This town had a full share of the military operations during the Revolutionary war; and was for a long time in the possession of the British army. It is covered with the remains of fortifications which were thrown up by the Americans[14] and English for their defence against each other. In this town was fought the most sanguinary part of the battle of Long-Island, August 27, 1776; which took place on the retreat of the American army within their lines, and the attempt of a portion of them to ford the mill ponds at Gawanos; in which attempt nearly the whole of a Regiment of young men from Maryland were cut off. Many of the minor events connected with this battle, and the Revolutionary contest, are fast sinking into the shades of oblivion: the compiler has therefore thought proper to give place to the following piece of history, not with an idea, that he can immortalize any event which he relates; but with a hope, that his efforts will call forth some nobler pen to do justice to the memories of many of the almost forgotten heroes of those hard fought battles, and arduous contests. In the battle above-mentioned, part of the British army marched down a lane or road leading from the Brush tavern to Gowanos, pursuing the Americans. Several of the American riflemen, in order to be more secure, and at the same time, more effectually to succeed in their designs, had posted themselves in the high trees near the road. One of them, whose name is now partially forgotten, shot the English Major Grant; in this he passed unobserved. Again he loaded his deadly rifle, and fired--another English officer fell. He was then marked, and a platoon ordered to advance, and fire into the tree; which order was immediately carried into execution, and the rifleman fell to the ground, dead. After the battle was over, the two British officers were buried in a field, near where they fell, and their graves fenced in with some posts and rails, where their remains still rest. But for “an example to the rebels,” they refused to the American rifleman the rites of sepulture; and his remains were exposed on the ground, till the flesh was rotted, and torn off his bones by the fowls of the air. After a considerable length of time, in a heavy gale of wind, a large tree was uprooted; in the cavity formed by which, some friends to the Americans, notwithstanding the prohibition of the English, placed the brave soldier’s bones to mingle in peace with their kindred earth. August 28, 1776. Before day break, in a very thick fog, General Washington retreated with his army from near the old ferry, Brooklyn, to New-York. As the last boat of the Americans left the shore, the fog dissipated, and the British made their appearance on the hills above the place of embarkation, when a shot or two from an American Battery on the hill near the house of Col. Henry Rutgers, in New-York, compelled the British to desist in their march to the ferry.