Here, too, Washington was near the fords, at which the enemy would attempt to cross, if pursuit was intended, and he was also within a half hour’s ride of Newtown, the depot of supplies.
The three old mansions in which Washington, Greene and Knox quartered, are still standing.
The Keith mansion was a two-story, pointed-stone house, twenty-four by twenty-eight feet in size, built by William Keith in 1763.
The pine door, in two folds, set in a solid oaken frame, is garnished with a wooden lock, fourteen by eighteen inches, the same which locked out intruders when Washington occupied the house. The interior is finished in yellow pine. At the time Washington used the dwelling the yard was inclosed with a stone wall. The property, containing two hundred and forty acres, and purchased by William Keith, of the London Company, December 3, 1761, has never been out of the family.
The Merrick house, a quarter of a mile distant to the east, on the road from Newtown to Neely’s Mill, is a pointed-stone dwelling, twenty by twenty feet, and kitchen adjoining. It was bought by Samuel Merrick in 1773, and was for many years owned by Edward, a descendant.
When General Greene occupied the dwelling, the first floor was divided into three rooms, and the family lived in the log end on the west. As the house was not then finished, the General had the walls of the rooms on the ground floor painted in a tasteful manner, with a picture of the rising sun over the fireplace.
At that time Samuel Merrick had a family of half-grown children, who were deeply impressed with passing events, and many traditions have been handed down to the present generations.
General Greene purchased the confidence of Hannah, a young daughter, by the gift of a small tea canister, which was kept many years in the family. They told how the Rhode Island blacksmith lived on the fat of the land while quartered at the house of their ancestor, devouring his flock of turkeys, and monopolizing the only fresh milk cow, besides eating her calf.
At the last supper which General Washington took with General Greene at the Merrick house, at which the daughter Hannah waited upon the table, she kept the plate from which the commander-in-chief ate as a memento of the occasion.
The Hayhurst house, where Sullivan quartered, was on the adjoining farm to Keith’s, where this plain member of the Wrightstown meeting lived with his family of five small children.