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When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story: Exploring New Jersey Voters, 1800 - 1807

As of 2020, the Museum of the American Revolution has identified 163 women voters named on nine poll lists dated between 1800 - 1807 from across New Jersey. Of these voters, we have compiled biographies of nearly 30 women and free people of color who voted in these elections. These biographies provide a glimpse into the voters’ lives — their families, religions, homes, ownership of property, and roles in their communities. More biographies will be added as our research continues!

Virtual Exhibit

Picturing Washington's Army: Verplanck’s Point | Rhode Island Regiment

Take a closer look at the anchor-decorated colonnade of the Rhode Island Regiment. The Rhode Islanders’ tents were set up between the Massachusetts and Connecticut brigades. An officer’s marquee tent is visible in the foreground of this section of the painting.

Image: Museum of the American Revolution, Gift of the Landenberger Family Foundation

Virtual Exhibit

Cost of Revolution: Part 4 Irish Revolution

The American Revolution put Ireland on edge. In 1778, after France announced its alliance with the United States, many Irish people feared that the French would invade their country. Tens of thousands of Protestant landholders, lawyers, and craftsmen rallied to form a militia force called the Irish Volunteers to counter the potential threat. No invasion came. The Volunteers quickly became Ireland’s strongest political action group and successfully advocated for greater Irish rights and liberties as part of the British Empire. In the 1790s, a new political movement led by the United Irishmen called for total Irish independence from the British Empire. The United Irishmen dreamed of creating an Irish republic with political equality for all Irishmen, regardless of their religion. The American and French revolutions inspired them. Richard Mansergh St. George opposed the ideas of the United Irishmen and paid for it with his life in February 1798. St. George's death marked the beginning of a bloody year in Ireland. The United Irishmen launched a full-fledged revolt against British rule in May 1798, but their fight was short-lived. The British and loyal Irish forces swiftly crushed the Irish Revolution. In just five months, the fighting left over 30,000 Irish men, women, and children dead, regardless of their loyalties.

Virtual Exhibit

The Davenport Letters: January 15, 1783

James wrote another letter home about a month after his mess finished their winter hut in the encampment at New Windsor, New York. The army remained largely inactive and unpaid, or, as Davenport put it, in “peace and Poverty,” leading to ongoing frustrations among the soldiery. While many Continental soldiers had a deep ideological commitment to the Revolution and had served for years, they also felt, as Davenport put it, that “the Labourer is worthy of his hire.”

Virtual Exhibit

Picturing Washington's Army: Verplanck’s Point | Washington’s Tent

Take a closer look at General Washington’s tent perched on a hill overlooking the encampment. Nearby, other tents made up the headquarters of the Continental Army. Charles-Louis-Victor, Prince de Broglie, a colonel in the Saintonge Regiment of the French Army, wrote about seeing Washington’s tent at Verplanck’s Point: “I noticed on a little hill which overlooked the camp...the quarters of General Washington.”

Image: Museum of the American Revolution, Gift of the Landenberger Family Foundation

Virtual Exhibit

Finding Freedom: Eve - Peyton Randolph’s Will

Peyton Randolph, a politician and plantation owner from Williamsburg, Virginia, wrote his will on August 10, 1774, one year before he died. Randolph, a slave owner, requested that the people he enslaved were to be inherited by his wife Elizabeth and other family members, or, if necessary, be sold to pay off his debts. Elizabeth Randolph was to receive four enslaved women and their children, including Eve and George, upon her husband’s death.

This historical record is dedicated to the Museum of the American Revolution by the York County-Poquoson Circuit Court, Authorized by the Honorable Kristen N. Nelson, Clerk

Virtual Exhibit

When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story: How Was the Vote Regained?: Redemption?

By exercising the right to vote, early New Jersey women influenced the woman suffrage movement of the 19th and 20th centuries. These later suffragists used the memory of the Revolution and the nation’s first women voters to ground their position in America’s founding and assert their right to equal citizenship. The story of early New Jersey’s women voters reminds us that progress is not necessarily linear and unending, but that rights and liberties require constant vigilance to preserve and protect. The suffragists of the 19th and 20th centuries fought to regain a right that had been taken from New Jersey women in 1807. This later activism vindicated the first generation of women voters and became part of these women voters’ legacy.

Virtual Exhibit

Meet the Figures: Oneida Nation Theater: Skenandoah

Skenandoah was born in 1706 as a Conestoga but became Oneida soon after through a “requickening” (absorption and reidentification) ritual. After an embarrassing episode in Albany in 1755, he abstained from alcohol for the rest of his life. According to one observer, he “possessed a vigorous mind, and was alike sagacious, active and persevering.” In 1775, he accompanied a Presbyterian missionary friend to the new army camp outside Boston, where they met Washington and the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. Because of his allegiance to the Revolution, he was imprisoned by the British at Niagara in 1779-1780 and under a sort of house arrest until 1784. His engagement in the treaty negotiations with the British in this period was something for which some Oneida people never forgave him. He died in 1816, aged about 110.

Virtual Exhibit

Finding Freedom: Eve - Elizabeth Randolph’s Will and Codicil

According to her 1780 will, Elizabeth Randolph requested that Eve and her son George were to be inherited by her niece Ann Coupland. The other enslaved people owned by Elizabeth Randolph were to be inherited by her other nieces and nephews. Two years later, Randolph wrote a codicil (additional directions) for her will that changed her decision about Eve’s future. Randolph described that she sold Eve due to “bad behavior,” likely referring to Eve’s decision to runaway from Williamsburg. The money from the sale of Eve was to be used to purchase an enslaved boy for her nephew and an enslaved girl for her niece.

This historical record is dedicated to the Museum of the American Revolution by the York County-Poquoson Circuit Court, Authorized by the Honorable Kristen N. Nelson, Clerk

Virtual Exhibit

Picturing Washington's Army: Verplanck’s Point

Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s watercolor of the encampment at Verplanck’s Point (August-October 1782) depicts the Continental Army at its professional best. Wooden bowers, or shades made of tree branches, decorated the long line of soldiers’ tents. Washington’s marquee tent stood on a hill where it “towered, predominant” over the camp, as one eyewitness put it.

For a month, the Continental troops at Verplanck’s Point gathered firewood for the coming winter and drilled for the next campaign. On September 22, the Continental Army demonstrated their fighting readiness for French forces marching from Virginia through the Hudson Highlands. One astonished French officer admired the transformation of an army that had “formerly had no other uniform than a cap, on which was written Liberty.”

Image: Museum of the American Revolution, Gift of the Landenberger Family Foundation

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