The Delaware and the Hudson
Dad and I turn north to cross two major waterways. We start with the Delaware at Washington Crossing, where George Washington’s troops crossed (three times) in one of the most famous campaigns of the Revolutionary War. After lunch at the nearby Washington Crossing Inn, we continue up to the Hudson River Valley, getting looks at Washington’s headquarters and the town of Beacon, New York.
Washington Crossing
It was time for our Mid-Atlantic baseball journey to take a big loop to the north. We started with a one-hour drive up I-95 through Philadelphia and I-295 to the Delaware River and Pennsylvania’s border with New Jersey.
There Dad and I stopped at Washington Crossing National Park, where General George Washington’s troops crossed the Delaware on the night of December 25, 1776, on their way to a surprise attack and victory over Hessian forces in Trenton, who were stationed there on behalf of the British Empire.
Washington’s army crossed back into Pennsylvania with captured Hessians and military supplies. They then made a third crossing over the increasingly icy river on the night of December 29, beating British reinforcements under the command of Charles Cornwallis in Trenton on January 2, then defeating Cornwallis’ rear guard the following day in Princeton.
The crossing is one of the best-known events of the American Revolutionary War. A small museum on the site takes visitors through the story of the campaign, with details on the soldiers and locals who came together at the edge of the Delaware that fateful winter.
Lunch at the Inn
For lunch, we drove just a block from the historic site to the Washington Crossing Inn. The oldest part of the building dates to 1817 and was built by Bernard Taylor, who ran the local ferry service and established a successful fishery in the area.Alone in the airy, classy dining room, we enjoyed a quiet and delicious lunch of lump crab bisque, sesame-crusted tuna mini tacos, and a shaved prime rib sandwich.
Hudson River Valley
Dad and I crossed the Delaware ourselves, then continued north through Bridgewater and Morristown and into New York. We pulled off the interstate at Newburgh, on the west side of the Hudson River and the location of Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site.
Washington maintained 160 different “headquarters” during the Revolutionary War, but he and his staff commanded the Continental Army from here — in a farmhouse owned by Jonathan Hasbrouck — for the final 18 months of the war, the longest of any of his stays.
We crossed the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge to our hotel in Fishkill, where I dropped Dad off and got some laundry going before exploring the eastern shore of the Hudson River in Beacon, New York.
Beacon is a pleasant little town of less than 15,000, named for the historic beacon fires in the nearby Fishkill Mountains that kept the Continental Army aware of British troop movements.
I needed to get back to the hotel to finish up the laundry before our night game with the Hudson Valley Renegades. On the way back to Fishkill, I was greeted with one more reminder of our hero of the day.