Revolution! For Joseph and Keziah (Johnson) Beach

I write this the day after Veterans Day, just a few days removed from a heated national election, and not long before Thanksgiving. As I write I wonder what Joseph Beach, a captain in the New Jersey militia during the Revolution, and his wife Keziah Johnson Beach, who died during the war, would think of our country today. Of all we have been given, and of the strife that remains.

I am not yet prepared to guess what Joseph and Keziah would say about us. But I can share the story of Joseph and Keziah Johnson Beach, and how I came to know them. (A complete reference list is at the end of the blog in the bibliography, and an excel spreadsheet provides specific citations.)

My Revolutionaries – Joseph and Keziah

 

Joseph Beach and Keziah Johnson were from Morris County, NewJersey. Joseph was born about 1738; Keziah was a few years older, born in 1732. Both the Beach and Johnson families had come from Connecticut before 1720, and settled along the Whippanong River, where they were early pioneers in the iron mining industry.

Everything about Joseph and Keziah tells me they would be on the revolutionist side of the battle to come. Joseph was the second born son, and did not inherit the land or industry of his family. Several Beaches served during the war, including Joseph and his eldest son Asa. Keziah’s family was just as if not more full of revolution. Every brother save the eldest, and every sister’s husband, served the cause of revolution. Keziah lost two brothers during the war. The funeral procession of her brother Jacob was recorded in stark contrast to that of a Spanish dignitary who died while visiting Washington in Morristown a few days following. The Johnsons were solemn protestants clearly dedicated to the cause.

Joseph and Keziah were involved in a church led by the Rev Timothy Johnes, who actively supported the cause of Independence. They were Presbyterians, much more likely to side with revolution than the Episcopalians who lived on the eastern shores of New Jersey, where their ministers were “encroaching” into Presbyterian spheres and had sworn personal loyalty to the King. The Revolution in New Jersey was not just a political disagreement but one that involved religion as well.

Joseph and Keziah were neither poor nor rich. Joseph appears in the Ratables list of 1768, at which time he owned 54 acres of land, seven horses and cattle, and six sheep. His property was valued at roughly 13 pounds sterling. To my knowledge this family never owned slaves (an earlier New Jersey ancestor had).

New Jersey’s Revolution was a Civil War, and Morristown was a hotbed of Revolutionist fervor. On 14 September 1775 Joseph became a “Minuteman.” His peers elected him Ensign of his company. New Jersey's Minute Men were expected to own a musket, bayonet, sword, tomahawk, ramrod, priming wire and brush, cartridge box, twenty-three pounds of ammunition, twelve flints, a knapsack, one pound of powder, and three pounds of lead. New Jersey had 4,000 minute men, which represented roughly one-fourth of the men available for military service in the state. They were ordered to wear hunting shirts like those worn by riflemen in the Continental Army, and were regularly called out for service. 

On 30 May 1776, freeholder Joseph Beach voted for delegates from Morris County to attend New Jersey’s First Constitutional Convention.  The records for this election are extant, and today one can even see how each man voted! There was no unanimity in the votes among the Beach/Johnson clan: Joseph, his brothers and his in-laws all voted for some of the same delegates, but they did not vote by clan. Each, however, exercised his right to vote. Joseph Beach and all his brothers, all of Keziah Johnson’s brothers, and their fathers – they all voted, in taverns and homes, and the results were tallied and men sent to adopt New Jersey’s first Constitution, which was signed two days prior to the Declaration of Independence.

Joseph Beach served as Ensign under Captain Benoni Hathaway, who served under Colonel Ford. All were from Morris County. In August 1776 they were in Elizabeth, and years later the veterans claimed they could hear the cannons roar during the Battle of Long Island (Brooklyn Heights). This was the first major battle following the signing of the Declaration, and the largest battle of the war. The British won a stunning victory. Fort Lee fell on 30 November, and Washington’s sad retreat across New Jersey and into Pennsylvania continued. Beach’s unit was called out from time to time to support those troops as they made their retreat.

“These are the times that try men’s souls”, wrote Thomas Paine in December of 1776. “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” Imagine being there and hearing or reading these words as the ink dried on the page, when all was despair.

The English had strong words of their own to offer the citizens of New Jersey. On the day Fort Lee fell, General Howe offered pardon to all of the people of New Jersey who put down their arms and signed a document supporting the British. Thousands did so.

But Morristown never wavered, and Joseph Beach never put down his arms or signed a pledge to a King he presumably thought was no longer his. During December 1776 Joseph’s militia unit spent time in Staten Island, Amboy and New Brunswick. They engaged with the enemy in Springfield and Elizabeth Town, and near the home of Governor Livingston (vacant after the Governor was taken to safety) they captured 70-80 Waldeckers (Hessian troops serving the British cause) and marched them to Morristown. Captain Hathaway was injured, and Colonel Ford became mortally ill. These were the times that tried men’s souls.

But then Washington crossed the Delaware and hope was renewed. From Samuel Adams to his cousin John, 9 January 1777.  “My dear Sir, …. The Progress of the Enemy thro’ the Jerseys has chagrind me beyond Measure, but I think we shall reap the Advantage in the End. We have already beat a Part of their Army at Trenton, and the inclosd Paper will give you a further Account which we credit, though not yet authenticated. The late Behavior of the People of Jersey, was owing to some of their leading Men, who instead of directing and animating most shamefully deserted them. When they found a Leader in the brave Coll. Ford they followd him with Alacrity. They have been treated with savage Barbarity by the Hessians, but, I believe, more so by Britains. After they have been most inhumanly usd in their Persons without Regard to Sex or Age, and plunderd of all they had without the least Compensation, Lord Howe and his Brother (now Sir William Knt of the Bath) have condescended to offer them Protections for the free Enjoyment of their Effects.”

East New Jersey fell to the British, but never Morristown. As one of Howe’s men commented, the British were “boxed about in jersey, as if we had no feelings.”

 

Keziah’s War

The Revolution was also Keziah’s war. From January to May 1777 Washington and his troops wintered in Morristown. Soldiers were accommodated by every family within 10 or twelves miles of Morristown, a town that had a mere 50 houses at the time:

“Every house throughout this entire region was filled to its utmost capacity with either officers or soldiers. Persons appointed by the Commander-in-chief passed through the towns and examined the houses; and, without much consultation with the owners, decided how many, and who, should be quartered in each. Often, without even going into the houses, those persons would ride up to the door and write “Colonel Ogden’s Head-quarters,’ ‘Major Eaton’s Head-quarters,’ ‘Twelve privates to be billeted here,’ ‘Six officers to be quartered here,’ &c., and, generally without much regard to the convenience or wishes of the occupants, the arrangements of these Commissioners were carried out.”

Smallpox broke out in Morristown and spread “with alarming rapidity” throughout the entire region. Washington ordered the first mass inoculations in American history. Rev Johnes helped turn the area's churches into hospitals. Soldiers had to be inoculated, but residents could choose. The Beaches chose well, since they do not appear in the small pox mortality records kept by Rev Johnes. His records, primarily pertaining to Presbyterian and Baptist church members, show that small pox took 29 deaths in 1774; 40 in 1775; 94 in 1776; and 205 in 1777. Rev Johnes entered all of their names in his book.

Having the soldiers around was not good for the community's health. It was not good for the community’s property either. On two separate occasions the Continental soldiers seized property from the Beach home – a horse, 100 chickens, a petticoat, vest, and worsted coat, a porringer and a mug, and a tablecloth and curtains. What the army needed, the army took.
 

Civil War

New Jersey’s revolution was not just with British soldiers. It was also a Civil War between Revolutionists and Loyalists. Joseph never gave up. He was in charge of the guards at the Morristown Jail when the Loyalist “spies” Iliff and Mee were hung. Later accounts of the trial say that “the officer in command of the guard” (that would be Joseph) allowed the wives of the condemned “into the jail to take a farewell of their husbands.” On the morning appointed for the execution of thirty-five Tory prisoners who were followers of Iliff and Mee, the officer in command (again Joseph) said to them:

“With two exceptions (Iliff and Mee), I offer you all a reprieve from the gallows if you will enlist in the American army for the remainder of the war. As fast as you say you will enlist you will be conducted under guard to the upper room of the jail, to remain there until your proper officer comes to enroll you and have you sworn.”

Joseph left me these words. He also left his signature. As a commander of men he received and distributed their pay, and each time he wrote his name it was in clear and strong script.

Joseph later served on juries and court martial panels, in cases involving forestalling, murder, and mutiny. He and his men went on raids and battles, and pension records find Joseph and his men at Paramus, Hackensack, Acquackanonk Bridge, Bottle Hill, Newark, Monmouth, Connecticut Farms, and Springfield, and he called his men out in January 1781 during the revolt of the Pennsylvania troops. For a good part of the war Joseph was in charge of the guards at the Morristown Jail. He must have seen Washington on a regular basis.

Where was Keziah? She and Joseph had six children, all boys, the first born in 1761, the last in 1768. She must have stayed near hearth and home. Perhaps she helped the Rev Johnes in his hospital work. She surely saw Washington often as well. Keziah lost two brothers to the war, and she herself died“of fever” 22 May 1778. Rev Johnes entered her name in his book of mortality. Their youngest child, Alexander, was then 11, and family lore says he also served in the Revolution. He certainly could have gone with his father on expeditions and such, but no official records of service are found for the boy who lost his mother at 11, was without his father for much of the war, and would later have a child named Robert Beach, who had a son George, who had a daughter Buena Vista, who had a son Judson, who had me.

The war raged on. Some time before January 1780, Joseph remarried. He married Keziah’s cousin, Eunice Johnson, who was born the year Joseph and Keziah married. Eunice would have been about 20 when she married Joseph. She was already a widow with a young daughter of her own. In November of 1780 Keziah’s brother Gershom sued Joseph Beach for “$5000 pounds lawful of debt.” There are no other records pertaining to the lawsuit, which could have been brought against either Joseph or his son Joseph, but surely these were also times that tried men’s souls.

Joseph remained in service to his cause until Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in October 1781. On 29 August 1782 the last of the soldiers left Morristown. The townspeople must have been jubilant. But the people, and the land, must have also been tired.

 

Moving On

After the war ended, Joseph filed a claim seeking redress for assets taken by the Continentals during the war. Although New Jersey encouraged these claims, none were paid. The country was in a fiscal crises at the close of the war, and Joseph received several certificates for “depreciation” of his pay. It appears that at the end of the war, Joseph was poor. His older (eldest) brother, who never fought but instead sold iron and other products to the Continentals, was rich. Joseph moved his family to upstate New York to start anew, and died there in 1800.
 

Building an ancestor’s life story

When I was a child I loved jigsaw puzzles. My ancestors are now my puzzles, and I build their lives the way I used to complete a jigsaw puzzle, fitting each puzzle piece together until a picture finally emerges. The above narrative, the story of Joseph and Keziah, is built from more than thirty references. Some of those are “place histories”, written to honor a place and time. Others are “family histories”, based on fact but often based on family honor and lore as well. Official service lists helped create the puzzle, as did fifteen pension applications, census data, and Rev Timothy Johnes' precious church records. The puzzle pieces were first strewn about on slips of paper and typed up notes. They became a sortable excel spreadsheet containing my notes, and a bibliography, and a Morris County place chart, all of which led to this story.

 

What my revolutionaries taught me (so far)

I wonder if patriotism just happens to people. Joseph and Keziah were clearly patriots. But they were also products of their time, who joined in a revolution and stuck with it. I imagine they did not set out to be patriots, but it developed over time. They were husband and wife trying to do what was right. Their neighbors were the same. Had they lived in a different part of the New Jersey -- known as the Cockpit and the Crossroads of the Revolution -- they might have taken a different path. New Jersey's governor at the War's outset was, after all, William Franklin, illegitimate son of Ben and a passionate Loyalist.


Joseph and Keziah also remind me that times can be tough in America. Their time was frightening and insecure. They fought the valiant fight for a new country, not knowing what the end would be. She died in the process. After the war Joseph gathered his family and moved them to upstate New York. Joseph died in 1800, long before pension applications led soldiers to recount their Revolutionary War experiences. But fifteen Revolutionary War soldiers who served under or with Captain Joseph Beach filed papers, including Joseph’s son Asa, who served under his father for part of the war. Asa’s pension application is one of several from New Jersey that led a historian to ponder whether the movement from New Jersey to New York after the war was a sign that many in New Jersey were not satisfied with the results of the Revolution. They felt after the war the status quo had returned to their lives, and chose to move to a new land. It’s an interesting premise at least.

My biggest lesson? Something I learn time and time again as I find my own personal American history. I have come to realize that times are often "tough” in America, but we have endured. And moved forward. That makes me proud to be an American. We owe it to those who fought -- and continue to fight -- for democracy to be proud of our country and do our best to keep it strong. We may not always agree about how to do that, but try to do it we must. Our forefathers, be they founding fathers or new immigrants, would expect no less from us.

Joseph and Keziah, this one’s for you.