It Happened in Hillsborough: Theodore Frelinghuysen

One of the largest political assemblies in New Jersey';s history took place in the tiny hamlet of Millstone
in Hillsborough Township in the first week of August 1844.  The occasion was the annual convention of
the New Jersey Whig Party, and the wholehearted endorsement of the Whigs' presidential and
vice-presidential candidates.

Theodore Frelinghuysen

The enthusiastic response may have had something to do with the fact that the Whigs' candidate for
vice president was former United States Senator and Hillsborough native, Theodore Frelinghuysen. He
was born in the village of Millstone in 1787 and enjoyed a long career as a lawyer, New Jersey Attorney
General, Mayor of Newark, and US Senator, before being elected president of New York University in
1839.

The New York Tribune reported, courtesy of one of their affiliated newspapers, that by 11 o'clock in the
morning, 782 wagons had already passed over the Millstone River Bridge, and by the time festivities
began at 1 pm, there were 4,005 wagons in the village!  It was estimated that more than 20,000
residents of Somerset County and the surrounding areas came out that afternoon to show support for
the candidates. Delegations from Essex and Middlesex Counties arrived in schooners and sloops by way
of the Delaware and Raritan Canal with "their thousand banners floating in the breeze, strains of vocal
and instrumental music swelling in the air, and all the regalia of a triumphant and victorious army."

Alas, it seems the two national candidates were not present that day, but there were many speeches
given by distinguished Whigs, most denouncing the ambitions of the " utterly " Loco-Focos." 

Frelinghuysen had made his name as a deeply religious and moral figure. In fact, he was put on the A 
ticket to balance presidential candidate Henry Clay’s reputation for indulging in gambling, drinking, and
women! Perhaps Frelinghuysen’s greatest moment of moral clarity came during his memorable six-hour
filibuster on the Senate floor against the Indian Removal Act in 1830 – a speech that was later
celebrated in a poem by William Lloyd Garrison.

Clay and Frelinghuysen ended up losing the popular vote by 38,000, out of 2.7 million votes cast. In the
electoral college, third-party anti-slavery candidate James G. Birney pulled enough votes away from the
Whigs to swing New York’s decisive 36 votes to Democrat James K. Polk, the nation’s first true dark
horse candidate, giving him a 170-105 electoral college win.

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Gregory Gillette has been writing about local history for 20 years, starting with his Courier News column
“Gillette on Hillsborough” and continuing today with a Facebook page of the same name. He was named
as Hillsborough’s first Local Historian in 2025.