A patriot, a tavern and a Continental Congress

PAUL LIGETI WEST WINdSOR ChRONICLES

The Historical Society of West Windsor—a 100 percent volunteer nonprofit that preserves and promotes local history—explores the life of Jacob G. Bergen—one of West Windsor’s founders, a former owner of the building now called “Grovers Mill,” a Revolutionary War soldier, and a prolific innkeeper—one of whose taverns was a headquarters of the United States Continental Congress and thus, temporarily, the Capitol of the United States.

Mill owner, soldier and tavern keeper

Jacob G. Bergen was born in 1745 to George Bergen and Maria Probasco in Windsor Township—the predecessor of West Windsor, which contained all of present-day West Windsor, East Windsor, Hightstown and Robbinsville, as well as all of Princeton southeast of Nassau Street and slivers of Millstone and Monroe townships.

In 1771, Bergen purchased a grist mill at the intersection of Cranbury/ Clarksville Roads. This building, whose water wheel turned with the flow of the adjacent Bear Brook, had been built prior to 1760 and ground grain into flour.

It still stands (as apartments) as a bluegrey building at 164 Cranbury Rd. in the historic community of Grovers Mill—but back then, it was called “Bergen’s Mill.” Jacob was the first of several Bergen family members who owned the mill until 1816.

In 1777, during the American Revolution, Bergen was listed as a lieutenant in the Somerset County militia, stationed around Princeton.

The same decade, he ran two inns in Princeton called The College and The Confederation (the reader can guess where his allegiance lay).

Apparently, he was popular and wellconnected (as many tavern-keepers often were). A petition circulated in the 1770s to have the village of Princeton formally organize as a township and establish itself as an independent entity that would host government meetings in Bergen’s tavern.

This petition did not succeed (Princeton didn’t become a township until 1838), but it demonstrates a fact of colonial American life: the ubiquity of holding government meetings in taverns—a theme throughout Bergen’s life.

Bergen and the Continental Congress

Bergen’s influence, however, wasn’t confined to Princeton. In 1780, he announced in the New Jersey Gazette newspaper that he had set up shop in a 1730s-era “public house” (inn/tavern) known as the Thirteen Stars—one of Trenton’s largest buildings, especially after Bergen added a third story. During Bergen’s time there, New Jersey’s House of the General assembly met in the attic of the building—portending a much higher profile to come.

In 1782, an advertisement appeared in Philadelphia’s Independent Gazetteer newspapers proclaiming that Bergen had “removed from Prince-Town… to the Sign of the Bunch of Grapes,” in Third-Street, Philadelphia.”

This inn, however, did not serve Bergen for long: in 1783 he returned to the Thirteen Stars in Trenton, which was by then renamed the French Arms.

Bergen, by this point, must have had some political clout—on Aug. 31, 1784, he signed a memorandum of agreement with representatives of the United States Continental Congress for the use of the French Arms as the headquarters of the Continental Congress of the United States of America.

In anticipation, the building’s “long room” was refurnished to serve as the assembly hall; its ceilings whitewashed, the walls repapered, and the floor re-carpeted. In this room, the Continental Congress met from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24, 1784. It was also here, on December 11, that Lafayette—the legendary Frenchman and Revolutionary War hero—gave his farewell address before returning to France.

Bergen and West Windsor

So, how does this story relate to West Windsor (beyond Grovers Mill)? Well, presumably after he left Trenton, Bergen maintained a tavern back in Princeton from at least the mid-1780s to the early 1790s. However, by 1795, he had moved to (what is now) the West Windsor area, presumably to live with his family and that of his wife—Elizabeth Covenhoven.

That year, he purchased a small building at the crossroads of South Mill

Jacob Bergen’s French Arms tavern (left) in Trenton, once stood at the intersection of West State and South Warren Streets. It was demolished in 1837. At right is the historic house in Dutch Neck that was once Jacob Bergen’s final tavern and the meeting site of West Windsor’s government for many years, starting in 1797, the year of the town’s formation.”

Road and Village Roads East & West in the historic village of Dutch Neck. This structure seems to have been established as an inn around 1784 by a man named Elisha Cook. Sometime prior to 1795, it was acquired by three men named Robert Hancock, John Harper, and William Shaw. However, the building was forcibly seized by the High Sheriff of Middlesex County in 1794 and auctioned off to pay significant debts they owed.

Moreover, two of them—Robert

Hancock and William Shaw—were in a lot more trouble, as they were indicted that very year in Lancaster, PA, for being part of a counterfeiting ring (albeit it’s unknown if they conducted their counterfeiting in Dutch Neck or elsewhere). They and most of their co-conspirators were fined $300 each and sentenced to fifteen to sixteen years in prison.

Bergen placed the successful bid for Hancock’s/Harper’s/Shaw’s Dutch Neck inn in 1795. After Windsor Township split into West Windsor and East Windsor in 1797, Jacob Bergen’s inn in Dutch Neck was set as the meeting location for West Windsor’s nascent government. There, the election of our town’s first officials would take place, along with nearly every town meeting until 1808 and many more afterward.

Bergen ’s Legacy

Bergen died in 1805, but his wife, Elizabeth owned the Dutch Neck inn for