David Forman

David Forman (November 3, 1745 – September 12, 1797) was an American Continental soldier from New Jersey during the American Revolutionary War.

Early life Forman was born in Englishtown in Monmouth County, Province of New Jersey, to Joseph Forman and Elizabeth Lee. His father was a wealthy shipowner and he was educated at Princeton. Forman established the Retaliators, in 1780, to act as a shadow government to the duly elected county representatives. The Retaliators were largely centered around Monmouth County and faced much aggression from a rival faction of Loyalists, known as the "Board of Associated Loyalists."

Career Toward the end of the American Revolution and after the end of the war, he was a judge of the Monmouth County Court of Common Pleas, which he was first elected to in 1781.

He and his wife Ann Marsh had eleven children; of these only five daughters survived him. A slaveowner, he bought a property at Natchez, Mississippi and sent 60 of his slaves to work there in 1789.

He was admitted as an honorary and then original member of The Society of the Cincinnati in the state of New Jersey and served as Vice President of the New Jersey Society from 1791 to 1793. He was also a freemason and member of Trinity Lodge #3 in Freehold, New Jersey.

In 1794, he moved to Maryland. In 1796 he traveled to Natchez where he had a debilitating stroke the following spring. He took a ship home, but it was captured by a British privateer and brought into The Bahamas where he died on September 12, 1797.