Pompton Mutiny

Acting beneath the auspices of Sergeants David Gilmore, John Tuttle, George Grant and the disguisement of copious amounts of spirits, about 300 soldiers from the New Jersey Line of the Continental Army mutinied.

[1][2] Alerted to this rogue faction by Pompton Camp Commander, Colonel Israel Shreve, who had in turn been informed by a woman whose name has been lost to history, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army George Washington "immediately ordered a Detachment [...] from West Point, under the Command of Major General Howe (Robert Howe) who surrounded the Mutineers by surprize in their Quarters, reduced them to unconditional submission & executed two of their Instigators on the spot—This has totally quelled the spirit of Mutiny, and every thing is now quiet.

21st-century historian Robert A. Mayers affirms that William Nelson, writing Paterson and Its Environs (Silk City) in the 1920s, was correct in his assertion that "In a thick wood, on the bleak and desolate summit of a rocky knob of the Ramapo Mountains, overlooking the Pompton Lakes Station on the New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad, the hearty traveler can find two rude piles of weather-beaten field-stones.

It was in the eastern valley overlooking Bloomingdale that an encampment of weary troops mutinied, consequently their two ringleaders were arrested, tried, and executed in the vicinity of what is now known as Union Avenue."

[6] The TV series TURN: Washington's Spies depicts a fictional portrayal of this mutiny and its aftermath in the fourth-season episode "Nightmare".