The Disaffection of Edward Taylor

In 1774 and 1775, Edward Taylor was a leader in resisting British policies in Monmouth County. He was a committeeman who was so important to the county’s drive to raise food for the suffering people of Boston that when a thank you note came back from Boston it was addressed to him. In early 1776, Taylor concurrently served in the New Jersey Assembly (aligned with the British government) and the Provincial Congress (aligned with the Continental Congress).

Taylor was one of several pre-Revolutionary leaders who historian William Benton labeled “Whig-Loyalists” – men who, like the Whigs of England, who believed the British government needed reform, but remained loyal to the British government and crown. Taylor was a key member of committees that took actions against Loyalists. When his neighbors moved toward supporting a New Jersey Constitution separate from British authority, Edward Taylor broke from them.

On June 26, the week before the New Provincial Congress voted to adopt a new constitution, Colonel Abraham Ten Eyck was ordered to apprehend Edward Taylor, his brother, John Taylor, and 24 other New Jerseyans of suspect loyalty. Ten Eyck was further ordered to “keep them under strong guard, and bring before this Congress" and further "deliver them to the keeper of the common gaol at Trenton." At this time, Edward’s nephew, William Taylor, was getting signatures for a petition opposing independence, and Edward’s son, George Taylor, was commanding the militia opposite the British base at Sandy Hook.

Edward Taylor laid low for the next several months. There is no evidence that he supported the new Revolutionary government, but also no evidence that he participated in the Loyalist insurrections (though he apparently did not sign a British loyalty oath). When George Taylor switched sides and became the Colonel of Monmouth County’s Loyalist militia and started raiding the county, it became impossible for Edward to lay low.

In April, 1777, David Forman, the highest-ranking officer in Monmouth County (concurrently a colonel in the Continental Army and a Brigadier General of the New Jersey Militia) took an interest in Edward Taylor. He visited Taylor in early April and offered him a Loyalty oath to the New Jersey government. Forman gave a deposition on April 14 detailing Taylor’s response:

Heard said Edward Taylor say that he had, at two different times, taken the oath of allegiance to the King of Great Britain and he still thinks himself bound by them, and absolutely refused to take on the oaths to the State of New Jersey.

That same day, Zephaniah Morris gave a deposition against Edward Taylor regarding a £50 debt:

Said deponent, being at work at Edward Taylor 's house in the month of December last, he [Morris] pulled out a sum of Continental money (more than sufficient to have paid the debt to sd Edward Taylor) and this deponent asked said Taylor if he would take the money due to him, to which said Taylor replied he would take the money in the month of March.

When Morris returned in March to again pay off the debt in Continental money, "said Taylor replied that he would only take money that would pass in [British occupied] New York."

The next day, William Bostwick gave a deposition against Taylor. Bostwick heard Taylor complain in the fall of 1776 "that the mortgage is daily increasing on his estate because two persons from morning to night [are employed] to print Continental money, and he should have only a penny to give his sons.” Henry Segollets also gave a deposition with respect to a debt owed to Taylor:

On or about the beginning of December last, this deponent did proffer to Edward Taylor for the full sum owed above, executed by the said Henry Segollets Jr., in Continental currency, and that the said Edward Taylor did refuse to take said money, and that this deponent did a few days after, in the presence of two witnesses, again proffer to said Edward Taylor the money due to said Taylor on the aforesaid note, who still refused to take the money due.

Taylor was brought before the New Jersey Council of Safety on April 19 and the evidence against him was heard. Two friends posted £300 bonds for his good conduct and he was released; Taylor also posted bonds for the release of others brought before the New Jersey Council of Safety. He was the lone vote against “purging” Loyalists from the Middletown Baptist meeting. All of these actions demonstrate that Edward Taylor was disaffected from the new government, but not necessarily hostile. However, Taylor would edge closer to participating in hostilities.

On May 25, Thomas Seabrook, a major in the militia, learned that Edward Taylor was removing the fence rails from part of his land near the shore. Seabrook presumed that this was being done to allow raiding parties led by his son, George Taylor to penetrate Middletown and escape via Taylor’s land. Thomas Seabrook's son, Stephen Seabrook, confronted Edward Taylor. He reported:

I went in company with James Kelsey & we came upon the fence Edward Taylor had cut with the axe [still] in his hand. Upon our coming to him, a conversation began, me & sd Taylor, about the fence and land. I told him it was poor business. Taylor acknowledged he had cut 20 or 30 panel & he would be damned to put it up again.

George Taylor's Loyalist party attacked Seabrook's home two weeks later hoping to capture Thomas Seabrook; during the raid, the Loyalists bayoneted Stephen by mistake.

For this and perhaps other actions, David Forman moved against Edward Taylor on July 2:

Several complaints having been made to me respecting your conduct, particularly acting as a spy amongst us… giving aid to a party of Tories and British, commanded by your son, the late militia Coll. in this county, now a refugee, by which means the party escaped the pursuit of a party of militia sent to attack them. I do therefore enjoin you for the future to confine yourself to your farm at Middletown, and do not attempt re-attempt to travel the road more than crossing it to go to your land on the north side of said town.

It is unclear if Forman, who held only military commissions, had authority to impose house-arrest on Edward Taylor, especially when the New Jersey Council of Safety was actively trying and punishing New Jerseyans for similar offenses. Perhaps Forman, who had battled George Taylor’s raiding parties at least twice, was seeking revenge on the Taylor family. Aggrieved, Edward Taylor protested his treatment to the New Jersey Legislative Council (the Upper House of Legislature) later that July:

I was sent for to appear before the commanding officer, Mr. Forman, and made a prisoner, which charges made against are entirely unjust. I am as innocent as an unborn child.... Tho' innocent I strictly obey the orders of confinement which is a considerable damage to me in my business, having a grist mill two or three miles from where I live, and nobody but the servants of my own house to attend her, who I cannot trust without being there, which occasions my mills to stand idle the chief part of the time.

There is no evidence that the New Jersey Legislative Council acted on Taylor’s petition. Meanwhile, Taylor suffered harassment from neighbors. In 1778, he testified that in November, 1777:

Daniel Bray, John Bray and George Johnson came to my house… to take the horse, which Daniel Bray broke the lock and not finding the horse in the stable, went to the field and took the horse from the Negro, where he was at work.

When Taylor protested the confiscation of his horse, "said George Johnson abused me very much.”

That same month, the New Jersey Council considered Taylor’s disaffection and compelled him to post a £1,000 bond and accept confinement in Princeton until the Monmouth County courts could convene and consider his offenses (the county courts had stopped meeting in 1776):

Edward Taylor shall continue within one mile of the City of Princeton & not to go beyond the said limits without leave of the Council of Safety, therein (excepting that sd Edward Taylor shall have leave to appear at the next Court of Oyer & Terminer to be held in the County of Monmouth) and shall during sd time, neither do nor say anything to the prejudice of American liberty, nor give any intelligence to the elements of America.

Taylor’s confinement was as much an act of political retribution as a punishment for his own actions. The order placing him under confinement in Princeton noted Taylor “shall be set at liberty when Thomas Canfield, a prisoner in New York, shall be discharged by the enemy.” With the exception of a brief return to Monmouth County in January 1778 to appear in court, Taylor remained in Princeton for five months.

On May 27, Council of Safety, let him return home to seek a prisoner exchange:

Agreed, that Edward Taylor be discharged from bond… and have leave to return home for 3 weeks upon entering into another bond, to return within that time to this place & remain there until further order of this Council of Safety, unless he shall in the mean time procure the releasement of John Willett, now a prisoner in New York.

Taylor was successful in procuring Willett’s release on June 13. He was allowed to remain at his home in Middletown upon “pledging his faith and honor not to do or say anything contrary to the interest of the state or United States." The remaining war years were hard on him. He was indicted for trespass, two misdemeanors, and perjury in the county courts and his estate shrunk from 1200 acres of land, two slaves, and 42 head of livestock to 420 acres of land, no slaves, and 20 head of livestock at war’s end. He also signed a petition claiming that he was subject to abuses from the vigilante pro-Revolution group, the Retaliators. 

With his health in decline, Edward Taylor finalized his will. He disinherited his son, George. Any assets given to George would have been confiscated by the New Jersey government. Edward Taylor died shortly before the end of the war.

Related Historical Site: Marlpit Hall

Sources: Minutes of the Provincial Congress and the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey 1775-1776 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009) p 478; Deposition of David Forman, New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives of History, Council of Safety, box 1, document #39; Deposition of William Bostwick, New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives of History, Council of Safety, box 1, document #19; William H. Richardson's "Washington and the New Jersey Campaign of 1776," Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, vol. 50, no. 2 (1952) p 144. 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. 2, pp. 1093, 1192; New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives of History, Council of Safety, Henry Segollets; John Stillwell, Historical and Genealogical Miscellany, 4 vols, Genealogical Publishing Co, 1970, v4, p237; Deposition, New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives of History, Council of Safety, box 1, document #21; Minutes of the Provincial Congress and the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey 1775-1776 (Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 2009) p 29; Minutes of the Provincial Congress and the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey 1775-1776 (Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 2009) p 37; Jones, E. Alfred. The Loyalists of New Jersey, Daniel Hendrickson of Middletown, (Newark, N. J. Historical Society, 1927); Deposition, Edward Taylor, New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives of History, Council of Safety, box 1, document #39; Franklin Ellis, The History of Monmouth County (R.T. Peck: Philadelphia, 1885), p202-3; Monmouth County Historical Association, The Grover Taylor House, (Freehold: MCHA)  p 22-4; Order/Bond, New Jersey State Archives, William Livingston Papers, reel 6, November 6, 1777; Monmouth County Archives, Loose Common Pleas, box: CP 1776-1777, folder: 1777; Minutes of the Provincial Congress and the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey 1775-1776 (Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 2009) pp. 164, 168; Minutes of the Provincial Congress and the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey 1775-1776 (Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 2009) p 242; Monmouth County Historical Association, The Grover Taylor House, (Freehold: MCHA)  p 22-4; Michael Adelberg, Biographical File, Edward Taylor, on file at the Monmouth County Historical Association.