Sunday, June 20 — Monmouth and Middlesex County

Lafayette’s March to Monmouth Battlefield – road tour

Friends of Monmouth Battlefield is leading a road tour of General Lafayette’s advanced force march from Cranbury to attack the rear guard of General Henry Clinton’ Army marching across to New Jersey to consolidate British troops in New York City. Lafayette set out from Cranbury with about 1,500 troops early on the morning of Jan. 26, 1778, reaching Robin’s Tavern late in the afternoon, not knowing that the British with 10,000 troops had camped at the tavern site the night before.

 For years, the nature of the maneuvers of the British Army and Lafayette’s advance force was not known because the location of the tavern which Lafayette called Robin’s was not known, The mystery was resolved about 20 years ago in a tenacious study by historian Robert Craig, of the New Jersey Historic Preservation Office and Monmouth County archivists. This is the tale of Craig’s paper, the Search for Robin’s Tavern.

 Participants with vehicles assemble at the Monmouth Battlefield State Park Visitors Center in Manalapan, Monmouth County, at 1:30 pm, or at the Elizabeth Wagner History Center, 6 S. Main Street, Cranbury, Middlesex County, at 2 pm, for the start of the tour. The tour takes about 2 hours.

A program schedule for June 19-20 is posted on the Friends website, at http://www.friendsofmonmouth.org/newsletters.html; click on the June 2021 issue.