The “Ten Crucial Days” of the American Revolution began with Washington’s crossing of the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776, and continued through the victories at Trenton, the Battle of the Assunpink and Princeton on January 3, 1777. In little more than a week, Washington’s battered Continental Army transformed near defeat into renewed hope, saving the Revolution when the American cause appeared close to collapse.
The stage was set earlier that December by General Charles Lee’s slow march across New Jersey and his capture at Basking Ridge on December 13. General John Sullivan immediately assumed command and drove the exhausted New England troops westward, crossing the Delaware at Easton and marching south through Pennsylvania. On December 20, Sullivan reached Washington’s encampment near Buckingham Township in Bucks County, delivering approximately 2,000 desperately needed soldiers only five days before the crossing. Their arrival strengthened Washington’s army and helped make the extraordinary victories of the Ten Crucial Days possible.
Time For New Jersey to Recognize
The 1776 March to the Christmas Delaware Crossing
Today, there is no complete historic-marker trail identifying General Lee’s December 1776 march from New York to Bernardsville and General John Sullivan’s continuation from Vealtown to McConkey’s Ferry on the Delaware River.
As New Jersey commemorates America 250, General Lee’s and Sullivan’s story and this remarkable December 1776 march across the state deserve recognition as a crucial journey that helped reunite the Continental Army before Washington’s Christmas crossing of the Delaware. Using modern technology, the Mr. Local History Project created localized renderings showing how a connected series of historic trail markers could preserve and share this overlooked story.
Today, only a few Revolutionary War markers stand near portions of the route, but most commemorate separate events unrelated to this march. These include the Amwell Militia, Amwell Skirmish, and Cornet Francis Geary markers near Ringoes. A plaque at Dvoor Farm in Flemington claims Sullivan’s soldiers camped there, although the Hunterdon Land Trust reports that the connection has not been conclusively documented; the markers also lack consistency to tell the complete story of this critical military march.
Introducing Spencer Peck
In 2025, Hunterdon County historian Spencer Peck proposed a coordinated series of 14 “New England Army: December 1776” markers extending from Ringwood to Phillipsburg. The proposed trail would mark Ringwood, Pompton, Morristown, Vealtown, Bedminster, Lamington, Oldwick, Potterstown, Lebanon, Clinton, Pittstown, Bloomsbury, Greenwich and Phillipsburg. Publicly available records do not yet show the complete series as installed. Consequently, this important march, which delivered Sullivan’s troops to Washington before the Delaware crossing, remains largely invisible on New Jersey’s landscape.
Spencer Peck’s journey began with a campaign to preserve one of New Jersey’s overlooked Revolutionary War stories. In a June 25, 2025 letter to then-Governor Phil Murphy, Peck urged the governor and Legislature to establish a “New Jersey 1776 Commission.” Instead of scattering 30 state-funded markers among unrelated subjects, he proposed using them to tell the connected story of the Continental Army movements that led to the Battle of Trenton.
Peck recommended forming four working groups and volunteered to serve with the New England Army group. He then researched the route and prepared 14 individual marker proposals tracing the march of Generals Charles Lee and John Sullivan across New Jersey to join Washington’s army before the Christmas crossing of the Delaware.
Spencer Peck is a Lebanon resident and longtime Hunterdon County history researcher. He appeared before the Franklin Township Committee on September 11, 2025, to explain his applications to New Jersey’s Historical Marker 250th Initiative.
Spencer is a 42 year resident of Hunterdon County. He earned Bachelor’s, Masters and Doctoral degrees. He’s been a coin collector and amateur historian since the age of 10. Accredited Senior Member: American Society of Appraisers (ASA). One of nine ASA certified numismatic appraisers in the U.S. Over the years, have completed assignments for banks, estates, trusts, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the FBI, U.S. Customs Service, the DEA and U.S. State Department. Spencer conducted forensic appraisals of rare coins recovered from safe deposit boxes at the JPMorgan Bank branch at the World Trade Center after 911. Hunterdon County member of the 1999 New Jersey Commemorative Quarter Commission. Proposed the design, which was unanimously selected: Washington Crossing the Delaware before the Battle of Trenton in 1776.
