September, 2000 issue

They will pass within 200 yards of the very spot where the Patriots, John Paulding, Isaac Van Wart, and David Williams captured the English spy, Major John Andre on September 24, 1780 -- 220 years ago. It was a critical event -- a different outcome of the story could well have meant an alternative ending to the war.

Andre was returning from a meeting with the American traitor, Benedict Arnold, who had provided him with plans of the fortifications of West Point. The Englishman was attempting to return to Manhattan and the British forces by land.

Earlier Andre, in British uniform, had been sailed up the river on the British ship Vulture under the orders of British General Howe and landed on the west shore. He was to negotiate with Arnold, who had been appointed commander of West Point by a reluctant George Washington a few months before, at the Birdsall House in Peekskill.

Benedict Arnold, after notable victories earlier in the war, was recognized as a superior soldier and tactician, but failed to earn the respect of his superiors. He had contacted the British and offered to betray his country for the then incredible sum of twenty thousand pounds. (To this day, mention of Benedict Arnold is forbidden at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point -- even "Eggs Benedict" are served under another name.)

The Hudson River was considered the strategic "key" to the Revolutionary War and West Point guarded the great chain constructed across the river to prevent the British from sailing north.

The Arnold/Andre negotiations at Long Clove Mountain, two miles south of Haverstraw, were successful, but did not conclude until dawn. Andre did not want to risk returning to the Vulture in daylight and chose another route. He crossed the river, and may have been provided with an American uniform if the Lady of the Upper Van Cortlandt Manor House, Cornelia (Van Cortlandt) Beekman had not been as wary.

She adamantly refused to part with an American uniform in her safe-keeping to a Joshua Hett Smith. It had been left in her care by Lieutenant John Webb, an aide to General Washington, who had said, "I will send for it when I want it -- but do not deliver it without a written order from me."

Mr. Smith was later known to have acted as a go-between Arnold and Andre. He insisted on being given the uniform, but when he could not produce the written order, Mrs. Beekman told him that she knew him well enough not to part with it. Despite the displeasure of her husband, Gerard Beekman, in the way she treated Mr. Smith, Mrs. Beekman was resolute. (Mrs. Beekman was later known as the first real estate developer of Sleepy Hollow. She and her husband purchased Philipse Manor from the Committee of Forfeitures after the war.)

Andre proceeded on a circuitous route south to Croton Point, where the Vulture had anchored to await the return voyage. In the meantime, two American irregulars, George Sherwood and John Petersen, spotted the Vulture and unsuccessfully fired muskets at her. (John Petersen, [1746-1850] an African-American, is buried in Bethel Cemetery in Croton.)

When the commander at a post in Verplanck, Colonel Livingston, was contacted, he brought a four-pound cannon, without orders, to Croton Point and opened fire on the Vulture at dawn. Although, because of the tide, the Vulture was unable to withdraw at first, eventually the ship moved down river. (It is thought the actual cannon is the one currently gracing the lawn outside the Peekskill Museum.)

Unable to board the Vulture at Croton Point, Andre, who at some stage had discarded his British uniform, continued south and was halted by Paulding, Williams and Van Wart. They discovered the plans for the defense of West Point in the spy's stocking, and despite Andre's protestations and offers of bribes, turned him over to higher authorities.

Had Andre retained his British uniform he would possibly have been treated as a prisoner of war, but without it he became a spy. The life of the popular poet-soldier was doomed, despite many pleas, and he was hanged in Tappan on October 2, 1780. It is reported George Washington, who was in the village at the time, closed the shutters in his room so he would not have to witness the event.

Later, Paulding, Williams and Van Wart were honored by General Washington and other leaders at a dinner in Cortlandt. (A monument to John Paulding has een erected over his burial place in the cemetery at old St. Peter's Church in Cortlandt. Van Wart is similarly recognized in Elmsford.)

Patriot's Park, and the monument on the border between Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, symbolizes this momentous episode in our nation's history -- more than a legend to be cherished -- one to be retold for the ages, and certainly on every trolley loop this fall.