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Washington wintered a large portion of his troops at New Windsor (just north of West Point). Pennsylvania troops were stationed at Morristown and New Jersey troops at Pompton.
In January the Pennsylvania and the New Jersey troops mutinied because of poor living conditions. Both uprisings were quelled. In the latter case Washington sent troops from West Point to Pompton where they succeeded in restoring order
In March Loyalists attacked Closter and were driven off by local militiamen.
In another engagement a British contingent sailed to Moonachie Point just south of Hackensack and they were routed by a local militia
Loyalists rebuilt Fort Lee. After a number of attempts, several American militia units cooperated in taking this fortification.
Washington and French officers and military parties crossed and recrossed Bergen County during the summer appraising possibilities for an attack on New York City. When they learned that the French fleet was planning to sail to Chesapeake Bay to blockade the British army of Gen. Charles Cornwallis in Virginia, Washington and the French decided to support this effort by moving their armies to Virginia.
The allied armies crossed the Hudson at Kings Ferry and marched to Suffern. The patriots then proceeded south by way of Ramapaugh (Mahwah), Ramsey, Paramus, New Brunswick and Princeton. The French went down Valley Road to the The Ponds, Pompton, Morristown and met the Americans at Princeton. They then both proceeded to Virginia and to the decisive Battle of Yorktown.
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In May
1781 some 100 Tories from New York City started to build a blockhouse at Fort
Lee for their raids into Bergen County. Then several hundred rebels under the
command of Col. Theunis Dey and Maj. John Goetschius attacked the Tories.
A rebel later wrote that:
there were several skirmishes...a considerable number wounded and taken prisoners on both sides till at last we dislodged them (Affidavit of John A. Haring, Pension Records, S6980).
The hostilities continued in Bergen County until the very end of the war. It was reported that in late winter 1783 a company of patriot soldiers were marching to English Neighborhood (Leonia), and not expecting to meet with an enemy, as peace was expected and it was thought that hostilities had ceased, was fired upon by a party of the British refugees and Tories, who lay in ambush, but fortunately all escaped unhurt but one man who was wounded in the knee and taken prisoner. (Affidavit of John I. Blauvelt, Pension Records, W20721)
Lt. Col. James Marcus Prevost died of wounds in an engagement in Jamaica in fall 1781.
Aaron Burr obtained his law license in New York in January 1782 and set up a law office in Albany.
On a visit to The Hermitage in early summer 1782 Aaron Burr and Theodosia Prevost decided to marry. They did so at The Hermitage on July 2, 1782.
The newly-married couple left The Hermitage for Albany and later for New York City and for a prominent role in the legal and political affairs of the new American nation.
