During the winters of
1779-80 and 1780-81, George Washington
was in Morristown with the
encampment of the Continental Army. Among the soldiers from
the Connecticut Line and a few from the Pennsylvania Brigade were
men who belonged to the Society of Cincinnati. These men were
members of a Military Lodge named
American Union Lodge.
..continued
The Society was named after the Roman leader Cincinnatus who was
thrice called from his estates to lead
Rome
out of difficulty. The farmer soldiers had left their plows to
fight for freedom. As most armies are composed of young men,
it is well taken that some of these men married girls from the
surrounding country, and the Encyclopedia Britannica states that men
who had migrated from the northern counties of
New Jersey in 1788 established the town of
Cincinnati, Ohio. They had followed the call of
Jonathan Heart, who presided
many times over
American Union Lodge here, and
who had gone a few years before to the fertile valley of the Ohio
River and established the town of
Marietta. It is only natural that when
this Lodge was founded in 1803 that it was named Cincinnati, as its first
members in establishing the Lodge were also members of the Society
of Cincinnati.
