Biking to History
 
– By Paul D. Rheingold –

There’s a renewed interest in biking, thanks in no small part to the current price of gasoline. Here’s a way for Rye residents to save on gas, get some exercise and visit historic sights in Westchester. Three that I visited recently go back to the time of the Revolutionary War.
 WASHINGTON’S HEADQUARTERS, North White Plains. 15 miles roundtrip. This small building, huddled up against a hillside and across the street from a concrete factory, served as General George Washington’s headquarters during the Battle of White Plains in 1776.  Originally this was the Miller house, built around 40 years before Washington slept there.  The DAR restored it in the early 20th century.
 Route: North Street to Broadway in White Plains, North on Route 22 to Virginia Road.
 PAINE COTTAGE, New Rochelle, 633-1776, 20 miles roundtrip. As a reward to Thomas Paine for his support and advice on the war against England (which he helped create with his incendiary diatribe, “Common Sense”),  a grateful nation, as the plaque goes, awarded him a house and 227-acre farm in 1784. This is a small farmhouse, confiscated from a Tory supporter, which now sits on a small lot, moved from its original location in New Rochelle.  It’s said that Paine did not much like the place and rented it out.  Look for several monuments nearby on Paine Avenue.
 Route: Boston Post Road to downtown New Rochelle, then out North Avenue past Iona to 20 Sicard Avenue on the right. 
 BUSH-LYON HOUSE, Port Chester, 939-8918, 6 miles roundtrip. You can warm up for the others on this short jaunt to what was a farm homestead, built around 1749. General Israel Putnam may have used it as a Revolutionary War headquarters. The village bought it in 1925 and descendants gave them the land around it. 
 Route: To downtown Port Chester, then out King Street to John Lyon Park at Putnam Avenue.
 If you are willing to bike a longer distance, history is also waiting at Wayside Cottage on White Plains Road in Scarsdale, a tavern during the American Revolution; French General Rochambeau’s headquarters in Hartsdale on Ridge Road; or the John Jay Homestead, 232-5651, the home, on Route 22, that Jay retired to in Katonah.
 And of course, nothing prevents one from biking to our own historic structures here in Rye: the Jay Mansion on the Post Road; the Knapp house on Oakland Beach Avenue (the oldest house in Westchester); and the Square House on Purchase Street (formerly the Widow Haviland’s Tavern and another haunt of George Washington).
Happy pedaling.