Monmouth Leaders Split as David Forman Re-Emerges

Prior articles showed that, at times, there were bitter disputes between Monmouth County’s Revolutionary Era leaders. For example, the county’s 1777 election was voided by the state legislature after Colonel David Forman, backed by armed men, “harangued” the election-day crowd with accusations about the incumbents he was campaigning against. In January 1779, the Freehold township magistrate, Peter Forman, sent a militia party to seize the grain and hay of Benjamin Van Cleave of Middletown after Van Cleave refused to sell provisions to the county’s Quartermaster agent, David Rhea (also of Freehold). Middletown’s magistrate, Peter Schenck, was outraged that Forman had sent men into his township to take provisions that had been set aside for poor relief.

The seizure of goods from two other Middletown farmers would stoke divisions within Monmouth County again in April 1779.  A quantity of silks taken from John Holmes and Solomon Ketchum (Middletown) by Elisha Walton (Freehold) led to the famous New Jersey Supreme Court case, Holmes v Walton, in which the Supreme Court overturned the seizure because the October 1778 law allowing it was held unconstitutional. Seizures of vessels by militia units also stoked tensions, as out of area militia often clashed with locals over claims to a vessel. Initial decisions were appealed to the Supreme Court on the likelihood of reversal. A December 1779 petition signed by 120 Monmouth Countians complained that:

A quantity of goods was taken, condemned and sold pursuant to the law to the amount of five thousand pounds and the money is in the hands of the officers on duty, ready to divide amongst the men pursuant to the law had not the Judges of the Supreme Court advised the commanding officer stationed at this place not to suffer any dividend to be made of the prize money until the next Supreme Court. The withholding of the money from the men has almost raised a mutiny.

The petitioners, mostly from but not entirely from Freehold Township, claimed that they might stop serving on the shore if denied quick access to prize vessels by shore township magistrates:

We serve on a frontier county and we believe there will be frequent actions to call out the militia in that time - a great number declare they will not turn out at a future call unless they are allowed to have the benefit of such prizes as the law directs.

The various disputes between supporters of the Revolution (they called themselves “Whigs”) had two commonalities. First, they pitted Whigs who were willing shelve the legal rights of individuals in the interest of more vigorously prosecuting the war (Machiavellian Whigs) against those who believed that individual legal rights needed to be protected, even if it made the prosecution of the war more difficult (Due Process Whigs). Second, while there were exceptions, there was a geographic dimension to the division. The leaders from the inland townships of Freehold and Upper Freehold tended to be Machiavellian Whigs. Those in the shore townships—particularly Middletown and Shrewsbury—tended to be Due Process Whigs. (It appears that majorities in the lower shore townships of Dover and Stafford were disaffected.)

Struggling to Govern a War-torn, Divided County

Aggravating the division between Monmouth County’s Whigs was the inability of county leaders to effectively govern. Evidence of ineffective governance shows up in many places—court dockets show jurors skipping jury duty and constables skipping courts; taxes were inconsistently collected from disaffected neighborhoods; militia delinquency was common in those same neighborhoods and fines for delinquency were ineffective until 1780.

The county’s roads were unsafe and poorly maintained. This prompted Elias Boudinot, on behalf of the State, to file an extraordinary “nuisance” lawsuit against the county’s Overseers of the Highways before the Supreme Court in 1780. As a result: Hendrick Hendrickson of Middletown Township was required to post a £50 bond "certifying that the roads and highways will be cleared & repaired." The same bonds were required of Elisha Lawrence and Abiel Aiken for the roads of Upper Freehold and Dover townships. Thomas Little of Shrewsbury posted a bond to clear and repair "the road leading from Freehold to Black Point, and also the road leading from the Falls to Squan bridge to Meteconk bridge." Denice Denise of Freehold Township posted a bond to repair "the road from Covenhoven's to Toms River." Monmouth leaders must have given Boudinot the information necessary to win these bonds before the Supreme Court (presided over by David Brearley, a “Due Process” Whig from Upper Freehold).

On March 19, 1780, James Mott, one of Monmouth County’s Assemblymen, spoke to that body on the mistreatment of David Morris by Machiavellian Whigs led by David Forman. Morris was a Continental Army soldier jailed in the county gaol at Freehold. In 1778, Morris defaulted on L10 debt to Peter Imlay (a state Admiralty Court judge). For defaulting, Morris was fined £50 more by Justice Thomas Forman. Morris joined Continental Army and sent his £10 recruitment bounty of Imlay to pay off his debt. He was apparently unaware of the additional fine against him. While home on furlough, Upper Freehold’s magistrate, William Tapscott, arrested Morris for not paying the fine. The Army demanded Morris's release and he returned to the Army without documentation or a decision about the unpaid fine. Mott publicly insulted the Machiavellian Whigs who oversaw the affair: "We have further information that he [Morris] is released from confinement, but by what authority, Mr. Forman could not say."

David Forman – Asher Holmes Rivalry

In mid-June 1780, a 150-man Loyalist raiding party launched a punishing raid against Middletown. The militia captured one of the raiders. David Forman, at Freehold, interrogated the prisoner. He wrote Governor William Livingston:

He confesses he is not a soldier - neither was he to receive any pay - that their sole business was to take a number of inhabitants from their houses and to plunder, & that the plunder was to be divided amongst them. The fact is they were probably a marauding gang.

Forman noted the longstanding British policy of executing “marauders,” men who committed violent acts outside of the chain of command. Forman concluded, “Some such example, I am sure, is necessary in this part of the country to deter that class of people, we can no longer be secure at night… If agreeable to the rules of war, prisoners taken in that way [must] be executed.”

Forman then turned then wrote Asher Holmes, commanding the militia and state troops on the Raritan Bayshore: "I did expect to receive from you the particulars of the Tory invasion" but did not, "consequently every question will be called as to their [Continental troops] necessity… I have reason to believe we shall in a few days have very few Continental troops."  Forman blamed Holmes for the departure of Continental troops from the county, presumably a reference to Major Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee’s dragoons, who were stationed in Monmouth County intermittently through 1779 and 1780.

However, Holmes had no duty to report to Forman. Forman was a Continental Army officer (who lacked a command), while Holmes was actively commanding the 1st Regiment of the Monmouth militia and county’s regiment of State Troops. Holmes’ chain of command went through the State’s militia generals, not Forman (who had resigned his militia commission three years earlier).

Forman’s dislike of Holmes was evident the following month when Forman criticized Holmes in a letter to George Washington. The specific issue was Holmes’s decision to conduct prisoner exchanges with the Loyalists, a practice that Forman believed encouraged additional “manstealings.” Forman wrote:

The militia here have lately entered into the exchange of prisoners taken when on duty, that the refugee parties take from their own houses or whilst about their usual business. The measure appears to me so replete with evil that I would be wanting in my duty should I pass it unnoticed... with every exchange made, we give encouragement to that British mode of manstealing, once gone into, will always enable them to hold a large ball of prisoners against us.

Forman’s dislike of prisoner exchanges continued. By September 1780, Forman was chairman of the vigilante group, the Association for Retaliation. In that role, Forman, issued "Retaliating Committee order no. 16" in which he queried Holmes for information about a potential prisoner exchange for Hendrick Smock:

Attending members of the Committee are informed that you [Holmes] have paroled a certain Mr. Williams to go to New York for the purposes of effecting an exchange for Capt. Hendrick Smock, a member of this Committee -- We hope the information is not true. -- If such parole is given and for the purpose aforesaid, we do conceive it counteracting the spirit of the Association [for Retaliation]. We are sorry to learn of your refusal to attend, after first a verbal request from a member, and afterward a note from the Chairman [Forman], without assigning any particular reason. Given the attending member's real concern -- we do therefore request your attendance, or that you assign the particular reason for refusing; and at the same time inform us whether the exchange is effecting for Capt. Smock.

It is unknown if Holmes responded, but as an extra-legal body, the Association for Retaliation had no legal authority to require a report from Holmes, much less direct his conduct.

Forman’s complaints about Holmes reached Governor Livingston, who must have inquired to Holmes about his conduct. Livingston’s letter has not survived, but it prompted a long and defensive reply from Holmes on December 12. First, Holmes defended his prisoner exchanges, claiming that they had been authorized by Livingston himself:

When I was last at Trenton, I informed your Excellency that one of our Commissaries of Prisoners had authorized me to exchange such prisoners of war as are taken here; your reply then was that every commanding officer had a right to exchange their own prisoners - If any exchange going through my hands had been deemed not advisable, I think it would have been consistent with those professions you are pleased to make in your letter to have mentioned [those] to me at that time.

Next, Holmes responded to Livingston about the rigor with which he was suppressing the London Trade on an unnamed point of land (which was likely Black Point, present-day Rumson):

The intercourse you are pleased to mention with the disaffected of this state, may perhaps exist in the imagination of some, altho’ not reality, for it being a narrow point of land, & the guards above them & scouts round the neighborhood was sufficient to prevent either intercourse or intelligence more than what they have any other time have. The situation of that place is such that the enemy can land there almost when they please (except when we have men on that spot), and the place is by no means safe or convenient to station a guard.

Finally, Holmes spoke to the controversy over William Odell, a Loyalist who had landed at Black Point to negotiate a prisoner exchange. Holmes addressed complaints over letting Odell stay at Black Point:

As to the censure of some of the Monmouth men I have incurred, your Excellency tells me it will give you particular pleasure to find it has originated from mistake, rather than being founded in reason... I have shown that those that commanded on this county before, allowed a Mr. Elliot and others from New York to come to Shrewsbury & Middletown to visit their acquaintances at these places, & pass through the troops then on duty without being under any restraints that I know of. - I suppose those gentlemen did not think it necessary to go to your Excellency with censure for that transaction & others of a similar nature.

Holmes further addressed an allegation that he was too friendly with Odell. Holmes called Odell, “a man I have never saw in my life… neither do I know anything more of his character than from common report.” He further reported that:

He came over with a flagg, with two of our officers that had been almost four years in captivity & obtained their paroles for a limited time, as their had been proposals of an exchange for those officers for some taken by the militia of this place, I know of nothing on Odell's character more obnoxious than other common enemies.

Finally, Holmes disputed an allegation that Odell was given access to the countryside. Holmes referred to Odell only being “permitted to stay at Black Point, or within half a mile of it, till an answer could be had from our commissary of prisoners respecting an exchange, & as soon as that was obtained they was soon off." Presumably, an exchange was not arranged.

The 1780 County Election

The animosity between the inland Machiavellian Whigs and Due Process Whigs reached a crescendo at the October 1780 County election. An argument broke out about whether to hold the polls open a second day to allow men serving in the militia along the shore to come and vote—a move that would boost votes for the Due Process Whigs (who lived further away from the county seat of Freehold). The polls were not held open; Assemblyman James Mott was then beaten by David Forman for protesting the closure. The scandalous election was nearly voided by the legislature and is the subject of another article.

At the next Court of Quarterly Sessions for Monmouth County, Forman pled guilty to assaulting Mott. Forman admitted that he "did beat, wound and ill-treat him." At the same court, William Van Cleave (from the family that had its rye and hay seized by Freehold Township magistrate, Peter Forman) pled guilty to assaulting Thomas Henderson, the former Freehold magistrate and ally of David Forman.

David Forman’s Re-Emergence

In 1777, David Forman was the Colonel of a regiment of Continentals and the general of the militias of Monmouth, Middlesex, and Burlington counties. Monmouth county’s civil government was virtually non-existent and Forman filled the power vacuum. However, Forman descended into a string of scandals that included hanging a Loyalist without a proper trial, using his troops as laborers at a salt work he co-owned, and intimidating voters at the county election. Forman resigned his militia commission rather than answer a summons from the New Jersey Legislature and George Washington relieved him of his Continental command in early 1778. After this, Forman retreated from public life.

In 1780, David Forman re-emerged as Monmouth County’s most visible leader. He did so in response to vindictive Loyalist man-stealing raids and frustrations that the county’s militia and state troops—led by Colonel Asher Holmes—were not aggressive enough in countering the challenge. Forman helped create and then led the Association for Retaliation, which according to historian, David Fowler, "functioned as a sort of parallel government.” Forman’s re-emergence also split open the simmering division between the county’s Machiavellian and Due Process Whig leaders. As Fowler noted, “The indiscriminateness of their [Retaliator] operations tended to alienate the moderate elements in the county, and thus serve to highlight tensions not only between Whigs and Tories but also among Whigs."

Related Historic Site: Victory Park, Rumson

Sources: Petition, New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives and History, Manuscript Collection, Manuscripts, box 14, #51; Elias Boudinot v Monmouth County Townships, New Jersey State Archives, Supreme Court Records, #38922; James Mott, presentation, The Library Company, New Jersey Votes of the Assembly, March 19, 1780, p 169; David Forman to Asher Holmes, Monmouth County Historical Association, Cherry Hall Papers, box 5, folder 9; David Forman to George Washington, Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, series 4, reel 68, July 12, 1780; Retaliating Order no. 16, Monmouth County Archives, Court of Quarterly Sessions, folder: 1780; Asher Holmes to William Livingston, New Jersey State Archives, William Livingston Papers, reel 13, December 12, 1780; David Fowler, "Furious Whig: A Biography of General David Forman of Monmouth County", unpublished manuscript.