Monmouth Whigs Crack Down on London Traders

Illegal trade between Monmouth County farmers and British-held Sandy Hook and New York began with the British Army landing at Sandy Hook in 1776.  In December 1779, a Continental spy in New York observed that the city receives "regular supplies from Shrewsbury, Middletown and every other port of East Jersey." A string of Continental Army detachments stationed in Middletown and Shrewsbury Townships from July 1778 through the end of 1779 were unable to check this illegal trade. It was so pervasive it was called “the London Trade” by locals.

In May 1779, Monmouth Countians petitioned for a stricter law to crack down on the illegal trade from Monmouth County to New York. They set forth:

The dangerous consequences of the trade carried on with the enemy, complaining of delays, troubles and expenses captors are put to by the practice of re-levying the goods [that are] condemned and seized, and discouragements thence arising to the virtuous part of the community, encouragement thereby given to that destructive & illicit trade.

That same month, a large quantity of precious silk was seized from John Holmes and Solomon Ketchum by militia under Major Elisha Walton. While the goods were almost certainly illegally brought into the county, the goods were seized and condemned without a proper jury trial. In the case of Holmes v Walton, Holmes and Ketchum prevailed in court after demonstrating that the law authorizing the seizure of their goods denied them of their right to jury trial under the state’s constitution.

A prior article notes that the New Jersey Supreme Court tried 245 Monmouth County-related cases between 1776 and 1784. The majority of those cases (126) concerned charges related to crossing enemy lines or trading with the enemy. Appendix 1 of the article summarizes sixteen well-documented London Trading incidents from 1776 through the end of 1780, but this is only a small fraction of the total London Trade. The scope of illegal trade must have been enormous. In a prior study, the author documents that Monmouth County’s identifiable disaffected gained wealth during the Revolution at a greater rate than the general population. See table 13a. 

This demonstrates that London Trading, even with the risks it created, was more profitable than selling the same goods legally. It was inevitable that Whigs (supporters of the Revolution) would seek to crack down on the pervasive illegal trade.

David Forman Proposes Campaign against London Traders

In October 1780, Colonel David Forman wrote Governor William Livingston about the arrest of a London Trader named Foster who he had examined with Magistrate John Longstreet of Shrewsbury Township. Forman had visited the shore multiple times and was confident that he understood the shore region. He would boast to the captured London Trader Davies Fulsome in 1783 that, "he knows every part of it [the shore]." Forman then wrote of the imminent arrest of shore residents involved in the illegal trade:

I have obtained a warrant to have the traders there enumerated taken up -- the men are gone off for that purpose, Mr. Longstreet says they [are] bailable & has appointed Monday next to hear & do suppose [he will allow] bale for as many of them as can find security, it appears to me so happy an opportunity of giving a very serious check to the accursed traders.

Forman went on to describe the benefits of a second campaign to impound the goods of shore residents (the first campaign took 160 livestock in June):

Think this will be the critical season to give a wound to the trade with New York, and so favourable an opportunity offering of securing a number of traders that I do think it highly worthy of your immediate attention, both as to keeping them confined until they are tryed, and to fall on some way to immediately remove all articles of trade from off the lines. You will observe by Foster's testimony [that] a sloop load of Indian corn has already gone to market, a few days and all will be gone - nothing but an immediate exertion can prevent it. In Shrewsbury they have or have had a large quantity of cheese, pork & corn - beef & pork is dayly driven down the back roads to be shipped off.

Forman proposed confining the London Traders “all be confined until tryal - there being confined will I suppose strike a terror into others." However, trading with the enemy was a misdemeanor; so confining London Traders without offering bail was contrary to custom and, arguably, contrary to law. Forman explained that a draconian prosecution was needed to counter the high prices paid in New York as “these temptations are too much for the weak Whigs to withstand -- Tories want no temptation.”

Finally, Forman discussed the military weakness of the shore region: “At present there are no guards south of Middletown to prevent a free trade - when I say no guard, I would understand it to be no guard that attempts to mount on the sea shore." He noted eighteen State Troops deployed at Tinton Falls and the rest at Middletown, "by which means Shrewsbury is left open" He accused the remnants of Nathaniel Bowman’s command at Manasquan of colluding with London Traders: "evidence makes them traytors [sic], therefore only serve to make up the number of Continental pick pockets."

Given this weakness, Forman called for better supporting Captain Abraham Wooley’s “small volunteer scout made up of lads from this neighbourhood," but the Shrewsbury militia was wracked with delinquency. Therefore, Forman called for "a party of horse” to “make an excursion along shoar [sic] & destroy all small boats and at the same time seize all provisions.” He suggested “that business would require 100 horsemen, they could be raised in twenty four hours after the alarm was raised."

Forman’s letter was augmented by a petition from Monmouth County to the legislature about:

The many evil consequences flowing from the illicit trade carrying on with the enemy and the insufficiency of the laws as they now stand for preventing the same, by reason of the difficulty of convicting the persons engaged therein or intending to go into the enemy's lines while upon the shores, and by reason of the great disproportion between the penalty of the crime and the great profits arising from the said trade.

The petitioners called for a law “authorizing retaliation upon the disaffected… and also for punishing persons convicted of carrying provisions to the enemy with death, confiscation of property and banishment of their wives & children.” A second petition followed discussing "the defects of the laws preventing illicit trade with the enemy.” Forman and his allies had assembled a vigilante society, the Association for Retaliation, which had been denounced by the legislature; they were apparently seeking legalized retaliation against London Traders.

Crackdown on Monmouth County’s London Traders

On November 25, the New Jersey Assembly acted based on:

Information received that large quantities of provisions are collecting near the lines in the townships of Shrewsbury and Middletown, for the purpose of supplying enemies of the United States, and that provisions are daily conveyed from the said lines to the garrison at New York; and as the passing of a law to restrain this pernicious practice will take up more time than the present exigency can admit of; therefore, Resolved.

The Assembly ordered Major Elisha Walton to call up 100 militia to impound the goods of shore residents "as speedily as possible... [and] remove every article of provision or supply that can be spared from the necessities of the inhabitants." The order passed the Assembly 18-8 with support of Monmouth delegates - Thomas Seabrook, Thomas Henderson, and Nathaniel Scudder.

Two days later, the Legislative Council followed. It considered “that large quantities of provisions are collecting on or near the enemy lines in the townships of Shrewsbury and Middletown for the purposes of supplying enemies of the United States.” The Council noted that “passing a law to restrain and prevent this pernicious practice will take up more time than the present exigency can admit of." Therefore, the Council: "Resolved, Major Elisha Walton to call out 100 mounted men" to remove "every article of provision and supply that can be spared from the necessities of the inhabitants."

The Legislature’s interest in London Trading in Monmouth County was further stoked by a report published in the New Jersey Gazette on November 29:

A number of persons long suspected of carrying on an illicit trade and dangerous correspondence with the enemy (by way of Shrewsbury) and depreciating our money, were apprehended. On their examination by the President and Vice President [of the Continental Congress], invoices of goods were brought from New York, to a great amount, rates of depreciation, the routes and stages to the sea shore &c. were found upon them. It appeared also, that by these means, persons were conveyed privately to New York.

The report also discussed “a new scene of villainy, in carrying lumber to New York” and mentioned the same Continental soldiers at Manasquan that David Forman complained of a month earlier:

The following persons were committed, viz. Patrick Garvey, an assistant apothecary in the Continental service, who owns part of a boat employed at Squan and New York; Samuel Clark, living near Princeton, who long followed this trade; Joshua Bunting, whose house was one of the stages; Joseph Cummins, merchant of this city; and Joseph Griswold, partner with Clark; and Joseph Stansbury, deeply concerned in the lumber business.

On December 5, the Council unanimously passed a new and stricter law against London trading. Among other provisions, the law made second conviction for trading with the enemy a capital offense.

Unfortunately, there are no documents that record the goods impounded by Major Walton and his men, but there is evidence that he made many arrests. The Monmouth Court of Quarterly Sessions compiled a document titled "A List of Persons Taken for Trading" that shows that at least 29 men were arrested by Walton. It includes men "taken in Monmouth" on December 4 and 12. Eight men were taken on December 12; the men were released on £50 bond. Sixteen more men were "taken in Monmouth" on December 4; they “made their escape from the constables." Most of the arrested men, based on last names (Crammer, Ridgeway, Southard) were from largely disaffected Dover and Stafford Townships. Six men were listed as being from Burlington County. Thirteen more men are not assigned a date of arrest, but have last names—Parker, Jackson, West—most common in Shrewsbury Township. Five of these men are specifically listed as taken “at Henry Wardell’s”—also a Shrewsbury family name. It is possible that Walton brought in additional men after this document was compiled.

The men arrested by Walton were brought before a Court of Oyer and Terminer that convened in Monmouth County starting on December 12. The court ran until February 1. The exceptional length of the court was driven by 175 people charged with misdemeanors—nearly double of the number of people charged at the prior three courts of Oyer and Terminer. It can be safely assumed that the majority of misdemeanor charges concerned illegal trading or traveling behind enemy lines without a passport. Two men, John Havens and Levi Conrow, were found guilty of helping enemy soldiers escape to New York—not London Trading, but an act that required cooperation with London Traders.

London Trading Continues after the Crackdown

The crackdown on London Trading consisted of three actions: 1.) Walton’s campaign against shore residents, 2.) a new law against London Trading, and 3.) the extraordinary number of people charged at the December-February Court of Oyer and Terminer. Considerable as these actions were, there is no reason to think they had a lasting impact on London Trading. In the midst of the crackdown, near Toms River, Lt. Joshua Studson was shot and killed while attempting to take a London Trading vessel.

Efforts to tame London Trading continued. Appendix 2 documents fourteen London Trading incidents that occurred from January 1781 and 1782. In 1781, New York Loyalist William Smith wrote of New Jersey’s London Traders, "they sent over everything they could spare to our market." 

In May 1782, George Washington wrote Governor Livingston about the “open intercourse between the City of New York and the County of Monmouth." In July 1782, Norwich Packet reported:

Wagons have been constructed last winter at Shrewsbury by an ingenious mechanic with false bottoms and double sides, forming vacancies capable of containing seven or eight hundred pounds worth of such articles as are commonly brought hither; others pack up a water barrel full of goods, head it up, and enclose it within a hogshead of cyder.

In January 1783, William Churchill Houston, a New Jersey Delegate in the Continental Congress, wrote that "the exertions of this State to prevent a convulsive trade with the enemy are very spirited and laudable, though they cannot prevail to break up the intercourse totally.” London Trading only ceased when the British quit New York.

Related Historic Site: New Jersey Maritime Museum

Appendix:

Documented London Trading Incidents, 1776-1779, Table 13b 

Documented London Trading Incidents, 1781-1782, Table 13c 

Sources: Anonymous Letter, National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, reel 72, item 59, vol. 2, #185-7; Petition in The Library Company, New Jersey Votes of the Assembly, May 13 and May 20, 1780, p 187-195; David Forman to William Livingston, New York Public Library, William Livingston Papers, vol. 3, pp. 55-58; Monmouth County Archives, Court of Quarterly Sessions, folder: 1780; The Library Company, New Jersey Votes of the Assembly, November 21-25, 1780, p 36-42; Library of Congress, Early American Newspaper, New Jersey Gazette, reel 1930; The Library Company, New Jersey Votes of the Assembly, November 21-25, 1780, p 36-42; Journals of the Legislative Council of New Jersey (Isaac Collins: State of New Jersey, 1780) p23, 27; Pennsylvania Gazette, November 29, 1780 (CD-ROM at the David Library, #28517); Asher Holmes to William Livingston, New Jersey State Archives, William Livingston Papers, reel 13, December 12, 1780; New Jersey State Archives, Judicial Records, Court of Oyer & Terminer, box 2, folder - December 1780; William Smith quoted in Carl Prince, Papers of William Livingston (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987) vol. 4, p 225 note; Ruth M. Keesey, "New Jersey Legislation Concerning Loyalists," Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, vol. 79 (1961), pp. 86-7; List of Traders, Monmouth Court of Quarterly Sessions, Monmouth County Archives; George Washington to William Livingston, Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mgw:@field(DOCID+@lit(gw240250)); Norwich Packet, July 11, 1782; William Churchill Houston to Robert Morris, The Papers of Robert Morris (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973) vol. 7, p 385; Pennsylvania Journal, August 13, 1777; John Bakeless, Turncoats, Traitors and Heroes, (New York: DaCapo, 1998) p 176; Monmouth Court of Common Pleas, undated, Statement of John Robard, 1778; Monmouth County Archives, Common Pleas (Loose); National Archives, Revolutionary War Veterans' Pension Application, Wilson Hunt of KY, www.fold3.com/image/#24273269; Catalog of the Exhibition: Joshua Huddy and the American Revolution, Monmouth County Library Headquarters, October 2004; John Purtle and John Burkenot, Confession -- Monmouth County Archives, Court of Quarterly Sessions, folder: 1779; Richard Howell to Lord Stirling, New York Historical Society, William Alexander Papers, vol. 1, p. 251; Abraham Clark to John Jay, National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, reel 93, item 78, vol. 5, #287-9, 297; Munn, David, Battles and Skirmishes of the American Revolution in New Jersey, (Trenton: Bureau of Geology and Topography, New Jersey Geological Survey, 1976) p 135; Summons, Monmouth Court of Common Pleas, Signed by Attorney William Patterson; Court Clerk Kenneth Anderson -- Monmouth County Archives, Loose Common Pleas;  National Archives, revolutionary War veterans Pension Applications, New Jersey - William Van Pelt; Monmouth Court of Common Pleas, July 9, 1780, Monmouth County Archives, Loose Common Pleas; White’s death described in William Horner, This Old Monmouth of Ours (Freehold: Moreau Brothers, 1932) p 78; Ramsey’s case is documented in Monmouth County Archives, Loose Common Pleas; Brewer v Shepherd, New Jersey State Archives, Supreme Court Records, #4818; Moffat’s capture is in David C. Munn, comp., Battles and Skirmishes of the American Revolution in New Jersey (Trenton, N.J.: Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Geology, 1976) pp. 95-7; Moffat’s captures reported in New Jersey Gazette, August 8, 1781, contained in Archives of the State of New Jersey, Extracts from American Newspapers Relating to New Jersey (Paterson, NJ: Call Printing, 1903) vol. 5, p 279; New Jersey Supreme Court case, August 26, 1781, New Jersey State Archives, Supreme Court Records, #7595; Deposition taken before Justice of the Peace Peter Covenhoven at Middletown, Monmouth County Archives, Court of Quarterly Sessions, folder: 1782; Wright v Hall, Monmouth County Archives, Loose Common Pleas; Ramsay v Chadwick, Monmouth County Archives, Loose Common Pleas; Statement of William Tapscott, Justice of the Peace, Monmouth County Archives, The William Livingston Era: Documents of the American Revolution, exhibit at the Monmouth County Library Headquarters, October 2003; Monmouth County Court of Oyer & Terminer, "the State vs. Rosina Throckmorton - indicted, misdemeanor" -- Private Correspondence: Joseph Dangler; Testimony of Davies Fulsome, Library of Congress, Revolutionary War Prize Cases, M162, reel 1, cases 91-2, David Forman v. Nathan Jackson.