In honor of Independence Day, July’s retrospective is devoted to highlighting a selection of cases involving Loyalists, Patriots, and the American Revolution in the New Haven County and Superior Court records.
Please note that this compilation is not comprehensive. There are several cases involving or mentioning Loyalists, Patriots, and the American Revolution in the New Haven County and Superior Court records. This retrospective is meant to serve as a starting point for future researchers and investigators, giving a glimpse into the information these records contain.
Engraving of Benedict Arnold. Printmakers include Asher Brown Durand, H.B. Hall, Max Rosenthal, and John Sartain. Public domain image courtesy of New York Public Library (NYPL), via Wikimedia Commons.
Benedict Arnold—otherwise known as America’s most infamous turncoat—lived in New Haven from about 1762-1775, where he worked as a pharmacist and bookseller. During his residency, he racked up considerable debt and got into legal disputes over property, trade, and other matters. In this post, we examine a selection of lawsuits in the New Haven County Court records involving Arnold and his sister, Hannah.
Digitized case documents (Benedict Arnold vs. Enos Alling)
Digitized case documents (Doctor David Atwater vs. Benedict Arnold)
Digitized case documents (Church of England vs. Benedict Arnold)
Digitized case documents (Benedict Arnold vs. Captain Elijah Forbs: Trespass)
Digitized case documents (Benedict Arnold vs. Captain Elijah Forbs: Orders)
Digitized case documents (Benedict Arnold vs. Captain Elijah Forbs: Account)
Digitized case documents (Hannah Arnold vs. Benedict Arnold)
Writ for Governor and Company vs. Jonah Baldwin of New Haven, February 1778. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.
The New Haven County Court records contain hundreds of cases involving confirmed, suspected, and alleged Loyalists in Connecticut during the Revolutionary War. We examine these cases and ponder the question, “What measure is a Loyalist?”
Private of the 4th Connecticut Regiment during the American Revolutionary War by Charles M. Lefferts, 1926. Public domain image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
This post examines the idiosyncratic arrangement of the “Confiscated Estates and Loyalists” and “Militia” subject categories in the New Haven County Court records, and what they potentially reveal about Loyalists in Connecticut.
More Loyalists in Connecticut?
In addition to the blog, we profiled several cases involving Loyalists, Patriots, and the American Revolution on Instagram:
Here is a bond from 1767, signed and sealed by Benedict Arnold. These four promissory notes, dating from 1769-1773, were also signed by Benedict Arnold.
During the Revolutionary War, privateering was formally authorized by the Continental Congress in March 1776. As such, when Peter Griffing of Guilford captured the schooner Parker at a Long Island harbor and brought it into the port of New Haven, he argued in court that he had the right to keep this bounty.
The Continental Congress first passed a law offering pensions to widows and orphans of Revolutionary War soldiers in 1780. As this County Court petition from 1830 and Superior Court petition from 1859 demonstrate, soldiers’ widows and children sought support well into the nineteenth century.
In November 1782, Caleb Street of Wallingford complained to the County Court that Walter Munson of New Haven failed to deliver him the “good well made Beaver Hatt” he promised after they had an argument as to whether “Cornwallis together with his said forces” would surrender “to his Excellency General Washington” during the military campaign of 1781.
John Wise, a constable of New Haven, was prosecuted for the offense of failing to muster in February 1778.
While most of the divorce petitions in the New Haven County Superior Court involved desertion or adultery, one man claimed more unusual grounds in August 1778. Obadiah Munson of New Haven alleged that his wife had misrepresented her character, background, and situation during their courtship: instead of a genteel widow who had fled from Long Island due to British occupation, she was none other than “the Infamous Rachel Page of Branford.”
Court records in colonial and early American Connecticut often referenced applicable case law—and some even included the entire text in the case documents. One piece of legislation, An ACT for raising and compleating the Quota of the Continental Army, to be raised in this State, was passed by the Connecticut General Assembly in May 1777 and discovered as a stand-alone document in the New Haven County Superior Court records.
As noted in a previous post, the records for these cases, as well as several of the cases previously profiled in this blog, are currently in the process of being digitized. They will eventually be available for public viewing at the Connecticut Digital Archive (CTDA).
This project is made possible through funding from the Historic Documents Preservation fund of the Office of the Public Records Administrator. We also recognize the past support of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).
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