Tennent Meeting House

During the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778, the Old Tennent Presbyterian Church served as a field hospital for wounded Continental soldiers. Located just behind the main American defensive line atop Perrine Ridge, the church stood within earshot of what became the largest artillery exchange of the Revolutionary War. Major General Nathanael Greene described the barrage as “shot and shells flying as thick as hail,” a reflection of the intensity of the fighting less than a quarter mile away. Local tradition tells of a soldier struck and killed by a cannonball while resting in the church cemetery, a grim reminder of the battle’s reach.

The church, founded in 1733, became a place not only of worship but of wartime sacrifice. An unknown number of soldiers who died from their wounds are buried in a mass grave within the churchyard, alongside more than seventy identified Revolutionary War veterans. Among them is Captain Henry Fauntleroy of the 5th Virginia Regiment, who was killed on these grounds on his 22nd birthday. Also buried here are John and Ann Craig, whose nearby farmhouse witnessed part of the day’s fighting.