Local tradition has it that upon arriving in Morristown, on January 6,
Washington went to the Arnold Tavern, and that his headquarters remained
there all through the 1777 encampment period. Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene
lodged for a time “at Mr. Hoffman’s,—a very good-natured, doubtful
gentleman.” Captain Rodney and his men were quartered at Colonel Ford’s
“elegant” house until about mid-January, when they left for Delaware and
home. Brig. Gen. Anthony Wayne, on rejoining Washington in the spring of
1777, is said to have stayed at the homestead of Deacon Ephraim Sayre,
in Bottle Hill. It has been stated that other officers, and a large
number of private soldiers as well, were given shelter in Morristown or
nearby villages by the Ely, Smith, Beach, Tuttle, Richards, Kitchell,
and Thompson families.
According to the Reverend Samuel L. Tuttle, a local historian writing in
1871, there was also a campground for the troops about 3 miles southeast
of Morristown on what were then the farms of John Easton and Isaac
Pierson, in the valley of Loantaka Brook. Tuttle obtained his
information from one Silas Brookfield and other eyewitnesses of the
Revolutionary scene, who claimed that the troops built a village of log
huts at that location. It is highly curious that not one of Washington’s
published letters or orders refers to such buildings, nor are they
mentioned in any other contemporary written records studied to date.