A full-size army cot.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting Washington’s Headquarters in Morristown, New Jersey.  It includes a museum built in the 1930s as well as the Ford Mansion, which is where Washington stayed from 1779-1780.   I would like to compliment the National Park Service, as our guide was very knowledgeable and gave a great tour of the mansion.  Additionally, the NPS offers free resources for teachers.  Just tell the admissions attendant that you’re a teacher and you’ll get a box of goodies!  The resources are for grades 4-6 and focus on the American Revolution in New Jersey.

The primary reason for my visit to Washington’s Headquarters was to find out if this museum and tour would be a good resource for my students when they write their research papers about the colonial era.  Each year, our 8th graders are asked to develop research questions, a thesis, and then write a paper about some aspect of the colonial period.  Specifically, they are asked to research a topic in the 13 American colonies.  An overwhelming amount of students choose war strategy as the topic around which they develop their theses.  The museum at Washington’s Headquarters offers a great amount of information about the war, particularly in New Jersey.  There is also a little information about life in the colonial era in the museum that includes clothing, children’s items, colonial dining information, and colonial recreation activities.  [Side note: They have on display what was essentially a colonial breast pump.  An interesting piece, indeed!]

I feel that it is incredibly important for students to use resources besides books and the internet to discover history.  There is something about being in the place where events occurred that makes finding out about history that much more exciting and intriguing.  Additionally, students learn how to cull information from different sources, which they’ll need for real life.  Contrary to popular belief, Google can’t answer everything; and it certainly doesn’t add enthusiasm or excitement to its responses!

Besides learning that this is an excellent resource for my students to use in their research, I learned some new things about the American Revolution.  First, the importance of New Jersey!  In 1776 (the movie) when asked where the colony of New Jersey is (they are late to the Continental Congress), the response is “somewhere between New York and Pennsylvania”.  In fact, the colony was often seen as simply a stopping point between New York City and Philadelphia; the important places in the colonies.  New Jersey as this middle-ground was REALLY important, though.  New Jersey was a bridge between North and South.  If the British were to take New Jersey, the would have split the colonies and we’d all still be hailing the Queen [which I don’t think would’ve been so terrible, but that’s for another blog post.]

As far as war strategy goes, I found out that the Continental Army dropped an iron chain and boom across the Hudson to make up for their lack of a Navy.  This chain successfully kept the British navy out of the Hudson from 1778 onward!

I also was unaware that there were different types of bayonets.  I know this should’ve been obvious because there were different types of muskets, but I thought this display was particularly cool.  I also was able to see different tools for loading and cleaning a cannon, which many students don’t think about, but keeping those firearms and other projectile weapons clean was (and still is!) very important!

In the Ford Mansion, students will be able to see army cots.  Though they look small, they are deceiving as most of them are built for the average colonial male height of 5’9″.  Cots were custom made for soldiers so that they wouldn’t have to carry more than necessary.  Additionally, the winter in Morristown was apparently worse than the winter in Valley Forge- it was the coldest winter on record and there were 12 snow storms, including a 4-day blizzard.  I have to do more research on this because I find it interesting that Valley Forge gets all the fame when the New Jersey winter was so much worse!

Overall, though the museum is small, it is mighty in that there is a great amount of information available for students, teachers, and those of us who just love history!