Insights: General Charles Lee’s Capture at Widow White’s Tavern in Basking Ridge

Paper presented to the Basking Ridge Historical Society in 1933 by Reverend Oscar Vorhees

December 13, 1776, stands as the most electrifying day in Basking Ridge’s history, when the sleepy colonial crossroads suddenly became the center of the Revolution. At dawn, the infamous capture of General Charles Lee sent shockwaves through Washington’s struggling army and the entire young nation. British dragoons thundered down the roads, militia scrambled in confusion, and a single moment on a frosty Basking Ridge morning changed the trajectory of the war. It was the day our town became the stage for one of the Revolution’s boldest and most consequential twists.

Because Basking Ridge is home to the Mr. Local History nonprofit, this moment is more than a passing footnote; it is the heartbeat of a story we are uniquely positioned to tell. What happened here on that cold December morning is now unfolding in a series of posts that explore the people involved, the landscape that shaped their decisions, and the far-reaching impact of this single event on American history. By situating the narrative in the place where it occurred, we can bring readers closer to the tension, the personalities, and the significance of a turning point that helped alter the fate of the Revolution.

Oscar M Voorhees’ 1933 lecture retells the dramatic capture of General Charles Lee at Widow White’s Tavern in Basking Ridge on December 13, 1776. Voorhees places strong emphasis on the local geography, ownership of the tavern property, and the context of the surrounding farms and early roads. He explains that Lee, second-in-command of the Continental Army, operated independently of Washington, moving slowly across New Jersey, often ignoring direct orders, and staying in civilian homes rather than with his troops.

As Lee lingered at the tavern with only a small guard, British dragoons under Lt Col William Harcourt executed a rapid, surprise cavalry raid from the direction of Pennington. They overwhelmed Lee’s guards and seized him in his bedroom. The lecture highlights differing historical accounts (letters, memoirs, fiction), and gives vivid descriptions of the tavern setting, local characters, and Lee’s temperament. Voorhees emphasizes that the geography of the Somerset Hills shaped both the event and the military situation in late 1776, ultimately leading to the turning point at Trenton after Washington regrouped.

The Local History Collection holds the original paper at the Bernards Township Library

The Letter General Lee Was Writing to General Horatio Gates While at Widow White’s

On the freezing morning of December 13, 1776, General Charles Lee sat inside Widow Whites Tavern at Basking Ridge finishing a private letter to General Horatio Gates. The note crackled with frustration. Lee wrote that the fall of Fort Washington had “unhinged the goodly fabric” of the American cause and complained that a “certain great man,” his thinly veiled swipe at General George Washington, was “most damnably deficient.” He described his situation in New Jersey as desperate: no cavalry, no shoes, no money, surrounded by Loyalists, and facing what he believed could be the final collapse of the Revolution.

The letter revealed a man torn between ambition and duty. Instead of hurrying to join Washington on the Delaware as he had been ordered, Lee lingered behind, convinced he could manage the crisis better on his own terms. He admitted to Gates that every path before him involved danger, yet he delayed, sure he could still salvage the campaign. He closed the letter with a dire warning that unless something unexpected occurred, “we are lost.”

Lee had barely sealed the letter when British dragoons galloped into the yard. Within minutes, he was captured, still wearing his dressing gown. The dramatic contrast between his bold words and the sudden arrival of his captors heightens the moment’s lasting impact. The very independence Lee believed would save the army instead led directly to his downfall on a quiet December morning in Basking Ridge.

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Letter from General Charles Lee to General Horatio Gates
Dated: Basking Ridge, December 13, 1776

“The ingenious manoeuvre of Fort Washington has unhinged the goodly fabrick we had been building, there never was so damnd a stroke, entre nous a certain great Man is most damnably deficient. He has thrown me into a situation where I have my choice of difficulties. If I stay in this Province I risk myself and Army and if I do not stay the Province is lost for ever. I have neither guides Cavalry Medicines Money Shoes or Stockings. I must act with the greatest circumspection. Tories are in my front rear and on my flanks, the Mass of the People is strangely contaminated. In short unless something which I do not expect turns up We are lost. Our Counsels have been weak to the last degree. As to what relates to yourself if you think you can be in time to aid the General I would have you by all means go. You will at least save your army. It is said that the Whigs are determined to set fire to Philadelphia. If They strike this decisive stroke the day will be our own, but unless it is done all chance of Liberty in any part of the Globe is for ever vanished.”

Why Lee Was in Basking Ridge – The Breakfast Meeting He Missed

John Morton’s daughter, Eliza, writes about her early days in Basking Ridge and the December 13, 1776, capture of General Lee at Widow White’s Tavern, just down the street near Colonial Drive. The Mortons lived on North Maple Avenue behind the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church at the time. John Morton was known to Washington and others as the “Rebel Banker” and as one of the wealthiest financiers supporting the Continental Army’s war effort.

One of my first memories of the war was my father, who was always attentive to every officer of the army, calling on General Lee and inviting him to breakfast the next day. He accepted, but as he did not appear at the appointed time, Mr. Morton became impatient and walked up the hill to meet his expected guest. On his way, he encountered the country people running in great consternation, exclaiming, ‘The British have come to take General Lee!’ My father hurried on and saw Lee, without hat or cloak, forcibly mounted and carried off by a troop of horse; and as he had but few attendants, but little resistance was attempted. One of his men, who offered to defend him, was cut down and wounded by the sabers of the horsemen. He was brought to our house, where he was taken care of until he was carried on a litter to a surgeon in Mendham.“

Think About It for a Moment……

When Charles Lee was captured on December 13 1776 in Basking Ridge, his main body of troops was not captured with him. Most of his command was camped and quartered around Vealtown (Bernardsville) and nearby northern New Jersey towns. With Lee gone, Major General John Sullivan took over and immediately focused on pulling the scattered regiments together and getting them moving to Washington as fast as possible.

Sullivan drove the column west to the Delaware River and crossed into Pennsylvania at Easton on December 16 and December 17. From there they marched to Bethlehem on December 18, passed through Springfield Township in northern Bucks County on December 19, and arrived late on December 20 in Buckingham Township a few miles west of Coryell’s Ferry, essentially joining Washington’s camp in the Delaware River corridor.

Lee had commanded roughly 3000 men on paper earlier in that period, but by the time Sullivan delivered the division to Washington on December 20 the number had shrunk to about 2000, with many men exhausted, sick, or otherwise unfit after the hard march and expiring enlistments. Those troops helped rebuild Washington’s army in the days immediately before the Trenton operation.

Finally, on the night of December 25, 1776, the war that Lee believed was collapsing exploded back to life. While Lee sat in British custody, Washington crossed the Delaware with about 2400 men in the main striking force, and the former Lee division under Sullivan made up a large share of the troops Washington now had available, alongside other arriving units and men detailed away to guard ferries and supplies. That surprise attack on Trenton the next morning became the first major American victory of the Revolution and revived a cause that many believed was finished. The triumph at Trenton proved that the American army was still alive, and it marked the beginning of the remarkable turnaround that would define the winter campaign.

In the end, if General Lee wasn’t captured in Basking Ridge, Lee’s troops may have never made it to cross the Delware and take Trenton, and the war most likely would have ended the American dream for independence.

About Oscar Vorhees

Reverend Oscar M. Voorhees was a minister at the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church (1913 until roughly 1944), a local historian, and a genealogist who spent much of his life documenting church and family history in New Jersey. He was born in 1864 and died in 1947. He served in the orbit of the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church as a writer and editor of historical materials (for example, he prepared addenda to Rankin’s historical discourses on the church), and he also founded the Van Voorhees Association in 1932 to preserve his Dutch family’s history. Later in life, he became the official historian of Phi Beta Kappa and spent about 10 years producing The History of Phi Beta Kappa, published in 1945.

He wrote “General Charles Lee and his capture at Widow White’s Tavern, Basking Ridge, NJ” as a paper read before the Basking Ridge Historical Society on February 18, 1933, and that is how it is cataloged today in local history references and at Bernards Township Library. The “why” is clearly in his lane: he was trying to determine the regional setting of a nationally significant Revolutionary War episode, using church records, land ownership, and road patterns around Basking Ridge to show precisely where and how Lee was captured. In other words, he was doing in 1933 what you are doing now with Mr Local History: taking a famous story and rooting it tightly in the real geography and families of the Somerset Hills so the community would not lose that connection.

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