All agricultural communities are conservative, as the landed interest always is.  It is the cities, where men come more in contact with each other, and where news flies faster and ideas can make a quicker impression, that are progressive, radical, revolutionary.  At the time of the Revolution, Passaic County was almost exclusively agricultural.  Only at three points were there any considerable hamlets – at Acquackanonk Landing, where were the merchants and shippers; and at Pompton and Ringwood, where the Iron Works were.  In 1775 some of the Acquackanonk people did hold a meeting to concert measures with those of Newark and other towns for the common defense against British aggression, but there were leading men who discouraged any such movement.

Contrary to what might have been expected, considering his position as agent of the London Company, Robert Erskine took sides from the first with the Colonies, and though he fully expected that the British King and ministry would recede from their insane policy before reconciliation should be too late, yet from the start he prepared for the worst, and so early as August 1775, he fully equipped a company of Continental militia at the Ringwood Works, at his own expense – one of the very first companies organized in the State for war.  The Provincial Congress warmly commended his zeal and ordered that he be commissioned Captain of the Company.  He did valuable service to the American cause in running the Works during subsequent years, supplying cannon balls and other necessaries to the army.  Moreover, his knowledge of the topography of the country was great, and Washington made him Geographer and Surveyor-General to the Army, which position he doubtless held until his death in 1780.  He is buried at Ringwood, not far from the ruins of the old Ringwood Furnace, and near the road running from Ringwood to Long Pond.  He was 45 years of age when he died.

Just here let us notice an old slander, which is sometimes repeated to this day.  It was said that one of the Ryersons, who owned a furnace and forge at Pompton, made cannon balls and secretly delivered them on board of British war vessels at New York.  The story really originated at the time of the war of 1812, and did not relate to transactions during the Revolution.  In 1821, Mr. Ryerson traced the report to two well-known citizens, and compelled them to acknowledge over their own signatures, in the public prints, that they did not believe there was any foundation for the rumor.

After the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Long Island, the American army crossed the North River at Fort Lee and retreated through New Jersey, passing through Acquackanonk in November 1776.  It is said that the British were in such close pursuit that a few shots were exchanged, and to check the progress of the invader, the Americans, after crossing the river, cut away the bridge.  Edo Merselis of Preakness, a lad of fourteen or sixteen, was driving a load of work to market.  The soldiers took his horses from the wagon, attached them to a caisson, and made him drive this strange load to New Brunswick, whence he made his way back with his team to his alarmed parents.

The Battle of Monmouth in 1778, caused the British to retreat hastily back through Jersey, and a detachment of them appear to have been chased all the way to Acquackanonk, where there was a little skirmish and several were wounded on both sides.

In December 1778, General Putnam’s Division of the Continental Army marched through Paramus and Acquackanonk, the event being marked by no notable incident.  Surgeon Thatcher, who belonged to the Division, received a pleasing impression of the people and their surroundings.

October 7, 1780, the American army, then at Newburg, was ordered to Totowa, one column under command of Lord Stirling, marching through Paramus, where the Headquarters were established the next day, and orders given to repair the road then to “Totoway Bridge.”  On the 9th the headquarters were established at Totowa, where they remained for six weeks.  The main army was encamped at the foot of the Preakness mountain, extending along for two or three miles.  General Washington being quartered in a find brick house still standing a mile or two west of Paterson, in what was long known as the “Hogencamp house” although he occasionally passed a night with some of the Van Houtens of Totowa.  The grand parade was on the level plan used as a cricket field a few years ago, near the Falls.  Col. Moyland’s Regiment of Cavalry was stationed near Little Falls and Major Parr’s riffle Corps in a ravine near the Great Notch, both being enjoined to watch the roads through the Notch to Newark and Acquackanonk, to guard against surprises.  Lafayette was stationed along river at and below Wagraw, his headquarters being at the Gaffel.  When he revisted this part of the country in 1825, the spot where he had encamped in 1780 was conspicuously marked.  The whole army was kept in constant state of readiness for active operations, the advance corps being placed under command of Lafayette, the right wing (Pennsylvania and Connecticut Brigades) under command of Lord Stirling, and the left wing (the four Massachusetts Brigades) under Major. Gen. St. Clair.  A flying hospital was established at Demund’s on the old Pompton road.  On the 23rd the Light Infantry were ordered to a new position, the better to command the Notch and Cranetown gap and so protest the right wing.  It is said that the bold hill on the east side of the Notch was a favorite lookout of Gen. Washington’s at t his time, and that from this point he once detected a raiding party of British sallying out from Elizabethtown, and promptly dispatching a troop of cavalry behind the hills to Springfield, intercepted the foragers as they were making off with a fine lot of cattle and other booty.

While the army was encamped at Totowa there was a great deal of straggling.  Washington rebuked this in a general order, in which he stated that “in a ride he took the other day, he found the soldiers as low as Acquackanonk bridge, on both sides of the river, and as far as he has ever yet gone, around the environs of the camp, the roads and farm-houses are full of them.”

An incident is handed down by tradition that probably grew out of t his habit of straggling.  On one occasion a party of American soldiers were chased by a daring company of redcoats, even to the Passaic river, near the present Main street bridge.  The Americans got across safely, and partly cut down the old bridge.  The impetuous British, bent on pursuit, dashed into the water, the officers mounted on the privates’ shoulders, but ere they had got half-way across a hot fire from the troops encamped on the other side compelled them to beat a hasty retreat.

A number of incidents are related of Washington’s personal intercourse with the people during this brief sojourn of the army, but space forbids relating them here.

On the morning of Nov. 27th the army broke camp and marched, with two days rations cooked.  Part of the army went to the Hudson River, and part, including the Jersey Line and the Pennsylvania Line, went into winter quarters between Pompton and Morristown.  The condition of the troops was deplorable and to add to their misfortunes hundreds of the soldiers who had enlisted for only three years were being unjustly detained by their officers, while a bounty was paid to new men who entered the service.  The Pennsylvania Line, 2,200 strong, mutinied, and so far succeeded in their revolt as to get most of the concessions they demanded.  On the night of January 20, 1781, a part of the Jersey Brigade stationed at Pompton, arose in arms, made the same demands as their Pennsylvania brethren had successfully asserted, and marched to Chatham to incite the rest of the Brigade to revolt.  Washington was incensed at this, and immediately ordered Gen. Howe with a special detachment of 500 New England troops to the scene of the mutiny, which they reached by forced marches in five days, passing through Ringwood on the way, where the officers were lodged by Mrs. Erskine.  Says Surgeon Thatcher:

“We were entertained with an elegant supper and excellent wine.  Mrs. Erskine is a sensible and accomplished woman, who lives in a style of affluence and fashion; everything indicates wealth, taste and splendor, and she takes pleasure in entertaining the friends of her late husband with generous hospitality.”

On the morning of January 27 the insurgents’ camp was reached, and the mutineers, to the number of 200 to 300, were compelled to surrender.  Three of the ringleaders were taken out, tried by court-martial on the spot, and sentenced to be shot immediately by twelve of their comrades.  Two were thus executed; the third was pardoned.  The mutineers were buried where they fell, a mile or two north-east of Pompton, in a secluded, neglected spot among the hills, where a few stones rudely heaped together, are the only monument to the two misguided men, who were about as much sinned against as sinning.

On August 21st, 1781, an army passed through Acquackanonk for the last time.  It was the American forces hurrying toward Virginia, to attack Lord Cornwallis, whose surrender followed two months later.

In addition to what has been related there were sundry minor incidents of the Revolutionary struggle, occurring in Passaic County, that cannot be dwelt upon here, but which throw much light on the state of public sentiment at the time.

The records of the County Courts show that all the people were not patriots.  Not a few were attainted of treason and had their property confiscated to the State, and many more were sent within the British lines at New York for disaffection toward the American cause.

The most prominent active British sympathizer in this part of the State, if not in New Jersey, was Robert Drummond, a wealthy ship owner and merchant at Acquackanonk Landing, who had married Jannetje Vreeland.  He was a member of the Provincial Congress in May, June and August, 1775, and acquitted himself so satisfactorily to his constituents that they re-elected him in September, but when active hostilities began he placed his services at the disposal of his King, and organized the Second Battalion of New Jersey Volunteers, of which he was commissioned Major.  It is said that upwards of 200 members of this Battalion were his neighbors, who had been persuaded to enlist under his influence.  This, however, is certainly an exaggeration; at least, no such number of Acquackanonk  men enlisted in the British army; he must have got his recruits from the Bergen County side of the river.  Most of his Battalion fell victims to the climate in the Southern States, or perished in battle.  Maj. Drummond himself went to England after the war, with his wife, and died at Chelsea in 1789.  As an instance of the divisions in families during those trying times, his brother David did valiant service in the patriot army, and after the was  rewarded with a tract of land in New York State, while Robert was given a farm in Nova Scotia and a pension by the British government.
 

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