On this day 250 years ago on Manhattan at the Black Horse Tavern owned by Mrs. Catharine Benson McGown, General Washington convened a Council of War to reconsider the earlier decision to defend New York City against the British. The generals present voted 10 to 3 to evacuate New York City (which then comprised just the present-day Lower Manhattan) and fall back up river to what they believed to be more defensible positions at Mount Washington on the north end of Manhattan Island, in Westchester County, and at Fort Lee across the Hudson River in New Jersey. Brig. Gen. George Clinton, the very popular commander of the New York Militia who would soon be elected Governor of New York State, argued strenuously to defend the city, but Brig. Gens. John Morin Scott and Alexander MacDougall, who were both from New York City, recognized the futility of trying to defend the city and voted to retreat.

The Black Horse Tavern burned in the 19th Century but it stood near MacGowan’s Pass in today’s Central Park. I could not find any events commemorating the 250th anniversary of this Council of War or the other historic events that occurred in the Black Horse Tavern, and a single historic marker in Central Park merely mentions that the tavern stood “near the present-day site of the Park’s operational area known as the Mount.” However, several tour guides lead walking tours of the Revolutionary War sites in Central Park, including several this month September 2026.

Sources: “Council of War, 12 September 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-06-02-0230. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 6, 13 August 1776 – 20 October 1776, ed. Philander D. Chase and Frank E. Grizzard, Jr. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994, pp. 288–289.]; “Brigadier General George Clinton to George Washington, 12 September 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-06-02-0231. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 6, 13 August 1776 – 20 October 1776, ed. Philander D. Chase and Frank E. Grizzard, Jr. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994, pp. 290-92]; https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=96070; https://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.centralparknyc.org/media/documents/SelfGuided_Tours_FortLandscape_2024.pdf; https://revolutionarywarjournal.com/mcgowans-pass/; https://fareharbor.com/embeds/book/frauncestavernmuseum/items/563411/calendar/?full-items=yes; https://www.iloveny.com/event/the-revolutionary-war-in-central-park-walking-tour/81153/; https://www.frauncestavernmuseum.org/events-calendar/2025/9/the-revolutionary-war-in-central-park-walking-tour-2xdpf; https://www.revolutionarytoursnyc.com/revolutionary-war-war-1812-in-central-park/; https://www.untappedcities.com/central-park-battleground-tour-manhattan/

On this day 250 years ago on Montresor’s and Buchanan’s Islands (both combined as today’s Randall Island in the Borough of Manhattan), British batteries exchanged artillery fire with American batteries on Manhattan. The British had occupied these islands at the mouth of the East River only two days earlier. Lt. Col. Robert Hanson Harrison wrote that day that “[t]heir Batteries have kept up a pretty constant fire against our’s at that place, but without any considerable effect.” But the British recorded that they “lost one Sailor, who was killed as he lay sleeping on the Grass by a Cannon Ball. An Engineer lost an Arm, and two or three” others were slightly wounded. A different British officer recorded that “[w]e had four or five men wounded there this day” on the islands, as well as “some men wounded there” in the firing on the previous day. Randall Island is today a New York City public park open to visitors, but as far as I can tell from my research there are no interpretive markers or events planned to commemorate the events there 250 years ago.

Sources: https://allthingsliberty.com/2019/04/fiasco-the-disastrous-raid-on-montresors-island/; “Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hanson Harrison to John Hancock, 12 September 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-06-02-0234. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 6, 13 August 1776 – 20 October 1776, ed. Philander D. Chase and Frank E. Grizzard, Jr. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994, pp. 294–295.]; Ambrose Serle Journal accessed at https://archive.org/details/americanjournalo0000ambr/page/98/mode/2up; Diary of Frederick Mackenzie Giving a Daily Narrative of His Military Service as an Officer of the Regiment of Royal Welch Fusiliers during the Years 1775–1781 in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York. 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 1930, at 1:44 quoted at https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%2212%20September%201776%22&s=1111311111&r=7&sr=; https://cityneighborhoods.nyc/randalls-wards-island; https://cityneighborhoods.nyc/randalls-wards-island; https://randallsisland.org/visit