This is a photo of a pin I found in my yard in about 1960 while digging in my garden. It shows the New Jersey state emblem with the date 1776 in the center and Bellvale, New Jersey in the blue area around the edges. Since I started researching Bellvale I found that there had been many conflicts over the border between NY and NJ. In an excellent article by Henry Pelton in the Warwick Historic Papers on page 32, Mr Pelton states: " that the Old Jersey Claim Line appears to have crossed Sterling Lake, leaving Greenwood Lake entirely in New Jersey, passed somewhere between the residences of W.F. Wheeler(now the Peach Grove Inn) and B. B. Sayer(stone house on RT.17A opposite Hickory Hill Park entrance). According to this description Bellvale was North of the line and was not part of New Jersey. However, according to a map created by Theodore R. Miller in 1964, the boundary claimed by New Jersey prior to 1773 was further north and would have included Bellvale and Warwick as part of New Jersey. It states on the map that " Much of the town and village of Warwick was claimed by Jersey from 1676 to 1773. So therin lies the puzzle-if the date on the pin is 1776 or after then Bellvale would have been part of New York, so why does it say Bellvale, NJ? If anyone has any more insight about this please,

Here is a map(about 1755-1761)showing the furthest southern limit claimed by NY and the northern most line claimed by NJ. Both lines are highlighted in red to make them more visible. As you can see there was a lot of land involved so the fued was pretty intense and long standing. For a description of some of the incidents read the following

Read about the New York / New Jersey Border War