Day 649

In 1909, C.K.G. Billings (he of the horse-mounted dinner party) funded the erection of this massive plaque on his property, on the former site of Fort Tryon in what is now Fort Tryon Park, to commemorate the Revolutionary Battle of Fort Washington and specifically the efforts and sacrifice of Margaret Corbin, who, according to the plaque, was "the first American woman to take a soldier's part in the War for Liberty". As you may recall, Corbin Place in Sheepshead Bay was officially redesignated in Mrs. Corbin's honor a few years ago after the brouhaha over the involvement of Austin Corbin (the street's original eponym) in the fictional-but-widely-believed-to-be-real American Society for the Suppression of the Jews.