The Discovery of Samuel Wright's Loyalist Association

In July 1776, Elisha Lawrence, John Morris, and John Longstreet led associations of Loyalists from Monmouth County to join the British Army at Sandy Hook. Behind them, additional Loyalist associations continued to form. Some assembled and reached the British Army, and some did not.

There’s evidence that the disaffected residents at Deal and Shark River were in active communication with British and Loyalists at Sandy Hook in late July 1776. Balthazar DeHart, who gave lengthy testimony about New York Loyalists coming into Shrewsbury Townships, also testified that:

There were some vessels of ſorce lying off Shark River, which he supposed were landing some men there to get provision, as he observed flat-bottomed boats with them. And further, this examinant saith that he saw some armed vessels off Deal shore last Saturday, and observed some boats which seemed to be going to said vessels, and that he verily believes that the inhabitants along that shore have communication with the enemy.

This is the first mention of the men who would soon form a Loyalist association under Samuel Wright of Squankum. Wright was a known Loyalist. Earlier that year, the Shrewsbury Committee concluded that Wright was a “person unfriendly to the liberties of these Colonies.” It advertised him as an enemy and instructed the militia to “make a strict search and inquiry for arms in his hands... and safely secure them."

In March, Wright was summoned to appear before the Monmouth County Committee. He refused the summons and portrayed himself as a pacifist Quaker:

I have not done anything worthy of death or bonds, and therefore I do refuse to dy; I think it unreasonable, Gentlemen, to bind a man and not signify the crimes you lay to his charge. Finally, brethren, fling down your arms and fight not against King George, as I have mine, and let us live in love and peace one with the other. Take not up arms against me, but if you do, I do not intend to take mine up against you... Wishing peace and long life, health and salvation to the King and Congress, you and all; I shall remain your friend and servant in all things according to a clear conscience.

Samuel Wright’s Loyalist Association

By July, the Jersey shore was rife with disaffection. Samuel Breese, Shrewsbury’s militia colonel, resigned his commission due to the “general backwardness of the people… so few ready to turn out, hiding themselves and deserting their homes when called upon to defend the shore." Later that month, the New Jersey Convention directed John Cook of Toms River to “apprehend any persons whom he has reason to suspect of enlisting for the British Army, and take them before the County Committee of Monmouth." But there are no records documenting Cook making arrests.

In September, emboldened by British victories over Washington’s army in New York, several dozen disaffected residents from Deal to Manasquan began meeting and plotting to join the British. William Sands of Deal recalled one such meeting at Shark River on September 25. He was “forced to swear secrecy with regards to the proceedings” by Henry Weatherby. Weatherby said that he and others:

Were entering into an association and forming a secret encampment in the woods for the purpose of aiding and assisting the British Army and altho’ said associators were not at the time furnished with arms, yet they soon expected them from the British Army.

Weatherby also said that when they joined the British Army, Samuel Wright would be their Captain and Weatherby their Lieutenant.

At a second meeting in Long Branch, Sands recalled Weatherby forming plans “to seize Colonel [Daniel] Hendrickson, the Reverend [Charles] McKnight, Captain [Stephen] Fleming and sundry others, who were to be conveyed to Staten Island, where they were to receive forty dollars each for each prisoner taken.” Weatherby said that “if discovered… they would rush the said guards, and if possible cut them off, and then push over to Staten Island and join the King’s troops there.”

Sands reported that there were at least 60 men in Wright’s association and he named names. His list included several prominent men: two members of the Shrewsbury Township Committee (Gavin Drummond and David Knott), a future New Jersey Volunteers officer (Thomas Leonard), and two men who would become infamous Loyalist partisans (Philip White and Richard Lippincott). Sands also claimed the group was being secretly aided by “Col George Taylor of Middletown.”

Samuel Knott also gave two lengthy depositions. He recalled Weatherby asking “if he would consent to join him and a certain party with which he was engaged.” Knott said he “chose to take time to consider it."

At the second meeting, Knott recalled Wright and Weatherby explaining that they were establishing a company of men that “were to join Colonel John Morris in the British service as soon as Morris should land, and assist him in subduing the country to the king of Great Britain." Further, Wright said, “they intended to surprise & disarm the guards, and go in boats to the Hook... sd Wright was at the same time armed with gun & pistol, and said he would see the time where he dare walk the road when the damned rebels dare not show their faces." Knott also named names and estimated Wright’s association at 60 men.

The last days of Wright’s insurgency are revealed in depositions taken in November 1776. On November 19, Shrewsbury’s Magistrate, John Longstreet, took a number of depositions from men in Wright’s party who were now in the custody of Colonel Daniel Hendrickson. The depositions describe Wright enlisting men into the New Jersey Volunteers. Theophilus Bennett, for example, recalled signing "the muster roll... to join John Morris and the regulars when they should land" and accompanying Wright when he was seeking additional signatures.

Samuel Knott corroborated Bennett’s account, but said he did not sign the muster roll despite being asked “sundry times.” He described a secret encampment in the woods where Wright had the muster roll laid out on a haystack for me to sign. William Smith deposed that:

Weatherby asked this deponent whether he would sign for good Government, afterwards they went into the woods where they met Samuel Wright, when sd Wright offered sd deponent a piece of paper with a number of names wrote thereon, and asked him whether he would put his name on sd paper, the sd Wright told the deponent that if he told of their proceedings, death would be his portion.

Two of those deposed, Samuel Knott and Jeremiah Bennett, discussed bounties being offered for enlisting. Knott recalled that "Wright's enlistment roll did contain the following… that each subscriber to be allowed eight shillings for subsistence and ten pence per day for wages, and at the end of the rebellion were to have fifty acres of land." Jeremiah Bennett, recalled that "Wright promised... he should have in reward near 200 acres."

In early November, Wright’s men assembled in the woods near the shore, while Wright and twelve other men went off in a boat for Staten Island – apparently to return with a ship that would take them to the British. However, Wright’s boat cast ashore at Point Comfort (Keansburg) where it was noticed by Virginia Continentals stationed along the Raritan Bay shore. The Loyalists were taken on November 14.

The Capture of Samuel Wright

On November 22, General Adam Stephen, commanding the Virginians, wrote Governor William Livingston about “the parcel of Tories” he captured. They were “forming a secret encampment in the woods for the purpose of aiding and assisting the British Army." Stephen suggested having the Tories join the Continental Navy or offering them "some other form of punishment that will be useful to the State. Insignificant as they are, should they be permitted to return, the soldiery would put them to death."

Wright and twelve other prisoners were temporarily put under the care of the Monmouth militia’s Major Thomas Seabrook. But the prisoners could not stay in Monmouth County. Charles Petit of the Governor’s Privy Council, explained that the “regular passage of intelligence which has hitherto subsisted between our secret and avowed enemies” in Monmouth County would make it impossible to secure Wright there. He suggested confining Wright and his men in Sussex County in northwest New Jersey.

On December 7, Governor Livingston sent five of Wright’s men to John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress with a letter about half of Wright’s party:

The prisoners sent to wit: William Valentine, Andrew Wilson, Benjamin Wilson, John Jones & Henry Weatherby were sent hither last week by Genl. Adam Stephen at Amboy -- the first four named are charged with assisting the enemy in endeavoring to get off a vessel which ran on shore some time ago at Point Comfort in Amboy Bay, and giving them intelligence respecting the military stores in this State; Weatherby is charged with having engaged in the King's service as a Lieutenant and enlisting or endeavoring to enlist men in Monmouth County in said service. It is thought unsafe to keep them in this State at present. I am therefore to request that Congress will give orders for their being kept in safety.

Some of Wright’s men would ultimately end up jailed in Frederick, Maryland along with a number of Monmouth Loyalists captured by David Forman in late November.

It is unclear why Wright was not shipped to Philadelphia with his compatriots, but he would resurface as a dangerous Loyalist partisan later in the war. In October 1778, Wright was one of seven Monmouth Loyalists to have a bounty placed on his head ($100). This was after a string of brutal robberies and a murder in Shrewsbury Township. The other men in the bounty notice included a number of so-called Pine Robbers, including the notorious Jacob Fagan.

Related Historic Site: Township of Ocean Historical Museum

Sources: Proceedings of the Committees of Freehold and Shrewsbury, Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, First Series, 1846, pp. 195; DeHart’s statement is in Peter Force, American Archives: Consisting of a Collection of Authentick Records, State Papers, Debates, and Letters and Other Notices of Publick Affairs (Washington, DC: U.S. Congress Clerk's Office, 1853), 5th Series, vol. 1, p 602-3; Dennis P. Ryan, "Six Towns: Continuity and Change in Revolutionary New Jersey, 1770-1792" (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1974) p 193; Monmouth County Historical Association, Curator's Files: "Local Facts about the Revolutionary War Made Public"[Franklin Ellis, The History of Monmouth County (R.T. Peck: Philadelphia, 1885), p138-9;  Minutes of the Provincial Congress and Council of Safety of New Jersey (Trenton: Naar, Day, and Naar, 1879) p 497; Peter Force, American Archives: Consisting of a Collection of Authentick Records, State Papers, Debates, and Letters and Other Notices of Publick Affairs (Washington, DC: U.S. Congress Clerk's Office, 1853), 5th Series, vol. 6, p 1641; Franklin Ellis, The History of Monmouth County (R.T. Peck: Philadelphia, 1885), p138; Peter Force, American Archives, (Force and Clarke: Washington, DC, 1837) 4th series, vol. 6, p 1654; New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives of History, Council of Safety, James Cornelius; Carl Prince, Papers of William Livingston (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987) vol. 1, pp. 312-5; New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives and History, Council of Safety, Deposition of William Sands; New Jersey State Archives, Collective Series, Revolutionary War documents, #32 Samuel Knott deposition; New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives of History, Council of Safety, Henry Weatherby; New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives of History, Council of Safety, Examination of Sundry Persons; Massachusetts Historical Society, William Livingston Papers, Minutes, Lord Stirling (Charles Pettit); New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives of History, Council of Safety, Henry Weatherby; New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives of History, Council of Safety, Examination of Sundry Persons; Massachusetts Historical Society, William Livingston Papers, Minutes, Lord Stirling; Dennis P. Ryan, "Six Towns: Continuity and Change in Revolutionary New Jersey, 1770-1792" (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1974) p 178; New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives of History, Council of Safety, Examination of Sundry Persons; Carl Prince, Papers of William Livingston (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987) vol. 1, p 186, 182, 315 note. William Dwyer, The Day is Ours! An Inside View of the Battles of Trenton and Princeton (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998), p38. Harry Ward, Major General Adam Stephen and the Cause of American Liberty (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1989) pp. 146-7; New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives of History, Council of Safety, box 1, document #34; National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, reel 82, item 68, #107. Library of Congress, Peter Force Collection, series 7C, box 31, folder 2, 68:155; New Jersey State Archives, Supreme Court Records, #33977; Princeton University, Firestone Library, CO387, Barricklo Coll., box 1, folder Miscellaneous; David Bernstein, Minutes of the Governor's Privy Council, 1777-1789 (Trenton: New Jersey State Library, Archives and History Bureau, 1974) p 91-2.