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Illustrated Episode · Volume III, chapter 36 · June 1766

The debt was for rent

A tired, unshaven man in shirt and waistcoat stoops out through a low stone cellar door into bright sun, caught by the forearms by two farmers, as a packed crowd in felt hats raises staves around him.
Poughkeepsie, New York, June 1766. John Way has been jailed for unpaid rent, and five hundred tenant farmers have come to bring him out, telling the sheriff that the debt was for rent they did not approve. Rothbard sees jail rescues like this one as a genuine popular rising against the manorial landlords and the packed courts that served their interests. Chapter 36 of Conceived in Liberty.

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Adapted from Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Mises Institute, 2011), CC BY 3.0.

What happened

The rent war on the Hudson came to a head in 1766. The great manors sat on huge royal land grants, and on the Philipse estate in southern Dutchess County the tenants, most of them from New England, had been buying their titles from the local Indians and refusing the landlord's rent. The courts were no help, because the judges were themselves great landlords. So the tenants pledged to stand by each other with lives and fortunes, and to rescue anyone jailed for rent. In the first week of June John Way, arrested for debt, was freed from the Poughkeepsie jail by a mob of five hundred. Sheriff James Livingston reported on 10 June that they said the debt was for rent, which they did not approve. Jail rescues spread across the eastern valley that summer. British troops came, about eighty rebels were taken, and William Prendergast, their leader, was sentenced to be hanged and quartered before the king pardoned him. Rothbard's regret is that the Sons of Liberty never joined the tenants: the landlords who led the fight against Britain would not make common cause with their own tenantry.

Sources

  1. Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2011 single-volume ed.), vol. III, ch. 36, pp. 926-929. CC BY 3.0. Rothbard
  2. Irving Mark, 'Agrarian Revolt in Colonial New York, 1766', American Journal of Economics and Sociology 1:2 (January 1942), pp. 111-142; p. 123 on the rescue of John Way (Sheriff James Livingston's report of 10 June 1766, from the testimony in King v. Prendergast, 'Notes on July Assizes') and p. 125 on the firearms of late June. Secondary source
  3. Albert M. Rosenblatt, History of Dutchess County Bench and Bar (Historical Society of the New York Courts, 2015), 'County Courthouses' (first court house about 1720, enlarged 1745; the lot's jail condition; citing Platt, The Eagle's History of Poughkeepsie, 1905, pp. 19-21); and the appended case note 'Crown v. William Prendergast'. Secondary source
  4. Adriance Memorial Library, 'No Longer Standing: Buildings of Poughkeepsie: The Old County Court House' (accessed 2026-09-30): the colonial court house of 1720 burned in 1806; the 1809 replacement re-used part of its walls and its two basement dungeons. Secondary source
  5. Historical Society of the New York Courts, 'Crown v. William Prendergast, 1766' (trial of 6 August 1766; treason verdict; the sentence; the reprieve of 1 September and the royal pardon). Secondary source