On a Saturday morning in September, the rolling lawn of the Van Horne House in Bridgewater, New Jersey, will fill with the thunder of hooves, the jingle of bridles, and the bark of black-powder pistols as the Continental 4th Light Dragoons—Moylan's Horse—ride again. The living-history unit will present a day of close-up encounters with horses, uniforms, and period drill on September 12, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the historic house at 941 East Main Street. Admission is five dollars, and the day is built around a schedule straight out of an eighteenth-century cavalry manual: at ten o'clock the dragoons will "boot and saddle," mounting their horses to begin patrols; at eleven they will stage drill and demonstrations; and through the afternoon they will mingle with spectators, make small patrols, and entertain the crowds.
The date is no accident. It is the 248th anniversary of a wedding that binds this particular regiment to this particular house. On September 12, 1778, Colonel Stephen Moylan, commander of Washington's 4th Light Dragoons, married Mary Van Horne, the eldest daughter of Philip Van Horne, the wealthy and famously hospitable master of the house that locals called Phil's Hill. The marriage joined an Irish-born cavalry officer to one of the most prominent families of the Raritan Valley, and it is that union—and the man at its center—that the Heritage Trail Association, which operates the house, hopes to bring vividly to life.
Moylan was a remarkable figure even by the standards of the Revolution's colorful cast. An Irishman from County Cork, he coined the phrase 'The United States of America' in a letter to Colonel Joseph Reed in January 1776. That letter, discovered in 2013 in the Joseph Reed Papers at the New York Public Library, is the earliest known written document to refer to 'The United States'.
Moylan's military career reached its peak in early 1777, when he was commissioned colonel of the 4th Continental Light Dragoons on January 5, 1777. The regiment, known as Moylan's Horse, was recruited from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and New Jersey. It took the field in captured British scarlet coats until Washington ordered the uniforms dyed, and later wore green coats faced with red. The regiment fought at Brandywine, Germantown, Guilford Court House, and the Siege of Yorktown. It was furloughed in June 1783 and disbanded that November.
The house where the reenactors will gather has its own storied Revolutionary past. Built around 1750 on the Old York Road that connected Philadelphia to New York, the Van Horne House was a landmark of the war. Philip Van Horne, a colonel in the Somerset County militia and a judge, was famous for his hospitality to both sides of the conflict, and his home became known as Convivial Hall, or Convivial Hill. Andrew D. Mellick Jr., in his nineteenth-century history The Story of an Old Farm, wrote that Van Horne had "five handsome and well-bred daughters who were the much admired toasts of both armies." During the Battle of Bound Brook in April 1777, Van Horne hosted British General Charles Cornwallis for breakfast and American Generals Benjamin Lincoln and Nathanael Greene for supper on the same day. The house served as headquarters for General Benjamin Lincoln in 1777 and later for Major General William Alexander, Lord Stirling, during the second Middlebrook encampment of 1778–79, when Washington's army wintered nearby. Washington himself was wary of Van Horne's loyalties, once writing that "from his noted Character, there is no dependance to be placed upon his Parole." The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002, and the Heritage Trail Association has used it as its headquarters and exhibit space since that year.
The modern-day dragoons will present a close-up look at horses, uniforms, and drills, bringing the regiment's history to life.
The September 12 gathering brings the story full circle, with the dragoons themselves—the regiment Moylan commanded—returning to the house where their colonel married. For visitors, it is a chance to see history not as a static display but as a living thing: horses saddled and ridden, sabers drawn, uniforms worn, and the memory of an Irish immigrant who helped name a nation and married into a New Jersey family on a hill that once hosted both armies at once.
Tickets are available through the Heritage Trail Association, and questions can be directed to the association's Cindy Blumenkrantz. For a few hours on a September Saturday, the old house on East Main Street will once again be Convivial Hill, and Moylan's Horse will ride.