April 12, 1782: Loyalists took Patriot Captain Joshua Huddy, held as a prisoner in New York, to Highlands, where they hanged him in retribution for the killing of Loyalist Philip White, killed while allegedly attempting to escape while being transported to Freehold as a prisoner. Huddy’s lynching led to an international incident as the Revolution wound down. George Washington ordered a British prisoner selected to hang in retribution and Captain Charles Asgill was chosen by lot. Asgill’s mother wrote the French king requesting that her son be spared and Washington complied, defusing the situation.
April 12, 1861 Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, igniting the Civil War. Although New Jersey Governor Charles Olden had previously expressed desire for a compromise solution that did not involve secession, reflecting the views of a fairly large number of New Jerseyans, the people of the state rallied to the Union cause in the wake of the attack.
April 12, 1944: More than 500 residents of Great Meadows in Warren County met at the local school to protest the presence of Japanese-American workers assigned to a local farm by the War Relocation Authority (WRA). Although a march on the farm was averted, the assembled residents voted to petition their state senator to find “legal means to remove the laborers.” A sign posted on the road to the farm read “One Mile to Little Tokyo,” some residents spoke of “running the Japanese out of the county with shotguns,” and a shed was burned down on the farm. The WRA removed the workers the following day.
