George Washington Papers

To George Washington from Enoch Edwards, 7 December 1777

From Enoch Edwards

Abington Prespeterian Meeting House1
Sunday Morning [7 December 1777]

The Enemy are mooveing across the Old York road, about a m⟨ile bel⟩ow this Place, at Jinkin Town & continuing on to our Lift.2 it appears to be a large Body—there Horse was up here about two hours ago, & I believe Capt. Craig is taken—his Men is gone off & there is no reconoitring Party here at present.3 I shall tarry here if you have any Commands. Your most Obedt Servt

Eno: Edwards

ALS, DLC:GW. This letter is undated, but the events that are reported in it took place on 7 Dec., which was a Sunday (see General Orders, 8 Dec., and note 1).

Enoch Edwards (1751–1802), a native of Lower Dublin, Ireland, was residing in Philadelphia County, Pa., by January 1769, and he was practicing medicine there by March 1776, when he became secretary to the Philadelphia County committee of inspection and observation. Named a surgeon in the Pennsylvania flying camp on 13 July 1776, Edwards was captured at the fall of Fort Washington in November 1776. He was exchanged by the following July, and at the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777 he served as an aide-de-camp to Major General Stirling. After the war Edwards became a judge of the court of common pleas, and he was a delegate to the Pennsylvania convention to ratify the Constitution in 1787. Edwards corresponded occasionally with GW in the 1790s (see Edwards to GW, 1 May 1792, 7 May 1793, and GW to Edwards, 1 May 1797).

1The Presbyterian meetinghouse in Abington Township in Montgomery County, Pa., was at the village of Abington, also called Morestown, on the York Road about fourteen miles northeast of Philadelphia.

2Jenkintown is two miles south of Abington on the York Road.

3At this place on the manuscript Edwards wrote and struck out the word “party” before inserting the word “Men” above the line.

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