A 32-pound piece of cheese. Eight pounds of tea. Two gold rings. Even the brass locks from the doors.
They were among dozens of items the Rev. Theodore "Dirck" Romeyn said British and Hessian troops took from his Bergen County home during the Revolutionary War.
As British forces moved through Bergen County after the fall of Fort Lee, Romeyn also fled with his sick wife and 8-year-old daughter, taking them from Schraalenburgh to New Paltz, New York. They left with "nothing of our property, but a [riding] chair and Horse and the cloathes [sic] we had on our bodies," he later wrote.
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Romeyn's six-page inventory of stolen goods included hay, grain, cows, furniture, bed linens, curtains, dishes, cookware, clothing, books and much of the family's food. A full page was devoted to books, including religious and political works, according to historian Maxine N. Lurie's examination of the claim.
Romeyn continued traveling back to Bergen County to preach, narrowly escaping capture during a British raid on Hackensack in 1780. When he completed the inventory on Dec. 5, 1782, appraisers valued his losses at 387 pounds, 11 shillings and 7 pence. Using New Jersey's prewar exchange rate and a consumer-price inflation measure, that is roughly equivalent to $43,000 in 2025 dollars.
Romeyn's account is one of Bergen County's surviving Revolutionary War damage claims in the New Jersey State Archives. The statewide index contains 2,662 claims involving 7,435 names, documenting property that residents said was taken or destroyed by British troops and their supporters, the Continental Army and militia units.
Bergen County's British-loss volumes cover the old townships of Franklin, Saddle River, Harington, Hackensack and New Barbadoes. Separate American-loss volumes survive for Hackensack, Harington, Franklin and Saddle River.
Many of the claims document what happened after Nov. 20, 1776, when British and Hessian troops landed along the Palisades north of Fort Lee.
Three local Loyalists guided the troops up the Palisades, according to the Bergen County Historical Society. Joseph Hawkins was from Weehawken, and John Aldington and Isaac Perkins lived near Fort Lee. Continental troops had already taken over Aldington's newly built brewery for use as a storehouse.
As Washington's army abandoned Fort Lee and retreated across Bergen County, the British followed into a countryside filled with livestock, grain, hay, horses and wagons. They also captured military supplies abandoned at the fort.
In letters written during the retreat, Washington said the Americans had been forced to leave behind hundreds of barrels of flour, most of the fort's cannon and a substantial quantity of tents and baggage.
In a Nov. 21 letter to Maj. Gen. Charles Lee, Washington described the countryside being left to the British as "a very fine Country open to their Ravages, or a plentiful Store House" from which they could draw supplies.
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Eva Counover reported four visits by British foragers to her Hackensack Township farm during the war, says historian Blake McGready's analysis of the claims. In November 1776 alone, she said, they took nine cattle, four horses, 34 sheep, 25 bushels of buckwheat and 120 panels of fencing.
Revolutionary War researcher Jason R. Wickersty counted 54 civilian wagons, sleds, sleighs and other vehicles taken or damaged in Bergen County in 1776 alone. He also found that a British shipment of wagons and 950 draft and cavalry horses left for New York that year, but more than 40% of the horses died during the 16-week Atlantic crossing.
Wooden fencing appears repeatedly in the claims as well.
The late Rutgers geographer Peter O. Wacker identified 105 reports of damaged wooden fencing in Bergen County and adjoining Dutch-settled areas of Essex County from 1776 through 1782. Of those, 103 involved post-and-rail fences. Wacker noted that fencing was a substantial investment on an 18th-century farm and wrote that troops commonly burned the rails because they provided readily available seasoned wood.
Continental troops were taking civilian property, too.
That had become a problem even before the retreat from Fort Lee. Washington complained to Congress in September 1776 that soldiers were taking horses and other private property, with farmers repeatedly coming to him to report the losses. A month later, as the army struggled to obtain cattle and other provisions, he warned that continued shortages could lead to "Mutiny and plunder."
Some of the Bergen claims followed within weeks.
Henry Traphangen of Franklin Township reported that Continental troops took a new Dutch saddle and a new English saddle in November 1776. In his claim, Traphangen swore that he had received no "Satisfaction or Restitution" for either.
In what is now Hillsdale, Peter A. Westervelt reported losing a new "Indian blanket," a beehive and bees, 100 pounds of rye flour, sole leather, a dressed calfskin, two pigs and a sheep to Continental troops in 1776.
His losses were appraised at 5 pounds, 2 shillings and 6 pence, or about $570 in 2025 dollars.
Nearby, Garret Durie, a farmer and blacksmith, said Continental troops took a horse, four beehives, nine sheep, two calves, a bull and a great coat in November, according to inventories reproduced by Hillsdale historian Howard I. Durie.
Two houses connected to the claims still stand in Hillsdale.
Durie's sandstone house, built in 1767, remains at 156 Ell Road. The Westervelt-Demarest House on Hillsdale Avenue, built in 1756, stood on Westervelt's farm during the Revolution.
Both men reported additional losses later in the war. Westervelt said British troops took two horses, a pair of new shoes and an iron pot in 1782. Durie filed additional claims for property taken by both American and British forces.
The damage books divide the losses into British and American volumes. Bergen County itself was far less easily divided.
In July 1777, Gov. William Livingston told Washington that state authorities hoped to bring the "almost totally revolted County of Bergen" back under American control. Days earlier, Livingston had ordered militia into the county to arrest suspected Loyalists and help seize the property of residents who had joined the British.
Bergen County Historical Society researchers have identified 134 Loyalist properties that were eventually confiscated there, more than in any other New Jersey county.
The fighting, raids and seizures of civilian property continued for years. The claims from Westervelt and Durie alone stretch from Washington's 1776 retreat into the final years of the war, with losses blamed at different times on both American and British troops.
On Dec. 20, 1781, the Legislature authorized county appraisers to document what residents had lost. Claimants identified the property, when it was lost and which troops were responsible. Appraisers valued the losses using 1775 prices, with witnesses supporting the accounts.
Enslaved people also appear in the State Archives database as property claimed lost by slaveholders, including some who escaped during the war. Many were recorded without a surname or with no name at all.
Some inventories were not completed until 1786.
The state never approved compensation for Romeyn or the other claimants.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: 1776 list shows items stolen from Bergen homes by troops in Revolution