Watsessing by any other name

General Orders

Head-Quarters Peramus [N.J.] Sabbath July 12th 1778.

Parole Bridgewater—C. Signs Bergen. Bristol.

At a General Court Martial in the Right Wing of the Army at Watersisson1 July 9th 1778—Lieutt Coll Meade President, Captain Lipscomb, Acting Quarter-Master General to the Division commanded by Majr General Baron de Steuben, tried for treating the General in a disrespectful manner.

After considering the Charge and Evidence the Court are unanimously of opinion that Captain Lipscomb is not guilty of the Charge exhibited against him and do acquit him with honor.

The General approves the sentence; He is willing to believe that Captain Lipscomb did not intend that disrespect to Baron de Steuben, which the Baron apprehended, at the same time he must observe that there was an Impropiety in Captain Lipscomb’s taking quarters in a house destined for the General commanding the Division.

At the same Court Lieutt West of Coll Angell’s Regiment was tried for plundering the property of Mrs Golf in the Month of December A.D. 1776. found guilty of the Charge exhibited against him and sentenced to be discharged from the service2—The Commander in Chief confirms the sentence, and orders it to take place immediately.

The Commander in Chief directs that no sick be left on this ground but that they be all carried to King’s-Ferry—Spare Waggons are to be provided for such as cannot be conveyed on the Baggage Waggons.

The Post-Office will in future on a march move and remain with the Park.

Varick transcript, DLC:GW.

1. Wardsesson (Watsessing) in Essex County, N.J., was given its modern name of Bloomfield in 1796.


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Also, from "Rev. Charles Knox History" 1884, at the First Baptist Site:

BLOOMFIELD took its name, in 1796, from Gen. Joseph Bloomfield, afterwards Governor and chancellor of New Jersey. Local names had become attached previously to separate settlements during the slow growth of a hundred years. "Second River" was designated by the Newark Town Council as a district of Newark in 1743—44 for that portion of the late Bloomfield now known as Belleville. "Cranetown became a popular name for the western portion towards the mountains at about the same early time "Watseson Plain" and "Wattseson Hill" were the hill and the plain in the southern part. "Newtown" was applied to the straggling settlement eastwards well down the present Belleville Avenue. The "Morris Plantation" had drifted into "Morris’s Mill" or the "Morris Neighborhood." The "Stone House Plain" for the northern end appears as early as 1695. "Crab Orchard," as colloquial for land then covered by crab-apple trees north of the old church, and "Hopewell" as an invention of the young men for the same region, had died a natural death.

If a native name was to be selected, Wataeson or Watsesing should have been chosen. This Indian name is said to meancrooked or elbow-like, and to have been applied to Third River, the principal stream of the present town, which is very crooked throughout its course, and which makes a large elbow near the centre of the town.

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The Declaration of Independence, it is said, was first read in this region at the school-house on Watsessing Hill.

There were two campaigns of the Revolution which touched this region,— the retreat of Washington through New Jersey in 1776, and the attempts of the British on Washington’s position at Morristown through Connecticut Farms and Springfield, in 1780.

When, after the battle on Long Island, in September, 1776, Washington’s army retreated across the Hudson to Acquackanonck, and then fell down to Newark, Newark as a township is no doubt meant. The army in rapid retreat marched, no doubt, on parallel roads, and the old road over Watsessing Hill and Plain was probably one of these roads. The tradition is that when Washington came to the Joseph Davis house he found it occupied by Gen. Knox and sick soldiers, and refused to displace them in order to make it his quarters. It is quite likely that he went on over the hill, and took temporary quarters at the Moses Farrand house. When the army swept on to Newark village, and a detachment moved through Orange, both portions of the army pursued by the enemy, the people fled over the mountains and into Stone House Plains.