Ford Mansion

This is a very wonderful museum, with the Ford Mansion, Washington's Headquarters during the winter of 1779-1780, and a separate building housing the Washington Society collections and other artifacts. I have visited this place many times since the Bicentennial 1976, if not sooner.

Among the exhibitions here, I have seen amazing collections of Revolutionary War firearms, powder horns with scrimshaw, and Revolutionary War period pamphlets, many of which I had read from pdf printouts: a highlight for me was Richard Price, Welsh economist whom Jefferson read while composing the Declaration, and whose language was incorporated into the Declaration. It was a very extensive collection, Josiah Quincy's 1774 tract on the Boston Port Bill, and Granville-Sharp's A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature. (These should be familiar to anyone concerned with government and our Revolution).

In the 1990s, while researching the Battle of Princeton, the staff was very helpful in allowing me to examine the paperwork concerning the Light Six-Pounder Battalion Gun in their collection, captured from the British at Princeton. This piece was displayed for a time in a replica traveling carriage, then behind plexiglass during renovations.

The Ford Mansion is in excellent condition, furnished for the period, and the guides are always first-rate.