Rockingham
Newburgh Aug. 18th. 1783
“…I shall set off for Princeton tomorrow…I carry my baggage with me, it being the desire of Congress that I should remain till the arrival of the Definitive Treaty…which…is every day expected.”
-George Washington to George A. Washington
While the Continental Congress was meeting in Princeton, Rockingham served as General George Washington’s final Revolutionary War headquarters for over two and one-half months in 1783. On October 31, 1783, Washington and Congress received the long awaited news – the final version of the Treaty of Paris had been signed and the thirteen colonies were indeed independent of Great Britain.
For eight years Washington had served his country in the American Revolution and, as one of his last official acts, wrote the Farewell Orders to the Armies of the United States at Rockingham in late October, which were then delivered to the remaining Continental Army at West Point, New York.
First known as the Berrien Mansion, the original two rooms and lean-to of the farmhouse were built about 1710. Enlarged into a grander home in the 1760’s by Judge John Berrien, the house is preserved and interpreted as the temporary residence of George and Martha Washington. Physically relocated threes times since 1896, Rockingham Historic Site maintains a fine collection of 18th-century furnishings and Washington military reproductions, a children’s museum and a Colonial kitchen garden.