| Home > Departments > Fort Lee Museum |
|
|
Fort
Lee Museum
|
ort Lee’s rich and varied history found
a home in the Judge Moore House. The renovated 20th century stone
edifice (built by Judge Moore in 1922, out of Palisade Blue Stone)
opened in April 1999. The Fort Lee Historical Society occupies
the building and uses it as both a facility to archive material
and display various photos, objects, documents, and films from
our glorious past. The Borough of Fort Lee has worked with volunteers
to renovate the building in addition to town employees from the
Parks Department, Department of Public Works, and especially
the General Services Department. The final result is a work of
art: a continuing work in progress in which contributions of
town history are always welcome to provide an ever-growing city
with a sense of its own identity.
The
Fort Lee Museum and the adjacent Monument
Park occupy sacred soil upon which treaded the hopes of a
nation in the Summer and Fall of 1776. General George Washington
ordered the building of fortifications in Fort Lee (then called
Fort Constitution) in the Summer of 1776. Following the fall
of New York to British occupation, the Continental Army, under
the leadership of Washington, crossed the Hudson River and scaled
the Palisades to man the fortifications on the bluffs of Fort
Lee. Washington, who named our town in honor of General Charles
Lee, designated the area of what is now Monument Park and Fort
Lee Museum, as an encampment for his troops. Huts were constructed
around Parker’s Pond and ovens carved of stone.
Thomas
Paine wrote of his experiences in Fort Lee in his famous work
“The American Crisis”. As he wrote of summer soldiers
and sunshine patriots, British troops crossed the Hudson and
forced a retreat of Washington’s army on November 20, 1776.
The departure of Washington’s troops down Main Street was
the beginning of the most successful military retreat in history.
Washington secured safe passage for the remnants of his army
out of New Jersey. This led to the successful crossing of the
Delaware River on Christmas Eve of 1776.
Back
to Departments & Services
Back
to Listing of Parks & Facilities
|
Home | Administration
| Borough Clerk | Mayor
& Council
|