NJDARM: Archives Collection Guides: Department of Defense, Adjutant General's Office (Revolutionary War), Records of Commissioners of Forfeited Estates, 1777-1795

During the revolutionary war, the New Jersey state government passed a series of laws for confiscating the property of loyalists, in an attempt to quell their subversive activities and raise funds for financing the war effort.

Loyalism was first declared a crime by "An Act to punish Traitors and disaffected Persons," passed in October 1776, which stated that any resident of New Jersey who obeyed the King of Great Britain was guilty of high treason. The state then tried to woo loyalists into supporting the rebel government, by the "Act of Free and General Pardon" of June 1777. This act offered pardons for loyalist offenders and the restoration of their rights in return for an oath of allegiance. Though many took the oath, a large number of loyalists refused and their threat to the state's security persisted.

Finally, the state began to confiscate loyalists' estates, seeking to drive those who remained into exile, and to prevent those who had already left from ever returning. In August 1777 an act was passed for leasing loyalists' real estate and forfeiting their personal property. Finally, in December of the same year, the legislature authorized the complete confiscation of all loyalist property.

The forfeited estates laws affected anyone who had aided the enemy between April 1775 and October 1776 and still had not taken an oath of allegiance to the state. The offenders were declared guilty of high treason and their property was confiscated. Each county had three commissioners of forfeited estates appointed by the state. The commissioners gathered evidence against accused persons and presented it before a jury of twenty-four freeholders. If twelve or more jurors agreed, a verdict or inquisition would be drawn up for confiscating the accused's property. Inquisitions could be appealed by the accused or their representatives to the county court of common pleas, upon posting £1,000 bond. In practice, few trials were held because most of the accused and their associates had long since fled to New York City.

The sale of confiscated property raised £1,350,000 for the state. Seventy percent of the money came from East Jersey, where loyalist and patriot feuds were rampant. Middlesex County collected over £450,000, the largest amount for any county. The amounts were inflated, however, by severe currency depreciation. For this same reason, the sale of forfeited estates was suspended temporarily in June 1781. Sales were reinstated in December 1783 and continued intermittently for several more years.

Most of the documents here appear to have been collected by William S. Stryker, New Jersey's Adjutant General in the late-nineteenth century. However, no mention of them is made in the Adjutant General's published annual reports. The Essex County inquisitions were originally collected and inventoried separately by the State Archives' predecessor agency, the Bureau of Archives and History, under the series name, "Essex County Inquisitions of Loyalists."