Westfield

Westfield During the Revolution

An Outpost in the Revolution

The opening guns of the American Revolution at Lexington and Concord in 1775 brought those in the village of Westfield to a crossroads. When British General William Howe arrived on Staten Island in July of 1776 with a huge fleet and some 32,000 soldiers, New Jersey itself seemed defenseless.

Following the signing of the Declaration of Independence, all Jerseymen had to make a choice: Stay loyal to the crown, stand and possibly fight with Washington's forces or stay neutral. Westfielders Samuel Downer, Jonathan Baker, Edward Clark, Charles Marsh and Joshua Marsh enlisted with Washington.

Essex County, of which the village of Westfield was then a part, however, was well known as a home for Tories. Yet most Westfielders - save for at least Samuel Smith, a local Tory - sided with the revolutionary cause, no doubt influenced by their New England heritage and Scotch-Irish Presbyterianism. Patriot Ephraim Marsh served on the "Association" created by the First Continental Congress to enforce the boycott of British goods. Westfield innkeeper Azariah Clark apprehended a number of persons in this area involved in the illegal "London trading."

Area Militiamen Help Capture British Supply Sloop

Even before the Declaration of Independence, Westfield village militiamen David Ross, Henry Baker, Ephrain Marsh, William Meeker and Benjamin and John Woodruff became recognized patriots. The British supply sloop Blue Mountain Valley , its cargo of coal, potatoes, hogs, porter and horsebeans destined for the King's troops in Boston, lay unguarded off Sandy Hook the night of January 22-23, 1776.

A British warship from New York was on the way to protect her. Spurred by the promise of sharing in the booty, nearly 100 patriots from the Elizabethtown area worked through that cold night to outfit three boats and assist General William Alexander of Basking Ridge in boarding the vessel and bringing it to Elizabethtown Point. Some days later, the Continental Congress passed a resolution praising the "forwardness and spirit" of the militiamen for their "laudable and exemplary" heroism.

Although General George Washington despaired of "the irregular and disjointed state" of the New Jersey Militia in early 1777, the "Jersey Blues" would later distinguish themselves. Fifty-eight Westfielders, some dressed by local women in blue coats with red trim, but many without uniform, served in Captain Eliakim Littell's unit, which maintained a defensive line along the Watchung Mountains to protect Washington's encampments in Middlebrook - above current Bound Brook - and Morristown.

Westfield Pulled into the Revolution

Following his 1776 retreat through New Jersey, Washington won decisive victories at Trenton and Princeton and then went into winter quarters in Morristown. His adversaries, General Lord William Howe and Lord Charles Cornwallis, garrisoned some 14,000 troops in the area between New Brunswick and Perth Amboy, close by loyalist Staten Island.

In May, 1777, Washington moved his army down from Morristown and encamped in the Watchung Mountains at Middlebrook. Howe sought to draw Washington out of the mountains and into an open battle in the lowlands which separated the two armies. The feints and countermoves of these two generals would eventually pull the village of Westfield into the war.

Howe initially tried to provoke Washington into battle on June 14, 1777 with an aggressive move westward to a position between Millstone and Middlebush, where two British divisions encamped and built redoubts. From this position Howe might possibly have outflaked Washington's right by circling westward around the First Watchung Mountain, but - pressured by militia attacks on his supply lines - he elected not to move so far from his base in New Brunswick.

British Humbly Withdraw to New Brunswick

Believing Howe to be "perfectly safe from any attack of ours," Washington kept his mountain position. Howe, similarly deciding that Washington was in a spot "which it would have not been purdent to attack," withdrew towards New Brunswick. Although Howe broke his camp so early on the morning of June 19th that the Continentals could not marshal much of a following force. The patriots viewed the British withdrawal to New Brunswick as a humiliating retreat.

On the 22nd, the main body of the British forces left New Brunswick and slogged through the summer rain to Perth Amboy. According to Washington, three brigades of Continentals "gave them a good peppering." But Washington bemoaned the "robbing, plundering and burning" the British inflicted as they moved to Amboy. A patriot observer wrote that the British "have left Brunswick, and all the road from thence to Amboy is covered with smoke from the houses the soldiers fired as they passed." Would Westfield village suffer a similar fate if involved?

Howe at the time seemed intent on withdrawing his forces to Staten Island, preliminary to a voyage from there to the Delaware River and Philadelphia. The British general ordered the tents struck. A Hessian brigade put to sea. Troops constructed a pontoon bridge across to Staten Island in apparent preparation for the retreat of the full British army. On the 23rd one British soldier wrote that "Lord Howe embarks tomorrow on board the Eagle... The retreat of our troops from Jersey will give the rebels great encouragement, and strengthen their cause much..."

An emboldened Washington ordered pursuing forces to New Brunswick and marched a sizable force to Quibbletown, now New Market. He sent General William Alexander, called Lord Stirling because of his insecure claim to a Scottish earldom, ahead to the short hills of Metuchen with a strong detachment.

After receiving intelligence reports of Washington's movement out of his mountain stronghold, Howe secretly ordered his troops back to Amboy on the 25th. But because of bad weather, it was nearly midnight before the last of the Hessians disembarked on the New Jersey shore. The British troops could easily overwhelm Stirling's 3,000 men and eight cannon.

Lord Cornwallis Seeks to Drive Washington Out of Country

Before dawn on June 26th, 1777, Cornwallis marched out from Amboy to Woodbridge destined, perhaps, for the mountain pass near present Scotch Plains and the opportunity it provided to drive Washington out of Middlebrook for good. Another column commanded by Major General John Vaughan, also headed for Scotch Plains via Bonhamptown. Cornwallis's force formed the right arm and Vaughan's the left arm of a pincer which could surround Stirling's force at Metuchen.

Once in Woodbridge, Cornwallis's line turned on Green Road to Scotch Plains, and there accidentally confronted part of Stirling's outlying force. Unable to resist the British advance, these men delayed the British movement by harassing them from the thickets along the route. Stirling then deployed his men on a rise in the wooded area near Ash Swamp in the vicinity of present Terrill and Raritan Roads. They dug in to meet the British advance.

The troops of Cornwallis and Stirling met at midday and fought what Washington described as a "pretty smart" skirmish. In the bloody hour-and-a-half struggle in the blistering June heat, Stirling bombarded the advancing British lines with six to eight one-pound cannon. The Hessians replied with their three pounders. As the British lines vied with each other in the assault, some British soldiers - unable to see in the smoke - allegedly fired into their own flanks. Overwhelmingly outnumbered, out-gunned and in danger of being flanked, Stirling's men began a retreat toward Westfield village.

Continentals Defeated in Scotch Plains

In losing, Stirling's force suffered between 15 and 30 killed and some 50 missing, but they killed five and wounded 30 of the enemy. The British took 64 prisoners and captured three French-made cannon. Although some have written that the British "routed" Stirling or cut his brigade "to pieces with the Highland Broad Swords," Stirling in fact conducted an orderly retreat to Westfield village and occupied the mountain passes behind the town. Washington moved the main American force to their original camp in Middlebrook.

Pursuing Stirling, the British force marched along current Cooper and Raritan Roads into the Westfield area. There they found that most townsmen - save for the old and infirm - had fled into the mountains. Exhausted perhaps by the march which had began before sunrise and beaten down by the heat, the King's troops camped on Mud Land, now Grove Street, the night of June 26-27, 1777. The British converted the Presbyterian meeting house into a slaughter house for some cattle they had confiscated.

British Loot and Torch the Countryside

They plundered the Gershom Frazee home among others. Local residents filed over a 100 claims for British depredations. An account written shortly afterward noted that the British army "burnt, stripped and destroyed all as the went along." The British officer, Major John Andre, wrote that the "spirit of depredation was but too prevalent on these marches." Heeding Westfield's plight, Washington dispatched 300 barrels of flour for residents of this area.

Later generations have relished colorful, heroic legends about the British stay in the Westfield area on that sweltering June day and night in 1777, but the village in fact suffered great damage in the invasion. Sick lay in a make-shift military hospital off Gallows Hill Road near current Fairview Cemetery. Residents lost their livestock and grain. Homes and property were plundered.

Some may have despaired for the patriot cause. Washington himself was saddened that he could give only "the shadow, for it is no more of security, to particular neighborhoods." Realizing they could not pursue Washington into the mountains and having failed to draw him into a direct encounter, the British marched off on the 27th to Rahway to Amboy and then to their transport ships.

One Strategic Showdown with British Avoided

Two days following the Battle of the Short Hills of Metuchen and encamping in the Westfield area, Alexander Hamilton wrote to Governor Robert Livingston that Washington's tactics of retreat "undoubtedly will be imputed either to cowardice or to weakness." The more discerning American, he judged, however, would understand that Washington was following "the truest policy" of avoiding a general engagement with the British forces which he might lose. "The liberties of America are an infinite stake. We should not play a desperate game for it or put it upon the issue of a single cast of the die."

Taverns Dominated Town Life

The church dominated the landscape in the early village of Westfield, but the tavern may have dominated town life. By the end of the eighteenth century, Westfield supported both Azariah Clark's Westfield Tavern and Thomas Baker's Inn and Tavern.

From Grist Mill to Public Park

Henry Baker built another grist mill on Nomahegan Brook at the current entrance to Echo Lake Park, an area once known as Branch Mills.

Back in the eighteenth century, inhabitants of Westfield village had little time to enjoy parks. Residents wore their own homespun wool, drank cider made from their own apples, made their own Johnny-cake and generally lived off the produce they grew in their gardens. Farming went forward under techniques little advanced beyond those biblical times. Most settlers made their own wooden plows, hand scythes and furniture. Social life was confined to the church, the tavern or "bees" held during harvests or barn-raisings.

The village proved to be a fine place to raise sheep. Town records show, however, that this enterprise entailed serious risks, since local dogs preyed upon the many flocks. The town talked dog owners to pay sheep raisers for the animals killed by dogs.

Still New Jersey was seen by many as a delightful colony, a particularly healthful place. A settler wrote that " the Air of this Province is very Serene, Sweet, and Wholesome..."