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Pelham Bay Park

Pelham Bay Park is a municipal park located in the northeast corner of the New York City borough of the Bronx. It is, at 2772 acre, the largest public park in New York City. The park is more than three times the size of Manhattan's Central Park. The park is operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks).

Pelham Bay Park contains many geographical features, both natural and man-made. The park includes several peninsulas, including Rodman's Neck, Tallapoosa Point, and the former Hunter and Twin Islands. A lagoon runs through the center of Pelham Bay Park, and Eastchester Bay splits the southwestern corner from the rest of the park. There are also several recreational areas within the park. Orchard Beach runs along Pelham Bay on the park's eastern shore. Two golf courses and various nature trails are located within the park's central section. Other landmarks include the Bartow-Pell Mansion, a city landmark, as well as the Bronx Victory Column & Memorial Grove.

Before its creation, the land comprising the current Pelham Bay Park was part of Anne Hutchinson's short-lived dissident colony. Part of New Netherland, it was destroyed in 1643 by a Siwanoy attack in reprisal for the unrelated massacres carried out under Willem Kieft's direction of the Dutch West India Company's New Amsterdam colony. In 1654 an Englishman named Thomas Pell purchased 50000 acre from the Siwanoy, land which would become known as Pelham Manor after Charles II's 1666 charter. During the American Revolutionary War, the land was a buffer between British-held New York City and rebel-held Westchester, serving as the site of the Battle of Pell's Point, where Massachusetts militia hiding behind stone walls (still visible at one of the park's golf courses) stopped a British advance.

The park was created in 1888, under the auspices of the Bronx Parks Department, largely inspired by the vision of John Mullaly, and passed to New York City when the part of the Bronx east of the Bronx River was annexed to the city in 1895. Orchard Beach, one of the city's most popular, was created through the efforts of Robert Moses in the 1930s.

Pre-colonial times
Before the colonization of what is now New York State in the 17th century, Pelham Bay Park comprised an archipelago of islands separated by salt marshes and peninsular beaches. Geologically, most of the park's land first formed during the end of the last ice age, the Wisconsin glaciation, which occurred 10,000 to 15,000 years before the first colonists arrived. The melting of the glaciers caused the formation of the current marshes. Sea level rise from the melting glaciers caused sedimentation along the shore, creating sand and mud flats. Gradually, saltwater cordgrass started to retain sediment, causing some of the inland marshes to flood only during high tide.

The Siwanoy (transliterated as "southern people") were the first Native American tribe to inhabit the Long Island Sound's northern shoreline east to Connecticut. They lived a mostly hunter-gatherer existence. The Siwanoy used the modern-day park site as a ceremonial and burial site, as evidenced by the wampum belts found in the area, which were used for diplomatic purposes among local Native American tribes. Two glacial erratics in the park, deposited during the end of the last ice age, were used ceremonially by the Siwanoy: the "Gray Mare" on Hunter Island, and Mishow near the Theodore Kazimiroff Nature Trail.

17th and 18th centuries

The Dutch West India Company purchased the land in 1639. They called it Vreedelandt, which translates to "land of peace", and alternatively Oostdorp, meaning "east village". Oostdorp became the area known as Westchester Square, to the southwest of the current park.

In 1642, Anne Hutchinson and her family moved from Rhode Island to Split Rock, along the Hutchinson River in what is now Pelham Bay Park. Although the family was English, the land was part of New Netherland under Dutch authority. The exact location of the Hutchinson house is unknown, with one scholar saying that the house was in the modern-day park on the east side of the Hutchinson River, and another saying that the house was on the west side of the river in now Baychester. The Siwanoy destroyed the Hutchinson settlement and killed the family in August 1643, in reprisal for the unrelated massacres carried out under Willem Kieft's direction of the Dutch West India Company's New Amsterdam colony.

In 1654 an Englishman named Thomas Pell purchased 50,000 acre from the Siwanoy, comprising the land of the current Pelham Bay Park as well as the nearby town of Pelham, New York, and made his estate on 9188 acre of that land. The current park consists of the southernmost portion of Pell's estate, excluding Hart Island and City Island. Pell's land became known as Pelham Manor after Charles II's 1666 charter, and parts of Pell's land claim were in conflict with that of other nearby settlers. Pell died in 1669, willing his property to his nephew John, who sold off City Island in 1685. The land grant was renewed in 1687. The next year, Jacob Leisler bought 6000 acre of the remaining property on behalf of the Huguenots, and with that land, founded the town of New Rochelle for the Huguenots. Upon John Pell's death in 1700, he willed the property to his son Joseph, who in turn transferred ownership to his own son, John. Ownership of the manor then went to the Bartow family, who were maternal descendants of the Pell family. The Pell family burial plot faced the Pelham Bay waterfront on the eastern side of the manor.

The land was the site of the Battle of Pell's Point during the American Revolutionary War. After the British forces unsuccessfully attempted to trap the main body of the Continental Army on the island of Manhattan, British Army commander-in-chief General Sir William Howe looked for another location along Long Island Sound to disembark his troops. On October 18, 1776, he landed 4,000 men at Pelham, close to the current park. A brigade of 750 men under the command of the American Colonel John Glover were already inland, and they attacked the British advance units from behind a series of stone walls. After a series of attacks, the British broke off, and the Americans retreated.

In 1836, Robert Bartow, a descendant of Thomas Pell, bought 30 acre of his ancestor's old estate. By 1842, construction was complete on the Bartow-Pell Mansion, the family's manor. Bartow died in 1868, and his family sold the mansion to the city in the 1880s. The mansion was vacant until 1915, when the city and International Garden Club assumed joint maintenance of the building.

1870s and 1880s: Creation
In the 1870s, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted envisioned a greenbelt across the Bronx, consisting of parks and parkways that would align more with existing geography than a grid system similar to the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 in Manhattan. That grid had given rise to Central Park, a park with mostly artificial features within the bounds of the grid. However, in 1877, the city declined to act upon his plan. Around the same time, New York Herald editor John Mullaly pushed for the creation of parks in New York City, particularly lauding the Van Cortlandt and Pell families' properties in the western and eastern Bronx respectively. He formed the New York Park Association in November 1881. There were objections to the system, which would apparently be too far from Manhattan, in addition to precluding development on the site. However, newspapers and prominent lobbyists, who supported such a park system, were able to petition the bill into the New York State Senate, and later, the New York State Assembly (the legislature's lower house). In June 1884, Governor Grover Cleveland signed the New Parks Act into law, authorizing the creation of the park system.

Legal disputes carried on for years. Opponents argued that building a park system would divert funds from more important infrastructure, and that everyone in the city would need to pay taxes to pay for the parks' construction, regardless of whether they lived near the parks. In particular, Pelham Bay Park was located within Westchester County at the time, out of city limits. The city was reluctant to pay to buy the parkland because of the cost and locations. Supporters argued that the parks were for the benefit of all the city's citizens; that the value of properties near the parks would appreciate greatly over time; that the Pelham Bay Park site could easily be converted into a park; and that Pelham Bay Park would soon be annexed to the city. Ultimately, the parks were established, owing to efforts from supporters.

After much litigation, the city acquired the land for the park. Although the residents of Pelham had initially supported the park's creation, they came to oppose it when they found that the park's creation would decrease the town's tax revenue. The 1,700 acres of land for the park were part of the town's 3000 acre area at that time, but could not be taxed, nearly halving the town's tax revenues from land area. One Pelham resident's letter to New York City Mayor Abram Hewitt, asking for financial assistance to supplement the town's growing tax rate, was published in The New York Times in February 1887. A month later, a group of Pelham residents petitioned Hewitt to oppose the park plan. The government of New York City also did not want to pay taxes to the town of Pelham if it bought the land for the park, which had been one of the reasons for its initial opposition to acquiring the land. There was a proposal to have New York City pay taxes to Pelham if it acquired the land, which the city's Tax Department called "entirely novel, and of course, wrong".

Despite Pelham residents' opposition to the park, the city acquired the land for Pelham Bay Park in 1887, and it officially became a park in 1888. Pelham Bay Park became a recreation area under the auspices of the Bronx Parks Department, which bought the land for $2,746,688,. The park used land from multiple estates spread out over an excess of 1700 acre. Some of the old estates' mansions were still standing twenty years later. To alleviate the concerns of Westchester property owners who lost land during the park system's acquisition, the New York City Commissioners of Estimate distributed compensation payments. The Commissioners of Estimate paid a combined $9 million, but some land owners sued for more compensation in 1889.

1890s to 1920s: Early years

In 1890, Mullaly proposed using the site for the 1893 World's Fair due to its size; however, the fair was eventually awarded to Chicago instead. The Pell family's burial vault was also marked for preservation that year, and in July 1891, the descendants of the Pell family were given permission to maintain and restore the plot. After the park opened, several individuals were allowed to reside in the mansions within the park. In 1892, the New York City Department of Public Parks separately allowed the occupation of the Hunter, Hoyt, and Twin Island houses. The next year, two buildings near Pelham Bridge were auctioned off.

Pelham Bay Park's ownership was passed to New York City when the part of the Bronx east of the Bronx River was annexed to the city in 1895. Despite the park being for public use, some of the old estates remained standing, with a few occupied by private families. Due to its distance from the city, NYC Parks decided to keep 3000 acre of Pelham Bay and Van Cortlandt Parks in their natural state, unlike some of the other parks closer to Manhattan, which were being extensively landscaped. None of the houses were rented in 1899, but by 1900, thirty-six houses in the park were being used as private residences, comprising 75% of houses rented within parks in the Bronx. This number dropped to thirty-three the next year.

In spring 1902, NYC Parks destroyed two houses in the park and used the remaining wood to build free bathhouses, which were used by about 700 bathers per day during that summer. Around 1903, Hunter Island became a popular summer vacation destination. Due to overcrowding on Hunter Island, NYC Parks opened a campsite two years later at Rodman's Neck on the south tip of the island, with 100 bathhouses. Orchard Beach, at the time a tiny recreational area on the northeast tip of Rodman's Neck, was expanded that year. In 1904, an athletic field was opened within Pelham Bay Park.

By 1917, Hunter Island saw half a million seasonal visitors. Orchard Beach also became popular, with an average of 2,000 visitors on summer weekdays and 5,000 visitors on summer weekends in 1912. However, the park's condition started to decline in the 1920s as the surrounding areas were developed. The park facilities were dirty and deteriorating due to overuse, and there was a lot of vandalism. Hunter Island was closed and camping was banned, so some park patrons began camping illegally.

1930s–1960s: Moses renovation projects
The current Orchard Beach recreational area and Split Rock golf course was created through the efforts of New York City park commissioner Robert Moses. Immediately after assuming his position in 1934, Moses ordered engineers to inventory every park in the city to see what needed renovating. He devised plans for a new Orchard Beach recreation area after he saw the popularity of the Hunter Island campsite. On February 11, 1934, Moses announced a plan for the new golf course. Two weeks later, he announced another plan for the upgraded beach, which had been inspired by the design of Jones Beach on Long Island. The beach and existing golf course would be reconstructed through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) under the 1930s New Deal program.

Moses canceled 625 leases for the project, and after campers unsuccessfully sued the city, the site was cleared of campers in June. Moses decided to connect Hunter Island and the Twin Islands to Rodman's Neck by filling in most of LeRoy's Bay. The deteriorated Hunter Mansion was demolished with the construction of the beach. The golf courses were reopened in June 1935, sixteen months after construction commenced. John van Kleek designed the brand-new Split Rock golf course as part of the city's program to upgrade or build ten golf courses around the city.

A final design for the beach was unveiled in July 1935. The beach project involved filling in approximately 110 acre of LeRoy's and Pelham Bays with landfill, followed by a total of 4,000,000 yd3 of sand. Moses thought that waste from the New York City Department of Sanitation would be cheaper than sand. In early 1935, workers began placing the garbage fill around Rodman's Neck, Twin Island, and Hunter Island. After the garbage began washing onto the beach, the rest of the site was filled-in using sand starting in 1936. The beach, designed by Gilmore David Clarke and Aymar Embury II, was dedicated in July 1936 despite only being partially complete. The beach officially opened on June 25, 1937. Soon after Orchard Beach opened, it was expanded, starting with the southern locker room in 1939. The water between Hunter and Twin Islands was filled in during 1946 and 1947, with new jetties at each end of the beach. The promenade was extended over the fill and opened in 1947, Further improvements were made to the bathhouse pavilion in 1952 and to the northern jetty in 1955. A new concession stand was added north of the pavilion in 1962, and a privately funded Golf driving range was also added that year. The beach was renovated starting in 1964.

In 1959, after the Rodman's Neck section of the park had been used for various purposes, the New York City Police Department used land from the park to create the Rodman's Neck Firing Range at the southern tip of the peninsula. Previously, the parkland at Rodman's Neck had been underused, with the NYPD and United States Army using the land at various times.

1960s-present: Cleanup and restoration

The City began landfill operations on Tallapoosa Point in Pelham Bay Park in 1963. Plans to expand the landfills in Pelham Bay Park in 1966, which would have created the City's second-largest refuse disposal site next to Fresh Kills in Staten Island, were met with widespread community opposition. The landfill expansion was seen as a way to alleviate the city's accumulations of waste, and Tallapoosa was seen as the only suitable location to put the landfill. The preservation effort was headed by Dr. Theodore Kazimiroff, a Bronx historian and head of The Bronx County Historical Society. It suffered setbacks in August 1967 when the New York City Board of Estimate voted against an initial effort to create to protected area in the proposed landfill expansion site. However, the state and federal governments did not favor the landfill being located at Tallapoosa. In October, Mayor John Lindsay signed a law authorizing in the creation of two wildlife refuges, the Thomas Pell Wildlife Sanctuary and the Hunter Island Marine Zoology and Geology Sanctuary, on the site where the landfill was planned to be expanded. Tallapoosa West continued to be used as a landfill until May 1968, when the landfill permit was revoked. In November of that year, Tallapoosa West was made a part of the Pell refuge. The dump was still operating as late as 1975, when the garbage there was described as being ten stories high. The landfill closed in 1978. However, a report published in 1983 claimed that the Tallapoosa landfill, as well as five others throughout the city, was heavily contaminated with "toxic wastes" dumped from 1964 to 1979. The waste from the landfill reportedly led to health problems for residents of nearby communities such as Country Club. The Tallapoosa landfill at Pelham Bay Park was designated a hazardous-waste site in 1988, and cleanup began in 1989.

In 1983, the Theodore Kazimiroff Environmental Center was proposed for the park, alongside a nature trail that would wind through the park's terrain. It would be named out of respect to the late historian, who had died in 1980. The Kazimiroff Nature Trail and the Pelham Bay Park Environmental Center opened in June 1986. A $1 million renovation of the Orchard Beach pavilions was completed by 1986. By the end of the decade, large numbers of human and animal remains were being dumped in Pelham Bay Park, including 65 human bodies that were dumped in the park from 1986 to 1995. Pelham Bay Park was also very dirty, and discarded trash from several decades prior was still visible. NYPD officers on these cases theorized that the frequency of body dumpings might be attributable to two things: the park's remote location near highways, as well as a belief that the parkland is haunted by the remains of the Siwanoy buried there.

In 1990, NYC Parks received a $6.3 million gift for improvements to Pelham Bay Park and twenty other parks around the city. NYC Parks used the money to renovate trails and clean up weeds. A renovation of Orchard Beach started in 1995. A water park for the beach was proposed, but ultimately canceled in 1999. A few years later, as part of the city's ultimately unsuccessful bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics, several facilities in Pelham Bay Park were proposed for upgrades. The new facilities would have included a shooting center at Rodman's Neck; a 350 m horseback riding track; and a fencing, swimming, and water polo facility in the Orchard Beach pavilion. The bid ultimately was awarded to London instead.

In 2010, construction began on extending the jetty at Orchard Beach at a cost of $13 million. Soon after, work started on a $2.9 million project to restore Pelham Bay Park's shoreline, which entailed renovating the seawall, adding a dog run, and creating a new walking trail. In 2012, Native American shell middens were found at Tallapoosa Point, prompting an archaeological investigation. Further digs at the site uncovered more than a hundred artifacts, some of which dated to the third century CE. Work on the restoration project was paused in June 2015 as a result of the finds. The restoration project was restarted in September 2015.

Geography
At 2772 acre, Pelham Bay Park is the city's largest, being slightly more than three times the size of the 843 acre Central Park. Pelham Bay Park includes 13 mi of shoreline as well as land on both sides of the Hutchinson River. Hunter Island, Twin Island, and Two-Trees Island, all formerly true islands in Pelham Bay, are now connected to the mainland by fill, and are part of the park. Several islands in the Long Island Sound (including the Chimney Sweeps Islands), as well as Goose Island in the Hutchinson River, are also part of Pelham Bay Park. The park is divided into several sections, including two main sections roughly divided by Eastchester Bay.

In the eastern section of Pelham Bay Park is Orchard Beach and its parking lot. The eastern section also contains the Hunter Island Wildlife Sanctuary on Twin and Hunter Islands. The Kazimiroff Nature Trail winds through this section. The northwestern section, divided from the eastern section via the Lagoon. It contains both golf courses, as well as the Thomas Pell Sanctuary; the Bartow-Pell Woods; Goose Creek Marsh; and the Siwanoy, Bridle, and Split Rock Trails. The park is crossed by Amtrak's Northeast Corridor railroad at this location, as well as by the Hutchinson River Parkway and New England Thruway. A central section contains a Central Woodland, where the Siwanoy Trail and Turtle Cove Driving Range is present. It also includes Rodman's Neck as well as a portion of the park known as "The Meadow". The Pelham Bridge carries traffic across the Eastchester Bay between the southwest section and the rest of the park.

The park contains many different habitats. The largest habitat is the 782 acre forests, followed by the 195 acre salt marshes, the 161 acre salt flats, the 83 acre meadows, the 751 acre mixed scrub, and the 3 acre fresh water marsh. In total, about 67% of the park is estimated to be in its natural state, while 33% of the park is estimated to be developed. In the latter half of the 20th century, Pelham Bay Park's biodiversity decreased: in that time, the park was observed to have lost 25% of its 569 native species of plants as well as 12.5% of its 321 non-native species.

Hunter Island

Hunter Island (40.87677°N, -73.78987°W) is a 166 acre peninsula filled with woodlands; it had previously been 215 acre until Robert Moses extended Orchard Beach in the 1930s. A former island, it was part of the Pelham Islands, the historical name for a group of islands in western Long Island Sound that once belonged to Thomas Pell. The Siwanoy referred to the island as "Laap-Ha-Wach King", or "place of stringing beads". The island was then renamed after John Hunter, a successful businessman and politician, who purchased the property in 1804 and moved his family to the island in 1813. They built a mansion in the English Georgian style at the highest point on the island (90 feet above sea level). The mansion was destroyed in 1937 during the construction of Orchard Beach. In 1967, the island became part of the Hunter Island Wildlife Sanctuary.

Twin Island
Twin Island, at 40.87119°N, -73.78439°W, is wooded with exposed bedrock with glacial grooves. The East and West Twin Islands (or the "Twins") were once true islands in Pelham Bay but are now connected to each other and to Orchard Beach and nearby Rodman's Neck by a landfill created in 1937. East Twin Island, a rocky formation with "ribbons of color" caused by sedimentary erosion, is connected to neighboring Two Trees Island via a thin mudflat land bridge. Two Trees Island itself consists of a rocky plateau upon which one can see Orchard Beach and the environmental center. West Twin Island was at one time connected to neighboring Hunter Island via a man-made stone bridge, which now lies in ruins in one of the city's last remaining salt marshes.

The two islands that are now combined as Twin Island have been owned by NYC Parks since the 1888 acquisition of Pelham Bay Park. A tennis court was built on the island in 1899. Twin Island was restored in 1995 as part of the Twin Islands Salt Marsh Restoration Project, which cost $850,000.

Rodman's Neck

Rodman's Neck is a peninsula located in the central section of the park (at 40.8525°N, -73.80056°W). The southern third of the peninsula is used as a firing range by the New York City Police Department (NYPD); the remaining wooded section is part of Pelham Bay Park. The north side, which is joined to the rest of Pelham Bay Park near Orchard Beach, contains several baseball fields. Two small land berms between Rodman's Neck and City Island consist of the island's only connecting road to the mainland.

Rodman's Neck was part of the historic Pell property, and since the city acquired the peninsula in 1888, it has been used for multiple purposes. It was used as a United States Army training location during World War I, and was converted to under-utilized parkland in the 1920s. From 1930 to 1936, the peninsula was incorporated as part of Camp Mulrooney, a summer camp for the NYPD. The Army used Rodman's Neck again in the 1950s during the Cold War. and the NYPD built the current firing range at the peninsula's southern tip in 1959.

Tallapoosa Point
Tallapoosa Point is located in the southwest of Pelham Bay Park, near the Pelham Bridge. It used to be a separate island south of Eastchester Bay, having been private property, but was connected to the mainland during the colonial period. The point then became a popular fishing spot. In 1879, the Tallapoosa Club political group started leasing part of the peninsula from the city during the summer, hosting activities there. The club's presence gave the peninsula its current name, and in turn, the club's name was derived from Tallapoosa, Georgia, where some of its members had fought during the American Civil War. The Tallapoosa Club used a mansion originally built by the Lorillard family. They used the mansion until October 1, 1895.

Tallapoosa Point was used as a dump from 1963 until 1968, when landfill operations ceased and it became a part of the Wildlife Refuge. Since then it has been a part of the park, but there was an obscure proposal in the 1970s to make Tallapoosa into a ski slope. Tallapoosa Point was later re-planted and serves as a bird habitat.

Pelham Bay
Between City Island and Orchard Beach is a sound named Pelham Bay (40.86634°N, -73.79032°W), but contrary to its name, it is not a bay, but rather a sound since it is open to larger bodies of water at both ends. It connects to Eastchester Bay at the south, and opens onto Long Island Sound and City Island Harbor at the east. Approximately one third of the original bay was filled in to create Orchard Beach from 1934 to 1938.

Eastchester Bay
Eastchester Bay is a body of water that separates City Island and most of the park from the park's southwest portion and the rest of the Bronx. It is crossed by the Pelham Bridge, which connects the two parts of the park. It is technically also a sound, and the northern end connects via a narrow channel to Pelham Bay. The Hutchinson River empties into Eastchester Bay near the northern end. The lower portion of the bay opens onto the East River, Little Neck Bay, and Long Island Sound.

Lagoon
A lagoon within the park was once part of Pelham Bay, separating Hunter and Twin Islands from the mainland, and was called LeRoy's Bay until the mid-20th century. It was popular for rowing regattas, but could not be used for regulation rowing races as it was blocked by the causeway to Hunter Island. By 1902, there were calls to remove the causeway so LeRoy's Bay could be used as a raceway. The New York City Department of Public Parks decided to create a "temporary" wooden bridge and remove the causeway to allow the bay's tides to flow freely.

Most of the lagoon was filled in during the mid-1930s reconstruction of Orchard Beach, and the bay became known as the "Orchard Beach Lagoon", or the Lagoon for short. The lagoon between Orchard Beach and the Westchester border had been popular for regattas, or boat races, for decades, but it was neglected through the 1940s and 1950s. Rocks, weeds, and unwanted cars were tossed into the lagoon regularly.

The lagoon was chosen as the site of the 1964 Summer Olympics rowing trials, at which point it was widened and dredged, becoming a four-lane, 2000 m rowing track. The track, which cost $630,000, was hosted jointly by the city and the organizers of the 1964 New York World's Fair. New York City hosted several of the 1964 Olympic trials at various locations as part of the World's Fair the same year. Afterward, the now-unnamed lagoon was used by New York-area colleges for boating regattas, since it had been determined to be one of the most suitable locations for boat racing in the United States. Multiple colleges, including Columbia, Manhattan, St. John's, Fordham, Iona, and Yale, utilized the lagoon for collegiate rowing practice.

Turtle Cove
Turtle Cove is a small cove along the north side of City Island Road west of Orchard Beach Road. Around the early 1900s, a land berm was created across Turtle Cove for rails for horsecars. This berm caused the north end of Turtle Cove to become mostly freshwater, which attracted freshwater drinking rare birds in the meadow. A 3 ft diameter concrete culvert was placed across the berm to allow salt water from Eastchester Bay, but leaves and vegetation blocked this culvert. Starting in June 2009, NYC Parks started a restoration project for the cove, removing the old culvert and digging a canal to flood the north end of the cove with salt water. NYC Parks then placed a foot bridge across the canal. Some 11 acre of forest were also restored, with 10,000 trees being replaced. The cove also contains a batting cage and a golf center with miniature golf, PGA simulators, and grass tees.

Glover's Rock
Glover's Rock (40.86507°N, -73.80524°W), a giant granite glacial erratic, has a bronze plaque commemorating the Battle of Pell's Point. However, contrary to popular belief, the rock had nothing to do with the battle. In their respective books, Henry B. Dawson (1886) and William Abbatt (1901) both wrote that Colonel John Glover reputedly stood on the rock and watched the British forces land during the battle. This claim is erroneous, as these distances were computed based on an inaccurate map using estimates recorded by Glover in his "Letter from Mile Square" on October 24, 1776. The actual location where Glover watched British forces land is closer to the second tee of the current Split Rock Golf Course. The rock is only known as such today because Abbatt includes a labeled photograph of it in his book.

Split Rock
Split Rock (40.88648°N, -73.81492°W), a large dome-shaped granite boulder measuring approximately 25 ft from north to south and 15 ft from east to west, is located at the intersection of the New England Thruway and Hutchinson River Parkway, on a triangular parcel of land formed by these roads and a ramp that leads from the northbound Parkway to the northbound Thruway. The only public access to the rock is by a pedestrian trail that begins on Eastchester Place, outside the park. The Bridle Trail passes close to the rock, but is separated from the rock by the parkway's exit ramp. Another park trail, called the Split Rock Trail, leads from the Bartow Circle to the rock.

The Split Rock Golf Course was named after the rock. Split Rock also gives its name to Split Rock Road in Pelham Manor, which used to extend into the park itself. The rock appears to be a glacial erratic and derives its name from a large crevice dividing the stone into two half domes. The huge rock broke in half about 10,000 years ago under the stress of glacial movements.

Split Rock is also the location near where, in 1643, Anne Hutchinson and members of her family were massacred by Native Americans of the Siwanoy Tribe. Her daughter, Susanna, the only member of the family to survive the massacre, was at the rock during the time of the attack, which took place at the house, a distance away. In 1904, the New York State Legislature approved the placement of a bronze tablet on Split Rock in honor of Anne Hutchinson. The tablet was installed in 1911 by the Colonial Dames of New York. However, it was stolen in 1914. The plaque reads: ANNE HUTCHINSON

Banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638

Because of her Devotion to Religious Liberty This Courageous Woman

Sought Freedom from Persecution in New Netherland

Near this Rock in 1643 She and her Household

were Massacred by Indians

This Tablet is placed here by the Colonial Dames of the State of New York

ANNO DOMINI MCMXI Virtutes Majorum Filiae Conservant

The boulder is of enough historic importance that in the 1950s, Theodore Kazimiroff of the Bronx Historical Society convinced officials to move the planned Interstate 95 (New England Thruway) a few feet north to save Split Rock from being dynamited.

Treaty Oak
Treaty Oak (40.871°N, -73.804°W) is located on the Pell estate near the Bartow-Pell Mansion. A treaty was reportedly signed under this oak tree in 1654 between Siwanoy Chief Wampage and colonist Thomas Pell, in which Pell purchased all land east of the Bronx River in what was then Westchester County, New York. The Society of the Daughters of the Revolution erected a protective fence and a plaque near the tree, but it was destroyed by lightning in 1906 and toppled in a storm in March 1909. Parts of the original tree were donated to museums and historical societies.

A replacement tree was planted in 1915, and the current tree at the location is an elm.

Wildlife sanctuaries
Thomas Pell Wildlife Sanctuary and the Hunter Island Marine Zoology and Geology Sanctuary consist of a total of 489 acre of marshes and forests within Pelham Bay Park. They were created in 1967 as a result to opposition to a planned landfill on the site of the current sanctuaries. Much of the forests in these sanctuaries are estimated to be at least three centuries old, dating to colonial times. The park also has two nature centers at Orchard Beach and in the southwestern section of the park.

Thomas Pell Wildlife Sanctuary
The Thomas Pell Wildlife Sanctuary, named for Thomas Pell, makes up the westerly part of Pelham Bay Park. Included within its bounds are Goose Creek Marsh, which once formed part of a 5000 acre wetland that covered what is now Co-op City and the southern part of Pelham Bay Park, as well as the saltwater wetlands adjoining the Hutchinson River. The sanctuary also includes Goose Island, Split Rock, and the oak–hickory forests in tidal marshes bordering the Split Rock Golf Course. The area is home to a variety of wildlife including raccoon, egrets, hawks, and coyotes.

Hunter Island Marine Zoology and Geology Sanctuary
Located north of Orchard Beach, the Hunter Island Marine Zoology and Geology Sanctuary encompasses all of Twin Islands, Cat Briar Island, Two Trees Island, and the northeastern shoreline of Hunter Island. It contains many glacial erratics, large boulders that were deposited during the last ice age, as well as the largest continuous oak forest in Pelham Bay Park. The sanctuary supports a unique intertidal marine ecosystem that is rare in New York State.

Wildlife-related activities
The park is a popular spot for bird watching, with up to 264 species having been spotted. Common bird species observed within the park include great horned owl, northern saw-whet owl, barn owl, red-tailed hawk, and warblers on Hunter Island; American woodcock, willow flycatcher, northern harrier, woodpeckers, black-capped chickadee, tufted titmouse, and white-breasted nuthatch in the meadow west of Orchard Beach; and various songbirds and sparrows north of the Pelham Bay Golf Course. Birds in the park's waters include loons, grebes, cormorants, anseriformes, and gulls from the Twin Island coasts; greater yellowlegs, lesser yellowlegs, loons, hooded merganser, Canada goose, mallard, and egrets in Eastchester Bay and Turtle Cove; and osprey and waterbirds in the lagoon. This is a result of Pelham Bay Park's location within one of the major seasonal bird migration corridors. The National Audubon Society has designated the park as one of four "Important Bird Areas" within the city.

Saltwater fishing is also popular within the park, but is prohibited on Orchard Beach when the beach is open during the summer. There are two major areas where fishing is allowed: in the southern part of Pelham Bay Park near Eastchester Bay; and in the northern part near the Lagoon, Turtle Cove, and northern beach jetty.

South of Orchard Beach is a 25 acre meadow that hosts the only known population of the moth species Amphipoea erepta ryensis. Another population used to exist in Rye, Westchester County.

Surroundings
Pelham Bay Park is bounded by the town of Pelham, New York, to the north; City Island and Long Island Sound to the east; Watt Avenue and Bruckner Expressway to the south; and the Hutchinson River Parkway to the west.

North of the park is the village of Pelham Manor in Westchester County, and a 250 ft strip of land that is part of New York City due to a boundary error. Owners of the several dozen houses on the strip have a Pelham Manor zip code and phone numbers and their children attend Pelham public schools, but as Bronx residents pay much lower property taxes than their Westchester County neighbors.

To the southeast, the City Island Bridge connects the park to City Island.

Orchard Beach

Orchard Beach (40.8673°N, -73.79595°W), a public beach, is part of Pelham Bay Park and comprises the borough's only beach. The 1.1 mi, 115 acre beach faces the Long Island Sound and is laid out in a crescent shape with a width of 200 ft during high tide. An icon of the Bronx, Orchard Beach is sometimes called the Bronx Riviera, the Riviera of New York City, Hood Beach, or the Working Class Riviera. It contains a set of twin pavilions, which were both landmarked by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2006.

Bronx Victory Column & Memorial Grove

The Bronx Victory Column & Memorial Grove is a 70 ft limestone column that supports a bronze statue of Winged Victory on Crimi Road in the park. The grove of trees that surround the statue were originally planted on the Grand Concourse in 1921 by the American Legion; they were removed in 1928 when construction began on the IND Concourse Line. In 1930, the American Legion revealed plans to relocate the grove to Pelham Bay Park, where there would be a new monument to honor Bronx servicemen. The monument was designed by John J. Sheridan and sculpted by Belle Kinney and Leopold Scholz. On September 24, 1933, the monument and grove was dedicated to the 947 Bronxites who died in World War I. The column is supported by a 18 ft pedestal. The statue itself is 18 feet tall and 3700 lb, located atop a series of 14 discs. This brings the monument's aggregate height to more than 120 ft. While officially a memorial to servicemen from the Bronx, it is also a favorite location for wedding photography.

Bartow-Pell Mansion
A 19th-century plantation-style mansion called the Bartow–Pell Mansion (located at 40.87161°N, -73.80594°W) is a colonial remnant done in Greek revival style. The mansion, originally built in 1842, was sold to the city in 1880, which maintained it until 1914, when the city and International Garden Club assumed joint maintenance of the building. Since 1975, it has been a National Historic Landmark.

Pelham Bay and Split Rock Golf Courses
The Pelham Bay Golf Course opened in 1901, followed by the Split Rock Golf Course in 1935. The courses, consisting of eighteen holes each, share an Art Deco clubhouse (located at 40.87497°N, -73.80972°W). The courses are separated by the Northeast Corridor railroad tracks, with the Split Rock course to the northwest and the Pelham Bay course to the southeast.

Plans for a golf course in Pelham Bay Park have existed since soon after the park was founded. In 1899, the New York Athletic Club approached Lawrence Van Etten, an architect renowned for designing golf courses, for a request to construct an 18-hole course within the park. The proposed course would be bounded by Pelham Manor to the north; the Harlem River and Port Chester Railroad (now Northeast Corridor) tracks to the west; and Shore Road to the southeast. The city was building Van Cortlandt Park's golf course at the time, but the Bronx district parks commissioner approved Van Etten's plan. Originally, the club wanted to construct a park on Hunter Island, but Van Etten felt that the island was too small for a full 18-hole course. Once the Van Cortlandt Park course was opened, city officials started focusing on plans for the Pelham course.

In April 1900, surveyors began studying part of the park as a possible location for a golf course. Later that month, workers began construction at the northwest course location. It was expected that the course would open in June or July of that year, but that the work would not be fully complete until September. New York City greenskeeper Val Flood later stated that he thought the course would open by August; however, by September 1900, work on the course had hardly started due to a lack of workers. By the end of 1900, NYC Parks reported that seeds had been planted for nine greens, and two bunkers and one hazard had been created. The course opened in 1901, but did not gain popularity until 1903 when overcrowding at the Van Cortlandt course drove players to use the less crowded Pelham Bay course instead.

In 1934, a new 18-hole course was announced for the north side of the park, along with a renovation to the Pelham Bay course under the WPA. It was part of the rebuilding of 10 golf courses in the city. The new course brought the total number of holes in the park's courses to 36, with each course being between 3000 and 3300 ft between the first and last tees. This comprised two 18-hole courses or four 9-hole courses. There was also a new two-story brick Greek Revival clubhouse adjacent to both of the 18-hole courses, with a golf store, Pro Shop, cafeteria, lockers, restrooms, and showers. Construction started on the new course and clubhouse in September 1934. The new Split Rock course, based on a plan from John van Kleek, opened in 1935 along with the rebuilt Pelham Bay course.

Bronx Equestrian Center
The northern section of Pelham Bay Park is the home of the Bronx Equestrian Center on Shore Road, where visitors can ride horses and ponies through the parks' trails or obtain riding lessons. The Bronx Equestrian Center also provides wagon rides and hosts wedding events.

Southwestern section
The southwestern part of Pelham Bay Park contains several recreational facilities, but unlike the rest of the park, the southwestern section mainly serves the nearby neighborhoods. The southwest park's largest point of interest is the Aileen B. Ryan Recreational Complex, which contains a running track, two baseball fields, and the Playground for All Children, a play area with special features for physically handicapped children. Another playground, the Sweetgum Playground, is located near Bruckner Boulevard. The 0.25 mi Pelham Track and Field includes an artificial turf football field as well as long jumping. The southwest park also contains a dog run, four more baseball fields (for a total of six), two bocce courts, several basketball courts, and nine tennis courts. This section of the park also includes the Pelham Bay Nature Center. The neighborhood of Pelham Bay is across the Bruckner Expressway from this section of the park.

A long and narrow 41 acre woodland called Huntington Woods, located on the southern border of this park, is named after the tract's last owners. Archer Milton Huntington, the founder of the Hispanic Society of America, and his wife, sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington, had acquired the property in 1896 after the park had been established. The city added 31.6 acre of Huntington's estate to the park in 1925 and annexed the remaining land in 1933.

The southwestern park also contains two monuments. American Boy was commissioned in 1923 by French sculptor Louis St. Lannes and carved from one block of Indiana Limestone. A tribute to the athletic body, it once stood outside the Rice Stadium and Recreation Building; the stadium, named and funded by the widow of Isaac Leopold Rice, stood at the site from the 1920s until 1989. The former stadium site is now the Pelham Track and Field. The other is the Bronx Victory Column & Memorial Grove.

Management
A nonprofit organization called Friends of Pelham Bay Park (founded in 1992) manages the park, while NYC Parks owns and operates the land and facilities. Compared to the Central Park Conservancy, Friends of Pelham Bay Park does not receive as much funding. Before 1992, there was no private maintenance of the park; the earliest efforts for such a thing date to 1983, when an administrator was appointed to oversee both Van Cortlandt and Pelham Bay Parks.

Bridges
As part of the city's acquisition of Pelham Bay Park in 1888, NYC Parks claimed responsibility for maintenance over the western end of the City Island Bridge, which was within the park. The City Island Bridge had been built by the 1870s. By 1892, the bridge was in need of maintenance, and a proposal for a replacement bridge was approved in 1895. The replacement bridge started construction in late 1898 and was completed in 1901.

The Pelham Bridge, which had opened in 1871 on the site of two previous bridges, was also incorporated into the park. Planning for a new bridge started in 1901, and NYC Parks transferred the responsibility for constructing the new bridge to the Department of Bridges in 1902. A new stone bridge was opened in 1908 to accommodate higher volumes of traffic.

The century-old City Island Bridge was subsequently replaced again in the 2010s. Planning for the new bridge started in 2005, though a lack of funding delayed the start of construction to 2012. The new bridge was completed in 2015, and the old one was demolished soon after.

Roads
The park is traversed by the Hutchinson River Parkway on its west side. The New England Thruway (I-95), a partial toll road, also has a short highway section in the park's northwest corner. A partial interchange between the two roads is located within the park. To the south, an exit from the Hutchinson River Parkway provides direct access to the park, Orchard Beach, and City Island. The exit and entrance ramps lead east to the Bartow Circle, where the ramps intersect with Shore Road, which runs roughly southwest-northeast, and with Orchard Beach Road, which leads southeast to the Orchard Beach parking lot. Slightly to the southwest of Bartow Circle is the T intersection of Shore Road and City Island Road, which marks the northwest terminus of the latter road. Shore Road continues across the Pelham Bridge to the southwest corner of the park, then turns west and continues onto Pelham Parkway. Meanwhile, City Island Road continues southeast to City Island Circle, where it intersects with Park Drive, a road that connects to Orchard Beach Road in the north and Rodman's Neck in the south. City Island Road then continues southeast across the City Island Bridge to the eponymous island.

NYC Parks assumed responsibility for the park's roads in 1888 and gradually paved and expanded them over the following decades. An expansion of Eastern Boulevard (later Shore Road) began in 1895. In 1897, the city started extending Pelham Parkway through to Eastern Boulevard. By 1902, Eastern Boulevard was referred to as "the Shore drive" since it ran close to the LeRoy's Bay shore. The same year, NYC Parks built a 4230 ft dirt path, which connected Glover's Rock to Shore Road. Another 4870 ft dirt road to Pelham Bridge was also built, and a 6485 ft pedestrian path from City Island Bridge to Bartow Station was built.

The Hutchinson River Parkway in Pelham Bay Park replaced the old Split Rock Road in the park. The original roadway was an undivided, limited-access parkway, designed with gently sloping curves, stone arch bridges, and wooden lightposts. The original 11 mi section included bridle paths along the right-of-way. There was also a riding academy where the public could rent horses. The parkway is named for Anne Hutchinson and her family, and passes through the part of the park near where the Hutchinsons were killed by the Siwanoy. The modern-day parkway was extended south from Westchester through Pelham Bay Park in December 1937.

The second highway through the park, the New England Thruway, opened in its entirety in October 1958, connecting the Bruckner Expressway in the south with the Connecticut Turnpike in the northeast.

Public transport
Pelham Bay Park is served by the New York City Subway at its eponymous station on the west side of the Bruckner Expressway, which is served by the. The station is part of the former Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT)'s Pelham Line. The line's northern terminus is located at the southeast corner of Pelham Bay Park, and the IRT station there opened in December 1920. An exit from the station leads onto a pedestrian bridge that crosses the expressway and leads directly to the park.

MTA Regional Bus Operations' Bx29 route and Bee-Line Bus System's 45 route also stop at the park. The southbound Bx29 makes three stops in the park: on Bruckner Boulevard near the subway station; at the intersection of Shore Road and City Island Road; and at City Island Circle. Meanwhile, Bee-Line's 45 route stops near Bartow-Pell Mansion. The Bx12 bus serves Orchard Beach during the summer only.

Railroads
The Harlem River and Port Chester Railroad was chartered in 1866, connecting the Harlem River in the south and Port Chester in the north. The railroad opened in 1873, with some portions passing through the current park. The route, a branch of the New Haven Line operated by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, contained six stations. One of these stations, called alternatively City Island or Bartow, in Pelham (now part of the park). In 1895, the railroad re-acquired some of the land from the park In 1906, ownership of the Shore Road overpass over the Harlem and Port Chester railroad line was transferred to the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.

A railroad of some sort also connected City Island and Pelham Bay Park from 1887 to 1919. Originally composed of the separate Pelham Park Railroad Company and the City Island Railroad, the narrow-gauge horsecar route was operated by the former of the two companies, which ran service between the Bartow station of the Harlem River and Port Chester Railroad and Brown's Hotel on City Island. The 3.2 mi route was complete by 1892. The IRT absorbed the two companies in 1902 and started designing its own monorail in 1908. The monorail's first journey in July 1910 ended with the monorail toppling on its side, and although service resumed in November 1910, the monorail went into receivership in December 1911. The monorail ceased operation on April 3, 1914, and was subsequently sold to the Third Avenue Railway, which abandoned the line on August 9, 1919.

The Harlem River and Port Chester tracks were maintained by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. New stations designed by Cass Gilbert were opened in 1908, but the line's stations were all closed by 1937, having suffered from low ridership. During the late 20th century, the old Harlem River and Port Chester tracks went through a series of ownership changes, and in 1976, Amtrak bought the tracks and integrated the route into its Northeast Corridor. The station house for the line's Bartow station still exists, albeit as a deteriorated shell; the station's roof burned down after it was closed. An overgrown path leads from the bridle trail to the former station site.

The city renovated the Shore Road railroad overpass in the early 2000s. Citing the 1906 deed that transferred the bridge's maintenance to the company that owned the railroad below it, the city then filed a lawsuit to make Amtrak pay for the renovation. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of Amtrak in 2013.

Paths
Bicycle paths go to all parts of the park and west to Bronx Park, east to City Island, and north to Mount Vernon. The bike trails within the park itself are of varying difficulties.

Scenic trails
The Kazimiroff Nature Trail, a wildlife observation trail, opened in 1986. It traverses 189 acre of Hunter Island. Much of the island's natural features are found along the trail. It was opened in 1986 and comprises two overlapping lasso-shaped paths, one slightly longer than the other.

The Siwanoy Trail consists of a trail system that originates in the Central Woodlands section of the park. Originating at City Island Road, it bears to the northeast before splitting into two spurs, one going east to the Rodman's Neck meadow and the other going north around Bartow Circle. At the circle's eastern side, the trail splits again. One spur goes northeast in a self-closing loop to the Bartow-Pell Mansion, and the other goes northwest to connect to Split Rock Trail before going around the Hutchinson River Parkway's interchange with Orchard Beach Road.

Split Rock Trail originates at Bartow Circle and stretches for 1.5 mi along the west side of the park. First designated in 1938 along the path of the former Split Rock Road, the path was renovated in summer 1987.

The park is also traversed by a bridle path. That path circumscribes both golf courses, with a spur to the Bronx Equestrian Center.

title: Pelham Bay Park


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Charles Napier (Royal Navy officer)

Admiral Sir Charles John Napier  (6 March 1786 – 6 November 1860) was a British naval officer whose sixty years in the Royal Navy included service in the War of 1812, the Napoleonic Wars, Syrian War and the Crimean War, and a period commanding the Portuguese navy in the Liberal Wars. An innovator concerned with the development of iron ships, and an advocate of humane reform in the Royal Navy, he was also active in politics as a Liberal Member of Parliament and was probably the naval officer most widely known to the public in the early Victorian Era.

French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

He became a midshipman in 1799 aboard the 16-gun sloop HMS Martin (1790), but left her in May 1800 before she was lost with all hands. He next served aboard HMS Renown (1798), flagship of Sir John Borlase Warren. After this, in November 1802, he transferred to the frigate HMS Greyhound (1783) under Captain William Hoste. The following year, he moved to Égyptienne for a voyage to St Helena escorting a convoy of ships and then in the English Channel and off the coast of France. (In later years, feeling he had been badly treated as a midshipman by her captain, Charles Fleeming, Napier challenged that officer to a duel, though they were eventually reconciled by their seconds.) In 1804–5 he served briefly on Mediator before moving to HMS Renommée off Boulogne. He was promoted lieutenant on 30 November 1805. He was appointed to HMS Courageux (1800), and was present in her in the West Indies at the action in which the squadron under Admiral Warren took the French Marengo (80 guns) and Belle Poule (40 guns), on 13 March 1806. After returning home with Warren, he returned to the West Indies in HMS St George (1785) and having been promoted to commander on 30 November 1807, he was appointed acting commander of the brig HMS Pultusk (1807) of 16 guns, formerly the French privateer Austerlitz. In August 1808 he became captain of the brig-sloop HMS Recruit (1806) (18 guns), and in her fought a hot action off Antigua with the French sloop Diligente (18 guns), in which his thigh was smashed by a cannonball.

In April 1809, Napier took part in the capture of the Caribbean island of Martinique, and subsequently distinguished himself in the pursuit of three escaping French ships of the line, handling the small Recruit so well that the British were able to capture the French flagship D'Hautpoul. As a result, he was promoted acting post captain and briefly given the command of the captured 74-gun ship-of-the-line.

His rank was confirmed on 22 May 1809, but he was put on half-pay, when he came home as temporary captain of the frigate HMS Jason (1804) escorting a convoy. While on half-pay he spent some time at the University of Edinburgh.

Napier, still on half-pay, then went to Portugal to visit his three cousins, (all colonels serving in Wellington's army, and one of whom was Charles James Napier, the future conqueror of Sindh). He took part in the Battle of Buçaco, during which he saved his cousin Charles's life and was himself wounded.

In 1811, he was appointed captain of the frigate HMS Thames (1805) (32 guns) and served in the Mediterranean Fleet under Sir Edward Pellew, disrupting enemy shipping. Among his principal exploits was the 1813 capture of the island of Ponza, which was a possible haven for corsairs. In 1813 he moved to command the frigate HMS Euryalus (1803) (36 guns), operating mainly off the French and Spanish Mediterranean coast.

American War and the "Hundred Days"
After the surrender of Napoleon and his first period of exile in 1814, Napier and his ship were transferred to the coast of North America, where the War of 1812 with the United States was still in progress, now commanded by Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane. In the Chesapeake Bay campaign, he took part in the August expedition up the Potomac River to Alexandria (southeast of the American national capital), Arriving several days after the Burning of Washington and the Battle of Bladensburg under Maj. Gen. Robert Ross and Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn, he was second in command to Captain James Alexander Gordon. The British squadron took 10 days to travel 50 mi upriver, with many strandings and damage from a tornado/thunderstorm (after the Washington fires), but on 28 August 1814 before attempting a bombardment, they captured Fort Washington on the north shoreline which was blown up by the Americans prior to the attack. The town of Alexandria capitulated with a ransom paid and the shipping there was seized. The squadron successfully withdrew downriver with their prizes despite frequent harassing American attacks from the shores downstream. During this withdrawal Napier was wounded in the neck.

He next distinguished himself in the following attack on the city of Baltimore by a British Army accompanied by 16 warships, 12–14 September 1814, under Admirals Cochrane, and Cockburn. HMS Euryalus was involved in the bombardment of Fort McHenry, protecting the city on the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River that began early in the morning of the 13th. At. the same time, earlier on the 12th, Gen. Ross had been put ashore to the southeast at North Point with his regiments to attack the town from the east. He was shot in a brief skirmish just before his troops met the City Brigade regiments of the Maryland Militia under Brig. Gen. John Stricker at the Battle of North Point that afternoon. After pausing for the night to tend to the substantial wounded and now under the command of Col. Arthur Brooke, the regiments waited outside the substantial American dug-in fortifications with opposing approx. 20,000 troops and 100 artillery at old Loudenschlager's Hill (today's Hampstead Hill in western Patterson Park) until the naval forces were able to subdue the fort and move upriver to attack the eastern land redoubts. The critical period of the attack developed shortly after midnight when a picked British force in longboats armed with scaling ladders under Napier's command penetrated the Middle or Ferry Branch of the river along the southern opposite shore (today's Brooklyn and Fairfield areas of southern Baltimore City and Anne Arundel County) to the west of the fort with the intention of storming it from the rear flank. Before they could land, however, they were detected and subjected to a withering fire from the still active guns of Fort McHenry and two smaller forts to the west, batteries Covington and Babcock. The British fought back strongly with cannon and rockets. (Watching the battle from a safe distance, Georgetown lawyer and poet Francis Scott Key, who had been attempting to free William Beanes, arrested earlier for jailing British Army deserters, was inspired to compose the poem, "The Defence of Fort McHenry", which was later set to music as The Star-Spangled Banner). Eventually American firepower prevailed; Napier was compelled to retire to the warships with substantial casualties, and Cochrane's fleet later withdrew on the morning of the 14th, with the Americans raising a substantially huge 42 by 30-foot flag, with the firing of the traditional morning gun at daylight, after the night's driving rainstorm and bombardments, enabling all to see from the town that the fort had held.

Euryalus proceeded to Halifax, Nova Scotia for refitting and then took part in the ongoing blockade of the eastern seaboard of the U.S.A.. Bored by such duties, Napier issued a challenge to the famous American, Baltimore-built frigate USS Constellation (1797), which had been lying in on the Elizabeth River harbor near the U.S. Naval base at Norfolk, Virginia, (since making her only war cruise during the first year of the War) to come out and fight a single-ship duel. The challenge was accepted and due arrangements were made 'in the most gentlemanly fashion', but Euryalus was made part of the squadron that Admiral Cochrane took to Florida and Louisiana in December 1814 in the operations that climaxed in the Battle of New Orleans on 8 January 1815, and before she could return to fulfil her engagement with Constellation news of the peace treaty of Ghent reached the USA.

With Napoleon's escape from Elba and brief return to power, (the 'Hundred Days'), Euryalus returned to Britain. Napier's last mission of the Napoleonic wars was to land troops at the mouth of the River Scheldt to guard against the French advance into Belgium.

Marriage and family
At the end of the war Napier was made a Companion of the Bath (4 June 1815). He married Frances Elizabeth Elers, née Younghusband, generally referred to as Eliza, whom he had known and loved in Edinburgh while still a teenager. In the meantime Eliza had married a Lieutenant Edward Elers and been widowed. She had four children whom Napier adopted as his own. Of these the second son, Charles Elers Napier, became a naval officer. The eldest, Edward Elers Napier, entered the army, rising to the rank of major-general: he also wrote books of travel and reminiscence, as well as the authoritative biography of his stepfather. Frances also gave Napier two children of his own, a son born in Rome and a daughter born by Lake Geneva. The son, Charles, died as a result of an accident aged five. The first years of his leisure Napier spent in Italy, Switzerland (where he briefly took up farming), and in Paris. He had inherited considerable wealth from his mother's side of the family and spent it freely.

Steam and iron
During these years Napier began a voluminous and indefatigable correspondence with the Admiralty on the urgency for naval reform, which lasted for the rest of his career. He sought to persuade successive civil administrations of the need for innovative ship-design and tactics, the development of steam ships and the use of iron in ship construction, the proper training of officers, and decent living conditions for ordinary seamen. He held that the use of the press gang and of flogging should be abolished, and that seamen should receive proper wages and pensions. In all this he was far ahead of his time. His advocacy had little effect: on the contrary, successive administrators considered him an eccentric nuisance. He had been interested in steam navigation since its beginnings, and began investing his considerable resources in a steam vessel service that would ply along the River Seine. In 1821 he financed and participated in the construction of one of the first iron-hulled vessels ever built, and the first designed to venture into open water. The Aaron Manby was named after the master of the Horseley Ironworks, Tipton, Staffordshire, where she was pre-fabricated to a design formulated by Napier, Manby and Manby's son Charles and then assembled at Rotherhithe on the Thames. After trials in May 1822, the Aaron Manby crossed the English Channel to Le Havre under Napier's command on 10 June 1822, and proceeded up the Seine to Paris, where she caused a great stir and where she was based for the next decade. This has been claimed as the first passage from France to Britain by steam ship, which it was not: but it was the first direct passage from London to Paris by steam ship and the first seagoing voyage by an iron ship anywhere. Napier's company built five similar steamships but in 1827 he went bankrupt, leaving the family in severe financial difficulty. (Sold off, the ships gave 30 years further service.)

Portugal
At the beginning of 1829 he was appointed to command the 42-gun frigate HMS Galatea (1810). The Admiralty gave him permission to fit her with paddles of his own design, worked by winches on the main deck. He carried out trials that proved that ships could travel independently of the wind. The Admiralty, however, did not adopt this innovation.

At the start of Portugal's Liberal Wars in 1832 Napier was at the Azores, which were the only part of Portuguese territory still held for Queen Maria II of Portugal against the usurpation of her uncle, the absolutist Dom Miguel. He so impressed the constitutional leaders, especially the Count de Vila Flor (better known by his later title of Duke of Terceira), that they begged him to take command of their small fleet. Having unsuccessfully contested the parliamentary by-election for Portsmouth in June 1832 after Galatea was paid off, he accepted their proposals in February 1833.

Sailing to Portugal with his stepson Charles Elers Napier as aide-de-camp, bringing troop reinforcements and using the incognito of 'Carlos da Ponza', he arrived in Porto, where Queen Maria's father Dom Pedro, ex-Emperor of Brazil, and the Liberal forces were being besieged by Miguel's armies. He assumed command of the Liberal fleet, succeeding its previous British commander George Rose Sartorius.

With the fleet Napier then transported the Liberal army to the Algarve to open a second front in the south of the country. On his return voyage he destroyed the much larger Miguelite fleet in the Battle of Cape St Vincent on 5 July 1833. These two strokes enabled the Liberals to capture Lisbon, which the Miguelites abandoned, though Napier's squadron was now ravaged by cholera.

On the demand of France Napier was struck off the British navy list. On the other hand, Dom Pedro appointed him Admiral of the Portuguese Navy on 10 July. Napier's victory, with a fleet largely manned by British seamen, was viewed in Britain as a credit to the Royal Navy. The victory and consequent accolades greatly annoyed King William IV, who disliked both Napier and Dom Pedro.

Continuing his Portuguese services, Napier commanded land forces in the successful defence of Lisbon, September 1833. For these services he was made Commander of the Tower and Sword, and Count of the Cape of Saint Vincent in the Peerage of Portugal.

On 12 September 1833 he captured The Lord of the Isles steamer at Sao Martinho and in 1836 defended his prize in the Court of Common Pleas.

In 1834, with a small army made up largely of British sailors, he reconquered the Minho region for the constitutional cause. After the final defeat of Miguel and the death of Dom Pedro shortly afterwards, Napier found himself frustrated in his attempts to reform the naval administration of Portugal and returned to England. His departure was followed by a vote of thanks to him in both houses of the restored Portuguese parliament.

Napier unsuccessfully contested the Portsmouth parliamentary seat for a second time in the by-election of December 1834. He then occupied himself until 1836 with writing a history of the Portuguese War and his own part in it.

Syrian War
Though he published his An Account of the War in Portugal as 'Admiral Charles Napier', he was only an Admiral as far as Portugal was concerned. He was restored to his former rank of captain in the British Navy List by an Order in Council on 9 March 1836, and in July 1837 unsuccessfully contested the by-election for Greenwich in the Liberal cause. In 1838 received command of the ship of the line HMS Powerful (84 guns).

When troubles broke out in Syria and Muhammad Ali, ruler of Egypt, invaded it and destroyed a Turkish army, Napier was ordered to the Mediterranean. On the evening of 29 May 1839 Powerful was anchored in the Cove of Cork, Ireland when urgent orders came from the Admiralty to proceed at once to Malta. He was also informed that the ships-of-the-line Ganges and Implacable had already started from England. Wishing to overtake them, Napier set sail at 2 a.m. on the 30th for Gibraltar. Powerful arrived at Gibraltar on 12 June to hear the other two ships were three days ahead of her, but by superior seamanship Napier overtook them in the Mediterranean and Powerful entered the harbour of La Valletta, Malta on the evening of 24 June, with band playing and under every stitch of canvas, twelve hours ahead of her rivals. There followed a lull of about a year.

In the summer of 1840 the Maronite Christians of Lebanon rose in revolt against the occupying Egyptians and Muhammad Ali in retaliation sent Ibrahim Pasha with 15,000 troops to burn towns and villages along the Lebanese coast. By 1 July 1840 Napier, with a detached squadron and the rank of commodore, was patrolling the coast to protect British interests. Though in August he appeared off Beirut and called upon Suleiman Pasha, Muhammad Ali's governor, to abandon the town and leave Syria, there was little he could do until September, when he was joined by the allied fleet under Admiral Robert Stopford: mainly British, but also including Austrian, Ottoman and Russian warships. Open war broke out on 11 September. Due to the illness of the army commander, Brigadier-General Sir Charles Smith, Napier was instructed to lead the land force, and effected a landing at D'jounie with 1,500 Turks and marines to operate against Ibrahim, who was prevented by the revolt from doing more than trying to hold the coastal cities. Meanwhile, Stopford, claiming his flag of truce had been fired on, bombarded Beirut, killing many civilians. Napier next distinguished himself by leading an attack by land and sea on Sidon, the Egyptian army's southern base, which capitulated on 28 September.

The Egyptians abandoned Beirut on 3 October. While preparing to attack them at Boharsef, Napier was ordered to relinquish command of the army to withdraw and hand over the land forces to the now recovered Brigadier-General Smith. To do so would have meant giving up the tactical initiative, and Napier accordingly disobeyed the order and continued with the attack against Ibrahim's army. The ensuing Battle of Boharsef, on 10 October, was a hard-fought victory, one of the very few land battles won by a naval officer. By the end of the month the only coastal position still held by the Egyptians was Acre, which Stopford was instructed to recapture. On 3 November the Mediterranean Fleet, with its Turkish and Austrian allies, moved into position against the western and southern sides of the town. The fire of the ships (48,000 rounds in all) was devastatingly accurate. A shell penetrated the main magazine in the south of the city, which exploded killing 1,100 men. That night Acre was occupied. British losses were only 18 men killed and 41 wounded. During the action, Napier had manoeuvred independently against Stopford's orders and his division, by accident and mutual misunderstandings, left a space in the fleet's deployment, not that this affected the outcome. Some captains wanted Napier to be court-martialled for insubordination, but Stopford did not push the issue.

The rapid collapse of Muhammad Ali's power, with the prospect of bloody chaos in Egypt, was not part of the Allies' plan, so Stopford sent Napier to command the squadron at Alexandria and to observe the situation. Here, acting once again on his own initiative, Napier appeared before the city on 25 November and enforced a blockade.

Napier, without reference to his admiral or the British government, personally negotiated a peace with Muhammad Ali. The treaty guaranteed Muhammad Ali and his heirs the sovereignty of Egypt, and pledged to evacuate Ibrahim's beleaguered army back to Alexandria, if Muhammad Ali in turn renounced all claims to Syria, submitted to the Sultan and returned the Ottoman fleet. 'I do not know if I have done right in settling the eastern question', Napier wrote on 26 November to Lord Minto, the First Lord of the Admiralty. Stopford repudiated the arrangement immediately when he had heard the news; the Sultan and the British ambassador were furious, and several of the Allied powers declared it void. Nevertheless, the formal treaty later concluded and confirmed on 27 November was essentially a ratification of Napier's original, and his friend Lord Palmerston congratulated Napier. (Muhammad Ali's last heir, King Farouk, ruled Egypt until 23 July 1952, when the Free Officers Movement under Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser staged a military coup that launched the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 and forced him to abdicate.)

Parliament and Channel Fleet
In acknowledgement of his distinguished services during the campaign Napier was knighted as a KCB on 4 December 1840, and was also included in the vote of thanks by the Houses of Parliament. He was also presented by the Emperors of Russia and Austria and the King of Prussia with the Order of St. George of Russia; the Order of Maria Theresa of Austria; and the Red Eagle of Prussia. In January 1841, Napier carried out a special mission to Alexandria and Cairo to see that the treaty was being adhered to before returning to Britain in March.

He was invited to stand as Parliamentary candidate in two constituencies and so at his own request was placed on half pay. He was returned as Liberal Party MP for Marylebone at the 1841 general election. He spoke mainly on naval topics, especially conditions for seamen and increasing the strength of the navy. In April 1842, with 67 other MPs, he voted for the motion of William Sharman Crawford to form a committee to consider the demands of the People's Charter (1838): votes for working men, protected by secret ballot.

In November, 1841, Napier was appointed Naval Aide-de-Camp to Queen Victoria. He subsequently wrote and published War in Syria, his personal account of the campaign. On 4 December 1845 he was invested with the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh.

Napier continued to be interested in warship design and was responsible for the design of the paddle-frigate HMS Sidon (1846) launched in May 1846. In the same year he was promoted rear-admiral of the Blue on 9 November. in May 1847 he was appointed to the command of the Channel Fleet, hoisting his flag in HMS St Vincent. By this time he was perhaps the naval personality most famous to the general public: his level of everyday name-recognition is shown by the passing allusion in William Makepeace Thackeray's famous humorous ballad Little Billee  ("the British fleet a-riding at anchor / with Admiral Napier, K.C.B."). He did not stand again for his parliamentary seat at Marylebone in the July–August 1847 general election.

The Channel Fleet was sometimes a sinecure, but this was by no means the case during Napier's period of command. The fleet's area of operations was not just the English Channel but more or less throughout what in the 20th century would be called the Western Approaches. Portugal was in the closing stages of its 'little' civil war, the Patuleia, and British interests in that country needed protecting. Ireland, in the aftermath of the Great Famine, was feared to be near insurrection. Moreover, there were considerations of experiment and training with new ships, made necessary by the rapid technological advances such as screw propulsion. During 1848, the fleet was mainly off the coast of Ireland, where the political situation dictated that Napier show the flag and train for the eventuality of transporting and landing soldiers on practically any part of the Irish coast. In December he took the Channel Fleet further than it had ever operated before, when it was sent to Gibraltar and then onto the Moroccan coast, with the purpose of curbing the activities of Riff pirates. He compelled the Sultan of Morocco, Muley Abderrahman, to grant compensation for the injuries he had inflicted on British commerce.

Napier returned to Britain in April 1849 and was ordered to strike his flag. His disappointment that his expected three years term had been cut short led to bitter letters to The Times criticising the Admiralty's policy. When he applied for the vacant Mediterranean command, the Government and Admiralty agreed that he could not be trusted and he was rejected, Rear-Admiral Sir James Dundas being appointed instead. This led Napier to write more angry letters to the newspapers and directly to Prime Minister Lord John Russell claiming that he had been defrauded of his just rights. He unsuccessfully contested the parliamentary seat for the Borough of Lambeth at a by-election on 7 August 1850. On 28 May 1853 he was promoted to vice-admiral of the Blue.

Baltic Campaign of the Crimean War
On the outbreak of the Crimean War, Napier received the command of the Baltic Fleet, the largest fleet which the Royal Navy had assembled since the Napoleonic Wars. This was not without misgivings on the part of the Admiralty, but he was the most senior and experienced officer available. Napier hoisted his flag in February 1854 in the steam ship of the line HMS Duke of Wellington (1852), his subordinate commanders being the rear-admirals Armar Lowry Corry, second in command, Henry Ducie Chads, third in command, and James Hanway Plumridge, commanding the scouting forces. They were all elderly men, at most a year or so younger than Napier himself.

Napier's force, which was augmented in June by a French fleet sent by Napoleon III and commanded by Alexandre Ferdinand Parseval-Deschenes, though impressive on paper, was radically unsuited to operations in the Baltic Sea and chronically short of men and especially of experienced seamen. He was also hampered by contradictory sets of orders from the Admiralty. Nevertheless, he successfully blockaded all the Russian ports, sufficiently overawed the Russian Baltic Fleet that it never stirred from its moorings, and carried out many bombardment operations as far as the northernmost point of the Gulf of Finland. During the campaign the first ever Victoria Cross was won by midshipman Charles Davis Lucas of the gunboat HMS Hecla (1839), who threw a Russian explosive shell overboard before it could detonate. During the campaign Rear-Admiral Corry was invalided home because of poor health; he was replaced by Commodore (later Rear-Admiral) Henry Byam Martin.

The major success of the campaign was the capture and destruction, in a near-perfect combined operation by French and British soldiers and sailors, of the Russian fortress of Bomarsund on Åland, which were temporarily liberated from Russian rule and which Napier offered to Sweden (they were declined). When Napier refused to attack the great naval bases at Sveaborg (often quoted as the "Gibraltar of the north") and Kronstadt, which observation had established were probably impregnable without shallow-draught bomb vessels which he did not have, a great outcryled by The Timeswas raised against him for his apparent lack of determination. His inaction was thoroughly justified by the sequel: in 1855 a better-equipped Anglo-French fleet did bombard Sveaborg, but despite an enormous expenditure of ammunition caused the fortress only trifling structural damage. Napier felt he was continually being second-guessed by the Admiralty, and especially by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir James Graham. In fact the Naval Lords were reacting to adverse press coverage and unwilling to accept the assessment of the commander on the spot, and relations between them deteriorated as his ships maintained the blockade in atrocious weather, quite unable to storm or destroy impregnable Russian fortresses into the bargain.

Never one to mince his words or submit to what he felt to be unmerited criticism, Napier's 'disrespectful' tone in his despatches, which the Admiralty complained of, sealed his professional fate. Nevertheless, though lacking any dramatic action apart from the capture of Bomarsund, Napier had achieved a great deal. In one modern assessment, the campaign "had successfully bottled up the Russian Navy for the entire first summer of the war. The tsar had been denied an opportunity to reinforce his Black Sea fleet with additional ships. The 30,000 Russian troops posted in the Gulf had also been prevented from joining the army in the Crimea." In addition, Napier's constant training had welded the fleet personnel into a much more competent force for the next year's campaign; and not a single ship had been lost.

Retirement
On Napier's return from the Baltic to Britain in December 1854 he was ordered to haul down his flag and informed his command was terminated, the fleet being given for the campaign of 1855 to Admiral the Hon. Richard Saunders Dundas, the Second Sea Lord. (None of the flag officers of the 1854 campaign was allowed to return to the Baltic in 1855, but Sir Michael Seymour, Napier's Captain of the Fleet, was promoted to rear-admiral and was made second-in-command to Dundas.)

The Admiralty attempted to make Napier a scapegoat for the perceived failure of the campaign (which, within the limits of the possible, had been rather successful) and suborned several captains to testify to their lack of confidence in him, his timidity, his age, his lack of understanding of steam tactics, and his heavy drinking. Nevertheless, some of the leading seamen in the fleet, such as Captain (later Admiral) Sir Bartholomew Sulivan, maintained along with him that Napier's strategy had been wise and the faults lay with the Admiralty themselves.

After the war the Russians testified that, knowing Napier's reputation, their main hope had been of his making a foolhardy attack on their fleet under the guns of Kronstadt, where they were confident he would have come to grief. Napier was elected MP for Southwark in February 1855, and carried his dispute with the Admiralty to the floor of the House of Commons. He never received another command. He continued to campaign vigorously for improvements in the way common seamen were treated during and after service, and maintained his parliamentary seat, though broken in health, until his death on 6 November 1860. His tomb is in the churchyard of All Saints, Catherington in Hampshire. The ships of the Portuguese Navy went into eight days of mourning for their former commander.

Just before his death Napier had hoped to persuade Giuseppe Garibaldi to acquire a fleet for the liberation of Italy, which he would have commanded.

Character
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica entry of 1911, "Sir Charles Napier was a man of undoubted energy and courage, but of no less eccentricity and vanity. He caused great offence to many of his brother officers by his behaviour to his superior, Admiral Stopford, in the Syrian War, and was embroiled all his life in quarrels with the Admiralty." Napier was a large, untidy man of about 14 stone (about 200lbs/90kg) who walked with a limp and a stoop due to his leg and neck wounds. His common nickname in the Navy was 'Black Charlie' because of his swarthy appearance and dark side-whiskers. He was also known as 'Mad Charlie' because of his eccentric behaviour and enthusiasms, and 'Dirty Charlie' from his habit of wearing the most unsuitable and ill-fitting clothes while insisting that his officers were correctly dressed at all times.

Memorial
There is a memorial to him within St Paul's Cathedral.

Popular culture
In circa 1845 Stephen Glover wrote The Retreat from St. Jean d'Acre and dedicated it to Commodore Napier.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Charles Napier (Royal Navy officer)


text:
Đông Hải district

Đông Hải is a rural district (huyện) of Bạc Liêu province in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. As of 2003 the district had a population of 130,557. The district covers an area of 550 km2. The district capital lies at Gành Hào.

title: Đông Hải district


text:
Corea

Corea may refer to:
 * Korea, the term for the peninsula and its culture composed currently of two sovereign states, for which Corea is a spelling in many languages, especially Romance languages, and a former spelling in English
 * Korean Peninsula, the land area which Korea occupies
 * North Korea, one of the two sovereign states occupying the Korean peninsula
 * South Korea, one of the two sovereign states occupying the Korean peninsula
 * Coreae, a place near Wadi al-Far'a (river)

Other places

 * A village in the town of Gouldsboro, Maine

People with the surname Corea

 * Corea or Cooray, one of surname in Sri Lanka
 * Charles Alfred Ernest Corea, Sri Lankan lawyer
 * Charles Edgar Corea, Sri Lankan politician, President of the Ceylon National Congress (1924)
 * Claude Corea, Sri Lankan politician/diplomat, High Commissioner to the UK and Ambassador to the United States
 * Dominicus Corea, (Sinhalese name Edirille Rala), 16th Century ruler
 * Ernest Corea, Sri Lankan journalist and Ambassador to the United States
 * Gamani Corea, Sri Lankan economist, Secretary-General of UNCTAD
 * Gate Mudaliyar James Edward Corea, Sri Lankan public official in Colonial Ceylon
 * Harindra Corea, Sri Lankan politician, Deputy Foreign Minister
 * Ishvari Corea (1925–2019), Sri Lankan librarian
 * Ivan Corea, Sri Lankan clergyman of the Church of Ceylon
 * J.C.A. Corea, first Sri Lankan principal of Royal College Colombo
 * James Alfred Ernest Corea, Sri Lankan physician
 * Srikuradas Charles Shirley Corea, Sri Lankan politician, Speaker of the Parliament of Ceylon
 * Vernon Corea Sri Lankan/British radio broadcaster
 * Victor Corea, Sri Lankan politician and freedom fighter
 * Vijaya Corea, Sri Lankan radio and TV broadcaster
 * Chick Corea, American jazz pianist
 * Nicholas J. Corea, American author
 * António Corea, 17th century Korean slave in Italy, given "Corea" as his European surname

title: Corea


text:
Eskimo kinship

Eskimo kinship is a category of kinship used to define family organization in anthropology. Identified by Lewis H. Morgan in his 1871 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, the Eskimo system was one of six major kinship systems (Eskimo, Hawaiian, Iroquois, Crow, Omaha, and Sudanese). The system of English-language kinship terms falls into the Eskimo type.

Joint family
The joint family system places no distinction between patrilineal and matrilineal relatives; instead, it focuses on differences in kinship distance (the closer the relative is, the more distinctions are made). The system emphasizes the nuclear family, identifying directly only the mother, father, brother, and sister. All other relatives are grouped together into categories. It uses both classificatory and descriptive terms, differentiating between gender, generation, lineal relatives (relatives in the direct line of descent), and collateral relatives (blood relatives not in the direct line of descent). The Eskimo system is defined by its "cognatic" or "bilateral" emphasis - no distinction is made between patrilineal and matrilineal relatives.

Parental siblings are distinguished only by their sex (aunt, uncle). All children of these individuals are lumped together regardless of sex (cousins). Unlike the Hawaiian system, Ego's parents are clearly distinguished from their siblings.

Usage
The Eskimo system is relatively common among the world's kinship systems, at about 10% of the world's societies. It is now common in most Western societies (such as those of Europe or the Americas). In addition, it is found among a small number of food-foraging peoples such as the ǃKung tribe of Africa and the Inuit (Inuit-Yupik) for whom it is named.

The system is widely used in non-unilineal societies, where the dominant relatives are the immediate family. In most Western societies, the nuclear family represents an independent social and economic group, which has caused the emphasis on the immediate kinship. The tendency of families in Western societies to live apart also reinforces this.

Terminology
The term Eskimo is considered pejorative in Canada, and has been replaced there by the term Inuit. The former remains in use in Alaska, though less so than in past decades, because the term includes both Inuit and non-Inuit Native Alaskans. In Canada, the term Inuit kinship is therefore widely used instead of Eskimo kinship.

General and cited sources and external links

 * William Haviland, Cultural Anthropology, Wadsworth Publishing, 2002. ISBN 0-534-27479-X

title: Eskimo kinship


text:
Beit HaKerem (Bible)

Beit HaKerem, Beth-haccerem (בית הכרם, lit. "house of the vineyard"; Beth HakKerem in Biblical Hebrew) is a biblical place associated with the Tribe of Judah.

Possible location
Some identify Beit HaKerem with Ein Kerem. Others place Beit HaKerem south of Jerusalem, at Ramat Rachel, where cairns on the ridge may have served as beacons of old. Others say it was near Tekoa, later known as Herodium. Neubauer, citing the Church Father Jerome, writes that from Bethlehem one could see Bethacharma, thought to be the Beit HaKerem of Jeremiah. According to the Bible, the trumpet sounded against the invading army of Babylon at this place (Jeremiah 6:1).

Beit Hakerem was a district center during the Persian Period and is mentioned in the Book of Nehemiah as one of the towns resettled by the Jewish exiles returning from the Babylonian captivity and who helped to construct the walls of Jerusalem during the reign of Artaxerxes I (Xerxes). Nehemiah further records that those returnees were the very descendants of the people who had formerly resided in the town before their banishment from the country, who had all returned to live in their former places of residence.

The Mishnah, compiled in the 2nd-century CE, mentions "the valley of Beth-Kerem" being a place where there was reddish-brown earth. Likewise, the stones of the altar built in Jerusalem and the stones of the ramp that led up to the altar were taken from the valley of Beth Kerem, where they were quarried from below virgin soil and brought from thence as whole stones upon which no implement of iron had been lifted up.

Archaeological finds at Ramat Rachel have yielded dozens of seal impressions on jar handles from the 4th-3rd centuries BCE bearing the inscription yehud, the official name of the province of Judah in this period.

title: Beit HaKerem (Bible)


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Talk:Toll road

Prevalence in Canada
The article claims that BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) toll roads are prevalent in Canada. This is untrue. The article 'List of Toll Roads' list many structures in Canada claimed as toll roads. I am familiar only with Ontario, where only one such road exists to the best of my knowledge, Highway 407. That is hardly 'prevalent.' The list also includes many bridges, which are not toll roads, but toll bridges, surely a different category. All but one listing for Ontario are bridges, none of which are BOT structures. Again, prevalence is overstated, in the province with the highest population in Canada. I suggest that 'Canada' be removed from the list in this article as a location where BOT is 'prevalent.' — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grandma Roses (talk • contribs) 20:44, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-tur2.htm. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and according to fair use may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Perey (talk) 11:37, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
 * PS If some etymological information on "turnpike" is needed in the article, it can probably best be placed in the History section where "turnpike" is first mentioned, not in a misleadingly-named "Origin" section. Also, the source mentioned would be a good reference, but as it answers a specific question (and refutes a specific false etymology), it doesn't make a good source for article text, even setting copyright problems aside.

"Collection methods" too US-centric
I tagged the "Collection methods" as too biased on the United States (only foreign mention is on Ontario, Canada). The examples shown are mostly those in the United States and no other foreign mention can be seen here. TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 09:19, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Incorrect statement
This statement is made in the article: "Maryland Route 200 and the Triangle Expressway in North Carolina were the first toll roads built without toll booths, with drivers charged via ETC or by optical license plate recognition and are billed by mail." This statement is false without qualification. Both of these tool roads started operating in 2011. Ontario Highway 407 started operating, totally without toll booths, in 1997, many years before the US highways. Indeed, a paragraph later starts with "Highway 407 in the province of Ontario, Canada, has no toll booths, and instead reads a transponder […]" The statement about the US toll roads needs to be qualified or corrected. Chamblyen (talk) 02:59, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

"Peaje" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Peaje. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 August 18 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 19:48, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Toll road