Walking Tour Tracks Washington In New Hope Before His Legendary Crossing

NEW HOPE BOROUGH, PA — For more than two weeks from Dec. 8 to 25, two regiments numbering about 600 soldiers encamped at Coryell’s Ferry, now New Hope, under the command of French general Alexis Roche de Fermoy. This brigade represented a quarter of the 2,400 troops included in General George Washington’s legendary crossing of the Delaware River to the decisive Battle of Trenton on Dec. 25, 1776.

General Washington’s strategy to defend his struggling army from the onslaught of the British in December 1776 included ordering that all ferry crossings along the Delaware River from Morrisville to Coryell’s Ferry be heavily fortified to prevent General Cornwallis’s army from crossing the river and quelling the fledgling revolution.

General Washington visited Coryell’s Ferry twice during that period to prepare his generals for the imminent battles in Trenton. They were ordered to march toward McConkey’s Ferry (now Washington Crossing) at 2 p.m. on Christmas Day.

Two years later, beginning on June 19, 1778, the entire Continental Army, more than 12,000 strong, with about 500 wives who followed their husbands into battle, marched along Old York Road, and crossed the Delaware River over a period of three days from New Hope’s historic Ferry Landing to Lambertville (then Coryell’s Ferry, N.J.) on their way to the important Battle of Monmouth.

On Saturday, Dec. 13 at 1 p.m., a New Hope Historical Society’s tour led by the society’s historian and board member Roy Ziegler, will follow the routes taken by George Washington and his army through New Hope during the American Revolutionary War.

Tickets are limited, so the New Hope Historical Society suggests making reservations now at
newhopehistorical.org .