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Little-Known Facts from New Jersey in History: Fighting to be Heard
• The colony’s first Royal Governor, a cousin of Queen Anne, would often dress in ladies’ gowns and lurk behind trees, ready to pounce on passing men and pull their ears. Its last Royal Governor, the son of Benjamin Franklin, remained loyal to the Crown — and, in so doing, ended his relationship with his father.
• Far from Boston, Revolutionary residents of South Jersey had their own tea party in Greenwich, one of the region’s major shipping ports.
• Contrary to most reports, the last skirmish of the American Revolution did not take place in West Virginia or South Carolina, but in Barnegat Township.
• A New Jerseyan could have voted against slavery and prevented the Civil War.
• Perth Amboy was once the center of a thriving slave trade — until one man from Burlington County decided to end “the dark gloominess hanging over the land.”
• A New Jerseyan, William Paterson, invented the U.S. Senate — and saved the United States in the process.
• The ideas of two Ocean County men, Joseph Francis and William Newell, formed the foundation for the United States Coast Guard.
Copyright © 1998 Down The Shore Publishing Corp. All rights reserved
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