Dobbs Ferry, February 20, 2008
Dear DFDC,
As I mentioned at our meeting on Thursday, I am sending letters to Eliot Engel and Nita Lowey on behalf of the committee to ask for their assistance on Dobbs Ferry’s treatment on the Washington-Rochambeau map. The text of the letter is below which will more fully explain this issue. A big "thank you" to Village Historian Rich Borkow for drafting this, and to Linda and Rich for their untiring efforts on behalf of DF.
"Dobbs Ferry is very much in need of your intervention. For two years citizens of Dobbs Ferry have been attempting, without success, to ensure historically accurate recognition for our village in the Washington-Rochambeau National Historic Trail legislation (H.R. 1286).
I request that you contact Congressman Hinchey, the chief sponsor of H.R. 1286, in order to ask him to take action as soon as possible to remedy the situation. Congressman Hinchey should instruct the National Park Service to designate Dobbs Ferry as a key site on the W-R Trail. As an important first step, the NPS should be asked to correct the main legislative map accompanying H.R. 1286 by including Dobbs Ferry with the same large font size as the 18 or 19 other key sites already named on that map. Since Dobbs Ferry was not less significant historically on the W-R Trail than those 18 or 19 locations, our request to include Dobbs Ferry on the main legislative map in the same fashion as the other 18 or 19 locations is an exceedingly moderate and reasonable one.
Recently, two of the most prominent historians in the United States, David Hackett Fischer and Thomas Fleming, have expressed strong agreement with Dobbs Ferry and have endorsed Dobbs Ferry’s campaign to gain full recognition for its actual historic significance on the W-R Trail. Mr. Fleming’s statement of support for Dobbs Ferry and a summary of Dr. Fischer’s point of view regarding Dobbs Ferry can be found on www.VillageHistorian.org .
No historians in the United States are held in greater esteem by the historical community for their expertise on the Revolutionary War than Dr. Fischer and Mr. Fleming. Both have written acclaimed books about the Revolutionary War. I’ll mention only two: Dr. Fischer’s Washington’s Crossing, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2005, and Mr. Fleming’s Liberty! The American Revolution, which served as the basic text for a prize-winning 6-part series on PBS in 1997. Dr. Fischer is University Professor and Earl Warren Professor of History at Brandeis University. Mr. Fleming was elected President of the Society of American Historians in May, 2007.
One would think that with the unequivocal support of such eminent historians, it would be an easy matter to convince the NPS and Congress to recognize Dobbs Ferry’s actual historical significance on the Washington-Rochambeau Trail. But it is not an easy matter. Dobbs Ferry is meeting tremendous resistance.
Dobbs Ferry’s role as the starting point of Washington’s 1781 march from New York to Virginia has long been appreciated by historians, including NPS historians. Please review, as an example, this map, prepared by military historians at the United States Military Academy: http://www.military.com/Resources/ResourceFileView/americanrevolution_maps_map06_largerview.htm
And please see this map http://www.nps.gov/boso/w-r/files/W-RSimpleMap.gif prepared by the NPS, apparently for some different project, unrelated to the W-R Trail legislation.
Both maps clearly show Dobbs Ferry as the starting point of Washington’s 1781 march.
For additional details, including a wealth of primary source documentation, please visit http://www.villagehistorian.org/NPS.htm#documents where you will find testimony on this matter, given by the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on National Parks on April 26, 2007.
I will be most appreciative for your assistance in this matter.
Your Signature Here
Author is Randy Klipstein.