George Washington’s three-month stay at Rockingham is recounted by local historian Jeanette Muser
By Christian Kirkpatrick
A self-proclaimed “sponge for history,” Rocky Hill resident Jeanette Muser began to really soak it up 12 years ago.
She had just retired from working as a high school librarian, first at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South and then at Montgomery High School, when she saw an ad in her local paper. The Rocky Hill Community Group was looking for a town historian.
Her first task in this volunteer position was to organize and catalog the town’s archives — a job that a former librarian would relish. She volunteered in the library at the Historical Society of Princeton to learn about setting up and managing archival collections. Then she applied her new knowledge to the Rocky Hill archives, which she named the Rocky Hill Heritage Project. Eventually, as she learned more about the history of her town and her area, this project expanded to include local walking tours, lectures, exhibits, newspaper articles, and a periodic newsletter called “Rocky Hill Remembers.”
The more Ms. Muser learned, the more she volunteered, and the more she volunteered, the more she learned. She became a docent at Rockingham State Historic Site, served on the Somerset County Cultural and Heritage Advisory Commission and was part of an effort at the Mary Jacobs Library in Rocky Hill to establish a digital collection of ephemeral materials related to the history of Rocky Hill and Montgomery Township.
She wrote a book, Rocky Hill, Kingston and Griggstown, published by Arcadia Press in 1998, and contributed to the Encyclopedia of New Jersey (Rutgers University Press, 2004). Her articles appeared regularly in area papers.
However, a few years ago when New Jersey began to celebrate the 225th anniversary of its role in the Revolution, she began to think about broadening her focus from strictly local history. And when a committee formed to plan events to celebrate the role of Princeton and the surrounding area during the last months of the conflict, she joined the group.
About then she decided to write a commemorative booklet about the thoughts and activities of Gen. George Washington in 1783. Such a publication would be useful, she thought, because recent books on the post-Revolutionary period had glossed over the important changes that occurred in Gen. Washington’s thinking during this time. They said little about “Washington’s activities, his correspondence or his gradual shift from military thinking to political thinking about the future of the nation.”
It was this that inspired her to write 1783: General George Washington’s Departure from Military Service (2008). [msu: when was this published?: ]The illustrated, 50-page booklet covers the entire year but has a special emphasis on his three-month stay at Rockingham and his participation in the Congress of the Confederation — the successor to the Second Continental Congress — that was meeting then in Princeton.
”I turned to primary sources, such as correspondence, documents and letters of key figures who were in Princeton at that time,” says Ms. Muser. Because she also wanted to paint a picture of the cultural and intellectual concerns of this time, she provided information about late 18th century thought, science, art and politics. Washington was affected by many of these cultural currents, she found.
During 1783, Washington developed many of the ideas that would shape his presidency, says Ms. Muser. His letters from this time reveal a transformation in his thinking. “He was setting a foundation for involvement in a federal government,” she says.
”While the majority of Congress and the educated population were opposed to a strong central, national government, Washington envisioned a new, unified nation that would have a sound standing among world leaders, be able to participate in foreign policy decisions and develop an infrastructure to encompass the newly acquired western lands and deal fairly with the Indians.”
This did not mean, however, that he thought that America’s government should be centralized in the person of a new monarch. Many people had urged him, as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, to seize control of the new nation’s government at the end of the Revolutionary War. But he chose not to do this.
Instead, during his stay at Rockingham, he wrote his Farewell Orders to the Armies, in which he announced his retirement from military service. He then sent this address to the Philadelphia papers, so word could be disseminated throughout the country. This action set the foundation for the republican democracy we enjoy today.
- 1783: General George Washington’s Departure from Military Service is available at Morven, 55 Stockton St., Princeton, Drumthwacket, 354 Stockton St., Princeton, and the Historical Society of Princeton, 158 Nassau St., Princeton, and costs $12. It will also be for sale at an upcoming walking tour, Canal Days in Rocky Hill, Sept. 13, 1 and 3 p.m., from the parking lot at the Mary Jacobs Library, 64 Washington Street, Rocky Hill.