French and Indian War a major event in Sussex County
By JENNIE SWEETMAN
Special to The Herald

On June 8, 1753, Sussex County became a separate county from Morris County, but Sussex County residents had little time to celebrate.
They were soon faced with the terrors of the French and Indian War — killings, mutilation, scalping, kidnapping, the burning of dwellings and out buildings and the taking of plunder such as cattle. The fear of Indians caused residents, including a minister and the county’s first clerk/surrogate, to flee for their lives.
Although the major battles of the French and Indian War occurred in New York state and northwestern Pennsylvania, the war in New Jersey’s Sussex and Warren counties and Pennsylvania’s Northampton County was fierce and bloody. “Men, women and children on both sides were killed,” according to Jay Richards, author of “Flames Along the Delaware,” a book about the war.
When Johnathan Belcher, then the provincial governor of New Jersey, instituted a bounty for American Indian scalps, the warpath became heated on both sides. The year prior to Montague Township’s formation in 1759, the level of atrocities became so intense that many families fled east or to Amwell in Somerset County.
Historians cite several factors as causes of the war, including white men cheating the natives out of their lands, the French influence on the Indians and the infamous Walking Purchase. History books name members of local families who deliberately cheated the Indians out of their land by getting them intoxicated and then having the Indians sign deeds without giving the Indians payment for their land.
The French persuaded the Indians to join forces with them against the English by convincing them that if the French won the war, the natives would regain their former territories, according to Sussex County Historical Society President Robert Longcore. Tim Cutler, of Morristwn, a member of the New Jersey Frontier Guard, said the stakes in this war were high as the French were fighting for the continuance of their lucrative fur trading while the English were fighting for the U.S. territory.
As for the Walking Purchase, it appears to be a sad commentary on human nature. As Richards explains it in his book, Thomas Penn hired a surveyor in 1736 to survey 1,000 of acres of land for a town to be called Easton in Pennsylvania. Penn first wanted to settle purchase agreements with the Delaware Indians. Penn produced a purported signed treaty dated Aug. 30, 1668, for the land he wished to acquire and then sell. He next hired three men to do the 1 1/2-day walk as agreed to in the contract. The date of the walk was Sept. 19, 1737.
The Indians and Penn understood a 1 1/2-day walk very differently. The Indians meant just that, a walking pace; Penn’s hired men literally ran, taking far more territory than the Indians had imagined. They also started earlier and continued long after what the Indians viewed as a day. To add insult to injury, the Penns drew a right-angle line from the stopping point of the last runner to the Delaware River. This is how the Penns acquired 61 1/4 miles of land.
“The Penns’ new land,” Richards writes, “now included the Minisinks, which the Delawares considered sacred and was the center of the Munsee clan’s domain.”
Sandyston Township historian Patte Frato, a descendant of early county settlers, said one of the causes of the war was “bad deals with the white man purchasing the lands and the Indians feeling that perhaps he wasn’t receiving fair payment.”
Initially, when the Province of New Jersey authorized troops, it was to send them to Pennsylvania with the hopes that they could stop the Indians before they reached New Jersey.
This plan might have backfired.
“When the war began in 1755, the Delawares, or Lenni Lenape, and the Shawnees were not angry with the Province of New Jersey. Their war was with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania … . When the Sussex militia protected Northampton County settlers, the Delawares crossed the river to raid on Sussex County settlers,” Richards said.
According to the New Jersey Colonial Documents, on Nov. 27, 1755, the Moravian settlement at Gnadenhutten in Pennsylvania was attacked, the residents killed, the house, meeting house and other buildings burned to ashes. Col. John Anderson and a contingent of 400 men from Newton started out to help the Pennsylvania settlers, but were told before they arrived not to bother. It was too late.
The Colonial Documents contain a letter from Easton, Pa., dated Dec. 15, 1755. “The country all above this town, for fifty miles is mostly evacuated and ruined, excepting only the neighbourhood of the Depuys five families, which stand their ground .... The Enemy made but few prisoners, murdering almost all that fell into their hands ...”
It was against this backdrop that Belcher approved legislation to provide 10,000 pounds for the war effort and ordered that forts be built along the Delaware River to protect Sussex County residents from such attacks.
An act was adopted “to enable the Inhabitants of this Colony, to protect and defend their Frontiers from any Invasions and more particularly, for making Provision for the Guard and Defense of the Frontiers by erecting Block Houses and supplying the same with such a number of forces.”
The act noted the terror that reigned along the Delaware: “Several murders, cruelties and devastations have been lately committed upon His Majesty’s subjects in the neighbouring Province of Pennsylvania, by the Savage Indians, more especially in the upper parts of the said Province joining upon the River Delaware and bordering upon this Province of New Jersey, where the said Savages are now daily murdering the inhabitants and burning and destroying all before them, and this even within view of the inhabitants settled along the River Delaware in the County of Sussex, who are quitting their habitations in the utmost confusion.”
The act provided that 250 able-bodied freemen be raised in this Colony and that they should serve for one month “and until they shall be relieved by other Forces, to be raised in like manner for the said Service.” The commander-in-chief was to receive six shillings each day; the captains, four shillings; the lieutenant, three shillings; sergeants, corporals and drummers, two shillings and six pence; and each private man two shillings per day. The act, which led to the establishment of The New Jersey Guard on March 16, 1756, also authorized the purchase of 250 firearms for the soldiers.
On Oct. 22, 1757, an act was adopted to provide 30 additional men to protect the frontier due to fresh alarms. An additional 150 men were authorized on Aug. 12, 1758. The act also provided for the acquisition of 50 strong and fierce dogs to assist the troops in the pursuit and attack of Indians.
Forts were built along the Delware for the protection of area residents in Sussex County, Warren County and in the area of Port Jervis, N.Y.
Among the forts located in Warren County were Fort McMurtrie and Fort Reading in Belvidere, Fort Ellison in Knowlton Township, New Fort and Van Campens in Pahaquarry.
The first fort to be built in Sussex County was Fort Walpack; it contained a wooden church and a small blockhouse. According to “New Jersey Forts On the Sussex County Frontier,” by the late Ted Brush, in June 1758, it was reported that William Ward was slain by the Indians while hunting within a half mile of Fort Walpack.
Fort John’s was located near the Van Campen Inn, along the Old Mine Road. This fort was viewed as the most important one built during the French and Indian War as it served as the military control and supply center for the other crude forts or fortified houses along the frontier and it was from this fort that provincial troops and the local militia were housed, supplied, paid and directed to threatened areas. In recent years, an archeological dig was conducted at what is guessed to be the site of this fort.
The Adam Dingman’s Fort, located between Fort Walpack and Fort John’s, was near what, two centuries later, would be the site of the the Walpack Catholic Chapel.
Carmer’s Fort is described by Brush as a simple, but sturdy, fortified farmhouse where the soldiers were quartered with the farm family to guard the lines of communication between the other forts. Located at the juncture of the Old Mine and Walpack roads, this fort has been reconstructed and still stands as a reminder of those turbulent times in the county’s history.
Fort Nominack was located along the Old Mine Road in Sandyston and soldiers from this fort assisted a local family who had been attacked by Indians. Four members of the Nicholas Cole family and three Germans were killed on May 17, 1758; Cole’s wife and 10-year-old were son taken captive. Upon Cole’s arrival home, soldiers from Fort Normanock helped bury the deceased and then ambushed the captors, forcing the release of his wife and son.
The Westbrook Fort was located on the property of Anthony Westbrook on the Old Mine Road, and there was reportedly an underground escape tunnel from a nearby home to the fort. Last year, a historical marker was placed on this site to commemorate the Westbrook family, their stone dwelling, which still stands, and the former fortified fort.
One stone building often overlooked by historians was the Ennis House. Still standing along the Old Mine Road, it was a typical fortified fort house containing loopholes. Built in 1751, this architectural gem contained two rooms, an upper loft reached by a ladder and was heated by a single fireplace. It is one of the remaining original buildings of the ancient Minisink Village.
Mashipicong Fort (Brinks or Fort Shipeconk) was also located along the Old Mine Road across from Mashipicong Island, four miles from Normanock Fort. Historians also report forts in other areas of Sussex County, such as one in Wantage built by the Gumaer family.
Although many of the atrocities in the Minisink occurred in the vicinity of the Delaware River, there were exceptions. At Paulin’s Kill, both the Hunts and the Swartwout family were attacked. Thomas Hunt and his black slave were taken captive and the home burnt to the ground.
Members of the Swartwout family fared worse. The newspaper accounts reported that the house of Anthony Swartwout was attacked on or about May 21, 1756. His wife was found shot dead with a bullet through the back and three children were found a short distance from the house, their heads split open by a hatchet. It was reported that the children had flowers in their hands suggesting that they must have been gathering flowers when attacked.
The fate of Swartwout and his three children remained unknown until Aug. 28, 1756, when three men staggered into Cole’s Fort after their escape from captivity. In a report dated Sept. 6, it was noted that two of Swartwout’s children, a girl of about 12 years of age and a boy of about 9, said the Indians had not only killed three of their siblings, but also killed and scalped their father about seven miles from the house near a brook, where they also killed their little sister.
As a result of this attack it was reported that “upwards of 60 families at and near Paulin’s-Kills, have removed down towards Amwell, in order to avoid the danger they seemed exposed to by their cruel bloodthirsty and latent Enemies.”
The attacks resulted in a proclamation in which Belcher declared war on the Delaware Indians and those tribes in confederacy with them. The proclamation said that anyone who delivered a male Indian above 15 years of age to any of the forts or jail shall be paid 150 Spanish dollars and 130 dollars would be paid to anyone who killed an Indian and produced a scalp. For every female or male Indian enemy under the age of 15 captured and delivered, 130 dollars would be paid.
The Swartwout incident ended in controversy. One of the men captured with the Swartwouts was later hanged in Morristown after being found guilty of the murder of Anthony Swartwout.
Another county resident who fled from Sussex County during the war was Coady Russell, the county’s first clerk/surrogate. Russell was appointed to his post by Belcher when the county was formed in 1753. He is believed to have left the county about four years later because on June 14, 1757, his deputy, John Gregg, was appointed to replace him.
The seven-year French and Indian War ended with the Treaty of Paris, which was signed by England, France and Spain on Feb. 10, 1763. Under its terms, France surrendered all its American possessions except Louisiana and retained fishing rights off the Newfoundland coast. England became the proud owner of what would later become the eastern United States and Canada while Spain received the Philippines and Cuba but relinquished Florida to England.
To commemorate the signing of the treaty, King George III proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving on Aug. 25. But despite the signing of the treaty, numerous incursions into Sussex County and Pennsylvania continued into 1764.
Sussex County’s settlers suffered terribly during the battles and raids of the war. The Indians not only attacked and killed the settlers but they burned their homesteads and stole the livestock that they could take and killed the rest. All too often, the men returned to their homes to find their families murdered, their homes burned and their livestock stolen, according to Frato, the Sandyston historian.
But Longcore said that the war, terrible as it was, paved the way for the residents to fight for their independence about a decade and a half later.
And there were some positive results. Richards notes that one great improvement was the road system built and used by the militia and the New Jersey Frontier Guard to link the forts along the river. He cites as an example the Military Road, which linked Walpack with Elizabeth. The road, he said, benefited Sussex County settlers during peacetime by providing access to new markets.
Newton Historian Kevin Wright said that during the war, Jonathan Hampton of Elizabethtown was appointed commissary to the Jersey Frontier forts in the Minisink country. In performing his duties, he recognized the potential real estate value of an important intersection of paths leading to Swartswood Lake, Culvers Gap, Easton, Morristown, New York City, Warwick, N.Y., and the Hudson River. He purchased 1,250 acres surrounding this hub and, at the war’s end, offered it as the best location of the county seat. That offer was accepted in December 1761 and Newton was built.
War’s 250th anniversary to be marked
In observance of the 250th anniversary of the French and Indian War, Timothy G. Cutler, a member of the re-enactment New Jersey Frontier Guard and an expert on the French and Indian War, will be the guest speaker at the annual luncheon of the Sussex County Historical Society at noon on Saturday at the Lafayette House. The luncheon and talk are open to the public. There is a fee for the luncheon. For information, call 973-383-6010.
The annual Sussex County History Day will also focus on the 250th anniversary of the French and Indian War. Sponsored by the Sussex County Historical Society, the event will take place on April 30 at Sussex County Community College. Members of the New Jersey Frontier Guard are among those expected to be in attendance on that day.