On August 24th, 1779, General Lafayette and his troops marched on a
foraging expedition from near Fort Lee to Bergen. On the morning of the
25th they arrived at the brow of the Hill and encamped about the large,
old tulip tree, known as "oude Boom" to the early settlers and as the
"King of the Woods" to those of later date. The locality is now known
as Waldo avenue, between Henry street and Magnolia avenue. The tree
was cut down December 20th, 1871. Lafayette's headquarters were at the
Van Wagenen place on the northwest corner of Academy street and Bergen
square. Mr. Taylor states, "in the orchard on the old parsonage site
on northwest side of Square," where he entertained at dinner General
Washington who came over from Hackensack. The dinner was cooked in the
Van Wagenen weave-house and eaten under an apple tree. This tree was
blown down in a gale on September 3d, 1821, and from a portion of it
was made a very handsome cane, gold mounted and with this inscription,
"Shaded the hero and his friend Washington in 1779; presented by the
Corporation of Bergen in 1824." When Lafayette visited America in
1824, when he was on his way from Jersey City to Newark, there was a
gathering of all the people of this vicinity to meet him at Riker's
Tavern, Five Corners, which is still standing on the southwest corner
of Newark and Summit avenues. Upon this occasion Domine Cornelison
presented him with the cane, making a very appropriate address.
The farmers living near Guttenburgh during the Revolutionary War were
ostensibly neutral, as the roads were often traversed by the soldiers
of both parties. Stories are told of the bare and bleeding feet of the
Americans cut by the sharp rocks, and many traditions of interest are
connected with different places in that locality; notably with the old
homestead known as the "Lake property." The story of one tragedy with a
touch of the absurd, should be preserved. One bitter cold night in the
winter of 1777-78, after all of the family in the old stone farm-house
on the Lake property, except the good haus-frau, had retired to their
beds, while she was still busy in the kitchen arranging her earthenware
jars of milk before the wide fire-place preparatory to the morrow's
churning, she was startled by the entrance of a party of English scouts
who had come over from New York and attracted by the firelight shining
through the wide kitchen window, had stopped to warm and rest awhile,
leaving their horses tied to the trees. While they were enjoying
the spirits in their flasks and the comfort of the fire, a party of
American scouts that had come down the Hudson to reconnoiter, came
along and seeing the tethered horses outside and the group of redcoats
within, opened fire upon them through the window, killing them all.
In the melee the milk jars were broken and the milk mingled with the
blood of the dead scouts covering the floor. The old lady was terribly
frightened, but her new guests came in and carried out the dead, and as
the ground was frozen hard, buried them under the deep snow at some
distance from the house; then they brought water from the well and
asking for brooms scrubbed up the floor, and brought in fresh piles of
wood and building up a great fire made themselves comfortable until
daylight. Before leaving they made up a little fund to compensate their
hostess for her broken jars and wasted milk.