The Hancock House is a historic structure in the Hancock's Bridge section of Lower Alloways Creek Township,

Salem County Salem County is the westernmost county in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Its western boundary is formed by the Delaware River and its eastern terminus is the Delaware Memorial Bridge, which connects the county with New Castle, Delaware. Its cou ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, United States. It was the site of the 1778 Hancock's Bridge massacre.NJDEP-Parks and Forests-Centennial of NJ State Historic Site
/ref> The site is on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

History

The house was built in 1734 for Judge

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

and Sarah Hancock and features

Flemish bond Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called ''courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall. Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by siz ...

brickwork detailed with blue-glazed bricks, which gives the year of construction (1734) and the initials of the couple for whom it was built: ''W S'' for William and Sarah. William died in 1762 and passed the house to his son

, also a judge.

Massacre

On March 21, 1778, Major

John Graves Simcoe John Graves Simcoe (25 February 1752 – 26 October 1806) was a British Army general and the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada from 1791 until 1796 in southern Ontario and the watersheds of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior. He founded Yor ...

led approximately 300 British soldiers and

Queen's Rangers The Queen's Rangers, also known as the Queen's American Rangers, and later Simcoe's Rangers, were a Loyalist military unit of the American Revolutionary War. Formed in 1776, they were named for Queen Charlotte, consort of George III. The Queen ...

through a marsh and across Alloway Creek to surround Hancock House. At approximately 5 a.m., they entered the house and surprised 20 to 30 members of the local militia stationed there, along with Judge Hancock, a loyalist who was thought to be away for the night. Eight American men were killed during the melee, including Judge Hancock, who died the following day from 10 stab wounds. The rest were wounded at the scene or during a retreat, or captured as prisoners. William Abbott and his son Samuel watched in the dawning light from the attic window of their home in Elsinboro, diagonally across the creek from the Hancock House, as the British and Tory soldiers pursued and killed the few American militiamen who had escaped the scene of the carnage at the house and surrounding yard. The next morning while driving to a meeting in Salem, several British and Tory troops surrounded the Abbott carriage, tormenting the occupants by thrusting their bayonets at them, then showed them blood on their steel weapons and exclaimed, "See the blood of your countrymen." Other County Colonial lore states that, in the midst of the massacre, the pregnant wife of one of the local militia was sleeping in the Hancock House. She was awakened by the screams of the dying men and jumped from a second story window on the west side of the house to make her escape. Tradition says that, within twenty-four hours, the child was born and that descendants of that child are living in Lower Alloways Creek township today. The old Hancock House museum is said to still have actual massacre blood stains on its attic floor.

References

External links

*
The Story of the Hancock House
* * Hancock House Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New Jersey Houses completed in 1734 Houses in Salem County, New Jersey New Jersey in the American Revolution Museums in Salem County, New Jersey Historic house museums in New Jersey National Register of Historic Places in Salem County, New Jersey Lower Alloways Creek Township, New Jersey American Revolutionary War sites New Jersey Register of Historic Places Historic American Buildings Survey in New Jersey American Revolution on the National Register of Historic Places {{NewJersey-museum-stub

History

Massacre

See also

References

External links