Hazards served as substitutes during Revolution
As the Revolutionary War approached, conscription grew as did those seeking to escape it.
Two Jamestown residents served as substitutes by taking the place of unwilling draftees. They were George Wanton Hazard, a wealthy college student, and London Hazard, who was enslaved.
The first, known as “Crazy George,” was the prodigal son of George Wanton Sr., of Newport, who was chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas and the city’s first mayor.
“My father was a money-getting man,” Crazy George said. “He raked the money in, and I can pitchfork it out faster than he raked it in.”
Though he was born in Newport, Hazard lived in Jamestown during the Revolution. His family owned 70 acres on the north end, making them one of the larger landholders. He was to inherit that land from his father’s estate.
Hazard’s life echoes the biblical parable of the prodigal son who left his father and squandered his inheritance only to return impoverished and remorseful. At 18, Hazard ran away from Princeton College in May 1776, shortly after his father paid his tuition. He immediately joined the New Jersey Line of the Continental Army.
Hazard joined Col. David Foreman’s New Jersey Regiment, marched to Staten Island, and sank a British tender. They retreated to Brooklyn to build Fort Greene, which is named after the general from Rhode Island, Nathanael Greene, in preparation for the Battle of Long Island.
That is where he fought in the first major battle of the war. In August 1776, the Americans lost the bloody battle by suffering 1,100 casualties with another 1,000 men captured. The British suffered 370 losses.
After the battle, back in Princeton, Hazard was discharged and met his former college roommate, William H. Vernon Jr., son of the wealthy merchant whose Vernon House in Newport is a National Historic Landmark.
Hazard was “in a miserable Plight, without Money, Cloaths, or Health,” and in a “most humble repenting situation,” wishing his father would allow him to return to college, much like the prodigal son.
Whether his father forgave him is unknown. The 1777 census, however, listed him, his brother, Arnold, and his father living together in South Kingstown. Military pension records confirm he also served in place of family members so they would not risk their lives. He “immediately served as a substitute for his brother Arnold who was drafted,” then for his other brother, Edward, in the same company as London Hazard.
Crazy George joined Capt. Stephen Babcock’s company to fight in the Battle of Rhode Island in August 1778, only to be expelled by the British again. After the British evacuated in 1779, Hazard lived in Jamestown before settling on a farm in Charlestown.
London Hazard was an enslaved militiaman. Unlike later slaves from Jamestown who were freed upon joining the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, he was never freed during his “service.”
London grew up in Jamestown, enslaved by another man named George Hazard, who was a distant relative of Crazy George. He later was sold to his owner’s nephew, Godfrey Hazard, who forced him to serve in the militia in place of a relative. Using enslaved men as substitutes was not uncommon.
London Hazard’s own words survive in a court deposition given one year before his death, when he applied for a military pension. As a boy, he was “sold to Godfrey Hazard … and lived with him, and was his slave.”
After substituting for a relative of his master he “returned home to his master’s House at the end of the month, and received nothing for his service.” He “took the place of others, many times, a substitute of theirs.” He experienced no battles, but many alarms along the Kingstown shore, including at the North Ferry.
As a young man, London “was a slave and destitute of learning,” and “his master ordered him to take the place of his relations or anyone else.” Despite serving his country as an enslaved soldier starting in 1776, he was not freed until “soon after the war was over,” sometime after 1783, seven years after joining.
As a slave, he received no compensation for his service; if pay was issued, it went to his owner.
To qualify for a pension, London needed a witness to confirm his testimony. A former comrade testified on his behalf.
“I, George Wanton Hazard … do testify and say I was doing duty in Capt. Stephen Babcock’s Company and knew London Hazard doing duty there a number of times.”
