From a plate in the _New York Magazine_, June, 1790, when the house, then owned by Mrs. Jephson, was occupied by John Adams, as Vice-President of the United States. It was at one time the home of Aaron Burr. See Parton's _Burr_, i. 81. Washington's first headquarters in New York were probably at a house, 180 Pearl St., opposite Cedar St., sometimes called the house of Gov. Geo. Clinton, of which a view is given in Valentine's _Manual_, 1854, p. 446, and in Lossing's _Mary and Martha Washington_ (N. Y., 1886), p. 153. He is also supposed by some to have occupied for a short interval the Kennedy mansion, No. 1 Broadway, known to have been used certainly by Col. Knox as artillery headquarters, of which a view is given in Irving's _Washington_, illus. ed. ii. 211, and in Gay's _Pop. Hist. U. S._, iii. 495. (Cf. Drake's _Knox_; Lossing's _Field-Book_, ii. 594; Johnston's _Campaign of 1776_, p. 86.) In June, if not earlier, he removed to the Mortier House on Richmond Hill, and remained there till September, when he transferred his headquarters first to the Apthorp House (view in _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, 1885, p. 227), still standing at the corner of Ninth Avenue and Ninety-first Street, and next to the Morris House at Harlem.—ED.] On the morning of August 22, 1776, General Howe, under cover of the guns of the British ships, without mishap, delay, or opposition, debarked, as stated by Admiral Howe, about 15,000 men, with artillery, baggage, and stores, on Long Island, in the vicinity of the Narrows; and on the 25th, General de Heister's German division was landed at Gravesend Cove. This invading force of "upwards of 20,000 rank and file", well armed and with forty cannon, promptly occupied a line extending from the Narrows, through Gravesend, to Flatlands, and made ready for an immediate advance through the passes of the long range of densely wooded hills running eastwardly from the Narrows to Jamaica, about two and a half miles in front of Brooklyn. To oppose this large force of regular troops, the Americans had not quite 8,000 men, most of whom were raw militia, and of these about one half were outside of the defences of Brooklyn, ready to participate in the impending battle. [Illustration: LORD HOWE. From Andrews's _Hist. of the War_, Lond., 1785, vol. ii.—ED.] The most direct route from the British landing-place to the Brooklyn intrenchments was by the road running nearly parallel to the bay, and passing through a gorge just back of the Red Lion Tavern, where Martense Lane joins the usual thoroughfare at the edge of Greenwood Cemetery. A second road led from Flatbush directly through the pass defended by General Sullivan's intrenchments. The third was by the road from Flatbush to Bedford. Finally, the fourth, extending to Flushing, intersected the Bedford and Jamaica road at the pass between the present Evergreen and Cypress Cemeteries, about three miles east of Bedford, or about ten miles from the Narrows. [Illustration: GEN. SIR WM. HOWE.