{"id":801,"date":"2013-09-29T02:46:12","date_gmt":"2013-09-29T02:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/?page_id=801"},"modified":"2013-09-29T02:46:12","modified_gmt":"2013-09-29T02:46:12","slug":"september-1777-payroll-for-the-2nd-battalion-of-middlesex-county","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/sample-page\/revolutionary-war-times\/september-1777-payroll-for-the-2nd-battalion-of-middlesex-county\/","title":{"rendered":"September 1777 Payroll for the 2nd Battalion of Middlesex County"},"content":{"rendered":"

Morgan Memories \u2013 September 1777 Payroll for the 2nd<\/sup> Battalion of Middlesex County<\/h3>\n

\"Pay<\/a>A copy of the two page September 8 to October 8, 1777 pay roll record for Captain James Morgan\u2019s Company of the 2<\/span>nd<\/sup> Regiment of Middlesex County, New Jersey was found in the New Jersey State Archives. The pay roll, dated March 5, 1778 and entirely hand written, listed Captain James Morgan, Sr. as well as 52 other members of his battalion including Morgan\u2019s son Lieutenant Nicholas Morgan and, while it isn\u2019t clear what the relation is, Sargent Abraham Morgan.\u00a0 Other early Morgan, NJ surnames are also contained in the pay roll such as Brown, Burlew, Disbrow, Letts, Vorhees, and Warner.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hand written at the top of this first pay roll page is the following:<\/p>\n

\u201cA Pay Roll of Capt. James Morgan’s Co. of ye 2d Battalion of Middlesex Militia Station’d at Cheesequakes, by Order from his Excellency Wm. Livingston Esquire, Governor &c of ye State of New Jersey.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

The names of the 53 individuals follow and are contained in a pre-Microsoft Excel table showing:<\/p>\n

Persons Name
\nCommenc’d in Service
\nTime of Absence
\nTime in Service
\nWhen Discharg’d
\nMonthly Pay
\nTotal Amount<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll notice that this time period predated dollars and still used the British monetary convention of Pounds, Shillings, and Pence.\u00a0 There were twenty shillings per pound and twelve pence per shilling.\u00a0 The rate of pay varied depending on rank.\u00a0 Capt Morgan was the highest paid at 15 pounds per month.\u00a0 Lieutenants were next highest at 10 pounds, 2 shillings and 6 pence per month (shown as 10 . 2 . 6).\u00a0 Sergeants appear to have been paid 3 pounds per month.\u00a0 Corporals 2 . 15 and Privates 2 . 10.<\/p>\n

\"Pay<\/a>The bottom part of the second page, after the table containing the men\u2019s names, contains verbiage which might have been called the testimonial section.\u00a0 This section was signed by one of the members of the \u201cCouncil of Safety\u201d as well as by Captain Morgan.\u00a0 It turns out that the militia was paid by the Council of Safety (A different page about this subject has been in the works for a long time \u2013 hopefully it will be complete one day).\u00a0 Below is my best guess at what the testimonial section says.\u00a0 Some of the words are hard to make out.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard enough to read my own handwriting, reading quill scratching requires another type of talent and ability.\u00a0 When I wasn\u2019t sure of a word, I followed it by a question mark in parentheses.\u00a0 If you are able to determine what the actual words really are, please make note of it in the Comments section at the end of this posting and I\u2019ll update the posting to incorporate the corrections.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pay Roll September 8 1777<\/em><\/p>\n

On the 5th day of March 1778 before me
\n<\/em>Silas Condict, one of the Members of the
\n<\/em>Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey
\n<\/em>and a Justice of the Peace within the same,
\n<\/em>personally appeared Captain James Morgan
\n<\/em>who being duly sworn on the Holy Evangelists
\n<\/em>of Almighty God did depose(?) today(?) that the
\n<\/em>above written Pay Roll contains a just
\n<\/em>& true(?) Account of Time of Service of the
\n<\/em>Men whose Names are therein mentioned
\n<\/em>and that the said Men have faithfully
\n<\/em>Served as Militia in actual Service
\n<\/em>during this Time in the said Pay Roll
\n<\/em>mentioned.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sworn before Me
\n<\/em>Silas Condict<\/em><\/p>\n

While it is fantastic to be able to see the pay roll, what is more exciting is being able to view a copy of an original signature of Captain James Morgan!<\/p>\n

First posted on April 2, 2011.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Morgan Memories \u2013 September 1777 Payroll for the 2nd Battalion of Middlesex County A copy of the two page September 8 to October 8, 1777 pay roll record for Captain James Morgan\u2019s Company of the 2nd Regiment of Middlesex County, New Jersey was found in the New Jersey State Archives. The pay roll, dated March […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":79,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"page-templates\/full-width.php","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-801","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":807,"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/801\/revisions\/807"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/79"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}