“The partnership that will be formed between the Clinton Township School District and the 1759 Vought House will provide the children of the community an opportunity to experience history at their doorstep. This landmark building will be a showcase for our students as they learn about the Revolutionary era.”   October 2009
Mr. Kevin Carroll  Superintendent of Schools, Clinton Township, NJ

   "The group--1759 Vought House, Inc.-- is an impressive collection of educators, historians, preservationists and others.  They're undertaking an enormous task, but few worthwhile efforts are easy."  July 6, 2006 editorial, Hunterdon County Democrat

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The Vought Family,
Loyalists in the American Revolution

Click for January 1, 2009 Hunterdon Democrat article. Buy this 63 page booklet for $5. plus $2. for postage and handling: 1) Paypal online: 2) Print and mail order form word .doc  Also available at Clinton Book Shop   33 Main Street, Historic Clinton, NJ Sample Pages

History on a Human Scale Introduction:  The 1759 Vought House Land and Liberty 1709–1749:  Journey to America Authority vs. autonomy in New Germantown New Jersey Land Riots 1749–1759:  Ownership from Sovereign grants or invested labor? An Impressive Stone House 1759-1776:  The ceilings and design 0f the Vought’s  home display their heritage and status Why a Loyalist? 1776:  Interests, Ideals, and Social Identity, Christoffel and John’s fateful choice The American War 1776–1783:  Life as Loyalists in Hunterdon County and with the New Jersey Volunteers Christiana’s Song 1792:  A journey back to these United States and a new life along the Hudson An American Family Afterword:  The Vought Family and   the American Revolution since 1776 References

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Historical Background

At the Vought House, we can tell a story of three generations of the Vought family, European refugees swept up in major religious and political conflicts of the 17^th and 18^th centuries.  They strove to make a new life and became community leaders along the Raritan.  In the crisis of 1776, they took a stand against the rebellion and volunteered to join British troops.  After the war the Voughts were among 30,000 loyalists exiled to Nova Scotia.

The German Palatine Exodus:  1709

In the late 1600s and early 1700s, the British government wanted to increase the population of the American colonies in order to boost American growth and, thereby, British wealth.  However, draining the mother country of Englishmen was considered unwise, so England looked outside its borders for likely settlers.

German Lutherans were seen as highly desirable by Protestant Queen Anne, who promised them free passage, land and money.  Advertising pamphlets were distributed in the Palatinate, a formerly prosperous rural area of Germany that had been ravaged by devastating religious wars and left in ruins.  In 1709, after a severe winter, more than 10,000 desperate Palatines packed up and left for England; 3,000 of them were sent by the British government to New York's Hudson Valley.  Among them were Christoffel Vought’s parents, Simon and Christina Vogt.*

Simon and Christina Vogt Settle in Hunterdon County: 1720-1759

The Palatine Germans were especially attracted to the fertile farmland of Hunterdon County and its limestone outcroppings, so like the land of the Rhine Valley and the Palatinate.  The familiar limestone soil lured Simon, who was anxious to feed and clothe his growing family.

The family settled in Hunterdon, first on land between today’s Oldwick and Potterstown.  They became active members of the New Germantown (Oldwick) Lutheran church.  In the 1740s, Simon Voght took a leading role in a bitter dispute within the Lutheran Church in America over whether congregations were bound to a minister for life; was his calling a contract with the congregation or an obligation to God?  This issue pitted the congregation against the authority of the central church.  The congregation wished to expel their minister, Johann Wolf, who had married Simon Voght’s eldest daughter.  Simon went to great lengths to defend his son-in-law until an incident forced Simon to choose his daughter’s honor over his defense of Johann Wolff and allegiance to the authority of the central church.

In 1749, at age 35, their son Stoffel became head of the Vought household, marrying Cornelia Portman Traphagen and soon fathering two children, John and Christina.  Ten years later, he bought 285 acres of prime, limestone-rich land that straddled the South Branch of the Raritan River and fronted Spruce Run in what was then Lebanon Township and is now Clinton Township and Clinton Town. 

Stoffel and Cornelia Vought Prosper: 1759-1774

In 1759, 45-year-old Stoffel Vought began improving his new land holdings and built the large stone house that still stands on it.  Impressive for its time, the house was built partly into an earthen bank, with sturdy stone walls reminiscent of rural homes in the Palatinate, where Stoffel’s parents had grown up.  The second floor is remarkable for its wattle and daub decorative plaster ceilings.

Stoffel Vought rose to take a respected place in the community and within the German Lutheran congregation.  He was elected to the council of his church and became an elder.  In 1768 he was named one of Hunterdon County’s Road Commissioners.  He also bought 2,000 acres of land in New York State, as an additional legacy for his children and grandchildren. 

In 1774, when he was 60, Stoffel turned over the day-to-day operation of the farm to his son, John, because he was “old and unable to cultivate it.”  He also bought an additional 203 adjoining acres—which he gave to John.  Stoffel planned to enjoy his retirement.

Choosing Sides in the Revolution:  1775

Unfortunately, the outbreak of the American Revolution brought an end to the family’s good fortune.  Everyone in the colonies was forced to choose sides, and the Voughts became well-known supporters of the King’s Armies.  What motivated them to back the British Crown?

It is likely that, comfortably established in the colony, the Voughts felt they had a lot to lose in a war and wanted to maintain the status quo.  And like many other immigrant families, they may still have felt indebted to Britain for the opportunity it had given their family through its generous immigration policy of the early 1700s.  The Vought family had been transformed from desperate, impoverished refugees to well-established, financially secure landowners in two generations.

 New Jersey was also close to New York City, which had a huge, solidly loyalist population.  Stoffel and John Vought, along with perhaps over a third of all New Jersey provincials, and in Hunterdon County a much higher percentage, decided ultimately to remain loyal British subjects.  Unlike many loyalists and more than a few patriots, the Voughts did not avoid military service; they fought for their beliefs.  It was a principled but costly decision.

The Turmoil of War: 1776

At first, loyalists worked through legal channels to support the Crown.  But anti-British sentiment grew and tempers rose in 1776.  The colonists raised militias.  John was drafted, but when his militia unit refused to serve, he and Joseph Lee, a supervisor at the Union Iron Woks, were held responsible.  Rumors of a coming British invasion emboldened the loyalists, who began raiding colonial militias throughout north and central New Jersey.

After midnight on June 24, 1776, John Vought, Joseph Lee and a group of about 25 loyalists armed with clubs raided a local militia-recruiting center, the tavern and house of Thomas Jones, a longtime Vought friend and close neighbor.  The group sought to intimidate Captain Jones.  They beat him with clubs, ransacked and stole money from the tavern bar and chased his family out of doors as he hid in the house. 

On July 9, the Provincial Congress responded to these "acts of open and daring violence" which "abused the friends of freedom" and ordered the militia to "apprehend such insurgents and disaffected persons."   Within days, Col. Frederick Frelinghuysen marched with a squad of militiamen from White House to the Vought farm, where at midnight they surrounded the house.  As Stoffel slipped out a back window in his nightshirt, he was apprehended by a rebel who threw him to the ground.  John had escaped, but he soon gave himself up in solidarity with his father.  In July 1776, Stoffel and John were imprisoned for five days in the Hunterdon County Courthouse in Trenton until they posted bail of 2,000 pounds.  Each was fined 100 pounds—a surprisingly lenient penalty.  They now both became well known loyalists. 

Leaders of Loyalist Resistance: 1776-1778

In the fall of 1776, with George Washington’s troops in retreat from New York across New Jersey, the loyalist cause gained strength.  In December, Washington, probably with the help of Captain Jones collecting river boats, ferried his retreating troops across the Delaware into Pennsylvania.  The Voughts assembled a force of 50 to 60 loyalists which moved south along the Raritan River, to link up with the British Army.  They were intercepted by patriot militia, but Stoffel, John, and the majority of the party escaped and reached the British lines, where John joined the New Jersey Volunteers, the largest American loyalist military organization.

General Howe commissioned John Vought as a lieutenant, second in command under his friend, now Captain Joseph Lee, in the Sixth Battalion, New Jersey Volunteers.  The New Jersey Volunteers were issued green uniforms and fought with the British redcoats.  They had little military training and were looked down upon by British regulars.  But they provided important local knowledge, protected supply routes and base camps and would forage the countryside for food and supplies.  In the next year and a half, John’s battalion saw action in Bergen County and helped repulse Sullivan's raid, an attempt to dislodge the British and loyalist forces on Staten Island.

Loyalist Ruin: 1778-1783

Back in Hunterdon County, Cornelia Vought and her son’s wife, Mary Grandin Vought, led difficult lives as wives of renowned loyalists.  They had to fight eviction to remain in the home.  In June 1778, the Hunterdon County Commissioners held a “Jury of Inquisition” on the matter of Stoffel and John Vought.  At the tavern house of Thomas Jones, seven jurors declared them guilty and over the next nine months, their livestock and personal possessions, including the house, barns and land were sold at auction.  The main part of the farm was sold for 8,550 pounds, a large sum that reflected the desirability of the holdings. 

When the war was over in 1783, the Voughts and tens of thousands of other loyalists, had nowhere to go.  Their home was gone, their former neighbors hostile, and they were again refugees.  Another exodus began, and the Vought family joined the loyalists who were being resettled by the British in Nova Scotia.  The British government compensated them 1,721 pounds for their war losses.   
 

But life in exile in Nova Scotia was bleak, with poor farming land and rugged weather—and it was filled with English and Anglo-Americans.  The Voughts still felt German; they had been comfortable in the German ethnic enclave of Hunterdon County.  It turned out that the property in New York State was still available, and the family returned to the farm in Duanesburg, NY, to live out their lives.  Cornelia died first, at age 93, in 1800.  John passed next in 1803, then his father Stoffel, in 1809.  John’s wife, Mary, died in 1831.

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*Spelling was fluid in the 18^th century, and the family name was spelled differently at different times in different documents, including Vogt, Vecht, Voght, Voke and Vought.

These pages draw extensively on a cultural resource investigation by Hunter Research for the Clinton Township School District which was prepared by Damon Tvaryanas, Douglas Scott, George Cress, Nadine Sergejeff, and Ian Burrow, Principal Investigator, in April 2005.