Yelverton Taylor Takes British Troop Transport

As noted in prior articles, in 1778, there was a sharp increase in privateering on the Jersey shore. Sailors, mostly from Philadelphia but based at Egg Harbour (today’s Little Egg Harbor), took to the sea in small ships to make their living preying on British shipping. Among the most prolific of these early privateers was Yelverton Taylor. By summer 1779, the activity of Taylor and other Egg Harbor privateers was surpassed by New England privateers hovering off Sandy Hook, but Taylor would soon capture the greatest prize taken off New Jersey during the war.

Historian Donold Shomette wrote of an ill-fated flotilla that sailed from New York in August 1779 with a mission of transporting thousands of soldiers to South Carolina. The flotilla was buffeted by terrible storms off the Jersey Shore. Badger lost two masts and was attacked by a privateer. After surrendering, HMS Soleby arrived and chased off the privateer. Badger was towed back to Sandy Hook. Three other ships in the flotilla, King George, Craford, and Favorite made it back to New York under the escort of the frigate, HMS Renown.

Other ships in the flotilla were less fortunate. The largest transport in the flotilla, Adamant, was lost at sea. Polly was damaged but made it to the Delaware coast before it was captured by a privateer and taken into Philadelphia. Another transport was captured by the 16-gun privateer, Pickering. But the fate of transport, Triton, is best documented. It was taken off Barnegat.

The Capture of Triton

The New Jersey Gazette and Pennsylvania Gazette reported in early October:

On Friday last, Captain Taylor sent into Egg Harbor a transport from New York said to be bound for Halifax with a quantity of dry goods, 214 Hessians, including a Colonel, who are properly taken care of. He was chased into Egg Harbor River by a British frigate; but on his passage up, with the transport in tow, he [Taylor in the schooner Mars] was unfortunately overset by a sudden squall of wind, by which one man drowned. The vessel, it is said, will be got up again.

Taylor was accompanied by Captain Stephen Decatur, sailing in the smaller privateer, Comet, which had been captained by Taylor the prior year. Their capture was the British troop transport, Triton.

Triton left Sandy Hook on September 14 in a flotilla with two other transports, Molly and Archer. One of the German officers on board, Andreas Wiederhold, provided a detailed account of the vessel’s capture. The flotilla encountered “turbulent weather under persistent rain” and the British ships “quite separated themselves” from Triton in the bad weather.” The storms continued next day, Widerhold recalled:

Waves, mountains in height, seemed to devour the ship. Soon we were on top of such a terrible wave, soon we drove between such cruel waves down into the abyss… It was raining and hailing horribly.

One of Triton’s masts broke. The men had to clear the mast and rigging with axes in the rough seas.

On September 16, Wiederhold recalled that the sea calmed enough for the men to come on deck. “We saw the miserable state of the ship.” Many men were sick and much of the supplies were waterlogged. Wiederhold concluded, “No man should have to describe such misery.” The next day he wrote that the ship had lost its bearings (though subsequent accounts suggest that they were off Barnegat). Its stores were largely lost, “everything was corrupted and ruined.” That day and the 18th, men came on deck and repaired what they could. On the 19th, a prayer service was held to thank God for delivering the ship from the storm.

However, the bad luck of the Triton turned worse. That evening, Wiederhold reported: “6 p.m. of the evening we discovered a ship not more than 3 leagues removed. …I loaded a swivel (which was still left) and fired him 2 times to give a signal that we are flying the English flag… to see whether it was friend or foe. But it was night before we got close.” The men spent the evening discussing what they would do if the vessel was a rebel privateer.

Wiederhold wrote about the ship approaching Triton slowly on September 20: “9 a.m. we beheld a ship which seemed to come straight to us; we were happy and believed that it could be an English frigate” to tow us into Sandy Hook. “Because it flew no flag, we could not tell whether it was friend or foe!” On September 21, the vessel closed gradually: “the night was very restless,” the vessel stood landward and “soon came to us from the face.” The Germans determined the vessel to be a rebel schooner and planned their defense. Then the vessel sailed away; it did not return until September 26.

By September 25, Wiederhold was more optimistic: “We were … excited to come through the country complete with grazing privateers and to regain the open sea.” With favorable winds, he predicted “we would be happy to be the following day at Sandy Hook.” The optimism was misplaced.

He wrote on September 26 of “a sad and unfortunate day.” The guard on the Triton spotted a vessel at dawn. “Everyone dressed and went to the top and all with the hope the vessel is from the friendly port of New York.” The Triton was too wounded to evade an enemy, and Weiderhold wrote of the moment he recognized the vessels as rebel privateers:

We were according to the Capt. in so miserable circumstances that they would be unable to turn or evade an enemy. O! We were cheated in our hope because after they came so close and their breeze was felt, we saw a 13 stripes flag, which transformed our joy in suffering… on the right was a schooner named Mars, 14 Cannon, Capt. Taylor commander; that to the left was a shallop named Comet of 10 Cannon, Capt. Decatur commander.

What likely happened is that one of the privateers spotted Triton several days earlier and, seeing the size of the transport, sought the assistance of a second privateer before moving against it. By 8:00 a.m. on the 26th, the two privateers were alongside the transport; they were the schooner Mars and schooner Comet.  Wiederhold wrote of the transport being defenseless:

We were completely unable to defend ourselves since all our cartridges were stuck together and our rifles were useless, and both ships, which remained a considerable distance from us, would have sunk us at the slightest resistance. There was nothing to do but surrender.

The Triton sent an officer to Taylor to negotiate a surrender, the terms of which were not honored:

They promised to leave the officers with their baggage and the soldiers with their knapsacks, a promise they kept badly. As we left our ship, our chests and boxes had to be opened and they searched them carefully, as well as the soldier’s knapsacks; and whatever they fancied, they took, so that little remained. I protested against this procedure, but received the answer that we should be glad we kept what we did. As privateers, they were entitled to everything.

Weiderhold recorded that “the intention of the privateers was immediately to collect us for Philadelphia and the Delaware.” The privateers put the Triton in tow. However, a large ship was spotted in the distance, and, given its size, it was “considered an English ship and it moved always on us.”

This forced the privateers to “settle for the entrance of the Little Egg Harbor.” The ships anchored at dusk at the mouth of Little Egg Harbor. Wiederhold wrote of little progress on September 28, perhaps because one of the privateers, Mars, grounded in the shallows of the unmarked harbor. Weiderhold wrote:

It went aground on a shoal or a sandbank not more than a good musket shot from us. Since the wind was blowing strong and the waves beat violently against it, all their efforts to get it afloat were in vain. It capsized before our eyes and everything [on it] was lost. All the people on board were sitting on the keel, which was just about even with the surface of the water and over which the waves broke constantly, until they were fetched, little by little, in boats.

So, the men “again anchored” at 7 pm. On the 29th, Wiederhold recorded that, “We ran into the little harbor… and dropped the anchor.”

Then on the 30th, “Capt. Reiffurth [of the Triton] and several crew” loaded into a boat and went ashore. On October 1, Wiederhold went ashore with 45 men in a shallop. This occurred even as the shallop grounded and required assistance: “When trying to navigate toward a house, [it] ran aground until a ship's boy steered us off with his oar and directed us to the right channel.” A privateer schooner, presumably the Mars, “remained on sandbank” grounded.

The local geography fascinated Wiederhold, who wrote of Little Egg Harbor and its narrow channels:

In reality, it isn't a harbor at all, but an expansive place with sandbars, shoals, swamps, large and small morasses, and sandy islands… The channels are so narrow that in many places a ship can only pass in the middle. In others, the ship can sail so close to shore that one can reach out and touch the banks with one's hand. If a boatman is unfamiliar with these channels or does not have a good pilot, it is impossible to pass through. This is true even though one can see another boat 1,000 paces away.

By October 2, all of the men on the Triton were brought on shore. Wiederhold recorded that “after all was now ashore” the “surviving” materials were “loaded and driven up the Creek into the country.” However, because “the current was against us” the men sat at “anchor to stay overnight.” In the still wind, the men had to row the shallop upriver through the night. Finally, on October 3, at 7 a.m., the prisoners arrived at the privateer boomtown of Chestnut Neck. The village had been razed by a British raiding party a year earlier but the burnt buildings were likely rebuilt. Wiederhold did not note any destruction.

The village was not equipped for so many prisoners. The Germans had to “lie in stables because otherwise [there] no room for them; were nevertheless pleased to be off the miserable ship and on God's Earth.” On October 4, Wiederhold met Major Richard Westcott. Wescott impressed Wiederhold because he was “so polite, so he gave 3 wagons for the sick.” The German officers compensated Wescott with their silver coins. The Germans were then marched overland to Philadelphia. They reached the Delaware River on October 16.

The New Jersey Gazette reported that the Triton was not the only British vessel in the convoy to suffer: “four of the transports [were] much shattered, the Renown returned dismasted." One vessel sunk at sea. The capture of the Triton was Taylor’s last recorded capture. From this and other prizes, he had likely accumulated a small fortune, and he would surely receive harsh treatment from the British if captured. Taylor likely retired although his colleague, Decatur, would remain active.

Related Historic Site: Dyckman House Museum (Hessian Hut) (New York)

Sources: M.D. Learned, Tagebuch des Capt. Wiederholdt, Vom 7 October 1776 Bis 7 December 1780, (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1914), p74-88; William Horner, This Old Monmouth of Ours (Freehold: Moreau Brothers, 1932) p 65; Donald Shomette, Privateers of the Revolution: War on the New Jersey Coast (Shiffer: Atglen, PA, 2015); Edwin Salter, A History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties (Bayonne, N.J.: E. Gardner and Son, 1890), pp. 119-120; Paul C. Burgess, A Colonial Scrapbook: The Southern New Jersey Coast. 1675-1783 (New York: Carlton Press, 1971), p 170; J.A. McManemin, Captains of Privateers. (Spring Lake, N.J.: Ho-Ho-Kus Pub. Co., 1994), pp. 341-344; Valentine C. Hubbs, Hessian Journals: Unpublished Documents of the American Revolution (London: Camden House, 1980) pp. 81-3; Library of Congress, Early American Newspaper, New Jersey Gazette, reel 1930; Hand, JP, The Cape May Navy, (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2018) pp. 71-76.