FOUR and a half years as New Yorkers had been enough. In the spring of 1843, William A. Whitehead and his wife Margaret brought with them over the Hudson their home’s furnishings and inhabitants—including William’s 66-year-old mother, a daughter aged seven, a boy six years old and an infant son of six months—to claim residency once more in their native state.
The family settled into a spacious dwelling between the Upper and Lower Commons of Newark, the city of William’s birth. After life in a crowded Greenwich Village townhouse, their new home seemed an Elysium: the property had a long frontage on Broad Street, and extended back almost to the Passaic River. “A fine play-ground was thus afforded the children,” recalled their father with pleasure. The Whiteheads shared these premises with Margaret’s younger, unmarried brother, already a prominent attorney and eventual owner of the house.1
As the children grew into their surroundings, William Whitehead turned his new situation to good account. His research to date had shown how the “local histories and narrations … whence the general historian must draw his facts” were distinctly wanting for New Jersey: compared with neighboring jurisdictions the state had done “but little towards enlightening her own annals.” Long “struck with the paucity of the original materials existing among us,” Whitehead now undertook to lobby Jersey officials to address the perilous condition of the state’s documentary heritage, of which he believed every surviving instance should be brought to light, in whatever state or nation it might be found.2
Twenty miles to Newark’s south, the picturesque colonial capital whose remnants had first ignited his passion for the state’s past, and the site of William and Margaret’s early acquaintance, courtship and marriage, marked in this year of new beginnings a solemn ending. That July, St. Peter’s Church in Perth Amboy tolled the funeral knell for one of its oldest, most stalwart congregants, an aged witness and largely inconspicuous contributor to the region’s history. He had shared a birthday with George III, and grew to adulthood as one of the King’s loyal subjects. His fidelity to the Crown, tested by the convulsions of the Revolution, proved steadfast to a point, but he died at age 86 a “highly esteemed and venerable” citizen of the republic. Uncle Bell, as he was widely known, had long before turned his allegiance over to Uncle Sam.3
Andrew Bell was born in Philadelphia, the younger of ex-army officer John Bell’s two children, and lived a part of his youth on the family estate of Bellfield, in the New Jersey township of Bridgewater. When the colony declared its independence, Andrew Bell was nineteen, reading law in the Perth Amboy office of Cortlandt Skinner, attorney general of the province. Whereas his fellow student Joseph Bloomfield chose the path of rebellion, accepting a commission in the Continental Army, the outbreak of war drove Bell with many others into exile in British-held New York. In December 1776, he was named confidential secretary to the eventual commander in chief of the King’s forces in America, Sir Henry Clinton, a prestigious appointment of which he proudly wrote home to the family at Bellfield.4
Bell was with the royal army in Philadelphia until its evacuation of the city, and in a journal of the June 1778 march across New Jersey he recorded the attendant raids and skirmishes that culminated in the Battle of Monmouth. This one-sided account of British bravery and successes also includes a partial tally of the losses: “The weather”—a brutal early summer heat wave—having “destroyed more than the action.” The diary’s concluding entry conveys Bell’s “infinite joy” at being granted leave to return to New York, “which makes this by far the happiest day of any in the March….”5 He was to live there until after the war, enjoying the company of friends, and in 1782 he was married to Susannah Moore, a slightly older widow.
Andrew Bell’s service to the Crown made him legally an enemy of the new government in the Jerseys, which confiscated and sold his Bellfield inheritance as Tory property. Yet he responded warmly to word of his sister Cornelia’s marriage to rebel leader William Paterson, the state’s first attorney general. Paterson for his part, although harsh in his prosecution of the state’s Loyalists, displayed considerable indulgence to his exiled brother-in-law. Cornelia’s letters, which document several unsuccessful attempts to reunite with Andrew, exemplify the anxieties and heartbreak of the many families whose members found themselves on opposing sides in the conflict.6
At his sister’s repeated urging, Andrew had his portrait done in miniature; on its receipt, she admired “the striking likeness it bears to the beloved original.”7 Regrettably, neither the miniature nor any other image of Bell is known to survive. We have descriptions of him only much later in life, such as Cornelia’s grandson’s portrayal of
a man of courtly appearance and manners, very affable and kind, and on that account a great favorite with young people, of sanguineous temperament and complexion, of average height, and inclined to corpulency; hospitable and fond of company, quick to anger, but without a particle of malice.8
After the war, Bell considered joining the Loyalist exodus from the United States. He applied unsuccessfully for a position in the British army, then for a grant of land in Nova Scotia, and even contemplated seeking his fortune in England. But instead he settled in Perth Amboy, taking a pew in the restored St. Peter’s Church and a central place in the small city’s even smaller social élite. Local ambivalence at the break with Great Britain helped to ensure that his Loyalist past would be easily forgiven or forgotten.9
Bell entered fearlessly the rough and tumble of local political life. Nominated but passed over for collector of the port, then postmaster, he was at last named collector under the Adams administration, only to be turned out after a year when the national government changed hands. Having little need of the emoluments of office, Bell was above all protective of his “political character—which as things are, is of as much consequence as one’s private one,” declaring (but privately) that “there does not exist a more zealous Federalist in America, nor one more attached to her Interests and happiness than myself.”10
Regardless of war or politics, a key to the Bells’ domestic economy, as to that of many, was slavery. Andrew Bell might have inherited a larger pool of unfree labor, but for the Revolution: when Bellfield was confiscated, just one slave was there to be sold. Yet his reliance on the practice was continuous, if unexceptional. William Dunlap, who recalled that only one pre-war Amboy household was “free from the stain and the curse” of it,11 confided to his diary what ensued in 1797, after Andrew Bell removed a child from its mother (whether to sell it or hire it out is unknown): “the Mother by her cries has made the town re-echo & has continued her exclamations for 2 hours incessantly & still continues them. I am sick, at oppression,” Dunlap wrote. Twenty years later, Bell could comfortably offer a “negro man for sale” in the pages of a New Brunswick paper.12
Far more than from chattel slavery, however, Andrew Bell’s wealth and influence derived from real estate: buying it, selling it, and facilitating its buying and selling by others. From 1790 onwards, Bell had a seat on the East Jersey Board of Proprietors, where he assumed an outsize role in the land business, registering hundreds of deeds for parcels large and small, from the state’s rugged north to its coastal lowlands. Capitalizing on his residence in Perth Amboy, where the Board was headquartered, Bell became de facto surveyor general even before he was officially named to the post. Once appointed, he would hold the title for nearly four decades. Mainly through his exertions, these became the “golden years” of the East Jersey Board.13
In advance of the 1823 launch of Perth Amboy’s Commercial Bank, the father of William A. Whitehead moved from Newark to take up the cashier’s position, thus entering the orbit of Andrew Bell, one of the incorporators of the new bank.14 As William was a lad of only 13, it would be surprising to learn that he had conversed at all about colonial or revolutionary days with Bell, then past his 65th birthday. Once the younger man began to explore historical figures and events, the older man was old indeed. And Uncle Bell was not one to draw attention to himself, or to his past.
But judging from the correspondence of James Chapman, the rector of his church, the aging and often ailing Andrew Bell was a prodigious buyer and reader of books, especially biographies. Chapman obtained for him lives of Jay, whose treaty with Great Britain “saved our country from destruction,” Hamilton, of whom he was “a warm admirer,” and William Livingston, New Jersey’s revolutionary governor. Bell also requested a life of Patrick Henry as a gift for his great nephew. “You will think that he has now surmounted all his ancient prejudices,” Chapman ventured, “and has become as good a republican as ourselves.” In fact, Bell remained “very sensitive when reminded of revolutionary days,” even a half century after the events.15
Although it was not the sort of biography he favored, Bell subscribed for three copies of William Dunlap’s History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States. He lined up fourteen subscribers for the same author’s History of the American Theatre (more out of charity, according to Chapman, than a liking for the work). Bell in Perth Amboy, Dunlap in New York, and young Whitehead, who corresponded frequently with Dunlap and attended him during his final illness, seem to have constituted a kind of irregular triangle: the junior historian’s friendship with the senior gave him access to the reminiscences of elderly Andrew Bell.16
At least one detail, described in Dunlap’s history of New York, hints strongly at such interchanges: this was an order, following Benedict Arnold’s open defection to the British side, for his possible replacement and arrest, should there be cause to doubt his trustworthiness. The “gentleman of the most unblemished character, now far advanced in years,” who had copied and delivered this “dormant commission” was none other than young Andrew Bell in his role as Clinton’s confidential secretary. Whitehead, having learned of this particular from Dunlap, but knowing Bell to be “one who avoided notoriety,” elected to reveal the gentleman’s identity only after his death.17
In what William A. Whitehead knew as “public history,” represented by those popular, published chronicles that were sometimes more artful than accurate, the “touches of character, hints at manners, customs, and habits, references to places and people” that featured in unofficial, private narratives might not be deemed worthy of inclusion. But he insisted that they were crucial to the work of the historian, for “who would properly understand the whole must first master the minutiæ that compose it,” illuminating as they do the many obscurities of past events and associations.
With these words Whitehead embraced Isaac D’Israeli’s doctrine that “the combination of secret with public history has in itself a perfection, which each taken separately has not.”18 Surely Andrew Bell’s personal testimony, his “secret history,” even obtained at second hand, would be as valuable as any to one seeking to comprehend the era through which he lived.
Copyright © 2026 Gregory J. Guderian
Last revised 2026.05.01
[1] In April 1843 the Whiteheads gave up their dwelling at 12 Grove Street in New York City (for this house see my earlier post 047–Moving Day), and for the next three years occupied a Newark residence on the northeast corner of Fulton and Broad Streets. It stood on a lot that extended about 168 feet along Broad Street and 308 feet back from Broad on Fulton. Portions of the land along Fulton Street were later sold off and built upon. Margaret’s brother Cortlandt Parker, who purchased the remainder in 1851, altered and expanded the house, where he lived until his death in 1907. “Childhood and youth of W. A. Whitehead 1810–1830,” Florida Keys History Center, Monroe County Library, Key West, Florida, transcription, pages 47-48; “Cortlandt Parker House a century old,” Newark (N.J.) Sunday call 30 April 1911 3:12:2.
[2] G. P., “Grahame and Bancroft, on the early history of East Jersey. No. I,” Newark (N.J.) daily advertiser 12 March 1840 2:4; W. A. Whitehead, New York 7 May 1841, to Jared Sparks, Jared Sparks Letterbooks, MS Sparks 153, Box 40, Houghton Library, Harvard College Library. On the campaign to secure state support for locating and cataloguing records of colonial New Jersey, see my earlier posts 049–Try, try again and 056–Our man in London.
[3] William A. Whitehead, Contributions to the early history of Perth Amboy and adjoining country, with sketches of men and events in New Jersey during the provincial era (New York 1856; hereafter “Whitehead, Contributions”) 106. For a short sketch of Bell, see W. Northey Jones, The history of St. Peter’s Church in Perth Amboy New Jersey. The oldest congregation of the Church in the state of New Jersey ([New York] 1924) 201-203; for another, using records in London of the wartime proceedings against Bell and his postwar Loyalist claims, see E. Alfred Jones, “The Loyalists of New Jersey in the Revolution [part 2 of 6],” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society n.s. 11:2 (April 1926) (213-262) 219-221; E. Alfred Jones, The Loyalists of New Jersey. Their memorials, petitions, claims, etc. from English records (Collections of the New Jersey Historical Society, 10. Newark 1927. Hereafter “Jones, Loyalists”) 25-26.
[4] Bell’s first letter to Bellfield since fleeing to New York, dated 12 December, informed his sister Cornelia of the appointment. Cornelia replied, “I am extremely rejoic’d to know your situation is so advantageous and agreeable to you for believe me nothing in this World could add more to my happiness than the knowledge of yours.” Cornelia Bell, Bellfield 30 January 1777, to Andrew Bell, Andrew Bell papers, 1777–1838, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (hereafter “Andrew Bell papers, LC”); text in J. Lawrence Boggs, “The Cornelia (Bell) Paterson letters [part 1 of 3],” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society n.s. 15:4 (October 1930) (508-517) 510-511.
[5] “Diary from Philadelphia–the march of the British Army across the Jersies–and Battle of Monmouth, A. B. 1778,” Manuscript Group 45, Andrew Bell Papers 1745–1866, New Jersey Historical Society, Box 1/1; printed in A. Bell Paterson, ed. “Copy of a journal, by Andrew Bell, Esq., at one time Confidential Secretary of General Sir Henry Clinton. Kept during the march of the British Army through New-Jersey, in 1778,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society [ser. 1] 6:1 (1851) (15-19) 18.
[6] See inter alia William Paterson, New Ark 17 March 1779, to Mrs. (Cornelia) Paterson, Letters to Cornelia Bell later Mrs. Paterson, 1777–1782, William Paterson papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress; Cornelia Paterson, Union 5 April 1779 and Rariton 12 September 1779, to Andrew Bell, Andrew Bell papers, LC; texts in J. Lawrence Boggs, “The Cornelia (Bell) Paterson letters [part 2 of 3],” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society n.s. 16:1 (January 1931) (56-67; hereafter “Boggs, ‘Letters [part 2 of 3]’”) 57, 58-59, 60.
[7] C. P., Rariton 26 August 1780, to Andrew Bell, in Boggs, “Letters [part 2 of 3]” 64.
[8] James Parker, comp. Historical sketches of parishes represented in the conventions of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New Jersey, 1785–1816, and biographical notices of lay-delegates in those years (New York 1889) 83. Margaret Whitehead’s brother recalled Bell in similar terms: “He was an embodiment of kindness, hospitality and good will; a scholar, a charitable, excellent old man, understanding fully the duty of minding his own business and letting other people’s alone. … A stout, middle-sized man, with an exceedingly florid complexion and the whitest of hair, wearing always his gold-headed cane, and zealously attending the ancient Episcopal Church of St. Peter’s, of which he was for thirty-three years a Warden, gathering up its contributions every Sunday. No one, I think, who ever saw him can forget the face and form of Andrew Bell.” Cortlandt Parker, “Historical address,” Bi-centennial celebration of the Board of American Proprietors of East New Jersey. At Perth Amboy, Tuesday, November 25, 1884 (Newark 1885) (7-43) 35-36.
[9] Through an agent, Bell filed an affidavit for land in Nova Scotia but it’s not clear that he ever lived there, despite assertions to that effect. See Jones, Loyalists 25-26, and cf. A. Van Doren Honeyman, “Concerning the New Jersey Loyalists in the Revolution,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 51:2 (April 1933) (117-133) 132 (where an incorrect age at death is given), and William J. Chute, “The New Jersey Whig campaign of 1840,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 77:4 (October 1959) (223-239) 231.
[10] Andrew Bell, Perth Amboy 23 December 1794, to John Rutherfurd, Manuscript Group 7, New Jersey Manuscript Collection, 1669–1840, New Jersey Historical Society, IV:69. Bell regretted that his appointment as collector “should be made a subject of Abuse against our worthy President, and would most willingly have relinquished it, rather than afford his Enemies a pretext for their Calumny.” Andrew Bell, Perth Amboy 1 May 1800, to John Rutherfurd, Manuscript Group 7, New Jersey Manuscript Collection, 1669–1840, New Jersey Historical Society, IV:72. According to the rector of St. Peter’s, Andrew Bell was an ardent Jacksonian later in life; see James Chapman, Perth Amboy 7 April 1836, to Thomas N. Stanford, Thomas Naylor Stanford Papers, MC 608, Special Collections and University Archives, Alexander Library, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J. (hereafter “Thomas Naylor Stanford Papers”).
[11] William Dunlap, A history of the American theatre (New-York 1832) 234. On the home of Thomas Bartow, see my earlier post 009–Progress and place.
[12] Diary of William Dunlap (1766–1839). The memoirs of a dramatist, theatrical manager, painter, critic, novelist, and historian (3 vols. Collections of the New-York Historical Society, 62-64. New York 1930. Hereafter “Diary of William Dunlap”) 1:118, entry of 29 July 1797; invoice for advertisement, David Fitz Randolph to Andrew Bell, dated 27 March 1817, paid 16 November 1821, Manuscript Group 23, William Nelson Manuscript Collection, 1690–1875, New Jersey Historical Society, Box 1/28.
[13] For the first four years of Andrew Bell’s membership on the Board of Proprietors, he also represented fellow proprietor Aaron Burr. Thirty years later, when the former vice president was considering buying James Parker’s Perth Amboy home, the rector of St. Peter’s reported that Bell “who holds the memory of Hamilton in the highest veneration will not be much gratified with the presence of B[urr]!” James Chapman, Perth Amboy 12 March 1834, to Thomas N. Stanford, Thomas Naylor Stanford Papers. For Bell’s activities and influence as a Board member and surveyor general, see John T. Cunningham, The east of Jersey. A history of the General Board of Proprietors of the Eastern Division of New Jersey (Newark 1992) 141-148.
[14] Bell was one of the original nine directors of the Commercial Bank of New Jersey. For the beginnings of this institution see my earlier post 004–Birth of a bank.
[15] James Chapman, Perth Amboy 29 May 1833, 19 April, 24 May and 26 June 1834, to Thomas N. Stanford, Thomas Naylor Stanford Papers.
[16] Diary of William Dunlap 3:851, entry of 31 December 1834; James Chapman, Perth Amboy 9 February 1833, to Thomas N. Stanford, Thomas Naylor Stanford Papers. Dunlap recorded anecdotes of artist John Watson related by Bell during a visit to Perth Amboy in the summer of 1833, and receipt of letters from Bell and Whitehead on the same day: Diary of William Dunlap 3: 726, 766, entries of 6 August and 28 December 1833; cf. Whitehead, Contributions 294 n6.
[17] The existence of a “dormant commission” to relieve and arrest Arnold, “a fact … yet unknown to the world,” was revealed in William Dunlap, A history of New York, for schools (2 vols. New York 1837) 2:242. Whitehead’s identification of Bell as the “gentleman …, now far advanced in years,” was first made in “A Journal of the Operations of the Queen’s Rangers,” Newark daily advertiser 19 December 1843 2:1. A scrapbook of Whitehead’s includes this anonymous review of Simcoe’s military journal. A history of the operations of a partisan corps, called the Queen’s Rangers, commanded by Lieut. Col. J. G. Simcoe, during the war of the American Revolution (New-York 1844): Manuscript Group 1494, Scrapbook Collection, SB 10, New Jersey Historical Society, 45.
[18] I. D’Israeli, “True sources of secret history,” A second series of curiosities of literature: consisting of researches in literary, biographical, and political history; of critical and philosophical inquiries; and of secret history (3 vols. London 18231) 3:(210-239) 210.
Images: 1) View: H. L. (Henry L.) Stellwagen, “Perth Amboy, New Jersey.” Frick Digital Collections, Frick Art Research Library. 2) Signature: Andrew Bell, New York 29 July 1777, to Cornelia Bell. Andrew Bell papers, 1777–1838, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. 3) Bell-Paterson Mansion: private collection. 4) William Dunlap, Self-portrait, ca. 1825. Dale T. Johnson Fund, 2004. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.