While doing some more background research on my 7th-great-grandfather, Revolutionary War soldier Benjamin Woodruff, I came across this amusing tidbit.
This article was reprinted on page 2 of New York City’s Evening Post on Tuesday, August 1, 1826. It was originally printed in the Rahway Advocate of Rahway, New Jersey. Benjamin would have been 82 years old at the time of the scandalous incident.
From the Rahway (N.J.) Advocate.
At the late Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace, holden at Newark, John T. Lawrence, of Elizabeth Town, was indicted for an assault against Mr. Benjamin S. Woodruff, of the same place; to which the defendant plead guilty. The court sentenced him to pay a fine of ten dollars, and gave him a severe reprimand.
The circumstances of the affair developed by the Court, are, that the said Woodruff went to the said Lawrence, who is an Englishman, on some business; and entering with his hat on, was violently accosted by him as an impudent scoundrel, who ought to be taught better than to come into a gentleman’s house in that manner! and ordered him out. Mr. Woodruff replied, he had come civilly into the house, and would go immediately out of it, which he did, under a volley of abusive language; but when he got into the court yard, and was hastily making his way off, he was collared by the said Lawrence, threatened to be blowed through, and forcibly dragged into the house again, to ask the ladies’ pardon, who were there, for presuming to appear in a gentleman’s house, in the presence of ladies with his hat on.
Impudent scoundrel, indeed! Here’s the entirety of the New York Post from that day 187 years ago, for your reading pleasure. The article above can be seen in column 5 of page two, less than halfway down from the top.
UPDATE: The news of Benjamin Woodruff’s assault spread, apparently. Here’s an account published a week later, on Wednesday, August 9, 1826, in the Hampshire Gazette of Northampton, Massachusetts:
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