Greenwich and Hancock House

Next up turned out to be my favorite part of the trip. Previously I had been driving through beachside towns and along the Garden State Parkway. However, the Delaware Bay area of New Jersey is gorgeous. I drove along through quiet country roads with rarely another vehicle in site. While not on the coast, there is still a marshy smell in the air. It was just so peaceful that I really enjoyed it. I stopped at the Stow Creek viewing platform to see some bald eagles but, judging by the overgrown trail, it’s not a popular spot. I did see this creepy dog crate randomly left in the woods. I pulled into the town of Greenwich, NJ to see their tea burning monument. Greenwich is much the same today as it was three hundred years ago, when the British flag flew high over it. Today there's a wide street, which they still call "Ye Greate Street." It was laid out in 1684 and its course has never been changed. It’s so quaint that when you drive into town there’s a sign that points out where “Tom and Mable’s Deli” is. The Boston Tea Party inspired the residents to have their own after a shipment of tea came into town. On the evening of Thursday, December 22, 1774, a company of about forty young Whigs, disguised as Indians, entered a cellar of a local Tory and took possession of the whole cargo. They conveyed the tea chests from the cellar into an adjoining field, and piling them together, burnt them in one general conflagration.

Down the road in another quaint little town is the Hancock House Historic Site. It was the site of the 1778 Hancock's Bridge massacre. Loyalist troops from John Graves Simcoe's Queen's Rangers, frustrated by rebel resistance, crossed Alloway Creek in the early morning of March 21, 1778. They entered the house and surprised members of the local militia stationed there; between 20 and 30 people were killed. Simcoe's orders were to "spare no one"; unknown to the attackers, Hancock had returned home, and was among the slain. It’s a really pretty house and I absolutely loved the brickwork. Apparently these stylized bricks were quite popular back in the day.