7. Monmouth Countians Capture British Ship < Back Monmouth Countians Capture British Ship Throughout 1775, a steady stream of British supply vessels sailed the Atlantic Seaboard with provisions for the British Army. The Monmouth shore, with its proximity to New York City and prevailing winds, became a common place for British ships to make landfall. These ships, made less agile by heavy cargoes and punished from storms, frequently grounded along the unmarked Monmouth shoreline and in its narrow inlets. It was one of these groundings that created the first opportunity for the Whigs (supporters of the Revolution) of Monmouth County to take their first clear action against the British military. On October 5, 1775, the HMS Viper , made landfall near Barnegat during “a gale of wind.” Warships were frequently accompanied by smaller vessels called “tenders” that ferried goods between the ship and shore. The Viper and its tender beached off Barnegat. The Viper ’s crew threw materials overboard in order to raise the ship and escape the shallows; its tender was not so fortunate. The Viper sailed away, along with most of the tender’s crew. Contemporary view of a beach at Barnegat. The British sloop likely grounded off of an uninhabited beach similar to this one. Word of the stranded tender reached Freehold on October 7 and the Monmouth County Committee quickly ordered the militia to capture the tender and salvage the materials thrown overboard. Presumably the next day, a militia party co-led by James Allen of Dover and Asher Taylor of Shrewsbury townships arrived at Barnegat and captured the tender and its three remaining sailors. The New Jersey Provincial Congress recorded the capture on October 11: “A small vessel, supposed to be a tender of a Man of War, was taken near Barnegat with three persons on board… and said persons secured in some safe place in the County of Monmouth." On the 13th, the captured British sailors were deposed by Dr. Nathaniel Scudder of the Monmouth County Committee. Richard Symonds , the senior sailor, testified that the tender was blown off course. He "discovered land, entered Cranberry Inlet being unable to continue at sea on acct of the smallness of the vessel & badness of the weather." Symonds reported that the tender was boarded by Taylor and Allen, who, "finding he belonged to a man of war, insisted upon detaining him & his companions... demanded delivery of their arms, with which they complied and since remained in custody." Five days later, the New Jersey Provincial Congress read a report on the incident and resolved: That it be recommended to that Committee to publish an Advertisement in the Newspapers, describing the Sloop, so that the owner may know where to apply; and that the Men and Arms, found on board the said Sloop, be taken proper care of by that Committee, until this Congress shall give further order. The New Jersey Provincial Congress agreed to receive the three prisoners on January 2, 1776. But Monmouth County Committee Chair, John Burrowes , reported bad news on January 11: “The two lads have gone off, & Mr. Simmonds appears in a very uneasy situation.” Burrowes agreed to transfer Symmonds and he is recorded as confined in Philadelphia (with a number of other captured British sailors from other ships) in a Continental Congress document compiled on February 21, 1776. The fate of the two junior sailors is not known. On February 1, the Monmouth Committee of Observation advertised the sale of the beached tender in the New York Journal . The sale would occur on May 1. The ship was described as a 30-foot sloop, tender to the frigate Viper. The Committee gave the rightful owner the option to recover it: "If the original owner shall apply, prove property and pay charges, any day before the first of May next, he may have her again in her present condition.” Absent that, the vessel would be sold. It can be safely assumed that the Monmouth County Committee knew full well that the British Navy would not demean itself by applying to a rebel County Committee (which it did not recognize) for the return of its vessel. With the capture and sale of the tender and detention of its crew, Monmouth County Whigs were now active participants in the still-undeclared Revolutionary War. Bolder captures would soon occur. Interestingly, the two men who led the capture, James Allen and Asher Taylor, would both turn Loyalist during the Loyalist insurrections that occurred a year later. Monmouth Countians would continue to prey on vulnerable British shipping for the next seven years, including captures in December 1775 and January 1776 . Related Historical Sites : New Jersey Maritime Museum Sources : New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives and History, Manuscript Coll., State Library Manuscript Coll., #74 , 76-77; Dennis Ryan, New Jersey in the American Revolution, 1763-1783: A Chronology (Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1974) p 24; Peter Force, American Archives, (Force and Clarke: Washington, DC, 1837) Series 4, vol. 3, P1287; Minutes of the Provincial Congress and the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey 1775-1776 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009) pp. 204-6; John Almon, The Rembrancer or Impartial Repository of Public Events, Part I (John Almon: London, 1776), p 339; "Peter Force, American Archives: Documents of the American Revolution, 1774-6 (digitized: http://dig.lib.niu.edu/amarch/find.doc.html ), v3: p 1221, 1227.); Christopher Marshall, The Diary of Christopher Marshall (Amazon Digital Services, 2014) p 48; William James Morgan, Naval Documents of the American Revolution (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1969) vol. 3, pp. 577, 753; National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, M247, I58, Papers of John Hancock, p 424. 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15. First Skirmish at Sandy Hook < Back April 1776 On April 7, the British Navy disembarked and subsequently occupied the undefended Sandy Hook peninsula. In retrospect, it seems a grave oversight that Continental and New Jersey authorities had not sought to garrison the strategically important peninsula. Those same authorities quickly sought to lessen that error by harassing the British. With large British warships anchored toward the northern end of Sandy Hook, the British must have felt secure in their ownership of the Hook. An April 16 letter from New York’s Royal Governor William Tryon , now at Sandy Hook, suggested as much. But on April 23, a party of sailors from the Asia was attacked while inside the Sandy Hook lighthouse. A New Jersey militia detachment surprised the sailors and captured them. While one source suggests that the militia captured 35 men, that seems to be an exaggeration. A more sober narrative of the event published in the New York Journal numbered the British party at sixteen. A report published in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on April 27 was more complete: We hear from Sandy Hook that sixteen men from one of the ships of war, having landed there in order to get some water, had all got into the upper room of the Light House where they were carousing; when a party of the New Jersey militia surprised them, and taking away the lower part of the stairs, made all them prisoners, burnt their boat and filled up the well. A Swedish officer, Hans Fredrick Wachmeister , serving aboard the Phoenix, recorded the attack on the British sailors and the efforts to relieve them, in his journal: “We sent our boats to assist the Asia 's watering boat, which the enemy with a swarm of boats, was attempting to attack, but which they ceased once we arrived." Captain George Vandeput of the Asia , probably embarrassed by the incident, provided only a minimal mention of the incident: "The rebels attacked our watering sloop." Wachmeister provided an additional detail on the attacking militia that would foreshadow the coming maritime warfare around Sandy Hook. He noted the militia attacked via oar-powered whaleboats: These boats are called whaleboats, are armed in the bow with a rather long gun of an inch and a half in caliber [swivel gun] and carry eight or ten men with muskets. They are rowed with ease, are built of good timber, but are not very strong. Whaleboats had been used by Lord Stirling during the capture of the Blue Mountain Valley three months earlier; they would remain the favorite vessel of sheltered-water privateers and local militia parties. The identity of the militia party that surprised the British sailors is unknown. However, there is no documentation that indicates that the Monmouth militia took this bold action. As noted elsewhere, the Monmouth militia, at this time, was largely dysfunctional due to disloyalty and many of its militia companies probably would have refused to instigate combat with the Royal Navy. It seems more likely that the militia involved were from Essex County. Four months earlier, Essex militia, in whale boats, had captured the British vessel, Blue Mountain Valley just south of Sandy Hook. The Essex militia had the whaleboats, experience, and bravado to land on Sandy Hook and capture the British sailors. The capture of the British party at the lighthouse embarrassed the British and this forced a reaction. Captain Hyde Parker of the frigate, Phoenix , on guard at Sandy Hook, immediately took steps to better protect Sandy Hook. This included permanently stationing an armed party in the light house. He reported to his superior, Vice Admiral to Molyneux Shuldham, on April 29, that he had "put the Light House in a state of defense." Parker’s defensive measures would soon be tested by a Continental Army attack on the Light House. The HMS Asia was among the first British warships to anchor off Sandy Hook. A party of men from the ship were surprised and captured on the peninsula in April 1776. Related Historic Site : Sandy Hook Lighthouse Sources : Howard Peckham, The Toll of Independence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974) p 16; The Library Company, Pennsylvania Evening Post; William James Morgan, Naval Documents of the American Revolution (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1969) vol. 4, p 1253; William James Morgan, Naval Documents of the American Revolution (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1969) vol. 4, pp. 1310-3; Gustav Johnson, "Two Swedes under the Union Jack," Swedish-American Historical Quarterly, vol. 7 (1956), pp. 100-1; William James Morgan, Naval Documents of the American Revolution (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1969) vol. 5, p 203.. Previous Next

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54. The Battle of the Navesink < Back February 1777 Previous Next

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