Location: Hunt’s Tavern, 2138 Compound Road, Route 202, Yorktown Heights, New York, 10598
Army: French
Units: Bourbonnois, Soissonnois, Saintonge, Royal Deux-Ponts plus campaign artillery and Lauzun’s Legion consecutively
Direction: To Yorktown, Virginia
Date: August 21 – 22, 1781
Following the route taken by the artillery and baggage train, the French infantry forded the Croton River at Pines Bridge Crossing on August 21, 1781. Having finally reached the local watering hole, Hunt’s Tavern, Camp #16, now known as Freyer’s Florist in the present-day section of the Yorktown Heights hamlet, General Rochambeau’s Army set up five encampments. The tavern, for which the camp settlement was named, was located where Baldwin Road intersects Crompond Road (now Route 202), on the east side of Crompond Road. Hunt’s Tavern was known as one of the most important military positions “because of its proximity to the Croton River crossing” and the surrounding views to monitor enemy encroachment.
The name Crompond comes from Crom Pond, one of two ponds (tangs in French) just north of the village. As Pierre-Francois Chevalier Béville noted in his plan for the march, all the houses at Crompond, which had been partly ravaged by the British and Loyalists, were used for quartering officers. Today, these camp locations are within the densely-built core of the Yorktown Heights hamlet, an area of commercial and institutional buildings with little open land other than parking lots and an athletic field.
The main part of the army took up a position on the north side of Baldwin Road. A second camp was located on the south side of Hallock’s Mill Road, now a residential neighborhood. Two other encampments were set up on the west and east sides of Hanover Street, in the heart of the hamlet today. A fifth camp, now known as Rochambeau Park (AKA Yorktown Grange Fair Grounds) and dedicated to General Rochambeau on September 18, 1954, monitored the road south of Pine’s Bridge across the Croton River. The fifth camp was guarded by the chasseurs and grenadiers and Lauzun’s Legion.
Hunt's Tavern, aka Horton-Flewellin House, now Freyer's Florist
Photo courtesy of Westchester County Historical Society.
Horton-Flewellin House, 1907. This is the earliest photo we have found of the Hunt’s Tavern structure. The building is the original 1767 structure.
Hunt's Tavern Barn, now Freyer's Florist
Photo courtesy of John McMenimon.
Hunt’s Tavern / Freyer’s Florist barn, 2023. This “saltbox” barn is the original structure and is dated from 1767.
Wayside Marker at Hunt's Tavern, now Fryer's Florist
