Introducing a bold new tour on The Liberty Trail--Henry Knox's Noble Train of Artillery!
Guest blogger George Weghorst shares a deceptively familiar story from the earliest days of the American Revolution.
Kate shares an account of a stop on The Liberty Trail in New Jersey, centered around the dramatic capture of the British supply ship HMS Blue Mountain Valley during the American Revolution. After a grueling 13-week voyage, the ship limped into Sandy Hook, where Patriots seized its first mate and launched a surprise boarding operation. Expecting military supplies, they instead found a cargo of coal, porter, beans, potatoes, sauerkraut, and hogs—more fit for a feast than a fight.
Learn more about how The Liberty Trail is blazing paths across the east coast.
Uncovering History
We invite you to visit the preserved locations along the Liberty Trail and to immerse
yourself in the extraordinary events that determined the fate of a nation.
The Dey Mansion, built around 1770, served as General George Washington’s headquarters in 1780 during a pivotal time in the American Revolution. As one of his surviving field headquarters, it offers a lasting connection to the strategic decisions, military challenges, and historic events that shaped the fight for independence.
Visit Historic Drayton Hall — Tour the nation’s oldest preserved plantation house in America still open to the public. Explore Drayton Hall's 18th-century architecture, landscapes & the people who lived here.
One of the bloodiest sites during the Battle of Lexington and Concord, this house saw extensive combat and still bears the scars left behind by the engagement.
After an eight-day siege, this strategic outpost fell to the Americans, who used an ingenious structure called Maham’s Tower to fire down into the fort and trap the enemy.
This building was the home of the captain of the Lincoln Minutemen, William Smith, who led his men at the Lexington Green on April 19, 1775.
A small victory for the Continental Army, the Battle of Paulus Hook won the reassurances of the Patriots and compelled many to continue the fight for independence.
This battleground was the site of three British camps, attacked by Patriot troops on August 6, 1780. It was a fight primarily between countrymen.
Located on the Princeton Battlefield, this home served as a field hospital in the wake of the battle. At this site, Patriot officer Hugh Mercer died while in care from fatal wounds sustained during the decisive engagement.
Eighteenth-century Moncks Corner was a crossroads settlement of stores and taverns at the intersection of the Cherokee Path (the Indian traders’ path) and the road from Charleston to Santee. A powder magazine was established in 1760 and the village was occupied as a store depot by the British during the Revolutionary War.
An ingenious Patriot deception provokes a prominent Loyalist to surrender his outpost
In the days leading up the Battle of Lexington and Concord, James Barrett stored military supplies, including small cannons, from that were smuggled out of Boston amid rising tensions with the British.
A strategic location for the defense of New York's harbor, the Continentals failed to reinforce this peninsula, leading to the city's capture in August of 1776. A lighthouse dating to 1764 still operates there today, once serving as a Loyalist fortification.