Rock around the Revolution: New Jersey in Chicago?

No matter where you go, you're bound to run into New Jersey. I just wasn't expecting it on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, embedded in the side of a Gothic building.

Admittedly, I found this one about 20 years ago, back when my New Jersey history maven cred was in its infancy. Yeah, I'll admit it: I was the one hanging around the Excellent Diner in Westfield, reminding people that the state was once home to four, count 'em FOUR pre-fab diner manufacturers. It was well before Ivan and I met, and while I did my share of exploring, it didn't yet involve birds.

Anyway, a friend and I made a weekend visit to Chicago for its annual Blues Festival and whiled away some free time enjoying the city's amazing downtown architecture. As we walked past the Chicago Tribune building, I noticed something very unusual: embedded within the uniform granite blocks of the walls are scores, maybe hundreds of irregularly-shaped stones, each labeled with a description and a place.

At first, I figured they might represent locations in Illinois, but as I sought more out, I noticed they came from many states, and even historically significant places in Europe, Asia and beyond. Tribune publisher Robert McCormick had started the tradition before the building was erected, asking the newspaper's correspondents to deliver rocks and bricks from historically significant places. The tradition continues today, with portions of the Berlin Wall and World Trade Center girders incorporated in the building's walls.

There would be no justice if there was no rock to represent New Jersey. Had the Trib assigned a correspondent to the state, and if so, had he (or she) taken the assignment seriously?

The answer came pretty quickly:

Yup: a stone from the Battle of Trenton. I searched farther and found one labeled ambiguously as "New Jersey Washington's Landing after crossing the Delaware River." Another was flatter and browner -- "Revolutionary Battlefield Princeton, New Jersey." Mixed among rocks from Prairie DuChien, Wisconsin, Great Wall of China, Hawaii's Pearl Harbor and Omaha Beach in Normandy, Princeton actually gets another shout-out from the Trib building, with a squarish rock from "New Jersey Princeton University."

The Trib's New Jersey correspondent was apparently a bit of an overachiever, delivering four rocks back to HQ. Granted, he took the easy way out, grabbing specimens from four places no more than 15 miles from his presumed Trenton bureau office, but their significance is unquestioned.

And, well, from what I can surmise, there are more rocks from New Jersey embedded at the Trib than from any other jurisdiction of its type within the United States, maybe the world. This list gives you an idea of what's there... it may not be complete, but it's still staggering to see how well we're represented, and you don't see a heck of a lot of other Revolutionary-era sites on the list, either.

If you were going to send a New Jersey stone to the Trib building, what would you choose?

Washington's Crossing: more than meets the eye

It's not exactly hidden New Jersey, but the annual reenactment of General George Washington crossing the Delaware River was a bit of an eye opener for me when Ivan and I attended this Christmas.

This year's reenactment looked nothing like this.
Washington Crossing the Delaware, Emanuel Leutze.
Metropolitan Museum of Art collection,
gift of John Stewart Kennedy, 1897  www.metmuseum.org

Every American school child learns the story of the crossing and events that led to it, or should. Having lost the Battle of Long Island and Forts Washington and Lee in the summer and fall of 1776, Continental troops retreated across New Jersey to the relative safety of Pennsylvania. During these bleak days, morale plummeted and troops deserted in droves, having lost confidence in Washington's leadership. Philosopher and pamphleteer Thomas Paine, traveling with the retreating forces, was inspired to write some of his most famous words in The American Crisis: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

Washington knew that he would have to make a daring move to save the young nation that had been born with the Declaration of Independence less than six months earlier. While a diversionary attack would be waged farther downstream, he would lead 2400 men across the Delaware about eight miles upstream of Trenton on Christmas night. Once ashore they'd split up and march southward to surprise and engage Hessian troops at their winter quarters.

Today we know that Washington's plan succeeded. Wins in three battles over the following ten days gave the Continental Army a much needed shot in the arm and the encouragement to continue fighting for the cause of freedom. Artistic representations of the Delaware crossing are part of our shared vernacular and are used everywhere from New Jersey's contribution to the state quarter series to The Simpsons.

But... you don't really get it until you see it. At least that's what I came to realize as Ivan and I stood on the banks of the Delaware this Christmas, waiting for the reenactment of the crossing.

When we arrived at Washington Crossing State Park that morning, skies were cloudy and the temperature around 50 degrees. Winds were blustery, though, and while there were no ice floes as there were on the original night, the river current was running briskly. We walked across the narrow bridge that spans the river to get to the Pennsylvania side, where the small town of Washington's Crossing was buzzing with a growing number of reenactors and spectators. Altogether, the group may have totalled about half the number Washington had with him that night. A few Durham boats had already been brought down the riverbank and positioned in the river, only a small representation of the number that the general had commandeered for the crossing.

The relatively warm weather and all of the hubbub made it hard to envision what Washington and his troops faced on that stormy, bitterly cold night in 1776. Even when we returned to the New Jersey side to await their arrival, the event was taking on a carnival atmosphere. Children chased each other between chatting adults, the local Lions Club was selling hot chocolate and a historian was describing the events that led up to the fateful night.

As we often do, Ivan and I had brought our binoculars for some casual birding as we waited for the event. They came in handy as we gauged how close the crossing was to starting; when the reenactors walked down toward the boats, we probably had a much better view than most of the people on the Pennsylvania side, but it still seemed to be taking a long time.

"Eagle," Ivan said, looking over the Washington's Crossing Bridge. Indeed, a nearly-adult Bald Eagle was soaring overhead, unnoticed by the people around us but entirely fitting for the event. It circled once or twice and then winged away, perhaps looking for someplace a bit less crowded to set down in a tree.

And finally, a small party of about six or eight reenactors made their way into the smallest of the boats -- a bateau -- to make the initial foray across the river. We're accustomed to thinking of Washington and his men rowing directly across the Delaware in more or less of a straight line, pushing blocks of ice aside along the way. Bergs weren't a factor for the 21st century patriots, but the current seemed to be. First struggling to row a few hundred feet upstream, the crew valiantly started making their way across in somewhat of a V pattern. For a bit, they seemed to be losing to the force of the river, leaving me to wonder if they might actually end up traveling to Trenton by boat rather than possibly reenacting the march.

We're so accustomed to seeing history represented in movies with action-heightening editing and dramatic music that an actual reenactment can seem tedious by comparison. Watching the struggles of the batteau men, however, seemed so much more realistic and perhaps truer to history, even if the weather, time of day and river conditions weren't consistent with the actual event. Were they going to be able to make it to New Jersey safely? We didn't know. Would all of the boats make the trip, or would the organizers decide conditions weren't right to finish the reenactment? Only time would tell.

The uncertainty, more than anything else, made an impression on me. Washington truly didn't know if his plan would work. He wasn't sure that all of his troops and their horses and equipment would make it across the Delaware, and in fact, it took hours longer than he expected. Further downstream, the diversionary attack was aborted without his knowledge. If the crossing we were watching had been cancelled, it would have been disappointing but not a tragedy. Had Washington's not worked, the future of the United States would have been in question.

Ultimately, in 2014 all of the boats made their way to New Jersey, their crews welcomed by loud applause and cheers from a happy crowd. Reenactors got into formation and marched across the bridge back to Pennsylvania, many of them undoubtedly looking forward to a big Christmas meal.

For the rest of us, they'd provided a memorable insight into the realities of one of the pivotal events in our forefathers' fight for independence. It's one I'll not soon forget.

Washington back across the Delaware? Piecing out a mosaic in Titusville.

Every once in a while, we get an interesting story by means of our readers. This is one of them. It gets a little convoluted, so stick with me.

In the midst of telling the story of the first Civil War re-enactment at a recent speaking engagement, I mentioned one of the key attendees, Major General Dan Sickles. He wasn't a New Jerseyan, but his reputation as a colorful character only proved the point that the organizer of the reenactment, Sussex County's own Major General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, threw one heck of a party. To illustrate Sickles' general attitude toward life, I mentioned that when his leg was amputated after an injury sustained during battle, he donated it to the Army Medical Museum in Washington, DC and would visit it on the anniversary of its removal.

A few of the program attendees chuckled knowingly, so I figured we had a few Civil War buffs in the audience. Nope -- even better, as I discovered when they came up to chat after the program was over. They didn't just know about Dan Sickles; they were related to him. We had a few laughs over some of the stories, and the fact that they'd admit being related to such a scamp. One thing was clear: they had a real interest in the ways that good stories become history.

Hours later, they reached out to me with a lead on a historic marker in Titusville that seems to carry a bit of mystery on its own.

Now, there's no lack of historic markers in Titusville, given the location's status as the site where George Washington and his troops landed after they crossed the Delaware in 1776. If you leave the community's boundaries without understanding how crucial the spot is in the story of our nation, there's no way you can pin blame on the locals. However, the marker the Sickles descendants mentioned doesn't explicitly mention Washington's crossing. Rather, it's a large stone with two elements: a brass plaque dedicated to the members of the Union Fire Company and Rescue Squad, dated 1976, and a colorful stone mosaic of someone we're assuming is supposed to be George Washington.

Here it is. You be the judge:

To make matters even more interesting, it stands not on the road for all to see as they drive down Route 29, but in the parking lot behind the Union Fire Company building. The artwork isn't dated, but it appears to have been completed long before 1976, and certainly well before the newish firehouse was erected. It clearly was moved from another site.

According to the Sickles descendants, that's exactly what happened. The mosaic had originally stood in front of the old Washington Hotel on Route 29, which was a resort of sorts for visitors who came by way of the Delaware-Belvidere Railroad to enjoy a few days in the countryside along the historic river. Apparently created by an experienced German-born tile maker who lived in the community, the mosaic might have been commissioned by the hotel to further honor the hero the inn owners had named their establishment for.

As the story goes, the stone and mosaic stood proudly in front of the hotel until World War I, when anti-German sentiment prompted vandals to push it off its base and roll it across the road and into the Delaware and Raritan Canal. There it sat until the 1970's, when it was fished out by firefighters and again given a place of honor.

Now, consider the ironies: honoring the memory of Continental troops crossing the Delaware to take on the Hessians in Trenton, a hotel in Titusville commissions a German American to create a likeness of General Washington. Years later, presumably patriotic Americans express their anger in war by figuratively giving the likeness the old heave-ho into the nearest approximation of the Delaware. And I hear about this from folks whose military forebear was known for his own special brand of mischief.

Whether Washington or Sickles would appreciate the story is up for conjecture, but I think we can all feel better knowing that the Father of our Country wasn't sent totally back across the Delaware out of anger against a distant enemy. One trip was enough.

Thanks to Cathy (Sickels) Fortenbaugh and Peter McGrath for the lead!