was the last survivor of the wedding company of President and Dolly Madison. By his marriage with Mary Pemberton in 1790 he became master of Bolton Farm also. In 1808 he sold the Highlands to one Hitner, who in turn sold the place, in 1813, to Mr. George Sheaff, the father of the present occupant, John D. T. Sheaff.

ENCAMPMENTS

WHITPAIN TOWNSHIP-WHITEMARSH VALLEY

DAWESFIELD

MORRIS-LEWIS

EMLEN HOUSE

EMLEN

HE period immediately following the Battle of Germantown was one of the most critical that Washington and his army had to face in the whole course of the Revolutionary struggle. While at times there were encouraging tidings to cheer them, there was also much to dishearten and perplex. On the one hand, there were the notable successes of the Northern Army and the surrender of Burgoyne, there was a victory at Red Bank and there were reinforcements sent in from a distance; on the other, there were desertions, the British were gradually tightening their hold on Philadelphia and, worst of all, there was indifference and lack of support on the part of the people in the very State where all these things were taking place.

On October 17, 1777, Washington writes to Thomas Wharton:

It is a matter of astonishment to every part of the continent to hear that Pennsylvania, the most opulent and populous of all the States, has but 1200 militia in the field at a time when the enemy are endeavouring to make themselves completely masters of, and to fix their winter quarters in, her capital.

Again, on October 29, in writing to Landon Carter,

he says:

The Northern Army, before the surrender of General Burgoyne, was reinforced by upwards of 1200 Militia who shut the only door by which Burgoyne could Retreat and cut off all his supplies. How different our case! the disaffection of a greater part of the Inhabitants of this State the languor of others & and internal distraction of the whole, have been among the great and insuperable difficulties I have met with, and have contributed not a little to my embarrassments this Campaign.

Only a few days before this a committee of " weighty Friends" had waited upon Washington to express the Society's utter disapproval of warfare and offer protest against hostilities past or future.

After the Battle of Germantown, on October 4, the army retreated to the Perkiomen region, where it remained till the eighth, moving thence to Towamencin and Worcester, and on the twenty-first to Whitpain Township, where the Commander-in-Chief fixed his headquarters at James Morris's house, Dawesfield, between the Skippack and Morris Roads and about one mile west of Ambler. It was from Dawesfield that Washington wrote the letter to Landon Carter deploring the lukewarm attitude that confronted him; it was at Dawesfield that he received much of the depressing intelligence that cast a gloom over these days; there, under the presidency of General Sullivan, was held the court martial that not only acquitted General Wayne of the blame that had been laid to him for the Paoli massacre, but paid signal honour to his bravery; there also, on October 29, was held a council of war to determine future movements at which were present his Excellency, the Commander-in-Chief, Major-Generals Sullivan, Greene, Stephen, McDougall,

the Marquis de Lafayette, Brigadier-Generals Maxwell, Knox, Varnum, Wayne, Muhlenburg, Weedon, Huntingdon, Conway, and Count Pulaski. To make matters worse, there was a cold autumn rain falling most of the time the army lay at Whitpain, causing added distress to the ill-equipped soldiers. All the trees at Dawesfield were cut down for firewood except those immediately around the house.

Set beneath magnificent overarching trees, Dawesfield now displays toward the west, a long, low, two-storey front of grey field stone, with white-painted woodwork. In the middle of the west front rises a gable pierced by two small half-circle windows. Before the south wing was added at a later date, this gable was at the western end of the original structure of 1736 which faced toward the south. During Washington's occupancy a small room in what is now the northern wing was his office and it was there that both the court martial and the council of war were held. Washington slept in the second storey of the then western wing, the bed and bedstead upon which he rested being still in use, while Lafayette occupied the room directly beneath on the ground floor, as he was unable to mount stairs owing to a wound of the knee received at the Battle of Brandywine. The old milkhouse on the property has loopholes in its walls so arranged that the muskets of those within could command the road in both directions.

On November 2, the army moved to Whitemarsh and Washington made the Emlen House (about half a mile east of the present Camp Hill station on the North Penn railroad) his headquarters. This house was built