Violence Again Mars Monmouth County Elections

In October 1777, David Forman, at the time a general in the New Jersey militia and commander of a regiment of Continental troops, came to the county election with a party of armed men. He “harangued” the crowd and denounced the incumbent county legislators. Voters favoring the incumbents were driven away without voting and a slate of Forman allies were elected. Afterward, the New Jersey legislature investigated the affair, voided the election, and ordered a new one. Forman’s allies were turned out of office in the re-run election.

In October 1780, David Forman returned to the county election with a gang of armed men. Allied election judges refused to hold the polls open a second day, long enough for militiamen serving on the shore to come to Freehold and vote. When an incumbent legislator, James Mott, protested the disenfranchisement of men protecting their county, Forman beat Mott in front of the crowd. The legislature again investigated the election, but the Forman-allied new delegates provided enough votes in the closely-divided Assembly to preserve the election.

Monmouth County’s 1781 Election

On October 10, 1781, elections were held across New Jersey for the legislature and county sheriff. In Monmouth County, the election judges recorded the election of Thomas Henderson, Nathaniel Scudder and John Covenhoven to the Assembly and Elisha Lawrence (cousin of the Loyalist of the same name) to the Legislative Council. All four were from inland Freehold or Upper Freehold Townships. No elected delegate was from the county’s four shore townships—Middletown, Shrewsbury, Dover and Stafford—despite over 60 percent of the county population residing in these townships. It is likely that militiamen serving on the shore were unable to vote in large numbers.

Henderson and Scudder were active participants in the Association for Retaliation, a vigilante society devoted to eye-for-an-retaliation for every misdeed committed against a member of the society. Covenhoven was the co-founder of the Monmouth County Whig Society—which was devoted to preserving the value of currency and conducting itself legally. He and Lawrence were, presumably, not allied with the extra-legal actions of the Retaliators. As respected elder-statesmen, they likely enjoyed the deference of county voters.

The next month, three Identical Monmouth County petitions were sent to the New Jersey Legislature, signed by 83 men. The petitioners expressed concern about both the election and the actions of the Retaliators. They wrote:

While the enemy is yet formidable & almost at our door, there is tyranny set up against us, equally dangerous to liberty with that which we are fighting against; a set of men of the title of a Committee of Retaliation has formed a combination to trample all law underfoot that clashes with their measures, & under the pretense of retaliating for crimes committed and injuries done by the Refugees to any of the Associators.

The petitioners then discussed the Retaliators sending out armed parties to practice vigilantism:

Some they have imprisoned, from some they have taken goods & from others money; & when those injured have attempted to right themselves by law, they have been abused, their lives threatened & some unmercifully beaten by those persons who have taken their property; officers of justice have been prevented from doing their duty & threatened for attempting it.

Specific Retaliator actions are discussed in the next article. The petitioners then discussed Retaliator misconduct at the recent election:

At the late election, when a number of men (some in arms) appeared in a hostile manner, threatening all such persons at they called Tories and [London] Traders, if they should vote; A writing was put up at the Court House to the same effect; several persons were inhumanly beaten, some of them after they had voted, and some of them drove away who were legally entitled to vote, and went away without voting, not thinking themselves safe, as they did not confine their abuse to people they judged disaffected, but beat and abused several… and at the close of the election, one of the inspectors was attacked going down the stairs, and most barbarously beaten.

The petitioners concluded that the Retaliators were “corrupting the morals of the people & encouraging many others to plunder for their own gain, and committing other crimes with impunity.” They requested “speedy and effectual relief against so dangerous a Combination.” While David Forman was not specifically named in the petitions, there can be no doubt that, as the Chairman of the Retaliators, he played a role in the election day violence.

Timing doomed the anti-Retaliator petitions. On October 15, as the petitioners were gathering signatures, Nathaniel Scudder was killed in a skirmish with Loyalist raiders. He was the only man to serve in the Continental Congress to die in combat, and there was an outpouring of sympathy in favor of Scudder. The New Jersey Legislature ordered a new election for Scudder’s replacement without acknowledging the election protests or petitions. On November 29, Thomas Seabrook—a Middletown militia officer who relocated to Freehold after Loyalist raiders attacked his home and bayoneted his son—was elected to replace Scudder. Seabrook was also a Retaliator.

The author’s prior research demonstrates that the Retaliators continued to operate without an effective check on their vigilantism into 1783; violence and controversy would mar the county election again in 1785

Caption: By 1781, David Forman had bullied voters and officials at two prior elections. The group that he led, the Retaliators, again interrupted the 1781 elections. The New Jersey Legislature did not intervene.

Related Historic Site: New Jersey State Museum

Sources: The Library Company, New Jersey Votes of the Assembly, October 23-26, 1781, p 3-8; Larry Gerlach, New Jersey in the American Revolution 1763-1783 A Documentary History (Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1975) pp. 397-9. New Jersey State Archives, Dept. of Defense, Revolutionary War, Numbered Manuscripts, #10948 and 11036, and Collective Series, Revolutionary War, document #114; Michael Adelberg, Biographical File, unpublished, Monmouth County Historical Association; “A Combination to Trample All Law Underfoot”: The Association for Retaliation and the American Revolution in Monmouth County, New Jersey”, New Jersey History, vol. 115, n. 3, 1997, pp. 3-36.