American soldiers who died from wounds suffered in the two Battles of Trenton and the Battle of Princeton, and from disease incurred during the harsh winter, were buried here after Washington's troops occupied four hospital buildings in the village then known as Four Lanes End, now Langhorne, Pennsylvania. On written orders from General George Washington, Captain William Shippen, Sr., Surgeon General-American Army, replied that a hospital would be set up in Four Lanes End on January 4, 1777. The Middletown Friends Meeting House and School, and Isaac Hicks' House and Tannery, were sequestered to treat American soldiers, and the dead were put four deep in wood boxes and hauled to this burial site at Bellevue and Flowers Avenues. Written accounts indicated that around 166 soldiers were interred, and archaeological excavations performed in 1992 confirmed that a burial ground existed here and revealed that 166 American soldiers only were interred on this swampy site. Excavation of the burial sites revealed 29 gravesites, many of them three and four coffins deep, and the writings of Joshua Richardson of 1869 helped locate the exact position of the burial sites and how the bodies were buried. The hospitals were closed on May 15, 1777, and this is one of the largest Revolutionary burial sites recorded in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
