The Battle of Westchester Creek (also known as the Skirmish at Westchester Creek), a prelude to the Battle of Pell’s Point, was a small military engagement fought on October 12, 1776, during the New York and New Jersey campaign of the American Revolutionary War. [Read more…] about Battle of Westchester Creek Commemoration Planned
American Revolution
A 1776 Crown Point Council of War Was A Deciding Factor
On July 7, 1776, the Continental Army’s senior commanders assembled at Fort Crown Point on Lake Champlain to confront a military crisis.
Their meeting during a council of war at Crown Point, fundamentally changed the course of the Revolutionary War in the North, and helped lay the groundwork for the American victory at the Battles of Saratoga a year later. [Read more…] about A 1776 Crown Point Council of War Was A Deciding Factor
New Audio Tour at Lake George Battlefield Park
Anyone who loves French and Indian War and American Revolution history will want to be present at Lake George Battlefield Park for the premiere of Voices of the Lake George Battlefield, a free, self-guided audio tour of the popular historic site. The unveiling takes place at the Battlefield Park Visitor Center, 75 Fort George Road from 11 am to 1 pm on Saturday, October 10. [Read more…] about New Audio Tour at Lake George Battlefield Park
Battle of Valcour Island 250th Anniversary Weekend Oct 9-11
Clinton County will mark the 250th anniversary of the October 11, 1776 American Revolutionary War Battle of Valcour Island with three days of education, living history, music, ceremony and public commemoration, October 9-11, 2026. [Read more…] about Battle of Valcour Island 250th Anniversary Weekend Oct 9-11
David Maltbie: The ‘Other’ Nathan Hale
The story of Nathan Hale is a foundational myth of the American Revolution: an earnest but inexperienced patriot takes on the role of spy and unfortunately ends up a martyr to the cause.
Hale was identified by Major Robert Rogers, who pretended to be a fellow patriot, got him to reveal his mission over a drink before arresting him. When searched, British forces found hidden notes and military drawings. Under the laws of war, captured spies were not granted military trials or treated as prisoners of war. [Read more…] about David Maltbie: The ‘Other’ Nathan Hale
New York’s Great Warpath & Historian Harrison Bird
Lake George, NY resident Harrison Bird (1910-2003) belonged to a rare class of historians, those whose situate the local within the continental and, indeed, the global.
In four books published by Oxford University Press – Navies in the Mountains (1962), March to Saratoga (1963), Battle for a Continent (1965) and Attack on Quebec (1968) – Bird wrote about Lake George, Lake Champlain, Fort Ticonderoga, Saratoga, Quebec and the northern waterways not as isolated historic sites, but as parts of one strategic corridor: the route by which empires, armies, navies and ambitions moved between Canada and the Hudson Valley. [Read more…] about New York’s Great Warpath & Historian Harrison Bird
Naval Power & The 1776 Taking of New York City
The occupation of New York Harbor, and the capture of the city of New York were the most conspicuous British successes of the summer and fall of 1776 during the Revolutionary War. In June, Commodore Peter Parker (1721-1811) and General Henry Clinton (1730-1795) were meeting with defeat at the Battle of Sullivan’s Island at Charleston, SC, and Benedict Arnold was racing to construct a makeshift naval fleet to stall a British invasion from Canada on Lake Champlain.
At the same time, two brothers, General Sir William Howe (1729 –1814) and Commander-in-Chief of the North American Station, Richard Howe (later Earl Howe, 1726-1799), were arriving in New York Bay. [Read more…] about Naval Power & The 1776 Taking of New York City
Rouse, Brave Citizens: An Appeal to New Yorkers to Support Revolution
In December 1776, the American Revolution was just getting started and New York was in crisis. New York’s delegates to Philadelphia had signed the Declaration of Independence in July 1776.
But by the end of the year, though, New York was in peril – Long Island and the city of New York had been occupied by the British, the Westchester County region was not in control of either side, and British authorities were appealing to New Yorkers to abandon the rebels and support the Crown. [Read more…] about Rouse, Brave Citizens: An Appeal to New Yorkers to Support Revolution
Benedict Arnold’s Retreat Up Lake Champlain
Towards the evening of the Battle of Valcour Bay on October 11, 1776, the HMS Inflexible got within point-blank shot of the Americans, “when five broadsides,” wrote Sir Charles Douglas, “silenced their whole line.”
One fresh ship, with scantling [a design] for sea-going, and a concentrated battery, has an unquestioned advantage over a dozen light-built craft, carrying one or two guns each, and already several hours engaged in battle. [Read more…] about Benedict Arnold’s Retreat Up Lake Champlain
The Naval Campaign on Lake Champlain in 1775-1776
In 1775, only fifteen years had elapsed since the expulsion of the New France from Canada following the French and Indian War (1754-1763). The concentration of French power in the valley of the St. Lawrence had impressed upon the minds of colonial leaders the importance of Lake Champlain, of its tributary Lake George, and of the Hudson River, as forming a consecutive, if not continuous, water line of communications from the St. Lawrence River to the city of New York. [Read more…] about The Naval Campaign on Lake Champlain in 1775-1776
Financing the Revolution: National, State & Local Currencies
The New York Provincial Congress was one of the first revolutionary bodies to outline a new inter-colonial program to finance the Revolutionary War.
On May 26, 1775, only two weeks after the Second Continental Congress met at Philadelphia, the Provincial Congress wrote to New York’s delegates that it was “clearly impossible” to raise by taxes a sum “adequate to the public service” and that it was equally certain that the existing paper money of the various states could not obtain ‘”universal circulation.” [Read more…] about Financing the Revolution: National, State & Local Currencies
Battle of Brooklyn 250th Anniversary Spawns Battlefield App
Just six weeks after Patriots at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia declared independence on July 4, 1776, tens of thousands of troops clashed in one of the largest engagements of the American Revolution, across now-unrecognizable areas of New York City. [Read more…] about Battle of Brooklyn 250th Anniversary Spawns Battlefield App
New York & The Struggle to Finance the Revolutionary War
One of the earliest acts of the New York Provincial Congress was the promise on May 24, 1775, to repay all monies advanced for the resistance to British domination. When the old colonial government was gradually superseded in 1774 and 1775 by an extra-legal government of committees and congresses chosen by the people, these bodies were met immediately by the problem of financing both the political activities and the military operations. The latter began with the plans to seize Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point, shortly after the colonists had been electrified by the news of Lexington and Concord. [Read more…] about New York & The Struggle to Finance the Revolutionary War
Cannonballs & Lake George’s Colonial Military History
In November 1940, Clayton Bly, a lumber company employee and a military veteran of World War I (1914–1918), unearthed two cannonballs from the Virgin Hollow neighborhood of Lake George.
At the time, Bly probably did not realize he stumbled upon a little understood chapter of Lake George’s colonial history. [Read more…] about Cannonballs & Lake George’s Colonial Military History
The Seven Taverns Which Saved the Ramapo Pass
Built originally around 1755 by Stephen Sloat, Harmony Hall functioned simultaneously as a family home and a roadside inn along the New York-to-Albany stage route. Because of its strategic location in the narrow Ramapo Pass, the tavern transformed into a vital military station during the American Revolution. [Read more…] about The Seven Taverns Which Saved the Ramapo Pass
The Declaration of Independence as American Scripture
Each year, millions of visitors flock to see the engrossed copy of the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives building in Washington, DC where it rests on display with the United States’s other Charters of Freedom.
But how did it end up there and why do people approach it with religious reverence? [Read more…] about The Declaration of Independence as American Scripture
Exploring the Revolution at the Long Island Museum
The latest Long Island History Project podcast takes listeners on a private tour of the exhibit “The Seat of Action: Long Island in the American Revolution and Beyond” at the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook, New York.
Running through October 18th, the exhibit tells the stories of the lives of people affected by the conflict at all levels of society. Joshua Ruff, Co-Executive Director, Collections and Programming, is our guide. [Read more…] about Exploring the Revolution at the Long Island Museum
August 6th Marks 1777 Battle of Oriskany Anniversary
August 6th marks the anniversary of the 1777 Battle of Oriskany. Fought as an American relief column marched to aid the besieged Fort Stanwix, about 800 Tryon County militiamen and 60 allied Oneida warriors under Brigadier General Nicholas Herkimer were ambushed by British, Loyalist, and Indigenous forces (including Mohawk and Seneca warriors). [Read more…] about August 6th Marks 1777 Battle of Oriskany Anniversary
New York’s Ramapo Iron Villages During the American Revoltuion
In the decades leading to the American Revolution, colonist began trying to exploit rich deposits of iron ore in the Ramapo Mountains, part of the Appalachian Mountains in northeastern New Jersey (Bergen and Passaic counties) and southeastern New York (Rockland and Orange counties). [Read more…] about New York’s Ramapo Iron Villages During the American Revoltuion
Robert R. Livingston and the Declaration of Independence
Five men served on the Second Continental Congress’s Committee of Five, to produce the Declaration of Independence. We know three of them well: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. But who were the other two?
The latest episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast explores the lives and contributions of Robert R. Livingston of New York and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. [Read more…] about Robert R. Livingston and the Declaration of Independence