The Disaffected Officeholders of Dover and Stafford Townships

Prior articles have documented that many people living along shore were disaffected. “Disaffected” was a term used during the war to describe people with a dislike for the Continental and New Jersey governments. Local leaders who were disaffected from the Revolution were elected to local offices in Shrewsbury Township. The term could be applied to Loyalist enemies of the new government, but could also be applied to malcontents who stayed home.

Loyalists left American society—they went behind British lines and/or took up arms to oppose the Revolution. They were commonly labeled “Tories” or “Refugees” by Whigs (people who supported the Revolution). The “disaffected” who remained in New Jersey were unhappy with the state of affairs and took actions that placed them at odds with the new government (evading taxes, avoiding militia service, trading with the enemy). But they never took the ultimate step—risking their lives and their estates to support the restoration of Royal rule. They stayed home and, in some cases, remained active in local government.

Here is a breakdown of a graphic by the author for an essay published in the Journal of the Early Republic detailing the political spectrum during the Revolutionary War in localities with large numbers of disaffected. In these places, like Monmouth County, rival blocs of Whigs (supporters of the Revolution) competed with each other and the disaffected for political sway.

Political Factions Participating in Local Government:

• Machiavellian Whigs: Willing to sacrifice due process protections in the interest of fully prosecuting the local war forcefully

• Due-Process Whigs: Supported war effort, but not to the extent of sacrificing legal and due process protections

• Disaffected: Participated in the new government but covertly opposed it; took actions contrary to the war effort

External:

• Loyalist: Went within British lines and/or took up arms in direct opposition to the American government

It stands to reason that in areas with disaffected majorities, these citizens would elect leaders who reflected their disaffection. In four of Monmouth County’s six townships (Middletown, Shrewsbury, Dover, and Stafford), there were significant disaffected populations. Long shorelines made “London Trading” with British-held New York easy and profits made this trade alluring. Resentment toward the new government—its taxes, its mandatory militia service, its inflationary money, its weak institutions—ran high.

In prior research, the author identified fifteen wartime officeholders (even after the purging of Loyalists following the restoration of Whig rule in early 1777) linked to disaffection.  Some, such as Richard Crammer, Clarence Van Mater, and David Woodmancy were from families that were known to be disaffected. Others like David Knott and Daniel Hendrickson of Middletown (not the militia colonel of the same name) were pre-war squires who probably enjoyed some lingering deference from their neighbors. While these disaffected leaders held a variety of leadership positions, they only held civilian offices.  There is no evidence of disaffection among Monmouth’s militia officers subsequent to the restoration of Whig rule in early 1777 (though Major Thomas Hunn and three other militia officers were removed by courts martial for embezzling counterfeit money in 1781).

The true political feelings of these disaffected officeholders are hard to know based on surviving documents, but their dalliances with disaffection (including participating in the highly profitable London Trade) suggests that the lure of profit may have trumped political convictions.

Disaffected Local Leaders in Dover Township

Township election records do not exist for most of Monmouth County’s townships during the Revolutionary War years. Fortunately, Dover Township records have survived for 1780 and 1783. The voters of Dover Township elected the following men during those two years:

1780 Dover Township Officeholders

Name / Year / Office / Evidence of Disaffection

Samuel Brown

1780

Commissioner of Appeals

No records found

John Cook

1780

Clerk, Freeholder

No records found

John Chamberlain

1780

Constable

No records found

Benjamin Ellison

1780

Highway Overseer

No records found

John Holmes

1780

Assessor

No records found

Ezekiel Johnson

1780

Highway Overseer

No records found

John Platt

1780

Commissioner of Appeals

No records found

Isaac Potter

1780

Freeholder to Assist Assessor

skips jury duty, indicted for misdemeanor

Thomas Potter

1780

Overseer of Poor

takes British loyalty oath, petitioner against Retaliators

Moses Robins

1780

Freeholder to Assist Assessor

No records found

John Stout

1780

Collector

No records found

Joshua Studson

1780

Highway Surveyors

No records found

Jacob Wolcott

1780

Highway Overseer

Tory insurrectionist (recants)

David Woodmancy

1780

Freeholder

indicted for Seditious Words, militia delinquent, indicted for misdemeanor (twice)

James Woodmancy

1780

Highway Surveyor

skips jury duty, assists Pine Robbers

Of the fifteen men elected to township offices in 1780, five took actions that indicate disaffection. While some officeholders—Cook, Brown, Stout, and Studson—were also militia officers who had risked their lives to combat Pine Robbers and London Traders, many officeholders were sympathetic to or in collaboration with those Loyalists. While five of fifteen is not a majority officeholders it must be noted that evidence of disaffection is incomplete; it is probable that additional officeholders committed acts that showed some level of collaboration with local Pine Robbers or London Traders. Three of the officeholders above—Johnson, Platt, and Robins—lack documentation of disaffection, but also documentation of taking acts in support of the Revolution (beyond holding a local office).

1783 Dover Township Officeholders

Name / Year / Office / Evidence of Disaffection

Jacob Applegate

1783

Highway Overseer

No records found

Jacob Foster

1783

Overseer of Highway

Tory insurrectionist, indicted for misdemeanor (twice)

Francis Letts

1783

Overseer of Poor

No records found

Isaac Potter

1783

Freeholder of Appeals

skips jury duty, indicted for misdemeanor

Moses Robins

1783

Freeholder of Appeals

No records found

John Rogers

1783

Chosen Freeholder

No records found

John Stout

1783

Overseer of Poor

No records found

Thomas Van Note

1783

Overseer of Highways

Pine Robbers in family

David Woodmancy

1783

Clerk; Freeholder of Appeals

indicted for Seditious Words, militia delinquent, indicted for misdemeanor (twice)

Gabriel Woodmancy

1783

Assessor; Chosen Freeholder

indicted for Seditious Words

James Woodmancy

1783

Collector

skips jury duty, assists Pine Robbers

John Woodmancy

1783

Constable

skips jury duty, assists Pine Robbers

Of the twelve men elected to township offices in 1783, at least seven men were disaffected. Four of these men were from the publicly disaffected Woodmancy family. The ranks of the staunch Whig leaders who stood for office in 1780 had thinned—Cook and Studson had both died in battle, and Brown had fled the township and was living in Woodbridge. The township’s primary Whig neighborhood—the village of Toms River—had been destroyed in March 1782 and this act may have left Whig voters dispirited. As noted above, it is possible that additional local officeholders were disaffected beyond those listed. The citizens of Dover Township elected men disaffected from the Revolution even as the Revolution’s outcome was becoming apparent.

Disaffected Officeholders in Stafford Township

Evidence is similar in Stafford Township, to the south of Dover. The locals of this township, culturally and geographically distant from the northern townships, took sniper shots at Kasimir Pulaski’s Continentals in 1778 and supported Pine Robbers and London Traders throughout the second half of the war.

Name / Year / Office / Evidence of Disaffection

Nathan Bartlett

1780

Freeholder

No records found

David Bennett

1780

Highway Surveyor

indicted for misdemeanor (twice)

Richard Brown Jr

1780

Freeholder

seeks militia exemption, rejected

Daniel Conklin

1780

Highway Overseer

No records found

Sylvester Cook

1780

Overseer of the Poor

No records found

Richard Crammer

1780

Overseer of Highways

arrested for London Trading, indicted for going to New York, defaults on debt owed to State

Nathan Crane

1780

Overseer of Highways

No records found

Trevor Newland

1780

Assessor

accused of disaffection, arrested and released on bond, cordial with Loyalists, goes to New York

Linus Pangburn

1780

Clerk

No records found

Amos Pharo

1780

Commissioner of Appeals

No records found

Joseph Randolph

1780

Collector

indicted for misdemeanor, missed jury duty

Reuben Randolph

1780

Commissioner of Appeals

missed jury duty

John Southard

1780

Constable

missed jury duty

Sylvester Tilton

1780

Commissioner of Appeals

No records found

Of the fourteen elected officeholders in 1780, seven show evidence of disaffection. However, it should be noted that three of these men—Joseph and Reuben Randolph, and Southard—had other experiences that show a commitment to the Revolution (Reuben Randolph was the captain of Stafford’s one militia company). So, some of these leaders might have been libertine rather than truly disaffected.

On January 23, 1781, the Monmouth County Sheriff was ordered to form a posse and arrest many of Stafford Township’s leaders:

You are hereby commanded that you take Samuel Ridgeway, Thomas Ridgeway, Thomas Osborn and Amos Randall… and them to safely keep so that you have their bodies before the Judges of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas to be held at Freehold...on the fourth Tuesday of April next, to answer the State of New Jersey in a plea of debt that they render to the said State, the sum of L320 lawful money, which to the said State they owe and unjustly detain.

Similar orders were issued for the arrests of David Smith, Josiah Crammer, Samuel Pearce, David Jones, Micajah Willis, Amos Southard, Richard Crammer Jr., Richard Willis, Samuel Crammer, Anthony McKinnon.

While the underlying charge is not stated, the most likely reason for this large-scale action was that these men were implicated in London Trading and/or harboring the enemy. The Ridgeway, Crammer and Southard families were among the most prominent in Stafford Township, and members of these families were in the rotation for local office holding. The leading families in Stafford Township, including those holding some of its most important offices, were judged disaffected by county leaders in Freehold.

Perspective

It is easy to deploy a simplistic “Patriot vs. Tory” dichotomy when considering the American Revolution. Popular culture depictions of the war suggest that the American countryside was comprised of “good” Patriots and a scattering of scheming Tories. However, along the ethnically-English, poor, and sparsely-populated Monmouth County shoreline, resentments ran high against the wealthier Scotch Irish and Dutch inland residents who dominated the county’s Revolutionary government. These resentments made it easy to oppose the Revolution—especially once London 

Trading created unprecedented opportunities to accumulate wealth. Whether the disaffected leaders of Dover and Stafford Townships were genuinely opposed to the Revolution, or merely co-opted by the windfalls of London Trading, is a tantalizing question not answered by surviving documents.

Related Historic Site: Cedar Bridge Tavern

Sources: Michael Adelberg, “The Transformation of Local Governance in Monmouth County, New Jersey during the War of the American Revolution,” Journal of the Early Republic, vol 31 (2011), pp 467-498; Dover and Stafford Township Election Returns, Monmouth County Archives, Box 613 - Election Returns, Folders – 1780, 1783; Kenneth Anderson to Sheriff, Monmouth County Archives, Common Pleas (Loose); Edwin Salter, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties (Bayonne, NJ: E. Gardner and Sons, 1890) p 352; Michael Adelberg, Biographical File, at the Monmouth County Historical Association.