The Massacre at Pines Bridge remains one of Westchester County’s most haunting Revolutionary War stories. Set in the no-man’s land north of New York City, the attack brought together American troops, Loyalist raiders, George Washington’s defensive strategy, and the men of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment at a critical crossing of the Croton River. The events of May 14, 1781, left a mark on local memory that survived through eyewitness accounts, family stories, and the historic houses that once stood near the battlefield.
The Isaac Underhill House. Photo: Mike Virgintino
Part I of Massacre at Pines Bridge explained that various military posts occupied this no-man ‘s-land in Westchester County, north of New York City. The scene was also the site of several skirmishes among American and British armies, militias, and Loyalists. Eventually, General George Washington decided to place Lieutenant Christopher Greene in command of a permanent post at this location to protect the crossing of the Croton River.
Defenses were set up quickly, and soldiers were quartered in homes scattered throughout nearby communities. Greene arrived during early April 1781 with his 1st Rhode Island Regiment of Negro and Indian slaves purchased by the government for military service. The soldiers were stationed in farmhouses north of the Croton River. These homes belonged to Widow Remsen, Isaiah Flewelling, Widow Griffin, and David Montross.
Negroes were posted at the Griffin and Montross homes. Griffin lived on a part of Crompond Road, also known as King Street, presently Hanover Avenue, with Hanover an earlier name for the area, about one-half mile from Pines Bridge. Burned in 1913, the home was a three-story, L-shaped white structure at the northeast corner of present-day Boone Road and Hanover Avenue. Montross lived on the present Somers Road, then known as the Pines Bridge Road, as did several other roads in the area, including Hanover, that led to the crossing. Remsen lived between them. The Montross, Remsen, and Flewelling sites are now under the reservoir created when the Pines Bridge valley was flooded during the early 1900s.
Farther north on the Crompond Road continues to stand the farmhouse of Quaker Isaac Underhill. It served as quarters for a French general during that army’s movement through the area. It is also the house where British Major John André ate breakfast in 1780, supposedly on the back steps, before he crossed Pines Bridge to return to the British lines with the plans for West Point.
Strategic Davenport House
The nearby Davenport House occasionally served as patriot headquarters. The first known occupation was by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Thompson, the commander at Young’s House about 12 miles south during a February 1780 raid. Not long before Greene arrived, it was the headquarters for Colonel William Hull.
After his arrival at the Davenport House, Greene inspected defenses and wrote to Rhode Island’s secretary of state on April 16: “I was overjoyed at the Major’s (Ebenezer Flagg) arrival. Yesterday, I went with him to the lines at Pines Bridge…I expect when I go upon the lines to be more industrious and alert, otherwise I may be surprised; that, you know, I always held up as unpardonable for an officer.”
Davenport’s is a considerable distance from Pines Bridge by modern roads. A more direct route through the several hundred acres of the family farm existed at the time. This route joined with Crompond Road about a half mile north of the bridge at a once-narrow pass through a rock formation. After the war, this area was called “Spook Rocks,” as locals believed the spirits of those who died during the war manifested on favorable occasions.
Over the years, the Davenport House has undergone changes in appearance, but the original structure remains evident. The first owners, Danfurtt, anglicized to Danforth and then Davenport, settled the land prior to 1750. Croton Heights Road once ran past what is now the back of the house. Greene and his officers were quartered in the western portion of the house, allowing the Richard Davenport family to conduct life in the larger eastern section.
The Setting At The Davenport House
On the night of May 13, 1781, the Croton River’s passes were secured and the bridge’s floor planks removed to prevent a surprise approach by Loyalist bands and British soldiers. At Widow Griffin’s home, 30 colored troops were quartered under Ensign Jeremiah Greenman, Colonel Greene’s nephew. Greene’s cousin, Captain Thomas Hughes, the regiment’s paymaster, came to the lines to pay the troops and elected to remain the night. Troops were also at the nearby Flewelling and Montross homes. Major Amos Morrill of the 1st New Hampshire Line, and attached to the headquarters staff, was at Widow Remsen’s home and may have been off duty.
The Davenport House was the scene of battle for the Massacre at Pines Bridge. Photo: Mike Virgintino
At Davenport’s, a large bedchamber occupied most, if not all, of the second floor of the western section. Those present were Greene, Flagg, Lieutenant Ebenezer Macomber, confined to bed, an unknown lieutenant from the New Hampshire Line, and a Continental surgeon known as Dr. Cushman. About 50 troops occupied tents in the yard east and north of the house. A small unit was on the south side.
As May 14 dawned, patriot guards at nearby Oblenis Ford on the Croton River were dismissed. According to British accounts, a party of 300, 200 foot soldiers and 100 cavalry, had left Morrisania, now part of the borough of the Bronx but then part of southern Westchester County, on May 13. As the soldiers traveled overnight to Pines Bridge, Loyalist guides led them past patriot pickets and patrols.
American troops during the Revolutionary War had made preparations, at the urging of George Washington, to secure a critical crossing of the Croton River at Pines Bridge in New York’s northern Westchester County. Despite the defensive plans and the presence of troops, a band of men loyal to the British crown managed to penetrate the area on May 14, 1781, and launch a dawn attack. Officers and soldiers at American headquarters at the nearby Davenport House were ambushed. A number of them were killed in what became known as the Massacre at Pines Bridge.
The raid was a skirmish between Loyalist raiders from about 30 miles south and American soldiers of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment and the 1st New Hampshire Line. The best documentation of the fight appears in the recorded accounts of people who lived in the area at the time, or in descendants who received firsthand accounts from their relatives.
Story From A Davenport Grandson
Joshua Carpenter, a Davenport grandson, was born in the house six years after the fight. He and others used the word “refugees” to describe the men who were loyal to the British. In her account, Davenport’s granddaughter, Lydia Vail, remembered that Rhode Island Lieutenant Christopher Greene called the attackers “cowboys.” This was a new American term, and it was used to identify pro-British raiders who harassed and plundered the county’s rural districts along the boundary between American and British forces.
“The Refugees got to the house unperceived, coming up from the west side, where only a single sentinel, who did not see them until near, then fired. Some soldiers asleep on the south side stoop also fired. Greene and [Major Ebenezer] Flagg sprang up. The former encouraged the soldiers to defend themselves, saying: ‘They are only a few cowboys, fire away, boys, fire.’ Flagg advanced to the west window, a pistol in each hand. He was answered by a volley and fell pierced by several balls.
“The Refugees, at the same time, burst in the north door, thus making a cross fire. Fifty-six bullet holes remain. Greene met the enemy at the north door and attempted defense, sword in hand. He struck at [Captain Gilbert] Totten, foremost, with all his might and would have killed him, but the blows were parried by a Refugee.
“Totten was stunned and wounded. Greene received several shots and was hacked with sabers. He then asked for and was given quarter. He then asked for parole. This was refused. They said that he must go to Morrisania [the loyalist headquarters in the southern part of the county] and mounted him behind a dragoon. He fell off one and one-half miles down the hill, a little north of Griffin’s, where he was left by the road.”
Witness Account From A Davenport Granddaughter
Lydia Vail’s story, recorded a number of years after the fight, provided additional details:
“I was at Davenport’s house a few minutes after the Refugees left…Greene, Flagg, and a young Lieutenant whose name I do not remember occupied a large room in the northwest corner of the second story…My grandfather [Richardson Davenport] was in the adjoining apartment and overheard the entire conversation among the three officers.
“The rashness and folly of the young Lieutenant was the cause of the disaster, as my grandfather and his family always said…The young Lieutenant always slept with a pair of loaded pistols upon a stand at the head of his bed, and when he heard the noise, he sprang up, raised the window sash on the west side of the room, and discharged both pistols at the enemy…who instantly cried out: ‘Kill! Kill! No quarter!’ Flagg then exclaimed aloud to the Lieutenant, calling him by name, ‘…you’ve undone us!’ These were the last words he was ever to utter.
“Green(e), half dressed, but sword in hand, said, ‘We must sell our lives as dearly as we can.’ And approaching the head of the stairs, called aloud to the soldiers below: ‘Stand to your arms, men! Courage! They are only a parcel of cowboys, fire away!’ Flagg approached the window from which the Lieutenant had fired, and a volley was discharged at him. He fell pierced with five or six balls.
“When I entered the house just after the Refugees had left, the young Lieutenant was lying dead at the door. He was the first one they killed on breaking in. Flagg, although desperately wounded, was yet alive, and they dispatched him. Four or five were dead where the tents stood east of the house, besides many wounded…
“The Refugees retired by the south road or path to the Crompond Road, taking Green(e) with them on horseback; near where the path or farm road comes into the highway. Greene, faint with the loss of blood, fell off. Finding that he was dying, they placed him in a spot surrounded by whortleberry bushes, and, putting something under his head for support, left him in that state to finish his days alone. Here he bled to death, and was found soon after with no clothing on but his shirt and drawers.
“Two negro servants and my father were wounded, one in the arm and the others in the shoulder…The disaster happened a little before sunrise…I lived at my father’s half a mile off, northerly on the Crompond Road; word came to us that they were all cut off and killed at headquarters, and we all ran through the fields to Davenport’s house…found the floors and walls covered with the blood of the dead, wounded and dying…Major Morell…happened to pass the eventful night at Mrs. Remsen’s, courting it was said; returning to headquarters next morning, he heard a noise which seemed to approach; spurring his horse, he leapt over the fence and concealed himself in a thicket…The widow Griffin’s house stood above the Croton on the west side of the Crompond Road; her maiden name was Brundage…”
Presence of Washington
Greene was found the following day near the residence of a Mr. Sutton by Major Joseph Strang and Captain Henry Strang of the local militia. The best available data locates this spot on the former Gilbert farm, a short distance south of the Davenport property line and not far west of the current Hanover Avenue.
Abraham Underhill, the son of Isaac Underhill whose house stood along the nearby Crompond Road, stated years later:
“There was a party of Americans stationed at our house commanded by a lieutenant, but it was probably unknown to the British, or they might have cut them off, too. Had they attacked our house, the family would have been in great danger, for some of the boys were in bed with the officers, and in the confusion, it is scarcely possible that all would have escaped injury. I have always thought of making the house musket-proof by casing the outside with logs.
“During the Revolutionary War, the main body of Washington’s army, on its way from White Plains to New Jersey, marched past the house going from Pines Bridge to Peekskill. I frequently saw Washington pass by during that time, so I knew him as well as I did anybody. He also had a lifeguard of twelve young gentlemen riding before him with drawn swords for protection and honor. They were said to be Virginians.”
Article updated on June 26, 2026
