Seven Tories Hanged Here

Manasquan, New Jersey

During the Revolutionary War this part of New Jersey was a hotbed of non-military lynchings: local Tory loyalists killed local U.S. Patriots and vice-versa. According to a plaque on a small roadside rock, one of the Patriot vigilantes, Samuel Allen, captured and hanged seven New Jersey Tories on this spot.

The plaque doesn't even give a year for this, and a lack of any contemporary accounts has led some to speculate that it never really happened. But the Daughters of the American Revolution thought enough of the story to commemorate it by bolting a small plaque onto this small rock in 1927. According to a contemporary newspaper account, the dedication was attended by a military band, a sizable crowd, and a contingent of National Guardsmen, who fired a salute.