Revisiting Middletown's colonial murder mystery
In 1780, local patriot Joseph Murray was bayoneted on his farm. The crime went unsolved, but there's one recourse left
Joseph Murray was working in his Middletown cornfield when three guys emerged from the tall grass nearby and shot him with muskets. Because that wasn’t enough to take down one of the toughest patriots around, the attackers then hacked him to death with their bayonets.
The date was June 8, 1780. Vigilantism was in full swing along the Bayshore. The murder of Murray, a father of four children ages 9 and under, further roiled an already fractured community.
“The Revolutionary War is so far away and so long ago, we forget just how brutal it was,” said Richard Veit, chair of the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University. “This was a message from the British that there was no safety for folks who opposed the crown, but American patriots probably saw that they needed to redouble their efforts because of how cruel their opponent could be.”
One of Murray’s assailants was gunned down by a neighbor. The others escaped, probably to the British stronghold at Sandy Hook. No arrests were made nor charges brought, although historians suspect that a loyalist Middletown power broker arranged the hit.
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“There was just so much chaos here, and panic,” said Elaine Lent, historian at Old First Church on Kings Highway, where Murray is buried. “Neither side knew which was going to come out ahead.”
We know the answer now, so as we enter the calendar’s most patriotic stretch it’s important to keep Murray’s story alive. Consider it a belated form of justice.
‘A bold and active patriot’
The book "History of the New Jersey Coast," written in 1902 by William Nelson, outlines the basics. Murray, whose birth year remains unknown, emigrated with his mother from Ireland in the 1760s. He married the well-heeled Rebecca Morris and became a private in Monmouth County’s militia.
“He was a bold and active patriot during the revolution,” Nelson wrote. “He had thus aroused the fear and hatred of the Tories.”
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One of Murray’s stunts was stealing horses for the militia’s use. In 1779 he commandeered a colt from the family of Edward Taylor, a prominent Middletown citizen with noted Tory leanings. Murray was summarily arrested -- the penalty for stealing a horse was death -- but a sympathetic court in Freehold dismissed the charges.
“Edward Taylor would have been simmering about this,” Lent said.
Four months later Murray was dead. Taylor was questioned, and according to Lent, he conceded only that, “I have heard of the death of Murray and I am glad of it.”
Murray’s widow received a half pension from the militia. Rev. Abel Morgan, the widely respected pastor at Old First Church, probably played a big role in helping raise her children. The eldest, William Murray, supervised the building of Freehold’s courthouse in 1808. William's son, also named William Murray, became postmaster and a leading citizen of Middletown.
In 1888, the 200th anniversary of Old First Church, the grandson had Joseph Murray's grave moved there from its original site down the road. The simple headstone bears a faded inscription, “Departed this life June 8, 1780 while in the service of his Country.”
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Keeping a legacy alive
To walk in Murray’s footsteps, visit Poricy Park on Oak Hill Road. His farmhouse and barn are still there. The farmhouse, which nearly was town down in the 1970s to make way for a sewage plant before concerned locals fought to preserve it, was restored in 1986. The barn is original.
“The (barn's) beams came from shipwrecks at Sandy Hook,” said Elaine Hinckley, president of Poricy Park’s board of trustees. “You can still see the salt marks.”
Speaking of Sandy Hook, Monmouth’s Veit is leading a public archaeology project there this summer to find remnants of the British’s Revolutionary War occupation. Murray caused a lot of trouble at Sandy Hook, repeatedly disrupting attempts to supply the British fleet.
“The folks with his farmstead have done a nice job trying to draw attention to not only the farm but to his life and what happened there,” Veit said, “but like many patriots from that time period, I think he’s been overlooked and to some extent forgotten, unfortunately.”
Poricy Park’s all-volunteer staff recently received a $28,000 historic preservation grant to assess the property’s needs. They’re putting in a cornfield like the one Murray maintained in 1780, and they are working on getting the road in named Joseph Murray Lane.
Nearly 2,000 students visited in May, but as Hinckley said, “We hope every year the board of ed approves the budget to keep the kids coming.”
It should. You can learn history from a textbook, or you can visit the place where a leading patriot was slain as the birth of America hung in the balance. A stone marker sits on the fateful spot of the bayoneting. It reads: “At this site Joseph Murray was murdered by Tories in retaliation for his daring patriot deeds.”
Carino’s Corner appears Mondays in the Asbury Park Press. Contact Jerry at jcarino@gannettnj.com.