On July 4, 2026, the nation will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, however, the events that led to that and New Jersey’s involvement in the Revolutionary War can be traced to April 19, 1775.
With the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord approaching, attention often turns to Massachusetts. But in the weeks before the fighting began, New Jersey was dealing with its own divisions over British rule.
Just prior to the first shots at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, Chief Justice Frederick Smyth, New Jersey’s last royal chief justice, had been pushing hard for reconciliation with Britain.
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According to state records, Smyth addressed the Middlesex County Grand Jury on April 4 of that year, urging a crackdown on town and county committees formed by colonists to challenge British authority and drive out what he called a “black cloud” hanging over the colonies.
While acknowledging public concerns over British rule, Smyth argued that true freedom existed within the British Constitution, not outside it.
His sentiment was one shared by many in New Jersey at the time, said Todd Braisted, an American Revolution historian and past president of the Bergen County Historical Society. Bergen and Monmouth counties in particular were heavily involved in trade and loyal to the Crown, and even those fighting for change were fighting for their rights as Englishmen, Braisted said.
According to Smyth, the rebel committees risked undermining the legal system and jeopardizing the colonies’ long-term security. Moderation and loyalty to the Crown, he insisted, remained the best path forward.
Continental Army soldier reenactors William Michel of Quinton Twp. and Jesse Nokes of Galloway fire their muskets after the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution Commemoration Launch at Monmouth Battlefield State Park in Manalapan, NJ Friday, November 1, 2024.
“Liberty is never more in danger than when it vergeth into licentiousness,” Smyth said. “Instead of keeping up a spirit of clamor, murmur, and discontent — I might add downright defiance, avowed resistance, and open violence — every friend of his country, every friend to peace, order, and good government will ardently wish that some prudent measure of accommodation may be proposed.”
By the spring of 1775, tensions with Britain had been escalating for years, but war was not yet a certainty. Many local political leaders urged caution, as resistance movements took root in some New Jersey counties. In Massachusetts, however, the conflict was nearing a boil.
Outraged by the growing resistance there, King George III demanded action. Parliament declared Massachusetts in open rebellion, and British General Thomas Gage, the colony’s military governor, tightened control. In early 1775, Gage’s spies reported weapons stockpiles and signs of organized resistance in Concord.
On April 18, 1775, British troops crossed the Charles River and marched toward Concord as Paul Revere and others warned the countryside. At Lexington, they encountered armed colonists — eight were killed. At Concord’s North Bridge, colonial forces pushed the British back. The retreat became a running battle, with militiamen firing from behind trees and stone walls. By the next day, 20,000 militia had surrounded Boston.
John Niemiec of Fairless Hills, Pa., a member of the Washington Crossing Fifes and Drums, waits for Governor Phil Murphy to arrive before the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution Commemoration Launch at Monmouth Battlefield State Park in Manalapan, NJ Friday, November 1, 2024.
Though Elizabethtown was a hotbed of rebellion in New Jersey, Elias Boudinot, a local lawyer and the future president of the Congress of the Confederation, urged the Morris County committee to remain calm in the days after the battles. There were reports that local supporters planned to erect a Liberty Pole in Chatham and possibly attack Thomas Eckley, a known critic of the patriot cause.
In an April 30 letter to the committee referencing the reports, Boudinot wrote that such a bold act of violent defiance might not rally more to their cause but rather “deter every good man from joining with us.” Even their enemies, Boudinot argued, should “enjoy that Peace & Liberty which we so ardently wish for ourselves.”
“If the People will undertake & carry on any publick Measure without the advice of the Committees,” he cautioned, “it will be impossible to perfect any Plan for the general good.”
While rebels in Elizabethtown and other parts of Essex may have been galvanized by the battles in Massachusetts, Braisted said many in Bergen County and other Loyalist areas of New Jersey probably saw the New Englanders as “hotheads” and were frustrated by the conflict.
In North Jersey, resistance to the anti-Crown movement ran deep, particularly in Bergen County. It was among the last counties in New Jersey to support the Continental Association, a pact among the colonies to boycott British goods. Just one month before Lexington and Concord, in March 1775, Hackensack’s leaders signed a pledge of loyalty to the king, denouncing “all riotous mobs” and saying they were unconcerned by “any unconstitutional measures.”
Things changed after the fighting at Lexington and Concord, but not by much.
On May 12, Bergen County’s leaders issued a formal declaration denouncing British taxation without colonial consent and pledging loyalty to the Continental Congress and Provincial Convention. Taking a stand against Parliament’s “oppressive Acts,” the declaration nonetheless made a commitment to maintaining order and seeking reconciliation.
“Their zeal for the cause was warm at best,” Braisted said of Bergen County’s residents. “I think initially people thought cooler heads would prevail and things would go back to normal.”
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For the general public, the prospect of war in the colonies was unsettling, Braisted said. Jemima Condict, a young Presbyterian woman from the Newark Mountains, documented her anxieties in the months leading up to the Revolution.
Her entries from October 1774 to May 1775 reveal growing unease.
“It seams we have troublesome times a Coming for there is a great Disturbance a Broad in the earth & they say it is tea that caused it,” she wrote. “If they will Quarel about such a trifling thing as that What must we expect But war & I think or at least fear it will be so.”
By early spring, she reflected on watching local militias train, knowing they could soon be called to fight.
“I thought It Would Be a mournfull Sight to see if they had Been fighting in earnest,” she wrote, adding, “how soon they will Be Calld forth to the feild of war we Cannot tell.”
Little did she know that moment would come sooner than many expected. On April 23, she recorded the first news of fighting in Massachusetts: “yesterday very early in the morning They Began to fight at Boston.”
A week later, as reports spread that the British fleet was approaching New York, Condict’s town leaders gathered to discuss a response.
“This day I think is a Day of mourning,” she wrote on May 1, adding that she hoped “the Lord will Give them Wisedom to Conduct wisely & Prudently In all Matters.”
War was on its way.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ history in the Revolutionary War began with April 19 battle