Recognizing Monroe’s place
on the Road to Monmouth
MONROE — Organizers of tomorrow’s Eve of the Battle of Monmouth activities don’t know exactly what to expect in terms of attendance or weather.
But what they do know is that the event will enlighten many local residents, particularly those new to this burgeoning township, about a little-discussed matter of historical significance that occurred right within the borders of present-day Monroe.
On the night of June 26, 1778, thousands of Colonial troops led by Gen. George Washington camped in what was then an area known as Gravel Hill before crossing the Manalapan Brook and marching down present-day Monroe Boulevard en route to the Battle of Monmouth.
While Washington stayed at the John Anderson House on Hoffman Station Road (near Prospect Plains Road) that night, Capt. James Monroe, who would later become the nation’s fifth president, and Gen. Marquis de Lafayette stayed on a farm further east on Hoffman Station Road.
"They were all right here," said Paul Lucey, a member of the Monroe Township Historical Commission. "All these guys you read about were here in what is now Monroe."
Washington and his troops, having marched from Valley Forge, Pa., where they had spent the winter, arrived after following Union Valley Road from Cranbury and experienced a night of sweltering summer heat before heading off the next morning.
Most of the troops — estimated to be between 7,000 and 10,000 — camped in a field north of Gravel Hill Road, just past Union Valley Road.
"It was dreadfully hot," said Marcia Kirkpatrick, also a commission member. "Water was a problem, but fortunately they were able to use the brook."
Tomorrow’s events, running from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., include an encampment at the historic Dey Farm, which is on Old Church Road near the Colonial troops’ route and is the site of several 19th-century buildings and a new museum.
The day will feature re-enactments, displays, presentations, and fife and drum music. A highlight will be three bus tours of the handful of local sites related to the Colonial troops’ experience in Monroe. The tours, to be narrated by Lucey, are scheduled for 1, 3 and 5 p.m.
Lucey said he will do his best to inform attendees about the history and the sites, but local historians are quick to note that not all questions can be answered and not all locations on the tour may be exact.
"It is sometimes hard to pin down what happened 225 years ago," said Lucey, a retired management consultant who moved to Pine Run at Forsgate from Edison five years ago. "A lot of it is the best consensus of what (information) is available."
Some components of the story are more established than others. It is relatively certain that the troops camped in the field at Union Valley and Gravel Hill roads, but the specific location of a corduroy bridge used to cross the Manalapan Brook — and whether more troops instead used a more stable bridge at Hoffman Station Road — is less clear.
"There are no edifices in most of these places," Kirkpatrick noted. "It was just too long ago."
The John Anderson house has been replaced over time, and there is no sign of even the foundation of the Story farmhouse where Lafayette and Monroe are said to have stayed that night.
"We don’t know exactly where the house was," he said, "but we’re pretty close for 225 years."
Lucey said he just feels fortunate that his township was for one night host to Washington and his troops on the eve of the battle that marked the turning point in the Revolution.
"This was really the Continental Army’s first major engagement of fighting in the open fields," Lucey said. "Washington took an army there for the purpose of fighting against the best military force in the world."
— Brian Donahue