Raid on the River: The Seizure at Elizabethtown Point – January 1776

The wind off the bay howled bitter through the marshes of Elizabethtown Point that January, but the men huddled in their small boats paid it no mind. They had taken oaths, most without ink or ceremony, and what they lacked in uniform they made up for in fury. The British had anchored a transport vessel just off Staten Island, swollen with cargo—arms, powder, boots, wool, and shot—supplies meant to stamp out the rebellion before it ever caught fire.

But in the dark waters of New York Harbor, rebellion already stirred.

Among the leaders of this clandestine raid were officers of New Jersey’s embryonic military effort, including those soon to become giants: Colonel Elias Dayton, already known for his cool resolve, and young Matthias Ogden, restless, brilliant, and unafraid to tempt death with mischief.

They had watched the British ship for days—counted the tides, charted the patrols, measured the silence between cannon watches. Then, under cover of night around January 23 or 24, 1776, the patriots struck.

Using flatboats and fishing craft, the rebels rowed silently across the bay, boarding the British transport before alarm could be raised. The crew was overwhelmed, their orders shouted in confusion, cut short by musket barrels and bayonets pressed into red-coated ribs. The ship was theirs—not burned, not sunk, but claimed like a trophy of Neptune and hauled toward the rebel shore.

At Elizabethtown Point, watchmen on the docks could scarce believe the sight as the captured vessel was dragged toward the flats, its British ensign hastily torn down. By morning, the ship lay nestled in the mud, and militiamen from Union and Essex Counties—some barely 16, others scarred from earlier skirmishes—unloaded her like plundered treasure. Casks of powder, crates of shot, and bundles of military clothing were spirited inland, into the rebel supply chain stretching toward Newark and Morristown.

Colonel Dayton, who was helping to organize New Jersey’s Continental regiments under Washington’s authority, saw to the division of goods with measured haste. Young Ogden, whose fire would carry him through Quebec, Brandywine, and Springfield, reportedly took part in the planning and execution of the raid—a rehearsal for bolder actions to come.

The British never reclaimed the vessel. By the time they sent scouts to investigate, she had been gutted, grounded, and stripped of her worth. The mud at Elizabethtown held her bones like a monument to rebel audacity.

The raid echoed like a shot across the midwinter gloom. For New Jersey’s patriots—many still unsure whether the cause would hold—it was proof that the King’s grip could be pried loose, that even in the shadow of Empire, a handful of rebels in small boats could cut off a hand that reached too far.

It was one of the first real maritime seizures of the war from New Jersey soil, and it set the tone for the months to follow: New Jersey would not be cowed. Elizabethtown Point would not be silent. And the war would not be won by grand armies alone—but by daring acts at the margins, by farmers with muskets, and by officers who knew how to strike when the tide turned.