Monday, March 21, 2011

Battle of Pell's Point-Mapping of Photographs in William Abbatt's Book

"The Battle of Pell's Point(or Pelham) October 18, 1776"
By William Abbatt. 
Photographs by E.S. Bennett and Z.T. Benson.

For me one the most fascinating part of Abbatt's book is the accompanying photographs. They document the field, as it was around 1900. Suburbia was just taking over the area. Destroying some parts of the battlefield while preserving others, with the creation of Pelham Bay Park. There are a total of nine in photos and cover the area pretty well. With the exception of any views taken of Split Rock Road it's self, the scene of the heaviest fighting. I’m not sure of the reason for this omission. Today the road area is a busy public golf course and all traces of the old roadway are gone. Although there are some fragments of the stone walls that remain.

My goal here was to re-examine the photographs and plot the nine different locations using Google Maps. Click on the camera icon and see the image from Abbatt’s book.
 


View W Abbatt's Battle of Pell's Point in a larger map

In future posts I have re-documented the 1900 views with contemporary photography. I am also working on some original artwork based on these images.