THE HISTORY OF THE FISHKILL SUPPLY DEPOT HISTORIC SITE
US Department of the Interior
The Fishkill Supply Depot Site was entered into the National Register of Historic Places on January 21, 1974. The site was judged significant for its role in the Revolutionary War, for the historic architecture of the Van
Wyck Homestead, and for its archeological qualities.
Fishkill Supply Depot Historic Site
The Fishkill Supply Depot was a core location within a geographically much larger military supply hub that included important facilities in the village of Fishkill and Fishkill Landing, as well as a critical defensive position on the New York-Albany Post Road (Route 9) in Wiccopee Pass, along with several mills and numerous houses and farms that collectively, with the depot, supported the wartime effort.
Fishkill Supply Depot Historic Site
This larger hub generated, stored and distributed provisions, forage, equipment and munitions for fortifications and encampments throughout the region. Fishkill played an especially important role in supplying West Point and other fortified positions on the Hudson as well as the New Windsor Cantonment and the various winter encampments in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In addition to its supply function, the depot and broader hub served as an important muster point for militia and regular troops.
Fishkill Supply Depot Historic Site
During its period of operation, from the fall of 1776 through the winter of 1782-83, the Fishkill Supply Depot comprised a sprawling complex of buildings arranged along both sides of the Albany Post Road (modern U.S. Route 9) on the left bank of Fishkill Creek, just south of the village of Fishkill (Figure 1.2). Included within the core of the facility were barracks and officers’ housing, workshops, storehouses and stables.
Fishkill Supply Depot Historic Site
Over the past half century, considerable historical and archeological effort has been expended on researching the Fishkill Supply Depot. The site has long been a subject of acute interest to local historians, an interest fueled in recent years by the increasing availability of archival materials on the Internet.
Fishkill Supply Depot Historic Site
In 2007 Greenhouse Consultants Inc. located eight features south of the run that were interpreted as grave shafts (a partial human skull was identified at the end of one of these shaft features). This led the investigators to believe that they had encountered part of a military cemetery associated with the Fishkill Supply Depot and which was generally held to lie on the south side of Raiche Run just east of Route 9.
Fishkill Supply Depot Historic Site
Greenhouse Consultants Inc. recommended that the cemetery south of Raiche Run be preserved in place and that further archeological work was necessary in the area north of the run to further investigate the Temple University features. Greenhouse Consultants Inc., identified “an area where hundreds of anomalies consistent with the previously identified grave shaft are present” and delineated a partial boundary for the cemetery, encompassing an area of roughly 0.4 acres.
Fishkill Supply Depot Historic Site
Research conducted in 2015, as a project that was undertaken by Hunter Research, Inc. under contract to the Friends of the Fishkill Supply Depot, and funded by a grant from the National Park Service through the American Battlefield Protection Program was used to create this history page. This also includes the maps that were used on this website. Significant additional information on the Fishkill Supply Depot Historic Site can be found in the full Hunter Research Report. To download and view the full Hunter report, click on the link below.
Fishkill Supply Depot Historic Site
Now its up to us to Commemorate the role the Fishkill Supply Depot played in the founding of our Republic, Educate the current and future generations of Americans about the History of the Fishkill Supply Depot Historic Site, and Honor Americas First Veterans who lay buried on this site in a field of unmarked graves...