13. Wind still Southerly. Exercised on horseback, on the River Delaware Crossing to Cowpers Tavern & recrossing below. [24]
cowpers tavern: probably the ferry house erected by Samuel Cooper (1744–1812) in 1770 at Cooper’s Point in what is now Camden, N.J. Samuel’s son William was running the ferry by this time. There were actually several ferries within a short distance of each other, all owned by the Cooper family and all crossing the Delaware to Philadelphia (N.J. Documents, 542). December 1796 had produced unusually cold weather, and the Delaware River at Philadelphia was completely frozen over for several weeks. Jacob Hiltzheimer recorded on 8 Jan. that “from Race Street wharf I walked on the ice to Cooper’s Ferry and back; saw thousands of people horses and sleighs, and booths on the ice” (, 237).