The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [128]
These trips were often major undertakings. He would buy several one-hundred-pound barrels of sugar or pepper or some other commodity and transport them more than ninety miles to his home in sturdy wagons. On one trip he purchased ninety-seven gallons of rum and twenty-nine gallons of brandy. Distant trips required him to stay over at an inn somewhere; his trips were often lengthened when ferry service was interrupted by turbulent rivers or ferries under repair. Ferries rarely ran when rains raised rivers, making the passage too dangerous; passengers had to find lodging for a night or two until the river subsided. Sometimes, despite his best efforts, his business failed. Christmas 1778 was a fine example of how the life of any businessman was dramatically affected by the events of the war and the vicissitudes of the weather. His problems that holiday began on Tuesday, December 22, when he was tied up all day sitting as a judge on the local court of appeals. The next day he was informed that a large load of salt that he had purchased and planned to sell to a Chatham man for $33 had been left in a valley several miles away. He had just sold a second load of salt to Major Sears for the army’s use. He spent all of that day and the next, Christmas eve, investigating the missing salt and learned that his friend Jacob Minthorn had forgotten to pick up the salt. Determined to have the salt delivered and to earn the $33, Seely rose early on Christmas Day and spent more time working on the case of the missing salt. He was apparently unable to find anyone to retrieve the load on the holiday and gave up shortly after noon. Nothing would be done about it for a few days, either, because as Major Sears, Seely, and his wife dined with their friends it began to snow—hard. The snowstorm continued all night and throughout the next day. “Froze me ears,” Seely noted.
The weather remained cold. Enough snow fell on Christmas Day and the following day to make the roads impassable. Seely wrote angrily, “Snowed so hard that the teams cannot go with the salt and all hopes of the sale is over.”
Seely was a careful businessman, weighing each barrel when he brought it home. He spent much time managing the inn and took care of the needs of the boarders who lived there and locals who drank at his tavern. He had a nineteen-acre farm behind the inn. He and his slave, Prince, tended gardens there and grew crops for sale, along with hay that he sold to local residents for their horses. He collected apples from trees in an orchard and brought them to a local mill where they were turned into barrels of apple cider he would sell at the tavern and store. He rode to the farms of neighbors to buy other fruits, such as peaches, that he sold in his store.
He was a valued member of the Chatham community and was often called upon to serve on juries in civil and criminal matters. He and his wife attended Sunday church services together, visited friends for dinner parties, and drove in his riding chair to the farms of neighbors to pick fruit for their own enjoyment. He often won jugs of cider or money at the shooting matches that were a popular form of local entertainment at the time and attended by many.8
It was his work as head of the militia, though, that was critical to the war effort. His diary does not describe his relationship with George Washington, but they must have met from time to time during the two winters that the army spent in nearby Morristown, New Jersey, or during the winter of 1778–1779, when it was fifteen miles south in Bound Brook. He also had a friendly relationship with William Livingston, the fiery governor of New Jersey, with whom he had dinner several times during the Revolution.
The Battle of Monmouth
Seely and the militia were called on