COLUMBIA LIBRARIES OFFSITE AVERY FINE ARTS RESTRICTED AR01359177 Scenic and Historic America Quarterly Magazine Published by The American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society Hamilton Grange 287 Convent Avenue (141st Street) Washington Heights New York City Volume IV MAY, 1936 Number 3 FORT TRYON PARK ON WASHINGTON HEIGHTS NEW YORK CITY The Heather Garden in Fort Tryon park, Washington Heights, New York City, with the George Washington Bridge and the Palisades in the background. SPECIAL SECOND EDITION PRICE, 25 CENTS SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA Volume IV MAY, VJM> Number 3 published quarterly at the headquarters of the society Hamilton Grange 287 Convent Avenue (141st Street) Washington Heights New York City Subscription, One Dollar per Year CONTENTS OF MAY ISSUE PAGE The Heather Garden in Fort Tryon Park, Washington Heights, New York City, with the George Washington Bridge in background 1 Fort Tryon Park, a New and Distinctive Unit of the New York City Park System, of Unusual Scenic and Historic Qualities. Given by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Landscaped by Olmsted Brothers, and Maintained with Sympathetic Understanding by the City Park Department 3 Remains of American and British Forts on Fort George Hill, recently discovered by Mrs. Beatrix Disalvo, of George Washington High School 25 Memberships, dues and contributions 29 Standing Committee of the Society 30 Trustees and Officers of the Society 32 FORT TRYON PARK A New and Distinctive Unit of the New York City Park System, of Unusual Scenic and Historic Qualities, Given by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Landscaped by Olmsted Brothers, and Maintained with Sympa- thetic Understanding by the City Park Department By Raymond H. Torrey "C ORT TRYON PARK, at the northern end of the rocky ridge of Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York, the acquisition and development of which the City owes to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is one of the most unusual and distinctive units in the City Park system, which has taken it over with sympathetic and expert understanding of its peculiar problems of maintenance in the spirit which inspired its giver, and Olmsted Brothers, the landscape architects who planned and carried out its design. The Park was turned over to the City, after several years of delay in accept- ance and cooperation in improvements which it had agreed to make as its share, on October 12, 1935. While its unusual features, in wide views of the Hudson, in the solution of problems of heavy construction and, particularly, in the rich- ness of its plantings of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants, have been appreciated during the winter months, they will receive still greater appreciation in the spring and summer of 1936, when the hundreds of species come into bloom and the plant associations are at their highest degree of beauty. Although but sixty acres in extent, because of its situation and physical char- acter, it offered an opportunity, realized through the vision of Mr. Rockefeller and the genius of the landscape architects, for permanent control of its beauty, and for public benefit, esthetic as well as recreational, which was one of the most notable in the development of the City's Park system. It also preserves the site of the northern outworks of Fort Washington, taken by storm by the British and Hessians, on November 16, 1776, in one of the most disastrous reverses of the American cause in the Revolution, although defended with bravery by a garri- son one-fifth the number of assailants. The site was occupied during the remainder of the War for Independence by the British, and a fort strengthened by them, at the highest point of the park, was called Fort Tryon, after the last British Governor of New York. Mr. Rockefeller had owned the site since 1917, having acquired most of it from Mr. C. K. G. Billings, with some additional parcels, and offered it to the City at that time, but lack of appreciation of his gift, through years of unresponsive city administrations, delayed complete acceptance until the present city govern- ment came into power, and assured Mr. Rockefeller that the property would be maintained according to the principles of his development. 4 SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA TURNED OVER TO THE CITY OCTOBER 12, 1 93 5 Meanwhile, since 1927, Mr. Rockefeller had employed Olmsted Brothers to study and plan suitable development of the property. This work was carried out steadily and carefullly over several years, and besides much heavy construction, included the restaurant, playground shelter, comfort stations, and playground at the corner of Broadway and Riverside Drive, with wading pool and playground equipment, all developed and paid for by Mr. Rockefeller. The park buildings were constructed of natural stone taken from the cut in the archway giving access to Riverside Drive. In 1934 and 1935 tbe City Park Department cooperated in the paving and finishing of park drives and walks above the rough sub-grade, sanitary and storm drainage systems, electric light and telephone conduits and water supply. On Columbus Day, October 12, 1935, the -property was accepted for the City by the Hon. Robert Moses, Commissioner of Parks, before a distinguished gathering, which included Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and their sons, Nelson and Lawrence. The speakers included Hon. Fiorello H. LaGuardia, Mayor of New York City ; Dr. John H. Finley of the New York Times, who likened the Park to the Acropolis of Athens ; Hon. Samuel Levy, President of the Borough of Man- hattan; Mr. George Blumenthal, President of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts; and Gen. Hugh S. Johnson, then Director of the Works Progress Administration for New York City, which had aided in the final steps of construction. An interesting feature of the construction is a series of terraces on the site of the old Billings house, which was burned in 1925. They rise forty feet, supported by walls of native stone, and suggest the British Fort Tryon, which occupied the site during the Revolution, although none of the original material of the old fort remains. MONUMENT TO AMERICAN DEFENDERS On the east side of the highest ledge in the Park, now crowned by the terraces, outlook, and flagpole, is a bronze tablet erected by Mr. Billings, through the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, of which he is a member, commemorating the defense of Fort Washington, with the following inscription: ox this hilltop stood fort tryon the northern out-work of fort Washington its gallant defense against the hessian troops by the maryland and virginia regiment 16 november 1776 was shared by margaret corbin the first american woman to take a soldier's part in the war for liberty frected under the auspices of the american scenic and historic preservation society SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA 5 The exceptionally rich and varied plantings in Fort Tryon Park, which make it, in a large degree, another botanical garden for New York City, are maintained according to the plans of Olmsted Brothers, by competent and understanding members of the staff of the City Park Department. The historical aspects of the Park will be indicated by markers designed and erected by the Park Department. On the north end of the ridge, is now arising the new Cloisters, the Fort Tryon Branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which will house notable examples of medieval art gathered by George Gray Barnard and by Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller. THE LANDSCAPING OF FORT TRYON PARK The general landscaping of Fort Tryon Park, by Olmsted Brothers of Brook- line, Mass., at the expense of Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the plantings of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants, by the same firm of landscape architects, and maintained with sympathetic understanding by the New York City Park Depart- ment, have made the place one of the most remarkable and beautiful examples of thoughtful and intelligent treatment of a problem of the kind afforded by the rocky and thin-soiled terrain, in America, if not in the world. Special consideration had to be given to every detail, of the drives and walks, the walls, the parking and resting places, to make the most of the expansive and unusual views over the Hudson River to the Palisades and in other directions ; and to avoid wear and tear on the plantings and lawns and terraces, to be watched against with the inevitable large use of this park, owing to its situation and beauty. The final touch, upon the heavy construction work and necessary facilities for public service, was the planting of native and exotic plants, suited to the situation, which has made the park a concentrated exhibit of such vegetation, rarely found in such richness and variety anywhere in the world, numbering over 1,600 species, which is certain to become attractive for its educational value for students of field botany. Alpine plants, heaths, rock-loving species, whose native habitats are remote from the nearby environs of Greater New York, are found in Fort Tryon Park in naturalistic surroundings and associations, bringing such rare and seldom seen plants within easy reach of teachers and students of botany, makers of rock gardens, and others interested. THE DESIGN OF FORT TRYON PARK The design of the Park was the subject of much investigation and thought by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., of Olmsted Brothers, from the beginning of its work for Mr. Rockefeller, in 1927. Mr. Olmsted spent several months in Europe to examine the treatment of similar problems in parks and estates there. His con- ceptions of the problem of Fort Tryon Park were described in a preliminary report in 1927, which was presented by Edward Clark Whiting, of Olmsted Brothers, in the April, 1935, number of Parks and Recreation. Considering the treatment of the site, Mr. Olmsted regarded, first, the stand- point of people within such a park, enjoying its facilities and landscaping, and even more the extraordinary views from its outlooks ; and second, the standpoint of people looking toward it, from Riverside Drive, Dyckman Street, and Broadway, its boundaries on city streets ; and from the Hudson River, and the Palisades across the river. SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA 7 The greatest scenic asset of the site, the views across and up and down the Hudson River, differ from views from any points southward along Washington Heights and Manhattan Island, in these respects : The commanding heights in the park area, the Overlook, occupying what was Forest Hill, and the northern redoubt of Fort Washington, afterward Fort Tryon, during the American Revolution, 270 feet above the Hudson ; the promenade above the heather garden, facing the Hudson; about 240 feet; and the northern point where the new Cloisters stands, about 200 feet, are the highest open places, free to the public, between the Battery and Spuyten Duyvil. There is no other place on Manhattan Island, except Inwood Hill, half a mile to the north, from which river views will be possible, in the future, without walls of apartment and other buildings crowding upon the escarpment which commands such views. The views from Riverside Park, below, are from much lower eleva- tions above the Hudson and do not give the miles of expanse of the river, to the north, which are seen from the high points on the ridge. Only in Fort Tryon Park and Inwood Hill Park will there remain such unobstructed views on Manhattan. The deep valley between the northerly bluff of Fort Tryon Park and Inwood Hill, crossing the island along the line of Dyckman Street, and the smaller valley between the ridge of which Fort Tryon Park stands, and the Fort George ridge to the east, and the control of all these slopes except on the west side of Fort George hill, by the New York City Park Department, give an isolated character to Fort Tryon Park, and a distinguished nature to views from the Park and toward it from near and far viewpoints on east, north and west. Views to the east are conventionalized by the masses of apartments in the valley below, but farther away, across the Harlem River, more distinction is given by the buildings of New York University, including the Hall of Fame. There are masses of trees, some remnants of the natural forest cover, some planted, where trunks and foliage soften the intrusion of massed buildings upon the eye. PROVISION FOR THE PUBLIC The inevitable heavy public use of Fort Tryon Park, because of the surround- ing dense population, and the ease of accessibility by motor highways and public transportation lines, led the landscape architects to consider carefully the nature of such use, the means to satisfy visitors, and to insure greatest possible protection of improvements and plantings. The views of the Hudson were certain to attract automobilists, desirous of contemplating their beauty, and while the area of parking space was limited by the narrow top of the ridge, and the necessary drives and paths, and buildings and no such ample provision of this sort had to be provided for as in the case of a park where visitors remain for hours, adequate treatment of this problem was essential. It was solved by placing small parking places, for a few cars, at scattered points, along the park drive (which is a part of the former Northern Avenue), around the Cloisters, at the north end, giving outlooks west, north and east ; and at the cafeteria near the southern entrance. Since the greatest use of the Park will be by pedestrians, from the ridge district to the south and the valley to the east, and by visitors using the subways to the 190th Street and Dyckman Street stations on the Independent and Inter- borough subways, great care was taken in the laying out of eight miles of paths, from Broadway, and Riverside Drive, for convenient access, easy climbs of the 8 SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA steep sides of the ridge, and distributon of people among the overlooks, terraces, gardens and playlawns. Much ingenuity was exercised to secure easy grades up the rise of 150 feet from Broadway and Riverside Drive to the general eleva- tion of the ridge, from which the highest points are reached by steps and ramps. Thought was given, in the interest of combining public service with protection, to the classes of pedestrian visitors, according to youth and age, racial and cultural backgrounds, activity or leisureliness, appreciative, law-abiding people, interested in the educational values of the rich plantings, and the carelessly or wantonly destructive minority which is the bane of city parks, and cannot be expected to be wholly absent even in this little gem of a park, whose attractions are of a type appealing to the cultivated and contemplative mind, interested in scenery, history and horticulture, rather than to the type for which larger parks with provisions for more vigorous recreation and exercise are provided. Recognition of the conventional type of park uses has been given, in a mothers' and children's play- The great arch, cut in the schist rock of the ridge on which Fort Tryon Park stands, to provide an automobile entrance from Riverside Drive. The rock from this cut was used for walls and buildings in the Park. SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA 9 ground, with a wading pool, at the northeast corner, at Broadway and Riverside Drive, accessible without climbing, which will take up a good deal of use on the part of those who do not care to climb to the ridge. Sitting places and terraces, where pedestrians may linger, have been provided at various levels along the slopes and the summit, and were selected for the views they offer in each direction. The numerous paths, at different levels, on the Broadway and Riverside Drive slopes, required an immense amount of wall con- struction, carefully fitted to the existing ledges and banks, and designed to support plantings of trees, shrubs and rock-loving herbaceous plants, to give a naturalistic appearance. For these walls, and for steps, and other construction, an ample quantity of the local Hudson schist was available, in the removal of this stone in the cutting of the great arch on the underpass (motor) entrance from Riverside Drive. Much thought was given in the building of paths, steps and walls to reduce the tendency of pedestrians to cut across lawns and gardens and destroy such features, while avoiding fencing of them. The steepness of the slopes gave good reasons for retaining walls, covered with vines and rock plants, or parapets above walls, along paths, all in keeping with the landscape, and practically planned to reduce invasion of plantings and temptations to thoughtless or wanton injury. THE RIVERSIDE DRIVE FRONT The western and northwestern escarpment of the ridge, sloping steeply to Riverside Drive and in places almost precipitous, presented a special problem in the design. Its brinks give the finest river views toward the Palisades. It was naturally rocky and sparsely covered with trees, even when the Hessians stormed the northern redoubt of Fort Washington in 1776, so that they were repulsed for four hours when they tried to climb it, and at length reached the top with great difficulty and heavy loss. It was made still steeper when Riverside Drive was cut along here, by blasting into its base for the roadway. Olmsted Brothers accepted this precipitousness, natural and artificial, and by skilful improvement and a limited amount of pathway construction on the Riverside Drive face, made it accessible to pedestrians, but by placing soil in shelves and crannies and planting sturdy shrubs therein, covered much of the rawness and produced an effect of a series of natural cliffs, broken by verdure-covered shelves, which is strikingly different from the smoother, well-covered slopes of Inwood Hill to the north. Mr. Olmsted found inspiration for the treatment of this difficult phase of the land- scaping, in some of the rock-perched forts and castles in Europe, where ancient trees and shrubs cover crags and walls. With the growth of the plantings in rock crevices, the effect intended will be achieved more and more each year. The great arch cut in the schist, making an entrance road from Riverside Drive, with an easy grade through the underpass, and along the easterly slope up to the lawns. south of the Cloisters, is an interesting construction feature. Mr. Corne- lius C. K. G. Billings, when he built his home on the summit, on the site now occupied by the terraces west of the Overlook, blasted a road from Riverside Drive near the south end of the present Fort Tryon Park, up along the slope, under a columned overlook which is retained in the present development, and up to his residence. It was but a narrow, one-way road, and could not be made over into a modern two-way motor drive, so it has been retained as a pedestrian path, and Ill SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA a new vehicular entrance was constructed by means of the great arch, at the middle of the western side of the park. Mr. Whiting expressed the hope that because of the exceptional character of Fort Tryon Park, New York City Park administrations will limit judiciously forms of active recreation or neighborhood community activities, for which small neighborhood parks are better fitted. At the time he wrote, New York City had made little provision of this kind, but during the present administration, Park Commissioner Robert Moses has secured and improved scores of such small parks, suited for vigorous activities. With such small parks in Manhattan and Bronx, and Inwood Park to the north of Fort Tryon, more suited for such activities, it may be hope that Fort Tryon Park will be kept in large part for the enjoyment of more leisurely, contemplative and appreciative visitors. Considering the southerly background of Fort Tryon Park, Olmsted Brothers felt that in time the tall apartments of Washington Heights would crowd right up to its boundary and make a straight, ugly front there. At their suggestion, Mr. Rockefeller, in turning over his land to the City, reserved an area at the north end of Fort Washington Avenue, opposite the south plaze entrance of the Park, on which it was proposed that apartments be some time erected, to be in harmony with the Park and to produce a "terminal architectural mass, really fit to stand in the years to come as the permanent northern culmination of the buildings of Manhattan." EARLY HISTORY OF FORT TRYON HILL No aboriginal name for the ridge occupied by Fort Tryon Park is recorded. The earliest name which Dr. Edward Hagaman Hall, former Secretary of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, who described Fort Tryon in the Twenty-second Annual Report of the Society in 1917, was able to identify, in Liber 36 of Conveyances, page 79, New York County Records, was the Dutch "Lange Bergh," meaning "Long Hill." This term was given to the ridge north of about 176th Street, in the allotment in 1691, to Joost van Oblienus. At the time of the Revolution, Long Hill was known as Mount Washington, although the knob occupied by an advanced work of Fort Washington and later by Fort Tryon was known as Forest Hill. Before filling and other changes altered the shores and contours of the upper end of Manhattan Island, the valley between Long Hill and Inwood Hill, along the line of the present Dyckman Street, was cut into on either end by Little Sand Bay on the Hudson Shore and by Half Creek, later Sherman's Creek, on the Harlem River. A brook, known as Peter Tuynier's Fall, rose on the south side of Inwood Hill, and entered tide water in Half Creek. A tributary of this stream rose at what is now Broadway and 181st Street and flowed north along the line of Broadway. The Hessians attacking Fort Washington, November 16, 1776, probably drank from this stream, then clean and willow bordered, with Forest Hill on the west and Rondevly Hill, from the Rondevly, or Round Meadow below it, later Laurel Hill, where Fort George was built by the British, on the east. The hollow along this brook was occupied by American and, later, during much of the Revolution, by British and Hessian troops, as is attested by many military relics found west of Broadway, by Doctor Hall, Reginald Pelham Bolton and William L. Calver. SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA 11 PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS The Indians of Manhattan Island remained longest at its north end, includ- ing the Long Hill. Those of this section were the Wickquaskeek Indians, whose chiefs, as recorded in land transactions with the early settlers, were Reckewack, Ranachque and Kaxkeek. They still claimed title and held possession up to the time of the Dongan Patent in 1686 to the Town of Harlem, of all land north of Manhattan Street, except certain farms of Dyckman, Nagel and others, but on March 1, 1715, in consideration of "sundries delivered to the natives," on behalf of the whites, by Col. Stephen Van Cortlandt, on February 28, 1688, and more on the later date, the red men finally quitted their last holdings on the island and withdrew northward. Even after the Dutch settled in Harlem and took up farms on the lowlands in the Dyckman Street valley, the rocky ridge between Moertje David's Vly, the meadow along the present Manhattan Street, and Little Sand Bay at Dyckman Street, remained wilderness. Portions of the ridge of smoother slope, south of 176th Street, known as Jochem Pieter's Hills, from Jochem Pietersen Kuytei, were planted in Indian corn and were known as the Great Maize Land. The Indians had used them for the same crop. But the north end remained long in forest, up to the time of the Revolution. It was also the last refuge for wild animals on Manhattan. Wolves were killed there as late as 1680. Forest Hill, the name given to Fort Tryon Hill, as late as 1776, suggests, Doctor Hall thought, that it was forest covered while heights farther south had been cleared. A contemporary sketch of the Hessian attack, from the Bronx shore, upon Laurel Hill and Forest Hill, shows woods over both, with the lowlands along Sherman Creek cleared in farms, and a clearing east of where is now the arch entering from Riverside Drive. During the Revolution, the hills occupied by Fort Tryon, Fort Washington and Fort George, were cleared of trees, for firewood for the troops and to give openings for artillery and musket fire, but woods remained on them as late as 1855, as shown by conveyances mentioning woodlots thereon. Even as late as 1930, before development of the Park was begun by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., a few acres of woodland, second or third growth, but typical of hardwood forests of this region, with some fine oaks and tuliptrees, remained on the northeast corner, overlook- ing Broadway, and here was one of the last remaining places on Manhattan where delicate native plants, such as hepatica and Dutchman's breeches, bloomed. Some of the trees, especially several fine tuliptrees, were preserved in the landscaping, and remain on the slope southwest of the playground and wading pool at the corner of Riverside Drive and Broadway. A number of scattered oaks, beeches and elms, throughout the Park, are descendants of the earlier forest cover, and there are also some exotics, such as Paulowina, Gingko, Mulberry and Ailanthus, apparently planted on or escaped to farms and estates which formerly occupied the eastern slope of the ridge. LAND OWNERSHIPS Doctor Hall, in his researches, has a detailed record of the ownerships of the parcels now comprised in Fort Tryon Park (Twenty-second Annual Report of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, 1917, pages 745 et seq.) . He found that for eighty-six years after the purchase of Manhattan Island from the Indians in 1626, Long Hill had no individual owner and remained part of the 12 SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA vacant land of the town of Harlem. In 1708 the Assembly directed a survey of these common lands, which was made by Peter Berrien of Newtown, L. I. After four years' work, owing to the diversity of the land, they divided it into allot- ments to the freeholders of Harlem. In 1712 the allotments were finally made, in four groups of parcels known as "divisions." The Fourth Division, including what is now Fort Tryon Park, extended from Kingsbridge Road (now Broadway) to the Hudson, and from the north line of the Oblinus Farm, between 185th and 186th Streets, to Dyckman Street. This was divided into eighteen long narrow lots, extending east to west, No. 1 being at the north and No. 18 at the north. The lots now included, for the greater part, in Fort Tryon Park, were Nos. 9 to 18. They were allotted, respectively, to Thomas Delavall, John Nagel, Lawrence Jansen Low, Samuel Waldron, Marcus Tiebout, Maria Myer, Aeltie Vermilye, Charles Congreve, Isaac Delamater and John Benson. Lot 9 included the property on which the Libbey Castle now stands. Lot 10 was formerly the site of the chateau occupied in 1915 by C. K. G. Billings. Lots 11 to 18 were later consolidated in the Hays and Sheafer tracts. Most of all of them were included in Mr. Rockefeller's gift to the City. John Nagel, Jr., owner of Lot 10, whose family name is given to Nagel Avenue, running north from Broadway, was the son of John Nagel, Sr., who was a soldier in the employ of the Dutch West India Company and owned lands on Upper Manhattan. The son married Magdalena Dyckman, February 2, 1708, thus making an alliance with another family which held lands on the upper end of the island. The history of these lots, dow:n to the time of the Revolution, is told by Doctor Hall in the Tw:enty-second Annual Report of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, pages 745-750. Access to these lots was by a wagon road which the Harlem town meeting, March 22, 1711, ordered laid out, beginning at the Queen's Highway, later Kingsbridge Road, and later Broadway, at Hendrick Oblinus' land, about 176th Street, and running through Oblinus' property and the new lots, to the north end of Long Hill. Fort Washington Avenue, including the part now a drive through Fort Tryon Park, follows approximately the route of this old wagon road, although a new entrance was cut by Mr. Rockfeller, through a rock arch from Riverside Drive. During the Revolution the British, whose camps were along the east side of the hill, and whose fortifications occupied the summit, changed the entrance of the ridge road to about 181st Street, at the Blue Bell Tavern, south of Fort Washington. REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY OF FORT TRYON Fort Tryon Hill was the scene of the bravest resistance of the American garrison in the assault made by the British and Hessians, November 16, 1776, upon the positions known generally as Fort Washington, and centering in that redoubt, which stood at the line of 183rd Street. After the Battle of Long Island, the retreat of Washington to Manhattan Island, and at length to Westchester County and, after the Battle of White Plains, into New Jersey, a garrison of 3,000 Americans remained in Fort Washington, which the British had not attacked up to that time. Besides the main work at 183rd Street, there were fortified lines across the ridge, southward, at about 145th-147th Streets, 153rd-155th Streets, and at the line of 161st Street. There was a redoubt on Fort Washington Point, and another on Laurel Hill, later Fort George, to the east.* North of Fort * See account of recent discoveries on Laurel Hill, pages 25-28. SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA 13 Washington, six-tenths of a mile, was the redoubt which the British later strength- ened and called Fort Tryon. There seems not to have been any important work on the extreme north end of the hill, where the new Cloisters now stands. There were other American works on Inwood Hill, Marble Hill and the Heights of Fordham, but the first was not defended at the time of the attack on Fort Wash- ington and the others, then on the Westchester (now Bronx County) side of the Harlem River, had been occupied by the British or Hessians when Washington withdrew northward. The American redoubt on Fort Tryon Hill, Forest Hill as called up to 1776, was not a work of great strength, Doctor Hall points out, for the Sauthier-Faden map "Plan of Fort Washington, now Fort Knyphausen," surveyed soon after the capture of the post, shows it as "Battery, two guns." It had great natural strength in the steep ledges and slopes surrounding it, north, east and west, and there were probably lines of abattis on the sides. It had no name under the Ameri- can occupation. It was held by about 550 Maryland and Virginia riflemen, under command of Col. Moses Rawlings, and a few artillerymen under Captain Pierce. These Marylanders were the same who made the heroic stand at the Battle of Long Island, three months before, holding the British long enough for Washington to withdraw his lines for the crossing to Manhattan. Pierce's cannoneers included John Corbin of York County, Pa., who was accompanied by his wife, Margaret or Margery, who became a heroine of the battle, as will be described later. The total American force, defending Fort Washington and its outer lines and redoubts, numbered about 2,800. The total of British attacking from the south, west and east, and Hessians, attacking from the north, was 14,400. The British warship Pearl, lying in the Hudson north of Fort Washington Point, joined in the attack with her guns. Forest Hill, held by the American outpost, was the object of the attack of the northern column of assault, led by General Knyphausen and Colonel Rail, mortally wounded six weeks later at Trenton. The Hessians crossed from Kings- bridge in boats, and having landed, divided in two columns. The right, under Colonel Rail, seized Cock Hill (Inwood Hill) and approached Forest Hill along the Hudson shore. The left, under Knyphausen, ascended the steep rise where the new Cloisters now stands, and a detachment moved south along the brook east of the ridge and attacked the American redoubt from that side. The Hessians also placed cannon on Cock Hill, which fired on Forest Hill, and the British who had seized Laurel Hill brought guns to bear across the head of the valley upon the redoubt. The Americans were thus attacked on three sides, while the main body of the garrison, in Fort Washington, was assaulted by heavy forces of British from the south, along the open ridge. MARGARET CORBIN 's PART IN THE BATTLE The Hessian force in the infantry assault numbered 4,000, nearly eight times the 'number of the garrison of the Forest Hill redoubt. Yet the Americans held out for two hours, the Maryland and Virginia riflemen killing many of the enemy, and the handful of artillerymen working their guns to good effect. The can- noneers were picked off, one by one, and at length John Corbin was killed by a Hessian bullet. His wife, who had been working with the men in cleaning and loading her husband's cannon, took his place and fired more shots until she was wounded by grapeshot, in the shoulder, in a manner that disabled her and crip- SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA 15 pled her for life. Her bravery in this fight and her subsequent career are fully told in Doctor Hall's "The Story of Margaret Corbin," published by the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, through the interest of its Honorary President, Dr. D. Bryson Delavan. In brief, her life was as follows : She was born in Franklin County, Pa., November 12, 1751, daughter of Robert Cochran, who was killed by the Indians in 1756. Her mother was cap- tured by the Indians at that time. Margaret, then five years old, escaped because she was visiting an uncle, who took her into his family. In 1772 she married John Corbin, a Virginian, who enlisted in the First Company of Pennsylvania Artillery under Capt. Francis Proctor. As Mrs. Corbin had no children, she followed her husband in the war, and survived him in the assault on Fort Wash- ington. Made prisoner, she was paroled by the British to General Greene, on the New Jersey side, and later enrolled in the "Invalid Regiment." She was pen- sioned and later made her home near West Point, where she was a charge of the army authorities there until her death, as Doctor Hall described in detail in "The Story of Margaret Corbin." Through the interest of Doctor Hall, the West Point authorities and others, her bones were removed from a cemetery on the estate of J. P. Morgan, Sr., and interred in the cemetery at West Point, where they are marked by a monument showing her as a cannoneer, after her husband fell, on Fort Tryon Hill. BRITISH OCCUPATION OF FORT TRYON HILL After their capture of the ridge, the British strengthened the American works and built additional forts. They constructed a strong work on Laurel Hill, which they called Fort George. They built a six-gun battery on Forest Hill, which they called Fort Tryon, after William Tryon, last Royal Governor of New York, Major General of Provincial Forces of the Crown, leader of the raid on Danbury, Conn. Fort Washington was renamed Fort Knyphausen, for the Hessian com- mander. Lines of earth works were built by the British from Fort Tryon to Fort George, and during this period, 1777-1783, there was a small fleche or out- work on the extreme north end, now occupied by the Cloisters. In 1779, owing to an epidemic of illness among the British and Hessian troops, the forts on the east side of the Harlem, originally built by the Americans and later strengthened by the British, were abandoned, and the garrisons withdrawn to Fort Tryon and Fort George, which became the principal defensive posts on the upper end of Manhattan Island. When the war was ended and the British began their evacuation, their outposts withdrew from Fort Tryon on November 21, 1783, and thus ended the military history of the place. The outline of Fort Tryon remained visible, though overgrown with trees, up to the middle of the Nineteenth Century. Nothing remains of the old walls, but the overlook and terraces at the highest point in the Park, occupy the site of the center of the British fort. AFTER THE REVOLUTION After the Revolution much of the land on Fort Tryon Hill was assembled in two ownerships, those of Dr. Samuel Watkins and Lucius Chittenden. Doctor Watkins acquired the land between Kingsbridge Road (Broadway) and the Hud- son, from 186th to 190th Streets. Watkins Glen State Park, from 1905-1911 in 16 SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA the custody of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, now in the custody of the Finger Lakes State Park Commission, was named for Doctor Watkins, who, with his brother John VV. Watkins, laid out the village nearby in 1828. Lucius Chittenden was a merchant, described in 1844 as formerly of New Orleans, but then of New York. Chittenden later acquired Doctor Watkins' lands on the hill. Details of various transfers, listed by Doctor Hall in the Society's 1917 Report, are omitted, down to 1869, when another interesting figure came on the scene, Gen. Daniel Butterfield, a distinguished officer in the Union Army. He held part of the land on the Kingsbridge Road side for some years and at length sold it in 1869 to William M. Tweed, notorious Tammany leader, then at the height of his power. Tweed transferred it to his son, Richard, but with the fall of the House of Tweed, a few years later, it went out of that family. Among other transfers appears, in 1874, one to William Libbey, for whom Libbey Castle was named, although this picturesque structure, of the native schist, was built by Augustus C. Johnson in 1856. A. T. Stewart, famous merchant, bought it from Johnson in 1872 and later sold it to Libbey, who used it for a summer home. THE BILLINGS ESTATE In 1901, Mr. C. K. G. Billings became interested in the section and began to assemble tracts which eventually totalled about twenty-five acres, including the site of Fort Tryon. Part of his estate here was owned for a time by William C. Muschenheim, for many years a Trustee of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, who was much interested in the history of Fort Tryon and who induced Mr. Billings to erect the monument on the east side of the . summit. After the Muschenheim house, occupied by his daughter, Mrs. Ignatius Radley, Jr., was burned in 1904, Mrs. Radley transferred the land to Mr. Billings. Mr. Billings built his residence, which he called Tryon Hall, on the highest point of the tract, 250 feet above the Hudson, on the site of the British fort. It was for some years a conspicuous object along the Hudson, being in the Louis XIV style, designed by Guy Lowell of Boston, Mass. A large swimming pool, pergola, formal garden, stables, a winding drive blasted in the rock, from an entrance on Riverside Drive, were among his developments. Inside the northern gateway of this drive, on the steep ledge, is a bronze monument designed by Charles R. Lamb, erected by the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, through the generosity of Mr. Billings, a member of the Society, at the time of the Hudson- Fulton Celebration in 1909. Mr. Billings is said to have spent $2,000,000 on the property. He vacated it in 1915. MR. ROCKEFELLER'S GIFT OF FORT TRYON PARK After Mr. Billings' departure, Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., became interested in the property on Fort Tryon Hill as a park. His ideas on the subject were expressed in an interview in The New York Times, June 16, 1917, as follows : "All my life I have thought of what a fine park this land would make. When I was a boy I used to ride horseback up around Dyckman Hill, and I thought even then that the hill should be owned by the city as a show place. I was riding there one day last fall and the thought came to me again. I had my agents look into the matter, and found that the hill and ten or twelve acres was in one plot, the Sheafer SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA 17 estate. Then I found that the land to the south was all in one lot from Broadway to the river, the Hays estate. I acquired both of those, and then, when Mr. Billings built his home on Long Island, I heard that his estate on Manhattan was for sale. I told him of my hope of founding a park there, and he quoted a very reasonable price on his holdings, a price below the city valuation. I took that over. The whole fifty acres cost a few thousand dollars less than $2,000,000." On June 13, 1917, Mr. Rockefeller wrote to Mayor John Purroy Mitchel, offering to dedicate the property as a public park, and deed it to the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, on condition that the City contribute to its maintenance. His thought was that Fort Tryon Park would be connected with the New Jersey Section of the Interstate Park, by the Dyckman Street ferry. Mayor Mitchel was cordially in favor of taking advantage of Mr. Rockefeller's offer, but it was not then accepted, as the City did not secure the legislation to enable it to contribute to the development of property to be conveyed to the Inter- state Park. No further action was taken for some years, but on January 28, 1925, Mayor John F. Hylan advised Mr. Raymond B. Fosdick, representing Mr. Rockefeller, that if Mr. Rockefeller again offered the property to the city, he could count upon every consideration for such a proposal. A committee of mem- bers of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, named by Mayor Hylan, dis- cussed the matter with Mr. Fosdick, but without result at the time. On June 5, 1930, Mr. Rockefeller, Jr., offered the tract to the City, in a letter to Mayor James J. Walker. Mayor Walker cordially received the offer, and the property was accepted by the City and deeded to it under date of December 28, 1931. During Mayor LaGuardia's administration, through the interest of Park Com- missioner Robert Moses, funds were provided by the City for its part of the development. THE CLOISTERS At the north end of Fort Tryon Park, overlooking the Dyckman Street valley, on the rocky point where General Knyphausen's Hessians climbed on November 16, 1776, to attack the American outwork on Forest Hill, is now arising the new Cloisters, another of the gifts of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in making this Park a center for art, as well as of historic and scenic conservation. The building will house the notable collection of medieval art assembled by George Grey Barnard, the sculptor, now in the Cloisters at 191st Street and Fort Washington Avenue, purchased by Mr. Rockefeller, as well as medieval tapestries and sculp- tures given by Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller, from their collection. The new Cloisters will be a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as the original Cloisters had been for ten years. Mr. Barnard opened his collection of medieval art to the public, in the original Cloisters, in December, 1914. It included many remarkable pieces found by Mr. Barnard, some in neglected condition, in France, some of the columns and other stones taken from ruins of churches and abbeys ruined in civil wars and revolu- tions, having been discovered built into barns and walls of modern use. Mr. Barnard placed his collection on sale in 1922, and when Mr. Rockefeller's attention was called to it, he made a gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art which made it possible for it to purchase the Cloisters and land, and to provide a fund for maintenance. When the Cloisters was reopened in 1926, as a branch of the 18 SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA Metropolitan Museum, Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller added to the Barnard Collection forty-two sculptures in their collection. This branch of the museum proved popular, with a large annual attendance. Mr. Rockefeller continued to add to the collections by other gifts, but the room in the present Cloisters was insufficient to contain them and many remained in storage. THE NEW CLOISTERS Mr. Rockefeller had considered the erection of a small building on the north- erly hill top in Fort Tryon Park, to house his own collection of Gothic sculpture, after he acquired the property in 1917, and offered it to the City as a park. After he purchased the Barnard Collection and added his own to it in the present The new Cloisters, as they will appear when finished, according to the design of Allen, Collens & Willis, of Boston, Mass. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Cloisters, he thought of the same hilltop as a site for a more permanent building for the Cloisters. When he presented Fort Tryon Park to the City in June, 1930, he reserved a space of about four acres for such a building and offered it to the Metropolitan Museum, "to provide a culminating point of interest in the archi- tectural design of the Park and also a more adequate place to which the Museum's Medieval collections now housed in the Cloisters may be removed and displayed to better advantage and with great opportunity for expansion." The new Cloisters will also be more conspicuous and accessible to the public, on one of the most commanding points on Manhattan Island, visible from the Hudson River. Mr. Rockefeller commissioned Mr. Charles Collens, of Allen, Collens & Willis of Boston, to work on plans for the new Cloisters. The Metropolitan Museum was represented in this undertaking by a committee of Trustees, of which George Blumenthal is chairman, and William Church Osborn and Nelson Rockefeller, members. The late William Sloane Coffin was also a member. Technical phases. SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA 19 of the plans have been under the supervision of the late Director of the Museum, Edward Robinson and his succeessor, H. E. Winlock, with the collaboration of Assistant Director Joseph Breck, until his death in 1933, and since then by James R. Rorimer, Curator of Medieval Art. Since the four Cloisters in the Barnard Collection came from southern France, Mr. Collens visited the monasteries from Pau to Avignon, to obtain ideas for an appropriate building for the collection. The nucleus of the new building is the cloister which came from the monastery of Cuxa, near Prades, in southern France. Its old tower is still standing and, with the cloister, was the initial motive for the new museum. The approach to the new Cloisters is by a winding road, leading to rampart walls, which enclose a large courtyard to be used as a parking space. There is an entrance in the walls off the main park drive, so that busses can stop at this lower entrance without climbing the ramp, and visitors can enter through a vaulted passage underneath the courtyard. The main entrance is through a gateway near One of the series of six France XVth Century tapestries, showing "The Hunt of the Unicorn," presented to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to be shown in the new Cloisters, when opened. This tapestry, No. 5, shows the Unicorn killed or wounded and brought to the Lady of the Castle. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 20 SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA the base of the tower, and from this point the various units of the building are placed around the Cuxa Cloister in chronological order. The visitor will enter the building through its Romanesque part and through a Romanesque hall and chapel. The almost contemporary St. Guilhelm Cloister acquired by Mr. Barnard will be placed north of the Romanesque hall, and will be treated in a manner suggested by the Cloister of St. Trophine at Aries and of Montmajour. On the west of the Cuxa Cloister will be two Gothic rooms, with a stairway descending to a chapel, modelled after a small Thirteenth Century Chapel at Carcasonne and the Lady Chapel at Monsempron. The south side of the Cuxa Cloister will be bounded by a gallery in which will be hung the mag- nificent Unicorn tapestries given to the Metropolitan Museum by Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller. These tapestries are a set of six, from "The Hunt of the Unicorn." They came from the Chateau of Verteuil, ancestral seat of the family of La Roche- foucauld and are regarded, in their design and coloring, the most superb set of Fifteenth Century tapestries in existence. They were probably woven in Touraine, four about 1480, after cartoons by a Tournai designer, and two toward the end of the Fifteenth or early in the Sixteenth Century. The Unicorn is portrayed as an allegory of the Incarnation, the unicorn, the symbol of purity, representing Christ. At a lower level are to be installed capitals from the Cloister of Bonnefont- en-Comminges, facing a garden, east of which will be the Trio Cloister, facing a court above with a Fifteenth Century Gothic chapel. On the easterly side of the Cuxa Cloister will be installed a Spanish ceiling now in the Metropolitan Museum, in a room adjoining a Gothic hall, with windows from the refectory of Sens. The Museum has ample original material for the ornament, and most of the doors and windows, and walls. It is expected that the new Cloisters will be completed and all the exhibits placed by 1938. PLANTING Below is given a detailed description of a part of the plantings in Fort Tryon Park, in the sections at the south end, including the notable Heather Garden, on the west side of the Promenade beginning just inside the south entrance. Space prevents covering the entire Park in this detail, but other sections are equally rich in native and exotic trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants. As these plantings will become an objective for teachers of classes in botany, the Society offers assistance in obtaining lists of the plants and the planting layout for the use of such classes. AT AND NEAR THE SOUTH ENTRANCE Reaching the plaza at the south entrance of Fort Tryon Park by the elevator and stairs from the 191st Street (Overlook Terrace) station of the Eighth Avenue subway, one finds this irregularly octagonal space surrounded by a double row of Platamts orientalis, the Oriental Plane Tree or Sycamore, which, as the trees grow will be formally clipped after the fashion frequent in European practice, but not much used hitherto in America. Hedera helix, the English Ivy, is used as a ground cover under the trees. At right and left of the entrance pillars are shrubbery beds containing Pachysandra termi- nalis, Magnolia conspicua, Ilex crcnata, and glabra, and Taxus cuspidata nana. The walls extending from the pillars are covered with Hedera helix. Fort Washington Avenue, extending south from the plaza is lined with Ulmus americana, the American Elm, and Northern Avenue, over- looking the Hudson, is lined with Ulmus pro- ccra, the English Elm. The southern part of the property acquired by Mr. Rockefeller, between Fort Washington Avenue and Northern Avenue, is treated with a straight line of Populus bolleana, and with irregular lines and SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA 21 groups of Cryptomeria japonica lobbi, and of Ulmus pumila. The steep, ledgy slope, east of the plaza and of Fort Washington Avenue, are treated with groups of oaks, ashes, hickories, sassafras, sumac and willows, and there are some specimens of Ailanthus, possibly self-introduced. Two large Ginkgos are also near the base of the wall. The gently sloping area, west of the begin- ning of the promenade from the south entrance, an irregular oblong bounded by paths, and including the gate house of the Billings estate, includes a number of the shrubs planted by Mr. Billings, including Viburnum, Ligustrum (Privet), Philadelphus, Syringa, Rhamnus, Weigela, Lcmicera (Honeysuckle), Forsythia, and Pseudotsuga, about the gate house, north of the present park entrance, and elsewhere in this area. Back of the first angle of the wall, west of the entrance gate are beds of Juniperus hori- zontalis douglasi and Juniperus chinensis sar- gentii, Cotoneastcr horizontalis perpusitla and Cytisus multiflorus (Scotch Broom). Back of the next angle of the wall, to the left, looking north at the plaza are Dorothy Perkins Roses, Lady Duncan Roses, Lonicera morrowi, Spiraea vanhouttei, Azalea kaempferi, Phila- delphus norma, Philadelphus virginal, Vinca minor (Periwinkle), and Myosotis alpestris. Down the slope, from a large Linden at the corner of the wall, are the following, mostly shrubs, east to west: Cytisus praecox, Crataegus coccinea and Cordata (Hawthorn), Rosa spino- sissima in variety; Salix tristis (Black Willow), Berberis vernae (Barberry), Rosa rugosa repens alba, Rosa lucida, Rosa nitida; Lilium regale, Ligustrum ovalifolium, Forsythia intermedia, Acanthopanax pentaphyllum, Aronia melano- carpa, with a few American Elms standing above this shrubbery. At the west end of this slope, from the angle of the wall toward the corner of the gatehouse, is a bed of lower, mostly herbaceous plants, including Mitchella repens, Campanula persici- folia, Dicentra spectabilis, Hemerocallis dumor- tieri, Polygonatum multiflorum, Spirea, white View of the north end of Fort Tryon Park, from the Overlook, highest point therein, showing the new Cloisters under construction, with the Hudson River and the Palisades in the left background and Inwood Hill Park in right background. 22 SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA and pink, Myosotis palustris, Ccratostitjma plumbayinuides, and Cypripedium spectabile, all on the earth, and among the rocks: Aquilegia canadensis, Cerastium tomcntosum, Alyssum soxatile. Diccntra cucullaria and l'olypodium vulgare (Rock Fern). Other beds of the above association of herba- ceous plants are located along the walks west of the gatehouse. Here also are Bctula populi- folia, Gray Itirch, used as a temporary pro- tective filler, Syringa chinensis, Cornus florida and florida rubra Dogwood (white and red forms), Carpinus betulus, and Amelanchicr canadensis (.Shadbush). In front of the hedge are beds of the fern Osmunda claytoniana, and of Viola cornula. The Dorothy I'erkins Rose is used on the wall beside the steps to the gate house, also Loniccra morroun, and Clematis montana rubens. Beyond is a bed containing Sedutns, in variety, Azalea Kaempferi, Dorothy Perkins Rose. Cerastium tomentosum, Ncpeta mussini, Pachistima canhyi, and an association of low plants such as Phloxx subulata, Arabis albida, and albida flore plcne, Cerastium tomen- tosum, Aubricta in variety, Aquilegia in variety (Columbine), and Scdum in variety. A large willow, from Mr. Hillings' planting, stands at the southeast corner of the gatehouse. Hcdera helix baltica covers the south wall. From the gate of the walk opening on to Fort Washington Avenue, westward, under the wall and on the steep slope to the path below, leading to the narrow southern extension of the Park overlying Riverside Drive are planted the following : Ligustrum ovalifolium. Privet, as a hedge; Ampclopsis quinquefolia engclmanni, Taxus cuspidata (Yew), Pinus Strobus (White Pine), and beds of Cotoneaster racemiflora soongarica, diclsiana, foicolata, and colinus; and Rosa lucida; also Cornus florida, Tsuga canadensis (Hemlock), Oxydcndron arborcum. Toward the bottom of the slope, opposite the overlook on the path, is a bed of herbaceous plants, Diccntra cucullaria, Viola pedata, Trillium grandiflorum, Aquilegia canadensis, and Podophyllum pelta- turn, and the ferns. Osmunda claytoniana, Poly- stichum acrostichoides, Pteretis nodulosa and W oodsia ilvcnsis. Plants of the Yews, Taxus canadensis and thayeri, of Magnolia soulangcana, and of the Flowering Dogwood are also placed in this area. Other low shrubs used here are Leiophyllum buxifolium prostratum, Pachistima canbyi, Hypericum calycinum, and buckleyi, and Euony- mus ke-.vensis. On the rocky slope west of the gatehouse are dwarf plants of Rosa spinosissima and Salix tristis. North of the house (the side of which is covered by Ampclopsis quinquefolia engcl- manni). are Salix tristis, Ulmus procera (English Elm). Dogwood. Crataegus cordata, beds of Berberis gagncpaini, vernae and thun- bergii (Barberries), and Rosa rugosa. Farther north of the gatehouse, about the middle of the slope, is an area with several large plants of Rosa multiflora cathayensis, with Cotoneaster diclsiana and Pyracantha coccinea, intermixed with a large number of the lower Rosa lucida and nitida. Here also is a bed of the bushy form of Taxus cuspidata, and below it a few White Pines. Rosa hugonis, Crataegus oxyacantha rosea, and Dogwoods. Cotoneaster horizontalis and Rosa spinosissima are also used here. Alonsr the edge of the path are beds with Juniperus horizontalis douglasi, and the Bar Harbor type: communis depressa, sabina tama- risci, chinensis sargenti, Cotoneaster apiculata, Cytisus beani. Still farther north are beds of Rosa setigera, Pyracantha coccinea, Salix tristis, Rosa hugonis, Rosa spinosissima, Cotoneaster horizontalis , microphylla and adpressa, more Junipers, Berberis verruculosa and buxifolia, Crataegus monogyna, and punctata and Pachistima canbyi. Beyond are several Dogwoods, including the pink flowered, two Halesia tctraptera, Crataegus cordata, Pieris floribunda, Taxus baccata re- pandens, and more of the same species of Cotoneaster and Berberis used elsewhere in this section. Farther east along the edge of the path is a bed of herbaceous plants, Trillium grandiflorum, Convallaria majus (Lily of the Valley), Viola pedata (Bird Foot Violet) and Erythronium grandiflorum (Fawn Lily). Farther eastward along the path to the Prome- nade there are borders of Azalea rosea, Liqus- trum ibota regelianum (Privet) and Vinca minor. In the triangular area at the southwest corner, between the ornamental fence on the west side of Northern Avenue, and the path to the out- look above Riverside Drive, is an association of small trees and shrubs, suitable to the rocky slope. From the fence west down the slope are small groups of Cornus mas. Viburnum molle, Lentago and prunifolium, Rhamnus cathartica, Ligustrum ibolium, Sorbus aucuparia (Moun- tain Ash), Rhododendron maximum, hickories, oaks, dogwoods, sassafras, maples, Rosa lucida and nitida, Azalea rosea, Aronia melanocarpa, Vaccinium corymbosum (Blueberry), hemlocks. Ilex vcrticillata, junipers, Leucothoe catesbaei, with beds of ferns, including Dryopteris spinu- losa and marginalis and Polystichum acrosti choides, near the walk. On the outside of the wall of the outlook are planted Dorothy Perkins, Lady Duncan and Dr. Van Fleet roses, Rosa multiflora and setigera, Azalea rosea, Ilex glabra, Amelanchier canadensis, Forsythia suspensa and Polygonatum biflorum. North of the outlook, between the path and the steep cliff overlooking the drive, to the stairs leading to the path to the large Overlook, are more hickories and oaks, groups of Viburnum dentatum, Lentago and cassinoides, Amelanchier canadensis (Shadbush), Azalea rosea, Ilex glabra, Forsythia suspensa, Lady Duncan roses, and on rocky spots, beds of Sedum stoloniferum, acre, sexangulare sieboldi and album and Sem- pcrvivum tectorum, globiferutn and arach- noideum. Further north between the path and the cliff toward the narrow outlook, are more oaks, Kalmia latifolia (Mountain Laurel), My- rica carolinensis, Azaleas, Crataegus, crus-galli < Hawthorn), Rhododendron maximum, many Viburnums, White Pines, beds of Trillium, Convallaria, Viola pedata and Erythronium grandiflorum, along the path; Ilex glabra, Taxus baccata repandens (Yew), Berberis thunbergi, and Leucothoe catesbaei, along the wall; while on the ledges overhanging the drive are dense thickets of Forsythia suspensa and the Mary Wallace Rose. Outside the wall, overhanging the path to the outlook, are beds of Pieris flori- bunda, Taxus cuspidata, small oaks, Pachy- sandra terminalis and Juniper chinensis-sargenti. Hedera helix is used on the corner of the wall and in the corner of the two paths are Rhododen- drons, Cotoneasters, and Junipers. North of the little outlook, toward the larger Overlook, a relic of the Billings estate, is more shrubbery, and groups of oaks. Taxus cuspi- data nana and media hicksi are used in the corner north of the outlook, with Pachysandra terminalis, Euonymus radicans, and Pieris flori- bunda, outside the wall, the pillar of which is covered by Hedera helix. Yews are also planted north of the wall, then Rhododendrons, Vibur- nums. Barberries, Shadbush, Privet and Bush Honeysuckle (Diervilla trifida). White Pines SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA 23 are scattered in this area. Along the walk is a bed of Epimcdriums, in variety; scattered Yews, Rhododendrons, of several species and horticul- tural forms, intermixed with Pachysandra, Epi- modriums, Gaultheria procumbens (Winter- green), and lower native herbs such as Tiarella cordifclia, in colonies; Astilbe, in colonies; Lobe- lia cardinalis (Cardinal Flower), Lilium Phila- delphicum and Mertensia virginica. There is a group of Ailanthus at the south corner of the Overlook, and along its front much Forsythia intermedia is used. The abundance of Forsythias along the brink of the cliff will make a fine display in early spring. Among them are several Flowering Dogwoods, which will follow the Forsythias in bloom. The ledgy area between the upper and lower paths, south of the Overlook, is planted at the south end where the soil is shallow, with Sedums in variety, and at the north end with evergreen trees, including Pinus nigra, sylvestris and strobus; Tsuga canadensis and caroliniana and Pseudotsuga douglasii. A group of tuliptrees is planted on the slope above the steps in the path. Along the lower path, below a low cliff, the rocky slope is covered with Junipers, Rhodo- dendrons, and Pachysandra. There is a line of American Hemlocks on the north side of this area, along the path intermixed with Rhodo- dendron maximum. On the east side of this division are borders of Barberry, Holly and Roses. THE HEATHER GARDEN On the west side of the Promenade, for a distance of about 500 feet, a level or slightly sloping space is covered by the Heather Garden, which is one of the most notable features of the plantings of herbaceous and low shrubby species, mostly in the Heath Family, in association, in Fort Tryon Park. Thousands of plants are assembled here, and they may be viewed from the wider paths that bound the garden and a narrower one through the larger section, next the Promenade. The narrow strip between the Promenade, and the narrow interior path, contains, from south to north, left to right by beds, the following species : Left Azalea ledifolia (extending a Papaver orientale in variety Nepeta mussini Erica vagans Papaver orientale Erica carnea Trollius in variety Polemonium in variety Aster amellus Kniphofia uvaria Erica carnea Sedums in variety Cytisus purgans Troliius in variety Campanula persicifolia Doronicum clusi and caucasicum Erica carnea Nepeta mussini Erica carnea Veronica rupestris Calluna vulgaris Center ross the end of the division) Philadelphus virginal (center) Azalea kaempferi (center) Polemonium in variety Erica carnea Doronicum clusi Kniphofia uvaria Campanula persicifolia Iris, tall, bearded Narcissus in variety Kniphofia uvaria Iris, tall, bearded, in variety Iris Papaver orientale Phlox paniculata Aster amellus Philadephus Bouquet Blanc Dictamus in variety Narcissus in variety Iris in variety Chrysanthemum articum Trollius in variety Right Syringa japonica Papaver orientale Delphinium Bellamosum, and D. belladonna Aster amellus in variety Aster Wonder of Staefa Delphinium Bellamosum and Belladonna Aster amellus Philadelphus virginal Phlox paniculata Lilium testaceum Doronicum caucasicum Phlox paniculata Philadelphus virginal Lonicera maacki, korolkowi, morrowi, and bella rosea; and Pachysandra terminalis Peony in variety Azalea kaempferi Lilium testaceum Berberis thunbergi Papaver orientale Narcissus in variety Peony in variety Philadelphus Norma Papaver orientale Philadelphus virginal Phlox paniculata Aster amellus Delphinium in variety Peony in variety Philadelphus Bouquet Blanc- 24 SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA Left Erica carnea I'apaver orientate Phlox paniculata Polemonium in variety Staehys lanata Erica stricta Erica tetralix Ncpeta mussini Campanula persicifolia Erica carnea Erica carnea Polemoniums Aster amellus Lilium tcstaccum Cytisus praecox Dictamus in variety Papaver orientate Kepcta mussini Narcissus in variety Peony in variety Azalea Kaempfcri Center Trollius in variety Phlox paniculata Narcissus in variety Lilium testaceum Phlox paniculata Doronicum clusi Helianthemum alpestre Aster amellus Lilium testaceum Narcissus in variety Azalea kaempfcri Philadclphus virginal Iris Delphiniums Cornus florida Doronicum caucasium and clusi Syringa vulgaris hybrids Ligustrum ovalifolium and ibota regelianum Right i'apaver orientale Iris, tall, bearded Papaver orientale Iris, tall, in variety Phlox paniculata Peony in variety Delphinium in variety I'hiiadelphus Bouquet Blanc Doronicum caucasicum Delphinum Bellamosum Aster amellus Peony in variety Chrysanthemum arcticum Acer saccharum Polemoniums Lilium testaceum Iris I'hiiadelphus Bouquet Bhnc Dictamus in variety Delphinium in variety I'hiiadelphus virginal Delphiniums in variety Aronia arbutifolia Rosa lucida At the north end is another bed of the heathers, Calluna vulgaris and Erica carnea, and Staehys lanata, and a group of low shrubs, Ilex crenata conversa, Pierts japonica, Berberis triacanthophora, Laevis, sargenti; vernae, julianae, and verruculosa ; Azalea rosea, Kalmia latifolia and Azalea kaempferi. Starting again at the south end of the Heather Garden the triangular plot at the entrance of the narrow interior path is occupied, in the center, by several Juniperus chinensis-sargenti, a few Azalea kaempferi, while on the southern edge is a bed of low herbs, including Phlox subulata, in variety; Arabis albida flore pleno, Cerastium tomentosum, Dianthus plumarius in variety, Aubrictia in variety; Alyssum argenteum and Saxatile sulphurcum and Saxifraqa crassifolia. The wider division of the Heather Garden, between the narrow interior path and a wider path to the west, with a ledge along most of its length, is occupied by irregular beds of much the same plants as those in the narrower divi- sion to the east. Going north, left and right, there is a group of Juniperus chinensissargenti and Cotoneastcr apicularis, and around these shrubs beds of the same low herbs as in the triangle. To the right are beds of Trollius, Erica carnea, and of Polemonium. Along the rocks on the left for 150 feet are plantings of Erica carnea. Beds of the Phlox-Arabis-Dian- thus. Alyssum-Saxifrage association are used farther north along the rocks on the western edge of this division. There are wider beds of the heathers. Calluna and Erica, which will make a fine display in June, and scattered Yew and Juniper plants give variety. The narrow triangle to the west of the south- ern end of the wider division of the Heather Garden is occupied by Rosa hugonis, lucida and nitida, Harrison's Yellow Rose. Kolkuritzia ama- bilis, Malus Scheideckcri, Cytisus multiflorus, Berberis verruculosa, vernae and thunbergi minor; Cotoneaster dielsieana, microphylla and adpressa and, at its south end. along the steps in the path by Taxus baccata repandens, Pieris fioribunda and Pachislima canbyi. The oval lawn to the west is bordered on the south, along the path, by Juniperus chinensis- sargenti, and Taxus cuspidata, with Vinca minor and Euonymus radicans around a mul- berry tree. A few oaks and an Ailanthus stand in the lower part of the lawn. Along the curving path to the north the Scotch Broom, Cytisus is used effectively, the species including C. praecox, purgans, beani and multiflorus ; with Cotoneaster horizontalis perpusilla, Erica darleyensis, Epi- mcdriums, Hypericum moserianum, Taxus cuspidata, Rosa Hugonis and spinosissima. Azalea kaempferi, and with Vinca minor cover- ing up other places along this border. A bed of herbaceous plants along the upper curve of this walk includes Dianthus deltoides, Papaver nudicaule, Aethionema, and varieties of Phlox subulata. The same association, with the addi- tion of Cotoneaster dammeri, is used among the boulders on the north side of this path. The Yews, Taxus baccata repandens and cuspidata. Azalea rosea, Cytisus praecox and purgans, Malus fioribunda and Cotoneaster horizontalis are used farther north in this area, extending to an earlier tangle of roses and vines planted by Mr. Billings. Along the east side of the Promenade, oppo- site the Heather Garden, is a row of American Elms, alternating with large plants of Taxus cuspidata densa. In the sections of wall, occu- pied by seats or between them, are beds of Arabis albida, and albida flore pleno; Aubrietia, Phlox subulata, in variety; Nepeta mussini, Cerastium tomentosum, Heuchera sanguinea, Sempcrvivums and Sedums and Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, with beds of Pachysandra terminalis. At the corner of the Promenade, and the walk to the right is a hedge of Taxus cuspidata thayeri ; and Juniperus chinenis pfitzeriana ; and behind it beds of Abelia chinensis, Berberis vernae and verriculosa, and Cotoneaster acuti- folia; interspersed with Azalea kaempferi, while along the wall is a low hedge of Pachysandra terminalis. The Lady Duncan Rose is planted at intervals all along the west front of the wall. SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA 25 Other shrubbery along the wall and seats in- cludes: Smilax rotundifoli, Azalea tedifolia and kaempferi, Philadelphus Virginal, and Bouquet Blanc. East of the Promenade wall to the walk are ranged Flowering Dogwood, white and red flowered; Carpinus betulus, Amelanchier cana- densis; Forsythia intermedia, Philadelphus Vir- ginal, norma and Bouquet Blanc; and Viburnum molle and americanum and Ligustrum ibolium. Farther north in this section is a grove of oaks, Quercus rubra, coccinea and velutina, with Viburnums and Ligustrum back toward the wall and in front, nearer the wall, extending around to the north end of the wall, groups of Syringa vulgaris, Berberis thunbergi, Prunus tomentosa and triloba; Forsythia intermedia and Azalea macrantha. At the right of the entrance are groups of lindens and maples, and a hedge of Berberis thunbergi. Beyond, the lawn has isolated maples, beeches, ashes and elms, with thickets, in the first of which, going north, two exotic Witch Hazels, Hammamelis mollis and japonica pre- dominate, with Berberis thunbergi and Philadel- phus Virginal and Bouquet Blanc. The other thicket contains Cornus florida and rubra, Carpi- nus betulus, Amelanchier canadensis, Forsythia intermedia. Spiraea vanhouttci, Syringa persea, persea alba and chincnsis, Prunus triloba and Berberis thunbergi. Farther north along the wall, toward the refreshment building, is another group of shrubs including Viburnum carlesi, Prunus hirtclla and hirtella autumnalis, Taxus cuspidata nana, Rosa hugonis, Spiraea thunbergi, and Abelia grandi- flora, with Vinca minor around the edges. At the corner of the walk to the refreshment building, in front, on the right, is a group of shrubs including Taxus cuspidata nana, Vibur- num sieboldi and carlesi, Berberis ilicifolia and vernae; Spiraea thunbergi, Prunus subhirtella autumnalis, Rosa hugonis, Malus ioensis plena, Rhododendron carolinianum, Crataegus mono- gyna, Abelia grandiflora and Pieris floribunda, with Vinca minor, around the borders. At the front of the building, at the right of the door, are specimens of Cryptomeria japonica lobbi and Cornus florida rubra, and around them Pieris floribunda, Lilium candidum, Verberis verriculosa, Rhododendron carolinianum, Pyra- cantha coccinea, with Vinca minor on the ground. Taxus cuspidata thayeri is used in a hedge to the right of this shrubbery. Wisteria multijuga and multijuga alba and Clematis montana rubens are used on the outside wall of the bay on the refreshment building, and elsewhere around its front and back walls. A somewhat different association of shrubs is used on the left side of the entrance, including Ilex crenata, Rhododendron carolinianum, Pieris floribunda, Symphoricarpos vulgaris, Berberis thunbergi, Pyracantha coccinea, Juniperus chi- nensis, Pfitzeriana, Taxus media hicksi, Taxus cuspidata, Azalea viscosa montana, and Berberis verriculosa; together with Vinca minor and Lilium candidum. Hawthorns and roses make up the majority of the shrubs in the curving area north of the refreshment building. The former are Cratae- gus cor data, punctata, monogyna, oxyacantha rosea, and arnoldiana; and the latter Rosa spinosissima, rugosa and rugosa alba, multiflora cathayensis, rubiginosa, multiflora, and hugonis. Other shrubs are: Berberis thunbergi, thunbergi minor and verruculosa, Pieris floribunda, Abelia grandiflora, Viburnum carlesi, Ligustrum ovali- folium, Forsythia intermedia, and a few Flower- ing Dogwood trees. Similar varied associations of plants are found in the northern part of the park, along the slopes and about the lawns on the summit, and around the Cloisters. The north slope of the ridge, descending toward Riverside Drive and the playground of Broadway, still contains some of the forest of original types, including oaks, beeches, tuliptrees, birches, dogwoods, wild cherries, ashes, maples, and other trees, with addi- tional plantings by Olmsted Brothers. The playground on Broadway is planted with Oriental sycamores, intended to be pruned in formal shapes, such as those at the south entrance. REFERENCES American Historical Record, "Magaw (Colonel), and the Fort Washington Cap- tives," January, 1873. American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, Annual Reports, 1909, p. 169 ; 1915, p. 140; 1917, pp. 735-780, by Dr. Edward Hagaman Hall, Secretary. "Margaret Corbin, Heroine of the Battle of Fort Washington, 16 November, 1776," by Dr. Edward Hagaman Hall ; also various references cited therein. Bolton, Reginald Pelham, "Relics of the Revolution," New York, 1912. "Washington Heights, Manhattan, Its Eventful Past," published by the Dyck- man Institute, 1924. Bolton, Robert, "History of the County of Westchester," First Edition, New York, 1848, edited by C. W. Bolton ; Third Edition, New York, 1905. City History Club of New York, "Historical Guide to the City of New York," compiled by Frank Bergen Kelley, 1913, pp. 151-174. Edsall, Thomas H., "History of the Town of Kings Bridge." Egle, W. H., "Pennsylvania in the War of the Revolution." Greene, G. W., "The German Element in the War of American Independence," 1876. Heath, William, "Memoirs of the American War," 1798; reprint, New York, 1904. 26 SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA Lamb, Sergt. R. (Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 23rd Regiment of Foot), "Annals of the American Revolution," Dublin, 1809. Massachusetts Historical Society, Letters of Washington and Heath, Series V, Vol. 4 ; Memoranda of Lieut. Col. Eld, Proceedings, 1880. New York Historical Society, Commissary Charles Rainsford's Transactions, 1776- 78, Coll. 1879; Commissary Charles Rainsford's Transactions, 1776-78, for Embarking the Troops from Germany Hired into the British Service, New York, 1879; Diary of General Samuel Webb, Coll. 1879; Letters of General Pattison, Coll. 1875 ; The Diary of Lt. Charles Philip von Kraft, 1882. Onderdonk, "Incidents of the British Prisons and Prison Ships of New York," New York, 1849. Rosengarten, J. G., "American History from the German Archives," Lancaster, Pa.; "The German Allied Troops," 1776-83, translated by Max von Elking, Albany, 1891 ; "The German Soldier in the Wars of the U. S.," Philadelphia, 1890. Simcoe, Lieut. Col. John G., "The Military Journal," New York, 1844. Wertherm, "Die Hessischen Hulfstruppen, 1776-83," published by T. Kay, Cassel, 1895. Wiederhold, Andreas, "The Capture of Fort Washington, N. Y.," The Pennsylvania Magazine, April, 1899. AMERICAN AND BRITISH FORTS ON LAUREL HILL Existence of a considerable portion of the wall of the American outwork of Fort Washington, on what was known as Laurel Hill in 1776, later as Fort George Hill, and of what is probably a portion of the wall of the larger and stronger British work covering a larger area of the hilltop than the American fort, has been disclosed in recent months, through discoveries made by Mrs. Beatrix Disalvo, instructor in biology and chairman of the campus committee, at the George Wash- ington High School, Audubon Avenue and 192nd Street, the stadium of which stands on the sites of the Revolutionary War forts. The survival of so much of the wall of what is undoubtedly the American fort, and of what is probably part of the British outworks of Fort George, had not been realized, until Mrs. Disalvo's discovery. These walls constitute the most extensive remains of military works on Manhattan Island, of the period of the American Revolution. These walls were shown in British military maps and later in New York City maps 1819, 1863, court records in 1927 and Hamilton aerial maps in 1925 or 1927. While there was much excavation on the sites of the British camps in the valley between Fort Tryon Hill and Fort George Hill and on Inwood Hill, and many military relics were found, during the past half century, Fort George Hill seems to have been overlooked. Apparently it was thought the forts there had disappeared. Their remaining walls were concealed for many years among the wooden buildings and amusement devices of a resort known as Paradise Park. WALL WITH GUN EMBRASURES FOUND The city acquired the property surrounded by Fort George Avenue, Audubon Avenue and 192nd Street, in 1922 and 1927, and George Washington High School was built thereon. The stadium was constructed north of the school, in 1927. During recent months, as chairman of the campus committee, Mrs. Disalvo advised in a Works Progress Administration project, under the direction of the Board of Education, a nature trail around the outside of the stadium. In looking over the ground, for this nature trail, she came upon the old wall, on the top of the ledge SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA 27 Section of the British Military Map of 1783, showing Fort George and Fort Tryon with the wall connecting them. Fort Knyphausen, formerly Fort Washington, in upper left. The site of the central work of Fort George is now occupied by the George Washington High School. The walls referred to in the text are parts of the line shown on the map, at right of Fort George. Traces of the connecting wall are visible on the slope north of the end of Audubon Avenue. These remains are all that now exist of these British works for the defense of the north end of Manhattan Island, during the Revolutionary War. Courtesy of the New York Public Library. on the northeast side of the stadium, overlooking Fort George Avenue. Its castellated top, as if for gun positions, and the angles, which looked as if built on principles of military engineering for flanking fire, rather than as foundations for any more modern structure, excited her interest. Being aware that the position was fortified by Americans and British during the Revolutionary War, although supposing like others that the fortifications had disappeared, Mrs. Disalvo began an exhaustive investigation. With the aid of Mr. David R. Estlow, of the history department of George Washington High School, photostatic copies of maps of the Revolutionary period, from 1776 to 1783, were obtained, showing the forts on Laurel Hill and on Forest Hill (now in Fort Tryon Park, to the west) with the connecting wall built by the Hessians, across the valley between these eleva- tions. Comparison of the angles of these walls with the lines of the forts showed not only that what remained overlooking Fort George Avenue on the northeast was a part of the American outwork, with original angles and curves, but sug- gested that other walls, on the west side of the stadium area, were part of the later British fortifications. Further search on the steep hillside, west of Fort George Avenue, disclosed traces of the British connecting wall between Fort George and the northern battery of Fort Tryon, overlooking the depression along the line of Broadway. 28 SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA WALL OF COLONIAL TYPE Further evidence that the higher wall, on the northeast end of the Fort George Hill, was of American construction, was ohtained by Mrs. Disalvo through the chemistry department of the High School, whose instructors found that the bind- ing material between the stones was a lime mortar such as was used in Colonial and early American construction, before the introduction of cement which occurred about 1824. The wall was also similar to a type used in Bucks County, Pennsyl- vania, in the Colonial period. The American outwork on Laurel Hill was probably built by 400 Bucks County, Pennsylvania, volunteers, in the summer of 1776, the troops were under the command of Lieut. Col. William Baxter. This force also garrisoned the outwork, on November 16, 1776, when the Hessians and British attacked Fort Washington and its outworks, from every side, and after several hours fighting forced the surrender of the American survivors. The Laurel Hill work was stoutly defended by the Pennsylvanians, against a British force which crossed the Harlem River and stormed the post. The Bucks County men inflicted heavy losses on the attackers, and held out for two hours, until the British, in overwhelming numbers, swarmed into the walls, from the south. Colonel Baxter was killed, as his men sought to retreat to the main work at Fort Washington. His body was buried by the British within the fort, and Mrs. Disalvo, in her inves- tigations, has located the position of the grave within an area of about twenty feet, but it is now covered by the running track of the athletic field. After the British overcame the last American resistance on Manhattan and Washington retired into New Jersey, they fortified the north end of the island strongly, by building new and larger forts on Laurel Hill, which they called Fort George and Forest Hill, in place of the battery where Margaret Corbin fought, called Fort Tryon. They built a battery north of Fort Tryon, where the new Cloisters now stand. Mrs. Disalvo believes, that the wall west of the stadium, along the edge of Fort George Avenue, is a part of the British fort. It has been repaired and repointed with modern cement mortar, in recent years, but under- neath is a layer of lime mortar binding rocks and its stones are such as could have been gathered on the ground, by the 4,000 Hessians employed on the work, includ- ing besides the local Hudson schist, glacial boulders, transported by the ice, of the red Newark sandstone and the Palisades diabase. Mrs. Disalvo invited the advice of Mr. Reginald Pelham Bolton, expert on Revolutionary remains, to inspect the walls. He agreed that the inner work was of American construction, and that the outer walls followed the lines of the British works. SOCIETY'S OFFICERS INTERESTED IN DISCOVERY Mrs. Disalvo assembled an exhibit of maps, photographs and other objects, which are displayed in the foyer of George Washington High School. She invited officers of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society to see it. Dr. D. Bryson Delavan, Honorary President of the Society, was much interested in Mrs. Disalvo's discoveries, because of the interest taken in Fort Washington by Dr. George F. Kunz, late President of the Society, who aided in preserving the site of that central American work on the north end of Washington Heights, and by Dr. Edward Hagaman Hall, former Secretary of the Society, author of its "Story of Margaret Corbin." Doctor Delavan commended Mrs. Disalvo's work at the meeting of the Trustees of the Society on March 30, 1936. SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA MEMBERSHIP, DUES AND CONTRIBUTIONS The Society's work is supported by dues from members, contributions, and income from investments of gifts and bequests. The support of philan- thropic men and women, for the objectives of the Society, in the maintenance of patriotic spirit through the conservation of historic places, is invited. The Society is qualified to administer any trusts for the maintenance of properties for patriotic or educational purposes which may be committed to its care. Any person interested in the objects of the Society may become a mem- ber, upon election by the Board of Trustees, and payment of associate dues of $5 per year; annual dues of $10 per year; sustaining dues of $25 per year; or a life member, by the payment of $100 at one time; or a life patron, by the payment of $1,000 or its equivalent; or a patron in perpetuity, by the payment of $5,000, and upon his or her death, the membership shall pass to the person designated by the patron in perpetuity. There is no initiation fee. ENDOWMENT OF THE SOCIETY During its forty years of existence, the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society has received a number of gifts and bequests, applicable to special purposes which the Society carries out, or to the general expenses of the organization. Some have been made without restrictions and have been applied to general purposes. In others, provision was made by the donors or testators, that the income only should be used, and such gifts or bequests have been placed in the Society's Endowment Fund. The Society is willing at all times to receive funds for special activities desired by donors, but for its future stability and usefulness, increase in its Endowment Fund to a point where its modest annual budget will be substantially guar- anteed, is desirable. The following form of bequest is suggested : FORM OF BEQUEST I give and bequeath to The American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, a New York Corporation, of 287 Convent Avenue, New York City, the sum of Dollars, for the general purposes of the Society. If a gift includes real estate, the form should read.- "I give, devise and bequeath." SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA STANDING COMMITTEES OF THE SOCIETY Executive Committee LeRoy E. Kimball, Chair/nan Benjamin F. Castle Reuben Leslie Maynard George Brokaw Compton William D. Moffat Lester D. Gardner Alexander McMillan Welch Alexander Hamilton Frank L. Wiswall Messmore Kendall Elijah M. Yerks Auditing Committee N. Taylor Phillips, Chairman Alexander McMillan Welch Joseph Andrews Civic Improvement Committee N. Taylor Phillips, Chairman Benjamin F. Castle Charles A. Ditmas Gherardi Davis Messmore Kendall George W. Perkins Conservation Committee Lawrence B. Cummings, Chairman Reginald Pelham Bolton Mrs. Charles Edward Tracy Ernest T. Carter Harold Phelps Stokes A. C. Langmuir Chester D. Pugsley William A. Welch Finance Committee Alexander Hamilton, Chairman Joseph Andrews N. Taylor Phillips Alexander McMillan Welch Membership Committee Lester D. Gardner, Chairman Benjamin F. Castle Alexander Hamilton George Brokaw Compton William D. Moffat Nominating Committee Jeremiah R. Van Brunt, Chairman George Brokaw Compton William D. Moffat Sites and Inscriptions Committee Alexander McMillan Welch, Chairman Reginald Pelham Bolton Herbert L. Satterlee Samuel Verplanck Hoffman J. Delancey Verplanck Battle Island Park Committee Frederick A. Emerick, Chairman Stanley P. Emerick J. Harroun Howe Elmer E. Morrill SCENIC AND HISTORIC AMERICA 31 Draper Park Committee Dr. Frederick G. Zinsser, Chairman Franklin Q. Brown A. C. Langmuir Dr. John W. Draper Miss Antonia C. Maury Albert Shaw Miss Carlotta J. Maury Fort Brewerton Committee J. Elet Milton, Chairman Frederick A. Emerick Thomson Kingsford Oscar F. Soule Hamilton Grange Committee Alexander Hamilton, Chairman Joseph Andrews Reuben Leslie Maynard George Brokaw Compton Alexander McMillan Welch Miss Mary Schuyler Hamilton Philipse Manor Hall Committee Elijah M. Yerks, Chairman Robert Boettger Hon. William J. Wallin Pugsley Medals Committee William D. Moffat, Chairman Chauncey J. Hamlin Chester D. Pugsley Hon. Cornelius A. Pugsley Richard Lieber William A. Welch Stony Point Committee LeRoy E. Kimball, Chairman Frank R. Crumbie Hon. J. DuPratt White William A. Welch Chester D. Pugsley Tappan Monument Committee Frank R. Crumbie, Chairman Harry Ryerson J. DuPratt White Thacher Park Committee Hon. Frank L Wiswall, Chairman Publications Committee William D. Moffat, Chairman Lester D. Gardner George Brokaw Compton Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library THE AMERICAN SCENIC AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION SOCIETY Founded in 1895 by Andrew H. Green OFFICERS Honorary President, D. Bryson Delavan, M.D. New York City President, LeRov E. Kimball New York City and Tomkins Cove-on-Hudson, N. Y. Vice-Presidents: Reuben Leslie Mayxard New York City Hon. Frank L. Wis wall Albany, N. Y. Hon. Frederick A. Emerick Oswego, N. Y. Alexander McMillan Welch New York City Counsel, Reuben Leslie Maynard New York City Treasurer, Alexander Hamilton New York City Secretary, Raymond H. Torrey New York City Assistant Secretary, Dorothy E. Becker New York City TRUSTEES Class of 1937 Joseph Andrews. New York City George Brokaw Compton, New York City Alexander Hamilton, New York City E. Roland Harriman, New York City Stephen H. P. Pell, Fort Ticonderoga, N. Y. N. Taylor Phillips, New York City Chester D. Pugsley, Peekskill. N. Y. Hon. Harvey F. Remington, Rochester, N. Y. Alexander McMillan Welch, New York City Lt. Col. Henry D. Whitpield, Middleburg, Va. Class of 1938 Benjamin F. Castle, New York City Lawrence B. Cummings, New York City Dr. D. Bryson Delavan, Nezv York City Charles E. Ditmas, Brooklyn, N. Y. Hon. Frederick A. Emerick. Oswego, N. Y. Lester D. Gardner, New York City LeRoy E. Kimball, Tomkins Cove-on-Hudson, N. Y. Thomson Kingsford, Oswego, N. Y. Reuben Leslie Maynard, New York City George W. Perkins, New York City Class of 1939 Hon. Chauncey J. Hamlin. Buffalo, N. Y. Messmore Kendall, New York City Edward H. Letchworth, Buffalo, N. Y. William D. Moffat, New York City Hon. Cornelius A. Pugsley, Peekskill, N. Y. Jeremiah R. Van Brunt, New York City Hon. William J. Wallin. Yonkers. N. Y. Hon. Frank L. Wiswall, Albany, N. Y. Elijah M. Yerks. Yonkers, N. Y. Dr. Frederick G. Zinsser, Hastings-on-Hudson, N. Y.