page_title: Fatland (Audubon, Pennsylvania)
section_title: Vaux Hill
hierarchical_section_title: Fatland (Audubon, Pennsylvania) / Vaux Hill
caption_attribution_description: English: Valley Forge Station (circa 1910), Reading Railroad, Schuylkill River, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The current Valley Forge Station (which replaced this) was built in 1911
context_page_description: Fatland (Audubon, Pennsylvania) – also known as "Fatland Farm," "Fatland Ford" and, currently, "Vaux Hill" – is a Greek Revival mansion and estate in Audubon, Pennsylvania. Located on the north side of the Schuylkill River, opposite Valley Forge, the property was part of the Continental Army's 1777-78 winter encampment. On consecutive days in September 1777, its stone farmhouse served as headquarters for General George Washington and British General Sir William Howe.
  The farmhouse was demolished about 1843, and the mansion was completed on its site about 1845. The Wetherill Family owned the property for 121 years—1825 to 1946. A private cemetery contains the graves of some of Fatland's owners, and of Free Quakers who supported the Revolutionary War.
context_section_description: Vaux renamed the property "Vaux Hill." The 300-acre (121.4 hectares) farm spanned the middle of the peninsula. Part of its western boundary, shared with Henry Pawling's farm, was the road south to Fatland Ford, a shallow crossing of the Schuylkill River, opposite Valley Forge. 
  Vaux was an English farmer and Quaker, who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1771. He expanded the existing stone farmhouse in 1776, and constructed its stone barn. The following year he married Susanna Warder (1749–1812) of Philadelphia, also a Quaker.
  Vaux took no side in the Revolutionary War. On September 21, 1777, General George Washington, accompanied by a detachment of his life guard and aide-de-camp Tench Tilghman, surveilled British troops at Valley Forge from the north side of the river. The river was swollen, which prevented the British from crossing. At Washington's direction, his aide urgently wrote to General Alexander McDougall—"... the River has fallen and is fordable at almost any place, the Enemy can have no Reason to delay passing much longer. He would have wrote  [sic] you personally, but is employed in viewing the ground and making disposition of the Army which arrived yesterday." Vaux invited Washington to dine and stay the night—the life guard secured Fatland Ford overnight. Washington and his troops departed early the following morning. 
  That same morning, British Captain John Montroser recorded in his journal: "[September] 22nd. — At 5 this morning ... the Light Infantry and Grenadiers passed over the Schuylkill at Fatland Ford without a single shot and took post." Early that evening, General Howe crossed the ford and made Vaux Hill his headquarters. Vaux dined with Howe, who asked about the rebel officer who had been spotted the previous day. When informed that it had been Washington himself, Howe reportedly replied: "Oh, I wish I had known that. I would have tried to catch him!" The opposing commanders-in-chief probably slept in the same bed on consecutive nights. As Howe slept, the British Army began a night crossing from Valley Forge. Montroser: "[September] 23rd. — Just after 12 o'clock this night the whole army moved to the opposite side, on the north side of the river Schuylkill by the way of Fatland Ford, and by 10 a. m. the whole baggage and all had happily passed it. After the principal body had got on the north side of the Schuylkill about one mile the army halted to dry themselves and rest."
  General Washington and the Continental Army returned to the area in December 1777, and began the six month Valley Forge encampment. Most of the troops were quartered south of the river, but Vaux's farm was the site of troop encampments and support facilities. General John Sullivan supervised construction of a floating-log bridge slightly downstream from Fatland Ford. This bridge provided a river crossing in times of high water, and an escape route should British attack from the south. The floating bridge was destroyed by ice in 1779.
  The British army, in September, 1777, passed from Valley Forge to the left bank of the Schuylkill by the Fatland Ford; not many months later [June 19, 1778], when the American forces evacuated Valley Forge, they crossed at the same place, as just mentioned. Both armies swarmed over the Vaux Hill plantation like devastating clouds of locusts. Tearing down fences, destroying trees and doing thousands of pounds' worth of damage in various ways, they wrought such havoc that Mr. Vaux's estate was seriously embarrassed in consequence.
  The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania paid Vaux £1,000 in compensation for damage done to his property during the war. "In the 1785 assessment of Providence township, James Vaux is recorded as a farmer, owning a farm of 300 acres of land, dwelling, four horses, six cows, one servant (colored), and one riding chair." He later served in the Pennsylvania Legislature. Vaux sold Vaux Hill to John Echline Allen, about 1794.
  There are no known images of the "good stone dwelling house" described in 1771, or of the house as expanded by Vaux.
caption: Schuylkill River at Valley Forge, looking east, circa 1910. Fatland Island and Fatland Ford are in the background, center.
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