On April 13,1777, Lord Charles Cornwallis led 4,000 British Crown troops in an attack on a small American garrison of about 500 commanded by General Benjamin Lincoln in Bound Brook. In the surprise attack, an advance column led by Hessian Jaeger scouts fighting for the British were pinned down by Colonial soldiers who put up a spirited resistance at the Old Stone Arch Bridge located near the Queens’ Bridge. The Colonials soon retreated to the safety of the Watchung Mountains, but returned to the area in May to establish a large encampment in Martinsville, called First Middlebrook.
