Cortlandt’s Link to History of U.S. Flag

Lt. Col. Marinus Willett is best known in the Van Cortlandtville area for
counterattacking a superior force of British invaders on March 24, 1777, and driving them back to their ships in Peekskill Bay. That skirmish was but one of many between British and American forces during the Revolutionary War but it yielded something unique – part of the first U.S. flag to fly in battle in the face ofthe enemy.

A British force of 500 sailed up the Hudson and landed at Lent’s Cove on March 23, 1777. The next day 200 British troops marched up the Post Road (later known as Hillside Avenue and Oregon Road) to the Twin Hills, just south of the Van Cortlandt family’s Upper Manor House. American Gen. Alexander McDougall, headquartered on Gallows Hill in Continental Village, was joined that afternoon
by Willett and 80 men he had brought from Fort Independence (also known as Fort Constitution) on Roa Hook. As the colonel arrived he observed a British detachment burning a house. He also observed that the detachment was separated from the rest of the troops by a ravine, and he implored McDougall to attack them. As the sun was setting Willett finally persuaded his cautious commander to let him do so. While other Americans created a diversion to the west, the
zealous colonel ordered his 80 men to fix bayonets and attacked the eastern flank of the British. Willett’s troops overwhelmed the British with the unexpected assault, sniping at them from behind trees and stone walls. Aided by darkness the British fled back to Fort Hill, north of what is now Main Street in Peekskill. After waiting for the full moon to rise, the entire invasion force retreated to its ships and sailed back to New York the next day.

Willett’s counterattack left nine British dead and four wounded. Four
more British were killed while trying to burn American boats at Canopus Creek. The colonel reported two men killed and four or five wounded. 

The retreating British left behind assorted baggage, including a blue
camlet cloak that a few months later provided the field of blue for the first U.S. flag to fly above the Continental Army in battle, on Aug. 3, 1777. The cloak was taken to Fort Stanwix (modern Rome, N.Y.) by one of Willett’s captains, Abraham Swartwout (also spelled Swarthwout), when their regiment was reassigned to the defense of the Mohawk Valley two months after the skirmish. When word
reached the American defenders that Congress had agreed (on June 14, 1777, now celebrated as Flag Day) upon a design of 13 stripes and stars, the cloak provided the background for the stars while red fabric (possibly a petticoat) and white shirts furnished the stripes.

In one sally from Fort Stanwix, Willett looted Tory and Indian camps while their occupants were mauling American militia at nearby Oriskany; later during the siege of the fort he was one of the real-life runners who sped 50 miles to bring relief from Fort Dayton, a role played by Henry Fonda in the 1939 movie Drums Along the Mohawk. The British subsequently broke off the siege.

Willett held a variety of assignments for the remainder of the war and
afterward was appointed sheriff of New York City. He resigned in 1788 to fight ratification by New York State of the new national Constitution, which he believed did not properly protect individual rights and in many ways violated the principles for which the Revolutionary War had been fought. His was a minority view, and New York ratified the Constitution on July 26, 1788.

Years later he served as mayor of New York in 1807-08 and as president of the Electoral College in 1824. He died Aug. 22, 1830, at age 90 and is buried in the graveyard of Trinity Church in lower Manhattan.

To learn more about Willett, please see the book “Marinus Willett: Defender of the Northern Frontier,” by Larry Lowenthal, published in 2000 by Purple Mountain Press Ltd., Fleischmanns, N.Y.