Waiting for the crisis to pass, our thoughts go out to friends and loved-ones who also shelter in place. Old friends pass away, people we loved and admired. Immobilized for the time being, we can revisit destinations, near and far. join me in celebrating the joys of Quaranteam travel, the hope that these diversions might inspire us to value things we had taken for granted, to draw strength, wisdom and compassion from deeper engagements with nature.
Haverstraw Bay and the Tors from Stony Point. August 14, 2017
. (Image and text were featured in the exhibition James McElhinney. Discover the Hudson Anew, curated by Laura Vookles. Hudson River Museum. Yonkers, New York. September 13, 2019 to February 16, 2020. Published also as a limited-edition in Hudson Highlands. North River Suite Volume One. Needlewatcher Editions. New York. 2018)
“Stony Point was the theater of stirring events in the summer of 1779. The fort there, and Fort Fayette 0n Verplanck’s Point, on the opposite side of the river, were captured by Sir Henry Clinton on the 1st of June of that year…The garrison at Stony Point was very small, and retired towards West Point on the approach of the British. The victors pointed the guns of the captured fortress, and cannon and bombs brought by themselves, upon Fort Fayette the following morning. General Vaughan assailed it from the rear, and the little garrison soon surrendered themselves prisoners of war. These fortresses, commanding the lower entrance to the Highlands, were very important. General Anthony Wayne… was then in command of the Americans in the neighborhood. Burning with desire to retake the forts, he applied to Washington for permission to make the attempt…The cautious Washington considered; when the impetuous Wayne, scorning all obstacles, said, “General, I’ll storm hell if you will only plan it!”
–Benson J. Lossing. The Hudson from the Wilderness to the Sea. 1866
On July 16, 1779 General (Mad) Anthony Wayne led a night assault against a British garrison stationed on a rocky promontory on the right bank of the Hudson. Reaching across the river toward Verplanck’s Point on the eastern bank of the river, Stony Point marks the division between Haverstraw Bay and the southern waters of Peekskill Bay. Wading through waist-deep water in a soggy marsh, Wayne’s troops silently scaled the precipitous bluffs, taking the redcoats by surprise. Looking from one of the fortified positions, Hook Mountain and the Tors rise up along the southern horizon. A few miles north of the heights, Treason Creek flows into the Hudson. Along its banks near the confluence, Benedict Arnold had delivered to Major John Andre plans of the American fortifications at West Point. The site today is maintained as a state historic site, interpreting the Revolutionary period and the 1779 battle. The house where Arnold plotted treason was demolished years ago. The hill upon which it stood is occupied today by Helen Hayes Memorial Hospital. Hook Mountain and the Tors are preserved as part of the Palisades Interstate Park system, with hiking trails, lakes, and other recreational amenities.
Waiting for the crisis to pass, our thoughts go out to friends and loved-ones who also shelter in place. Old friends pass away, people we loved and admired. Immobilized for the time being, we can revisit destinations, near and far. join me in celebrating the joys of Quaranteam travel, the hope that these diversions might inspire us to value things we had taken for granted, to draw strength, wisdom and compassion from deeper engagements with nature.
Haverstraw Bay and the Tors from Stony Point. Monday, August 14. 2017
. (Image and text were featured in the exhibition James McElhinney. Discover the Hudson Anew, curated by Laura Vookles. Hudson River Museum. Yonkers, New York. September 13, 2019 to February 16, 2020. Published also as a limited-edition in Hudson Highlands. North River Suite Volume One. Needlewatcher Editions. New York. 2018)
“Stony Point was the theater of stirring events in the summer of 1779. The fort there, and Fort Fayette 0n Verplanck’s Point, on the opposite side of the river, were captured by Sir Henry Clinton on the 1st of June of that year…The garrison at Stony Point was very small, and retired towards West Point on the approach of the British. The victors pointed the guns of the captured fortress, and cannon and bombs brought by themselves, upon Fort Fayette the following morning. General Vaughan assailed it from the rear, and the little garrison soon surrendered themselves prisoners of war. These fortresses, commanding the lower entrance to the Highlands, were very important. General Anthony Wayne… was then in command of the Americans in the neighborhood. Burning with desire to retake the forts, he applied to Washington for permission to make the attempt…The cautious Washington considered; when the impetuous Wayne, scorning all obstacles, said, “General, I’ll storm hell if you will only plan it!”
–Benson J. Lossing. The Hudson from the Wilderness to the Sea. 1866
On July 16, 1779 General (Mad) Anthony Wayne led a night assault against a British garrison stationed on a rocky promontory on the right bank of the Hudson. Reaching across the river toward Verplanck’s Point on the eastern bank of the river, Stony Point marks the division between Haverstraw Bay and the southern waters of Peekskill Bay. Wading through waist-deep water in a soggy marsh, Wayne’s troops silently scaled the precipitous bluffs, taking the redcoats by surprise. Looking from one of the fortified positions, Hook Mountain and the Tors rise up along the southern horizon. A few miles north of the heights, Treason Creek, now known as Minisceongo Creek flows into the Hudson. Along its banks near the confluence, Benedict Arnold had delivered to Major John Andre plans of the American fortifications at West Point. The site today is maintained as a state historic site, interpreting the Revolutionary period and the 1779 battle. The house where Arnold plotted treason was demolished years ago. The hill upon which it stood is occupied today by Helen Hayes Memorial Hospital. Hook Mountain and the Tors are preserved as part of the Palisades Interstate Park system, with hiking trails, lakes, and other recreational amenities.
The site is approached off Route 9W via Battlefield Road. Descending to marshland north of the point the road crosses over a rail-line dedicated to freight-trains before terminating in a large parking-area at the foot of the promontory. Beyond this point the road is reserved for the use of park staff and volunteers. As I ascended toward the lighthouse a light mist turned to drizzle.
Surveying the site, leafy groves and grassy glades scattered with rocky outcroppings of Middle Ordovician limestone makes envisioning its appearance on July 15, 1776 nearly impossible. The interpretive center was closed. The only visitors apart from myself were two elderly women, and a young mother with her pre-K son. I set up my camp-stool and began mapping out the page-spread. In the distance are The Tors, rocky knobs rising above the steep northern face of Hook Mountain. Beyond Croton Point to the left lies the eastern shore of the Tappan Zee. Reaching into the Hudson from the right are silt-deposits of Minisceongo Creek, stabilized by landfill. Just south of Stony Point most of the tidal marsh Wayne’s men had traversed was bisected by the railway. A suburban subdivision stands on fill atop former landward wetlands. To the north, Tompkins Cove had been mined since 1837. When travel–writer Benson Lossing visited the facility in 1859 he found it bustling with activity.
“They are the most extensive works of the kind on the Hudson…at the foot of an immense cliff of limestone, nearly 200 feet in height, immediately behind the kilns, and extend more than half a mile along the river. One million bushels of lime were produced at the kilns each year…from 20,000 to 25,000 tons of the “gravel” were used each year in the construction of macadamized roads…The country behind, for many miles, is very wild, and almost uncultivated.”
Tompkins Cover limestone mine (reproduced under Fair Use, etc.) The Center for Land Use interpretation. (Reproduced under Fair Use, etc.)
Hudson River Resources has proposed a land-reclamation project to transform the three-hundred-foot-deep pit-mine into a new green space for the community. Making color-notes on the page, I thought about my location and all I beheld. Behind me stands a lighthouse built in 1825, a beacon for navigators. Just as the railroad had divided wetlands from the river, it had severed Stony Point from the shore. I thought how much more difficult Wayne’s capture of the post would have been, has the British been blessed with the road-cut enhancing their defenses.
King’s Ferry since ceased operations long before, but the Stony Point and Verplanck’s Landing (now Steamboat Waterfront Park) resonated with the history of transportation. The market for limestone quarried next-door had included gravel used in blacktop pavements. It was obvious why this had been a strategic location. Recalling the words of J.B. Jackson,
“And I still find myself wondering if there is not always some deep similarity between the way war organizes space and movement, and the way the contemporary society organizes them;
that is, if the military landscape and military society are not both in essence intensified version of the peacetime landscape, intensified and vitalized by one overriding purpose which, of necessity, brings about a closer relationship between man and the environment, and between men.”
–John Brinckerhoff Jackson. “Landscape as Seen by the Military” (essay). Discovering the Vernacular Landscape. Yale University Press. New Haven. 1984.
Check out April 2020 Quaranteam Traveler Dispatches
(A preview of SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER by James L. McElhinney (c) 2020. Schiffer Publishing).
Copyright James Lancel McElhinney (c) 2020 Texts and images may be reproduced (with proper citation) by permission of the author. To enquire, send a request to editions@needlewatcher.com