The following is additional information that was found concerning the Loyalists previous listed. Please refer to the previous page for source information. Brigadier-General Cortlandt Skinner — A few purely personal facts with regard to General Skinner need only now be added. He was of Scotch ancestry and was born in 1728, was the Speaker of the Colonial Legislature after 1765 and the last Attorney-General of the King for the Province of New Jersey. He was considered a lawyer of marked ability and strict integrity of character. He continued his allegiance to the Crown and received authority to form a corps of loyalists for duty as a brigade of New Jersey Volunteers in the military service. He was made colonel thereof July 1st, 1776, and afterward commissioned brigadier-general. He served as such during the whole war. His family lived in New York city and afterward at Jamaica, Long Island, during the war, and at its conclusion they all sailed for England. He continued through life on the half-pay list of the British Government as a general officer, and he died at Bristol, March 15th, 1799. He married, in 1752, Elizabeth, daughter of Philip Kearney, of Perth Amboy, New Jersey. He had five sons and eleven daughters. Lieutenant-Colonels Isaac Allen — About the time of General Howe's occupation of Trenton, in December, 1776, the family of Isaac Allen left their home in that city, accepted protection papers and were ever afterward considered subjects of King George. Isaac Allen was commissioned December 3d, 1776, in the Sixth Battalion. At the siege of Savannah, Georgia, October 9th, 1779, he appears as in command of the Third Battalion, but in the later years of the war in the Second Battalion as its lieutenant-colonel. During the war all his property in Trenton was confiscated. In the year 1783 he resumed his profession as a lawyer in St. John, New Brunswick, and in after years took a seat upon the supreme bench and was a member of the Council of the Province. His death occurred in the year 1806, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. Joseph Barton — This officer appears on the rolls of 1778 as in command as lieutenant-colonel of the Fifth Battalion, and, in the following year, of the First Battalion. He was captured by the patriots under Generals Stirling and Sullivan, on Staten Island, August 22d, 1777. He left the service in 1781. Very little is known of his personal history. Stephen DeLancey — He was of the illustrious family of the name in New York. It does not appear why he accepted a commission in a New Jersey Regiment as lieutenant-colonel of the First Battalion, but he was commissioned as such September 5th, 1776, while he was a prisoner. On the evening of June 4th, 1776, he was celebrating the birthday of George III, and being loud in his expressions of loyalty, he and his party were arrested by the patriotic citizens of Albany and given in the safe-keeping of Governor Trumbull of Connecticut, who seems to have taken charge during the war of such tories. After his release he was again commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the First Battalion, New Jersey Volunteers, December 25th, 1781, and so continued until the close of the war. After peace was declared he removed to Nova Scotia. Edward Vaughan Dongan — He was the youngest son of Walter Dongan, of Staten Island, New York. He held the office of lieutenant-colonel of the Third Battalion, and in command thereof at the beginning of that organization. In the skirmish on Staten Island, hereinbefore described, on August 22d, 1777, he was severely wounded and died soon after. He was in this twenty-ninth year at the time of his death, and the record of the times calls him "a young gentleman of uncommon merit, both as a man and a soldier." Elisha Lawrence — The family of Lawrence, in Monmouth county, was well represented in the Continental Army and the militia of the State in the Revolutionary War. John Lawrence, however, a land surveyor, was an ardent loyalist, and was imprisoned for his conduct during that period, and his son, Dr. John Lawrence, was arrested and kept in Trenton and then in Morristown, on parole. The Provincial Congress of New Jersey on July 17th, 1776, had an interesting discussion of his case. Another son, Elisha Lawrence, who, in 1775, was sheriff of the county, was one of the most zealous supporters of the Crown. In 1776, at the age of twenty six, he was made the commanding officer of the First Battalion of New Jersey Volunteers, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, having been very active in organizing the corps. His property was confiscated and sold April 5th, 1779. In the skirmish on Staten Island, August 22d, 1777, he was captured by Colonel Matthias Ogden and the forces under Major-General John Sullivan, and his connection with the Jersey Volunteers ceased at that date. After the war Colonel Lawrence removed to Nova Scotia, retiring on half pay, and he died at Cardigan, Wales, in the year 1811. |
