USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > New Hope > Coryell's Ferry (now New Hope, Bucks county, Pennsylvania) in the revolution; an address delivered before Fort Washington chapter, Daughters of the American revolution. May 21st, 1915 > Part 1
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02232 3049
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SONS OF THE REVOLUT
CORYELL'S FERRY"
(NOW NEW HOPE, BUCKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.)
IN THE REVOLUTION
An Address delivered before Fort Washington Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. May 21ST, 1915.
BY OLIVER RANDOLPH PARRY LARGELY TAKEN FROM THAT BY RICHARD RANDOLPH PARRY DELIVERED. JUNE 15th 1907.
. THE . FANWOOD . PRESS . ·1915.
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Fort Washington Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, Mrs. Thomas Hugh Boorman, Regent; Officers and Guests, May 21st, 1915. Guests of Honor, Mrs. Wi liam Cumming Story, President General, Chaplain Edmund Banks Smith, D.D., of Governor's Island, N. Y., and Oliver Randolph Parry, S. R., of Pennsylvania.
'PITTDAT ACH -- - -- ...
"CORYELL'S FERRY IN THE REVOLUTION."
An Address delivered before the Fort Washington Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, by Oliver Randolph Parry, at Isham Mansion, Isham Park, 211th Street, New York City, N. Y., on May 21st, 1915.
President, General, Regents and members of the Fort Wash- ington Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution : The speaker is indeed honored at being asked to deliver an address before your Society, near spots as historical as the Battles of "Fort Washington," and of "Fort Lee," fought over one hundred and thirty-eight years ago, and not far distant from the headquarters of the then Commander-in-Chief of the American Army of the Revolution, and subsequently the First President of this our glorious country. There is also a matter of personal sentiment in the address, about to be de- livered, as it has been largely taken from that delivered by the speaker's father before the Pennsylvania Society Sons of the Revolution, at "Coryell's Ferry," Pa., on June 15th, 1907, the occasion of their annual pilgrimage.
To students of American History and the period of the Revolutionary War, this ground, as well as " Coryell's Ferry," is indeed most familiar, and is interwoven with that great struggle which culminated in the independence of the colonies. and the permanent establishment of this our glorious country. At "Fort Washington" and " Coryell's Ferry," the ancestors of many of you here to-day, no doubt under far different and most trying circumstances, anxiously awaited, often doubtingly, the development and consummation of the warlike plans and designs with which both places were closely connected and formed a part of one hundred and thirty-eight years ago.
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You are all familiar with the Battle of "Fort Washington" and the events leading up to and immediately following, which were so ably noted in the address at your recent Anniversary Meeting, by Rev. Wm. Montague Geer, S.T.D., therefore I will confine this address to consideration of some of those events, pertaining particularly to "Coryell's Ferry" (now New Hope, Bucks Co., Pa.) of the Revolution.
"Coryell's Ferry," the best ferry on the Delaware River, north of Trenton, and located on the main line of travel from Philadelphia to East Jersey and New York, became at the commencement of hostilities at once an important strategic point of value to the American and British armies, both of which, on several occasions, were most desirous to hold and control it, and especially was this so just prior to the "Battle of Trenton," when, upon Lord Cornwallis's army failing to effect a crossing of the Delaware into Pennsylvania, at Trenton, a considerable detachment of troops was sent sixteen miles further up the river, to make the attempt at "Coryell's Ferry," and which attempt doubtless would have been successful but for the wisdom and foresight of General Washington, who, notwithstand- ing the condition of the river, and foreseeing just such a contingency, had planned against it, and thus defeated the designs of the British commander. To better realize this, however, we must go backward somewhat in memory to the 20th of November, 1776, when Washington, having evacuated "Fort Lee" yonder on the Hudson River, and retreating before Lord Cornwallis's troops through New Jersey, arrived, on the 3d day of December, at the Eastern bank of the Delaware River, to find boats and floats ready to convey the American Army to Pennsylvania on the other side. All these had been secured by and through the activity of two patriotic young men, named Jerry Black and
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Captain (afterwards General) Daniel Bray, to whom, acting under military orders, and to their correct knowledge of every boat and boat owner from Trenton to Easton, General Washing- ton was to be, several weeks later, further indebted for the larger fleet procured, which ferried the Continental troops over the river just above the present Taylorsville, at the point now world famous as "Washington's Crossing." The celebrated painting of this perilous venture and crossing, and the many engravings and prints made from it since, are to be seen almost everywhere, in shop windows and private houses.
Cornwallis, leisurely following our army through New Jersey, doubtless felt confident of its capture or destruction at this critical period. With the turbulent waters of the Delaware in front of the Continentals, and (as he supposed) no transpor- tation or ferriage to carry them over, with an overwhelming force of trained regular troops in their rear, it appeared that the war then and there might come to an untimely end, for the raw army he considered but little more than a rebellious mob.
All attempts of the British, however, to enter Pennsylvania either at Trenton or "Coryell's Ferry," having failed, the two hostile armies remained facing each other, on opposite sides of the river, from the eighth to the twenty-fifth of December, 1776, and the cause of independence was saved, as history states. Lord Cornwallis (who could never have dreamed of a battle at Trenton), seemed to feel sure of his prey, having, no doubt, bright visions float through his mind of our army marching on to its annihilation, and but little reckoned the true picture the camera revealed when turned on the scene of his own troops, defeated and broken, many wounded and killed, stores, arms and cannon surrendered, and all that went to make glorious the battle and victory at Trenton. Many circumstances make it
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appear not unlikely at this period that Cornwallis believed Washington would be forced to surrender his army on reaching the banks of the Delaware, at Trenton, and the war be of short duration, nor dreamed of his own sun setting at York- town long after. How different from this situation results might have been had the British succeeded in entering Pennsylvania at "Coryell's Ferry," we can now only imagine, and, with grateful hearts, be thankful.
So sure was Cornwallis of the defeat of Washington at this juncture, that it has been stated he had obtained leave of ab- sence to return to England, and that his luggage was packed and ready for shipment, when a dispatch rider from Count Donop informed him of the Trenton disaster; and here it may be interesting to note that the house in which the Hessian commander, Colonel Rahl, died of his wounds, stood on the site of the present Roman Catholic Cathedral, on Warren Street, Trenton, on which is a tablet, reciting the fact, erected by the Cathedral corporation.
It has been the popular belief that General Washington never was wounded, but an original letter found in an old trunk in Virginia, during the Civil War, would indicate differently, and that he must have been (at least slightly) wounded in the Battle of Trenton. A copy of this letter was published in the Doyles- town (Bucks County), Pa., Democrat of May 19th, 1899. It is from Colonel William Palfrey, at Newtown, Pennsylvania, fifth of January, 1777, and is addressed to Henry Jackson, Esq., Boston, Mass., per Captain Goodrich, and is as follows : " Doctor Edwards writes from Trenton that General Washington is slightly wounded, and General Mercer is missing," etc., etc .*
* The original of the above noted letter now hangs upon the walls of the Bucks County Historical Society at Doylestown, Pa., deposited by W. W. H. Davis-Deceased.
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New Hope, on the Delaware ("Coryell's Ferry") has much to make it interesting. The site of the borough was a part of a grant of one thousand acres to Robert Heath in A.D. 1700; surveyed in 1703 and 1704, and patented to R. Heath in A.D. 1710. " The Old York Road " was opened from Philadelphia to the Delaware in 1711, and in 1719 John Wells was granted by the Pennsylvania Assembly the privilege, for seven years, of establishing a ferry at New Hope, which then became known as "Wells' Ferry," later being termed "Coryell's Ferry," for George Coryell, who was the owner of half the ferry rights on the New Jersey side. All these rights and privileges are now (1915) vested in the New Hope Delaware Bridge Company, organized in 1811, chartered by Pennsylvania and New Jersey in 1812, and now one hundred and three years old. The grant of the ferry rights to John Wells expired in 1733, when John Penn, Thomas Penn and Richard Penn, Proprietors of the Province of Pennsylvania, granted Wells further rights and privileges, among which was the excluding and prohibiting of all other fer- ries within a distance of four miles above and below Wells' Ferry. The latter grant is recorded in Philadelphia, August Ioth, 1733, in Patent Book " A," Vol. 6, Page 185, etc., and certified to by C. D. Brockden, Recorder.
The ferry rights on the New Jersey side of the river were granted in 1733, by King George the Second, to Emmanuel Cor- yell, of Amwell, in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, and were to operate a ferry, at a place called " Coates Ferry," New Jersey, opposite " Wells Ferry," on the Pennsylvania side, and exclud- ing any other person or persons from operating a ferry at this point. Both Wells and Coryell kept inns, or taverns, near their ferry landings.
As "Wells' Ferry " the settlement was known down to 1770,
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when it was changed to "Coryell's Ferry," as previously stat- ed; and this name it bore until towards the close of the eight- eenth century, as a letter (still existent) to Benjamin Parry, addressed "Coryell's Ferry," and dated the 6th of July, A.D. 1787, is in the possession of the speaker's father ; and in 1810 it was described as New Hope, lately "Coryell's Ferry." An ancient private map of New Hope, made for Benjamin Parry, bears in colors as follows : "Map of New Hope, 1798." The change was made probably about A.D. 1790, and for reasons noted later on.
Amid the present quiet and peaceful surroundings about us to-day, it is difficult to realize that at several periods of the Re- volution the whole section around Coryell's Ferry was bristling with arms and the tramp and tread of armed men, as our patriot sires advanced into, or were driven out of New Jersey, and that during most of the month of December, 1776 (just prior to the battle of Trenton), a large portion of the Continental Army were there and in close proximity. Within the limits of that ancient borough the eye rested everywhere upon the valley, hillside and fields, dotted with the tents of the Continental soldiers, and " Coryell's Ferry" became a military camp. Within ten minutes' ride, below New Hope, at the Neeley (Thompson) farmhouse, were quartered Lieut. James Monroe, aftewards President of the United States, and other officers, including Captain James Moore, of the New York Artillery, who died there of camp fever and lies buried on the farm with a number of others, including several officers whose graves are unmarked. Nearby, at "Chapman's," were General Knox and Captain Alexander Hamilton (killed later on by Aaron Burr in their memorable duel). At " Merrick's" farmhouse were General Greene and his staff, and. the General (especially fond of good cheer) de-
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voured the poultry, etc., on the farm, to the horror and dismay of the family ; while a few fields away General Sullivan and staff occupied the " Hayhurst " home.
General Washington's headquarters were at the "Keith" house and farm, on the road from Brownsburgh (below New Hope) towards Newton ; and Generals Stirling and De Fermoy, with their troops, at "Beaumont's" and "Coryell's Ferry." These officers were all in close touch with each other, all watch- ing and waiting, eager and anxious to bear their part in the bloody engagement, which they well knew was near at hand.
President Monroe never forgot his friends at the Thompson (Neeley) farmhouse, where he had stayed in 1776, and always inquired about them whenever opportunity offered.
Captain James Moore, who died at the "Neeley " (Thomp- son) farmhouse, lies buried on the farm, with other officers, as stated. Their graves are enclosed within an iron fence. Out- side of this enclosure are a number of other graves, some with rude headstones set up and some without., There are at least eleven that are discernible to this day, and the speaker, in his youth, recalls having counted possibly as many as thirty un- marked graves outside, the latter evidently being of private soldiers. The tombstones of Captain Moore are the original ones, and are thus marked : "To ye memory of Captain James . Moore of Ve New York Artillery, Son of Benjamin and Cornelia Moore, of New York. He died December ye 25th, A.D. 1776, aged 24 years and eight months." The headstone is much de- faced from chippings by relic hunters. These graves are close to the bank of the Delaware River, east of the canal. At Doyles- town, in the rooms of the Bucks County Historical Society, there is a photograph of Captain Moore's grave, and my father has a print of it from a newspaper.
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The account comes handed down to us, as family history, that under "The Old Washington Tree," in New Hope, which stood for one hundred and fifty years on the estate of the Paxon family (cousins of the speaker), of " Maple Grove," in a field opposite General De Fermoy's and Lord Stirling's headquarters (and known as "The Old Fort "), General Washington and his trusted Generals, Knox, Stirling, Sullivan and Greene, first talked over, and first outlined, a plan for the Battle of Trenton ; and from the time of the Revolution to November 28th, 1893, when it was cut down (to make room for improvements), it was always known and spoken of as "The Old Washington Tree," from this circumstance. Incidentally, the speaker has numerous newspaper clippings of the time, denouncing its destruction.
We are also informed, from the same source, that under the shade of this wide-spreading chestnut tree, General Washington and his staff stopped at noon for refreshments, in 1778, when his army crossed the Delaware, on its road to attack the British under General Clinton at Monmouth, New Jersey.
In "Davis's History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania" (Revis- ed Edition), it is stated that in the spring of 1778 General Washington, believing that the banks of the Delaware River would again become the scene of conflict (in an attempt of the British to reach Philadelphia), appointed General Benedict Arnold, the traitor, to the command of the river, when "Cor- yell's Ferry" was again, for the second time, placed in a state of security, as were also the other fords and crossings of the Delaware.
From Philadelphia and Branchtown to New Hope, on the Dela- ware, the whole line of the historic "Old York Road" connect- ing Philadelphia with New York, speaks to us in clarion notes of these stirring and eventful days, ever singing the song of the
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THE OLD PARRY MANSION. Now Hore. IA.,
6.RECTED FOR BENS PARRY, A. D. 1704.
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Revolution. At Branchtown, we are reminded of the Battle of Germantown nearby, three American soldiers (part of a picket guard) being killed there in a skirmish with the British, and were buried upon what afterwards became the estate of the artist Russell Smith, who had their graves designated by headstones. At Hatboro, called the "Crooked Billet," in 1776 and later, was fought what is known as the " Battle of the Crooked Billet," on May Ist, 1778, when General Lacey, a Bucks County man, fought a strong detachment of British infantry and cavalry under Major (subsequently General) Simcoe unsuccessfully, and was almost surrounded and hardly escaped capture himself. A tall marble shaft at the north end of Hatboro, a few feet off the Old York Road, to the right (looking toward New Hope), commemorates this engagement, which was had, by order of General Howe, whose troops had been much harassed in Bucks County by Lacey's soldiers for some time previous. At Harts- ville, on the Neshaminy, one-half mile from the present village of Hartsville, Bucks County, Washington had his headquarters at a farmhouse, in which both the young Marquis de Lafayette and Count Pulaski reported for military duty. At Centerville we find "Bogart's Tavern" still standing, as in Revolutionary days, when the Bucks County Committee of Safety held its frequent meetings there. It was also General Greene's head- ·quarters at one time.
At Buckingham, as the lifelong friend of the speaker's father, General W. W. H. Davis, deceased, informs us : "The Friends' Meeting House was used as a hospital during a portion of the. Revolutionary War, and several soldiers were buried about where the turnpike crosses the hill, some of whose remains were uncovered when the pike was made. On Meeting days the sol- diers put one-half of the house in order for Friends, many of
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them attending the services. Blood stains may still be seen upon the floor.
" Paxon's Corner " (now Aquetong) also has its connection with the days of the Revolution, for here some of the American soldiers stayed over-night, at the home of the then owner, Ben- jamin Paxon ; one of the soldiers leaving his camp-mug behind in the morning, which is still preserved in the Paxon family, who still own the property one hundred and thirty-nine years later, and known as " Rolling Green."
When the soldiers were leaving, a good marksman shot off a branch at the very top of a tree, in front of this house on the Old York Road, and the disfigurement was plainly to be seen until very recent years.
New Hope, on the Delaware ("Coryell's Ferry" of the Re- volution), the termination of the Old York Road of Penn- sylvania, at the Delaware River, was, as before noted, a most im- portant strategic point during the first few years of the Revolu- tionary War, and in December, 1776, became a military camp.
General William Alexander (more commonly known as Lord Stirling), who, although he bore a title, was none the less an ar- dent American, and intensely patriotic, caused two different parts of the property owned by the speaker's family to be placed in a state of armed defense. One of these was on a hillside across the pond made by the Great Spring or Ingham's Creek ; and in its southwesterly direction from the Old Parry Mansion there, from a point easterly from where the yellow schoolhouse now stands, he had a line of earthworks thrown up, which extended in an easterly direction along and well up the hillside, towards the Delaware River. The outline of these earthworks could be quite plainly seen and traced, within my earliest recollection, but have now disappeared. At the river's brink (the termina-
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tion of the "Old York Road" in Pennsylvania), just below, the ferry landing, and also a part of this property (purchased from the Todds), stockade entrenchments were erected, and batteries were placed ; as was also the case above the ferry landing, some distance along the river front. General Alexander (Lord Stirling) also had another redoubt thrown up on the Old York Road-at the corner of Ferry Street and the present Bridge Street (which latter street did not, however, then exist) -a little southeasterly of where the " Old Washington Tree," cut down November 28th, 1893, then stood. The site of this defense is easily recognized, being where the present Presbyterian chapel and an ancient stone house (both on the south side of the Old York Road) now stand. This stone house was once owned by Captain Edward F. Randolph, a " patriot of 1776" and citizen of Philadelphia, who purchased it for his son, Charles, then a practicing physician in New Hope. Captain Randolph, as first lieutenant in Colonel William Butler's Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment, Continental Army, commanded the outlying picket guard at "The Massacre of Paoli," where he was desperately wounded and left upon the field for dead, escaping by the merest chance. A sightless eye in its socket was one of the mementos of that affair, which he carried with him through life. His portrait hangs upon the walls of the Historical Society of Penn- sylvania in Philadelphia, and his biography appears in " Lives of Eminent Philadelphians, Deceased," published over fifty-six years ago (1859). His sword is still in existence, and among the treasured possessions of his great-grandson, Evan Randolph, of Philadelphia. An old silver spoon, used by him in camp, and marked with his initial and crest, has come handed down to the writer's father. A fuller notice of this Revolutionary patriot has been prepared in an appendix to this paper.
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At Malta Island, at the southern end of New Hope, and which is now main land, but was, in 1776, surrounded by water and covered by timber, the most of the boats were collected and secreted and floated down by night to Knowles Cove, above Taylorville, and were used in making the famous "Washing- ton's Crossing of the Delaware," on Christmas night and morning of 1776.
At "Malta Island" these boats were watched over and protected by a military guard. " Malta Island" was at one time owned by the late Daniel Parry, a younger brother of Benjamin Parry, for whom the "Old Parry Mansion" was built in A.D. 1784 ; and here it may not perhaps be inappropriate to mention that among many interesting events connected with this house was the unusual circumstance of a grandchild of its present owner, Richard Randolph Parry, having been born in one of its chambers in A.D. 1901, in the same room in which her great- grandfather, Oliver Parry, was born A.D. 1794, one hundred and seven years before, it being the same house in which her great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Parry, lived and died, five generations earlier, and this important young lady (Margaret K. Parry) is the daughter of the speaker.
The importance of "Coryell's Ferry" in the Revolution can easily be realized and appreciated when we know the great care and attention which General Washington gave to it, and how very necessary its possession was to the American cause at several periods of the war. Its defences in 1776 were so well planned that it would have been most difficult for the British to have captured it ; for, even if their troops could have effected a landing at the Ferry, the firing by the American square in their faces, down the Old York Road (the only approach) at the stone house mentioned, and a raking "side fire from the hillside across
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Necty House, Near New Hope, Pat.
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the pond, would have caused them great slaughter before they could have accomplished their purpose. It is much to be regret- ted that the old name of "Coryell's Ferry" should ever have been dropped. "Fort Washington," "Fort Lee," "King's Bridge," "Dobb's Ferry," etc., having revolutionary interest, have never been altered or changed. And here it may be well to explain how the change came about. Benjamin Parry, an in- fluential citizen of Bucks County and a man of means, owner of the " Prime Hope Mills," on the opposite bank of the Delaware River, in New Jersey, was also the owner of the flour, linseed oil and saw mills on the Pennsylvania side, at New Hope (then Coryell's Ferry"), which, in the year A.D. 1790, were all de- stroyed by fire and burned to the ground. The linseed oil mill was never rebuilt, but the others were, and, as the mill in New Jersey was termed " Prime Hope," it was determined that the new mills is Pennsylvania should be called "New Hope" and commence operations with new and fresh hopes for the future. With this change also came the change in the name of the vil- lage. A growing patriotic sentiment makes it not unlikely that the old name may yet be restored and New Hope again become known to the world by its old style of "Coryell's Ferry"; and in this growing sentiment and feeling I am sure can be seen and felt some reflection of the patriotic efforts and work of the "Sons of the Revolution," Daughters of the American Revo- lution, and kindred bodies. Interesting spots other than those which have been named in New Hope-" Coryell's Ferry"-are the site of the "Old Fort," as the headquarters of Generals Stirling and De Fermoy were known, only a few yards to the west of the Presbyterian Chapel.
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