The Monmouth inquirer. [volume] (Freehold, N.J.) 1865-1933, 1923-09-06
BATTLE SCENE
TO Be SHRINE
Place Where Americans First
Fought Under Own Flag to
Be Museum Site.

New York.--After years and years
of indifference and neglect something
has been done at last to set aside as a
park and national shrine Brooklyn's
most historic ground-the site Of the
Battle of Long Island.
The board of estimate has voted to
acquire the buildings on the block
where the chief engagement Of the
Battle Of Long Island was fought
Here General Stirling, August q.
1776, with less than 500 men, held back
10000 British and charged them FIVE
separate times, preventing the British
from closing the iron ring, SO that the
Americans might escape across the
marshes to the refuge of the inner line
of Notifications on Brooklyn Heights.
And, If the present generation does not
know 1t, Washington's officers realized
to the full the mighty deeds Serformed
by General Stirling and his Maryland
ers that day and called General Stir
ling "as brave man as ever lived"
Near f4Sth Anniversary.
Now the first step has been taken
to clear the ground for a memorial
park in which shall rise dignified col-
ums which shall stand forever re-
minder of the valorous deeds per
formed there on that day.
1t is an appropriate time for &C
ton, for In another year one hundred
and forty-eight years will have passed
since the Marylanders stood against
the best troops Europe ever sent to
these shores and fought them to
standstill, although outnumbered TWEEN
ty to one. And while they held them
at Nicholas Vechte's old stone house
the shattered remnants. Of the Con-
tinentals escaped across the marsh
lines in the very nick Of time.
The stones of that house, which pos
sessed the added distinction of being
Washington's headquarters before the
battle, are still buried under the
ground, historians say, and the house
may be restored. 1t was built in 1869
and covered when the land was
filed In.
All these years Brooklyn has never
marked the spot Maryland has how
ever, bronze tablet which bears,testi-
mony to the heroisms of the sons Of
Maryland.
The first national battle fought in
America was that of Long Island. It
was the first battle in which American
troops fought under flag Of their
own.
It was the first time American troops
met the flower Of the British army In
open field fighting and proved a match
for them.
The largest British army that ever
came to the shores, approximately 25,-
600 men, took part In the battle.
1t wag the first attempt on the part
of the British to work out an elaborate
strategical plan, which had fer Its
object the crushing Of the American
army at one blow and the breaking Of
all resistance.
It was the first time the Americans
ever met German troops in battle-the
Hessians under De Holster.
no Shaft Marks spot.
The bones of some Of the best men
Of Maryland lie under the ground
men who saved a nation-but no shaft
rises, no green park is there.
The plan for the restoration Of the
Vechte house contemplates Its use as
museum for historical objects. The
Brooklyn Heights Forum, which has
been urging the establishment Of the
park, has plan to put a stadium and
playground there and erect two digni-
fed memorial shafts. One of these
shafts would be faced with white Rut-
land, Vt, marble, and built In ID Sec
tons to represent the 18 original col
onies. The other would symbolic the
4S states.