William Marriner and John Schenck Raid Brooklyn, New York

Throughout the Revolutionary War, New York City was the hub for the British Army in America. To maintain the army, continuous re-supplying was necessary and most supplies entered New York Harbor via Sandy Hook. This created an opportunity for American sailors to prey on supply ships and boats in the narrow sea lanes that led into New York Harbor. State governments issued “Letters of Marque” that licensed ship captains to act as privateers with the ability to seize British and New York-bound vessels. But, along the Monmouth County shore, most of the maritime actions against the British were not conducted by licensed privateers.

As the war progressed, local boatmen went from opportunists preying on disabled ships to deliberate attackers of British assets. The first of these boatmen to launch a New Jersey Government-authorized attack behind British lines was Wiliam Marriner. Historian Richard Koke described Marriner as a shoemaker from New Brunswick, though some antiquarian sources suggest he lived as a boatman at Middletown Point. Marriner is also identified as a New Yorker in a 1778 letter. All might have been true: men in the maritime trades often changed vocation and location based on the season or opportunity.

The Marriner-Schenck Raid of Brooklyn

On May 21, 1778, the New Jersey Council of Safety authorized Marriner to lead a raid against Flatbush, Brooklyn, to capture prominent Loyalists:

Agreed, that William Marriner have permission to call upon… a number of volunteers & to proceed to Flatbush to bring off Mr. [Theophilus] Bache, Mr. [David] Matthews, Major [James] Moncrieffe and as many others as he shall think proper.

However, Marriner needed a party of volunteers to take this dangerous mission with him. The punishing raid against Middletown Point, in which Loyalists targeted and burned the vessels of boatmen, gave Marriner the volunteers he needed. Marriner teamed up with a Lieutenant of a local militia company, John Schenck; they, with twenty men, rowed through the night to Brooklyn in two barges.

The Marriner-Schenck raid of Brooklyn was anticipated by Colonel Matthias Ogden of the New Jersey Line. On April 9, he wrote George Washington:

I have received such certain intelligence of the situation of our Officers that are prisoners on Long Island [Brooklyn], that I think a landing might be effected there in the night, & that between twenty & thirty of our Officers might be brought off with very little risque—I would propose embarking with about thirty men in three row boats, at, or near Middletown Point, tis eighteen miles from thence to New Utrecht bay where I would land, from the place of landing to New Utrecht town is one quarter of a mile, I would there seize the small militia guard kept for the purpose of giving the alarm.

Ogden was never authorized to raid Brooklyn, but his plan likely circulated and promoted the idea of attacking Brooklyn from Middletown Point.

On June 11, the New Jersey Gazette reported briefly on the Marriner-Schenck raid against Brooklyn "from Middletown Point to Long Island in order to take a few prisoners from Flatbush.” They “returned with Major Moncrieffe and Mr. Theophilus Bache” and “four slaves and brought them to Princeton." The report noted that the raiders also went to the house of Mayor David Matthews, but he was in Manhattan, so he could not be taken. The New York Gazette, a Loyalist newspaper, corroborated this report and added the detail that the raiding party apparently plundered the house of William Nichol, Esq.

As the first raid of its type against Brooklyn, the Marriner-Scheck raid drew excited commentary. An anonymous New York Loyalist wrote:

It is perhaps the most extraordinary circumstance which ever took place: a party of men to land on a clear evening, pass five miles on a public road, by great numbers of houses, enter a town, take off two of the principal inhabitants and return and embark unmolested -- it is not a pleasant telling story.

Alexander Graydon, a captured Continental Army officer detained in Brooklyn, was freed by Marriner’s party. He wrote: “One Marriner… made a descent with a small party on the Island, with the view of getting Matthews in his clutches."  Marriner did not take David Matthews, but did capture Major Moncrieffe and Theophilus Bache. He also liberated Graydon and another officer, Colonel Forrest, "by means of his magical power.” Graydon said Marriner’s party "consisted of twenty militiamen, in two flat-bottomed boats.” Graydon further discussed Marriner’s raid and his risky escape:

At his landing on Long Island, he left his two boats under guard of five men, while he visited the interior; but these five men, hearing a fire, which was kept upon us by the Flatbush guard, concluded that Marriner was defeated and taken; so, without further ceremony, they took one of the boats and made their escape. The other boat, as we reached shore, was going adrift; we were much crowded into her, but it fortunately was very calm, otherwise we could not have weathered it.

Graydon claimed that Marriner previously had been captured and jailed in New York. He "had long been confined and cruelly used [by Matthews]… and knew him personally."

Nathaniel Scudder, a member of the Continental Congress but in Freehold at the time of the raid, reported on the raid to Elias Boudinot (the Commissary of Prisoners for the Continental government):

He [Marriner], with a party of Monmouth militia, last Saturday night passed over to Long Island, and surprised the town of Flatbush - brought off Major Moncrieffe and Theophilus Bache – a Continental Captain who was prisoner there, & 4 Negroes, without any loss on his side, having performed the whole movement in about ten hours. The Major and Mr. Bache are at Mr. Livingston's [Gov. William Livingston] in Princeton & really look silly enough.

The Brooklyn Loyalists, Bache and Moncrieffe, did not stay in Princeton for long. They were exchanged in July.

The success of the Marriner-Schenck raid led to similar actions later in the year. In September, a Monmouth militia captain, Samuel Carhart, led a small raid against Brooklyn in which he sacked the houses of two Loyalists, Jacob Carpenter and Wiliam Cook. In October, Marriner, now carrying a Letter of Marque from the State of New Jersey, led another raid against Brooklyn. He would again capture two prominent Loyalists. This raid and Marriner’s exploits as a privateer are the subject of another article.

Related Historic Site: The Lott House (Brooklyn, New York)

Sources: Anonymous Account in Richard J. Koke, "War, Profits, and Privateers Along the Jersey Coast," New York Historical Society Quarterly, vol. 41, 1957, p 295; Nathaniel Scudder to Elias Boudinot, Boudinot, J. J. (ed.). The Life, Public Service, Addresses, and Letters of Elias Boudinot, (New York: Da Capo Press, 1971) vol. 1, p 174; Matthias Ogden to George Washington, The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 14, 1 March 1778 – 30 April 1778, ed. David R. Hoth. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004, pp. 440–441; Minutes of the Provincial Congress and the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey 1775-1776 (Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 2009) p 239; Library of Congress, Early American Newspaper, New Jersey Gazette, reel 1930[ Kenneth Scott, Rivington's New York Newspaper: Excerpts from a Loyalist Press, 1773-1783 (New York: New York Historical Society, 1973) p 127; Archives of the State of New Jersey, Extracts from American Newspapers Relating to New Jersey (Paterson, NJ: Call Printing, 1903) vol. 2, p 320; Alexander Graydon, Memoirs of His Own Time: With Reminiscences of the Men and Events of the Revolution (Nabu Press, 2010) p316; Kenneth Scott, Rivington's New York Newspaper: Excerpts from a Loyalist Press, 1773-1783 (New York: New York Historical Society, 1973) p 152.