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The Church at Caldwell, New Jersey: British

The British called him the "Fighting Chaplain," and he was cordially hated because of his zeal for the cause of the patriots. His life was always in danger, and ACROSS THE JERSEYS WITH PATRIOTS 121 when he was able to spend a Sunday with his congregation he would preach with his cavalry pistols on the pulpit, while sentinels were stationed at the doors to give warning.

The enmity of the British led to the burning of the chaplain's church, and the murder, a few months later, of Mrs. Caldwell. While she was sitting in a rear room at the house at Connecticutt Farms, where she had been sent for safety, surrounded by her children, a soldier thrust his musket through the window and fired at her.

Mr. Caldwell survived the war, in spite of the efforts of the British to capture him, only to be murdered on November 24, 1781, by a Continental soldier who was thought to have been bribed by those whose enmity the chaplain had earned during the conflict.

The Elizabeth Town congregation succeeded in rebuilding their church five years after it was destroyed, but the delayed Caldwell church building was not ready for its occupants until 1795. The timbers for the church were hewed in the forest where the trees were felled and were drawn by oxen to the site selected. Forty men worked several days to raise the frame. Lime was made from sea shells, which were hauled from Bergen, and then burned in a kiln erected near the church lot.

The interior of the building was plain. The pulpit, "about the size of a hogshead," was built on a single pillar, against the wall; above this was a sounding board. The windows had neither blinds nor curtains, and nothing was painted but the pulpit. The backs of the pews were exactly perpendicular. Provision was made regularly for the purchase of sand to freshen the floors. This building was burned in 1872.