From Historic Houses of New Jersey by W. Jay Mills, 1902
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002
FOUR and a half miles distant from
Princeton, standing upon an elevated point near the banks of the
Millstone, is the old Berrian residence, better known throughout
New Jersey as the Rocky Hill
House. It was erected early in
the eighteenth century by John Berrian, an associate justice of the Supreme Court of
New Jersey, and was occupied by himself and family
from the year 1734 up to the time of his death in 1761.
After that date his widow and children still continued
to reside there, but on the convening of Congress at
Princeton she gladly rented it to that body as a home
for General Washington and his lady, then at Newburgh-on-the-Hudson.
From General Washington's arrival at Rocky Hill, on
August 24 of the memorable year of 1783, until his
departure in the following November, the Rocky Hill
House was truly an abode of happiness. The war was
over, the colonies were free and independent States, and
Washington and the other great men of the new country were drawing their first breaths of relief while awaiting
the arrival of the Treaty of Peace and receiving the
ambassadors of congratulation from Europe. The army
was virtually disbanded. Encamped about head-quarters, we are told, there was but the slim number of three
hundred soldier boys from Maine, all under twenty
years of age. Jolly boys they were, with their songs
and merrymaking. They were no doubt glad at the
thought of a speedy return to their rock-bound coast and
the pursuit of peaceful avocations, for on the weather-boards of the old house they have left us many crude
sketches of little fishing-boats, showing that their minds
were yearning for home.
Over the rocky road which leads to Rocky Hill many
famous people journeyed to visit the hero Washington.
Francis Hopkinson, in his "Consolation of the Old
Bachelor," has given us a quaint description of that
road's perils. Writing of the hen-pecked husband, he
makes him say:
After a dish of tea and good bed at Princeton, in the morning we
set off again in tolerable good humor, and proceeded happily as far as
Rocky Hill. Here my wife's fears and terror returned with great force.
I drove as carefully as possible : but coming to a place where one of the
wheels must unavoidably go over the point of a small rock, my wife, in a
great fright, seized hold of one of the reins, which happening to be the wrong one, she pulled the horse so as to force the wheel higher up the rock than it
would otherwise have gone, and overset the chair. We were all tumbled
hickledy-pickledy into the road – Miss jenny's face all bloody – the woods
echo to her cries – my wife in a fainting fit – and I in great misery.
It is to be hoped that none of Washington's friends
endured any such hardships. There was one at least who would have been willing, and that was Thomas
Paine, the man who rendered so many services to
America, – services poorly remunerated. We see Washington watching for him on the balcony of the Berrian
house as he comes up the road, a picturesque figure on
his horse " Button." His hair is rolled in the French
fashion, his face is smooth and ruddy, and his eyes
sparkle with the brilliant fire of genius. How kindly
those eyes must have gazed on his benefactor as they
often sat together, talking over Paine's private affairs or
discussing the future of the new country. Those were
truly red-letter days for poor Paine, as he basked in the
smiles of the great Washington. Many of General Washington's old Revolutionary comrades came to the house,
too. Humphreys, Cobb, Lincoln, and a round of the best
company constantly filled its little rooms. The dining-room,
in the southeast corner of the first floor, often failed to
accommodate the large number of guests the general and
his lady were in the habit of asking to partake with them,
and tables were then set on the lawn. David Howell
of Rhode Island has given us a glimpse of one of these
festive meals in a letter to Governor Greene. He says:
The President, with all the present members, chaplains, and great
officers of Congress, had the honor of dining at the General's table last
Friday. The tables were spread under a marquise or tent taken from
the British. The repast was elegant, but the General's company
crowned the whole. As I had the good fortune to be seated facing the
General, I had the pleasure of hearing all his conversation. The President of Congress was seated on his right, and the Minister of France on
his left. I observed with much pleasure that the General's front was
uncommonly open and pleasant ; the contracted pensive phiz betokening
deep thought and much care, which I noticed at Prospect Hill in 1755, is done away, and a pleasant smile and sparkling vivacity of wit and
humor succeeds. On the President observing that in the present situa-
tion of affairs he believed that Mr. Morris had his hands full, the General replied at the same instant, 'He wished he had his pockets full, too.'
On Mr. Peters observing that the man who made these cups (for we drank
wine out of silver cups) was turned a Quaker preacher, the General replied
that he wished he had turned a Quaker preacher before he made the cups.
This was the Washington peace had made. The
stern war-time commander was put aside, and the man
who had been rarely known to smile through the long
and arduous campaigns was almost like a child in his
ebullient merriment. William Dunlap, the art historian,
in the story of his own life, relates another anecdote of
the happy Washington. A short distance from the
Berrian house was the "rustic villa" of Mr. John Van
Home, a gentleman farmer of some fortune, and quite
prominent in that section of the country. General
Washington was a frequent guest at his home and often
stopped there for a chat with the Van Horne ladies when
riding too and fro from the Rocky Hill House and the
town of Princeton. Young Dunlap when at Rocky
Hill became a guest of the Van Homes, who were noted
for their hospitality. Mr. Van Horne at that time is said
to have been about twice the width of Washington, and
as he then weighed no less than two hundred and ten
pounds, the good Dutch farmer was, in the language of
Fielding, "a prodigious sight to behold." One day
when returning from a fall-time walk with his guests he
found his black boys in the vain pursuit of a pig needed
for the larder. Angry at their ill success, he started in
chase of the squealing porker himself, and after violent exertions succeeded in catching it. With the pig under
his arm, he became engrossed in a lecture to his servants,
and failed to note that the immortal Washington and
some of his aids had entered the front yard. Looking
up and seeing the smiling face of Washington above
him, his chagrin is said to have been so comical that the
general indulged in the loudest paroxysms of laughter
of any of the convulsed onlookers.
Much could be written about the onetime inmates of
the old Rocky Hill House. On one of the walls hangs
a copy of Joseph Wright's painting of General Washington. Joseph Wright was an inmate of the headquarters for some time, having brought a letter of intro-
duction to Washington from Dr. Franklin, at whose
advice he came from Paris. Other painters came to
Rocky Hill to preserve the likeness of the "triumphant
hero." Among them were James Peale and our own
William Dunlap. The latter first painted the "mahogany visaged" Mr. Van Horne and his wife, and Washington greatly admired the portraits.
In the southeast room of the second story General
Washington wrote his famous farewell address to the
army. It was first spoken by the chief to his soldier
boys from the quaint little second-story balcony. There
were few dry eyes among the men who heard it, for it
meant to them laurel leaves and rest and the long-wished-for kisses of dear ones in distant States. Of all
that is known of General Washington at Rocky Hill- –
in his talks with Thomas Paine, surrounded by the Congressmen, chatting with the ladies of the first quality in
the country, hearing the reading of the Treaty of Peace at Nassau Hall in Princeton, giving his farewell address
to the army, and bidding General Howe pack his things
for the journey to beloved Mount Vernon-there is
nothing that can equal William Dunlap's striking and
poetic description of him, written many years after the
great chieftain was sleeping:
Before I left Princeton for Rocky Hill, I saw for the first time the
man of whom all men spoke – whom all wished to see. It was accidental. It was a picture. No painter could have grouped a company of
military horsemen better, or selected a background better suited for effect
As I walked on the road leading from Princeton to Trenton, alone,
for I ever loved solitary rambles, ascending a hill suddenly appeared a
brilliant group of cavaliers, mounting and gaining the summit in my
front. The clear autumnal sky behind them equally relieved the dark
uniform, the buff facings, and glittering military appendages.
All were gallantly mounted. All were tall and graceful, but one
towered above the rest, and I doubted not an instant that I saw the
beloved hero. I lifted my hat as I saw that his eye was turned to me,
and instantly every hat was raised and every eye fixed on me.
They passed on, and I turned and gazed as at a passing vision. I
had seen him. All through my life used to the ' pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war,'– to the gay and gallant Englishman, the
tarlan'd Scot, and the embroidered German of every military grade: I
still think that old blue and buff of Washington and his aids, their
cocked hats worn sidelong, with the union cockade, the whole equipment
as seen at that moment was the most martial of anything I ever saw.
The Rocky Hill, House is now owned by "The
Washington Headquarters Association of Rocky Hill,"
consisting of many of the most prominent men and
women of New Jersey. Its rooms have been furnished
by different Revolutionary societies, and it is a loving
memorial of the happiest Washington of history –
Washington the conqueror.
