Altho the Enormities perpetrated in the Manor of Livingston for a Series of six or seven Years past, are of public Notoriety Yet I presume that the following Details will not be deemd deme’d improperly Submitted to Your Excellency as tending to prove the Existences of a Combination hostile at once to private property, to the due Course of Law and to the peace of the Community1

In the Year 1792 my self and the other owners of the Eastern part of the Manor discovered that a Combination had been formed to take Possession of the wood Lands, under Pretext of Doubts of the Title to the Manor which had decended to us from our Ancestors for three of four Generations, Suits were imed immediately commenced and pleas were put in, and the trials of two of those Causes brought on, Demurrers to the Plantiffs Evidence of Title taken, and after Solemn argument. Judgments by the unanimous opinion of the Judges rendered for the Plaintiffs these Judgments having been removed by Writ of Error the same were affirmed by the unanimous Judgment of the Court of Errors.

In other Causes brought by us, Judgments either by the Default, or after Verdicts have been had, notwithstanding all which we have experienced effects of the most attrocious kind from the Combination above mentioned.—

(numbers of men have assembled, armed with Clubs, and on horseback march’d in hostile Array pass my house, (after they had, been to dispossess a Person whom the sheriff by virtue of his writ had put in possession,) evidently for the purpose of Intimidation)

In the Instance of Peter Low Loucks, who by my permission entered into the possession of a dwelling house for which I had brought an Ejectment, and in which their was a Judgment, by Confession, and a Voluntary Dereliction by the Deponent, (a number of Armed men at the Dead of Night forcibly entred into the said house sei seized the said Loucks dragged him out of Doors tied him up and severely whipt him, for the Express purpose of punishing him for holding the Possession under me —)2

Some Months afterwards the same man while working in his feild, was fired upon from a neighbouring Wood by a Person in disguise, and was severely wounded by Shot—

My Agent & known to be so was, on the Road near my house also fired on— I myself travelling the Road, about five miles from my house was twice fired upon from the Woods—

One, Gaul & Baker the one a Constable, the other a Deputy Sheriff, being in the Manor, for the purpose of serving process, were in the Dusk of the Evening, attacked by three Men in disguise— tied up, and whiped whipped, with threats if they should again come in the Manor— For this offence an Indictment was found and two offenders convicted at the Session3

One Smith who was in possession of a Farm recovered by Law, had his house burned in the Night and a barn of the same man, filled with Grain & hay has since, and recently been also burnt in the Night on the 11 May 1798. two large out Houses made use of for the Reception of Coal for my Iron works. and then having large Quantities in them were at Night Set on fire, and one of them Consumed— endangering my dwelling House & works, and evidently with design and on purpose—

In the Spring of 1799 a chain of fences surrounding my Meadow Land, at a small distance from my dwelling House was at Night Set on Fire, and in September last my Barrack Containing a large Quantity of Hay and Near my barn was consumed by fire also in the Night

In August last a dwelling House, which had been recovered at Law, after the defendant was dispossessed, and the same letter to a New Tenant, part of whose goods were already in it— was Consumed by Fire in the Dead of Night—

Sundry examinations taken relative to the last as well as to others of the above facts render it in question, and for the avowed purpose of defeating the operation of the Law, and of deterring peaceable Citizens from occupying Lands recovered under the Tittle of the Manor of Livingston

(For my Self I hesitate not to say, that in several Instances wherein I have recovered at Law, I have been deterred from taking possession, by the apprehension of similar Similar Consequences.) The difficulty of preventing the Enormities above enumerated, is inhanced, by the difficulty of proven detecting the perpetrators, not only on Account of their Combination, but from the Dread entertained, by innocent persons of disclosing Circumstances which might lead to Detection—4 I have the Honor to be Your Excely. most obednt Hone Sert