Formation of the Bergen County Committee of Safety

**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.