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The Continental troops including Lt. Col. Burr and his soldiers wintered at Valley Forge.
The Bergen County courthouse moved from Hackensack to The Ponds (Oakland).
Gen. Henry Clinton replaced Gen. William Howe as British commander in Philadelphia in mid-spring. Clinton decided to evacuate Philadelphia in order to again concentrate the British forces in New York City.
When the British marched north through New Jersey, Washington had the Continentals cross the Delaware River and also move into this state. The two armies met in a hard fought battle at Monmouth Courthouse (near Freehold) on June 28. There were many casualties on both sides, but neither army was destroyed.
The British continued on to New York City by way of Sandy Hook.
The Continental Army marched to New Brunswick, the Great Falls of the Passaic (Paterson) and to Paramus and Hopperstown (Ho-Ho-Kus). They encamped there for several days. Washington accepted the invitation of Theodosia Prevost to make The Hermitage his headquarters, July 11-14.
The Continentals then proceeded by way of Saddle River, Kakiat (Rockland County), Haverstraw, and across the Hudson River to White Plains.
There were New York militiamen in the Clove (north of Suffern) during a rather quiet summer.
British troops moved into Bergen County to forage in late September - at New Bridge, Schraalenburgh (Bergenfield), Teaneck, and the English Neighborhood (Leonia).
At this time Col. George Baylor and the 3rd Continental Virginia Dragoons were in Paramus. They moved to Overkill (River Vale). There they were attacked and massacred by the British on September 28. The British continued north to Tappan.
Two North Carolina regiments were posted at Ramapaugh (north of Suffern) in November. By December they had moved to Paramus for the winter.
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After a British detachment surprised and destroyed much of Col. Baylor’s Virginia Light Horse regiment at Overkill in September 1778, residents of that area wrote Gov. George Clinton pleading for more protection:
The enemy...on Monday the 29th ulto. made their appearance at Tappan with a large body commanded by Cornwallis in person, and after butchering in a most inhuman manner a number of Light Horse, they turned their cruelties to women and old men, whom they treated with every kind of brutality their perfidiousness could invent. (4 GC 170. 171)
Theodosia Prevost offered Hermitage as headquarters to Washington on July 11, 1778 as Continentals move from Battle of Monmouth north to protect the Highlands. Washington accepted and stays for four days.
Theodosia visited relatives in New York City on sloop commanded by Lt. Col. Aaron Burr who was transporting Loyalists there under a white flag in August 1778.
Letters from James Monroe sent to Theodosia in fall 1778.
Burr recuperated from battle fatigue at The Hermitage in fall 1778.
Burr, together with New Jersey Attorney General William Paterson, supported Theodosia’s efforts to ward off confiscation of The Hermitage by New Jersey officials.
