Hyler, Adam

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Hyler, Adam

HYLER, ADAM. Whaleboat guerrilla. New Jersey. A native of Germany, for a time he served in the British navy. Settling in New Brunswick, New Jersey, he had charge of a number of trading vessels. In cooperation with William Marriner, he figured in a number of daring exploits in the coastal waters between Egg Harbor and Staten Island, where every Tory fisherman was compelled to pay them enormous tribute. Their boats were destroyed by the British in the summer of 1777, but they built new ones and undertook a systematic harassment of the enemy. Hyler captured several small British vessels, and with two armed boats he seized a corvette off Coney Island. He captured a Hessian major in Gowanus one night, surprised and carried off a sergeant's guard from Canarsie, and was the terror of prominent Tories. An attempt to capture Richard Lippincott, the man charged with murdering Joshua Huddy, was foiled only by the absence of the former from his home in Broad Street in New York City.

SEE ALSO Huddy-Asgill Affair; Marriner, William.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cook, Fred. What Manner of Men: Forgotten Heroes of the American Revolution. New York: Morrow, 1959.