On the night of July 15-16, 1779, Brigadier General Anthony Wayne of Pennsylvania led the American Light Infantry in a midnight assault against a British force occupying Stony Point. About one hour later, two American columns had captured the garrison after outflanking the front-line defenses, with the main assault column wading through the shallow waters of Haverstraw Bay on the south and a secondary column approaching around the north side of the peninsula. In 1826, Stony Point became the site of a lighthouse built to guide ships through the narrow passage of Haverstraw Bay at the southern end of the Hudson Highlands. The lighthouse survives as the oldest on the Hudson River and was restored and relighted in 1995.
