A new – and more accurate – historical marker for “Wayne’s Crossing” on the Potomac was dedicated on June 1 at Lucketts Community Park on Route 15.
The marker commemorates the crossing of the Potomac River by Gen. Anthony Wayne and about a thousand Continental troops on May 31, 1781, on their way to reinforce Lafayette in central Virginia.Lafayette’s and Wayne’s combined forces turned the tide of the war in Virginia, inducing Cornwallis to return to Yorktown – and although they didn’t know at the time how that would end up, we now do.
The old marker was installed in 1931, the 150thAnniversary of Wayne’s Crossing. According to the Historic Marker Data Base, it was originally erected near the Maryland State line, at the river crossing. That explains why the old marker says that Noland’s Ferry is “three miles southeast” of the sign’s location, whereas it is about 3½ miles northeast from the marker’s current location in Lucketts.
The revision of the sign’s text was undertaken by the Sgt. Major John Champe Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR), as part of an effort of a Wayne’s March Task Force consisting of SAR representatives from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, who are committing to completing the marking of Wayne’s line of march from York, Pennsylvania, to his rendezvous with Lafayette near Charlottesville, Virginia. Two additional historic markers are planned for Loudoun County, at encampment sites near the Chapel Above Goose Creek north of Leesburg, and the site of the old Cox’s Mill, now known as Evergreen Mills, south of Leesburg.
The keynote speaker at the dedication was John Laycock, of the Westminster MD SAR, who heads the SAR Task Force. Laycock described how we are fortunate to have about half a dozen diaries or journals, which give a day-by-day summary of troops’ march from Pennsylvania to Virginia.
On May 31, another “Wayne’s Crossing” ceremony was held on the other side of the Potomac, at Noland’s Ferry on the C&O Canal. A wayside marker is scheduled to be erected near there, on MD Route 28, this fall. Also in the works is an interpretive marker north of Frederick, at Riverside Park along the Monocacy River, near the site where Wayne’s Continentals encamped on the nights of May 29 and 30, prior to passing through Fredericktown on the way to the crossing at Noland’s Ferry. These markers are being sponsored by the Sgt. Lawrence Everhart Chapter of the SAR.
