The 1782 Murder of Cornelius Nefie

In the closing days of the American Revolution, the southern portion of Bergen County known as Bergen Neck (modern Hudson County) was still occupied by Loyalist inhabitants and Crown troops. As so many had throughout the war, inhabitants of the county clandestinely traded and sold goods in British-held New York City.

On a hot summer’s day in 1782, one of those inhabitants, Cornelius Nefie, a known Loyalist, was set upon, robbed and murdered by a group of black woodcutter/soldiers under the command of Major Thomas Ward, the major of the Refugee corps entrenched at Bergen Point. Was it simply a case of outlaw highwaymen seeking ill-gotten gain, or was there more to the story?