David Forman Hires Spies in New York to Report on British < Back June 1777 Previous Next

The Capture of the Blue Mountain Valley off Sandy Hook < Back January 1776 By the start of 1776, the Continental Army had surrounded the British Army in Boston and invaded Canada. One of the bloodiest battles of the American Revolution had been fought at Breed’s Hill (Bunker Hill) outside of Boston. Rebelling Americans were also growing increasingly bold in their attacks on vulnerable British ships . The Blue Mountain Valley was a 100-foot British vessel that had sailed as part of a 24-ship convoy from London to Boston to supply the British Army camped there. The heavily-loaded vessel was blown off course during a storm and grounded on the Jersey shore, six miles south of Sandy Hook. On January 21, 1776, the pilot at Sandy Hook, William Dobbs, alerted the New York Committee of Safety about the ship’s vulnerable position. The New York Committee of Safety, knowing that the ship was in New Jersey waters, alerted New Jersey’s top Continental Army officer, Lord Stirling (William Alexander). The New Yorkers warned Stirling that the vessel had six cannon and a crew of at least 20 men. They also suggested that it was heavily loaded with ammunition. The Council of Safety concluded, “It would greatly serve the public cause if she could be seized.” Lord Stirling (William Alexander) was alerted to the vulnerable position of the Blue Mountain Valley south of Sandy Hook and led a flotilla of small boats to capture it. Stirling, with 40 Continental Army volunteers, left in a pilot boat from Perth Amboy; they were soon joined by 80 more volunteers from the Essex County militia in several small boats. One of those volunteers, a man named William Marriner , would go on to lead a number of successful maritime raids against British shipping between 1778 and 1780. Together, the motley flotilla headed for the stranded ship. Stirling’s small boats, according to antiquarian accounts, were apparently mistaken for fishing vessels by the captain of the Blue Mountain Valley . The ship did not fire upon Stirling’s boats as they rowed closer. The New Jersians came up on the ship and climbed aboard. Stirling’s men were too numerous to be resisted by the small crew of the Blue Mountain Valley . “We boarded her and took her without opposition,” Stirling would report. Stirling’s timing was fortunate. The prior day, some of the Blue Mountain Valley ’s crew went to New York in a boat to seek help, lessening the ship’s ability to resist Stirling’s attack. One antiquarian narrative of the capture also suggests that the vessel had just floated off a sand bar when Stirling’s party arrived; the vessel might have escaped with just a little more time. Stirling reported to the Continental Congress that the Blue Mountain Valley carried: “107 tons of coal, 100 butts of porter, 15 tons of potato, 112 tons of bean, 10 casks of sour krout [sic] and 8 hogs.” He predicted that more British vessels would seek to supply the British and recommended stationing “four or six small vessels” near Sandy Hook to pick them off. This did not happen, but the state of New York would soon assign two sloops to cruise the New Jersey shoreline. Stirling’s time off Sandy Hook also exposed him to something troubling – he apparently witnessed locals illegally trading with British naval vessels in New York Harbor. He wrote: “Attempts have been made in this Province to break through the prohibition ordered by Congress to the shipping of lumber and provisions [to the British]. I have taken every step in my power to prevent it, and have laid the whole proceedings before the Convention of this Province.” Curbing illegal trade and emigration between the Monmouth shore and British interests would remain a problem for the next seven years. On January 29, the New Jersey Provincial Congress affirmed the seizure of the Blue Mountain Valley as legal, and the Continental Congress concurred two weeks later. The capture of the Blue Mountain Valley was reported in New York and Philadelphia newspapers. Word of the capture spread--even the Virginia Gazette in far off Williamsburg noted the capture. The British retaliated, if half-heartedly. On March 27, a British warship sailed into Elizabeth harbor and set fire to the Blue Mountain Valley and Lord Stirling’s personal vessel. But locals rallied to defend the harbor; the fires were extinguished and ships repaired after the British withdrew. The cargo had long since been unloaded. British ships would also soon attack Continental ships along the New Jersey shore. Sources : Calendar of New York Historical Transcripts, (Albany, NY: privately printed, 1868) vol. 1, 220; Benson Lossing, Pictorial Fieldbook of the Revolution (reprint: Kessinger Publishing, NY, 2006) v1, p328-9; David Paul Nelson, The Life of William Alexander - Lord Stirling (Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama Press, 1987) p71; Peter Force, American Archives, (Force and Clarke: Washington, DC, 1837) Series 4, vol. 4, 1064; New Jersey State Archives, Dept of Defense, Military Records, Revolutionary War Copies, box 28, #6; "Peter Force, American Archives: Documents of the American Revolution, 1774-6 (digitized: http://dig.lib.niu.edu/amarch/find.doc.html ), v3: p 867; Larry R. Gerlach, Prologue to Independence: New Jersey in the Coming of the Revolution (New Brunswick, N.J., 1976), p 304; Coldham, comp., American Loyalist Claims (Washington, D.C.: National Genealogical Society, 1980), p 9; Franklin Kemp, The Capture of Enemy Vessels by Ground Troops in New Jersey 1775 – 1783, (privately printed: Egg Harbor, NJ), p 19; National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, reel 179, item 162, #384; Virginia Gazette, February 10, 1776; Fehlings, Gregory E. “ 'Act of Piracy': The Continental Army and the Blue Mountain Valley,” New Jersey History vol. 115, 1997, pp. 61-6; Peter Force, American Archives, (Force and Clarke: Washington, DC, 1837) Series 4, vol. 4, P851; Library of Congress, NY Gaz & Weekly Mercury, reel 2904; Carl Prince, Papers of William Livingston (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987) vol. 1, p 39 note; Peter Force, American Archives, v4: 913. Related Historical Sites : Sandy Hook Light House ; New Jersey Maritime Museum Previous Next

Shrewsbury Committee and Militia Move Against Black Neighbors < Back Shrewsbury Committee and Militia Move Against Black Neighbors Approximately 10 percent of Monmouth County’s Revolutionary-era population was African-American, split roughly evenly between slave and free. Free Blacks faced substantial discrimination—they could not vote or serve in the militia (though they would be permitted to serve in the Continental Army). According to Monmouth County’s tax lists, no African-American owned a large farm—the primary path to acquiring wealth. The large majority of free Blacks were “householders” or “single men” according to the tax lists—meaning they labored for others in order to make a living. Free black men often lived segregated, in clusters of cabins outside of the county’s villages. Some slaves lived with the free Blacks in these segregated communities, others lived on the family farms of the men who owned them. Revolutionary War-era cabins Monmouth’s wealthy men frequently owned slaves, but not always. Tax lists show that no Monmouth Countian owned more than ten. Colonial newspapers printed runaway slave advertisements from Monmouth County a handful of times each year, including one for “Titus” in 1775. It probable that Titus is the man who become a famous Loyalist partisan known as “Colonel Tye”. Anti-Black sentiment bubbled up periodically during the Colonial period—and court records document sporadic assaults and other crimes against African Americans. The immorality of slavery was frequently discussed during the Revolutionary period; colonists often referred to British policies “enslaving” the colonies. Quakers, particularly numerous in Shrewsbury Township, campaigned for the end of slavery and, as early as 1774, started pressuring their own members to free their slaves. Predictably, all of this activity emboldened the Black community. In February 1774, residents of Shrewsbury and Middletown authored petitions to the New Jersey Assembly claiming that: There is a great number of Negro men, women and children being slaves, and are daily increasing in numbers & impudence, that we find them very troublesome by running about all times of night, stealing, taking & riding other people's horses & other mischief, in a great degree owing to having a correspondence and recourse to the Houses of them already freed. The 108 petitioners further worried over the “great number of petitions for the freeing of slaves” which were being sent to the Assembly. They called talk of freeing slaves “pernicious to the public” and urged the Assembly assert that slavery would remain the law of New Jersey. Interestingly, the petitioners included several men would become leading Loyalists—Rev. Samuel Cooke, Dr. James Boggs, Commissioner John Taylor, Col. George Taylor—and several others who would hold senior positions in the new Revolutionary government—Col. Daniel Hendrickson, Maj. Hendrick Van Brunt, Assemblyman James Mott, and Committee Chair John Burrowes. The militance of the county’s African Americans, particularly in Shrewsbury where Quakers were forcing manumissions, prompted a backlash. On October 6, 1775, Shrewsbury’s Committee of Observation noted that “numerous and riotous meetings of Negroes at unlicensed houses is pernicious of itself and may be of pernicious consequences.” It ordered the militia Colonel (Samuel Breese), to report on such events and “to use his militia... to secure the Negroes, and give the names of the delinquents" to the Committee. Ten days later, the Committee went further, instructing Breese to “order parties of the militia to attend such suspected places to search for and apprehend all transgressors of the law." It is noteworthy that the first campaign of the Shrewsbury militia was not against the British, but against a segment of its own population agitating for greater freedom. The Shrewsbury Committee of Observation done with cracking down on the local Black community. On February 16, 1776, it resolved to disarm all African Americans: “all arms in the hands of or at the disposal of Negroes, either slave or free, shall be taken and secured by the militia officers... until the present troubles are settled, and that such arms shall be lodged in the hands of the Colonel." Two weeks later, the Committee went even further: Resolved, that all slaves, either Negroes, mulattoes or others that shall be found off their master's premises any time of night, may be taken up by any person whatsoever and secured until a fine of ten schillings be paid... and in failure of payment of such fine, the slave shall be delivered to the Minute-men to be kept under guard until he shall receive lashes on the bare back. The actions of Shrewsbury Committee occurred as events outside the county were causing waves within it. In November 1775, the Royal Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, declared that “all indentured servants, negroes or others” owned by rebels would be freed from their bonds if they sought British protection and supported the British war effort. Meanwhile, many New Jersey slaveholders were indeed freeing their slaves. Historian James Gigantino estimated that 17% of Newy Jersey’s slaveholders freed at least one slave in his/her will and others did not wait for their death to free one or more slaves. New Jersey was the last northern state to outlaw slavery. An 1804 law created a gradual emancipation process. Sources: New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives and History, Manuscript Collection, Manuscripts, box 14, #17; Proceedings of the Committees of Freehold and Shrewsbury, Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, First Series, 1846, pp. 191-2; Proclamation of Lord Dunmore, Nov 11, 1775, Africans in America, www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part 2; Jim Gigantino: Slavery, Abolition, and African Americans in New Jersey’s American Revolution in James Gigantino, ed., The American Revolution in New Jersey: Where the Battlefront Meets the Homefront (New Brunsiwick: Rutgers UP, 2015), pp 52-5; Proceedings of the Committees of Freehold and Shrewsbury, Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, First Series, 1846, pp. 191-3; Proceedings of the Committees of Freehold and Shrewsbury, Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, First Series, 1846, pp. 192-3 . Related Historical Sites : none Related Articles : #3, #5, #30, #31, #235 More on People in this Article : “Colonel” Tye 184, 196; Samuel Cooke 3,5,249; Dr. James Boggs 17, 249; John Taylor 42; George Taylor 11, 23, 36, 48, 60, 194; Daniel Hendrickson 125, 158; Hendrick Van Brunt 158; James Mott 184, 198; John Burrowes 95; Samuel Breese 11. Previous Next

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Monmouth Militia Marches to Amboy to Defend the Town < Back July 1776 Previous Next

Loyalist Estates Inventoried and Rented < Back July 1777 Previous Next

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NJ Volunteers on Staten Island and at Sandy Hook < Back May 1777 Previous Next

Joshua Huddy's State Troops Artillery Company < Back September 1777 Previous Next

Elias Longstreet Raises Company for Continental Army < Back January 1776 In late 1775, at the request of the Continental Congress, the New Jersey Provincial Congress began raising two regiments of troops for the Continental Army—one from East New Jersey and one from West New Jersey. Although the colonies had not declared independence from England, there were already hostilities around Boston (where the British had besieged the city) and in Canada, where the Continental Army had invaded in hopes of bringing Canada into the “Continental” rebellion. Monmouth County’s response to the call for troops was modest in comparison to the size of the county. The county was tasked with raising only one company for the First New Jersey Regiment. Elias Longstreet of Freehold Township was tasked with raising this company and would be commissioned as its captain. Recruitng was a struggle for Longstreet; he had raised fewer than 40 men at the end of November—less than any of the seven other company commanders in the First Regiment. On December 3, the regimental commander, William Alexander (Lord Stirling), reported to the Provincial Congress on Longstreet’s difficulties: Captain [Elias] Longstreet, of Monmouth County, reported to me at Brunswick that his company is near complete, but scattered at so great distance that it will be impossible to assemble them in less than ten days… These Captains all complain very heavily of the usage they meet with from the justices, who issue warrants against the men on the smallest pretense. John Covenhoven of Freehold, a Monmouth County delegate in the Provincial Congress, further noted Longstreet’s recruiting problems on December 15. “Captain Longstreet has been under many disadvantages in raising a company… some people discourage the enlistment.” On January 12, 1776, Longstreet’s company finally reached full strength. It now numbered three junior officers, four sergeants, four corporals, two musicians, and 60 privates. The company assembled at Freehold and marched to Perth Amboy, where it quartered in barracks recently abandoned by British troops. They then marched forward to Elizabeth to join with the rest of regiment. The combined regiment quartered in New York City for the rest of the winter. The winter was hard on Longstreet’s company. According to a March 6 return of the First Regiment, the Monmouth Company had been whittled down to 45 privates “fit & present.” Five were absent from camp (probably sick), five more were deserted, one was taken prisoner. The company’s arms were adequate (44 guns, 56 bayonets, 70 cartridge boxes) but other important supplies were woefully short (only 22 blankets, 15 beds, 0 shoes). Given the poor state of supplies, it is no wonder that the New Jersey regiment’s rank and file did not take kindly to orders to head to Canada. One of Longstreet’s men, Private Henry Vunck, recalled a near-mutiny in response to the order: When the regiment ascertained that they were to be ordered to march to Canada -- a disposition to marching or refuse going manifested itself among the men in consequence of which Genl Washington caused the regiment to parade without arms which being done it was surrounded by other troops. A parley took place when a man by the name of Brown stated that the cause of dissatisfaction on the part of the regiment was that they were not paid nor clothed and that the hardship of the campaign could not be endured without clothing and if anything of an assurance could be given of their being paid the regiment would cheerfully go and reinforce the northern army. Apparently, the New Jersey troops were mollified because, as reported by Vunck, “about the 10th May the troops destined to reinforce the northern army embarked on board of sloops at New York and sailed up the river to Albany where they landed and encamped on the hill, the whole under the immediate command of Genl Sullivan [John Sullivan of New Hampshire]." Sullivan marched the troops into Canada. At the St. Lawrence River, the New Jersey troops met Massachusetts troops who had endured the previous winter in Canada. Vunck recalled that they were "much worn down with sickness and fatigue, numerous dying with smallpox.” The New Jersey troops were inoculated and moved to Ticonderoga. There, they stayed through the summer without seeing any action. The only event Vunck found worthy of mention was the celebration of the Declaration of Independence “which was followed by the firing of cannon and musketry.” After that, Vunck “was taken sick & with the invalids went to Fort George and afterwards [went] to Albany, where he remained." As for Captain Longstreet, he never participated in any major battle, but was captured sometime that summer. His wife, Rebecca, recalled that “he was taken prisoner” and knowing nothing further about his status until 1779 when “he returned home on parole.” At the end 1776, the company’s one-year enlistments expired. Four more companies for the Continental Army were raised from Monmouth County in June 1776. These men would be called Flying Camp or State Troops due to their short enlistments and different chain of command. Fort Ticonderoga, where Elias Longstreet’s company of Continentals spent the summer of 1776, prior to seeing limited action in Canada Sources: National Archives, New Jersey, 1st Battalion, Elias Longstreet's Company, from: http://www.fold3.com/image/14579224/ ; Robert K. Wright, Jr., The Continental Army (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1983), pp. 255-7; National Archives, Revolutionary War Veterans Pension Applications, New Jersey - Carhart Walling; Franklin Ellis, The History of Monmouth County (R.T. Peck: Philadelphia, 1885), p133; National Archives, Revolutionary War Veterans' Pension Application, Joseph Van Note of Ohio, S.11617; National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, reel 179, item 162, #330; "Peter Force, American Archives: Documents of the American Revolution, 1774-6 (digitized: http://dig.lib.niu.edu/amarch/find.doc.html ), v4: p 164; 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. 4, p 279; National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, M247, I68, NJ State Papers, p134; National Archives, New Jersey, 1st Regiment; http://www.fold3.com/image/14579224/ ; National Archives, New Jersey, 1st Regiment, http://www.fold3.com/image/14579224/ ; National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, reel 179, item 162, #438; National Archives, revolutionary War veterans Pension Applications, New Jersey - Elias Longstreet. Related Historical Sites : Perth Amboy Barracks Previous Next

Monmouth Countians Capture British Ship < Back Monmouth Countians Capture British Ship Throughout 1775, a steady steam of British supply vessels sailed the Atlantic Seaboard with provisions for the British Army. The Monmouth shore, due to proximity to New York City and prevailing wind patterns, was 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 its narrow inlets. It was one of these groundings that created the first opportunity for the patriots (Whigs) of Monmouth County to take their first clear action against the British military. On October 5, 1775, the HMS Viper , made landfall along the Monmouth shore 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. Beach near Barnegat Inlet 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 13 th , 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." Symmonds 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 in that regard on January 11: “The two lads have gone off, & Mr. Simmonds appears in a very uneasy situation.” Burrowes agreed to transfer Symmonds. The fate of the two junior sailors is not known, but Symmonds is recorded as being confined in Philadelphia (with a number of other captured British sailors from other ships) in a Continental Congress document compiled on February 21, 1776. 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. Interestingly, the two men who led the capture, James Allen and Asher Taylor, would both turn Loyalist a few years later. 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: Cornel 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; . Related Historical Sites : none Related Articles : #1, #8, #10. More on People in this Article : James Allen 169; Nathaniel Scudder 2, 23, 89, 219; John Burrowes 6, 96. Previous Next

Lt. Col. Tupper's Attack on Sandy Hook < Back June 1776 Previous Next