Looking For A Historical Novelist

The following is meant to serve as a rough foundation for a historical novel taking place during the America Revolution. No specific plot is recommended; only the geographic uniqueness, some demographics and historical events and a suggested title are laid out involving the region. Hopefully it will inspire some fine historical novelist to take up the challenge. I would do it my self, but at nearly 82 my time has run out.

Salem: On The Edge Of The Storm 1776–1783 {suggested title}

The City of Salem rests in the southwest corner of New Jersey — the county seat of Salem County. John Fenwick, a Quaker, following a treaty with the local Indians, founded the town in 1675. At the time of the American Revolution, Salem Country was mostly a rural farm community with small villages surrounding Salem. Besides tiny villages and fertile farmland there were numerous creeks, streams, woods and swamps that made up the courtside. Besides politicians, bureaucrats, mechanists and mostly farmers, their were fishermen and trappers that worked the rivers, streams and swamps.

Due west, across the Salem River and the might Delaware River, was situated the northern part of the slave state of Delaware. At the top of Delaware rested the old town of New Castle, and just above that place the City of Wilmington. Flowing into the Delaware River on the southern edge of Wilmington was Brandywine creek, upon which a ways to the west was located the DuPont powered company that supplied the American rebels gunpowder.

Not far north of Wilmington and about thirty miles as the crow flies north east of Salem was the cradle of the American Revolution, Philadelphia. Moving due north of Salem, on the edge of town and flowing out of the Salem River was Fenwick Creek. Some few miles east and south of Salem flowed Alloway creek, a fairly substantial body of tidal water running out of the Delaware River from southwest of Salem. One and perhaps two bridges crossed this important creek, one just east at the village of Quinton and another southeast at the hamlet of Hancocks Bridge.

This stream formed a kind of defensive barrier for American patriot farmers, (what amounted to an American version of the Vietcong) folks that on occasion supplied beef to General Washington’s army. There were two clashes along this critical water obstruction, the battle of Quinton Bridge and the massacre of some farmer rebels at the Hancock house.

During the Revolutionary War, the British occupied Salem briefly in 1778 while on foraging expeditions. Their occupation was known as the Salem Raid. The British, however, were met with opposition in the villages surrounding Salem as they looked for supplies and engaged in skirmishes with the local militias.

Quinton Bridge

Quinton’s Bridge was located on Alloway Creek. On March 12, 1788 British Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Charles Mawhood, along with a mixed force of Simcoe’s Rangers and British regulars, crossed the Delaware River; the purpose of this move was twofold, to forage for supplies and to meet up with the foraging party led by Colonel Anthony Wayne. The parties joined and headed towards Salem; there they were met by some Tories (loyalists’) who told the commanders that Colonel Asher Holmes, along with 300 militia were only three miles to the southeast. Like the British, Holmes’s men were foraging in the area, and Holmes had taken a position to cover Quinton’s Bridge while they were at work.

Before dawn on March 18, Mawhood moved several detachments of men into position on the side of the creek opposite the American forces. Holmes, knowing of the British presence in the area, had taken the added defensive precaution of removing planks from the floor of the bridge.

Unfortunately, as the Americans saw a British detachment moving to the rear, a rebel Captain Smith replaced the planks, and leaving 100 men on some high ground, took 200 across the bridge in pursuit. This force followed the British west along the road to Salem, eventually making contact with a second group of British soldiers that had been posted behind a rail fence. Still, another contingent of British troops had hidden within a nearby house.

When Smith and his men were attacked frontally, the soldiers posted in the house slipped out and ran to the Americans’ rear flank, cutting off any retreat to the bridge. This enemy movement forced Smith’s men to attempt another means for crossing the creek. At about this instance the main body of British soldiers arrived at the west end of the bridge and attempted crossing it to get at the American remaining on their east bank deployment. The British counter attack was, however, stopped cold by the timely arrival of Colonel Elijah Hand’s militia with two guns. This reinforcement action prevented a complete annihilation of the various American contingents. In any event, the Americans lost between 30 and 40 men in the engagement, mostly to drowning.

The Hancock house Massacre

A few days later, during the early morning hours of March 21, when darkness lay upon the fine brick house of Judge William Hancock in the settlement of Lower Alloway Creek (Handcocks Bridge), a small garrison of about 30 colonial militia, including Judge Hancock himself, were fast asleep.

On the other side of the creek, Loyalist troops from John Graves Simcoe’s Queen’s Rangers gathered in the predawn gloom. Simcoe, frustrated by rebel resistance in the area, was determined to stamp out the local militia and those who would offer them refuge. His men stealthily crossed the Alloway Creek and quietly surrounded Judge Hancock’s house.

Upon Simcoe’s command, troops converged on the house with orders to “spare no one.” They entered simultaneously from the front and rear of the house. Not a single shot was fired during the raid as the loyalists quickly began killing the surprised occupants.

Men begged for their lives as they were bludgeoned and bayoneted to death by soldiers that had been their friends and neighbors before the war. Though some survived the skirmish, between 20 and 30 rebels were killed in the bloody melee. Judge Hancock being among the dead.

After the war, treason trials were held at the Salem courthouse where suspected Loyalists were put on trial for having allegedly aided the British raid. Four men were convicted and sentenced to death for treason; they, however, were pardoned by Governor William Livingston and exiled from New Jersey.

Other possible factors for a plot

Some additional factors that might be woven into a fictional Revolutionary War story based in this region: What about escaped slaves crossing the Delaware River into Salem County to avoid slave catcher parties patrolling along the Mason Dixon line of free Pennsylvania? What part did anti war Quakers and possibly free Negros and native peoples play in the struggle between the rebels and loyal factions?

Did longstanding feuds among the locals have any effect on which side a person landed? Who were the prominent leaders of the region among the rebels and loyalists? What about split families and romances? Storyline possibilities are endless.

If interested contact me via note.