Washington Crossing Historic Park

A short drive or a long towpath walk south of New Hope, the Delaware carries a visitor to the site where George Washington crossed the river on the night of December 25 to 26, 1776, before marching on Trenton. The ground is now Washington Crossing Historic Park, a 500-acre state park split into two sections, run by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources with the nonprofit Friends of Washington Crossing Park, and it rewards the same unhurried pace this book gives to the rest of the valley.

What happened here

On a night the Continental Army's morale had nearly run out, roughly 2,400 troops crossed the ice-choked Delaware at McConkey's Ferry and marched overnight to surprise the Hessian garrison at Trenton. The crossing is one of the war's best-documented turning points: a demoralized army that crossed a dangerous river in winter and won the battle that followed. The park preserves the ferry site and the buildings around it rather than a single monument, which is why it rewards a slow visit more than a quick photo stop.

The lower section

The lower section holds the park's thirteen historic buildings, among them the McConkey's Ferry Inn, where Washington is recorded to have dined before the crossing. A twentieth century barn nearby houses five replica Durham boats, the flat-bottomed craft used in the annual reenactment of the crossing and built to the same lines as the originals. The visitor center here was renovated and reopened in March 2013 and displays artifacts from the Revolutionary War period, a useful first stop before walking the grounds.

The upper section

A short distance north, the park's upper section centers on Bowman's Hill Tower, a lookout point over the river valley, and the Thompson-Neely House, which served as a field hospital during the campaign; the park's own records place somewhere between forty and sixty soldiers' graves nearby from that service. The two sections read as different moods of the same story: the lower section is the departure point, the upper section is the aftermath.

Visiting from New Hope

The park sits between Yardley and New Hope on the Pennsylvania side of the river, close enough that it fits naturally alongside a morning on the towpath mile for a visitor willing to go a few miles further south along the water. Guided tours of the historic buildings run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Sunday, from April 1 through December 31, according to the park's posted schedule; the outdoor grounds themselves stay open from dawn to dusk year-round, which means the riverside walk is available even outside the guided-tour season.

What the detour is worth

A visitor who has already walked New Hope's own river lots, the landing, the bridge, the towpath, gets something different here: the same river, a few miles downstream, carrying a specific and well-documented piece of the country's founding rather than the town's own ferry-and-mill story. The two are not competing claims on the same water. New Hope's river chapters are about a town that grew up around a crossing point; this park is about the one crossing that changed a war, made at a bend of the same Delaware the towpath mile follows south.

What this lot leaves open

Tour hours, reenactment dates (the park's best-known event, held each December) and which buildings are open on a given day move faster than this book can track, and the park's own visitor center is the reliable source on the day of a visit. What does not move is the geography: the lower section at the ferry site, the upper section at the tower and the hospital house, and the whole 500 acres sitting quietly a short way down the same river New Hope watches from its own bank.

The book repeats its standing caution on every lot: hours, menus, schedules and rates move faster than any printed sheet, and what is written here was true when the lot was walked. The entry's number never changes, the distance mark never changes, and the character of the place rarely does; but the details that close a day (the opening hour, the seasonal deck, the last tour) belong to the people who run them, and their own boards and pages are the final word.