Revolution250.blog

Sometimes difficult choices have to be made.

In November of 1775, the rather wealthy colony of New Jersey contained about 150,000 people, and most had presumably learned of the news from Boston, the King’s rejection of the Olive Branch Petition, and the establishment of two New Jersey regiments of militia. As in the rest of America, folks were discussing the prospect and perils of a crazy idea called Independence.

On the 13th, a man named Phillip Vickers Fithian (who was a Presbyterian Reverend and a graduate of the College of New Jersey, now Princeton) was traveling through the southern counties of Gloucester and Salem on a missionary trip to Virginia. On that day, as he departed New Jersey, he wrote the following in his journal about the activity he had seen across the colony.

“We leave New Jersey in a melancholy state. Battalions of Militia and Minutemen embodying – drums and fife rattling – military language in every mouth – numbers who a few days ago were plain countrymen have now clothed themselves in martial forms – powdered hair and sharp pinched beavers – uniform in dress with their Battalion – swords on their thighs – & stern in the art of War – resolved, in steady manly firmness, to support & establish American Liberty, or die in battle!”

Meanwhile, at the northern end of New Jersey in Elizabethtown, a lawyer named John de Hart was reaching his breaking point. He had served as a delegate to the First Continental Congress, and had supported its efforts, though he remained in favor of ultimate reconciliation. On that same day, November 13th, with tensions running high, he snapped, and sent his resignation to the New Jersey General Assembly.

“The peculiar circumstances of my family hath prevented me from attending Congress for sometime past and the same still continuing renders it uncertain when I shall be able to attend. This and other reasons needless to be mentioned induces me earnestly to desire and request that the Honourable House will now be pleased to appoint another to attend the Continental Congress in my stead. I am Gentlemen your most Obliged & most Obedient humble servant.”

And so, some are in and some are out. And America drifts towards a tense holiday season.