This unit of the National Park Service was acquired in 1933 as their first historical park. It encompasses four areas, all related to Washington's second winter at Morristown, 1779-1780. Twenty snowstorms were recorded during what is viewed as the worst winter in 100 years. Ice in the Hudson River was so thick that the British were able to pull a three-ton cannon across. Several regiments of Continental troops under General Sullivan sortied from Morristown in January of 1780 and raided Staten Island by crossing the Kill van Kull and Arthur Kill on sleds. Supplies couldn't get through to Morristown and near-starvation was a constant reality.

The Ford Mansion and Washington's Headquarters Museum: In 1774, Jacob Ford, a prosperous mine, forge and powder mill owner, built his family a large, Georgian-style home. A colonel in the New Jersey Militia, Ford died of pneumonia in 1777. His widow invited Washington and his staff to share her home in December of 1779. While Mrs. Ford and her four children lived in two rooms, Washington and his staff officers took over the remainder of the house, staying for 200 days. On display are some of the Fords' original furnishings, as well as items used by Washington's officers.

The Museum houses the extensive collections of the Washington Association, the group that bought the Ford Mansion at auction in 1873. John Russell Pope, architect of the National Gallery of Art and the Jefferson Memorial, designed the museum building in 1935. In the midst of the Depression, only a portion of his concept was built. A 21st century partnership between the federal government and the Washington Association resulted in the museum's renovation and expansion, completed in 2007.

Jockey Hollow Encampment Area: Late in 1779, a Continental Army of more than 13,000 men-eight infantry and six artillery brigades- followed Washington's orders to build a "Log-house city" while occupying this windswept farmland at the edge of a forest. Greatly impeded by the weather, the men slept under tents or in the open for the first month, eventually constructing more than 1,000 log cabins. Five reconstructed huts (each 14 feet by 16 feet, housing 12 men) are on the site, as is the Wick House, headquarters of General Arthur St. Clair, who commanded more than 2,000 Pennsylvania soldiers. Great care and discipline were observed in the placement and construction of the hut city, and consequently, deaths from disease, in what was a much more severe winter, were a mere fraction of what they were at Valley Forge two years earlier.

Fort Nonsense: Fort Nonsense was the site of a strategically placed earthwork fortification built by Washington's troops in the Spring of 1777, to protect the main roads leading north and south and the military storehouses in Morristown. The British never attacked, the fortification was lost and the site mistakenly came to be thought of as make-work for the troops, earning its name.

New Jersey Brigade Area: The Cross Estate section of the Park was the site of the huts of Maxwell's New Jersey Brigade and Stark's Brigade during the winter of 1779-1780.



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