# Bergen County Divided: Loyalties Split In the years leading up to the American Revolution, the colonies were not unified in their desire for independence. Nowhere was this more painfully evident than in Bergen County, New Jersey, where the fabric of community life began to tear along lines that few had anticipated. By 1773, as colonial grievances against British taxation and governance intensified in the wake of the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, and the mounting crisis over Parliamentary authority, the residents of Hackensack and its surrounding towns found themselves caught in an agonizing struggle — not only against distant British power but against one another. What made Bergen County's division so wrenching was that it did not pit strangers against strangers. It set neighbor against neighbor, congregant against congregant, and in some cases, family member against family member. The roots of the divide ran deep into the county's religious, ethnic, and economic soil. Bergen County had long been home to a substantial Dutch Reformed population, descendants of the original Dutch settlers who had shaped the region's culture for over a century. This community, centered around the Reformed churches of Hackensack and its environs, increasingly gravitated toward the patriot cause. One of the most influential voices urging them in that direction was Reverend Dirck Romeyn, a Dutch Reformed minister who used his pulpit not merely for spiritual guidance but as a platform for political conviction. Romeyn framed the struggle against British overreach in moral and providential terms, arguing that resistance to tyranny was consistent with the community's faith and values. His sermons galvanized many Dutch Reformed families, giving the patriot movement in Bergen County a spiritual backbone that lent it both emotional power and communal cohesion. On the other side stood many Anglican families, whose religious ties to the Church of England often reinforced their political loyalty to the Crown. These families frequently maintained commercial relationships with New York City, just across the Hudson River, where British authority remained strong and where trade networks depended on imperial stability. For these residents, loyalty to Britain was not merely sentimental — it was practical, woven into the livelihoods and social connections that sustained their families. The proximity of New York City made Bergen County a uniquely contested space, a borderland where British influence could be felt daily and where Loyalist sympathies had powerful material reinforcement. As the crisis deepened, patriot leaders moved to organize resistance and assert local governance. Judge John Fell, a respected Bergen County jurist, took a leading role in this effort, helping to establish and guide the Bergen County Committee of Safety. This body was tasked with coordinating patriot activity, enforcing boycotts of British goods, and monitoring Loyalist sympathies within the population. But the Committee's authority was far from universally accepted. A substantial portion of the county's residents viewed it as an illegitimate body that overstepped its bounds, and town meetings that had once been routine exercises in local governance became heated confrontations where the very definition of loyalty and liberty was contested. The division was further complicated by the experiences of those who had no voice in the political debate yet whose lives were profoundly shaped by it. Enslaved individuals like Sam of Hackensack inhabited this fractured landscape with their own set of fears and calculations. For enslaved people, the rhetoric of liberty that echoed through patriot speeches carried a bitter irony, and the upheaval of war created both dangers and desperate possibilities. Their presence in the historical record, though often reduced to fragments, reminds us that the Revolution's meaning was never singular — it was experienced differently depending on where one stood in the social order. Bergen County's fracture mattered far beyond its own borders. It illustrated a reality that the broader narrative of the Revolution sometimes obscures: that independence was not a foregone conclusion embraced by a united populace but a contested, painful process that divided communities from within. The split in Bergen County foreshadowed the brutal guerrilla warfare that would consume the region throughout the war, as Loyalist and patriot militias raided each other's farms, seized property, and turned the county into one of the most bitterly contested landscapes of the entire conflict. Understanding what happened in Hackensack helps us see the Revolution not as a simple story of colonial unity against British oppression but as a civil war within communities, where the costs of choosing a side — or trying not to — were deeply and personally felt.

**The Formation of the Bergen County Committee of Safety, 1775** In the spring and summer of 1775, as news of the battles at Lexington and Concord rippled through the American colonies, communities everywhere were forced to choose sides. In Bergen County, New Jersey, that choice was more complicated than in most places. The county, with its seat at Hackensack, was home to a deeply divided population. Its residents included Dutch Reformed farmers, English settlers, and families whose loyalties split along religious, ethnic, and economic lines. Unlike regions where patriot sentiment surged with near unanimity, Bergen County harbored one of the largest concentrations of Loyalist sympathizers in all of New Jersey. It was in this volatile environment that the Bergen County Committee of Safety was formed in 1775, an act that marked the county's formal entry into the revolutionary struggle and set the stage for years of bitter internal conflict. Committees of Safety were springing up across the thirteen colonies during this period, serving as the local arms of revolutionary governance in the absence of royal authority. When the New Jersey Provincial Congress called upon counties to organize themselves for the patriot cause, Bergen County answered by establishing its own committee, composed of prominent local leaders who were willing to risk their reputations, their property, and their lives to support independence. Among the most notable of these men was Judge John Fell, a respected figure in Hackensack who brought legal knowledge and civic authority to the committee's work. Fell's participation lent the body a degree of legitimacy that was essential in a county where many residents viewed the revolution with suspicion or outright hostility. His later service would extend to the Continental Congress itself, but in 1775 his immediate concern was the dangerous work of organizing resistance on the ground in Bergen County. Operating from Hackensack, the committee used the courthouse and other public buildings as its base of operations. Its responsibilities were sweeping and consequential. The committee organized the local militia, ensuring that men were armed, trained, and ready to respond to British movements. It administered loyalty oaths, requiring residents to declare their allegiance to the patriot cause — a process that inevitably exposed fractures within families and communities. Perhaps most contentiously, the committee was charged with identifying and suppressing Loyalist activity. This meant deciding who to imprison, whose property to confiscate, and which families to place under surveillance. In a county where a neighbor might be a secret Tory sympathizer or an active collaborator with the British, these decisions carried enormous weight and personal danger. The broader context of Bergen County's geography made the committee's work all the more perilous. Situated just across the Hudson River from British-held New York City, the county was perpetually exposed to raids by British-allied forces and Loyalist irregulars. Committee members faced the constant threat of capture, and several would indeed suffer for their patriot allegiance as the war progressed. John Fell himself was later seized by Loyalist raiders and held as a prisoner, a fate that underscored the very real risks of revolutionary leadership in this contested borderland. The committee's work also intersected with the lives of those who had no formal voice in the revolution's politics. Enslaved people like Sam of Hackensack lived and labored in the same community where the committee deliberated, their fates shaped by the decisions of men who spoke of liberty while perpetuating bondage. The presence of individuals like Sam in the historical record serves as a reminder that the Revolutionary War's promises of freedom were unevenly applied and that the story of the revolution must account for all the people who lived through it, not only those who held power. The formation of the Bergen County Committee of Safety mattered far beyond Hackensack. It was part of a continental movement in which local bodies of governance replaced royal authority, creating the infrastructure that made the American Revolution possible. Without committees like this one — willing to do the unglamorous, dangerous, and often divisive work of organizing militias, policing loyalty, and coordinating with provincial and national bodies — the revolution would have remained an abstraction. In Bergen County, where the population was so deeply divided, the committee's very existence was an act of defiance, and its persistence through years of conflict helped ensure that this strategically vital region did not fall entirely under Loyalist or British control. The committee transformed Hackensack from a quiet county seat into a crucible of revolutionary governance, one where the ideals and contradictions of the American founding were tested in the most immediate and personal ways.

# The Capture of Judge John Fell by Loyalist Raiders On the night of April 22, 1777, the war came directly to the doorstep of one of Bergen County's most prominent patriot leaders. A party of Loyalist raiders, operating under the cover of darkness, crossed from British-held territory into the contested countryside near Paramus, New Jersey, and seized Judge John Fell from his home. The raid was swift, calculated, and deeply unsettling to the patriot cause in the region. Fell was not a soldier caught on a battlefield but a civilian leader dragged from his own household, a vivid reminder that in the Hackensack Valley, the lines between home front and war front had effectively ceased to exist. John Fell was no minor figure. He served as a leading member of the Bergen County Committee of Safety, one of the local governing bodies that had taken on enormous importance in the early years of the Revolution. These committees were responsible for organizing militia activity, identifying Loyalist sympathizers, enforcing allegiance to the patriot cause, and maintaining what fragile civic order they could in a region torn apart by divided loyalties. Fell's prominence made him both valuable and vulnerable. By capturing him, Loyalist partisans struck a blow not only against a single individual but against the entire infrastructure of patriot governance in Bergen County. His seizure sent a chilling message to other committee members and local officials: no one, no matter how established or well-known, was beyond the reach of British-aligned forces. The broader context of Fell's capture reveals just how bitterly contested the Hackensack Valley was during the Revolutionary War. Unlike regions where loyalties fell more clearly on one side or the other, Bergen County was deeply divided. Families, neighbors, and even congregations within the same Dutch Reformed churches found themselves on opposing sides of the conflict. After the British occupied New York City in the fall of 1776 and Washington's Continental Army retreated across New Jersey, the region became a dangerous no-man's-land. Loyalist raiders regularly crossed into patriot-held territory to kidnap leading Whigs, steal livestock, destroy property, and generally destabilize the local population. Fell's capture was one of dozens of such kidnappings that plagued Bergen County throughout the war, part of a broader pattern of partisan violence that made daily life precarious for everyone in the region. After his capture, Fell was transported to New York City, where he was imprisoned under harsh conditions. British-held New York was notorious for the brutal treatment of American prisoners of war, many of whom were confined in overcrowded jails and the infamous prison ships anchored in the harbor. Fell endured months of captivity, and the circumstances of his imprisonment reflected the larger humanitarian crisis that afflicted thousands of captured patriots throughout the conflict. His case also highlights the role that enslaved people played in this turbulent landscape. Sam of Hackensack, an enslaved person connected to the events surrounding Fell's world, reminds us that the upheaval of the Revolution touched every layer of society in the Hackensack Valley, including those who were held in bondage and whose own struggles for freedom were deeply entangled with the broader fight over liberty and independence. Fell was eventually exchanged in late 1778, more than a year and a half after his capture. Prisoner exchanges were complex diplomatic negotiations during the Revolution, often involving lengthy correspondence between American and British officials over the relative value and rank of captured individuals. That Fell was ultimately exchanged speaks to his importance as a patriot leader. Remarkably, his imprisonment did not diminish his commitment to public service. Upon his release, Fell almost immediately reentered political life, winning election as a delegate to the Continental Congress, the governing body that was directing the American war effort and laying the groundwork for a new nation. The capture of John Fell matters because it illustrates a dimension of the Revolutionary War that is often overshadowed by accounts of major battles and famous generals. The war in the Hackensack Valley was a civil war fought between neighbors, waged through raids, kidnappings, and acts of intimidation rather than formal engagements. It was a conflict in which political leadership required physical courage, and in which the machinery of self-governance had to be rebuilt even as it was being torn apart. Fell's story — his service, his capture, his suffering, and his return to public life — embodies the resilience and determination that sustained the patriot cause through some of its darkest and most uncertain years.

**The Oath of Allegiance Controversies in Hackensack, New Jersey, 1777** The American Revolution was not only a war fought on battlefields; it was also a struggle waged in courthouses, churches, and homes, where ordinary people were forced to declare where their loyalties lay. Few places illustrate this internal conflict more vividly than Bergen County, New Jersey, where in 1777 the state government's demand that all adult males swear an oath of allegiance to the new state and the cause of American independence became one of the most divisive episodes of the war. Centered in the county seat of Hackensack, the oath controversies revealed how deeply the Revolution could fracture a community and how difficult it was for revolutionary authorities to command loyalty by decree. The backdrop for the crisis was New Jersey's particularly precarious position in the war. After the British routed the Continental Army across the state in late 1776, much of New Jersey fell under British influence, and thousands of residents accepted pardons or protections from the Crown. General Washington's dramatic victories at Trenton and Princeton in the winter of 1776–1777 reversed the tide militarily, but they did not resolve the question of political loyalty. In response, the newly formed New Jersey state government moved to solidify its authority by requiring all adult males to swear an oath of allegiance. The oath was not merely symbolic; it was a legal instrument designed to identify and punish those who remained loyal to Great Britain while binding others firmly to the patriot cause. Bergen County was an especially volatile setting for such a demand. The region, home to a large population of Dutch Reformed families as well as English and other settlers, was deeply divided. Loyalist sympathies ran strong in many communities, and the area's proximity to British-held New York City meant that residents lived under constant threat of raids and reprisals from both sides. Judge John Fell, a prominent patriot and member of the Bergen County government, played a central role in administering and enforcing the loyalty oaths. Fell, who would later serve in the Continental Congress, was determined to strengthen patriot control of the county, and the oath requirement was one of his most powerful tools. Under his authority, residents who refused to swear allegiance faced severe consequences, including the confiscation of their property, imprisonment, or banishment to British-controlled territory. For many Bergen County residents, the oath requirement was an agonizing dilemma. Swearing allegiance to the patriot cause invited retaliation from Loyalist neighbors and British raiding parties, who regularly crossed into the county to punish those who sided with the Revolution. Refusing the oath, however, meant risking everything — one's farm, one's home, one's ability to remain in the community. Some residents swore the oath insincerely, outwardly pledging loyalty to the state while secretly maintaining their allegiance to the Crown. Others refused on principle. Some were genuinely devoted to King George III; others, particularly members of certain religious communities, had deep scruples about oath-taking of any kind. Still others simply wished to remain neutral, hoping to survive the war without committing to either side — a position that neither the patriots nor the Loyalists were willing to tolerate. The consequences of the oath controversies extended well beyond 1777. Families were torn apart, neighbors turned against one another, and the fabric of community life in Bergen County was deeply damaged. Property confiscations enriched some patriots at the expense of their Loyalist neighbors, breeding resentments that would linger long after the war ended. The enforcement of the oaths also exposed the limits of revolutionary authority: no matter how vigorously men like Judge Fell pursued compliance, they could not compel genuine loyalty or eliminate the deep divisions within the population. In the broader story of the American Revolution, the oath of allegiance controversies in Hackensack and Bergen County remind us that the war for independence was as much a civil war as a struggle against a foreign power. The Revolution demanded that individuals choose sides, and for many, that choice was neither simple nor free. The events of 1777 in Bergen County stand as a powerful example of how revolutionary ideals collided with the messy, painful realities of life in a divided community, and they continue to offer important lessons about the costs of political loyalty and the human toll of war.

**Confiscation of Loyalist Property in Hackensack, New Jersey, 1777** The American Revolution was not only a war fought on battlefields; it was also a profound social and economic upheaval that reached into the homes, farms, and communities of ordinary people. Nowhere was this more evident than in Bergen County, New Jersey, where the confiscation of Loyalist property became one of the most consequential and divisive aspects of the patriot cause. Beginning in 1777 and continuing throughout the war, New Jersey's confiscation acts authorized the seizure and public sale of property belonging to residents who had supported the British Crown. In a region like Bergen County, where Loyalist sympathies were widespread and deeply rooted, these acts permanently reshaped the social and economic fabric of communities such as Hackensack. The roots of the confiscation policy lay in the urgent pressures facing the new state government. New Jersey, situated between the British stronghold of New York City and the patriot capital of Philadelphia, was a fiercely contested borderland throughout the war. Bergen County in particular was home to a large population of Dutch Reformed families, many of whom maintained ties of loyalty to the British government or simply wished to remain neutral in the conflict. When the British occupied much of northeastern New Jersey in late 1776 and early 1777, many residents openly cooperated with the Crown, providing supplies, intelligence, and shelter to British and Hessian troops. For patriot leaders, this widespread Loyalism posed both a military threat and a political challenge. The confiscation acts served multiple purposes: they punished those deemed disloyal, raised revenue for the struggling war effort, and rewarded patriot supporters by making valuable property available to them at public auction, often at prices well below market value. Judge John Fell of Hackensack was among the patriot leaders who participated in the governance decisions surrounding these confiscations. A member of the Continental Congress and a prominent Bergen County patriot, Fell had himself suffered at the hands of the British, having been captured by Loyalists and held prisoner in New York. His involvement in the process reflected the deeply personal nature of the conflict in Bergen County, where neighbors turned against neighbors and political allegiance could mean the difference between prosperity and ruin. Fell and other local leaders helped oversee or support a process that identified Loyalist property holders, catalogued their assets, and facilitated the transfer of their wealth to patriot hands. The confiscations were extensive and wide-ranging. Farms, homes, mills, livestock, and personal possessions were seized from families who had sided with the British or who had fled behind British lines. One of the most notable cases involved the Zabriskie estate at New Bridge Landing, a strategically important property along the Hackensack River. After the war, this estate was awarded to Baron Friedrich von Steuben, the Prussian-born officer who had played a vital role in training the Continental Army at Valley Forge, as partial compensation for his military service. The Zabriskie confiscation illustrated how the transfer of Loyalist property served not only local interests but also broader national ones, rewarding those who had contributed to American independence. Yet the confiscations also had deeply human consequences that are often overlooked. Enslaved people were among the property seized from Loyalist households. Individuals like Sam of Hackensack, an enslaved person caught up in the upheaval, faced an uncertain fate as their legal status and daily lives were determined by the shifting fortunes of war and politics. For enslaved people, the Revolution's promises of liberty remained painfully unfulfilled, and the confiscation process underscored the painful reality that human beings were treated as transferable assets alongside land and livestock. The long-term effects of the confiscations were profound. The prewar social order in Bergen County, which had been dominated by established Dutch families with considerable landholdings, was irrevocably altered. Wealth and influence shifted decisively toward patriot families, and many former Loyalists who survived the war found themselves permanently dispossessed, forced to start over in Canada, Britain, or elsewhere. For the community of Hackensack and the broader region, the confiscation of Loyalist property was a stark reminder that the Revolution's consequences extended far beyond the battlefield, reaching into every aspect of daily life and leaving scars that would take generations to heal. Understanding this process helps us see the Revolution not merely as a military struggle but as a transformative social revolution that redefined who belonged, who prospered, and who was cast out in the new American nation.

**End of the War and Return of the Displaced — Hackensack, NJ, 1783** When the Treaty of Paris was formally signed in September 1783 and the last British troops evacuated New York City on November 25 of that year, the event known as Evacuation Day marked the official end of nearly eight years of warfare on American soil. For the residents of Hackensack and the surrounding communities of Bergen County, New Jersey, however, the conclusion of hostilities did not bring a simple or joyful return to normalcy. Instead, it ushered in a painful reckoning with the enormous human and physical toll that the Revolutionary War had inflicted on a region uniquely scarred by occupation, divided loyalties, and relentless guerrilla violence. Bergen County had occupied a particularly volatile position throughout the conflict. Situated just across the Hudson River from British-held New York City, the area served as a contested borderland where neither Patriot nor British forces maintained consistent control. The result was years of brutal civil war fought not between uniformed armies but between neighbors, families, and former friends. Loyalist and Patriot militias raided each other's farms, burned homes, seized livestock, and committed acts of retribution that left deep and lasting wounds. Many Patriot families had been forced to flee the region entirely during the British occupation, abandoning their properties to the mercy of Loyalist neighbors and occupying soldiers. Those who remained endured constant danger, deprivation, and the erosion of civic and religious institutions that had once anchored community life. When the displaced Patriots finally returned to Hackensack in 1783, the scene that greeted them was one of devastation. Homes had been damaged or destroyed, farmland lay neglected, and the physical infrastructure of the community was in ruins. Perhaps most symbolically painful was the condition of the First Dutch Reformed Church, which had served as the spiritual heart of Hackensack's predominantly Dutch community. During the occupation, the church had been desecrated and repurposed by occupying forces, stripped of its sacred function and reduced to a utilitarian structure. Its degradation stood as a visible emblem of everything the war had taken from the community. Among those who returned to lead the difficult work of reconstruction was Reverend Dirck Romeyn, a dedicated clergyman who took on the formidable task of rebuilding the Dutch Reformed congregation. Romeyn understood that restoring the church was about far more than repairing a building; it was about reconstituting the bonds of community, faith, and shared identity that the war had fractured. His efforts to restore the First Dutch Reformed Church as a functioning house of worship became a powerful symbol of resilience and renewal. Judge John Fell, a prominent Patriot who had served Bergen County with distinction throughout the war — including enduring capture and imprisonment by the British — also resumed civic life, lending his authority and experience to the slow process of reestablishing lawful governance and civil order in a county still seething with old resentments. Yet the return of peace brought no justice or liberation for everyone. Enslaved individuals like Sam of Hackensack remained in bondage, a stark reminder that the Revolution's promises of liberty and natural rights were not extended equally. While white Patriots celebrated their freedom from British tyranny, Black men and women continued to live under a system of chattel slavery that the new nation chose not to dismantle, exposing the profound contradictions at the heart of the American experiment. For Loyalist families, the end of the war brought consequences that were swift and severe. Many faced the confiscation of their property under state laws designed to punish those who had supported the Crown. Social ostracism compounded their material losses, and thousands of Loyalists from the region were driven into exile, resettling in Canada, England, or other corners of the British Empire. Their departure reshaped the demographic and social fabric of Bergen County in ways that would resonate for decades. The story of Hackensack in 1783 matters within the broader narrative of the American Revolution because it illuminates the war's aftermath in all its complexity. The Revolution was not concluded neatly on a battlefield; it ended in communities where the work of rebuilding trust, restoring institutions, and confronting injustice proved just as difficult as the fighting itself. Hackensack's experience reminds us that the cost of war is measured not only in battles lost and won but in the slow, painful labor of learning to live together again — and in the unfulfilled promises that would continue to haunt the new nation for generations to come.