Life Between Two Armies: Westchester County and the American Revolution

Written By Marc Cheshire

Char Weigel, RW250 Vice President for Special Projects was interviewed for Ben Franklin’s World, the prestigious podcast about early American history. Click here to listen.

During the conversation Char reveals:

  • How early Dutch settlement influenced Westchester through the eighteenth century and the Revolutionary War

  • What British commanders hoped to accomplish with the military campaign that led to the Battle of White Plains

  • How residents of Westchester County managed between two armies throughout the war

  • How figures like Washington Irving and others helped shape the legacy of the Revolutionary War in Westchester County

WHAT YOU’LL DISCOVER

  • Westchester County on the eve of the American Revolution

  • Phillipsburg Manor and its tenant farmers

  • Westchester's economic and political ties to New York City

  • Voting rights for freeholders and tenant farmers

  • The lasting influence of Dutch culture and the Dutch church

  • Samuel Seabury, Alexander Hamilton, and the "Westchester Farmer" pamphlets

  • The British campaign to trap George Washington in 1776

  • John Glover and his Marblehead regiment at Pell's Point

  • The Battle of White Plains

  • Westchester as the “neutral ground”

  • The Cowboys and the Skinners

  • Women’s experiences in the neutral ground

  • Daniel Nimham and the Wappinger soldiers

  • Slavery and enslaved people in Revolutionary Westchester

  • Benedict Arnold’s treason and the capture of John André

  • Washington Irving and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Marc Cheshire
Next

The Semiquin Finale