Happy Independence day!

5 days ago
2 min read

250 years ago, residents of the Hopewell Valley were preparing for the coming war, but feeling hopeful that it would be short and not affect them too much. The Continental Congress had requested all colonies to prepare their local militias for war and on June 3, 1775, New Jersey's Provincial Congress passed its first militia law, which helped turn the various local groups into a "well-regulated" militia.

All men aged 16-50 were expected to register for their local company. By July 4, word had reached New Jersey about the battle of Bunker Hill (which really occurred more on Breed's Hill) and that the Boston Minutemen had been approved by the Continental Congress to form the nucleus of the Continental Army on June 14 while George Washington was named commander of the army on June 16.

The British Parliament, headed by Lord North recognized the Boston protests as the beginning of war but that it was a war in which they didn't want to look like bad guys, since they assumed they would win and would have to continue to govern the colonies, hopefully with less protests than they had been dealing with. (That didn't last long). In the Hopewell Valley, people were beginning to feel the stress of preparing for the coming harvest while anticipating they might be required to fight and no longer being sure who they could trust in stating views.

"Those people who simply wanted to get on with life and had no strong opinion one way or the other had a very difficult time. For both sides, the belief was emerging that either one is with us or one is automatically against us. Everyone was going through the mental anguish of deciding just how far they were prepared to go to protest the acts of Parliament that more or less irritated or infuriated them. It wouldn't get any easier in the near future" (Kidder p 68).

Kidder, Larry. A People Harassed And Exhausted - The Story of A New Jersey Militia Regiment in the American Revolution. 2013

Photo courtesy of https://www.nationalguard.mil/News/Article/841123/beeline-march-to-cambridge-national-guard-roots-of-armys-founding/