Stony Point Battlefield: Site of a 1779 Revolutionary War Battle
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- United States
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Unclassified
- Site type
- Military
On this page6 sections
History
Stony Point Battlefield is a historic site on a peninsula in Stony Point, New York, United States, associated with the 1779 Battle of Stony Point during the American Revolutionary War. In that eighteenth-century conflict, the thirteen North American colonies fought Great Britain for independence. The battle is also associated with George Washington, senior commander of the Continental Army, and Anthony Wayne, the general who led the American attack on Stony Point.
Preservation and Public Administration
The battlefield was purchased and preserved in the late 1890s, then opened to the public in 1902. A museum was constructed at the site in 1936. During the 1940s, the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, the public agency administering the Palisades Interstate Park system in New York and New Jersey, took responsibility for the property and began acquiring additional land around it.
By the 1980s, the park encompassed all public land on the peninsula, including the Stony Point Lighthouse. The property received designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1961, recognizing its exceptional national historical importance, and entered the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1966. It now operates as Stony Point Battlefield State Historic Site.
Remains
The historic site occupies a peninsula and brings together the battlefield, a museum, and the Stony Point Lighthouse. These features represent the Revolutionary War setting, later interpretation of the battle, and the peninsula’s subsequent maritime use.
Battlefield Peninsula
The peninsula contains the battlefield associated with the 1779 engagement. Its preservation began with the purchase of the property in the late nineteenth century and expanded through the acquisition of surrounding land during the twentieth century.
Museum and Murals
The museum, built in 1936, contains exhibits about the Battle of Stony Point and the lighthouse. Around the time of its construction, artist Lee Woodward Zeigler painted two murals there while working for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, a New Deal agency that funded employment and relief projects during the Great Depression. One mural shows George Washington and Anthony Wayne planning their attack from nearby Buckberg Mountain.
Stony Point Lighthouse
The Stony Point Lighthouse was built in 1826 and stands within the historic site’s peninsula landscape. The museum’s exhibits also interpret the lighthouse, linking its later history with that of the battlefield.
