I'm always clipping or printing articles that I plan on reading some day. Today was some day. I threw most of the articles away, but found one very interesting. On July 4th of this year, the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS ran an article on the top revolutionary war sites in New York City. Here are a few of them.
RICHMOND TOWN in Staten Island. This is a 25 acre historic village and museum complex that includes Treasure House where British officers hid gold coins in the walls and Christopher House where local patriots and spies met to organize against British rule.
CITY HALL in downtown Manhattan. This is at the edge of an area known as The Common where the Declaration of Independence was read for the first time on July 9, 1776. Upon hearing the reading, people toppled a 4,000 pound lead statue of King George and melted it down to make 41,000 musket balls, which were used against the British.
GLOVER'S ROCK in Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx. This site marks the Battle of Pell's Point on October 18, 1776. Although outnumbered, Col. John Glover and his brigade of 843 "Marbleheaders" held off 4,000 British soldiers so that George Washington could escape to White Plains.
PRISON SHIP MARTYRS MONUMENT in Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn. Americans captured at Fort Washington were marched down to the city and into British prisons. An estimated 11,000 American prisoners died on overcrowded prison ships. Their bodies were buried in shallow graves along the shore and the remains were eventually gathered and placed in the crypt in this monument.
I've listed just four of the ten sites mentioned in this article, but I'm disappointed that there is no mention of any revolutionary event in Queens. I'm sure there must be something. I do know that Rufus King, although originally from Massachusetts and a signer of the Constitution, was one of the first senators from New York and had a home in Jamaica on what is now Jamaica Ave.
Surely, Queens had more involvement in the revolution. I'll have to keep checking.
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