The Auction of Loyalist Estates

In the early years of the Revolutionary War, Americans on both sides believed the war would be short and reconciliation was possible. Through 1777, punishments meted out against Loyalists through the New Jersey Council of Safety and first courts were generally light. While New Jersey passed laws that foreshadowed the confiscation of Loyalist estates, the state was not ready to do so. It appointed Forfeiture Commissioners for every county (Kenneth Hankinson, Samuel Forman, Joseph Lawrence, Jacob Wikoff for Monmouth, but only empowered them to inventory Loyalist estates in 1776 and then rent-out those estates in 1777.

In 1778, hopes of reconciliation faded. In New Jersey, leaders were now ready to take the ultimate step of confiscating and selling the estates of Loyalists. In agricultural society, real estate was the primary path to gaining wealth. Once real estate was confiscated, the loyalist could not return; enmity would be permanent. Further, the families of the departed Loyalists, many of which laid low on the family farm, now needed to be turned-out—creating hardships and sympathy for families who, in many cases, had done nothing wrong.

Historians Ruth Keesey and Larry Gerlach separately studied the Loyalist estate confiscation and sale process established by the state of New Jersey. They note that an April 1778 law, "An Act for Forfeiting the Real Estate of Certain Fugitives and Offenders” built on previously passed laws. It provided necessary details regarding the final steps for confiscation and sale of estates. The law required each county’s three Forfeiture Commissioners (plus one alternate) to perform the following tasks:

1.) Gather information against Loyalists who have left the State;

2.) Present evidence to a grand jury presided over by a Justice of the Peace (magistrate);

3.) Summon and advertise the accused Loyalist to appear before the grand jury and answer charges;

4.) If the grand jury finds cause, the magistrate forwards the case to the Court of Common Pleas;

5.) Court of Common Pleas, with a full jury, determines if the estate should be confiscated;

6.) If the jury determines the estate should be forfeited, Commissioners hold an auction and sell the estate.

The law was controversial. The same month that it passed, the New Jersey Assembly debated a bill that would effectively derail it by establishing a permanent estate-rental process to supersede confiscations. That bill failed by a 9-19 vote, despite the support of James Mott—one of Monmouth County’s three delegates in the Assembly. Mott would later be targeted by more strident Whigs (supporters of the Revolution) in Monmouth County for not being more spirited in his support of the Revolution.

The multi-step confiscation process proved difficult to execute. Courts had just started meeting again—and were often hamstrung by incomplete juries, unclear procedures, and first-time judges still learning the law. In September 1778, the Monmouth and Middlesex County Commissioners for Forfeited Estates petitioned the New Jersey Assembly "setting forth that they find difficulties in the execution of their duty.” They “mentioned sundry cases in which further legal provision is necessary in order to enable them to fulfill it [their duty] to an effect.” The specifics of their complaints are unknown, but the New Jersey Assembly soon passed two laws to ease the confiscation progress.

In December 1778, the Legislature passed a law clarifying that Loyalists from other states who owned land in New Jersey could have their New Jersey estates confiscated under New Jersey law. In January 1779, the Legislature empowered Governor William Livingston to exile the wives and children of Loyalists from their estates if the husband had gone behind enemy lines. Moving a family behind British lines removed a physical obstacle to confiscation and a financial burden from the poor relief rolls—but it created ethical dilemmas which led to rule-bending on behalf of favored families. It is worth noting that a handful of Loyalist women were exiled from Monmouth County prior to the passage of this law.

Since October 1776, under authority granted from previous laws, Monmouth County's commissioners had already performed the first three steps of the confiscation process and were renting out Loyalist estates before the April legislation. This is the subject of prior articles.

Monmouth County’s First Loyalist Estate Auctions

The first auction of Loyalist estates in Monmouth County took place on March 17, 1779. Sixteen estates of eleven Freehold Township Loyalists were sold off at auction. Within the next month, similar auctions were held in Middletown (March 22), Upper Freehold (April 5) and Shrewsbury (April 9). The sparsely populated townships of Dover and Stafford did not have auctions in 1779, though Loyalist estates from these townships were auctioned off in 1784. Chart 1a shows the 1779 confiscations and sales by township. 

The Loyalists whose estates were confiscated and sold at auction in 1779 included several key pre-Revolution county leaders: John Wardell (judge of the county courts), Samuel Cooke (minister of the county’s most important pre-war congregation), Thomas Leonard (sheriff), and Samuel Osborne (tax collector). They were early and vocal opponents of the Revolution. Four were officers in the Loyalist New Jersey Volunteers: John Morris, Leonard, John Longstreet and John Throckmorton. Some Loyalists may have been guilty of nothing other than relocating to New York (Thomas Bills and Benazer Hinckson, for example).

While many of the county’s most prominent Loyalists were targeted, a few were conspicuously absent from these confiscations. For example, the estate of Elisha Lawrence, Lt. Colonel of the 1st Battalion of the New Jersey Volunteers, was not confiscated. Perhaps this is because his cousin, also named Elisha Lawrence, was a Lt. Colonel in the county militia. The impact of family connections on confiscations are discussed in another article. Chart 1b shows that about half of all confiscations were from yeoman; rich and poor men together comprised the other half. 

Loyalist Estates Confiscated and Sold at Auction in 1779 by Estate Size:

Note: People holding less than five acres of land were commonly listed as “householders” or “cottagers” in tax records to denote their lack of an appreciable parcel of land. The owners of these small plots were generally agricultural laborers who worked the lands of others.

Estate purchasers were predominantly powerful men in the local Revolutionary movement—including Colonel David Forman (who purchased four estates), Quartermaster officer David Rhea, delegate to Congress, Nathaniel Scudder, Colonel Samuel Forman (who purchased three estates, one in Middlesex County) and four other militia officers who purchased two estates each: Captain John Schenck, Lieutenant Tunis Vanderveer, Thomas Seabrook, and Thomas Chadwick. A complete list of the 1779 estate confiscations and purchases is in the appendix of this article.

Curiosities and irregularities plagued Monmouth County’s proceedings from the start. For example, on January 29, 1779, the New Jersey Gazette advertised that at the Court of Common Pleas for Monmouth County nine Loyalist estates were condemned for confiscation: William Perrine of Upper Freehold; John Williams of Freehold; Henry Reiter, Samuel Stevenson, William Stevenson, George Rapalje of Middletown; Silas Cook, James King, and Joseph Price of Shrewsbury. All were charged identically with "joining the Army of the King of Great Britain." But only the estates of the Perrine and Williams families were sold at auction in March and April.

Monmouth County’s Forfeiture Commissioners prepared different confiscation lists at different times, and they contain inconsistencies and omissions. For example, the set of records used for this article list John Wardell and Thomas Leonard as holding more plots of lands than records compiled later in the war. The records used for this article do not include the mega-estate, “Morrisdom,” owned by Philip Kearney of Middletown. This 900-acre estate was likely the most expensive confiscated estate in the county. Kearney’s Loyalist compensation claim at war’s end asserts it was confiscated in 1779 but this estate only appears in some forfeiture records. Only six of the estates confiscated in March-April 1779 appear in the Book of Inquisitions that should have prefaced confiscation. These and other oddities, as well as scandals surrounding certain estate sales, are discussed in the next article.

According to historian Cornelius Vermuele, 150 Monmouth County Loyalists had their estates confiscated. Only one New Jersey county had more Loyalists who lost land (Bergen, 167) and only two other counties approached Monmouth’s total (Middlesex, 130 and Essex, 128). I am unable to fully affirm Vermuele’s figure (a British list compiled in 1787 lists 113 Loyalists), but given the different lists in existence, his figure is certainly plausible. In a county with less than 3,000 households (including householders and single men), it can be credibly estimated that roughly 5% of all estates were taken.

Related Historic Site: New Jersey State House and State Museum

Appendix: 

Table Group 8: Monmouth County Loyalist Estates Auctioned in March-April 1779

Sources: Ruth M. Keesey, "New Jersey Legislation Concerning Loyalists," Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, vol. 79 (1961), p 87; Larry Gerlach, New Jersey in the American Revolution 1763-1783 A Documentary History (Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1975) pp. 259-60; Archives of the State of New Jersey, Extracts from American Newspapers Relating to New Jersey (Paterson, NJ: Call Printing, 1903) vol. 3, p 89; New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives and History, Manuscript Collection, Manuscripts, box 37, #78; New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives and History, Manuscript Collection, Manuscripts, box 37, #78; Monmouth County Commissioners for Forfeited Estates, Rutgers University Special Collections; Philip Kearny, Rutgers University, Special Collections, Loyalist Compensation Applications, Coll. D96, PRO AO 13/109, reel 8; David Fowler, egregious Villains, Wood Rangers, and London Traders (Ph.D. Dissertation: Rutgers University, 1987) p 95 note 79; Cornelius G. Vermeule, "The Active New Jersey Loyalists," Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, vol. 52 (1934), p 93; Archives of the State of New Jersey, Extracts from American Newspapers Relating to New Jersey (Paterson, NJ: Call Printing, 1903) vol. 3, p 111; Princeton University Library, Stockton Family Papers, box 2, folder, 2, "Deed of the Commissioners of Middlesex & Monmouth Counties to Samuel Forman" Princeton University Library, Accessed Nov. 2019; Book of Inquisitions Against Loyalist Estates, Monmouth County Archives, Revolutionary War Papers, Aaron Dunham, Auditor for New Jersey, "A list of names of those persons whose property was confiscated in the several counties of the State of New Jersey, for joining the Army of the King of Great Britain", box 1; Great Britain, Public Record Office, Audit Office, Class 12, Volume 85, folios 43-46.