ZOOM Presentation: Life on the Monmouth County Frontier in 1777
Note: You must register (at bottom left of screen) to receive the Zoom meeting link. You will receive an email with the meeting link the day of the presentation.
The American Revolution was fought between Washington's Continentals and the Redcoats of the British Army, right? True, but there was vigorous and sometimes violent disagreement between the settlers, especially in the early part of the War and especially at the frontier between the settlers and the Redcoats. This was true along the Bayshore and Monmouth County where the British had a major base at Sandy Hook and the New Jersey Militia held the high ground around Twin Lights.
This civil war between local militias, ad-hoc raiding parties, privateer sailors, among themselves and against the British, continued throughout the war.
British Navy had captured Sandy Hook in 1776 (three months before the Declaration of Independence) and held it until late 1782 (a year after the Battle of Yorktown 'ended' the war). They used this base for defense of New York and to probe the defenses along the Bayshore, culminating in the Battle of the Navesink in February 1777.
The British landed by boat near Twin Lights and faced the Monmouth Militia who had been holding the highlands from attack. Taken by surprise, 20 militiamen were killed and over 50 were captured and held in prisons in New York City.
Complicating the war, Monmouth County residents were for- and anti- British, and privateering, profiteering, and civil war rumbled on as the war progressed.
Michael Adelberg, a noted researcher of the American Revolution in Central Jersey and author of The American Revolution in Monmouth County, will give a presentation of this little-known aspect of the Revolutionary War in our backyard.
7:30pm: ZOOM Introductions
7:35 pm: Presentation (for approximately one hour with Q&A
