six o'clock
In one of these rumbling , swaying conveyances the boys rode the thirty miles to Philadelphia , crossing the Schuylkill at Gray 's Ferry about noon . They had barely time for a bite of lunch in the White Horse Tavern before the horn was blown outside and they hurried to take their places in the north-bound coach . Along the cobbled streets of the bustling , red-brick town they rumbled for a few moments , then out upon the smooth dirt surface of the York Road , where the four good horses were put to a gallop . The Delaware , opposite Trenton , was reached by six o'clock , and there the half-dozen passengers left the coach and were carried across on a little ferry boat , rowed by an old man and his two sons . They spent the night at an Inn and next morning early boarded another coach bound northeast over the sparsely settled hills of New Jersey . The road was narrow and bad in places , slackening their speed . Twice the horses were changed , in little hamlets along the way .