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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
KINGSTON, 30.2 miles (110 alt., 313 pop.), was settled about 1700 and
bears today the unmistakable air of an old town, though the inns that
catered to Washington and Provincial Governors are gone. White houses
and rural stores line its main street and follow the somewhat haphazard
roads that radiate from the central high point into the surrounding lowland. Joseph Hewes, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was
born here in 1730. The KINGSTON HOUSE (open), on a bank beside Millstone River (R), stands on the site of Withington's Inn, where, during
stagecoach days, as many as 400 guests were accommodated. It is a plain,
two-story, stucco-covered roadhouse of the Victorian period with a high
central dormer.
It was at Kingston that Washington and his army eluded the pursuing
British under Cornwallis, Jan. 3, 1777, immediately after the Battle of
Princeton (see PRINCETON), by filing off to the north along the narrow
road leading to Rocky Hill. The enemy, believing he had pushed on to
New Brunswick to destroy the British army's winter stores, kept on the
main road. Washington had actually planned to move as Cornwallis imagined against New Brunswick, but at a horseback conference with his
aides as he approached Kingston it was decided that the men were too
weary. The army rested two days at Rocky Hill and then marched to Morristown.
On the outskirts of the town at 30.4 miles the highway crosses the abandoned DELAWARE AND RARITAN CANAL. The old wooden locks are L.
At 30.5 miles, on the western side of Millstone River, is the junction with
a macadam road.
Right on this road along the Millstone River is ROCKY HILL, 2 miles (100 alt.,
512 pop.), in a small valley named for the large number of glacial boulders seen
here. At the BERRIEN House (open weekdays except Mon. 10-6, Sun. 2-4; adm.
10 cents) Washington made his headquarters from August to November, 1783, while
Congress met in Princeton to draft peace terms with England. The house had been
engaged by Congress for Washington's use, and here he wrote his farewell address
to the army. It is a long farmhouse built in 1730 of white clapboard on a fieldstone foundation, with a plain peaked roof and gabled ends. Many pieces of furniture and other objects used by Washington and his wife in their stay of three
months are displayed. When Thomas Paine, pamphleteer of the Revolution, visited
here, Martha Washington greeted him as "another man who helped George win
the war." Adjoining the house is the slave kitchen, a modern reproduction of a
Colonial building. The property is maintained by the State.
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