return to History
ALTHOUGH New Jersey was at no time seriously threatened by the war which England waged with the French and their Indian allies in North America, and which may be said to have virtually begun in 1749, and continued until the utter defeat of the French and the treaty of peace in 1763, the meager information which has been preserved of her action demonstrates that she was in no wise backward to obey the calls for troops to serve against the common foe.*
The conflicting territorial claims of England and France on the American continent, the long-standing animosity of the two people, and the competition between the French and English frontiersmen on the upper tributaries of the Ohio River explain the outbreak of the war. In 1746 New Jersey was required to furnish five hundred men for service under the English flag, and in response six hundred and sixty offered themselves for enlistment. Again, in 1755, the Assembly resolved to raise and equip a battalion of five hundred men, and an excess presented themselves for enlistment. When the enemy reached the country west of the Delaware, New Jersey received many refugees who had been driven out from their homes, while her wealthy citizens bore a large part of the expense in raising troops to defend the western border. It is said that one thousand were sent from the colony after the surrender of Castle William, on the southern shore of Lake George, and three thousand more were put in readiness to march should occasion require. During 1758, 1759 and 1760 the colony kept her complement full of one thousand men in the field, and in 1761—62 six hundred, besides a company of sixty-four for garrison duty during the latter year. The annual expense of this military establishment is represented at forty thousand pounds?**
We are not allowed to suppose that any considerable proportion of these troops came from the Camden vicinage, or even that old Gloucester County was largely represented in the ranks. A hundred and thirty years ago Southern and Western Jersey was too sparsely populated to be of great value as a recruiting ground; and, moreover, more than half the people were Friends and forbidden by their religious principles to engage in warfare. In and around Haddonfield linger traditions of the departure of a small squad or two, to join the forces at the front, but the very names of these volunteers have perished, and if any of them distinguished themselves in the combat against the French and their savage allies, they have passed to the roll of unsung heroes.
* One of the scanty references to this epoch is contained in Wickes’ "History of Medicine in New Jersey," which says: "we date a positive advance in medicine in New Jersey from the French and English war.... New Jersey raised a complement of 1000 men, built barracks at Burlington, Trenton, New Brunswick, Amboy and Elizabethtown, each for the accommodation of 300 men. It maintained this complement for the years 1758, ‘59 and ‘60, and in the two succeeding years furnished 600, besides men and officers for garrison duty. These popular measures furnished the school much needed for training a soldiery to be available for the defence of American liberty a decade afterward, and for the training of medical men no less. The physicians who were commissioned as surgeons and surgeons’ mates, being brought into association with the British officers, were led to know their inferiority, and were stimulated to improve their opportunities of practice and of intercourse with their more cultivated compeers."
** Cushing’s "History of Gloucester County." Mulford’s History says: "New Jersey had raised, at different periods, near £300,000, and for a great part of the time had maintained a force of 1000 men, besides particular bodies for special services."
SOURCE: Page(s) 35-36, History of Camden County, New Jersey, by George R. Prowell, L.J. Richards & Co. 1886
Published 2010 by the Camden County Genealogy Project