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Key
Key
Key

Key

PeriodCirca 1770 - 1780
Place MadeProbably Colts Neck, New Jersey, U.S.A.
MediumBrass
Dimensions7 × 1 × 0.63 in. (17.8 × 2.5 × 1.6 cm)
ClassificationsLocks & Keys
Credit LineGift of Mrs. William Hartshorne, 1931
Object number22
DescriptionA brass door lock key, with molded shank, ovoid bow, and stepped bit.
NotesThis key was one of the first artifacts donated to the Historical Association after the opening of its new Freehold Headquarters building in October of 1931. The key was noted as being "from the front door of Capt. Huddy House, Colts Neck. N.J." Joshua "Jack" Huddy was born in Salem County, New Jersey, in 1735, the eldest of seven sons. Huddy appears to have been a rowdy, disruptive, occasionally violent man. He was brought up on charges of assault and theft several times and ended up in debtors' prison for a time. Huddy married twice, first to widow Mary Borden, with whom he had two daughters, Elizabeth and Martha. After Borden's death, Huddy married again, this time to widow Catherine Applegate Hart. Catherine owned the Colts Neck Tavern, inherited from her husband Levy Hart. At one point, Huddy was charged with trying to take the tavern away from Catherine. During the American Revolution, Huddy was an active and apparently popular participant. on 4 September 1777 Huddy was appointed a captain in the Monmouth Militia and may well have been at the Battle of Monmouth on 28 June 1778. In August of 1780 Huddy received a commission from the Continental Congress to operated the gunboat "Black Snake" as a privateerI. His actions made him a target of Loyalist and irregular British forces. In September of 1780, African-American Colonel Tye and a force of British irregulars attacked Huddy's tavern in Colts Neck, trapping Jack Huddy and Lucretia Edmonds inside. The pair held off the entire force for two hours, until the group set fire to the building. Huddy agreed to surrender only if Tye's forces agreed to douse the flames. Loyalists took Huddy to Rumson and boarded a boat headed to New York. Patriots on shore, alerted to Huddy's capture, fired on the boat from shore, allowing Huddy to escape with a musket ball in his thigh. In February of 1782, Huddy was appointed commander of a small fort at Toms River, a strategic location for the Continental Army. The site included a valuable salt works. On 24 March of that year a band of Loyalist irregulars attacked the area, destroying virtually everything and taking Huddy prisoner. He was sent to a British prison ship in New York Harbor. Days later, Huddy was taken off the ship by another group of Loyalists headed by Captain Richard Lippincott on the pretext of a prisoner exchange. Lippincott had no intention of exchanging Huddy, however. The Loyalist men took Huddy to Middletown Point, where after dictating and signing his will, Huddy was hanged. Lippincott pinned a note to his chest, which read in part "Up goes Huddy for Philip White." White was Lippincott's brother-in-law, who had been killed by Patriot forces earlier that year. Huddy's body was found the next day and taken to Freehold. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Old Tennent Church Burial Ground. Major General James Green, Freehold resident and a tavernkeeper himself, hosted Huddy's wake at his establishment, attended by more than 400 mourners who protested the illegal execution. Letters were sent to George Washington, demanding the execution of a British officer of equal rank as retribution. British officer Charles Asgill was selected at random to be executed. Through the persistence of his mother, who personally petitioned Louis XVI to intervene, and the knowledge that executing Asgill may well precipitate an international incident, Washington chose not to pursue revenge, and Asgill was later freed. After the Revolution, Richard Lippincott emigrated to Canada and settled there. In 1962, the U.S. Army Department put up a marker at Old Tennent Church to commemorate Huddy.
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