Among the rag-tag band of soldiers who made up George Washington’s Continental Army on Christmas night of 1776 in the Battle of Trenton, was Jacob Gearhart, who later settled in Northumberland County, just across the Susquehanna River from Danville, Montour County. I also share two other connections between Washington’s crossing and the Susquehanna Valley.

History records “George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River, which occurred on the night of December 25–26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, was the first move in a complex and surprise military maneuver organized by George Washington, the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, which culminated in their attack on Hessian forces garrisoned at Trenton. The Hessians were German mercenaries hired by the British.

Washington and his troops successfully attacked the Hessian forces in the Battle of Trenton on the morning of December 26, 1776. The military campaign was organized in great secrecy by Washington, who led a column of Continental Army troops from today's Buck’s County Pennsylvania, across the icy Delaware River to today's Mercer County, New Jersey, in what was one of the Revolutionary War's most logistically challenging and dangerous clandestine operations.[1]

In a 1907 Danville News article it was reported “Jacob Gearhart was a captain in the second New Jersey regiment during the Revolutionary War and that he served from 1775 until 1779. On the night of December 25, 1777, when Washington crossed the Delaware Captain Jacob Gearhart, along with Captain Van Tenyck was detailed to take charge of the transport boats, while the army marched on Trenton, with orders to destroy the boats in case the enterprise should prove unsuccessful. The latter was a measure adopted to prevent the boats from falling into the hands of the British, who otherwise might use them to cross into Pennsylvania. Captain Gearhart fought at the Battle of Brandywine and was with Washington at Valley Forge.

Jacob Gearhart was born in Strasburg, France, in 1735. He first settled in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. At the close of the Revolution, he came to the banks of the North Branch and became the owner of all the land opposite Danville between Roaring Creek and Kipp's run. He died in 1818, aged 78 years, and was buried in the old cemetery on Bloom Street. The gravestones disappeared in the process of time and the location of the grave is at this time known.”

At the time of his death, it was reported that Gearhart owned some 1200 acres “all the land from Kipp’s Run to Boyd’s for a mile back from the banks of the Susquehanna River.”

A memorial to Captain Gearhart and his wife stands in the Mount Vernon Cemetery in Riverside, Northumberland County.

Another connection to Washington’s Crossing on Christmas night is found in a 1926 book by Reverend William Gardner Finney, who wrote a history of the historic Chillisquaque Church in Northumberland County and shared biographical sketches of some of the men and women buried there.  

Among them was Thomas Strawbridge, the brother-in-law of William Montgomery, the founder of Danville, and at the time of the Revolutionary War, a general in the Continental Army from Chester County. Finney wrote that Strawbridge was a Captain in the Revolutionary War. He was married to Margaret Montgomery, the sister of General Montgomery. During the terrible winter at Valley Forge, Margaret Strawbridge once a week, rode on horseback to carry bundles of clothes and stockings and the like, knit by the wives and daughters of the men, distributing them herself. For the first time in several months, just one day before Washington and his men crossed the Delaware, Mrs. Strawbridge was able to see her husband at Trenton. Both she and her husband are buried at the Chillisquaque Church Graveyard.

Whatever happened to the Hessian soldiers who were captured on the night of the Battle of Trenton? I recently ran across this autobiographical sketch in Floyd’s History of Northumberland County. “The Bingaman family, now numerous throughout Northumberland County is descended from one John Bingaman, one of the “Hessian” Soldiers, (many of them came from Hessen Castle, Germany), sent to this country in the pay of the British (a mercenary) during the Revolutionary War, and one of those captured on Christmas night, 1776, by Washington at Trenton. Many of those taken prisoner were held at Penn Common, Reading, Berks County, until the close of the war, and John Bingaman was one of those who refused to leave this country, of which he became a loyal citizen.”

Boyd wrote, “His many descendants in Northumberland County have been numbered among the thrifty and successful farmers and businessmen of their respective communities.”

Men and women from the Susquehanna Valley who played important roles are found throughout the pages of Pennsylvania history.