The Pardons of Purgatory on Ezekiel Forman

Ezekiel Forman was born into one of the most prominent families in Monmouth County. As protests against British policies built and Americans formed committees to oppose them, his kinsmen—John Forman, Peter Forman and particularly, David Forman, played leading roles in the local Continental government. For whatever reason, Ezekiel Forman did not join them and, in fact, on July 1, 1776—the day before New Jersey adopted its first Constitution outside British control—Ezekiel Forman was arrested and brought before the New Jersey Provincial Congress. He was treated leniently—he posted a bond for his future good behavior and was released.

Ezekiel Forman apparently laid low for a while, but when the British Army swept across New Jersey in late 1776 and Loyalists rose up, Ezekiel Forman participated in the Loyalist insurrection. He was again arrested and detained. Along with dozens of other captured Monmouth County Loyalists, he was sent to far off Maryland for detention. Ezekiel Forman returned to New Jersey in early 1777, with several other Monmouth Loyalists, but ahead of the many who remained in detention.

Ezekiel Forman as a Loyalist Criminal

In June 1777, Ezekiel Forman became an active Loyalist again. As the British Army prepared to quit its small New Jersey perimeter around New Brunswick and Amboy, Forman joined them. He wrote that he became a partisan for the British Army and was active in "taking rebel stores and taking up the most violent [Whigs] in that faction." He was again captured and detained in early 1778 and was tried for treason at the 2nd Monmouth Court of Oyer Terminer in June 1778. He was one of a dozen Loyalists sentenced to death. He wrote:

After suffering every insult, indignity and abuse, he was brought to tryal -- and condemned for his loyalty to suffer death -- that his own numerous and family connections, as well as those of his wife, were all (one brother excepted, who was also tried and condemned to death for his attachment the King's cause) adherents to Congress, and to avoid the disgrace of having one of their family executed (and not for compassion for your memorialist) made use of their influence with the rebel government and procured a mitigation of his sentence to banishment, on pain of his being executed if he was ever afterward found in any of the States of America.

Ezekiel Forman’s death sentence pardon is well documented. The New Jersey Legislative Council, the legislature’s upper house, considered Forman’s fate on August 10, 1778. It recorded:

A representation… in behalf of Ezekiel Forman who was condemned for High Treason at the said Court. Also a petition from the Grand Jury and sundry inhabitants of the said County and some other papers in behalf of the said Ezekiel Forman and on deliberation, the Council advised his Excellency [Governor William Livingston] to respite the execution to Friday, the fifth day of September next.

The respite became a pardon. The New Jersey Gazette further reported on September 28: "Ezekiel Forman, who was under sentence of death on a conviction of High Treason, is pardoned on condition of his leaving the State in two months, and the United States in six months, from the date of this pardon, never to return again to any of them."

Ezekiel Forman as a Loyalist Refugee

Forman left New Jersey in October and went into British lines in New York, but he did not leave the country. A British Colonel, A. Emmerick, recalled Forman’s role in saving four captured British soldiers in 1779:

Ezekiel Forman, a Loyalist from New Jersey, at the risk of his life, came to the lines and informed me that four men belonging to my corps, who were prisoners of the rebels, were under sentence of death and that by this timely and useful information, I was enabled to dispatch a flag of truce to General MacDougall, so as to save their lives.

Emmerick further noted that Forman "resided in the garrison of New York, and that he always appeared firmly attached to his Majesty."

Perhaps because of this service, Forman was noticed by the British high command. An aide-de-camp of General Henry Clinton, leading British forces in America, wrote to Colonel Roger Morris, Superintendent of Refugees, on April 15, 1779: "I am desired by the Commander in Chief to request that you will order rations to be issued to the bearer, Mr. Ezekiel Forman. It is wished that he and others in his situation will find out some services for rendering themselves useful."

Forman wrote that he became an officer in “the King’s militia” in New York City, but he did not stay in the city. He was captured again in New Jersey in 1781. He wrote: "was a second time thrown in prison, where he remained a long time & suffered much." The New Jersey Legislative Council again considered his fate on October 15, 1781. It recorded receiving "a petition from Ezekiel Forman, who was convicted of High Treason and received a sentence of death at a Court of Oyer and Terminer in the County of Monmouth in the year of 1778, praying to be pardoned of the offence."  The Council again recommended a pardon and it was presumably granted.

Forman returned to New York and was put in a supervisory role over a unit of African American Loyalists called the Black Pioneers. He was granted "an allowance of four shillings per diem until something better could be done for him." At times, the pioneers were employed digging trenches, at other times they performed even less glamorous tasks. One of their orders was to "assist in cleaning the streets & removing all Nuisances being thrown into the streets." It is safe to assume that Forman was unhappy with the role.

Ezekiel Forman at War’s End

It appears that Ezekiel Forman returned to New Jersey toward the end of the war to settle his estate. An Ezekiel Forman co-owned property in Princeton with Richard Stockton. Stockton was a signer of the Declaration of Independence who was captured by Loyalists in Freehold in late 1776 and compelled to sign a British loyalty oath. He died during the war. The fate of the Princeton property remained in limbo until April 1782 when Forman signed over the land to Alexander McDonald. In conveying this land, it was noted that Forman was in Philadelphia.

A year later, Forman was still in Philadelphia with his wife. He requested that he and, his wife, Margaret Forman, be allowed to go now with "the liberty of bringing out such monies or effects as he may be able to discharge." With the war ending, Ezekiel Forman apparently planned to settle in New Jersey.  He owned and paid taxes on a small 20-acre farm in Freehold in 1784. On this small farm, Forman lived far more modestly than he would have if not a Loyalist. It is probable that he suffered harassments or worse.

Forman did not stay in New Jersey very long. On July 4, 1788, twelve years after his first arrest, Forman was in England, where he petitioned the British government for compensation for his lost pre-war estate. He recalled his service to the King and the poor state of his family: "he has been deserted and abandoned by all his relations and connections, and is reduced with a wife and a numerous family of children to extreme indigence."

While Ezekiel Forman suffered for his Loyalism during the war, he also received two pardons and was repeatedly shown greater leniency by the government of New Jersey than poor men who committed the same deeds. He was allowed to move around and resettle in New Jersey at war’s end. This contrasts with the dozen or so Loyalists who were put to death in Revolutionary Monmouth County by local courts and to violence from Whig vigilantes later in the war. Ezekiel Forman’s family connections, however strained they might have been, spared him the rough treatment endured by other Loyalists and likely saved his life.

Related Historic Site: Morris-Jumel Mansion (New York)

Sources: Rutgers University, Special Collections, Loyalist Compensation Applications, Coll., Ezerkiel Forman, D96, PRO AO 13/109, reel 8; David Bernstein, Minutes of the Governor's Privy Council, 1777-1789 (Trenton: New Jersey State Library, Archives and History Bureau, 1974) p 83-4; The Library Company, New Jersey Gazette and Pennsylvania Evening Post, September-October 1778; Testimony of Col. Emmerick, Great Britain, Public Record Office, Audit Office, Class 13, volume 109, folio 296-7; Certificate regarding Ezekiel Forman, Great Britain Public Record Office, British Headquarters Papers, 30/55, #1919; The order to the Black Pioneers is in Black Loyalists: Our History, Our People (https://blackloyalist.com/cdc/story/revolution/pioneers.htm);  David Bernstein, Minutes of the Governor's Privy Council, 1777-1789 (Trenton: New Jersey State Library, Archives and History Bureau, 1974) p 206; Princeton University Library, Stockton Family Papers, box 2, folder 4, Release of Land near Princeton, Ezekiel Forman to Alexander MacDonald. April 12 1782; Petition, Ezekiel Forman, David Library, Records of the Pennsylvania Revolutionary Government, film 24, reel 30, frames 477-9; David Forman to George Washington, Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, series 4, reel 91, March 23, 1783; Ezekiel Forman compensation claim, Great Britain, Public Record Office, Audit Office, Class 13, Volume 109, folios 296-297 and 302.