Monmouth County's 3rd Court of Oyer and Terminer

On July 27, 1779, Monmouth County convened its third Court of Oyer and Terminer. Courts of Oyer and Terminer were special courts that convened episodically to hear cases that were particularly serious or politically charged. Monmouth County’s 1st Court of Oyer and Terminer convened in January 1778 and heard many cases related to the Loyalist insurrections of December 1776. In keeping with sentencing precedents established by New Jersey’s Council of Safety in 1777, the punishment meted by this court were generally mild. There were no capital convictions.

The 2nd Court of Oyer Terminer convened in late May 1778 just two days after a Loyalist raided the village of Middletown Point, killed three militiamen, and carried off John Burrowes, Sr., one of the county’s leading supporters of the Revolution. On top of that, the court convened as anticipation was building that the British Army would soon leave Philadelphia and march through Monmouth County on its way to New York. This court was likely influenced by popular passions (courts of the era often attracted unruly crowds). The punishments meted out at the second court were markedly more severe and included six executions.

Monmouth County’s 3rd Court of Oyer and Terminer

The 3rd Court of Oyer and Terminer convened while the New Jersey Chief Justice position was vacant. New Jersey’s first Chief Justice, Robert Morris of New Brunswick, had resigned on June 10 (the same date that a punishing Loyalist raid decimated the village of Tinton Falls) and Morris went to Tinton Falls to help rally the villagers. The Chief Justice commonly joined local judges in administering Courts of Oyer and Terminer, but New Jersey had no Chief Justice as the Court convened. William Smith (not the Loyalist Chief Justice in New York of the same name, but an Associate Justice of the State’s Supreme Court), went to Freehold to convene the court with the local judges.

There, Smith was joined by David Brearley, an Allentown lawyer who had been serving in the Continental Army before leaving the Army on July 2. Brearley would become New Jersey’s second Chief Justice, but the details of his appointment were still being worked out when the court convened (Brearley hoped to retain his Army commission while serving on the Court, but neither the State nor the Continental Congress would authorize this arrangement). Brearley would later report to George Washington that his first day as Chief Justice of New Jersey was August 1, four days into Monmouth County’s 3rd Court of Oyer and Terminer.

As the court convened, key officials were deeply impacted by recent wartime events. Sheriff Nicholas Van Brunt’s brother, Major Hendrick Van Brunt, had been taken prisoner by Loyalists during the raid against Tinton Falls six weeks earlier; Judge John Longstreet’s home was burned by Loyalist raiders two months earlier. Judge John Anderson was embroiled in a growing dispute for upholding seizure of fabrics by Major Elisha Walton of the Freehold militia from two Middletown residents (despite evidence that Walton tampered with the six-man jury that heard the case). The seizure would ultimately be reversed by David Brearley’s New Jersey Supreme Court.

The 3rd Court of Oyer and Terminer heard 129 total indictments, more than either of the prior courts. Sixteen indictments had the potential for capital convictions: three people were charged with high treason, nine were charged with murder, and four were charged with robbery.

With respect to the High Treason cases, Joseph Stockton Nicholson was found guilty, but was permitted to “invoke an act of grace.” Acts of grace were granted occasionally to men of stature who confessed to the crime and showed contrition. New Chief Justice David Brearley apparently supported leniency for Nicholson. Two months later, the New Jersey Legislative Council, the Legislature’s Upper House, recorded receiving two petitions and “a letter from the Chief Justice in favor of Joseph Stockton Nicholson, lately convicted of High Treason in the County of Monmouth, recommending him as a proper object to be pardoned." The Council asked Governor William Livingston to pardon Nicholson on the condition that he sign a loyalty oath and agree never to return to Monmouth or Middlesex counties.

The other men charged with High Treason were Thomas Thomson and Chrineyonce Van Mater. Thomson was a prosperous Upper Freehold farmer who had been arrested in 1777 for disaffection and compelled to take a loyalty oath in May 1779. His treasonable offense is unknown, but he was found not guilty. Chrineyonce Van Mater was active in the Freehold-Middletown Loyalist insurrection of December 1776. He guided the British party that captured Richard Stockton and John Covenhoven, two of New Jersey's leading statesmen. He went behind British lines and participated in violent incursions into Monmouth County. Van Mater was captured and briefly jailed in 1778, but freed by the British Army when it occupied Freehold the day before the Battle of Monmouth. While it is likely that there was considerable evidence to support a High Treason conviction, Van Mater was found not guilty. He would remain active in the local war after his acquittal.

The men charged with murder included Samuel Wright, who formerly led a Loyalist association that was broken up in late 1776. Wright and a few others tried murder—William Van Note, Jacob Van Note, Elijah Groom—can be tied to Pine Robber activity. Other men charged with murder were Aaron Brewer Jr, Joseph Bennett, Thomas Bennett, and Dennis Hurlehoy. The disposition of these cases is not known, but if there were multiple death sentences, they would have been reported in the New Jersey Gazette as it was with other Courts of Oyer and Terminer.

The men tried for robbery were Elijah Groom (a former New Jersey Volunteer and member of Jacob Fagan’s Pine Robber gang), William Hankins (who was found not guilty), James Buckalew and Isaac Smith. Beyond Hankins, the outcomes of their cases are not known. Hankins subsequently collaborated with Colonel Samuel Forman in capturing Pine Robbers. Forman wrote to Governor Livingston about him in April 1780:

There is one William Hankins, who was convicted of High Treason in this country & escaped from goal - has several times discovered himself & offers to betray a number of those wood rangers that has struck terror to the country, on condition of being pardoned.

Six Monmouth Countians were charged with assault. One, Philip Milligan, was found guilty of "assault of with intent to ravage" and sentenced to one hour at the public pillory. William McMurray was also charged with assault. It is unclear what the Court of Oyer and Terminer decided, but the case was re-heard by the Supreme Court soon after. McMurray was charged with acting "with force and arms… in and upon Benjamin Parker… did make an assault” during which he “did beat and ill-treat & other wrongs."

Other assault charges were against local leaders. David Rhea, the county’s agent for the Continental Army Quartermaster, had two counts of assault against him and was found guilty on at least one count because he was fined £20. His counterpart from the Army’s Commissary Department, John Lloyd, was also found guilty of assault and fined £6. Finally, Elias Longstreet, who had raised the first Continental Army company from Monmouth County in January 1776, was also charged with assault—the outcome of his case is not known.

The remaining felony charges were against John Alward, who was indicted for deceit, and Peter Stillwagon, William Woodcock, and Richard Jackson were indicted for larceny. The outcome of their cases is not known.

There were 105 misdemeanor indictments against 102 individuals (Samuel Dennis, Elizabeth Fisher, and Oliver Talman were indicted twice). Joseph Wardell, a disaffected Shrewsbury squire, received a massive L500 fine. Joseph Davis and Walter Curtis were fined £150 each. Two other men were fined £100, Peter Wardell and William Williams. Sarah White was also fined £100—the largest fine put on a woman. Eleven other women were indicted: Elizabeth Fisher (2 counts, fined L40), Sarah Dennis (fined £20), Elizabeth Parker, Elizabeth Wardell, Deborah Leonard, Ann Garvey, Elizabeth DeBow, Valerie Mount, Margaret Mount, Deborah Talman, and Lydia Corlies. With the exception of the fine against Joseph Wardell, the fines meted out by the 3rd Court of Oyer and Terminer were in keeping with those of the 2nd Court of Oyer and Terminer. As noted in prior articles, unnamed misdemeanor charges generally related trading illegally with the British or going behind enemy lines to visit with Loyalist kin.

The court also moved against two constables who did not attend the court. Nathan Davis (Shrewsbury) and John Southard (Stafford) were fined £50 for not attending—a larger amount than the majority of criminal fines. Similarly, twenty jurors were fined £30 for not attending jury duty. The large fines show a newfound willingness of judges to move against citizens who neglected their duty but were otherwise supporting the Revolutionary government.

Perspective

The circumstances surrounding the 3rd Court of Oyer and Terminer were as grim as those surrounding the 2nd Court of Oyer and Terminer fourteen months earlier. Despite this, the 3rd Court of Oyer and Terminer stepped back from the capital convictions of the 2nd Court, and the 3rd Court, for the first time, took meaningful actions against supporters of the Revolution who had broken the law or shirked the responsibilities of their office. It cannot be proven that David Brearley, as the new Chief Justice and a Monmouth Countians, caused this correction, but it is probable. What is clear is that the 3rd Court of Oyer and Terminer moved toward a more impartial adherence to the law and away from the passions of the crowd.

Related Historic Site: Monmouth County Historical Association

Sources: New Jersey State Archives, Judicial Records, Court of Oyer & Terminer, box 2, folder - July 1779;

New Jersey State Archives, Supreme Court Records, #37083; Samuel Forman to William Livingston, New Jersey State Archives, William Livingston Papers, reel 11, April 7, 1780; David Bernstein, Minutes of the Governor's Privy Council, 1777-1789 (Trenton: New Jersey State Library, Archives and History Bureau, 1974) p 126; Adelberg, Michael, Biographical File (on file at the Monmouth County Historical Association).