Cumberland County in the Revolution

Patriot sentiment predominated, though it was by no means unanimous, in Cumberland County. Clear lines began to be drawn after the Boston Tea Party of December 1773. By December of the following year (1774) Greenwich was ready for its own "Tea Party" (its own reaction to British tea). The boxes stored in the town for later shipment to Philadelphia, were seized and burned on Market Square. This was the only act of violence against British authority in New Jersey prior to the Revolution.

Philip Vickers Fithian, Greenwich resident, College of New Jersey graduate, and would-be Presbyterian minister, kept a journal from 1766 to 1776, which narrated those stormy days. He witnessed a similar tea burning in the town of Annapolis, Maryland, though he never admitted being one of the Greenwich tea burners.

During the winter of 1775-1776, after hostilities had begun in Massachusetts, the "Plain Dealer", a hand written news sheet appeared in Potter's Tavern, Bridgeton (pictured above), submitted by the young lawyers of the county seat. Among the articles of local news and gossip were several stories, serious and comic, which dealt with the choices Americans had to make of loyalty to Britain, adherence to the Patriot cause, or neutrality.