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Stay safe in the heat: Drink plenty of water, spend time in the shade, and visit the first aid station at Soissons Landing if you feel unwell. Click here for important warm weather visitor information.

Stay safe in the heat: Drink plenty of water, spend time in the shade, and visit the first aid station at Soissons Landing if you feel unwell. Click here for important warm weather visitor information.

The Red Duster: an Island His­to­ry Lesson

As you his­to­ry buffs may know, the British took pos­ses­sion of Gov­er­nors Island in 1776 to use as their army and navy head­quar­ters dur­ing the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War. We all know how the sto­ry goes — the British efforts to sub­due the colonist rebel­lion failed, and today we eat ham­burg­ers instead of bangers and mash as a result. Despite the last major bat­tle of the war, the bat­tle at York­town, tak­ing place in 1781, the British stuck around for two more years. The Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, offi­cial­ly end­ing the war.

Evac­u­a­tion Day in New York, the day in 1783 the British sup­pos­ed­ly left our fair state, is cel­e­brat­ed on Novem­ber 25th. While much of the British mil­i­tary force did leave New York by the 25th, the Kings Col­ors* were still fly­ing over Gov­er­nors Island for one more week. The British Navy final­ly hand­ed the Island (and the hos­pi­tal that exist­ed here) over to the new Unit­ed States, and more specif­i­cal­ly to an appointee of New York’s Gov­er­nor DeWitt Clin­ton on Decem­ber 31783.

[cap­tion id=“attachment_7862” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”]Letter from James Ducan, British Navy Captain to Governor Dewitt Clinton informing him that the British would be evacuating Governors Island Let­ter from James Ducan, British Navy Cap­tain to Gov­er­nor Dewitt Clin­ton inform­ing him that the British would be evac­u­at­ing Gov­er­nors Island[/caption]

Today, Decem­ber 2, 2014 in recog­ni­tion of the British Navy’s depar­ture 231 years ago tomor­row, the Nation­al Park Ser­vice here at Gov­er­nors Island is fly­ing the British Red Ensign, also called the Red Duster” over Fort Jay. It was the flag of the British Navy at the time of their evac­u­a­tion from New York Har­bor. The Red Duster was also the flag that Lord Corn­wal­lis sur­ren­dered under to end the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion (at York­town, men­tioned above!) in Octo­ber 1781.

We love pro­vid­ing a lit­tle Gov­er­nors Island his­to­ry, cour­tesy of our friends at the Nation­al Park Ser­vice. Come to the Island for a tour of the Gov­er­nors Island His­toric Dis­trict with NPS this sum­mer to learn more about our long mil­i­tary his­to­ry! In the mean­time, please let us know via the com­ments if you’d like to see more blog posts about the Island’s history.

*Edit­ed for his­tor­i­cal accuracy