250 and Counting

Yes, I busted on New Jersey in yesterday’s episode, but I was born and raised in the New York Metro Area and it’s part of my DNA. To be fair, lots of New Jersey is quite nice. Fort Lee (the town)…not so much. I mean, it’s fine. But not especially nice. Having said that, Fort Lee Historic Park is a neat little—well, 33 acres—island of peace among a bustling urban center. Just out of sight of this photo to the left is the George Washington Bridge, which crosses the Hudson River to New York City.

It needs to be asked why Congress didn’t give as much attention to having a Navy as much as it did an Army. It’s possible that it was really just a matter of proximity; there were active battles or troop movements going on all the time, plus we were fighting on several fronts (New York/Canada/the Cherokee tribes). Meanwhile the British Navy was too big to comprehend, plus there wasn’t as much engagement. And perhaps the sheer size of the ocean was daunting. But the British Navy made it tougher

Pennsylvania wasn’t the first state to enact a new constititution, nor was it the first to start with an enumeration of people’s rights. What it did have was provision for a unicameral legistlative body, which was unusual at the time. The main goal of this new constitution was not only to limit but to completely prevent the creation of an aristocracy. Specifically, it was based on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. It played a major role in the writing of this constitution, and its influence can be s

It was pretty well-known by this point that General Howe’s objective was to occupy New York and then move northward through the Hudson Valley. General Washington had issued a discretionary order to General Nathanael Greene to abandon the fort and remove its garrison, which then numbered about 3,000 men, to New Jersey. Colonel Robert Magaw, the acting commander of the fort, refused to abandon it, believing his troops would be able to defend it from the British. This stubbornness pretty much cos

White Plains, New York, has the feel of a suburban town that urbanized when nobody was looking. A little over 60,000 people live there, but during the day it’s estimated to have about a quarter million people working there. Nevertheless, they haven’t forgotten their place in American history, and there is a space that marks where much of the Battle of White Plains took place in 1776. It’s a very suburban zone dropped between two urban zones, with a series of retail stores stretching for about a

I do enjoy it when coincidental stories come together. We did mention a couple of days ago that this was a period of relative lawlessness in the downstate New York area, and the murder of Reverend Ephraim Avery is a definitive example of this. Avery’s murder was never solved, but apparently it was the stuff of much gossip and speculation. I actually learned about this incident while looking for something else and I stumbled over the story of the dedication and Evensong event which marks the 25