Princeton, NJ 6/25/14

We left Philadelphia this morning and drove to Washington Crossing Historic Park.

 

This is the place where George Washington led the Continental Army across the Delaware River on Christmas night, 1776.  Troops were loaded into boats in this channel behind an island.

 

They then had to navigate out into the ice-choked river and cross to the New Jersey shore in the middle of a winter storm. 

A ferry carried their cannons and horses across at about the spot where the bridge is now located.

 

After the perilous crossing, they marched to Trenton, NJ, and successfully launched a surprise attack on Britain’s allies, the Hessians, who were stationed there.  It was Washington’s first victory in the Revolutionary War.

A digital copy of the iconic painting of this crossing by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze is on display at the park visitor center.  

 

Smaller replicas of the Durham boats that carried Washington’s troops across the Delaware are kept at the park and used every December when this event is re-enacted.

 

Adolescent Canada geese…

 

crossing the Delaware.

 

After a long lunch with Jim’s brother, Tom, and his wife, Pat, who met us at the park, we drove to Princeton, NJ, and visited the Bainbridge House, built in 1766 and home of the Historical Society of Princeton, to do a little family research.

 

We also visited Nassau Hall, the first college building, built in 1756 on the campus of Princeton University.  During the Revolutionary War, it served as a barracks, hospital, and military prison.  Nassau Hall was also used as the national capitol when the Continental Congress temporarily fled Philadelphia in 1783.

Nassau Hall today.

 

A stairwell inside Nassau Hall.

 

One of the most famous residents of Princeton was Albert Einstein, who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s to teach at Princeton University, and lived in this house until his death in 1955.

 

  

Scenes from Princeton.