May 21,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Hackensack NJ, At 10 am on Memorial Day, Monday, May 28, 2018, the Bergen County Historical Society honors the veterans of all wars with a wreath-laying at the grave of General Enoch Poor in the burial ground of the First Dutch Reformed Church on the Green, 42 Court Street, Hackensack, NJ 07601. Excerpts from chaplain Israel Evans’ graveside funeral oration will be read at the ceremony, followed by a tour of the historic cemetery and Church on the Green!
Brigadier-General Enoch Poor, of New Hampshire, died at 44 years of age from either typhus fever or diptheria on September 8, 1780, while about 14,000 Continental troops were encamped on “a high Ridge of land in a place called Steenrapie,” the old name for the high ground extending from northern River Edge through Emerson. The main cantonment was situated between River Edge Avenue in River Edge to the vicinity of Soldier Hill Road, where Oradell, Emerson and Paramus intersect. While encamped at Steenrapie between September 4 and 20, 1780, the Continental army lost no fewer than twenty-three soldiers to disease. General Poor’s body was brought from “Paramus” to the Brower House on Main Street, River Edge, where it was placed in a mahogany coffin for burial in the churchyard of the Dutch Reformed Church-on-the-Green in Hackensack on September 10, 1780. Six generals served as pallbearers while officers of the New Hampshire Brigade followed the coffin, together with officers of the new light-infantry brigade, which General Lafayette assigned to General Poor’s command shortly before his death. General George Washington, who made headquarters in the Zabriskie-Steuben House at New Bridge, marched with other generals in the funeral procession. On July 14, 1825, General Lafayette stopped at General Poor’s grave in Hackensack on his return tour of the United States as the Nation’s Guest and last living Major General of the American Revolution.
Monday, May 28 at 10 AM – 11 AM
Next Week · 64–79° Rain Showers
First Reformed Dutch Church, Hackensack
42 Court St, Hackensack, New Jersey 07601