THE HISTORY OF THE FISHKILL SUPPLY DEPOT HISTORIC SITE

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

There is also evidence, less certain with regard to location, that the depot contained a prison, a hospital and a parade ground. A related feature was a military cemetery, important physical evidence of which has come to light through recent archeological work.

Fishkill Supply Depot Historic Site

Today, the only surviving building at the depot site is the Van Wyck Homestead, a Dutch-American timber-framed farmhouse that served as a headquarters for American officers and that now functions as a museum and the headquarters of the Fishkill Historical Society.

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

A Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) commemorative marker acknowledging the existence of this cemetery was erected along the roadside in 1897 near this area. The marker was relocated closer to the Van Wyck Homestead in 1979.

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...