Glover’s Rock, a glacial erratic boulder in Pelham Bay Park, within the Bronx, pushes by the tree branches round it just like the prow of a beached ship. The Parks Division has put up an figuring out marker subsequent to a pullout on the street main previous the rock to Orchard Seashore or to Metropolis Island. 2 hundred and fifty years in the past, the most important battle ever fought within the Bronx started right here. At daybreak on October 18, 1776, 4 thousand British and Hessian troopers marched alongside the slender nation street that adopted the excessive floor the rock sits on. That they had come ashore close by and have been making an attempt to encircle Washington’s military from the east as he tried to get out of a harmful place on Manhattan and escape throughout the Hudson River to New Jersey.
A plaque on the rock says it was named for Colonel John Glover. He commanded 4 regiments, a complete of eight hundred males, which occupied defensive positions alongside the street. The chances on this struggle have been 5 to 1, at greatest. Glover got here from Boston, and his New England troops not solely fought as infantry but in addition supplied Washington with whaleboats and oarsmen when he wanted them. The boat during which he’s standing within the portray “Washington Crossing the Delaware” was theirs.
As quickly as Glover had gentle sufficient to see, he knew the enemy was approaching, and he wished a normal might inform him what to do. Improvising, he ordered three of his regiments to cover behind stone partitions that lined the street. An advance guard stood in formation close to the rock, prepared to satisfy the British. The fourth regiment he put farther again alongside the street, in reserve.
Dawn, in keeping with up to date sources, was at 6:32 A.M. 2 hundred and fifty years later, on Sunday, October 18, 2026, first gentle got here at about 6:30. At that hour, Glover’s Rock is a lonely sentinel. A road gentle formed like a “Y” casts bluish gentle over the boulder and an adjoining patch of garden. Automobiles go by solely often. On the morning of the anniversary, 4 deer emerged from a reed thicket subsequent to the garden, and two Canada geese flew by. At 7:11, the solar got here up blazingly over Lengthy Island Sound, breaking by locations within the beforehand all-dark tree line.
By ten o’clock, a few thousand individuals had proven as much as watch a reënactment of the battle, sponsored by native historic societies, civic teams, and colleges. For logistical causes, it needed to be held in Orchard Seashore Park. Spectators crowded the seaside’s promenade. A considerably tall ship—a two-masted schooner known as the Lynx—sailed in on the morning’s delicate breeze and anchored offshore. Reënactors dressed as British troopers acquired in a dory and rowed from the schooner to the seaside’s edge. Then they rowed forwards and backwards for some time. A member of the U.S. Coast Guard, who had been standing on the seaside in a life vest to assist them disembark, walked again to a tent on the promenade. “They don’t wish to get moist,” he mentioned. The dory rowed again to the Lynx.
“Let’s see what the X-ray specs say earlier than we begin worrying an excessive amount of.”
Cartoon by Patrick McKelvie
Happily for the script, different British and Hessian reënactors had arrived by way of freeway and the extremely huge Orchard Seashore car parking zone. These troopers fashioned ranks—in numbers in no way close to 4 thousand—and with bulletless muskets levelled started to march up a service street by the park’s lawns and picnic tables. Opposing them have been Continental reënactors led by Sean Grady, of Westchester, who impersonated Colonel Glover impeccably, all the way down to the Boston accent. “We can not count on any rein-fahce-ments!” he mentioned.
The 2 sides fired white, smoky volleys, their weapons making a black-powder hiss-bang. Glover’s males retreated, then reformed; the decided British saved marching. An vital factor had occurred right here, in what’s now the Bronx. If the British had been in a position to swing round to the west and entice Washington, the Revolution may need ended proper then. Glover and his males held them up lengthy sufficient for the entire military to get away.
