “has retaken all the Hessian plunder which was stored at Shrewsbury meeting-house, with their clothes and necessaries, to the amount of 120 wagon loads." This report reveals that the Christ Church in Shrewsbury, a focal point of Loyalism before the war, remained so during the Loyalist insurrection.

An inventory of one of Gurney’s wagon trains was compiled by Captain Francis Wade, the newly-installed Continental Commissary at Allentown. The caravan carried: “55 barrels of fresh pork, 59 sacks of peas, 3 turces of rice, 1 half-pipe of wine, 7 casks of rum, 3 barrels of sugar, 1 cask of limes, 17 hatchets, 2 iron pots, 3 iron kettles, and a half cask of oil.” Its total value was £905. Wade also noted that 20 casks of rum had already "went forward by Colo. Humpton to Morristown" and one pipe of wine and sugar was sent ahead to Philadelphia.

The End of the Campaign

By the end of January, Gurney was back in Freehold. General Putnam wrote to Congress about the improved conditions in Monmouth County: "The affairs in Monmouth wears a favorable aspect. The people of that County will again return to their duties. Col. Forman is sent there to command and put them in proper state of defence."

Gurney’s campaign occurred without the Monmouth County militia, which had dissolved during the December Loyalist insurrections. But one Monmouth Countian, Dr. Nathaniel Scudder, was an important guide for Gurney. Scudder described his role:

I myself marched with them until the enemy was entirely dispersed & their stores at Middletown seized, when I was obliged to attend at Freehold, on both account of furnishing a team to haul them [Tory stores] off & endeavor to rally the militia of the county.

When Gurney left Monmouth County on February 5, Scudder wrote a thank you note that was printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette “expressing my gratitude to Col. Gurney” for his service in “a country where so many of the inhabitants were inimical to the cause.” Scudder continued:

I have the greatest reason to think the salvation of the property and security of the persons of many friends of freedom [are]… owed to the spirited exertions of the two detachments which marched into Monmouth. In short, those detachments have rescued the county from the tyranny of the Tories and put it in the power of their own militia to recover and embody themselves in such a manner as to be able to stand on their own defence.

Indeed, Gurney’s campaign was a great success. Monmouth County would never again have a Loyalist association capable of governing. Whether, as Scudder suggests, the Monmouth militia was ready to defend the county is another matter; the newly-reconstituted Monmouth militia would suffer its worst defeat of the war only a week later, at the Battle of the Navesink.

Related Historic Site: Christ Church

Sources: Letter, General Israel Putnam, January 9, 17777, viewed at http://www.fold3.com/image/#18947576 (original at the National Archives); National Archives, Revolutionary War Veterans' Pension Application, Thomas Brewer of PA, www.fold3.com/image/#10976408; Samuel Hazard, Pennsylvania Archives (Harrisburg: State of Pennsylvania, 1902) First Series, vol. 4, p 771; Francis Gurney vs. The Schooner Good Intent, Tam Ploy Claimant, Register of the Court of the Admiralty of State of Pennsylvania, Jan. 28, 1779, transcribed by Michael White; William Horner, This Old Monmouth of Ours (Freehold: Moreau Brothers, 1932) p 386; Pennsylvania Archives, Papers Relating to the War of the Revolution,1859, v 3, p89; Pennsylvania Archives, Series 1, Vol V, p186; Francis Gurney vs. The Schooner Good Intent, Tam Ploy Claimant, Register of the Court of the Admiralty of State of Pennsylvania, Jan. 28, 1779, transcribed by Michael White; Archives of the State of New Jersey, Extracts from American Newspapers Relating to New Jersey (Paterson, NJ: Call Printing, 1903) vol. 1, p 277; Letters of William Young, The Pennsylvanian Magazine of History And Biography. Vol.VIII, 1884, p269; National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, reel 178, item 159, #35; Pennsylvania Archives, Series 2, Vol I, pg 496;  Caesar Rodney, Letters to and from Caesar Rodney 1756–1784, ed. George Herbert Ryden (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1933), pp. 170-1; Israel Putnam to Francis Gurney, Neilson Family Papers, box 1, folder: Rutgersania, Rutgers University Special Collections; Rutgers University Special Collections, Francis Gurney to Daniel Hendrickson, Hendrickson Papers, box 2; Providence Gazette, February 1, 1777; Virginia Gazette, February 7, 1777; 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, pp. 185–186; Francis Wade, Inventory, Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/P?mgw:7:./temp/~ammem_XXqo::; Pennsylvania Archives, Series I, v5, p209; David Fowler, Egregious Villains, Wood Rangers, and London Traders (Ph.D. Dissertation: Rutgers University, 1987) p 49; Gaillard Hunt, Fragments of Revolutionary History (Brooklyn: Historical Publishing Club, 1892) pp. 112-5; Pennsylvania Gazette, February 17, 1777 (CD-ROM at the David Library, #23302).