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The Red Duster: an Island His­to­ry Lesson

Dec 2, 2014 8:04 pm

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 25^th. While much of the British mil­i­tary force did leave New York by the 25^th, 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 3, 1783.

[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[/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