April, 1775, to September, 1776 127 



Americans and abandoned by them when they evacuated this 

 section before the Westchester campaign; the British seized 

 and strengthened them before the attack on Fort Washington 

 in the early part of November, 1776. In November, 1778, 

 they had a garrison of one hundred and ten officers and men. 

 They were finally abandoned by the British in the fall of 1779. 

 Number Four was on the eastern side of the valley, between 

 the Boston and Albany roads, both of which it commanded. 

 It was the largest of all the fortifications in this neighborhood, 

 and was a bastioned earthwork, with ravelins to the east and 

 southeast, and was built by the Pennsylvania Line, assisted 

 by the militia, under the direction of Colonel Rufus Putnam, 

 the engineer of Fort Washington. Upon the approach of 

 the Hessians under Knyphausen from New Rochelle, Colonel 

 Lasher, the American commander, destroyed the barracks, 

 October twenty-eighth, and went to reinforce Colonel Magaw 

 at Fort Washington. He left in such haste that he was 

 obliged to leave the cannon and three hundred stand of arms 

 behind him. General Knyphausen took possession the next 

 day, and the British held it for three years. On August 16, 

 1779, they removed the guns; on the seventeenth, they 

 demolished the magazine, and on the twelfth of September 

 they abandoned the fort altogether. The house formerly 

 belonging to the late William O. Giles, Esq., is built within the 

 ancient fort; and it is stated that when the cellar was dug 

 eleven cannon and several cannon-balls, calthorns, and other 

 military relics were found. Number Four was the largest 

 redoubt in this vicinity and was the true Fort Independence of 

 the Americans. The fort was built upon the farm of Captain 

 (later, Major-General) Richard Montgomery, who probably 

 selected the site when examining this section with the com- 

 mittee appointed by the Provincial Congress of 1775. 



