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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
SPRINGFIELD, 6.1 miles. (100 alt., 3,600 pop.), a quiet residential was the center of important Revolutionary fighting on June 23, 1780; a good part of the battle took place along the main street of the village. The white-shingled FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (R) had an honorable part in it. When the Revolutionaries ran short of gun wadding Rev. James Caldwell, Elizabeth pastor and chaplain of Colonel Dayton's New Jersey regiment, broke open the church doors and seized an armful of Watts' hymnbooks. The preacher threw them to the soldiers and shouted, "Give 'em Watts, boys-give 'em Watts!" Caldwell's wife, Hannah, had been killed two weeks before in the battle that razed Connecticut Farms. The Tories scornfully called him the "high priest of the Revolution," but to the patriots he was known as the "fighting parson." A marker commemorates Parson Caldwell's Revolutionary initiative. On the church lawn is the statue of a militiaman with the inscription: "Of what avail the plow or sail or land or life if Freedom fail!"
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