Our Grand Reconnaissance
Left to right: Frank Licameli, Marc Cheshire, Susan Seal, Nick Dembowski, Dr. Iris de Rode, David Seal, Constance Kehoe. Photo by Vaneska Pasqua.
Friends of OHRH Board members Susan and David Seal, Vaneska Pasqua and Marc Cheshire were privileged to join Dr. Iris de Rode on her first day of touring the sites of the Grand Reconnaissance—the joint French American military operation in Westchester County and the Bronx, in July 1781. Nick Dembowski, the director of the Van Cortlandt House Museum, gave us a tour of the museum and grounds. Then he took us to the site of King’s Bridge, which once carried the Albany Post Road across the creek called Spuyten Duyvil. The bridge was an important route between New York City and Westchester during the Revolutionary War.
We were accompanied on the trip by Constance Kehoe, President of Revolutionary Westchester 250, and historian Frank Licameli.
