Tempe Wick

Temperance "Tempe" Wick is one of Morristown's most enduring legends. According to tradition, during the Pennsylvania Line mutiny of January 1781, mutinous soldiers attempted to commandeer her horse as she rode near the Jockey Hollow encampment. Rather than surrender the animal — essential for a farm family's survival — she rode home at a gallop and hid the horse in a bedroom of the Wick farmhouse for three days until the danger passed.

The story may be true, or it may be a composite of several incidents polished by generations of retelling. What is certain is that it reflects a real tension: the Continental Army's presence in Morristown created enormous strain on civilian communities. Soldiers desperate for food, firewood, and transportation took what they needed from local farms, sometimes with permission and often without.

Tempe Wick's story endures because it humanizes the Revolution's cost to ordinary people — particularly women, who managed farms and households while the army camped in their fields, ate their provisions, and cut their timber. The Wick House still stands at Jockey Hollow, preserved by the National Park Service as a reminder that the Revolution's burdens fell on civilians and soldiers alike.