Fishkill Supply Depot Historic Site
197 Van Wyck Lake Rd
Fishkill, NY 12524
Fishkill Supply Depot Historic Site – A Veterans Led Initiative
[Fishkill, New York, February, 2020] – Local Hudson Valley Veterans have joined the fight to protect and preserve the Fishkill Supply Depot. In 2016, recognizing the military significance of the Fishkill Supply Depot, the Friends of the Fishkill Supply Depot began to reach out to local Veterans organizations for support of their preservation efforts. This request, along with an article published nationally as a call to preserve the Fishkill Supply Depot by retired US Army General Dave Palmer, a former Superintendent of the US Military Academy at West Point, brought together a team of local Veterans representing both the enlisted and officer ranks, as well as all four branches of the Military service. Over the past three years, these Hudson Valley Veterans have attended planning board meetings, conducted research, established a social media presence, and advocated for the Fishkill Supply Depot.
The Fishkill Supply Depot was established by General George Washington in 1776 as the primary logistical hub of the Continental Army. From 1776 though 1783, the Fishkill Supply Depot was one of the largest Military bases in America. At the end of the American Revolution, the Fishkill Supply Depot was abandoned, and the property where the base was located was returned to the community. One Hundred years later, at the end of the American Civil War, Military Veterans who recognized the critical importance that the Fishkill Supply Depot played in the founding of America and its first fight for liberty, advocated for the area of the original Fishkill Supply Depot to be preserved. These efforts were spearheaded by Major General Daniel Butterfield, who lived in nearby Cold Spring, and was a Civil War hero who won a Medal of Honor and was best known for writing “TAPS”. General Butterfield, working with local Veterans, and the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), represented the first attempts to save the Fishkill Supply Depot. One Hundred years later, the preservation fight began anew.
On 21 January, 1974 the United States Department of the Interior established the Fishkill Supply Depot on its National Register of Historic Places. At that time, residents of the Town of Fishkill were fighting to create a National Park on the original military site, while a similar effort was being mounted at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania. Local efforts to create the “Valley Forge of New York” in honor of the harsh winters spent at the Fishkill Supply Depot by the Continental Army failed, and most of the original site was lost by the construction of the Fishkill Mall, Dutchess Counties first indoor shopping center. Today, what is left of the Dutchess Mall stands abandoned and an eyesore for the community. In 2007, Archaeologists rediscovered the original military cemetery for the Fishkill Supply Depot. Hundreds of Americas first Veterans now lay in unmarked graves, under direct threat from commercial development. Taking its name from the New York State Parks and Recreation markers that identify the very heart of the original military base, the Fishkill Supply Depot Historic Site is a Veterans led initiative to protect and preserve this National treasure through the establishment of a National Military Historic Site at the Fishkill Supply Depot. Please join us as we work towards the permanent establishment of a park that honors Americas first Veterans that once served, and now lay buried at the Fishkill Supply Depot Historic Site.
For more information please email us at FishkillSupplyDepotHistoricSite@gmail.com or on the web at http://fishkillsupplydepothistoricsite.org
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