Second Monmouth County Court of Oyer and Terminer

Monmouth County had no functioning courts from the middle of 1776 and through 1777. During that time, people charged with crimes were detained for long periods without trial, including more than 200 Loyalists sent out of state. In 1777, a few people were tried by the New Jersey Supreme Court and a few dozen went before the New Jersey Council of Safety. Sentences were lenient—usually a small fine and a loyalty oath. In sharp contrast, Colonel David Forman, acting under claimed martial law powers, convened extra-legal tribunals that exiled Loyalist women to New York and hanged the Loyalist, Stephen Edwards.

In January 1778, Monmouth County convened its first Court of Oyer & Terminer, a special court for severe and politically-oriented criminal cases. The January court tried 106 individuals and followed the lenient sentencing precedents established by the Council of Safety. As 1778 progressed, however, Loyalist raids and crime increased in quantity and violence. Monmouth Countians became less tolerant.  By May, it was expected that the 12,000-man British Army in Philadelphia would march across New Jersey and through Monmouth County. Amidst rising anger and worry, Monmouth County held its second Court of Oyer & Terminer.

The Second Monmouth Court of Oyer and Terminer

The second Court of Oyer & Terminer convened on June 3. As the court was held just a few days after three militiamen were killed at Middletown Point, the court was likely attended by a revenge-minded and raucous crowd. There are two surviving court dockets from this court and they are not identical in the roster of indictments and case outcomes. Despite the inconsistencies, it appears that by June 15, the court had tried 98 individuals. Charges included:

• High Treason (8 charged),

• Robbery (8 charged),

• Felony (2 charged),

• Assault (4 charged),

• Riot & Trespass (11 charged),

• Seditious Words (6 charged),

A handful of individuals (Jonathan Brown, Joseph Giberson, Stephen West, John Lloyd, Esther Wilson) were charged with more than crime. Several of the individuals tried at the second Court of Oyer & Terminer had been charged at the first one. Based on surviving documents, it is impossible to know if these individuals were being retried or charged with new crimes.

Seven women were charged with speaking seditious words or misdemeanors (likely conducting illegal trade with or visiting the enemy). Two of these women, Rhoda Pew and Elizabeth Farrow, were charged at the first Court of Oyer & Terminer. Mary Leonard, who had been exiled extra-legally to New York by David Forman, was back in Monmouth County and charged with speaking seditious words. Of the four other women charged with Seditious Words—Sarah Brown, Ann Parker, Catherine Thomson, and Esther Wilson—only Thomson was the wife of a prominent Loyalist. This suggests that most of these women chose to speak forcefully against the state of affairs.

The Court’s Capital Convictions

In contrast to the lenient sentences of the first of Court & Terminer, the second Court issued twelve capital convictions. This is a remarkable number given that not a single one of these convictions can be traced to a murder (based on surviving documents). As was common in this period, several (five) of the capital convictions drew pardons. On June 22, the Legislative Council (the Upper House of the state legislature) asked Governor William Livingston to pardon five of the capitally convicted Monmouth Countians: John Polhemus and William Grover (charged with High Treason) and William Dillon, Robert McMullen, Michael Millery (charged with Robbery and Felony). Two of the pardoned capital convicts, Dillon and McMullen, would return as dangerous Loyalists later in the war.

The Council did not request pardons for four other men with robbery convictions and death sentences (James Disbrow, Harmon Johnson, John Wood, and Thomas Emmons); nor did it request a pardon for David Heslip, charged with High Treason and sentenced to death. The felony charge of “robbery” was more than the theft of property; simple thefts were tried in the courts of general sessions under the charge of larceny. Felony robbery, in contrast, was theft with malevolence—perhaps accompanied by physical intimidation, destruction of property, or tying someone up and leaving them.

Disbrow, Johnson, Wood and Emmons may have been the first so-called Pine Robbers captured and tried. Pine Robber gangs, such as that led by Jacob Fagan, were operating in Monmouth County by summer 1778, and Pine Robbers were often sentenced to death in later courts. One of the hanged robbers, Thomas Emmons, was the brother of Stephen Emmons in Fagan’s gang. Therefore, it is probable that four men hanged for robbery were in groups that presaged the better-documented gangs of Fagan, etc.

Two other men received capital convictions. Ezekiel Forman, kin of the powerful Forman family, was convicted of High Treason and sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to permanent exile behind British lines. Forman would return to Monmouth County and remain a problem throughout the war. Robert McElvin was convicted of robbery and sentenced to death but he invoked an “Act of Grace,” took a loyalty oath, and was released.

Other Notable Proceedings

There were other notable proceedings: Five disaffected individuals (Philip White, Benjamin Allen, John Kirby, Nathan Woolley and John Van Loo) were convicted of misdemeanor for "accompanying Captain Klein to Philadelphia.” Klein was a German officer in the British Army who came ashore in Monmouth County. The men took him to Philadelphia to rejoin the British Army. Only one of these men – Philip White – is recorded as being punished. He was jailed for one month. After that, White became a Loyalist partisan. He was captured by a party of state troops and was murdered in 1782.

With the British Army on the march, three men sentenced to prison were ordered to serve their time outside of Monmouth County. Joseph Fitzrandolph was convicted of “trading with the enemy on Staten Island" and jailed in Morris County; Uriah West and Nathaniel Finnan were convicted of “absconding to the Enemy” and jailed in Gloucester County. Other men sentenced to prison were not sent out of the county; it is unclear why some men were sent away but others were not.

Five individuals were fined £20 (the approximate value of a good horse) or more. They were:

• Thomas Thomson, Sr., seditious words, fined £100

• Derrick Longstreet, riot & trespass, fined £50,

• Joseph Wardell, two misdemeanors, fined £30,

• James Grover, misdemeanor, fined £30,

• Esther Wilson (wife of Andrew), misdemeanor and seditious words, fined £20.

Thomson was a yeoman from Upper Freehold Township who supported the Loyalist insurrection in 1776. It is unknown what he said to prompt the exceptional fine, but he would remain a problem throughout the war (including a High Treason indictment in 1779). Derrick Longstreet’s unusually large fine was likely tied to the curious fact that his was the only house at Manasquan spared the torch during the April Loyalist raid.

John Lloyd and Thomas Lloyd, prominent supporters of the Revolution, were both charged with misdemeanors and were found not guilty. John Taylor, the former leader of the Middletown Loyalist Insurrection was also charged with misdemeanor and found not guilty. One person, Moses Robins, was charged with a felony and found not guilty.

Two prominent Loyalists were jailed in the Monmouth County Courthouse in Freehold at the time of Court of Oyer & Terminer: Chrineyonce Van Mater and William Taylor. Van Mater had guided British troops in taking two of New Jersey’s leading Whigs, Richard Stockton and John Covenhoven. Taylor led a Loyalist association that was broken up in November 1776. Van Mater is listed in the court docket as indicted but his charged crime is not stated. Van Mater was freed by the British Army when it reached Freehold. Taylor is not listed in the court dockets—he was extra-legally detained and would soon be exchanged for the captured John Burrowes, Sr.

Also absent from the court docket is Thomas Hartshorne of Shrewsbury Township. He was arrested on May 16, 1778, nearly two weeks prior to the start of the court for “being armed & arrayed in a warlike & hostile manner” where he “did falsely, wickedly and traitorously join, aid, abet & adhere to a body of troops and soldiers, then and there being enemies of their State." Hartshorne was indicted as a “false traitor” who was "seduced by the subjugation of the devil.” Hartshorne was tried for High Treason by the New Jersey Supreme Court in July 1779; it is unclear why he was not brought before the Second (or Third) Monmouth County Court of Oyer and Terminer.

The march of the British Army and Battle of Monmouth upended any plans for prompt executions. The British burned much of Freehold and, after the battle, the people of Freehold needed to care for dozens of severely-injured men. Executions were delayed until July 17—six weeks after sentencing. But it appears only two men were executed that day (Wood and Emmons). Dr. Samuel Adams of the New Jersey Line (who stayed in Freehold after the Battle of Monmouth) wrote that “two Tories were hanged at Monmouth Court House, I went to the place of execution, but they were carried off a few minutes before I arrived."

The other three men on death-row, according to a July report in the New Jersey Gazette, would be executed on August 18, but there is no follow-up report stating that executions occurred that day. An August 1 report in the Loyalist New York Gazette reported that executions would occur at Freehold on August 18 and September 30. Presumably, the three capital convicts—Disbrow, Johnson, Heslip--were hanged on these two days.

Perspective

For Monmouth County, the second Court of Oyer & Terminer was a watershed. Prior to this court, the people of Monmouth County (with the extra-legal actions of David Forman as a conspicuous exception) showed great restraint when dealing with their enemies. At this court and with its five executions, Monmouth County’s leaders (judges and officers of the court) and its citizenry (juries) succumbed to bloodlust. The second Court of Oyer & Terminer demonstrated that Monmouth County’s Revolutionaries—enraged by deadly Loyalist raids and malevolent robberies, and facing an impending British invasion—were now as violent as their enemies.

Related Historic Site: Burrowes Mansion

Sources: Archives of the State of New Jersey, Extracts from American Newspapers Relating to New Jersey (Paterson, NJ: Call Printing, 1903) vol. 2, p 312; New Jersey State Archives, Judicial Records, Court of Oyer & Terminer, box 2, folder - June 1778; Morristown National Historical Park Collection, reel 39, Monmouth Courts; Morristown National Historical Park Collection, reel 39, Monmouth Courts; Minutes of the Provincial Congress and the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey 1775-1776 (Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 2009) pp. 249-50, 254; David Bernstein, Minutes of the Governor's Privy Council, 1777-1789 (Trenton: New Jersey State Library, Archives and History Bureau, 1974) p 83; Dr. Samuel Adams to Polly Adams, David Library of the American Revolution, Sol Feinstone Collection, reel 1, #28-30; New Jersey Supreme Court: State vs Thomas Hartshorne, High Treason, New Jersey State Archives, Supreme Court Records, # 35917; Kenneth Scott, Rivington's New York Newspaper: Excerpts from a Loyalist Press, 1773-1783 (New York: New York Historical Society, 1973) pp. 148-9, 158. E. Alfred Jones, The Loyalists of New Jersey: Their Memorials, Petitions, Claims, etc. From English Records (Heritage Books, 2009), see Willaim Grover.