Cannons from Ticonderoga -- My comment:
We hear of Washington crossing a frozen river to surprise drunken soldiers.
This is way more significant in many ways. From the fact of Ethan Allen (sells furniture) to the long trek of Knox and his crew on a frozen lake and then across western MA to a little hill outside of Boston.
The prelude to the 250th celebration started earlier this past spring. We have had regular posts and expect them to be continual the long period of remembrance until peace returned (1783 - to be celebrated in 2033). Our focus has been Massachusetts with Lexington & Concord starting things out and then with posts on local happenings.
We had expected to cover the whole of the colonial span, especially since most of the activity was outside of Massachusetts after the British moved out of Boston. One thing that we will look at will be the contributions of General Nathanael Greene's troops. He died young. His papers were finally organized in the 20th Century and published in the 1970s.
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Today, we look at some of the area in Trenton, NJ where George Washington's troops tangled with the Hessians. We will use a focus on the St. Michael's Episcopal Church, site of some of the fighting.
William Trent, namesake of Trenton, was a member. The Church has a project to get a stone made for Mr. Trent. Another member was David Brearley who is buried in the cemetery.
The David Brearley Heritage Foundation (Friends of Old St.Michaels Trenton) is organization with this mission:
... act as the umbrella for the transformation of the St. Michael’s facility into a community educational hub promoting a knowledge of our shared past, New Jersey’s role in the U.S. Constitution, as well as a renewed faith in the role of religion in society.
This post is a brief introduction. We will look further at the history of the Church and at details related to its involvement in the American Revolution.
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| The cross at the upper left is St. Michael’s ... |
Quote from their material:
St. Michael’s saw many different faces of the Revolution. The Continental and British armies occupied the church. The Hessians, the German mercenaries who fought with the British army, used the church as a barracks and stable, and stored their artillery in the church yard while they occupied Trenton. When George Washington and the Continental army surprised the Hessians on December 26, 1776, some of the fighting of the Battle of Trenton happened in St. Michael’s church yard. There was hand to hand combat with swords, muskets, and bayonets on church grounds. Later in the war, the church was used by George Washington’s Continental Army as a hospital.
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And so, we have over seven more years to tell the tales overlooked by history which usually has little focus on local details that are of the type that get overlooked for many reasons. Those reasons? We will discuss that as well as we deal with technology and knowledge, in particular advanced computational systems.
Not to belabor the point, but there were conflicts for the new country over several decades beyond 1783, of which that of 1812 is on the radar of most Americans. We can leap over that bit of growing pains and also start to research the growing affinity between the two countries of cousins.
Remarks: Modified: 08/26/2025
08/26/2025 - As we go along, we will relook at the crossings. There were several. And, Knox was part of this operation, as well. We'll use Wikipedia's article. In that first winter, Washington had to overcome several problems related to operational effectiveness. Southern troops arrived on the scene and helped attain victory. Future president James Monroe was a participant.
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