Rockingham Historic Site is a little-known place with a big history. It was the home of John Berrien I (1712–1772) and George Washington's final headquarters during the Revolutionary War, located in the Rockingham section of Franklin Township in Somerset County, New Jersey. The house has been moved within southern Franklin Township several times and is now closer to the Franklin portion of Kingston than to Rocky Hill. While the Continental Congress convened in Princeton, Rockingham served as General George Washington's final Revolutionary War headquarters for over two months in 1783. On October 31, 1783, Washington and Congress received fantastic news -- the final version of the Treaty of Paris had finally been signed and the thirteen colonies were now independent of Great Britain. For eight years, Washington had served his country in the American Revolution. He wrote the Farewell Orders to the Armies of the United States at Rockingham in late October, which were then...

And that includes mine, as I have yet to visit Mount Vernon , the plantation house of George Washington, first President of the United States, and his wife Martha Washington. The estate is located on the banks of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia, near Alexandria, across from Prince George's County, Maryland. The mansion, which is undoubtedly the centerpiece of the estate, is made of wood in a loose Palladian style, and was gradually constructed by George Washington between 1758 and 1778. It occupies the site of a one and a half story farmhouse built by George Washington's father Augustine in 1735. When Augustin moved his family to the property in 1735, it was known as Little Hunting Creek Plantation. In the early 1740s, during the War of Jenkins' Ear, Lawrence Washington, George Washington’s eldest half-brother, served as a militia officer at the Battle of Cartagena. Lawrence inherited the Little Hunting Creek Plantation in 1743 and changed the name to ...

On this day in 1852, Rutherford B. Hayes, who would go on to become the 19th President of the United States, married Lucy Webb, a sociable, devout Methodist from his home state of Ohio. She was 24 and he was 33. Lucy met Rutherford when she was only 14, but the two did not start dating until she was in college. In 1850, she graduated with honors from Wesleyan Female College in Cincinnati, Ohio. After an engagement of a year and a half, the two were married in her mother’s home in Chillicothe, Ohio. The couple had eight children, six of which survived into adulthood. During the Civil War, Hayes served in Ohio’s 23rd Infantry regiment; at 40 he was regarded as an “old man” by the younger soldiers. Meanwhile, Lucy volunteered to lend a helping hand in hospitals, where she saw firsthand the atrocities of war. Hayes' fellow soldiers dubbed her the “Mother of the Regiment” for her gentle care and kindness. Not surprisingly, she would later be an activist for reforms in mental health,...