Revolutionary Bergen County by Barbara Z. Marchant

Author:Barbara Z. Marchant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

One of the nineteen prisoners who shared a cramped cell with John Fell was the celebrated Ethan Allen. In A Narrative of Col. Ethan Allen’s Captivity, Allen recounted Fell’s imprisonment, albeit with a bit of embroidery:

The stench of the gaol, which was very loathsome and unhealthy, occasioned a hoarseness of the lungs which proved fatal to many who were there confined, and reduced this gentleman [John Fell] near to the point of death; he was, indeed, given over by his friends who were about him, and he himself concluded he must die.

I could not endure the thought that so worthy a friend to America should have his life stolen from him in such a mean, base and scandalous manner, and that his family and friends should be bereaved of so great and desirable a blessing as his further care, usefulness and example might prove to them.

I therefore wrote a letter to General Robertson…There is so extraordinary a circumstance which intervened concerning this letter that it is worth noticing. Previous to sending it I exhibited the same to the gentleman on whose behalf it was written, for his approbation, and he forbid me to send it in the most positive and explicit terms; the reason he gave was that the enemy knew, by every morning’s report, the condition of all the prisoners, his in particular he said, as he had been gradually coming to his end for a considerable time, and they very well knew it, and likewise determined it should be accomplished, as they had served many others; that to ask a favor would give the merciless enemy occasion to triumph over him in his last moments and therefore he would ask no favors from them, but had resigned himself to his fate.

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