25 March 2009

Hillsborough's Raiders?

Maybe this question is coming 40 years too late, but I still have to ask it: Why are Hillsborough High School's sports teams called the Raiders? Does anyone know the origin? Because it seems a little odd.

Not that the name doesn't make sense, in a strange sort of way, but...

The most famous "raiders" in the history of Hillsborough Township were on the wrong side!

It was in October 1779 that Colonel John Simcoe and his band of Tories made a daring raid on the village of Millstone, burning the Somerset County Courthouse to the ground and destroying or damaging several other key buildings.

Simcoe's raid was probably the most daring escapade of that type by either side during the whole of the American Revolution. Lord Hillsborough, King George's Secretary of the American Colonies during this period, must have been pleased, or perhaps conflicted, as his namesake township burned.

Hillsborough's Raiders? Indeed.

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