Richard Borkow, Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.

Two distinguished historians have independently concluded that there is a major omission in the maps and educational material prepared by the National Park Service for the Washington-Rochambeau legislation: The starting point of Washington’s 1781 march from New York to Virginia, Dobbs Ferry, NY, is not identified. 

David Hackett Fischer, University Professor and Warren Professor of History at Brandeis University, and Thomas Fleming, President of the Society of American Historians, have requested that the National Park Service  correct a serious error in the Washington-Rochambeau National Historic Trail legislation now before the Senate and House of Representatives.   

They are concerned that the legislation makes no reference to the starting point of Washington’s bold and secret march of more than 400 miles from Westchester County to Yorktown, Virginia. The march was arguably the most decisive military movement of the entire Revolutionary War, since it resulted in the victory of American and French forces over General Cornwallis’s British and Hessian troops at Yorktown. The victory led to the end of the war and to remarkably favorable peace terms for the United States.

Both historians have expressed their support for the campaign of the village of Dobbs Ferry, which has been attempting to correct the error for more than a year. 

Interestingly enough, some historians at the NPS are fully aware that Dobbs Ferry was the starting point of Washington’s 1781 march, as demonstrated on this NPS map:  http:/www.nps.gov/boso/w-r/files/W-RSimpleMap.gif                                                     

But the NPS study team which prepared the maps and educational material for the W-R Trail bills in Congress has erased Dobbs Ferry from the main legislative map, has eliminated references to Dobbs Ferry’s historical significance from the NPS educational material related to the W-R Trail, and has resisted all appeals to correct these omissions. The study team has not provided any historical explanation for the erasure of Dobbs Ferry. The members of the NPS study team have not denied the validity of the historical evidence presented by Dobbs Ferry, and endorsed by these two eminent historians, and have not challenged Dobbs Ferry’s documentation with any contending historical evidence of their own. The omission would be easy to correct, so it is not clear at this point why the study team has not made the corrections.  

Dobbs Ferry’s representatives in the House, Congresswoman Nita Lowey and Congressman Eliot Engel, have expressed their concern and have intervened. Ms. Lowey has sent a letter of inquiry to Mary Bomar, Director of the National Park Service, and  Mr. Engel has contacted the office of the principal sponsor of the legislation in the House of Representatives, Congressman Maurice Hinchey.

Richard Borkow, M.D.

Village Historian of Dobbs Ferry

www.VillageHistorian.org