The Local Response to the Hanging of Joshua Huddy

On April 12, 1782, a party of Loyalists led by Richard Lippincott, hanged Joshua Huddy on the Navesink Highlands. The hanging was an act of retaliation for the murder of the Loyalist Philip White two weeks earlier. The cycle of escalating retaliation between the vengeful Associated Loyalists based in New York and the equally vengeful Association for Retaliation in Monmouth County had been building for more than a year. With Huddy’s hanging, it finally reached a crescendo of eye-for-an-eye executions.

The futility of vigilante retaliation is revealed by the note that was pinned to Huddy’s swinging corpse:

We, the Refugees, having with grief long beheld the cruel murders of our brethren and finding nothing but such measures daily carrying into execution— We therefore determine not to suffer without taking vengeance for the numerous cruelties, and thus began and have made use of Capt. Huddy as first object to present to your views, and further determine to hang man for man as long as a Refugee is left existing. -- Up goes Huddy for Philip White.

With only a few name changes, the exact same note could have been pinned to White’s body and delivered to the British base at Sandy Hook.

Huddy’s body was discovered and brought to Freehold on April 13. Antiquarian sources claim that Huddy’s corpse was laid in the tavern of James Green, the former Colts Neck militia captain who had moved further inland for safety. A crowd gathered to pay respects and, no doubt, discuss the best way to exact revenge.

Building the Case for Additional Retaliation

By April 14, a petition to George Washington was drafted. The petition placed Huddy’s hanging in the context of a string of recent events and Loyalist atrocities. For example, the petitioners claimed that after Huddy surrendered his 25-man guard at Toms River on March 24, "five of Captain Huddy's men were most inhumanly murdered after his surrender."

The petitioners rightly complained that Huddy had no role in the killing of Philip White. Loyalists had "told him [Huddy] that he was to be hanged for he had taken a certain refugee by the name of Philip White.” But Huddy was confined in New York City at the time of White's death, March 31. The petitioners also disputed the overblown rumors of White’s corpse being mistreated. The guards had not ”cut off his arms, broke his legs, pulled out one of his eyes."

The petitioners concluded with a call for further retaliation:

We do as a right look to your Excellency as the person in whom the sole of avenging of our wrongs is lodged, and who has full and ample authority to bring a British officer of the same rank to a similar end... and we with the fullest assurances rely upon receiving effectual support from your Excellency.

The next day, a long memorial was compiled by fifteen of Monmouth County’s senior leaders:

Colonel David Forman, Assemblyman John Covenhoven, Assemblyman Thomas Seabrook, Judge Peter Forman, Magistrate Richard Cox, Captain Joseph Stillwell, Captain Barnes Smock, Captain John Schenck, Colonel Samuel Forman, Attorney William Wilcocks, Colonel Asher Holmes, Major Elisha Walton, Captain Stephen Fleming, Lt. Colonel John Smock, and Captain Thomas Chadwick.

The memorial was clearly informed by Daniel Randolph and Aaron Fleming. They had been captured with Huddy at Toms River, jailed with him in New York, and brought back into Monmouth County with Huddy. The memorialists explained their purpose this way:

The murder [of Huddy] was attended with so much deliberate injustice and wanton cruelty that the circumstances ought to be preserved and made publick, not only to call upon the vengeance of his countrymen and to expiate the manes of the sufferer, but as a shocking instance of the blackness of that guilt on which human nature is capable.

Huddy was lionized for the defense of his Colts Neck home when it was attacked by Loyalists:

Capt. Huddy was one of the bravest men, a fit subject therefore of their cowardly inhumanity.—He has distinguished himself on a variety of occasions, one instance of which I cannot avoid mentioning: The summer before last, alone and unassisted, except by a woman [Lucretia Emmons], he defended his house against a party of nearly seventy refugees for several hours and where it was in a manner riddled with musket balls and in flames about him, he refused to submit until he obtained from his assailants safe and honorable terms: Among the number who were killed in that encounter was the famous Negro [Colonel] Tye, justly much more to be feared than respected, as an enemy, than any of his brethren of the fairer complexion.

The memorialists then discussed Huddy’s capture at Toms River and after “his the brave little garrison” ran out of ammunition:

Capt. Huddy also commanded the troops at the Block House on Tom’s River when it was lately reduced: He defended it most gallantly against vastly superior numbers until his ammunition was expended, and no alternative was left.

The memorialists described Huddy’s capture in New York and then he, Randolph and Fleming “were put into the hold of a vessel. Capt. Huddy was ironed, hand and foot.” While on the boat, Huddy was told that he would be hanged:

On Monday last, a certain John Tilton, a refugee, came to him, “that he was ordered (by the board of Refugees we suppose) to be hanged.” Capt. Huddy asked, “what charge was alleged against him?” Tilton replied that, “that he had taken a certain Philip White, a refugee, six miles up in the country, cut off both his arms, broke both his legs, pulled out one of his eyes, and then damned him and bid him to run.” To this Huddy answered, “It is impossible that I could have taken Philip White, I being prisoner closely confined in New York at the time, and for many days, before he was made a prisoner.” Justice Randolph confirmed what Huddy said and assured Tilton that he could not possibly be chargeable with White’s death; upon which Tilton told Mr. Randolph that “he should be hanged next.” This flimsy story must have been created by the murderous hearts of the Refugees, to cloak their villainy.

The prisoners were confined on the guard ship at Sandy Hook until the morning of April 12. Then the memorialists wrote “some men, strangers to the prisoners, came below and told Capt. Huddy to ‘prepare to be hanged immediately.’” Huddy, reportedly, took the news bravely:

He again said, He was not guilty of having killed White,” and that “he should die an innocent man and in a good cause,” and with the most uncommon fortitude and composure of mind, prepared for his end, and with the spirit of a true son of Liberty, he waited the moment of his fate, which he met with a degree of firmness and serenity which struck the coward hearts of his executioners with admiration. He even executed his will under the gallows, upon the head of that barrel from which he was immediately to make his exit, and in a hand writing fairer than usual.

The memorialists then turned their attention to Philip White, whom they blamed for faking a surrender: “After he had laid down his arms in token of surrendering himself a prisoner, he again took up his musket and killed the son of Coll. [Daniel] Hendrickson.”

White was taken by the mounted State Troop company of Captain John Walton, but again attempted an escape. His mounted guards rode in front of him and “several times” called for his  surrender, “but he continued running.” When White leaped toward a bog “impassable by our horse” he “received a stroke in the head with a sword, which killed him instantly.”

The memorialists claimed to be informed by “the voluntary and candid testimony of one Aaron White, who was taken prisoner with said Philip.” Aaron White was captured at the time at the same time as his brother, Philip. Shortly after making a statement about Philip White’s death, he escaped from prison and made it to New York. There, he gave a statement that claimed his first statement was largely false—due to pressure being put on him by David Forman and because he was never given a chance to review it. Aaron White gave a new, longer statement claiming that his brother’s death was premeditated murder by guards who openly discussed killing him, provoked his escape, and delivered several sword and gunstock blows before Philip White finally died. 

Affidavits from those same guards contradicted parts of the memorial above.

Presenting the Case for Additional Retaliation

The petition and memorial were extraordinary documents. While documents of the era were prone to emotional language, no Revolutionary-era Monmouth County document was written as strongly as the memorial. The memorial is also the longest protest document from Monmouth County from this era. Finally, while parts of the memorial are written in the first person (perhaps by Thomas Henderson), the memorial was submitted by fifteen authors.

The Monmouth County petition and memorial were carried by Colonel David Forman (who provided Washington with intelligence on British movements at Sandy Hook and led Association for Retaliation) and Colonel Asher Holmes (the senior colonel of the Monmouth County militia and colonel of Monmouth County’s State Troops). The co-presentation of the petition by Forman and Holmes was symbolically important, as the men were known rivals from antagonistic factions of Machiavellian Whigs vs. Due Process Whigs in Monmouth County. These factions clashed on topics related to law and order, prisoner exchanges, and compulsory purchases from reluctant farmers. Leaders from these factions had (literally) come to blows at the 1780 and 1781 county elections. The mutual outrage of Forman and Holmes at Huddy’s hanging was a powerful unity statement.

Forman and Holmes apparently did not speak directly with Washington, at least not initially. Instead, they went to Elizabethtown, the base of operations for prisoner of war exchanges, and spoke with General Henry Knox and Gouverneur Morris (of the Continental Congress). Knox wrote George Washington on April 16 that “Genl. Forman is now on his way to you with representation of the hanging of Captain Huddy by the Refugees." Knox and Morris noted that the prisoner of war commissioners at Elizabethtown "seemed surprised & wounded by the information," They doubted that General Henry Clinton, the British Commander in Chief, would condone the action. However, they wrote that the Associated Loyalists "act on their own authority” and are only subordinate to Clinton’s authority “if he pleases to exert it."

Forman, without Holmes, went forward to Washington’s camp and spoke with him. Washington took some time, likely to consult with attorneys and prisoner of war commissioners, and then wrote his first letters about the scandalous hanging on April 20. Forman returned home on April 19 and took another set of affidavits about the killings of White and Huddy—including statements from Huddy’s three guards—William Borden, John North, and John Russell. Forman then composed his own statement.

Outrage over Huddy’s hanging influenced the courts in Monmouth County. In May, Monmouth County’s Court of Common Pleas, on which David Forman served as a judge, re-started the Loyalist estate confiscation process. And the county convened its fifth Court of Oyer and Terminer that same month—with Forman serving on the panel of judges. This court had more felony convictions than that of any of Monmouth County’s prior courts and imposed several capital convictions.

Perspective

The extraordinary unity shown by Monmouth County’s leaders regarding Huddy’s execution would not last. David Forman continued to lead the Retaliators in vigilante acts even as the British drydocked the Associated Loyalists who provoked brutal retaliation with their own brutal acts. The rivalry between Machiavellian Whigs and Due Process Whigs was enflamed again by the fall—as evidenced by the creation of a flurry of new Whig associations which likely came into existence, at least in part, as a counterbalance against the Retaliators.

Meanwhile, the hanging of Joshua Huddy careened from a local to an international event. Soon, Washington would demand the body of Huddy’s executioner (Richard Lippincott) and threaten to hang a British officer if the man was not delivered. The British commander in chief would court-martial Richard Lippincott, but not turn him over. Senior officials in the American, British and French governments were pulled into months of diplomacy over two local acts in Monmouth County.

Related Historic Site: Huddy Park

Appendix: Letter from Monmouth dated April 15, 1782 printed in New Jersey Gazette, April 24

Last Saturday was brought to this place the corpse of Capt. Joshua Huddy, who was at about ten o’clock the day before most barbarously and unwarrantably hanged at Middletown-Point, by a party of Refugees.—The murder was attended with so much deliberate injustice and wanton cruelty that the circumstances ought to be preserved and made publick, not only to call upon the vengeance of his countrymen to expiate the manes of the sufferer, but as a shocking instance of the blackness of that guilt on which human nature is capable.

Capt. Huddy was one of the bravest men, a fit subject therefore of their cowardly inhumanity.—He has distinguished himself on a variety of occasions, one instance of which I cannot avoid mentioning: The summer before last, alone and unassisted, except by a woman, he defended his house against a party of nearly seventy refugees for several hours and where it was in a manner riddled with musket balls and in flames about him, he refused to submit until he obtained from his assailants safe and honourable terms: among the number who were killed in that encounter was the famous Negro Tye, justly much more to be feared than respected, as an enemy, than any of his brethren of the fairer complexion.—Capt. Huddy also commanded the troops at the Block House on Tom’s River when it was lately reduced: he defended it most gallantly against vastly superior numbers until his ammunition was expended, and no alternative was left.—The refugees, like their British task masters, who employ them in every kind of infamous business, are always cruel in success and pitifully mean in adversity. After the brave little garrison was in their power, they deliberately murdered five soldiers asking for quarter. From Tom’s River, Capt. Huddy, Justice Randolph, and the remaining prisoners, were taken to New York, where suffering the various progressions of barbarity usually exercised upon those who are detained to a violent or a lingering death, those two gentlemen, with a Mr. Fleming, were put into the hold of a vessel. Capt. Huddy was ironed, hand and foot. On Monday last, a certain John Tilton, a refugee, came to him, “that he was ordered (by the board of Refugees we suppose) to be hanged.” Capt. Huddy asked, “what charge was alleged against him?” Tilton replied that, “that he had taken a certain Philip White, a refugee, six miles up in the country, cut off both his arms, broke both his legs, pulled out one of his eyes, and then damned him and bid him to run.” To this Huddy answered, “It is impossible that I could have taken Philip White, I being prisoner closely confined in New York at the time, and for many days, before he was made a prisoner.” Justice Randolph confirmed what Huddy said and assured Tilton that he could not possibly be chargeable with White’s death; upon which Tilton told Mr. Randolph that “he should be hanged next.” This flimsy story, which must have been created by the murderous hearts of the Refugees, to cloak their villainy, was the only charge against Capt. Huddy, and was the common subject of their conversation. From the sloop Capt. Huddy, with his fellow prisoners, were put on board the guard ship at the Hook, and confined between decks till Friday morning, the 12th instant, when some men, strangers to the prisoners, came below and told Capt. Huddy to “prepare to be hanged immediately.” He again said, He was not guilty of having killed White,” and that “he should die an innocent man and in a good cause”, and with the most uncommon fortitude and composure of mind, prepared for his end, and with the spirit of a true son of Liberty, he waited the moment of his fate, which he met with a degree of firmness and serenity which struck the coward hearts of his executioners with admiration.—He even executed his will under the gallows, upon the head of that barrel from which he was immediately to make his exit, and in a hand writing fairer than usual.

The circumstances attending the death of the above mentioned Philip White were as follows:

On Saturday, the 30th of March last, he was surprised by a party of our people, and after he had laid down his arms, in token of surrendering himself a prisoner, he again took up his musket and killed the son of Coll. Hendrickson; he was however taken by our Light Horse, and on his way from Colt’s Neck to Freehold, where they were conducting him, he again attempted to make his escape from the guard, who called on him several times to surrender, but he continued running although often crossed and recrossed by light horse, and desired to stop, and finally, when leaping into a bog, impassable by our horse, he received a stroke in the head with a sword, which killed him instantly. The above facts have not only been proved by the affidavits of our fiends who were present, but by the voluntary and candid testimony of one Aaron White, who was taken prisoner with said Philip.

Captain Huddy was taken prisoner on the 24th of March, and kept in close custody with Justice Randolph, out of whose presence he never was until his hour of execution, which shows how impossible it was for him to have been concerned in White’s death, and that they must have known this was so.

To show their intolerance yet further, they left the following label affixed to the breast of unfortunate Capt. Huddy -- “We, the Refugees, having with grief long beheld the cruel murders of our brethren and finding nothing but such measures daily carrying into execution— We therefore determine not to suffer without taking vengeance for the numerous cruelties, and thus began (and I say may those lose their liberty who do not follow on) and have made use of Capt. Huddy as the first object to present to your views, and further determine to hang man for man as long as a Refugee is left existing. -- Up goes Huddy for Philip White.”

Sources: Waldo Wright, "The Captain Asgill Affair", The Dalhousie Review, 1962, vol. 42, p 453; Library of Congress, Early American Newspaper, New Jersey Gazette, April 24, 1782, reel 1930; New Jersey Gazette excerpted in William Horner, This Old Monmouth of Ours (Freehold: Moreau Brothers, 1932) p 420; Henry Knox to George Washington, in Jared Sparks, Correspondence of the American Revolution (Boston: Little, Brown & Co) p500; Affidavits printed in Edwin Salter, Old Times in Old Monmouth (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1970) p 63-4; The Court Martial of Richard Lippincott, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick (gnb.ca); 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, n3, Fall 2011, pp. 467-98.