Drawings based on photographs in William Abbatt's "Battle of Pell's Point" Book

Last month I worked up some drawings based on the photographs in William Abbatt’s book “The Battle of Pell’s Point, October 18,1776”. The exercise helped me to formally examine the compositions of the nine photos, as well to analyze the various scenes.

During my process I started thinking about working with gray scales and how that affected working on brown paper with black and white pigment. Again my goal was not to re-create a photographic painting. However, I would like to find someway to combine the two later on. With these drawings I am playing with creating a techniques that can quickly capture the scenes.

In this post I am including all nine drawings in order of appearance in the book with the original caption. The order of illustrations follow the route of the battle running from South to North.

Glover's Rock(Where the conflict began)

Looking East from Glover's Rock

Looking West from Glover's Rock (About here, probably, occurred the first encounter with Reads's regiment.)

The Split Rock road, at junction with Shore Road. (Showing R.R. bridge about a mile beyond which was probably the scene of the sharpest fighting.)

From the Split Rock road. Looking across the valley to East Chester. (St. Paul's Church in the distance)

The Hill at Wolf's Lane, Pelham Manor. (The Hutchinson Bridge is at the foot of the hill about three-quarters of a mile distant.)

The Bridge over the Hutchinson River. (At the old Boston Post Road)

St. Paul's Church, East Chester, Built 1764 (This building was at one time used as a hospital by the British.) (A witness of the battle- just across the valley from the scene. A number of British and Hessians are buried in the churchyard.)

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.

Ebenezer Drawings- "Black Water" Creating space

Sunken Ebenezer- Oil stick

I had some time to work on a collection of drawings last week. I started thinking about Ebenezer Creek again. I was looking at some photographs of a set up I did, and trying to figure out how to enhance the story telling elements. I want to create a emotion of the events there, an “atonement”, a non-literal representation. I thought about drawing over the photographs but I still haven’t found a convincing process yet. This time I am looking for a more abstract image. I started playing around with images of water. In particular the wave patterns on the surface. I have arranged the following drawings in the order that they were created

Oil Stick on paper

All these drawings are on paper grocery bags. One group of drawings is in oil sticks and oil paint on top of prepared paper. The second group is Conti crayon, sumi ink, white house paint, & tempera paint. In the first session the work evolved in two stages. First stage I worked with images of water waves viewed as if you were under the water or from the side, looking forward. The first drawing I also placed a rock like form in the center. The sunken Ebenezer.

Sumi Ink, Paint, Conti crayon on paper

Sumi Ink, Paint, Conti crayon on paper

Sumi Ink, Conti Croyon, Charcoal on paper

The next group of drawings I have changed the vantage point to above looking down upon the surface of the water. The waves form a pattern on top of a dark background. A sense of space is perceived by looking through the pattern. I tried to convey a sense of movement with the light colored wave pattern drawing. In a way, this work is similar to sumi ink drawings I created that related to my drawings of sound wave patterns. I progressed to the next session by starting with the elements that I liked from the first group.

Oil Stick on paper

Oil Stick on paper

Oil Stick on paper

With the next session of drawings I expanded on the idea of creating depth of field with adding an illusion of looking through the surface of the water. I applied cut out leaf patterns to the surface & worked on top of them. I also added a sense of perspective to the water pattern drawing. This added a landscape effect to the space.

Oil Stick on paper

Charcoal,paint, Conti crayon on paper

Charcoal,paint, Conti crayon on paper

Oil Stick on paper

Gettysburg November 23,2010

View Gettysburg Nov 23 2010 in a larger map

This is a map of my November 23 Gettysburg trip. For this trip I shot with the Holga 120N & the Holga Wide Pin-Hole camera. The weather was overcast & a little rainy. It seems like every time I go on these photo trips it's raining. The Holga 120N shots had that overlapped frame issue that I talked about in earlier posts, but I think I got some good shots. As I'm gaining more experience shooting with both of these cameras I am finding that I really like the result's I get with the Holga 120N. Although I like the wide view, long exposure, & unpredictable nature of the pinhole camera, I find that the quality of the image from the 120N is more what I'm after. The next trip I will shoot a little more seriously with it.

Holga 120N View of Culp's meadow from Cemetery Hill.

Devils Den Holga pin hole.

East Calvary Field. Site of Custer's Charge. Holga Pin-Hole.

Holga 120N- Rose Farm field. Site of the famous Gardner photographs of Confederate dead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monocacy Battlefield-November 26, 2010 Pin Hole Photographs

View Monocacy Battlefield-November 26 2010 in a larger map

 Use the Google map to view the locations where the pin hole pictures were taken. 

View of Thomas Farm from the intersection of Araby Church Rd & Baker Valley Rd. Next to the Vermont marker.

View through the tree line on Araby Church rd.

View of Thomas Hill

I got to explore the Monocacy Battlefield outside of Frederick Maryland during the recent Thanksgiving holiday. I have been to this battlefield numerous times and it’s a fun place to explore, with a variety of landscapes. It is also close to where my mother is currently living in Gaithersburg Maryland. Growing up in Maryland I remember visiting the battlefield when I was a teenager. At that time there were only a couple of monuments & not much else. During school break my family would drive to Columbus Ohio to visit my grandmother. As we would pass by the battlefield my brother Richard or my Dad would always point out the marker visible from Interstate 270.

During this time it was also hard to find out much information about the battle. Little was accessible at the local library level. Maybe because the battle was minor in scale, and that it was seen at the time as a Southern victory, there was not much interest in it. Recently there has been a turnaround in thinking as historians are now realizing the importance of this battle. It is now referred to as the “Battle that saved Washington”.

To date the National Park Serves has done a tremendous job buying property, adding a fantastic new visitors center, building walking trails, and installing interpreter markers on the field.

 This is the first time I was photographing with black & white film. I used the Holga 120N & the Holga wide-angle pinhole camera. I made a quick trip around the field as I had to drive back to New York. The weather was cool with high clouds. This blog entry is my first attempt to explore the graphic potential of Google Maps by combining it with a photographic tour. It has been a creative goal of mine to integrate my photos with the landscape. I believe that this format is an interesting medium. It can create a different style of story telling.

Thomas Farm view from Baker Valley Rd.

Thomas's Barn with Brooks Hill to the Left.

The Battle of Pell's Point or Pelham October 18,1776

Glover's Rock. Pelham Park New York City. November 11, 2010 shot with a Holga 120N

 

During my research in documenting the battlefields of Brooklyn;  I became aware of the larger dramatic scope of events that took place in the greater New York City region in 1776. The battles of August 27 in Brooklyn were just the start of the English campaign to smash the rebel army of General Washington.  In doing this research I discovered battles that I never heard of before. One of these was the Battle of Pell’s Point.  I was looking through “New York 1776” the Osprey series by David Smith. Accompanying an illustration by Graham Turner I saw a short description of the Battle at Pelham. That in turn led to Wikipedia.

“The Battle of Pell's Point (October 18, 1776), also known as the Battle of Pelham, was a skirmish fought between British and American troops during the New York and New Jersey campaign of the American Revolutionary War. The conflict took place in what is now part of Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, New York City.

View of Eastchester Bay. The English army landed on the left side of the image. Shot with a Holga 120N.

On October 12, British forces landed at Throgs Neck in order to execute a flanking maneuver that would trap Gen. George Washington, commander-in-chief of the American revolutionary forces, and the main body of the Continental Army on the island of Manhattan. The landing was thwarted by the Americans, and British commander Gen. Sir William Howe, commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, looked for another location along Long Island Sound to disembark his troops. On October 18, he landed 4,000 men at Pelham, 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Throgs Neck. Inland were 750 men of a brigade under the command of Col. John Glover. Glover positioned his troops behind a series of stonewalls, and attacked the British advance units. As the British overran each position, the American troops fell back and reorganized behind the next wall. After several such attacks, the British broke off and the Americans retreated.

The battle delayed British movements long enough for Washington to move the main army to White Plains, avoiding being surrounded on Manhattan. After losing to the British in a battle at White Plains, and losing Fort Washington, Washington retreated across New Jersey to Pennsylvania.”

Holga 120N shot of marsh land

After doing some more research I found a cool on line book by William Abbatt entitled “The battle of Pell’s Point (or Pelham) October 18, 1776” it’s a self-published book from 1901. This book has some great location photographs from 1900. It goes into great detail about the landscape of the area both at the time of the battle & time the book was published. I cross referenced this information with current maps & discovered that as opposes to most revolutionary war sites in New York this one has remained relatively undeveloped and is now part of Pelham Bay Park. The parks location also is close by my workplace!

Holga 120N with sun on marsh grass

These images are from my first visit. The timing of my first visit also fell on November 11^th. I brought along some color film for my Holga pin-hole camera & B&W for the Holga 120N. I was hopping to catch the last of the fall leaves with the color film. The weather was cool but sunny with high clouds. I was already familiar with the roadways through the park but I need to reconcile them with sites from the battle. I knew that Glover’s Rock was marked so that was my first thing that photographed. Parking is limited in this area so a great deal of walking is necessary to get to the various locations. The battle it’s self took place over a distance of three miles or so as the British army tried to move inland. The action took place along various stone walls that are no longer there. Most the field is now part of a golf course! There are several trails that allow you to reach undeveloped areas in the park.

Color PinHole capture of the terrain around the Pelham Battlefield.

I messed up the Holga 120N roll by switching the view window to 16 & not switching the interior film mask to the smaller frame. This meant the all the photos overlapped on the sides. I was still able to salvage some cool shot’s though.

Eastchester Bay invasion route.

View Battle of Pelham in a larger map

Bedford Corners- Brooklyn

First color pin hole image. Corner of Halsy and Bedford.

“Bedford, in pre-American Revolutionary War times, was the first major settlement to the east of the then-Village of Brooklyn on the Brooklyn & Jamaica Turnpike to Jamaica, Queens and the rest of Long Island. It formed a major crossroads with roads to Williamsburg to the north and Bedford Road to Flatbush to the south.” 

Thanks Wikipedia. 

These images are from my on-going documentation of Brooklyn, New York City sites that were involved in the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776. This is the site of the town of Bedford. It figured prominently in Howe’s strategy of out flanking the American defenses. Not much remains from the revolutionary war times, except maybe the location of the roadways. I used my Holga wide angle pin hole camera. For the first time I shot some color Kodak Porta 160. Exposure time was about ten seconds. The shoot took place just after sun up on a quiet, but bright, Sunday morning in early November.

This image is of the intersection of Bedford and Fulton or the Jamaica Turnpike of yesteryear. To the center right of the frame (east on Fulton Street) is the direction that Howe’s English redcoats advanced from Jamaica Pass. According to Henry Whittemore in his 1897 book “The Heroes of the American Revolution- Battle of Long Island” “The whole force was about ten thousand strong!” Looking up the road today it's hard to imagine ten thousand men coming down that road.

Captain Francis Rawdon, Lord Hasting, was a member of the British flanking maneuver. 

“(We)…. marched with the greatest silence towards a pass some miles to the right of Flatbush, (Jamaica Pass) which being little known we thought would be but weakly guarded…. We got through the pass a daybreak without any opposition, and then turned to the left towards Bedford. When we were within a mile of that town, we heard firing… where General Grant was expected. We fired two pieces of cannon to let him know we were at hand”

Brevoort Place a nice sounding Dutch name. This is a cropped image. Unfortunately the negative was damaged during developing.

John Gallagher-by gaining the town of Bedford unopposed "The British plan had worked. Diverisons by Grant and de Heister had drawn the bulk of the American front-line forces to the west, leaving the way clear for an envelopment"

"The Battle of Brooklyn 1776"