* Samuel Holden Parsons was a native of Connecticut, and one of a committee of correspondence in that state before the commencement of the war. He was appointed a brigadier general by Congress in August, 1776, and served his country faithfully during the contest. Under his direction, the successful expedition of Colonel Meigs against the enemy at Sag Harbor, on Long Island, in 1777, was sent out. He was appointed a commissioner to negotiate with the Western Indians in 1785. In 1787, he was appointed one of the judges of the Northwestern Territory. He was drowned in the Ohio, in December, 1789.
**This is a little fountain bubbling up by the road side, and named The Soldier's Spring, from the circumstance that an American soldier, while retreating before the enemy, stooped at the fountain to quench his thirst. While so doing, a cannon ball, that struck the hills above him, glanced obliquely, hit and shattered his thigh, and left him dying beside the clear waters. He was conveyed in a wagon that passed soon afterward, to Fishkill, where he expired.
*** This was the point off which Henry Hudson's vessel, the Half Moon, came first to anchor after leaving the mouth of the river. The Highland Indians, filled with wonder, came flocking to the ship in boats, but their curiosity ended in a tragedy. One of them, overcome by acquisitiveness, crawled up the rudder, entered the cabin window, and stole a pillow and a few articles of wearing apparel. The mate saw the thief pulling his bark for land, and shot at and killed him. The ship's boat was sent for the stolen articles, and when one of the natives, who had leaped into the water, caught hold of the side of the shallop, his hand was cut off by a sword, and he was drowned. This was the first blood shed by these voyagers. Intelligence of this spread over the country, and the Indians hated the white man, afterward, intensely. The exceedingly tortuous creek which traverses the marsh southward of Verplanck's Point was called, by the Indians, Meahagh, and this was the name which they gave to the peninsula. It was purchased of the Indians by Stephanus Van Cortlandt in 1683. From him it passed into the possession of his son Johannes, whose only daughter and heiress, Gertrude, married Philip Verplanck, from whom it acquired its present appellation.
Fortifications at Verplanck's Point.—Capture of Fort Fayette. —Surrender of the Garrison.
the Point, near the western extremity, and overlooking the water, a small fortification, called Fort Fayette, was erected It was an eligible site for a fort; and, in connection with the fortress on the rocky promontory opposite, was capable of being made a formidable defense at this, the lower gate of the Hudson Highlands.
These two promontories make the river quite narrow, and, if well fortified, might defy the passage of any number of hostile vessels. * The site of Fort Fayette is distinctly traceable in the orchard upon the high grounds in the rear of Mr. Bleakly's store upon the wharf. The mounds and fossé of the main fort, as it was enlarged and strengthened by the British, and also the embankments of the smaller outworks, are quite prominent in many places.
The small forts at Verplanck's and Stony Points were captured by the enemy commanded by Sir Henry Clinton in person, on the 1st of June, 1779. The garrison of Stony Point consisted of only about forty men, and that at Verplanck's of seventy men, commanded by Captain Armstrong. As these forts secured a free communication between the troops of New England and those of the central and southern portions of the confederacy, Clinton determined to dislodge the Americans therefrom. Accordingly, on the 30th of May, he sailed up the river with a strong force, accompanied by General Vaughan; the flotilla was commanded by Admiral Collier. They landed in two divisions on the morning of the 31st, the one under Vaughan, on the east side, eight miles below Verplanck's, and May-1779 the other under Clinton, on the west side, a little above Haverstraw. The garrison at Stony Point retired to the Highlands on the approach of the enemy, and the fort changed masters without bloodshed. The next morning, the guns of the captured fortress, and the cannons and mortars dragged up during the night, were pointed toward Fort Fayette opposite, and a heavy cannonade was opened upon it. Unable to make a respectable resistance to this assault, and attacked in the rear by Vaughan's division, the little garrison surrendered themselves prisoners of war. ** The loss of these forts was greatly lamented by Washington,