Haddonfield
An October 2021 picture of the Indian King tavern in Haddonfield, New Jersey, which existed at the time of the Hessian march but is not recorded as having been used by the Hessians. It is now a museum.
This was the first stop in the Hessian army’s march to Fort Mercer. When they arrived on the way to the Fort, the Hessians were greeted by local Tories, who identified sympathizers with the patriot cause. The sympathizers were rounded up and reportedly kept under guard by a campfire in a street of the town to prevent anyone warning Fort Mercer.[1] (As soon as the Hessians left on the morning of October 22, 1777, one of those sympathizers, Jonas Cattell, began a ten-mile run to the Fort to alert the defenders. His exploit continues to be honored with a yearly run.[2])
Haddonfield was the site other Revolutionary War events[3], and of course much history before and since. It is a pleasant town with a nice row of restaurants that recommend it as a lunch stop for those visiting Fort Mercer and Fort Mifflin.
An October 2021 picture of a marker in Haddonfield that would have been there when the Hessians passed through.
[1] https://friendsofredbank.weebly.com/the-story-of-the-battle-of-red-bank.html
[2] https://www.haddonfield.njdar.org/jonas_cattell.html Note that this site presents a somewhat different narrative of Cattel’s having been arrested for a curfew violation and held for that reason on October 21, as opposed to having been detained with other patriots.
[3] See https://www.revolutionarywarnewjersey.com/new_jersey_revolutionary_war_sites/towns/haddonfield_nj_revolutionary_war_sites.htm#s7 One of the Rhode Island regiments that manned Fort Mercer stopped there for provisions on October 18, 1777, on its way to the fort. Greenman, J., Diary of a Common Soldier in the American Revolution, 1775-1783: An Annotated Edition of the Military Journal of Jeremiah Greenman, edited by Bray, R. and Bushnell, P., pg. 80 (1978). When the troops abandoned the fort the next month after the fall of Fort Mifflin, they stopped initially at Haddonfield. “The Israel Angell Diary, 1 October 1777-28 February 1778,” Rhode Island History, Volume 58, Number 4, pg. 117 (2000), http://www.rihs.org/assetts/files/publications/2000_Nov.pdf
It is also possible that Haddonfield was the “Haddington” remembered by Connecticut private Joseph Plumb Martin, who describes there, prior to their defense of Fort Mifflin, the starving Continental soldiers encounter with “a Hissian, the cant word with the soldiers, for a goose.” Martin, J.P., The Adventures of a Revolutionary Soldier, pg. 61 (1830), https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Adventures_Of_A_Revolutionary_Soldier
He also notes passing through that town as the Continentals moved on after leaving Fort Mifflin and, still starving, remembers helping himself to another barnyard fowl at that time. Id., pgs. 70-71.