After the Toms River Blockhouse fight, British sailors and soldiers hunted for Captain Joshua Huddy, who had escaped into the surrounding area. The Associated Loyalists, a unit organized by former Tory Governor of New Jersey William Franklin, Benjamin Franklin’s son, helped search for Huddy while burning local houses and leaving residents homeless. Huddy was found at Randolph’s Mill on the North Branch of the Toms River, hiding with two civilian friends who had fought with him at the blockhouse, Town Magistrate Daniel Randolph and elderly resident Jacob Fleming. The British captured and shackled all three men and shipped them on the HMS Arrogant for confinement at the Old Sugar House Prison in New York City. A few days later, Loyalist Captain Richard Lippincott received orders from William Franklin and his Board of Associated Loyalists. The three American Patriot prisoners were moved to Sandy Hook and boarded the HMS Britannia under the guise of a prisoner exchange. Held in irons during the short voyage to nearby Gravelly Point in the Highlands, Captain Huddy was removed from the Britannia and allowed to dictate his will, then hanged without trial on a crude gallows erected from three fence rails and a barrel on April 12, 1782. His final words were, “I shall die innocent and in a good cause.” A sign placed on his chest declared that he was being hanged as revenge for the killing of Loyalist Philip White. General Washington demanded retaliation, and British General Sir Henry Clinton ordered that those responsible for Huddy’s death be arrested and tried. When those who hanged Huddy were not turned over to the Patriots, Washington and his field officers ordered a lottery, and Lieutenant Charles Asgill, a British officer held as a prisoner of war, was chosen to receive the same fate as Huddy. The order inflamed the British and caused an international crisis for the new nation, halting the Paris Peace Talks for months. Eventually, General Washington and the Continental Congress relented and spared Lieutenant Asgill from execution, a humanitarian decision that gave American representatives leverage to negotiate concessions from the defeated British. The Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783, nearly two years after the British surrendered to General Washington at Yorktown.
