The Palisades appear on the first European map of the New World, made by
Gerardus Mercator in 1541 based on the description given him by
Giovanni da Verrazzano, who suggested they look like a "fence of stakes". On November 20, 1776, during the early stages of the American Revolution, British military commander
Lord Cornwallis landed a force of between 2,500 and 5,000 at Huyler's Landing. In an effort to ambush American general
George Washington and crush the rebellion in the wake of the rebels' defeat in the Battle of Long Island and the
Battle of Fort Washington, Cornwallis marched his men up the steep Palisades and southward through the Northern Valley. Washington, stationed near Fort Lee, was alerted to the ambush effort by an unknown horseback patriot, remembered only as the Closter Rider, and successfully fled west through
Englewood and over the
Hackensack River, avoiding capture in what is remembered as Washington's Retreat. The Palisades were the site of 18 documented
duels and probably many unrecorded ones in the years 1798–1845. The most famous is the
Burr–Hamilton duel between
Alexander Hamilton and
Aaron Burr, which took place in a spot known as the
Heights of Weehawken on July 11, 1804. An English visitor,
Fanny Trollope, in her book
Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832), wrote of a park established at the Palisades by a Hoboken ferryboat entrepreneur at that time: It is hardly possible to imagine one of greater attraction; a broad belt of light underwood and flowering shrubs, studded at intervals with lofty forest trees, runs for two miles [3 km] along a cliff which overhangs the matchless Hudson; sometimes it feathers the rocks down to its very margin, and at others leaves a pebbly shore, just rude enough to break the gentle waves, and make a music which mimics softly the loud chorus of the ocean. Through this beautiful little wood, a broad well gravelled terrace is led by every point which can exhibit the scenery to advantage; narrower and wilder paths diverge at intervals, some into the deeper shadow of the wood, and some shelving gradually to the pretty coves below. The price of entrance to this little Eden, is the six cents you pay at the ferry. After the Civil War, signs advertising
patent medicines and other products covered the rock face in letters high. In the 19th century, the cliffs were heavily quarried for
railroad ballast, leading to local efforts to preserve them. Beginning in the 1890s, several unsuccessful efforts were made to turn much of the Highlands into a forest preserve. Fearing that they would soon be put out of business, quarry operators responded by working faster: in March 1898 alone, more than three tons of dynamite was used to bring down Washington Head and Indian Head in
Fort Lee, New Jersey, producing several million cubic yards of traprock. The following year, In October 1931, after four years of construction, the
George Washington Bridge opened between
Upper Manhattan and Fort Lee. On April 28, 1940, the Boy Scout Foundation of Greater New York announced the donation of by
John D. Rockefeller Jr. to establish a weekend camp for New York City Boy Scouts. In June 1983, the Palisades were designated a
National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service. On May 12, 2012, a
rockfall just south of the state line left a scar on the cliffs. ==See also==