Clinton Township Newsletter

2 3 J a n u a r y 2 0 1 6 R e v o l u t i o n O n O u r D o o r s t e p : January 1776! A six-part special series marking the 240th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence By Donald Sherblom 1759VoughtHouse.org On January 7, 1776 Lord Stirling, William Alexander, ordered Lieutenant Colonel Winds to take his men to Perth Amboy. At about 2:00 am the next morning, "armed with guns and bayonets" they surrounded the home of Governor William Franklin, Benjamin Franklin's son, and "knocked violently" at his door, sending his wife into a panic. The governor had sanctioned and removed Alexander from the Council when he accepted a commission in the Somerset militia, which explains why Alexander specified that they call upon the Governor at such "an improper time of the Night." The next day Franklin insisted that he be allowed to perform his official duties. Alexander ordered him arrested and transported to Elizabeth. As the detachment with the Governor's coach began to pull away, Chief Justice Smyth arrived with a militia officer who ordered the governor returned to his residence until further notice. Even after nine months of military conflict, the provincial Congress was not yet prepared to arrest the colony's royal governor. The April 1775 skirmishes at Lexington and Concord began a series of military conflicts. In June the battle known as Bunker Hill proved a costly victory for the British. The Royal Navy bombarded ports and Congress authorized the invasion of Canada to bring that province into the cause. Fort Ticonderoga fell to Patriot forces. Its cannon were sledded to the heights above Boston, forcing the British to evacuate the city for Halifax, Nova Scotia. By January 1776, Franklin was the only one of seven royal governors not taking refuge on a British warship. After his near-arrest he remained quietly at home, recording the growing rebellion and keeping abreast of the pamphlet wars. Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" was printed in Philadelphia on January 10th and quickly spread through the colonies. This plain-spoken attack on monarchy and call for independence created a sensation and sold 120,000 copies in numerous printings. Yet the overwhelming majority of New Jersey colonists still hoped for a resolution to the conflict, a restoration of their rights as Englishmen and a return to trade and prosperity within the empire. Christopher Vought, whose stone house sat along today's Grayrock Road, and his son John were far from alone in favoring a return to normal life. Dozens of cows, hogs and sheep grazed the 25 acres of meadows around their house. They held two slaves, a man and a woman, on their 488-acre farm, and cultivated 165 acres of wheat and corn in fields that stretched west along today's Center Street to the dam where David McKinney had a grist mill, then north along the Raritan to John Allen's Union Iron Works, where scores of woodcutters, colliers, miners, teamsters, and several enslaved ironworkers, provided a ready market for farm produce. Christopher and John Vought shipped wheat to urban markets for export and sold produce at the local store, where they bought imported silks, molasses, rum, tea, and sugar, a pair of silver buckles, flints and gunpowder. Colonial prosperity depended on exporting raw materials and crops and their increasing importance as consumers of British imports and manufactured goods also provided a means to influence Parliament. Boycotts had met with success since the 1765 Stamp Act's repeal. Parliament lowered the tax on tea with the 1773 Tea Act to entice colonists to forego smuggled tea. In Boston, Sons of Liberty boarded ships and dumped the now less costly East India tea in the harbor. To punish Boston, in 1774 Parliament enacted the Coercive Acts, closed the port to shipping, and stripped the colony of its charter. Unable to earn a living as a seaport, Boston appealed for aid and as people in New Jersey responded to their appeals, even those in rural West Jersey were drawn into the common cause. . . . (To be continued in February.) D o s a n D D o n ' t s f o r s o c i a l M e D i a Everyone uses social media today – including me. Although social media posts are a tool we have come to rely on for all kinds of news, using social media makes its users prime targets for scams and identity theft. Studies reveal that men are guiltier of neglecting their privacy on social media networks than women. I recently saw an infographic that showed 48% of men take time to adjust their social media privacy settings, compared with 67% of women. Younger people, however, are more likely to use privacy settings than adults. Unless you tighten your privacy settings, your information is accessible by everyone, and 'everyone' includes hackers and criminals. Hackers and criminals are very good at piecing together little bits of seemingly innocent information until they garner enough to exploit your personal data. To avoid becoming a victim, here are some dos to put in place. - Do restrict access to what you post by adjusting your privacy settings so your posts go only to friends and not to the entire Internet and keep up with changes to privacy settings, adjusting accordingly. - Do post about your vacation after you return from the trip and use the 'check-in' and event attendance options wisely. - Do use a different password for each social media site. - Do choose security questions carefully. If possible, create your own questions. Answers to standard security questions, such as the grammar school attended, can often be found within your profile. - Do post only material you would like to see on the front page of a local newspaper. - Do avoid games and quizzes; they are third-party apps with their own privacy policies, which don't necessarily match the privacy settings on your social media page. - Do think of others before tagging or sharing information about them. "Do unto others as you would like done unto you." And here are a couple of don'ts: - Don't click on links that are unusual or suspicious. - Don't post information that can lead hackers to passwords for your other accounts, i.e., your mother's maiden name or your favorite pet. Happy posting! – Victor Rotolo Victor A. Rotolo is a long-time resident of Clinton Township and the founder of The Rotolo Law Firm. Call The Rotolo Law Firm today: 908.534.7900 to discuss any legal situation confronting you. Your half-hour consultation is free of charge! Their attorneys and staff are ready to serve your legal needs. The Rotolo Law Firm • 502 US 22W, Lebanon, NJ 08833. www.rotololawfirm.com "The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective." – Gilbert K. Chesterton

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