On this day 250 years ago on Manhattan Island in New York, Maj. Andrew Leitch of Prince William County, Virginia died of the wounds he had received two week earlier in the battle of Harlem Heights. He was buried next to Lt. Col. Thomas Knowlton of Connecticut, who was also killed in the Battle of Harlem Heights, and Major Thomas Henly of Massachusetts, who was killed in the aborted raid on Montressor’s Island a week later. All three of these officers died heroically for the cause of American Liberty. Their graves are unmarked but are supposed to be somewhere between 145th and 135th Streets east of present-day St. Nicholas Avenue (which was then the Boston Post Road), with one source speculating that the location is between St. Nicholas Avenue and the terminus of 143rd Street. If you visit Alexander Hamilton’s home at the Hamilton Grange National Memorial on Manhattan you will be only a couple of blocks from the probable location where they were buried. Hamilton served with these officers and probably attended their funerals. I like to think he built his estate facing their graves.

The enlisted men who died in combat fighting for American Liberty with these officers are also buried in unmarked graves on Manhattan, but I have not read any speculation as to the location of their grave sites.

Sources: https://revolutionarywarjournal.com/battle-of-harlem-heights/; https://emergingrevolutionarywar.org/2018/02/09/he-stood-the-field-with-great-bravery-the-story-of-major-andrew-leitch-part-2/; https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/knowlton-battle-of-harlem-heights/; https://www.nps.gov/hagr/index.htm