Description:

New Hampshire Jail Keeper Holds Suspected New York Loyalists

This account details the expenses from November 1776 to March 1777 of "Goal Keeper" Joseph Stacy, who kept prisoners in Exeter, New Hampshire. It includes a total of £16..15..4 for expenses for boarding nine prisoners from November 14 to 23, 1776; two prisoners from January 2 to 28, 1777; one from January 2 to February 8; and another from February 18 to March 21. It also includes expenses for procuring materials to build cabins, for keys, and for other supplies.

[REVOLUTIONARY WAR.] Manuscript Document Signed, Account for Joseph Stacy, jail keeper, March 21, 1777, Exeter, New Hampshire. 1 p., 6.75" x 17". Expected folds; small hole; very good.

Historical Background
As part of an effort to remove suspected loyalists or indifferent patriots from their midst, local New York committees of safety banished some to neighboring states or further. According to John Jay, a member of the Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies and future chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, it was "indispensably necessary to remove a number of dangerous and disaffected persons, some of whom have been taken in arms against America, to one of the neighboring states."

On October 17, 1776, this committee assembled a list of 113 men in Dutchess County, New York, that it deemed "notoriously disaffected and inimical to the measures pursuing for the safety and defence of the United States of America." The committee judged it "absolutely necessary and expedient for the suppression of such conspiracies, and the prevention of them in future, as well as the restoration of good government and order in the said County, that such notoriously disaffected persons of influence in the said County should be immediately removed therefrom to one of the neighbouring States, till such times as proper courts shall be instituted in this State for the due trial and punishment of such treasonable practices." They sent these prisoners to the town of Exeter in New Hampshire, 175 miles from Dutchess County. Most of the thirteen prisoners mentioned on this account are on this list.

Although officials in New Hampshire were willing to take the prisoners, New Hampshire Council President Meshach Weare raised concerns about their actual guilt: "Their clamours of being sent here without an examination at home and consciousness of their innocence which they assert, has had considerable influence among the people.... And as a great number of them make such protestations of their not being sensible of their having ever given occasion for any person to suppose them unfriendly to the American cause, we wish an impartial inquiry might be made into their characters." New York soon recalled all such prisoners and imprisoned some on prison ships off Kingston.

In January 1777, Exeter jail keeper Joseph Stacy posted a notice of the escape of three prisoners "lately bro't from the State of New York, & notorious enemies to American Liberty"—35-year-old Benjamin Moril, 25-year-old William Slack, and 35-year-old John Lawson. He gave physical descriptions and believed "the above persons absconded with a view to join and give intelligence to the ministerial forces." Stacy urged "all true friends to their country" to "exert themselves in endeavouring to apprehend said enemies, and confine them."

Joseph Stacy (1726-1809) was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts. He served as a jail keeper in Essex, New Hampshire.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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