Washington

Lower Delaware National Wild and Scenic River

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Christmas night 1776 was a bad one. The Revolution was going poorly for the Americans. The British Navy had taken New York City and controlled the whole area. Some American militiamen were heading home, and the British had reason to believe they would win the war soon. Their regular army left Hessian mercenaries in charge of camps along the Delaware, but as the river was filled with dangerous ice flows, patrols were limited. Not that the German soldiers were drunk, mind you. They were professionals, and they were keeping careful watch, despite the storm.

George Washington wasn’t going to let the weather or river stop him. He wrote ‘Victory or Death’, and loaded his 2,400 troops and 18 cannon into sturdy river cargo boats which made repeated trips across the Delaware River (see photo) from Pennsylvania on the right to New Jersey on the left. Two other crossings had been aborted, and the storm was getting worse. It took longer than expected, but by around 4 am, his troops (and horses) climbed the hill and began marching south towards Trenton. The Hessians fought back, and the British reinforced. But Washington won three battles, two in Trenton and one in Princeton, before making camp in the mountains. The war would not be over as soon as everyone thought.

The New Jersey side of the crossing has a large wooded park on a hill, with trails and a small museum with some interesting artifacts. The Pennsylvania side has a museum, replica boats and some historic buildings along the river. I took the photo above from the narrow bridge as I walked between them. The lower section of the Delaware is either a full park unit or an affiliated multi-partner site, depending on who you ask or which website you check. There are roads and a fair amount of development on both sides, so it’s not particularly wild or even scenic in stretches. The designation seems aspirational to me. But our rivers do need more protection, and there are many interesting historic places on both sides of the river. Congress did authorize parts of the lower Delaware as ‘wild & scenic’ in 2000, but if you paddled it, you’d go in and out of those every few miles. There are no federal facilities, so although the park website calls it a ‘unit’, I don’t think it counts towards 424. Still, just in case I’m wrong, and out of respect for our first Commander in Chief, I humbly post.

Fort Necessity National Battlefield

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“In 1753 a young George Washington crossed the Allegheny Mountains on missions he hoped would lead to a career as a British Officer and land holdings that would make him wealthy. He was unsuccessful in both goals and his actions sparked a war that spread across the globe.”

— National Park Service

We really need a better name than the “French & Indian War”. It sounds like some colonial conflict in South Asia. Indians Native Americans were only reluctantly drawn into fighting on both sides. I suggest the “Colonial Rivers War”, because that explains who, why and where. British and French colonial forces fought over control of rivers, portages and passes linking the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Gulf of Mexico and the Mid-Atlantic Eastern Seaboard.

At the beginning, the French & British were building roads, riverside forts and sending small armed groups into the passes to scout. Washington was in charge of a British force, found a French force, and someone fired a shot precipitating a slaughter that killed the French leader named Jumonville. Jumonville’s brother, Captain Villiers, then led a much larger force seeking revenge.

So Washington’s necessity was to defend his camp, which had been chosen in a pleasant, open meadow, good for grazing animals. As you can see in the photo, the fort was built under a hill, so Washington lost quickly and badly. (Fortunately, he improved tactics later). The French accepted his surrender, but the war over the colonial rivers continued for years, as part of a broader Seven Years’ War between the French and British globally.