348 The Story of The Bronx 



to light which were carefully preserved. These consisted of 

 cannon-balls, grape-shot, English coins, uniform buttons, 

 bridle ornaments, pike tips, broken camp kettles, and other 

 military paraphernalia. The buttons show that the fort was 

 occupied at various times by the following British regiments, or 

 detachments of them: 8th, 17th, 33d (Lord Cornwallis), 37th 

 (English Musketeers), 38th, 45th, 74th, and 76th (Scotch). 



It will be remembered that the manor of Fordham was left 

 by the Steenwycks to the Nether Dutch Church, and that 

 the church was authorized by the Provincial Assembly of 

 1755, to dispose of its property to purchasers in fee. The 

 tract upon which Number Eight stood was bought by Daniel 

 Seacord of Yonkers, who sold it, October 14, 1766, to Benjamin 

 Archer, for £630. Archer built a house, part stone and part 

 wood, at a point about three hundred feet east and seventy- 

 five feet north of the junction of the present Sedgwick and 

 Burnside avenues. It consisted of two rooms; and during the 

 Revolution, it was the quarters of Colonel De Lancey of the 

 Westchester Light Horse, and the object of frequent attacks 

 by the Americans. The cantonment of De Lancey 's troopers 

 was probably on the meadow at, or near, Burnside Avenue and 

 Macomb's Dam Road, formerly occupied by the Berkeley 

 Oval athletic field. 



When the British determined on the capture of Fort Wash- 

 ington, the height above Archer's house commended itself 

 to the engineers as a position which commanded the Harlem 

 River, the American outwork on Laurel Hill (Fort George), 

 the Kingsbridge Road from Harlem, and the northern outworks 

 of Fort Washington at Inwood, afterwards called Fort 

 Tryon. Upon the arrival of the Hessians in the neighbor- 

 hood in the first days of November, 1776, work was begun 

 upon the redoubt; and by the fifteenth of the month, it was 



