White Plains 250th- Saturday, Oct 24, 2026

      This weekend it's just Scott.  Only a few weeks ago, Scott said to Julie, "You know, I'm not crazy, but if I was..."  and he proceeded to tell her how the re-enactment for the Battle of White Plains' 250th anniversary was the weekend between the scheduled Staunton trip and Cleveland trip.  Julie said, "You are crazy," and let him go.

      Scott drove down after school on Friday.  It was funny that even after dark, he recognized things as he was getting closer.  He drove in on the Palisades Parkway, which he and Brian S. were on in August when they were coming to Brooklyn.  His hotel is across the street from the Palisades Center mall, which we visited with Emma two years ago.  After about 7 hours in the car, Scott checked into the Tappan Zee Hotel at about 10:00 last night and started trying to wind down for a long day today.

      The Battle of White Plains occurred as General George Washington was being pushed out of New York City and ultimately out of New York State.  He had suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Brooklyn, back in August, but had managed to miraculously save his army by secretly crossing to Manhattan in a fog bank.   The British continued to push forward, and he eventually pulled his army off of Manhattan and out to White Plains.  Here General Howe lined his redcoats in an intimidating formation in front of the Continentals.  Then, on October 28, 1776, Howe attacked the high ground on Washington's right-- a hill called Chatterton's Hill.  After a hard fight, the Americans were pushed off of the hill by a combined force of British and German Hessians.   Some fighting continued over the next few days, but ultimately. Washington was forced to choose to retreat once again and left New York State through New Jersey and into Pennsylvania.

     Scott was up this morning and set the GPS for White Plains, a little more than a half hour away.  He found the city park called the Battle of White Plains park, which sits on the top of Chatterton Hill.   It's in the middle of a residential neighborhood on very hilly streets, and there was no place to park.  Scott went around the block and eventually found a parking lot for Battle Park.  He didn't realize it then, but apparently there are two city parks in the same vicinity, on the top of Chatterton Hill- one named "Battle Park" and one named "Battle of White Plains Park."  Scott walked all the way through the ball fields and basketball courts of Battle Park, and couldn't figure out where the signs were that he drove past before.  He eventually made it back to the Battle of White Plains Park, which has about a half a dozen historical signs scattered throughout along with a playground, benches and nicely cared for flowers.  He lingered a while in that park, reading, photographing and video taping each of the signs.  To the best of his knowledge, there is no "Battle of White Plains" monument and since the city of White Plains has swallowed everything else up, this park may be the only place to get pictures like these.

     Scott left the park a little after 8:00, and since he still hadn't had breakfast, he found a Dunkin Donuts and had a bagel.  He set the GPS to find the Elijah Miller House.  It was where Washington had his headquarters during the battle, and is currently a museum.  Scott didn't expect it to be open, but he hoped he would at least be able to see the outside of it.  He found that the driveway there was blocked by a gate, and since it sat on a relatively dangerous corner, Scott didn't stay there long.  

     The next leg of his drive took him along the Bronx River Parkway.  The sun was shining brightly by this time, the sky was bright blue and the leaves were close to peak fall colors, so it was a surprisingly pretty drive.  Most of the roads today were parkways, which made for nice driving in the morning, but frustrating driving later that night.

     There was no on-site parking for the re-enactment today, but Scott saw that one of the lots that was available was at the John Jay Homestead.  Jay was an important Founding Father, of course.  Although he didn't sign the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, he was an important force in getting the Constitution ratified.  At this time in 1776, he was in the New York State legislature and was working to deal with wartime espionage.   The house itself is closed for renovations, but Scott liked at least seeing the outside of it.  He parked here and hopped on one of the first buses from there to the main event of the day.

     The official name of the event today was "Rev Fest 250" which is a little sillier than simply "Battle of White Plains Re-enactment."  It was being held at a very large Westchester County park called Ward Pound Ridge Reservation.  Scott had scoped out the event's plans online before he left and decided that he wanted to hear a musical duo by the name of "Carla and Keyes."   Since they were supposed to start right at 10:00. he asked about them as soon as he got off the bus.  He was directed to a large stage at the far side of the large park.  He found the stage there, took a seat and watched the opening ceremony.  He recognized the duo as they gathered for group pictures, and he settled in expecting that they would take the stage soon.  

      The first person on stage after the opening ceremony, thank yous, and pictures, was a story teller named Jonathan Kruk.  Scott had seen him at Green-wood Cemetery during the Battle of Brooklyn events back in August, so he knew that he would be entertaining.  Mr. Kruk is known for ghost stories of Westchester, though he also does a good job describing battles in captivating ways.  Of course, he started today's stories with the men on Chatteron Hill, dreading the coming of the much-feared Hessians.  Scott hadn't put it together before that one of these Hessians was supposed to have been the one that was decapitated and who was cursed to become the Headless Horseman.  According to Kruk, a Hessian named Christian Range was hit by a cannonball, and ended up in an unmarked grave at the Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow (which we visited before in 2024). Kruk also told the story of the capture of Major André and how the betrayal plot of Benedict Arnold was discovered. Kruk, of course, told the story of André 's hanging and the haunting that followed.   Kruk's stories were fun to listen to, but he was followed by a woman who was portraying Deborah Sampson, who enlisted in the Continental Army disguised as a man.  By this point, Scott wondered what had happened to Carla and Keyes, and he went off to see if he was missing them elsewhere.

     In fact, Scott found Carla and Keyes playing at the entrance where he first got off the bus.  They were sitting under a pop-up, playing music for people as they arrived, but without any real signs or sound system.  They are a husband and wife duo.  They specialize in historical music and often do presentations for schools and historical societies.  She is African-American and has several presentation about African-American music and history.  Scott found several videos of them on YouTube before he came and enjoyed them.  Today, they weren't singing like they were on YouTube, but they were playing a combination of instruments that Scott thought was ironic.  The husband was playing the mandolin, while she was playing a bodhran.  Scott texted Brian S. a message and jokingly said, "They're stealing our bit!"  It was the kind of music that Scott could sit and listen to for a while on a lovely morning like it was today, so he sat on a nearby bench and listened contentedly.  He got to speak with them for a few minutes after and they seemed very nice.  It was a shame that for the only performance that they were going to do this weekend, they were stuck between the noisy buses and and the port-a-johns.  They deserved better.   The people who did stop to listen to them really enjoyed them.   

     Carla & Keyes finished playing at noon.  (They left to go to a Legend of Sleepy Hollow performance that they were doing all through October.)  Scott had to find lunch, so he made his way back to the main stage.  He got a sauerkraut hotdog from Nathan's Famous Hot Dog's truck and ate while the West Point band began playing very loud rock and contemporary music.  Although they were very talented, Scott agreed with the re-enactors in the camps who were commenting that it was detracting from the 18th century atmosphere.

     After eating, Scott got up and strolled through the camps.  There were somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 re-enactors here today, and it was said to be the largest Revolutionary War re-enactment of the year.  That seems probable.  The Crown forces (with the British, Hessians, and Loyalists) were separate from the Continentals but both camps were very impressive on their own.  Scott also took time to go through the several period sutlers that were there and the tents that were run by many of the local historical sites and organizations.  He bought a booklet about the Battle of White Plains from the White Plains Historical Society and talked about John Jay with people from the John Jay Homestead (where he had parked).

     It was still before 2:00 and Scott was in the Continental Army's camp when he saw the soldiers forming up and moving off for the day's battle.  Scott thought that was probably his cue to find a place for watching the battle.  There were two sides to the battlefield that had been partitioned off for spectators.  Scott went to the side that was further away from the camps, thinking that it would be less crowded.  He would later regret that decision.  There were actually two battle locations, one that was called the "Skirmish" which would be the first place for the fight, and the main battlefield which was on the side of a pretty good sized hill.  Scott wasn't sure how far away the skirmish was going to be nor how long it would last, so once he had staked out a place by the main battlefield, he decided to stay there.   Probably the skirmish was meant to represent the American force of Major General Joseph Spencer who was sent ahead by Washington to delay the British arrival.  We could hear the cannons and gunfire but we couldn't see them through the trees.  The fighting in the skirmish lasted a long time, and the 3:00 battle clearly wasn't going to start at 3:00.  

       Eventually, the soldiers arrived from the skirmish field and took their positions on the main battlefield-- first the Continentals, who were posted at the top of the hill, then the Hessians and then the Redcoats.  Scott correctly predicted that the Continentals on the top were representing the men that Washington had deployed on Chatterton Hill.  The Hessians would be attacking from the British left, while the appropriately larger force of British attacked from the right.  A smaller force of British light infantry tried flanking the Americans through the woods behind us.  Because the Americans were behind the ridge of the hill, the people in the area where Scott was couldn't really see them, but their cannons boomed in our ears.   Though we couldn't see the Americans well, we had a great view of the crown forces.  After trying to soften the Americans up, they British charged them twice, unsuccessfully.  On their third attempt, the Hessians managed to get up the hill on the American's right flank, and the rest of the British crested the hill soon afterward, which tracks with representing the original fight.  

     Next, though, came the hard part of the afternoon.  The people on the far side of the field, where Scott was, were not allowed to cross the battle field until the re-enactors gave the "all-clear" signal.  Meanwhile, the larger crowd on the other side of the field were making their way to the lines for the buses already.  Scott made a bee-line for the buses as soon as he could, but everyone else was as well. People had been coming on the buses all through the day, but they had all started to try to leave at once.  Scott said it was like at Disney when there is a crowd of people trying to get out after the fireworks.  He called Julie and talked with her to pass the time.  She asked if it was worth it.  Scott said, that's not a question you ask someone when their waiting for the monorail, the kids are crying and everyone is tired and grumpy.  In truth, they should have known that this problem was going to happen and hired 10 more buses for an hour or two at the end of the event, maybe from local school districts like tbey did at Lexington and Concord.  Instead, they had large coaches that seemed to be fewer in number than they had running through the day, and they even weren't allowing people to stand in the aisles, probably for insurance reasons.  There was no Lightning Lane or single-rider line today.   He had to wait for an hour and a half, but he was nowhere near the back of the line which seemed to go on two or three times further still.  Scott had basically been standing since 2:00 and by the time he got on the bus, it was after 6:00.   It was a bit of a job just to get his legs to climb the stairs into the bus.

     When he got to the parking lot at  John Jay's Homestead, Scott noticed it was a beautiful full moon.  Here's where he made another mistake, but you can probably understand why he made this call.  He had been reminded today about the Headless Horseman's alleged connection to the Battle of White Plains.   He was going to be going through Sleepy Hollow... in October... with a full moon...  It seemed like stopping at the Old Dutch Church to at least get a picture of it with the full moon was a thing he really should do.  By the time he was driving back, it was dark, and the roads were these "parkways" that are very pretty by day, but have no restaurants or anything else to turn into.  Scott hoped to get dinner on the way there but couldn't.  When he was coming into Sleepy Hollow, he needed to make a left off of the parkway's exit ramp, but the traffic there was stopped and not moving and it seemed dangerous at best to try to make that turn.  He went right instead, made a u-turn, and came back to that traffic jam again.  For whatever reason, the police and fire department weren't letting anyone into Sleepy Hollow there, and were making them get back onto the parkway again a little further down.  That was not what Scott wanted to do, but the charm of trying to get a picture there had gone.  He found a way to set the GPS for the hotel and crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge (a.k.a. the Mario Cuomo Bridge) to get back to his hotel.  He still hadn't eaten, but it seemed to late to try to go to the mall and his feet hurt too much anyway.  He found a McDonald's a short ways away and went to eat there.  It was not a relaxing meal because two eighth-grade looking girls were wearing onsies and dancing around to make Tik-Tok videos, apparently, while several toddlers were screaming. 

      When he finally got back to the hotel, it was almost 8:30, more than two and a half hours later than he had hoped originally.  He had bought some beer, but forgot that he would need an opener.  He walked to a nearby gas station for some Diet Coke instead, but got sprayed by some lawn sprinklers when he tried to get there.  It was a good day, but not a great evening.