Fort Lee Historic Park
"The Times That Try Men's Souls" Commemoration of the Retreat from Fort Lee, 1776 NOV. 18, 2007 Members from over a dozen Living History groups will commemorate the 231st Anniversary of the British Invasion of New Jersey at Fort Lee Historic Park on the weekend of November 17th & 18th, 2007. Reenactors representing Continentals, Militia, British, Hessian & Loyalist troops will take part in different field and camp activities throughout the weekend. Fort Lee Historic Park, located on Hudson Terrace in Fort Lee, has added several new attractions over the last eighteen months, including a replica blockhouse, officer’s hut, and functional 32-pound artillery piece. Fort Lee was originally constructed in 1776 to be used in conjunction with Fort Washington, located diagonally to the north on the opposite side of the Hudson River, as a means of closing the vital waterway to British shipping, as shown in a letter from Fort Lee in October 1776. The fall of Fort Washington on 16 November 1776 rendered Fort Lee irrelevant. The Crown Forces struck quickly in following their victory at Fort Washington, capturing Fort Lee without a shot four days later, as described by a British officer on the scene. While the fort was demolished by the British, its strategic location proved useful at other points in the war. During the British Grand Forage of 1778, the post and ferry anchored the British right flank and provided an easy means of landing provisions for the army, as indicated in correspondence from Gen. Lord Cornwallis; two years later the post was briefly occupied by Continental troops engaged in their own foraging expedition, as found in an extract from a letter from an officer in August 1780. The only true “Battle of Fort Lee” however would come in 1781 when Loyalist woodcutters commanded by Major Thomas Ward attempted to establish a blockhouse and post on the site. After a week’s worth of skirmishing with the Bergen County Militia, the idea was abandoned, as recounted in a contemporary Loyalist newspaper account.
