Nathaniel, William and Bruce: Three Men, Three Centuries, One Town
Channel: Monmouth County Historical Association
Date: 2021-11-14

Join us for a presentation by Freehold Borough Town Historian, Kevin Coyne, as he discusses the historic men of one small town. Local history is not just local – it intersects in powerful and surprising ways with the nation’s history, and its small stories can teach us much about those larger stories, too. Nathaniel Scudder, William Dayton, Bruce Springsteen – three men, three centuries, one town.

Nathaniel Scudder was a Princeton-educated physician who gave up his medical practice in Freehold to fight for the American colonies’ independence from Great Britain. He signed the Articles of Confederation, led his regiment at the Battle of Monmouth, and was killed by a British raiding party in the final days of the Revolution, the only member of the Continental Congress to die in combat.

William Dayton was a Princeton-educated lawyer who practiced in Freehold and was the vice-presidential nominee in 1856 on the Republican Party’s first national ticket, running with John Fremont of California. The runner-up for the Republican vice-presidential nomination that year – Abraham Lincoln – later appointed Dayton during the Civil War as ambassador to France, where he helped keep the French from joining the Confederate cause.

And Freehold High School-educated Bruce Springsteen, descendant of Monmouth-born veterans of the Revolution and the Civil War, has chronicled the lives of Americans over the last 50 years in his songs and stories, and along the way has introduced his vast audience to the town he shares with Scudder and Dayton.

What can their stories – joined with all the other stories from this one small town – tell us about America’s story?

To register for our free virtual lecture series, please visit monmouthhistory.org/historically-speaking

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Wedding Invitation by Jason Farnham
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