During the Revolutionary War, the Van Wyck Homestead served as headquarters for the Fishkill Supply Depot, a supply center for Washington’s Continental Army. In this bustling center of industry, workers produced and repaired everything from harnesses and horseshoes to wheels, mess supplies, clothing, and shoes, while the powder magazine supplied the army’s northern forces. Fishkill also included a hospital, a guard house and prison, parade grounds, and numerous quarters and barracks for officers and thousands of soldiers who trained and served there, and several hundred died there and are buried nearby. The location was strategically important as a major east-west and north-south intersection, and the depot’s position was secure, protected by mountains and far enough from the Hudson River to prevent a potential British attack. The Continental Army’s occupation of Fishkill and West Point guaranteed control of the mid-Hudson and maintained communication links between New England and the rest of the thirteen United States.