New Jersey in the American Revolution
George Washington led his army across the state four times and encamped there during three hard winters, enduring some of the greatest's setbacks of the war as well as seminal victories.
Many citizens had emigrated from England and maintained a sense of loyalty to the British Crown; others had economic, social, or familial ties to the mother country.
On December 22, 1774, a group of 40 colonists entered the cellar of loyalist Daniel Bowen and quickly stole and burned chests of tea.
Stockton was a New Jersey-born and College of New Jersey-educated attorney who sacrificed his royal judicial title and his considerable international economic interest in order to be an elected delegate for New Jersey at the Continental Congress.
The British sent men into New Jersey looking for supplies, firewood, cattle, horses, sheep and pigs, and looking to capture leading patriots.
After difficult losses in the Battle of Brooklyn, General George Washington led his troops towards Manhattan with the British Army in pursuit.
Washington then led his 2,000 troops from Fort Lee in a retreat through present-day Englewood and Teaneck across the Hackensack River at New Bridge Landing.
According to George Otto Trevelyan: "It may be doubted whether so small a number of men ever employed so short a space of time with greater and more lasting effects upon the history of the world."
On the night of December 25–26, 1776, the Continental Army under the command of General George Washington made their crossing of the Delaware River.
At the same time, he left a few troops to stall Cornwallis by creating false signals (campfires, loud noises, fortification repair) to give the impression that the Continental Army was still stationed in Trenton.
The initial contact at Princeton was between General Hugh Mercer's advance corp moving toward the Stoney Brook along Quaker Bridge road, against British Col. Charles Mawhood, who was leading most of the 55th regiment and other additional troops toward Trenton.
Most of the remaining British forces retreated toward New Brunswick but some took up a defensive position in the stone university building, Nassau Hall.
From New Brunswick, a British foraging party of a few hundred men also went to Somerset Court House, reaching Van Nest’s Mill (present day Manville, New Jersey).
The militia posted in the area managed to surprise the British party by crossing the cold, waist deep, river and capture many men and to seize back the supplies.
General Dickinson Raritan, New Jersey, January 23: "I have the pleasure to inform you that on Monday last with about 450 men chiefly our militia I attacked a foraging party near V. Nest Mills consisting of 500 men with 2 field pieces, which we routed after an engagement of 20 minutes and brought off 107 horses, 49 wagons, 115 cattle, 70 sheep, 40 barrels of flour - 106 bags and many other things, 49 prisoners.
On the same day, Nathanael Greene recaptured Bound Brook, but George Washington realized the difficulty of defending the place.
After advancing to Millstone, New Jersey, on June 26, 1777, General Howe found that Washington would not move his army out of the strong position on the Watchung Mountains north of Middlebrook.
When General Lord Stirling had moved his men to the area near Scotch Plains and Edison, then known as the Short Hills, suddenly the hunter became the hunted when Howe sent a larger force to attack them.
With the Americans moved away from his boarding troops, Howe was able to put his men aboard ships and abandon New Jersey in relative security.
The retreat nearly led to massive disorder, but Washington managed to personally rally the troops to withstand the British counterattacks.
After the battle, Charles Lee requested his own court martial to defend against accusations made against his actions in the initial attack.
Once they began to march into Elizabeth, they were attacked by Lt. Ogden, who was stationed to give an alarm outside of town with a small group of men.
General William Maxwell, commanding the New Jersey Brigade, set up a defense at defiles on the road to Connecticut Farms.
After a day of hot fighting, the British realized they could not easily breakthrough toward the Hobart Gap leading to Morristown, and, after burning the town, retired back to Elizabeth point.
The Skirmish at Manahawkin took place on December 30 & 31, 1781 when militiamen clashed with John Bacon and approximately 30 and 40 men, resulting in one death and one injury.
[12] On December 9, 1782, Lieutenant Nicholas Morgan, age 28, was guarding the shore of South Amboy when he was ambushed by Loyalist "refugees" from New York.
The Affair at Cedar Bridge in Barnegat Township was the last conflict between British allied forces of the American Revolution which took place in December 1782.
Kollock later relocated the paper twice, first to New Brunswick when the military action shifted there, and later in 1785, when he established his last publication location in Elizabeth under the same name.
The New Jersey Constitution of 1776 gives the vote to "all inhabitants of this Colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation money."
In 1807, as a side-effect of a reconciliation within the Democratic Party, the legislature reinterpreted the constitution (which had been an ordinary act of the Provincial Congress) to mean universal white male suffrage, with no property requirement.
