USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > Historical sketches : a collection of papers prepared for the Historical Society of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, 1921-1925, Volume VII > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26
Trumbull's painting of Washington, which is in Yale University, was not painted till 1792, but it represents a much younger Washington than that of the time it was painted, and it represents Washington at this critical moment. Henry T. Tuckerman says of this portrait:
"Here is presented the most spirited portrait of Washington that exists-the only reflection of him as a soldier of freedom, worthy of the name, drawn from life."
Trumbull himself says he painted this, meaning to give his military character, in the most sublime moment of its exertion-the evening previous to the battle of Princeton; when, viewing the vast superiority of his approaching enemy, and the impossibility of again crossing the Dela- ware, or retreating down the river, he conceived the plan of returning by a night march into the country from which he had just been driven, thus cutting off the enemy's communi- cation, and destroying his depot of stores and provisions at Brunswick. "I told the President my object; he entered into it warmly, and as the work advanced, we talked of the scene, its dangers, its almost desperation. He looked the scene again, and I happily transferred to the canvas the
22
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY
lofty expression of his animated countenance-the high re- solve to conquer or to perish."
The supply departments of the army-such as they were-were at Newtown, Pa., before the attack on Trenton, but Washington was probably not there till he returned from his success. He occupied the house of John Harris, on Newtown creek, which was torn down forty or fifty years ago, but the present house is said to reproduce its appear- ance, and to have been built of the same materials. New- town creek, in front of- the Harris house, has probably changed its appearance very little since Washington enter- tained the Hessian officers at dinner. According to local tradition, General Greene had his quarters in the Brick Hotel. The staff officer already quoted says in his diary, De- cember 27th : "Here we are back in our camp with the pris- oners and trophies. Washington is keeping his promise. The soldiers are in the Newtown meeting house and other buildings."1
There were no further military operations of any im- portance till midsummer of 1777, when Howe left New York by sea. Supposing Philadelphia to be the object, Washing- ton hurried his army to Germantown, where it encamped near the present Queen Lane reservoir, and the headquar- ters were in a house on the site of which is the present man- sion called "Carleton." When Howe's fleet, after looking into Delaware bay, went to sea again, it was surmised that he was bound for Charleston. The army could not possibly get there in time to be of any use, and Washington started back for New York, to the guarding of the Hudson, and, if necessary, to support the northern army against Burgoyne; but the troops were halted on the Neshaminy, above what was known as the Cross Roads, that is now Hartsville, and where the York road crossed on a stone bridge, just north of which Washington established his headquarters for two weeks in the house of John Moland. Here Washington re- ceived the news that Howe's armada had entered Chesa-
1 The old Presbyterian church, where relics of the Hessian prisoners have been found .- Ed.
23
ON THE TRAIL OF WASHINGTON
peake Bay. On August 23d, the army marched back to Philadelphia, Wayne's division going into camp near the Rising Sun tavern, which stood just above the forks of the York road and the Germantown road; the rest of the troops encamped farther north, and Washington's head- quarters were in Stenton, the former home of James Logan. Sir William Howe occupied this house from September 27th to October 19th.
Washington did much of his own reconnoitring, and his horses had no easy life. John Hunter, an Englishman, visited Mount Vernon in 1785, and called upon the horses. He wrote :
"I afterward went into his stables, where, among an amazing num- ber of horses, I saw Old Nelson, now 22 years of age, that carried the General almost always during the war; Blueskin, another fine old horse, next to him, now and then had that honor . . . Blueskin was not the favorite, on account of his not standing fire so well as venerable old Nelson. The General makes no manner of use of them now; he keeps them in a nice stable where they feed away at their ease for their past services."
"Nelson," I presume, was white. In nearly every picture of Washington with a horse, the animal is white; and he was on a white horse when, returning from Yorktown, he rode up to the door of Robert Morris, in Philadelphia.
While Howe was at the Head-of-Elk, Washington spent a night in a little inn between the lines of the two armies. A friend took him to task for needlessly exposing himself, and he wrote back that he had a cavalry guard with him, and that he exposed himself to danger no more than duty demanded.
Washington fell back to the east side of the Brandywine at Chadd's Ford; September 9th Howe's army advanced to Kennett Square, and at dawn, September 11th, Cornwallis's division, with which Howe rode, started north, while a little later; Knyphausen pushed the American skirmishers to and across the Brandywine, and kept up a considerable demon- stration at the ford. Howe and Cornwallis made an exten- sive detour, crossed the branches of the Brandywine at Jefferis's and Trimble's fords, and came down on Sullivan
24
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY
who commanded the American right. Whether Sullivan could, or not, he did not maintain watch over the upper fords, and he managed to collect considerable misinforma- tion, which destroyed Washington's plan of attacking the divided British troops. 'Squire Cheyney galloped into head- quarters, and gave the news that the British were coming down the east side of the creek. Sullivan tried to get into position across the British line of march, and there is end- less dispute still, as to why he did not get his right into con- nection with the left of Lord Stirling and General Stephen. One brigade commander resigned as a result. The fighting between Sullivan and Cornwallis was hottest at Birming- ham Friends' meeting-house. Greene's division, near the ford, responded to the sound of firing and ran four miles in forty minutes. A farmer of the neighborhood was put on a staff officer's horse, and told to guide the Commander-in- Chief. Washington rode close to his guide, urging him, "Push on, old man, push on!"
But it was of no use. Howe had the larger army and the better trained men, and there was a fatal gap between Sulli- van and Stirling. Greene formed a line across the field, and opening it to let the fugitives through, he checked the pur- suit. Near Dilworthtown the Americans made an effective stand, and the pursuit ceased. At the sound of the firing near Birmingham meeting, Knyphausen had crossed Chadd's Ford and driven Wayne back, and that night the American army was a herd of fugitives in Chester.
At dusk, a soldier, Jacob Ritter, overheard a conference between Washington and his generals. Some of them ob- jected to retreating further. Washington insisted there was nothing else to do. Greene asked petulantly how far they must retreat, and Washington replied : "Over every hill and across every river in America if I order you to."
The army was pulled together in some shape on the 12th, and marched back to Germantown; it rested on the 13th, and received forty rounds of ammunition, and the floating bridge at Market street was broken up; and on the 14th the army forded the Schuylkill at Conshohocken and started up the Old Lancaster road. It will help to under-
-
BIRMINGHAM MEETING-HOUSE (Photo by Gilbert Cope. Courtesy of The Historical Society of Pennsylvania.)
25
ON THE TRAIL OF WASHINGTON
stand the operations of the next few days to remember that there were large military stores at Reading, and it was not certain whether Howe would attempt to destroy them, or enter Philadelphia.
Tradition says that Washington and Lafayette occupied the Wayne tavern that night. On the 15th the march up the Lancaster road, keeping between Howe and the Schuylkill, and moving toward Reading, continued all day. Washington stopped at the Buck in Haverford at 3 P.M., to write a long letter to the President of Congress, explaining why he could not spare Sullivan at the moment, to be investigated regard- ing the defeat at Chadd's Ford. Lieutenant McMichael says, in his diary, "We marched to the Sorrel Horse, the Spread Eagle and Paoli, where we encamped."
At night the army reached a point between the Warren tavern and the White Horse, where the Old Lancaster road and the Swedes' Ford road are the same. Washington occu- pied the house of Randall Malin. (When I called there, I found it occupied by a great-granddaughter of Mr. Malin.)
The British army moved north through Concord, now Concordville, and the Turk's Head, now West Chester, and Goshen, now Goshenville. Howe spent one night at the Boot tavern. A little north of the Warren and White Horse tav- erns began another battle. But with the first firing on the skirmish line, the windows of heaven were opened, and there was such a rain for eighteen hours as has left its record in all contemporary annals. It became impossible to manœuvre the troops, and the American cartridge boxes and artillery wagons were so poorly constructed that all the ammunition was soaked and the gun locks rusted. Washing- ton had to fall back to Yellow Springs, now Chester Springs, a watering place long before the Revolution, and the site of a military hospital built by Dr. Samuel Kennedy, who had charge of it. It was burned a dozen years ago, but I believe the left-hand end is a part of the original building, and the new structure exactly reproduces the appearance of the old one.
On the following day the army marched back to War- wick and the Reading furnaces on French creek, where re-
26
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY
pairs were made, and fresh ammunition served out, and Washington spent the night of the 18th in the Fountain tavern near Coventryville. At night on the 19th, Washing- ton wrote to the President of Congress that the army was then crossing the Schuylkill at Parker's Ford. Dr. Mühlen- berg's journal says that the army was marching, cold and wet, through the Trappe toward the Perkiomen all night, and many officers stopped at his house for a little rest, and to dry their clothes. A part of the army crossed the Perkio- men, where the bridge now stands, and local tradition has it that Washington spent the night in the house now or lately of D. Morgan Casselberry, in Evansburg.
The next day the army started back up the Schuylkill toward Pottsgrove, or what is now Pottstown, but we know through orders issued through two staff officers, and pub- lished after Baker compiled his Itinerary, that for two days Washington was in the vicinity of Jeffersonville (then Thompson's tavern) and Fatland Ford. Near the ford stood the house of James Vaux, now replaced by the Wetherill mansion, in which Washington took supper one night, and Sir William Howe took breakfast the next morning.
While Washington's army was at or near Pottsgrove, it was actually encamped in the township of New Hanover. Just across the line, in the township of Frederick, is the house of Colonel Antes, of the militia, where Washington is said to have slept. The Bertolet farm adjoins the Antes farm, and a venerable member of the Bertolet family told me that he remembered his grandfather and his uncle telling of Washington coming over from the Antes house to drink from a mineral spring on the Bertolet farm. There is also a tradition of Washington's use of the Potts house in Potts- town.
From Pottsgrove the army moved to Pennypacker Mill, now Schwenksville, and Washington occupied the present home of Governor Pennypacker, and then began moving down the Skippack road toward Philadelphia. Thomas Paine, in an account of the campaign, written to Benjamin Franklin, says: "The army had moved about three miles
THE PENNYPACKER HOUSE (Photo by William H. Richardson.)
27
ON THE TRAIL OF WASHINGTON
lower down that morning," apparently to what is now Skip- packville. "The next day they made a movement about the same distance to the twenty-first milestone," which is about a mile east of the present village of Centre Point. "Head- quarters at J. Wince's." This is Peter Wentz's, about a quarter of a mile off the Skippack road, where Washington was, a little later. "On the 3d of October," continues Paine, "they began to fortify the camp as a deception, and about 9 at night marched for Germantown."
It is heart-breaking that a battle so well planned, and so well executed, as the battle of Germantown, should have turned into a defeat. The fences between the gardens had completely destroyed the alignment of the American troops. The fog and smoke made it impossible to see twenty yards, and to this, mainly, Washington attributed the disaster. Light Horse Harry Lee says it was lack of discipline. Broken in their formations, unable to see friend or foe, hearing fir- ing in their rear, which was the attack on the Chew house, the troops in advance were seized with the idea that the British were getting in behind them, and they started for the rear. But not a cannon was left behind. One that had been dismounted was loaded into a wagon and saved. Wayne reported to Washington that night that he had rallied the men at Whitemarsh church, and checked the pursuit, and Thomas Paine, who met the retreating army, says it moved in good order.
The army retreated to the Perkiomen, and a part, if not the whole, crossed to the west side. Thence the army moved eastward to Towamencin township, camping near the Men- nonite meeting-house, which remains; and Washington occupied a house, only the kitchen end of which is still in existence. The next move was into Worcester township, and Washington occupied the house of Peter Wentz, from which he had started for the battle of Germantown, and where he received the news of the surrender of Burgoyne.
In the wall of the Wentz house is a tablet inscribed with the initials of Peter and Rosannah Wentz, the date, 1758, and a verse in archaic German which may be roughly trans- lated :
W
--
28
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY
"Jesus, come into my home, From thence never to depart; With thy gracious Spirit come, And thy peace give to my heart."1
He next occupied the mansion in Whitpain township now known as Dawsfield, a mile and a half from Ambler. The place has never been out of the possession of the descendants of Abraham and Mary Dawes, who built it in 1736, and whose initials, with the date, are on the spring-house. Eight generations have slept under its roof. The enormous buttonwood tree shading the spring- house was planted by Mary when she went there as a bride. In this house Wayne was acquitted, by the court-martial which he had demanded, of fault in the unfortunate affair at Paoli. The trial was held in the lower left-hand room. The lower room in the middle was that of Lafayette, and Washington occupied the upper middle room. The wash- stand and the chest of drawers that were in the room when Washington occupied it are there still, but the feather-bed he used has been put away. It was in this house, probably, that Washington wrote to General Forman a letter which was dated at the "Skippack Road, 15th milestone."
On November 1st the army moved down to Whitemarsh, and Washington occupied the Emlen house, as we know from the journal of the charming Sally Wister, and letters of Colonel Joseph Reed. It was there that Washington of- fered a reward of $10 for the best suggestion of a means of using raw hide as a substitute for shoes.
It was during November that Cornwallis marched through Darby to a point below the American defences, crossed the river and forced the evacuation of Fort
1 PWRW JESU KOM IN MEIN HAUS WEL CHE NIMMER MER HER AUS KOM MIT DEINER GNADEN GUT UND STELE MEINNE SEL ZU FRIED. 1758.
-
29
ON THE TRAIL OF WASHINGTON
Mercer after Fort Mifflin had been knocked to pieces. At the Blue Bell, in Darby, Cornwallis's column drove a picket of Potter's militia into the tavern, and bayonetted several before the officers could stop them.
The defense of Fort Mifflin under a rain of shot and shell from the British men-of-war and land batteries is one of the most heroic achievements in the history of warfare. Out of 300 men, nearly 250 were killed or wounded. In twenty minutes, on the last day, the ships and batteries of both armies, fired 1030 cannon balls. The "Cannon Ball house" remains with the marks of a shot that went through from front to back.
On December 11th the army started for Gulph Mill, but was detained from crossing the river for a day by the fact that Cornwallis and Potter's Pennsylvania militia were hav- ing a running fight from the Black Horse tavern, at the corner of the Old Lancaster road and what is now City ave- nue, which swept past Harriton, home of Charles Thomson, secretary of Congress, and reached the Gulph.
At the Gulph Mill, burned several years ago, Washing- ton probably occupied the Supplee house,1 with which is shown the boulder commemorating the encampment, but this is not certain. In leaving this camp the army passed under the Gulph, or Hanging, Rock.
Look reverently upon these four milestones, from a little beyond the Gulph Mill to a little beyond the King of Prus- sia. They are on the Gulph road; beyond them the stones have perished. It was over this identical piece of road, pass- ing in front of these very stones, that Washington, after the war, told Dr. Gordon, its first historian, that the passage of the American army could be traced by the blood stains of the men's feet upon the snow. Those stones are the monu- ments to great heroism, to endurance unaided by the wild excitement of battle.
And then came Valley Forge. "That little village," says Sir George Otto Trevelyan (English historian of the Revo-
1 Washington occupied the Hughes farm house, "Walnut Grove," about a mile away, and west of the Gulph Hills .- Ed.
30
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY
lution), "clustered at the bottom of a deep ravine, gave a name to what, as time goes on, bids fair to be the most celebrated encampment in the world's history. The name of Valley Forge will never cease to be associated with the memory of sufferings quietly and steadfastly borne, but not endured in vain."
The march to Valley Forge from Gulph Mill was on the 19th; and a few days later, occupying his tent in the mean- while-a tent you can now see in the museum of the memo- rial church-Washington moved into the house of Isaac Potts. In March, 1778, Mrs. Washington wrote to Mrs. Mercy Otis Warren, of Massachusetts, who wrote a history of the war: "The general's headquarters have been made more tolerable by the addition of a log cabin to the house, built to dine in." The present log addition is a repro- duction.
On December 23d Washington wrote to the President of Congress :
"The soap, vinegar and other articles allowed by Congress we see none of, nor have we seen them, I believe, since the battle of Brandywine. The first, indeed, we have now little occasion for; few men having more than one shirt and some none at all. . . . We have by a field return this day made no less than two thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight men now in camp unfit for duty because they are barefoot and otherwise naked."
And yet five days later Christopher Marshall wrote in his diary :
"Hundreds of barrels of flour lying on the banks of the Susquehanna perishing for want of care in securing it from the weather, and from the danger of being carried away if a freshet should happen in the river; fifty wagon loads of cloths and ready made clothes for the soldiers in the Clothier-General's store in Lancaster (this I say from the demand made by John Mease to the President a few days past when the enemy were expected to be coming this way for this number of wagons to take away these stores) ."
Before the winter was over Dr. Rush mentions that 1500 horses had died of starvation, and Washington complained
31
ON THE TRAIL OF WASHINGTON
that his own horses had been two days without forage.
Mrs. Washington reached the camp early in February. Mrs. Knox came May 20th, and was with her husband al- most constantly thereafter till the end of the war. Mrs. Greene joined her husband, not in a farmhouse, but in one of the huts. Having acquired a small amount of Rhode Island French, she assisted greatly in entertaining the for- eign officers. Lafayette wrote to his wife that he envied Knox and Greene, but he took care to explain to her that he did not envy them their wives; only the opportunity of hav- ing their wives with them.
Mrs. Washington and the other women spent most of their time knitting stockings for the soldiers. There were dinner parties-when there was anything to eat. At one of these parties-a stag party-it was a condition that no officer with a whole uniform could come in. Baron Steuben says he saw officers of high rank mounting guard in gar- ments that looked like dressing-growns made of blankets or quilts. There was singing, but there were no cards. All games of chance had, on two previous occasions, been rigidly prohibited in the army. There was no dancing, for not an officer had a room large enough. The following winter in Morristown, where the Commander-in-Chief and the prin- cipal generals were well housed, General Washington danced with Mrs. Greene-her grandson tells us-for four hours without sitting down.
The moment the British army moved out of Philadelphia the American army moved out of Valley Forge, crossing the Schuylkill on Sullivan's bridge. A small force was sent into Philadelphia, and the rest pushed across the Delaware at Coryell's Ford, now called Washington's Crossing, formerly Taylorsville, Pa., and struck the British army at Monmouth Court House. The last entry in Sally Wister's Journal says that the army began its march at 6 A.M. past her Uncle Foulke's house near the corner of the North Wales road and the road from Swede's Ford to Coryell's Ford : "Our brave, our heroic Gen. Washington," she writes, "was escorted by fifty of the Life Guard with drawn swords. Each day he acquires an addition to his goodness."
32
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY
After Monmouth there were no considerable military operations in the north. When Greene and Lafayette had fought and manœuvred Cornwallis into Yorktown, Wash- ington formed the project with Rochambeau to march their armies from the Hudson and east of it to the York river. It is pleasant to remember that after the capitulation had been signed, and before the British troops laid down their arms, Washington made an address to his troops in which he said :
"My brave fellows, let no sensation of satisfaction for the triumphs you have gained induce you to insult your fallen enemy. Let no shouting, no clamorous huzzahing, increase their mortification. Posterity will huzzah for us."
The morning of their march through Philadelphia, the French troops started from the Red Lion Inn on Poquessing creek, the boundary between Philadelphia and Bucks Counties.
Rembrandt Peale told the story that at the battle of Princeton a cannon ball passed through Nassau Hall, at the College, carrying away the painting of George II. Washing- ton gave the trustees fifty guineas to replace it, and they spent the money in getting Peale to paint them the portrait of another George.
"The Gentlemen's Magazine," London, March, 1784, contained an account of a banquet in the new palace of George, (afterward) the Fourth, and known as the First Gentleman of Europe. And it also contained an account of Washington's resigning his commission. The coincidence of these two articles moved Thackeray to write:
"Which was the most splendid spectacle ever witnessed; the opening feast of Prince George in London, or the resignation of Washington? Which is the nobler character for after ages to admire-yon frible danc- ing in lace and spangles, or yonder hero who sheathes his sword, after a life of spotless honor, a purity unreproached, a courage indomitable, and a consummate victory? Which is the true gentleman?"
The war over, the independence of the United States of America, declared by Thomas Jefferson, achieved by George Washington, Washington presided over the Convention that
33
ON THE TRAIL OF WASHINGTON
prepared the Constitution. His diary during the session of the Convention shows that he often drank tea at Mr. Powel's; that he was several times at the Chew house in German- town, that he rode out to Spring Mill (which was in exist- ence in 1715) to visit Peter Legaux, and visited the garden of John Bartram, the self-taught botanist, who was dis- owned by the Society of Friends, and thereupon carved his creed upon the outer wall of his house-"Tis God Alone Almyty Lord, the Holy One by me adord." He also rode out to Valley Forge and Whitemarsh, but he records no trace of his emotions as he viewed those scenes of his dangers and his hardships.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.