Sad to relate, Mrs. Falck never took her impatiently awaited journey to the Burrowes enchanted castle, but sailed for England a few days after her letter arrived at Middletown-Point. There in later years she no doubt visited many castles, enchanted or otherwise, as her husband became a protege of Sir Clifton Wintringham, the Duchess of Kingston, and other London notables. In Mrs. Falck's letters to Mrs. Burrowes, bearing Revolutionary dates, there are references to new friends and acquaintances as "people of the first quality."

Life in the Burrowes Mansion in the old days before the fateful year of 1776 was beautiful, and ran gayly, – almost as gayly as the little brook which sings to an army of young willow-trees in a valley close by the house. It was a household of romping young people, composed of one son and four daughters, – two of the latter bearing the Burrowes name and two the Watson name. Fortune smiled on them, and burnished their roof-tree with her golden horn. Many a score of slaves filled the cabins at the back of the lane. There were fine horses and coaches, fine jewels and dresses for the female portion of the family, brought by the sailing-vessels when returning from New York, fine liquors for the smiling punch-bowls, and, in fact, everything in connection with the family was fine, for they were one of the finest families of New Jersey.

At the outbreak of the Revolution John Burrowes had been dealing largely in corn purchased from Monmouth farmers, and his many granaries were filled to overflowing. When the storm of the war burst in its fury, and there was a greater demand for than a supply of corn, all the Whig families in the vicinity looked to him for their needs, and he earned his title of "Corn-King Burrowes."

Tory neighbors who had formerly been intimate with him naturally envied his good fortune. Much to his annoyance, they planned raids to his corn-bins, which generally proved futile, owing to the vigilance of friends. As the British gained entrance into Jersey these attacks became more and more frequent, and on one of them the tragedy occurred which gave the house its gruesome interest. Every year it is visited by a few roaming antiquarians, and as they mount the stairway, now slightly modernized, they always pause to wonder if the red spots on the boards are the blood-stains of young Mrs. Burrowes, who was stabbed for defying a band of redcoats.

Mrs. Burrowes, nee Margaret Forman, one of Monmouth's Revolutionary martyrs, was the wife of Major John Burrowes, the only son of the "Corn King," and a sister of Mrs. Philip Freneau, the wife of the Revolutionary poet. Her marriage to Major Burrowes was the fifth marriage in the Burrowes family to be celebrated during the war, his sisters having been united to Dr. Henderson and Captain Forman, and his step-sisters, the Watson girls, to Colonel Holmes and General Stillwell.

There was always the thought of long separation and the grimmer reflection of death for people of prominence who married in those troublous days, when foes were ever on the alert, but the old-time Jersey girls seem to have delighted in it. The greater the risk the more eager they seemed to join hands with those of their true loves, even though they bade them God-speed to the battle-field after the ceremony.

There is a pretty and pathetic Monmouth tale told of a Freehold maid who married her soldier lover in her father's orchard, under boughs laden with snow-like blossoms. He left her side to march away with his regiment, vowing to return when the fruit was ripe. Not far from the orchard the great battle of Monmouth was fought, and he in the thick of the fight heard the final trumpet-call. The next day he was borne home to her through the orchard by some of his surviving comrades. It is said his blood stained the trees as he was carried along, and as a remembrance of the sweet vows they had heard, the fruit they afterwards bore was always circled with red, and the people of the vicinity named the apples "Monmouth reds."

There is no knowing whether the Forman and Burrowes wedding was interrupted ; but most likely not, as it was celebrated very quietly. The Taylors and other Tory families of prominence in the neighborhood soon learned of it. Though spies were set upon the movements of the bridegroom with a view of capturing him, he successfully baffled them until some months afterwards, when they received the intelligence that he would visit his home. On that afternoon the Tories succeeded in getting word to the leader of "The Greens," an organized band of refugees on Staten Island, the terror of every Whig family for miles inland. They immediately crossed to the Jersey shore, and arrived on the road to the Burrowes Mansion shortly after midnight. We can picture the scene if we are at all familiar with the region. A June-time night, with a great full moon shining over the silent habitation lying by the road like some human thing with the breath of life gone out. The verdant foliage, so green at noonday, has a grayish tinge. The night's multitudinous voices have almost ceased, and even the yellow road seems white and merged into the landscape.

Up the hilly road to the sleeping house the men from Staten Island come, but a friendly courier has been there a few moments before them, and Major Burrowes has escaped from a back window.

Thinking the rebel safe in their net at last, the mob broke in the great front door and entered the house, led, so tradition says, by Broomfield, afterwards notorious at Fort Griswold.

The family had been awakened by the courier's warning, and Mrs. Burrowes, clad only in her night-robe, with a shawl thrown about her shoulders, started to descend the stairway when the door fell in.

A British officer was accidentally shot in the melee outside, and when the men entered the house, one of them, spying Mrs. Burrowes's shawl, demanded it to stanch his superior's wounds. "Never for such a purpose," she replied; and the soldier, infuriated, thrust his sabre into her breast, giving a wound which caused her death. Chagrined at the escape of Major Burrowes, and not content at his wife's suffering, the cry was raised to seize the "Corn King." He was bound and carried off to a prison-ship, and incarcerated for several months, but was eventually released through Dr. Henderson's efforts.