Ewing's: Revolutionary Patriots: Alive in Ewing!

The Ewing Township Historic Preservation Society is hosting two dates of cemetery tours at the Ewing Church Cemetery. If upon reading this you want to attend, the next day is Sunday, July 12 every hour on the hour at 2, 3, and 4 pm.

The weather was stunning. Sunny with low humidity. 

Don recalls these types of tours happening in the past, tours led by Harriet Whitlock who passed away in 2005. These tours are being led by Helen Kull and author Larry Kidder.

The tagline of the Alive in Ewing event is Revolutionary-era citizens and militiaman share their stories in celebration of the Nation's 250th. A mouthful, but it does sum up the program.

Back in 1776 this area was actually called Trenton Township. Helen's half of the tour focused on the people, places, problems, and patriots, otherwise known as the four P's.

Ewing's history dates back to 1605 when immigrants started to come to the area in search of fertile land and woodlands. A great place to live halfway between Philadelphia and New York City. It was a great place for trading, as well as a cultural place with the original College of New Jersey up the road in Princeton.

In 1709 the 1.1 acre church area was purchased by twenty yeomen for five shillings (about $35 today). It was a communal effort. They started in 1712 with a log cabin before building a brick church, followed by the current sanctuary. The church predates the Revolution by over seventy years.

Place: the town was built by immigrants. Some were second and third sons who had nothing for them in England since only the oldest inherits. Some were affected by wars in Europe and came here to start anew. This area was founded by people from Scotland and England. There were Quakers, Reformed, and Anglicans worshipping in the area. As with the people in Lexington, some were loyal to the king, others were dissatisfied, and others had no loyalty. Exactly what we heard in Lexington, MA earlier in the week.

People: our militia was made up of farmers, yeomen (freeholders), tradespeople, merchants, artisans, manufacturers, etc., but not trained fighters. All me between the ages of 16 and 60 were required to serve in the militia, later the age was dropped to 50.

Problem: there was much civil unrest happening in pockets within the 18th century. In February the Ewing Township Historic Preservation Society sponsored a talk by Rick Durham about Daniel Coxe that went into more detail than could be covered in a few minutes during the cemetery tour. In the mid 1700s, Coxe bypassed the Quaker system of regulated land purchase and bought much of the property in the area. He then told those living on the property, people who believed they owned the land they had lived on for generations, that they were merely tenants and owed him rent. This was an early spark for the Revolutionary War, one I only learned about this year because even locally it is not taught.

Twenty minutes into our cemetery tour begin to "meet" colonists. Our first in Mr. Benjamin Moore (not the Benjamin Moore of the paint company). Mr. Moore, portrayed by Jim, a deacon at Ewing Covenant Church and passionate about history, was 58 in 1776, thus too old to serve. He did meet General George Washington on his way to Trenton to meet the Hessians.

The cemetery has just under 40 people who served in the Revolutionary War, their willingness to sacrifice everything to form a new country is amazing.

Helen moved us to a shady area where about 40 folding chairs had already been set up. Larry, an established local Revolutionary War expert, and author of many books including: A People Harassed and Exhausted, the title is in reference to a quote attributed to George Washington. He put a every day, human side to the war. "People did not all feel gung ho with war." It was required to join the militia. Signing the paper meant you were a patriot, but you had to sign the paper. The men expected part-time service protecting the area near their homes, instead they were sent for a month or longer to East Jersey, which was a week's walk from home. The men were farmers, blacksmiths, agriculturalists, in other words, they already had full-time jobs. New Jersey depended on their work so they had food.

The Continental Army was the full-time army. They were the real patriots ... or were they? Larry has a relative from a Loyalist family who fell in love with a girl from a Patriot family. To show his devotion to her, he joined the Continental Army. Many generations later, he is one of the results of their union.

There were exemptions to military service, including physical issues, religious concerns (Quakers), or jobs needed by the military (at least temporarily). Some men paid others to serve for them, or paid a fine. The war lasted eight long years.

Private William Green, portrayed by his descendent Thomas, talked about his plantation, which he built about a mile away. That's the site of my first archaeological dig. He gave a brief history of his life, before introducing us to his wife, Elizabeth Burroughs Green, portrayed by Maggie a history buff. She was excellent. She described how she had to take over the farm duties while her husband went off to war, and her other war efforts.

Lastly we were met by Major Israel Carle, portrayed by another Thomas. He won by heart when he apologized for not remembering the name of his servant and "hoping history fixes that error" (paraphrasing by me). He told us about serving in the calvary troops. This brought up the point that soldiers had to provide their own horse, guns, uniforms, bayonets, etc. Only ammunition was provided. As different muskets required different size musket balls (something I've noticed during archaeology), they often carried molds to be able to make their own bullets during battle. 

The calvary rode ahead and took messages between troops since they could move faster than those on foot. News traveled at the speed of horse.

Larry emphasized it was unknown how long people would be called to serve active duty, this made it hard to plan life. Something else I had not realized, they did not always serve with the same men, nor did their commanders have the same troops under them. This made it hard to fight as a team. 

That's just something else that does not come through the history books.