250 and Counting

Category: New Jersey History

  • A Fort Is Abandoned–October 5, 1776

    Cover art for October 5, 1776: Historical Marker denoting the former site of Bergen Neck Fort/Fort Delancey. Via Historical Marker Database.

    The cover art for today’s episode is the historical marker for Bergen Neck Fort, in Bayonne, New Jersey.

    As someone who was born and raised on the other side of the East River, it’s supposed to be my duty to bust on New Jersey and say something like “there’s nothing interesting going on in Bayonne” and I’d mostly be right, but I will note that Mercer Park, just a hair under a mile from this spot, is rather nice.

    I did spend a few years living in northern New Jersey, just a stone’s throw from what was then called The Meadowlands (and still is, if you’re a die-hard), and it’s really not a bad place to live. I had a decent sight-line to the Manhattan skyline, but my neighborhood had a very suburban feel to it. The town I lived in was practically Whoville during Christmas season.

    Bergen County was also home to many people who lost their lives to the attacks on the World Trade Center, since it was just across the Hudson River, so there are numerous memorials in the area. Lyndhurst, NJ (for example), which is mostly famous for a bunch of exterior scenes from The Sopranos, has one that’s made from stones reclaimed from the rubble. I moved away from the area just a couple of weeks before September 11, but I kept in touch and many people in the area were deeply affected.

    And now that I think about it, Bayonne—which is literally within sight of the former WTC buildings and the Statue of Liberty— has a truly moving memorial commonly called “The Teardrop”, which was a gift to the United States by a Russian sculptor named Zurab Tserteli. At 100 feet high, it can actually be seen from the other side of the river as well. So don’t go to Bayonne to see Bergen Neck Fort, since there’s nothing there. But if you do go, head to Harbor View Park.

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    And please don’t tell anyone I have a soft spot for northern New Jersey; I could lose my NY cred for that.

  • Bernard Smith–July 5, 1776

    Cover art for July 5, 1776: A 2008 photo of Mount Holly Cemetery, where Bernard Smith is buried.

    In the biography of Bernard Smith in today’s episode, it was noted that he spent a couple of years as the Collector of Customs in 1809 and 1810. Which set up the question for me: what does a Collector of Customs do?

    My guess wasn’t too far off, tell the truth. The Collector of Customs assesses import duties and tariffs, enforces trade laws and regulates goods moving across international borders. My research didn’t turn up where he worked, but it could have been in New York. On the other hand, the Customs House in Linwood (near Atlantic City) was fairly new at the time so that could have been the location. At that time, tariffs and duties were the primary source of revenue for the US Government. Federal income taxes weren’t levied until 1861 for a few years, and then permanently in 1913.

    At any rate, after Bernard Smith put in his time with the Sixteenth Congress, he was register of the land office in Little Rock, Arkansas, then secretary to the governor of Arkansaw, and finally an agent to the Quapaw Nation until his death in 1835, shortly after his 59th birthday.

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  • Prison For Governor Franklin–June 24, 1776

    Cover art for June 24, 1776: portrait of William Franklin, attributed to Mather Brown, ca. 1790. via WIkimedia Commons.

    As Mike notes, we haven’t talked about the Royal Governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, in quite some time. But matters were quickly coming to a head, and it was decided that he needed to be imprisoned. The biggest reason for this is that he not only remained loyal to the Crown, he actively reported to the British anything he heard about American movements and plans.

    William Franklin was finally placed under house arrest in January for these shenanigans, but as things heated up and New Jersey replaced its provincial government, it was determined that he still posed a threat to operational security, and he was sent to Connecticut for imprisonment. And, as Mike also tells you, even prison in Connecticut wasn’t quite getting the job done.

    I guess we have to admire his ability to commit to the bit.

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  • New Jersey Votes Yes–June 22, 1776

    Cover art for June 22, 1776: Portrait of Abraham Clark by James Reid Lambdin, 1873, after a portrait by John Trumbull. via National Park Service.

    How the Jersey Five got its name isn’t especially mysterious, but what’s interesting is that one of the Five, Abraham Clark (pictured in the cover art), was not a new delegate to the Continental Congress. In fact, he was the only one retained because he was also the only delegate who was in favor of Independence.

    So when the new Provincial Congress took over in New Jersey, they retained Clark and appointed new delegates around him. And thus was the Jersey Five born.

    Clark is the namesake of the New Jersey township just south and west of Newark, and that’s pretty cool. But Richard Stockton has a rest area on the New Jersey Turnpike named after him, so there’s that. For what it’s worth, Francis Hopkinson left New Jersey shortly after signing the Declaration, so he doesn’t have a lot of legacy there. John Hart has several streets bearing his name, and John Witherspoon has memorials all over the state, so I guess he wins this contest I just now invented.

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  • John Frederick Frelinghuysen–March 21, 1776

    Cover art for March 21, 1776: John Frelinghuyser's gravestone in the Old Somerville Cemetery. via WIkimedia Commons.

    John Frelinghuysen was born on this day in 1776 (hey! Cake and Candles for this man!) and died in 1833. Like many people of the time, he never permanently left the area where he was born. Born there, lived and worked there, died there.

    He probably went to Trenton on business a few times, and he was stationed at Sandy Hook while in the Army, but that appears to be about all as far as travel.

    John Frelinghuysen married Louisa Mercer in 1797, and they had two daughters: Gertrude and Mary Ann. Louisa died around 1809 and John married Elizabeth Mercereau Van Vechten on November 13, 1811. They had eight children: Louisa, Theodore, Frederick J., Catharine, Sallie, Sophia, and Elizabeth LaGrange Frelinghuysen.

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  • The Fate of a Crew–January 31, 1776

    Cover art for January 31, 1776: Etching of William Alexander, Lord Stirling, as a Major General. Etching by H.B. Hall, 1892. via New York Public Library.
    Etching of William Alexander, Lord Stirling, as a Major General. Etching by H.B. Hall, 1892. via New York Public Library.

    The capture and ultimate disposition of the HMS Blue Mountain Valley and her crew was, in the bigger scheme of things, a relatively minor event in the American Revolution, however it did suddenly bring both New Jersey and New York into more active participation in the war.

    And even though the Blue Mountain Valley was beset by storms that they couldn’t possibly control, the fact that the ship was so easily captured despite the protections they’d put in place so far became a major point of debate back in England. It led to a policy prohibiting the use of transport ships to America unless they had a Naval escort.

    A policy like that is pretty good for keeping the ship and cargo losses down, but it wreaks havoc on the Naval resources. So this event was a win in the short run for the Americans, but it was a long-run win as well because of the way it inconvenienced the British over the next several years.

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  • Arrest of a Franklin–January 28, 1776

    Cover art for January 28, 1776: Portrait of William Franklin, 1790, attributed to Mather Brown. via Wikimedia.
    Portrait of William Franklin, 1790, attributed to Mather Brown. via Wikimedia.

    It used to be rumored that Benjamin Franklin had over 30 children out of wedlock, but that’s since been debunked. (And there goes a perfectly good “lightning rod” joke.)

    But William Franklin was considered illegitimate, though he was raised by his father and his common-law wife Deborah Read. There are some breadcrumbs here and there that lead some historians to believe that Deborah was, in fact, William’s mother, but nothing thick enough exists to confirm that.

    At any rate, William was one of the last great Loyalists, and while his arrest and move to Connecticut was alluded to in the play 1776, it didn’t quite happen the way it was described there. Or at the time the viewer was led to believe. Tune in to get the real story from Mike.

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  • A Most Dreadful Voyage–January 23, 1776

    Cover art for January 23, 1776: "An English Ship at Sea Lying-To in a Gale," painted by Willem van de Velde the Younger, late 17th century.
    “An English Ship at Sea Lying-To in a Gale,” painted by Willem van de Velde the Younger, late 17th century.

    The HMS Blue Mountain Valley—which probably got its name from the place in eastern Jamaica—had rather a rough trip to America from London in late 1775 and early 1776.

    They left London in mid-October 1775 and ran into multiple storms before arriving somewhere near Boston nine or ten weeks later. Damage to the ship was such that it was judged unsafe to enter the Massachusetts Bay because safe navigation there couldn’t be guaranteed. They decided to head further south, arriving near Egg Harbor, NJ on January 18.

    Given that they were under orders not to approach the coast without an escorting warship (or reassurance from a warship that a given harbor was safe), they chose to take the Blue Mountain Valley a few miles north to Sandy Hook, where they could get a refit to navigate the ship safely. Bad luck for them; Patriot forces knew they were coming and laid a trap, capturing them easily. By that point, the sailors were hungry and thirsty, much of their cargo had died or gone rotten, and it’s entirely possible that the crew actually viewed capture as a kind of rescue. The ship was moved to Elizabethtown (now known as just Elizabeth, just south of modern-day Newark Airport) and the crew given parole in the town.

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    PS: much of my research for this episode came from Eric Wiser’s Journal of the American Revolution article “Blue Mountain Valley and the Rise of Lord Stirling,” which goes into much greater depth than I could provide either here or in the episode. It’s a pretty fascinating read.

  • Dr. James Carnahan–November 15, 1775

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    Cover art for November 15, 1775: Undated photo of Rev. James Carnahan, via findagrave.com.

    As noted during the episode, James Carnahan was the president of what was later known as Princeton University, the ninth man to hold that title since the school’s founding nearly 90 years earlier.

    Carnahan held that position for over 30 years, making him the longest tenured president of that school to that date, a record that remains to this day.

    Carnahan was buried in the University President’s Plot at Princeton Cemetery. Curiously, he specified in his will that none of his lectures, manuscripts or other writings be published, even though he was held in high esteem as a writer. This may account for his relative obscurity despite his enormous tenure.

  • September 22, 1775: Philip Milledoler

    Cover art for September 22, 1775: Portrait of Philip Milledoler By James Peale - Private Collection, ca. 1830

    Philip Milledoler was a minister and the fifth president of Rutgers University (Rutgers College, then), but it’s a little more complicated than that.

    Milledoler took a moribund college and transformed it into the intellectual powerhouse it is today. But how it happened is at the heart of our story.

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