Crossing the Delaware with Washington - Christmas 1776
Ice on the Delaware, the Revolution on the line — and a Plaskett in Washington's boats, two generations before the family reached the Pacific.
On Christmas night, 1776, Samuel Plaskett climbed into one of George Washington’s boats for the famous crossing of the Delaware River.
The Continental Army was on the verge of collapse — enlistments expiring, morale shattered by a string of defeats. Washington gambled everything on a surprise attack against the Hessian garrison at Trenton. Samuel Plaskett was among the roughly 2,400 soldiers who crossed the ice-choked river in the dark. The attack succeeded, and the victory at Trenton revived the Revolution.
Family tradition adds that William Lucas Plaskett’s father also fought in the Revolutionary War — the family gave the founding more than one soldier (some tellings name the Delaware crosser simply as “an uncle”). Samuel later moved west toward Indiana country, where his grandson William Lucas was born in 1818 — and carried that Revolutionary heritage all the way to the California coast.