The Death of Colonel Huddy

More about The Death of Colonel Huddy

This image depicts a tragic historic event that occurred very close to where I grew up. Colonel Joshua Huddy was a prominent businessman and leader of the loyalist militia in Monmouth County, New Jersey during the American Revolutionary War. On the southern rim of New York Harbor, Monmouth was for years the site of a bloody neighbor-on-neighbor vendetta between loyalists to the British crown and local patriots to the cause of independence. Directed by information from Loyalist spies, British regulars, loyal militia, and escaped slaves led numerous raids on patriot farms and home from their base on the offshore island of Sandy Hook. Huddy, in turn, coordinated equally bloody patriot counter-raids. In 1780, Huddy was ambushed at his home next at the Colts Neck Inn (an establishment owned then by Huddy's wife and is still in business today) by a raiding party led by the legendary Colonel Tye, an escaped slave fighting for the British. Huddy's men, hearing of the arrest, pursued Tye to the beach from whence his party had just set out in an open dinghy for Sandy Hook. The Huddy men opened fire, wounding both their captain and Tye in the exchange. Huddy survived and made good his escape while Tye died of his wounds. Huddy's luck ran out two years later, however, when he was captured defending a small fort down the shore. Held in one of the hellish military prisons in occupied New York, Huddy was effectively kidnapped and lynched by loyalist raiders angered over the cruel and bloody murder of one of their own. The man who led the raid convinced the British to release Huddy as part of spurious prisoner exchange. Rowed back to Monmouth County, Huddy was hanged on a deserted strip of beach at the foot of the Navesink Highlands (despite the fact that Huddy had nothing to do with the killing his death was meant to avenge). The loyalists allowed Huddy a moment to dictate his will and agreed to deliver it. Huddy then shook hands with the loyalist captain and went to his maker. He was found the following day with a note pinned to his chest which read "Up Goes Huddy for Phillip White." Ironically, Huddy died six months after Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown just as representatives from both sides were hammering out peace terms in Paris. Washington condemned the act as did the British high command.