Monmouth Loyalists Seek to Come Home

In spring 1782, the British ceased offensive military operations in America and drydocked the Loyalists who raided into New Jersey (including Monmouth County). It was now understood that the British were preparing to leave and American independence would be recognized. In New Jersey, where outages like the hanging of Joshua Huddy (April 12) were still fresh, thoughts turned to Loyalists returning home—and making it clear that they were unwelcome.

On June 3, Governor William Livingston addressed the New Jersey Assembly on the return of Loyalists. He called for a law barring the return of Loyalists because they would be a burden on society and work against the civic culture "by increasing the number of our disaffected, which themselves is already capable of great mischief." Livingston also worried that returning refugees will "to the last degree, disgust our Loyal citizens" creating public safety problems.

The Assembly referred the matter to a committee and declined to act on the Governor’s recommendations. The topic of Loyalist reintegration was discussed through summer in the Continental Congress. Two members of Congress, Edmund Pendleton and James Madison, wrote on the topic, with Pendleton noting on September 9, "the inhabitants of New Jersey must possess the keenest resentments." Members of Congress were learning that the emerging peace treaty would include language about Loyalists returning home and receiving restitution for lost property.

New Jersey Whigs Oppose the Return of Loyalists

Newspapers and other public documents made it clear that many New Jersians were not ready to reconcile. In April 1783, the New Jersey Gazette printed "A last advice to the Tories and Refugees in New York: Poor, unhappy, deluded and infatuated people.” The advice from “a sturdy Whig” included these questions that Loyalists should ask themselves before returning to New Jersey:

If your King has no mercy upon you, after all your faithful service, how can you expect that from your enemies? Consider what courts you are to be tried [if you return]; who are the juries to try you and who your prosecutors? Are they not, to a man, determined Whigs? Have they not all suffered and been injured by you?

Loyalists were urged to leave the United States and not come back:

You have an opportunity to save yourself from the vengeance of an incensed country; save yourself from the trouble and painful talk of punishing... Go off in the first ships. Here you cannot live, your friends cannot help you. A cold Congressional recommendation cannot save you. You showed no mercy to your country and you will have judgment without mercy.

And the essay closed with a violent threat: “I give you earnest counsel. If you do not take it, your blood will be on your own heads."

The New Jersey Journal printed its own anti-Loyalist essay, which concluded:

We deem it an act of humanity in order to prevent the effusion of blood to caution all persons within British lines who may have taken an active part in the cause of Great Britain not to return among the citizens of America: They may rely upon it that nothing can save them from retaliation for the many cruelties wantonly exercised in the cause of the war.

Monmouth Countians Threaten Returning Loyalists

As noted in a prior article, 253 Monmouth Countians joined an “Association to Oppose the Return of Tories” in 1783. Some of those same men signed a June 1783 petition for the same purpose:

Whereas a number of inhabitants of this County, during this past war with Great Britain, deserted their country and joined the Enemy, and now, on the return of peace, will in all probability attempt to return back to the Country they for a number of years endeavored to destroy and ruin - Your petitioners are of the opinion they will rather be a pest & disturbance, and perhaps destroy the blessings which are usually consequent to peace.

The 112 petitioners requested “that no indulgence may be granted to any person or persons coming from the enemy” and that “they not be suffered to return amongst us nor have any restoration of property.” However, unlike the Retaliators, this association pledged to follow the law and comply with “the forthcoming articles of peace.” The petitioners included several of the most important Whigs from Monmouth County:

Judge Peter Covenhoven

Legislator Thomas Seabrook

Magistrate Peter Schenck

Sheriff John Burrowes Jr.

Col. Daniel Hendrickson

Col. Asher Holmes

Maj. Thomas Hunn

Capt. Barnes Smock

Capt. Samuel Carhart

Capt. Moses Shepherd

Capt. John Schenck

Capt. Stephen Fleming

That same month, Monmouth County’s three delegates to the Assembly—Thomas Henderson, John Covenhoven, Daniel Hendrickson—advertised in the New Jersey Gazette about a false report “being industriously circulated through different parts of the state designed by some to lessen our reputation as zealous and uniform friends of the independence of America.” The report apparently claimed that the three delegates “did move to bring into this House a bill for the purpose of reinstating the refugees and Tories in the full enjoyment of their estates." Fourteen colleagues in the Assembly affirmed that the report was false. The allegation that Loyalist property might be restored was so inflammatory that the delegates needed to publicly disavow it.

Throughout the 1780s, Monmouth Countians repeated their strong opposition to Loyalist reintegration.  In August 1784, a “letter from Monmouth” was printed in Philadelphia and Boston newspapers. The author describes the suffering of good Whigs while Loyalists were returning home comfortably:

In all this time of difficulty to the officer, soldier, and Whig citizen, who are next to begging for their bread in the place they saved, the prescribed traitor, the murderous refugee, and the double-faced trimmer, with all the scum and refuse of the Continent, we hear, are living comfortably, and following the business of advancing the interests of their families among you without intervention.

The author then called for vigilante violence now in the interest of avoiding more bloodshed later:

Remember that a little uncommon conduct now will contribute to your peace and save you from committing more at a future date. I hear some sly scoundrel call this violence, let that be so and let Whigs always consider that violence, and not law, brought about this glorious revolution, and that the majesty of the people can never be supported without a little of this blessed ingredient.

As late as April 1787, petitioners from Monmouth County felt a need to restate their opposition to Loyalists (labeled "atrocious monsters of wickedness" in the petition) returning to the United States.

Acts Against Loyalists

Indeed, there is evidence of vigilante violence against Loyalists after the war. Historian David Fowler described three acts of retribution against Pine Robbers:

• Sylvester Tilton of Stafford Township, after being wounded by John Bacon’s Pine Robber gang in late 1781, hunted down one of those Pine Robbers and gave him "an unmerciful beating."

• Rueben Soper, also of Stafford (whose brother had been killed by Bacon), located Bacon’s guide William Wilson at Long Branch. Wilson was given "a sound thrashing" and thrown in a pond.

• Pine Robber, Stephen West, was hunted down and killed by a Continental Army veteran whose father's farm was burned during war.

Even Pine Robber-allies with some wealth—such as boat owner William Dillon of Toms River—suffered after the war. 1791 court records list Dillon as an "absconded debtor" defaulted on nineteen debts. To fail so badly, it is probable that vengeful neighbors seized his boat and other property. Most acts of vengeance, such as those likely taken against Dillon, went undocumented.

Loyalists Trickle into Monmouth County

For all of the vigor devoted to keeping Loyalists from returning, some did. Noncombatants were most likely to come home successfully. On April 3, 1783, the Shrewsbury Friends (Quakers) re-admitted the family of Samuel Deloplane from New York. On August 18, George Washington vouched for the return of another Loyalist, Timothy Mount “late from Monmouth in N. Jersey State, but some time residing in the City of N. York” because of his “particular services to many of the suffering citizens of these States.” Presumably, Mount, though a Loyalist, assisted prisoners during the war. Washington wrote:

Hereby permitted to return to the place of his former abode, and is hereby recommended to His Excels the Governor and the people of the State of N Jersey; with my wish that he may be received to the favor of his fellow citizens, as his merits appear to deserve it.

The inoffensive Loyalist, William Opey, was turned out of Monmouth County. In October 1785, Opey was examined by local officials at Amboy. Before the war, he had lived (likely as a sailor) at Amboy, Woodbridge, and Mt. Pleasant (in Middletown Township). When the war began, he went to Staten Island. After the war, he returned to New Jersey, “traveling throughout different parts without obtaining settlement in any part… rambling about place to place." No longer drawing a British pension after they quit New York, Opey requested poor relief at Middletown. But Hendrick Hendrickson, Middletown’s magistrate, sent Opey to Amboy with a note from David Forman and Elisha Lawrence stating that Opey did not reside two years continuously at Mt. Pleasant and therefore was not deserving of relief.

Fowler notes that the Loyalists of the Giberson family went to Canada after the war, but Gilbert Giberson returned home in 1786, apparently without incident. The notorious William Giberson waited until 1790 to return to New Jersey. When he did return, he re-settled near Little Egg Harbor, arguably the most disaffected area of the state.

Loyalist combatants took a considerable risk returning home. John Wardell "was very active in taking submission of the inhabitants” during the Loyalist insurrections of 1776. Wardell spent the war in New York City. He returned to Monmouth County in 1783 and attempted to recover his confiscated estate but received a rough reception:

Being informed by Governor Livingston and the rulers of the province, that the penal laws were yet in effect against Loyalists who had adhered to the British, Your Memorialist was therefore apprehended by a party of armed men who insulted him and abused him much, and obliged him to leave the province.

In June 1784, according to an article in the New Jersey Gazette, Thomas Crowell and Elias Barnes, attempted to return to Woodbridge. Crowell (formerly of Middletown) had been a captain in the hated Associated Loyalists. The article stated that “Thomas Crowell and Elias Barnes exhibited their well known faces at Woodbridge, a village about five miles distant from Amboy, where Barnes had purchased a place.” Once recognized, a mob formed. The newspaper is not specific about what the mob did to Crowell and Barnes but an antiquarian source claims they were tarred and feathered and forced to flee.

Ezekiel Forman, a Loyalist whose family connections led to two pardons after felony convictions (once for High Treason) resettled in Monmouth County after the war. But he lived on a small estate and likely returned to British lines after a few years. Another Loyalist from a prominent family was the infamous Loyalist partisan, Chrineyonce Van Mater. He attempted to return home after going to Canada. A report in the Middlesex Gazette noted that in January 1787:

Apprehended, lurking at his father's house, the very active and noted Refugee, Chrineyonce Van Mater, lately from Shelburne, and much noted during the war for burning and plundering without the lines of the Enemy at New York. There had been a forty dollar reward for him which was punctually paid by the high sheriff to his two captors. He is at present committed on the charge of High Treason and has been refused bail.

Van Mater’s fate is unknown, but the article noted that the Van Mater family had retained “a number of lawyers… to plead on his behalf at the next supreme court."

Perspective

Historian Robert Calhoon noted that in areas of the United States wracked by civil warfare, reintegration of Loyalists and erasing local resentments "was a century-long rather than a decade-long process." Indeed, most Monmouth Countians were likely against reconciliation. This put them at odds with Article V of the Treaty of Paris which stated that Congress "shall earnestly recommend" that the States:

Provide for restitution of all estates, rights, and properties which have been confiscated; [Loyalists] shall have free liberty to go to any part of the thirteen United States, and therein to remain for twelve months unmolested in their endeavors to obtain the restitution… All persons who have any interest in confiscated lands, either by debts, marriage settlements or otherwise, shall meet with no lawful impediment in the prosecution of their rights.

While Congress made these recommendations to the New Jersey Legislature, the request for leniency fell on deaf ears in most of New Jersey. In Monmouth County, it can be safely assumed that vigilante violence was more common than the peaceful accommodation for known Loyalists.

With reintegration difficult and no restitution for their confiscated estates, most Loyalists remained dependent on the British. They were resettled in Canada and many were eventually compensated for their lost estates by the British government. This is the topic of another article.

Caption: The Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War. In the treaty, Congress promised restitution and protection for Loyalists. In war-torn Monmouth County, Loyalists were often treated harshly.

Related Historic Site: Independence Hall

Sources: The Library Company, New Jersey Votes of the Assembly, June 3, 1782, p 22; New Jersey Gazette, April 16, 1783; Edmund Pendleton to James Madison, The Papers of James Madison (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977) vol. 5, p 109; Journal of the Continental Congress, Library of Congress, p152 (http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?hlaw:13:./temp/~ammem_ygyz::); John Wardell’s Application, Rutgers University, Special Collections, Loyalist Compensation Applications, Coll. D96, PRO AO 13/112, reel 11; Edwin Salter, Old Times in Old Monmouth (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1970) p 46-7; Swarthmore College, Friends Historical Library, reel: MR Ph 585, Shrewsbury Meeting; David Fowler, egregious Villains, Wood Rangers, and London Traders (Ph.D. Dissertation: Rutgers University, 1987) p 277-9; Library of Congress, New Jersey Journal reel 1930 (mistakenly included on film with NJ Gazette, next to NJ Gazette March 19, 1783); New Jersey Gazette, April 16, 1783; Petition, New Jersey State Archives, Collective Series, Revolutionary War Documents, #132; George Washington to Timothy Mount, Library of Congress, George Washington, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mgw:@field(DOCID+@lit(gw270137)); Fowler cites from John C. Paterson, The Pine Robbers of Monmouth County, unpublished manuscript in the collection of the Monmouth County Historical Association, 1834, p 5; Calhoon writing in Jack Greene, The American Revolution: Its Character and Limits (New York: New York University Press, 1989) p 69; New Jersey Gazette, July 5, 1784; Continental Journal (Boston), September 9, 1784; Honeyman, A. Van Doren, “Concerning the New Jersey Loyalists in the Revolution,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, vol. 51 (1933) p 123; Overseers of the Poor Collection, Folder: William Opey - Examination, Monmouth County Archives; David Fowler, egregious Villains, Wood Rangers, and London Traders (Ph.D. Dissertation: Rutgers University, 1987) p 135; Middlesex Gazette (Connecticut), February 19, 1787; Petition, New Jersey State Archives, Collective Series, Revolutionary War Documents, #147; Monmouth County Archives, Common Pleas (Loose).