An Old Soldier Gets His Due -- Eventually.

Today in New Jersey history:

May 8, 1841: Revolutionary War veteran Samuel Sutphen died at the age of 94. Sutphen, a slave, substituted for his master, Caspar Berger, for several tours of duty in both the militia and the New Jersey Continental Line, in return for a promise of eventual freedom. He fought on Long Island in 1776, as well as in several of the 1777 “Forage War” fights in central New Jersey, and was presented with a musket by New Jersey militia commander General Philemon Dickinson for his heroism in one of those actions. Sutphen was present at the major battles of Princeton and Monmouth and was wounded in a New York State skirmish with British troops following his return from the 1779 campaign against the Iroquois Indians.

At the end of the conflict Berger reneged on his promise, but Sutphen made enough extra money from trapping furbearing animals in his spare time to eventually buy his freedom. Denied a federal pension in his old age because he served as a slave/substitute, he was subsequently granted a special pension by the state of New Jersey.